Now it becomes of the greatest importance, seeing that the people are possessed of the power of awing the Legislature, that they should use it in the wisest and best manner; and in order to that end we must bear in mind what has been so often proved to the glory of the people of England, that power is often most effectually expressed by an attitude of suspended determination. “Forming thus,[98] as it were, one body, the people at every instant have it in their power to strike the decisive blow which is to level everything. Like those mechanical powers the greatest efficiency of which exists at the instant which precedes their entering into action, it has an immense force just because it does not yet exert any, and in this state of stillness, but of suspense, consists its true momentum.” Now it is this instant which precedes any direct forcible action on the part of the people, which is the instant most favourable for the conversion and enlightenment of those rulers who trespass upon the Constitution. It is precisely at this instant that those who by virtue of their commission from the people are intrusted with the solemn responsibility of the more active part of government, behold themselves, as it were, exposed to public view, and attentively observed by men, not fiercely, but solemnly and religiously bent on the recovery of their sacred rights; by men free from all party spirit, and combined as men combine in a crisis of common danger, and who place in their rulers only a conditional trust. These rulers, feeling themselves thus observed, are afraid of exciting commotion, revolution, or rebellion, which, whatever else it effected, would surely and certainly effect the destruction of their own power, and be the close of their own tenure of office. Under these circumstances, if they should have sacrificed public liberties or been false to their trust, “they would no sooner lift up their eyes towards that vast assembly which views them with this watchful attention, than they would find their public virtue return upon them, and would make haste to resume that plan of conduct out of the limits of which they can expect nothing but ruin and perdition.”[99]