Such a Parliament was now in being; and what could be more absurd than to dissolve it at a conjuncture when every hour was precious, when numerous important subjects required immediate legislation, and when dangers, only to be averted by the combined efforts of King, Lords, and Commons, menaced the State?
A Jacobite indeed might consistently refuse to recognise the Convention as a Parliament.

For he held that it had from the beginning been an unlawful assembly, that all its resolutions were nullities, and that the Sovereigns whom it had set up were usurpers.

But with what consistency could any man, who maintained that a new Parliament ought to be immediately called by writs under the great seal of William and Mary, question the authority which had placed William and Mary on the throne?
Those who held that William was rightful King must necessarily hold that the body from which he derived his right was itself a rightful Great Council of the Realm.

Those who, though not holding him to be rightful King, conceived that they might lawfully swear allegiance to him as King in fact, might surely, on the same principle, acknowledge the Convention as a Parliament in fact.

It was plain that the Convention was the fountainhead from which the authority of all future Parliaments must be derived, and that on the validity of the votes of the Convention must depend the validity of every future statute.