It may be doubted whether that government was not, during the first months of its existence, in more danger from the affection of the Whigs than from the disaffection of the Tories. Enmity can hardly be more annoying than querulous, jealous, exacting fondness; and such was the fondness which the Whigs felt for the Sovereign of their choice. They were loud in his praise. They were ready to support him with purse and sword against foreign and domestic foes. But their attachment to him was of a peculiar kind. Loyalty such as had animated the gallant gentlemen who fought for Charles the First, loyalty such as had rescued Charles the Second from the fearful dangers and difficulties caused by twenty years of maladministration, was not a sentiment to which the doctrines of Milton and Sidney were favourable; nor was it a sentiment which a prince, just raised to power by a rebellion, could hope to inspire. The Whig theory of government is that kings exist for the people, and not the people for the kings; that the right of a king is divine in no other sense than that in which the right of a member of parliament, of a judge, of a juryman, of a mayor, of a headborough, is divine; that, while the chief magistrate governs according to law, he ought to be obeyed and reverenced; that, when he violates the law, he ought to be withstood; and that, when he violates the law grossly, systematically and pertinaciously, he ought to be deposed. On the truth of these principles depended the justice of William's title to the throne. It is obvious that the relation between subjects who held these principles, and a ruler whose accession had been the triumph of these principles, must have been altogether different from the relation which had subsisted between the Stuarts and the Cavaliers. The Whigs loved William indeed: but they loved him not as a King, but as a party leader; and it was not difficult to foresee that their enthusiasm would cool fast if he should refuse to be the mere leader of their party, and should attempt to be King of the whole nation. What they expected from him in return for their devotion to his cause was that he should be one of themselves, a stanch and ardent Whig; that he should show favour to none but Whigs; that he should make all the old grudges of the Whigs his own; and there was but too much reason to apprehend that, if he disappointed this expectation, the only section of the community which was zealous in his cause would be estranged from him. [10]