Had the late reigns, before the accession of the great William and Mary, to the throne of England, but taken the measures of them, and her present majesty, in depressing vice, and advancing the union and wealth, and encouraging the prowice and bravery of the nation, they might by this time have been capable to have given laws to any monarch on earth ; but spending their time in the pursuit of an absolute monarchy (contrary to the temper of the nation, and the ancient constitution of the government) through all the meanders of state craft, It has apparently kept back the glory, and dampt all the most noble affairs of the nation. And when under the midwifry of Machiavilan art, and cunning of a daring prince, this MONSTER, tyranny, and arbitrary government, was at last just born, upon the holding up of a finger ! or upon the least signal given, ON the whole nation goes upon this HYDRA.
The very name of an arbitrary government is ready to put an English man s blood into a fermentation ; but when it really comes, and shakes its whip over their ears, and tells them it is their master, it makes them stark mad ; and being of a memical genius, and inclined to follow the court mode, they turn arbitrary too.
That some writers, who have observed the governments and humors of nations, thus distinguish the English :
The emperor (say they) is the king of kings, the king of Spain is the king of men, the king of France the king of asses, and the king of England the king of devils ; for that the English nation can never be bridled, and rid by an arbitrary prince. Neither can any chains put on by dispotic and arbitrary measures hold these legions. . . . to conclude this plea, I find not amongst all the catalogues of heroes or worthy things in the English empire, peers to these undertakers ; therefore we must needs range them with the arbitrary princes of the earth, (such as the great Czar or Ottoman monarch) who have no other rule to govern by, but their own will. . . .
John Wise, The Churches Quarrel Espoused (Boston, 1772),. No. ii, 147-148.
