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OR, VULCAN S PEAK. 211 with the candour and manliness of their principles. These men call things by their right names, equally eschewing the absurdity of believing that nature intended rulers to descend from male to male, according to the order of pri mogeniture, or the still greater nonsense of supposing it necessary to obtain the most thrifty plants from the hot beds of the people, that they may be transplanted into the beds of state, reeking with the manure of the gutters. The governor submitted to the changes, through a love of peace, and ceased to be anything more than a private citizen, when he had so many claims to be first, and when, in fact, he had so long been first. No sovereign on his throne, could write Gratia Dei before his titles with stricter conformity to truth, than Mark Woolstori ; but his right did not preserve him from the ruthless plunder of the de magogue. To his surprise, as well as to his grief, Pen- nock was seduced by ambition, and he assumed the func tions of the executive with quite as little visible hesitation, as the heir apparent succeeds to his father s crown. It would be untrue to say that Mark did not feel the change ; but it is just to add that he felt more concern for the future fate of the colony, than he did for himself or his children. Nor, when he came to reflect on the matter, was he so much surprised that he could be supplanted in this way, under a system in which the sway of the majority was so much lauded, when he did not entertain a doubt that considerably more than half of the colony preferred the old system to the new, and that the same proportion of the people would rather see him in the Colony House, than to see John Pennock in his stead. But Mark we must call him the governor no longer had watched the progress of events closely, and began to comprehend them. He had learned the great and all-important political truth, THAT THE MORE A PEOPLE ATTEMPT TO EXTEND THEIR POWER DIRECTLY OVER STATE AFFAIRS, THE LESS THEY, IN FACT, CONTROL THEM, AFTER HAVING ONCE PASSED THE POINT OF NAMING LAWGIVERS AS THEIR REPRESENTA TIVES ; MERELY BESTOWING ON A FEW ARTFUL MANAGERS THE INFLUENCE THEY VAINLY IMAGINE TO HAVE SECURED 10 THEMSELVES. This truth should be written in letters of gold, at every corner of the streets and highways in a