III. The third custom which we proposed to observe regards England, and though it be not so important as those which we have pointed out in Athens and Rome, it is no less singular and remarkable. It is a maxim in politics which we readily admit as undisputed and universal, that a power, however great, when granted by law to an eminent magistrate is not so dangerous to liberty as an authority, however considerable, which he acquires from violence and usurpation; for, besides that the law always limits every power which it bestows, the very receiving it as a concession establishes the authority whence it is derived and preserves the harmony of the constitution. By the same right that one prerogative is assumed without law another may also be claimed, and another with still greater facility; while the first usurpations both serve as precedents to the following, and give force to maintain them. Hence the heroism of Hampden, who sustained the whole violence of royal prosecution rather than pay a tax of twenty shillings not imposed by Parliament; hence the care of all English patriots to guard against the first encroachments of the crown, and hence alone the existence at this day of English liberty. There is, however, one occasion where the Parliament has departed from this maxim, and this is in the pressing of seamen. The exercise of an illegal power is here tacitly permitted in the crown, and though it has frequently been under deliberation how that power might be rendered legal and granted under proper restrictions to the sovereign, no safe expedient could ever be proposed for that purpose, and the danger to liberty always appeared greater from law than from usurpation. While this power is exercised to no other end than to man the Navy men willingly submit to it from a sense of its use and necessity, and the sailors, who are alone affected by it, find nobody to support them in claiming the rights and privileges which the law grants without distinction to all English subjects. But were this power on any occasion made an instrument of faction or ministerial tyranny, the opposite faction, and indeed all lovers of their country, would immediately take the alarm and support the injured party. The liberty of Englishmen would be asserted; juries would be implacable; and the tools of tyranny acting both against law and equity would meet with the severest vengeance. On the other hand, were the Parliament to grant such an authority, they would probably fall into one of these two inconveniences: they would either bestow it under so many restrictions as would make it lose its effects by cramping the authority of the crown, or they would render it so large and comprehensive as might give occasion to great abuses, for which we could in that case have no remedy. The very illegality of the power at present prevents its abuses, by affording so easy a remedy against them.