"But William knew where to pause. He outraged no national prejudice. He abolished no ancient form. He altered no venerable name. He saw that the existing institutions, possessed of the greatest capabilities of excellence, and that stronger sanctions and clearer definitions were alone required to make the practice as admirable as the theory. Thus he imparted to innovation the dignity and stability of antiquity. He transferred to a happier order of things the associations which had attached the people to their former government. As the Roman warrior, before he assaulted Veii, invoked its guardian Gods to leave its walls, and to accept the worship and patronize the cause of the besiegers; this great prince, in attacking a system of oppression, summoned to his aid the venerable principles and deeply seated feelings to which it was indebted for protection. As he avoided violent changes, he also abstained from political persecution. A powerful party had strongly and, in the house of Lords, at first successfully, opposed his elevation to the throne. Many of his ministers and generals were falsely, and some justly accused, of correspondence with his exiled competitor. The world has rarely produced a prince whom such circumstances would not have converted into a vindictive and jealous tyrant.—William did not even resort to a system of exclusion. His conduct displayed a lofty scorn of suspicion which was at once the highest magnanimity and the highest wisdom. He would see nothing.—He would believe nothing.—He fearlessly surrounded his person and his throne with pardoned enemies and calumniated friends, and thus secured the services and conciliated the affection of many whom a less generous policy would have rendered useless or treacherous. By such means was the constitution of England established."