The reason of this prodigy was, that all interests had, in the course of ages, and the silent effects of time, worked their way into the legislature, and all enjoyed in fair proportion a reasonable influence on government. Human wisdom could no more _ab ante_ have framed such a system, than it could have framed the British constitution. By accident, or rather the good providence of God, it grew up from the wants of men during a series of generations; and its effects appeared in this, that--except in the cases of the American war, where unfortunate circumstances produced a departure from the system; of the Irish Celts, whom it seems impracticable to amalgamate with Saxon institutions; and of the Scottish Highlanders, whom chivalrous honour for a short period alienated from the established government--unanimity unprecedented during the whole period pervaded the British empire. All foreign colonies were desirous to be admitted into the great protecting confederacy; the French and Dutch planters in secret prayed for the defeat of their defenders when the standard of St George approached their shores. The Hindoos, with heroic constancy, alike in prosperous and adverse fortune, maintained their fidelity: Canada stood firm during the most dangerous crisis of our history; and the flame of loyalty burned as steadily on the banks of the St Lawrence, on the mountains of Jamaica, and on the shores of the Ganges, as in the crowded emporiums of London, or the smiling fields of Yorkshire. But there is a limit imposed by nature to all earthly things. The growth of empires is restrained, after they have reached a certain stature, by laws as certain as those which arrest that of individuals. If a state does not find the causes of its ruin in foreign disaster, it will inevitably find it in internal opinion. This arises so naturally and evidently from the constitution of the human mind, that it may be regarded as a fixed law of nature in all countries where intellectual activity has been called forth, and as one of the most powerful agents in the government, by supreme Wisdom, of human affairs. This principle is to be found in the tendency of _original_ thought to differ from the current opinion with which it is surrounded, and of party ambition to decry the system of those by whom it is excluded from power.