tf/*<rc^ 
 
 LETTER 
 
 TO 
 
 A Member of the Houfe of Commons, 
 
 WPOtf THE 
 
 MEETING OF PARLIAMENT, 
 
 PRICE THREE SHILLINGS. 
 
DUKE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Treasure %oom 
 
<A 
 
 LETTER 
 
 TO 
 
 A Member of the Houfe of Commons, 
 
 UPON THE 
 
 MEETING OF PARLIAMENT. 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF THE LETTERS TO MR. FOX, 
 
 tJPON THE DANGEROUS AND INFLAMMATORY TENDENCY OF HIS 
 
 CONDUCT IN PARLIAMENT, 
 
 AND 
 
 |:roN THE PRINCIPLES, DUTIES, AND COMPOSITION OF MINORITIES, 
 
 Ut jam nunc dicat,jam nunc debe.ntia diet, 
 
 Pleraque differ at et prafens in tempus omit tat. HoR. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PSINTED FOR J. OWEN, NO. l68, PICCADILLY. 
 M DCC XCIV, 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page 4, Line 2, for contraction, read contradi&ion. 
 
 ' 27-, — 24, — the unjufteil, read their jufteft. 
 — — 23, — note, — in, r*a</ for. 
 — — 39, — 29, — dele inteielt. 
 
 ■ 42,' — •' j» — alteration, read alternation. 
 
 44, — a 3, — it, read he. 
 
 ■ 53, — 15, — whole, r«J noble. 
 ■ 64, — 5, — are, read were 
 
 — — 69, — J 6, — . more, read left. 
 
r.K. 
 
 B-4-77L 
 
 A LETTER 
 
 TO 
 
 A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT 
 
 UPON THE 
 
 MEETING OF PARLIAMENT, 
 
 lie. l£c % ISc. 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 HEN you engaged me fo anxioufly to put 
 into writing the heads of thofe converfations 
 which I had the pleafure to hold with you, during 
 
 your (lay at -, I eafily judged that you were 
 
 delirous of learning, whether the impreffion they 
 made upon you would be common to other perfons, 
 who could not be biafled or milled by that kind and 
 habitual partiality you bear me ; when 1 promifed, 
 therefore, to comply with your wilhes, it was with 
 the fecret intention of fubmitting my opinions, not 
 only to fuch of your private friends as you might 
 think proper to confuk upon them, but to the Public, 
 which is not, and which has no caufe to be, inclined 
 to think too favourably, in general, of political per-r 
 fons and of political pretentions. 
 
 B Jn 
 
[ * ] 
 
 In fact, Sir, it is but a common juftice to you, that 
 the ientiments which, I confefs, I have uniformly 
 endeavoured to inft.il into your mind, and the argu- 
 ments by which I have enforced them, fhould be 
 fubmitted to an unprejudiced and a difinterefted tri- 
 bunal ; and it is at lead a great fatisfaction to myfelf 
 to be able to appeal for its decillon, and to fubmit 
 to its judgment, whether I have warped your opi- 
 nions by your affections, and made our friendlhip an 
 inftrument, inftead of a motive, for perfuading you. 
 You know I am not of the opinion of Tully, that to 
 perfect friendfhip it is neceflary to hold the fame po- 
 litical opinions ; and, certainly, I think it much lefs 
 lb at London than it might have been at Rome (to 
 draw the comparifon between his times and our own) 
 becaufe there was then no queftion of dividing, and ba- 
 lancing, and tempering the powers and attributes of 
 Government ; and there could exift no parties, but this 
 of the republic, and that of the ufurpers ; it was not 
 party, but civil war ; it was not oppofition, but enmity 
 and defiance: To range upon the fame fide, therefore, 
 in difputes like thefe, was undoubtedly neceffary to 
 the enjoyment, whether it was fo or not to the exift- 
 ence of friend (hip, But in our complex and miti- 
 gated government, the fhades of opinion that form 
 divifions and parties are fo faint, and frequently fo 
 metaphyseal, that they are not perceived in the com- 
 merce of private life, and can neither obfeure nor 
 diftinguiQi thofe faflidious and affected fects, into 
 
 which 
 
[ 3 ] 
 
 which intereft and vanity, rather than either difcord 
 or principle, have fplit and diftributed fociety. 
 
 Whether or not, however, this opinion of Cicero 
 be juft, which I doubt ; and be applicable, which I 
 deny : I fpeak from my own feelings, which are not 
 unknown to you, when I fay that, his " idem /entire 
 de republicd" is an apothegm, which has had more 
 fuccefs in the world than it ought to have had, though 
 not more than it might have been eafy to forefee it 
 would obtain, fince it is addreffed more to the paf- 
 fions and the fpleen, than to the virtue or the reafon 
 of mankind ; and has too often furnifhed an inge- 
 nious, and at laft a ready and a vulgar excufe for 
 the violation of private ties, obligation, and grati- 
 tude, under that fpecious, but falfe pretext of public 
 principle. 
 
