Even if Lord North had wished to make peace, and had persuaded Parliament accordingly, all his work would have been useless; a superior power could and would have appealed from a wise and pacific Parliament to a sullen and warlike nation.
Bagehot emphasizes the limitations of Parliament's power in the face of a determined monarch and public sentiment.
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At last it strikes you that they grew up, house by house, on the devious tracks of the old green lanes; and if you follow on to the existing fields, you may often find the change half complete.
But it is natural also that persons used to analyse political institutions should look at these anomalies with a little tenderness and a little interest.
The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.
Just so the lines of our Constitution were framed in old eras of sparse population, few wants, and simple habits; and we adhere in seeming to their shape, though civilisation has come with its dangers, complications, and enjoyments.
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