and Anne could scarcely help perceiving that her own deposition from the throne would be the natural consequence of once admitting the reversionary right of one whose claim was equally good to the possession. The assertors of hereditary descent could acquiesce in her usurpation no longer than they found it necessary for their object; if her life should be protracted to an ordinary duration, it was almost certain that Scotland first, and afterwards England, would be wrested from her impotent grasp. Yet, though I believe the queen to have been sensible of this, it is impossible to pronounce with certainty that either through pique against the house of Hanover, or inability to resist her own counsellors, she might not have come into the scheme of altering the succession. But, if neither the queen nor her lord treasurer were inclined to take that vigorous course which one party demanded, they at least did enough to raise just alarm in the other; and it seems strange to deny that the protestant succession was in danger. As Lord Oxford's ascendancy diminished, the signs of impending revolution became less equivocal. Adherents of the house of Stuart were placed in civil and military trust; an Irish agent of the pretender was received in the character of envoy from the court of Spain; the most audacious manifestations of disaffection were overlooked.[328] Several even in parliament spoke with contempt and aversion of the house of Hanover.[329] It was surely not unreasonable in the whig party to meet these assaults of the enemy with something beyond the ordinary weapons of an opposition. They affected no apprehensions that it was absurd to entertain. Those of the opposite faction, who wished well to the protestant interest, and were called Hanoverian tories, came over to their side, and joined them on motions that the succession was in danger.[330] No one hardly, who either hoped or dreaded the consequences, had any doubts upon this score; and it is only a few moderns who have assumed the privilege of setting aside the persuasion of contemporaries upon a subject which contemporaries were best able to understand.[331] Are we then to censure the whigs for urging on the elector of Hanover, who, by a strange apathy or indifference, seemed negligent of the great prize reserved for him; or is the bold step of demanding a writ of summons for the electoral prince as Duke of Cambridge to pass for a factious insult on the queen, because, in her imbecility, she was leaving the Crown to be snatched at by the first comer, even if she were not, as they suspected, in some conspiracy to bestow it on a proscribed heir?[332] I am much inclined to believe, that the great majority of the nation were in favour of the protestant succession; but, if the princes of the house of Brunswick had seemed to retire from the contest, it might have been impracticable to resist a predominant faction in the council and in parliament; especially if