those important statutes enacted in the course of this reign, which the king, unfortunately for his reputation and peace of mind, too jealously resisted. _No republican party in existence._--It is by no means unusual to find mention of a commonwealth or republican party, as if it existed in some force at the time of the revolution, and throughout the reign of William III.; nay some writers, such as Hume, Dalrymple, and Somerville, have, by putting them in a sort of balance against the Jacobites, as the extremes of the whig and tory factions, endeavoured to persuade us that the one was as substantial and united a body as the other. It may, however, be confidently asserted, that no republican party had any existence; if by that word we are to understand a set of men whose object was the abolition of our limited monarchy. There might unquestionably be persons, especially among the independent sect, who cherished the memory of what they called the good old cause, and thought civil liberty irreconcilable with any form of regal government. But these were too inconsiderable, and too far removed from political influence, to deserve the appellation of a party. I believe it would be difficult to name five individuals, to whom even a speculative preference of a commonwealth may with probability be ascribed. Were it otherwise, the numerous pamphlets of this period would bear witness to their activity. Yet, with the exception perhaps of one or two, and those rather equivocal, we should search, I suspect, the collections of that time in vain for any manifestations of a republican spirit. If indeed an ardent zeal to see the prerogative effectually restrained, to vindicate that high authority of the House of Commons over the executive administration which it has in fact claimed and exercised, to purify the house itself from corrupt influence, if a tendency to dwell upon the popular origin of civil society, and the principles which Locke, above other writers, had brought again into fashion, be called republican (as in a primary but less usual sense of the word they may), no one can deny that this spirit eminently characterised the age of William III. And schemes of reformation emanating from this source were sometimes offered to the world, trenching more perhaps on the established constitution than either necessity demanded or prudence warranted. But these were anonymous and of little influence; nor did they ever extend to the absolute subversion of the throne.[176]