Sir, your throne cannot stand secure upon the principles of unconditional submission and passive obedience,--on powers exercised without the concurrence of the people to be governed,--on acts made in defiance of their prejudices and habits,--on acquiescence procured by foreign mercenary troops, and secured by standing armies. These may possibly be the foundation of other thrones: they must be the subversion of yours. It was not to passive principles in our ancestors that we owe the honor of appearing before a sovereign who cannot feel that he is a prince without knowing that we ought to be free. The Revolution is a departure from the ancient course of the descent of this monarchy. The people at that time reentered into their original rights; and it was not because a positive law authorized what was then done, but because the freedom and safety of the subject, the origin and cause of all laws, required a proceeding paramount and superior to them. At that ever memorable and instructive period, the letter of the law was superseded in favor of the substance of liberty. To the free choice, therefore, of the people, without either King or Parliament, we owe that happy establishment out of which both King and Parliament were regenerated. From that great principle of liberty have originated the statutes confirming and ratifying the establishment from which your Majesty derives your right to rule over us. Those statutes have not given us our liberties: our liberties have produced them. Every hour of your Majesty's reign, your title stands upon the very same foundation on which it was at first laid; and we do not know a better on which it can possibly be placed. Convinced, Sir, that you cannot have different rights and a different security in different parts of your dominions, we wish to lay an even platform for your throne, and to give it an unmovable stability, by laying it on the general freedom of your people, and by securing to your Majesty that confidence and affection in all parts of your dominions which makes your best security and dearest title in this the chief seat of your empire.