Why was the crown entailed by so many provisoes, reserves, and limitations? Why the names of every person that should succeed, so expressly and particularly mentioned and set down?[13] Why so many acts of parliament[14] to secure that entail, and punish with death those who should reject or oppose it? Why was the settlement of the crown thought to be of so much consequence to the public good, that the two daughters of King James, the late blessed Queen Mary, and her present royal majesty, thought themselves bound to agree to the same for the safety and peace of their country, though it was in prejudice of the right and possession of their own father? Was it all, that the return of these things might be made upon the people with the greater weight, and that posterity might be prejudiced against the memory of the two royal sisters, as accessary to the ruin of their own father? [Footnote 13: Vid. The several Prayers ordered to be read in Churches upon the occasion of the Fasts in King William's time.] [Footnote 14: Vid. The Act of the Settlement, and the Act of the Union; the Act to extinguish the hopes of the Jacobites; and the Act for farther securing her Majesty's Person and Government.] Why was King James and his popish posterity entirely excluded for ever from enjoying the imperial crown of these realms?[15] Why were so many acts of parliament made to extinguish the hopes of his race, and of their party, and for farther security of her majesty's person and government? Why was the settlement of the succession in a protestant line made the principal reason of uniting the two kingdoms together? And why was that union so vigorously opposed by all those that adhered to the jacobite interest? Was this to illustrate the return of the abdicated line, and by the greatness of the nation's endeavour for keeping out the pretender, to justify his using them accordingly when he comes in? [Footnote 15: Vid. The Act of Parliament for settling the Succession of the Crown on the illustrious House of Hanover.] Why was the union declared to be unalterable, and, as some say, the power thereby taken out of the hands of the British parliament to change the settlement of the crown, or to name any other persons than those of the illustrious house of Hanover to succeed; and, above all, why was that severest of all oaths, the abjuration, contrived; by which it is rendered impossible for this nation, upon any pretence whatsoever, to receive the pretender but with the black stigma of an abominable perjury? Was this that, with the greater reverence to laws, and the greater regard to the solemnity of a national oath, we might all turn tail upon our principles, and in defiance of God and the laws, bow our knees to an abjured pretender?