 Friendihip appears to me to be founded entirely 
 upon moral relations ; and no difference in political, or 
 even in religious opinions, could, I think, have the 
 power to impair it, uniefs it were already (haken or 
 decayed in its real foundations. How narrow mud 
 be the foul of him who can forgive no difference ? — 
 How bafe the fpirit that can fupport no contradic- 
 tion ? — Neither can I admit, excepting as a form of 
 civility, the forrow it is ufual to exprefs, when we 
 differ in opinion from any one. tl Sine verborum con* 
 ft tume/id," fays Tully to one of his friends, " a ie 
 * ( dijjentire pojjum, Jine auimi fummo do/ore non poffum.** 
 
 3 2 The 
 
[ 4 ] 
 
 The only effect I can perceive in my own mind, 
 however, to refult from the contraction of my friends 
 is, to make me more doubtful and diffident of my 
 own convictions ; it obliges me to analyze my argu- 
 ment, to conlidcr, and enquire, and combine anew 
 my reafons, inferences, and deductions. But all this 
 I can do, I confefs, without experiencing the mi- 
 nuted fenfation of forrow ; or even, what I fufpect 
 to be a more common feeling, of humiliation. For 
 upon what fide of a controveify is it poffible to range 
 ourfelves, where we (hall not be oppofed by an im- 
 menfe authority of opinion ? Contradiction therefore, 
 with the permifTion of Cicero, ought to make us un- 
 certain, but not unhappy ; to leave us doubtful, buC 
 neither mortified nor angry. The oppofuion of fen- 
 timent in thofe I mod love and edeem, is but an in- 
 ducement with me to examine the fubject of our dif- 
 cuffion with increafed accuracy and attention : At 
 the fame time, I acknowledge the drong impulfe I 
 feel to convince thofe whom I love and efteem of 
 particular truths, which ought to influence their hap- 
 pinefs or their actions : and that I feel every motive 
 to perfuade them, which friendfhip, or perhaps va- 
 nity, can fugged to me. Still, if I fail, I am con- 
 tented with the effort I have made, and am fatisded 
 that a difference of ideas is not an alienation of our 
 hearts. Had I lived at the beginning of the lad 
 century, when Hampden and Falkland divided the 
 admiration of the age, and had I enjoyed the ho- 
 nourable fortune to be the friend of either, I am fure 
 
 I had 
 
[ 5 3 
 
 I had not ceafed to be fo for the part that either acted 
 upon the theatre of the civil war. Who that feels but 
 a fpark of virtue in his breaft, would have quarrelled 
 with More for his religion, with Sidney or Blake for 
 their politics ? Philofophy and party, believe me, 
 can divide none but little minds. T think fometimes, 
 however, that more has been attached to the opinion 
 I am fpeaking of, than can fairly be inferred from it, 
 at leaft if the author of it meant all that is imputed, 
 he has worded it with a more than diplomatic chi- 
 canery : and if he had been categorized upon his 
 proportion, he would probably have been driven to 
 defend himfelf by a piece of cafuiflry analogous 
 to what we have heard applauded in a modern Se- 
 nate, and to have told his opponent, that he meant 
 it as a minifter, but not as a man. With this di- 
 Jlinguo, I believe we mud fuffer the axiom to pafs; 
 to which, in effect, no man is fo indifferent as my- 
 felf ; for whether it be owing to the particular bias 
 of my own mind, fo totally averfe to all party and 
 to all partizans, or to the conviction I entertain, the 
 refult of the little knowledge I have of hiftory, and 
 of the few obfcrvations I have made upon mankind, 
 I think party incompatible with all friendship, all 
 truth, all Sincerity, all honour whatfoever. 
 
 In the title-page, you have found me confeffing 
 myfelf the author of two indolent pamphlets, which 
 have occasioned fome difcourfe in the world, and 
 more than once been the fubject of difegfiion be- 
 
