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Whatever topics lawyers might find to defendJames’s dispensing power, the nation thought itdangerous, if not fatal, to liberty; and his resolu-tion of exercising it may on that account beesteemed no less alarming, than if the power hadbeen founded on the most recent and most flagrantusurpation. It was not likely, that an authority,which had been assumed , through so manyobstacles, would in his hands lie long idle andunemployed. Four catholic lords were broughtinto the privy council, Powis, Arundel, Beliasis,and Dover. Halifax , finding, that, notwithstand-ing his past merits, he possessed no real credit orauthority, became refractory in his opposition;and his office of privy seal was given to Arundel.The king was open , as well as zealous , in thedesire of making converts; and men plainly saw,that the only way to acquire his affection andconfidence was by a sacrifice of their religion.Sunderland, some time after, scrupled not togain favor at this price. Rochester, the treasurer,though the king’s brother-in-law, yet, becausehe refused to give this instance of complaisance,

and they excluded, in positive terms, all dispensing powerin the crown. Yet even then the house of lords rejectedthat clause of the bill, which condemned the exercise of thispower in former kings, and obliged the commons to restcontent with abolishing it for the future. There needs noother proof of the irregular nature of the old Englishgovernment, than the existence of such a prerogative,always exercised and never questioned , till the acquisitionof real liberty discovered, ac last, the danger of it. Seethe Journals.

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