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" "I have the principles of an Englishman, and I utter them without apprehension or reserve...this is not the language of faction; let it be tried by that criterion, by which alone we can distinguish what is factious, from what is not—by the principles of the English constitution. I have been bred up in these principles, and I know that when the liberty of the subject is invaded, and all redress denied him, resistance is justifiable...the constitution has its political Bible, by which if it be fairly consulted, every political question may, and ought to be determined. Magna Charta, the Petition of Rights and the Bill of Rights, form that code which I call the Bible of the English constitution. Had some of his Majesty's unhappy predecessors trusted less to the commentary of their Ministers, and been better read in the text itself, the glorious Revolution might have remained only possible in theory, and their fate would not now have stood upon record, a formidable example to all their successors.
The Right Honourable William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (15 November 1708 – 11 May 1778) was a British Whig statesman who achieved his greatest fame as war minister during the Seven Years' War (aka French and Indian War) and who was later Prime Minister of Great Britain. He is often known as William Pitt the Elder to distinguish him from his son, William Pitt the Younger
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[Pitt] said he could not allow what I said; that either we were in a situation to receive the law or to give it; that he thought the latter was our case; that therefore it was our business to propose the terms and tell France on what conditions they were to have peace; that it was so at the Peace of Utrecht and it would be absurd to act otherways.