 B 3 tween 
 
C 6 ] 
 
 tween ourfelves. The fame motives which decided 
 me to withhold my name from thofe papers, namely, 
 the hurry and inaccuracy with which they were writ- 
 ten, will induce me more forcibly to fuppiefs it 
 upon the prefent occafion ; and I have flill ftronger 
 reafons, coniidcring the actual circumftances of 
 the times, to keep my fecret ; for I do not pretend, 
 nor flatter myfelf, " priucipibus plantijje viris" — I 
 write for you only ; though I am content to he read 
 by thofe who, I think, it is but juft ihould deter- 
 mine between us ; and it is rather a whimfical, but a 
 real and unaffected coincidence, which makes me 
 acknowledge myfelf to you, and conceal myfelf from 
 all the world befidesj though 1 know not whether it be 
 merely my habitual and incorrigible indolence, or 
 whether I may flatter myfelf that it is a rooted, and 
 conftant contempt of that baftard child of Fame, fo 
 properly called Popularity — Popularity, which mocks 
 or deceives the prefent age, and fets pollerity at de- 
 fiance. But, befides the neceflity my confeffion 
 ft res me, of recapitulating the arguments contained 
 in thofe infignificant pages, I have another induce- 
 ment to make it, in the pleafure I feel in bringing 
 back to your recollection the converfations we have 
 held together refpecting them, by which you will be 
 able to call to mind, how very little confident I have 
 ever been in the truth or exactnefs, or anxious in 
 the defence of my own judgment, when placed in 
 oppofition to yours, or even to that of perfons for 
 whom I could not feel all the fame prepofleflion and 
 
 deference. 
 
[ 7 ] 
 
 deference. I fhall indulge my vanity at the fame 
 time, in making fome of thofe points known to the 
 Public, in which the concurrence of your fenti- 
 ments has (lamped a value upon my own ! 
 
 A principal point of agreement, as I remember, 
 was the neceffity I had argued and enforced, of 
 forming a national party upon a national principle, 
 if we expected either to have any reform in the filth 
 and corruption of our Government, or any fecurity 
 for what is left of independence and liberty ; at leafl 
 if we would avoid obtaining thefe ends by means fatal 
 to the very being of Parliaments, and to the Conftitu- 
 tion itfelf, by remedies which I have deferibed to be 
 more dangerous, more deftruelive, than any difeafe. 
 
 Still you confidered the unknown author of that 
 opinion as fanguine, and vifionary in the extreme, 
 and thought it impoflible that his ftandard could be 
 reared in " face Romu/i," in the dregs and lees, the 
 fink and kennel of Alfred ; or that there could be 
 found a fufficient number of men, pure and uncon- 
 taminated enough to defire to repair it. Of the per- 
 fon too, who was openly invited to prelide over fuch 
 a party, you feemed to imagine it particularly unrea- 
 fonable to form any favourable expectations ; and 
 you alTerted, that his very appearance in the midft 
 of it would prevent it from being joined by fuch as 
 would look, no doubt, for a lefs fufpicious and a lefs 
 violent leader. 
 
 B 4 Another 
 
t 8 ] 
 
 Another obfervation of yours I take the liberty of 
 reciting, becaufe I am convinced of its juftice and 
 its force, and have determined to ad in conformity 
 with it. The laft of thefe pamphlets, after preffing 
 the Gentleman to whom they are addretitd to reform 
 his party, or rather to form a new one, upon the 
 principles of which I have been fpeaking, feems to 
 promife to point out the means, by which a reform 
 might be accelerated, and the meafures which it 
 would be expedient to purfue in order to obtain it, 
 according to the exifting plan and known hiftory of 
 our conftitution. Here you faid, " There is great 
 ** danger of your politician turning projector, and 
 *' flill greater of his caufing his project, to mifcarry, 
 4t by a premature developement and difclofurc of 
 " the whole of it. It will be rejected by many, be- 
 " caufe it is reform ; by many, becaufe it is not re- 
 t( volution ; and he ought to forefee, that it will 
 u pleafe none perfiSMy s but himfelf, and a few of his 
 ** partizans." — Whatever, my dear Sir, may be my 
 conviction, with regard to the whole of this opinion 
 of yours, it is perfect with regard to the propriety of 
 with-holding any plan, or project, if that fanciful 
 term become it more, till there ihall appear a bet- 
 ter difpoiition to be honed upon one fide, and to be 
 temperate upon the other ; till there (hall arifc a fenfe 
 of the fhame and dishonour of with-holding every 
 thing from the people in thofe who owe every thing 
 to the people ; and in thofe whofe policy it is to de- 
 mand every thing for the people, a fenfe of the peril 
 i and 
 
[ 9 ] 
 
 and the mifchief of obtaining too much, or of ob- 
 taining any thing by means of the people ; till thofe 
 who have power mall perceive the danger of deny- 
 ing every thing ; and thofe who have popularity, the 
 wickednefs of grafping and feizing every thing ; in 
 fhort, till there fhall arife a calmer and a wifer fpirit, 
 a fpirit of juftice on the one hand, and of moderation 
 on the other, a dcfire to grant what will otherwife 
 be exaded, and a difpofition to accept in peace and 
 tranquillity, what will elfe be the fruit of much un- 
 happinefs and of many crimes. 
 
