The examples of particular
injustice or oppression of here and there an unfortunate man moves
them not. But if they universally have a persuasion grounded upon
manifest evidence that designs are carrying on against their
liberties, and the general course and tendency of things cannot but
give them strong suspicions of the evil intention of their
governors, who is to be blamed for it? Who can help it if they, who
might avoid it, bring themselves into this suspicion? Are the people
to be blamed if they have the sense of rational creatures, and can
think of things no otherwise than as they find and feel them? And is
it not rather their fault who put things in such a posture that they
would not have them thought as they are? I grant that the pride,
ambition, and turbulency of private men have sometimes caused great
disorders in commonwealths, and factions have been fatal to states and
kingdoms. But whether the mischief hath oftener begun in the
people's wantonness, and a desire to cast off the lawful authority
of their rulers, or in the rulers' insolence and endeavours to get and
exercise an arbitrary power over their people, whether oppression or
disobedience gave the first rise to the disorder, I leave it to
impartial history to determine.
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