[ ii ]
of their natural Freedom and of the inestimable benefits of that happy legal Constitution, which British Subjects in general are commonly supposed to inherit by Birth-right!
If I had not esteemed this point incontrovertible, when I wrote the said Declaration, I should not have quoted the Union between Great Britain and Ireland as an example of “the true constitutional mode of connecting British Dominions that are otherwise separated by nature.” But having done this, and having also given several copies of the Declaration to my friends which cannot now be recalled, I have thereby brought upon myself the necessity of maintaining the propriety of the said example, which might as easily have been avoided, had I been aware of any such controversy; because the general principles, on which my arguments are founded, would have been amply sufficient (I apprehend) to prove the truth of my Declaration, even, though Examples and Custom had been against it; for the Common-Law of England teaches us, that examples and precedents are not to be followed if they are unreasonable, or inconsistent withlegal
