Sir,

If we had proposed nothing more to ourselves, in writing this dissertation on parties, than the entertainment, such as it is, of your readers, and our own amusement; we should not have dwelt, perhaps, so much on the nature of the British constitution, nor have recurred so often to assert the necessary independency of Parliaments on the crown. But we had another motive, which we are neither afraid, nor ashamed to avow. This necessary independency of Parliaments, in which the essence of our constitution, and by consequence of our liberty consists, seems to be in great, not to say, in imminent danger of being lost. They who are alarmed at every thing that is said in favour of our constitution, and of British liberty, and who are prejudiced against every man who writes or speaks in defence of them, may take, or affect to take, and try to give offence at this expression. But we desire to be understood, as we have explained our meaning upon some former occasion. We understand our constitution to be in danger, not only when it is attacked, but as soon as a breach is made, by which it may be attacked; and we understand this danger to be greater, or less, in proportion to the breach that is made, and without any regard to the probability or improbability of an attack. This explanation of our meaning is the better founded, because the nation hath an undoubted right to preserve the constitution not only inviolate, but secure from violations.