WHLIAM AND MART.

31

old Maynard. In the civil conflicts of fifty eventful years he crup.had learned that questions affecting the highest interests of the 168 ' —commonwealth were not to be decided by verbal cavils and byscraps of Law French and Law Latin; and, being by universalacknowledgment the most subtle and the most learned ofEnglish jurists, he could express what he felt without the riskof being accused of ignorance and presumption. He scornfullythrust aside as frivolous and out of place all that blackletterlearning, which some men, far less versed in such mattersthan himself, had introduced into the discussion. “IVe are,”he said, “at this moment out of the beaten path. If thereforewe are determined to move only in that path, we cannot moveat all. A man in a revolution resolving to do nothing which isnot strictly according to established form resembles a man whohas lost himself in the wilderness, and who stands crying‘Where is the king’s highway? I will walk nowhere but on theking’s highway.’ In a wilderness a man should take the trackwhich will carry him home. In a revolution we must haverecourse to the highest law, the safety of the state.” Anotherveteran Roundhead, Colonel Birch, took the same side, andargued with great force and keenness from the precedentof 1G60. Seymour and his supporters were beaten in the Com-mittee , and did not venture to divide the House on the Report.

The Bill passed rapidly, and received the royal assent on thetenth day after the accession of William and Mary.*

The law which turned the Convention into a Parliament The

. members

contained a clause providing that no person should, after the oftbetwofirst of March, sit or vote in either House without taking the requiredoaths to the new King and Queen. This enactment produced [he oaths,great agitation throughout society. The adherents of the

* Stat. 1 W. AM. sess. i. c. 1. See the Journals of the two Houses,and Grey’s Debates. The argument in favour of the bill is well stated intho Paris Gazettes of March 5. and 32. 1689.