Page:Essay on the First Principles of Government 2nd Ed.djvu/85

 with these formalities. He would be deemed insane, if he should attempt to do otherwise; the succession would be set aside in favour of the next heir, by the general consent of the people, and the revolution would take place without blood shed. No person standing near any European prince would hesitate what to do, if his sovereign should attempt to cut off a man's head, out of mere wantonness and sport, a thing that would only strike the beholders with awe in some foreign courts.

Should the English government become arbitrary, and the people, disgusted with the conduct of their parliaments, do what the people of Denmark have done, chuse their sovereign for their perpetual representative, and surrender into his hands all the power of state; the forms of a free government have been so long established, that the most artful tyrant would be a long time before he could render life and property as precarious as it is even in France. The trial by juries, in ordinary cases, would stand