 I find myfelf under a necefiity, from the confeffion 
 I have made to you, to vindicate myfelf in another 
 point, which would, indeed, have been fuperfluous 
 with regard to yourfelf, but which becomes necefTary 
 from refpect to the Public, who will naturally lay 
 the fins of the letter writer to Mr. Fox upon the au- 
 thor of thefe pages, and regard them with the fame 
 fufpicion which has unfortunately fallen upon the 
 former. Thofe gentlemen who have been pleafed to 
 criticife thofe humble performances, in a manner in- 
 finitely more favourable than, I doubt, they have 
 any pretentions to deferve, have a'fo been pleafed to 
 infinuate a cenfure, which I know it was impofiible 
 they could have deferved. I have the vanity to think, 
 Sir, that not only yourfelf, but the whole number 
 of thofe who are acquainted with their author, if he 
 had avowed himfelf, would have arifen in refutation 
 
 of 
 
r " j 
 
 of that oblique, but unjuft acculation ; and that thoftf 
 who made it, if they could havegueiled or iufpected 
 to whom they applied it, would have felt, that no 
 compliment, no flattery to the language and compo- 
 fition of his pamphlets, could balance the imputa- 
 tion they have conveyed againfh the principle and 
 the purity of the motive with which they were writ- 
 ten. 
 
 It has been alledged, that there is an evident va- 
 riance between the firft letter and the fecond ; that 
 the firft, pour trancher le mot> is a minifterial pam- 
 phlet ; and that the fecond evidently betrays a mif- 
 truft, or a diflike of the Adminiftration. I fhall not 
 trefpafs very long upon your patience in preferring 
 my defence ; but to this charge it is neceflary that I 
 fhould add the inuendo of my accufers ; they fay, 
 that as no Public Event has happened between .the 
 publication of thefe two letters, which could be the 
 caufe of fuch a change in opinion, they are afraid 
 the virtue of the writer is not of the pureft kind. 
 
 Now, my dear Sir, I affert, in direct, contradiction 
 to thefe gentlemen, that the firft letter was not a mi- 
 nifterial pamphlet ; and that if it had been, a public 
 event had taken place before the writing of the fe- 
 fecond, which could have been, and which ought 
 to have been the caufe of what they call an evident 
 variation ; and the dates of thefe two letters are 
 
 themfelves 
 
t » ] 
 
 themfelves the proof it. The firft, written in Ja- 
 nuary, was compofed under the fenfe of the imme- 
 diate dangers of the country ,• and I hope I {hall not 
 be fufpected of too much vanity, if I venture to 
 place it by the State Ballad of Mr. Bofwell, and call 
 it -g national pamphlet: in fact:, it was one, if ever 
 there was one written or publifhed in any country 
 under heaven. Threatened with infurreclion and re- 
 volution at home, with the invafion of our allies, 
 and with war, both foreign and domestic, the weak 
 and paralytic hand of Government had need of every 
 fuccour, every prop, every fupport. The people flood 
 aghaftand terrified, uncertain between the known and 
 unknown dangers that threatened it. It was neceffary 
 to ftrengthen the Adminiftration, no matter how, 
 or of whom it were compofed ; it was neceffary to 
 induce the nation, diffracted and perplexed with the 
 impudence and fophiftry of our parties, to confront 
 its enemies, and to undertake the war with resolution 
 and with unanimity. Jn this fpirit was the firft letter 
 compofed ; with what fuccefs, it is not for me to de- 
 termine. But were thefe gentlemen at liberty to 
 infer, that the author was a partizan of Ministers, 
 becaufe he preffed the declaration of the war, which 
 has fince been carried into effect ; or that he was in 
 concert with Government, becaufe he refented the 
 bafe and malignant artifices of France, and dreaded 
 the deftruction of our admirable Conftitution at 
 home ? Were they at liberty to fuppofe, that he ap- 
 proved of all their meafures, becaufe he endeavoured 
 
 to 
 
I «* ] 
 
 to encourage and confirm them in one, which the ho- 
 nour, the intereft, and the fafety of the country de- 
 manded at their hands ? Bccaule he expofed the trea- 
 chery of the concealed and the public enemy, and en- 
 deavoured to with-hold the raoft formidable of their 
 adverfaries from lending hope or authority to the 
 anarchy which threatened our eftabliihments ? — It is 
 doubtlcfs become neceflary for me to protefl againft 
 conclufions and inferences like thefe ; — for me, who 
 fee no fafety for Europe but in the fuccefs of our 
 arms ; nor for our own liberty and Constitution, but 
 in the difmiffion, and punithment of Minifters, as 
 foon as we (hall have lefs to dread from their iuc- 
 
 ceffors than from themfelves I know thefe ienti- 
 
 ments will pleafe no party. Thofe who try to make 
 a common caufe between the war and corruption, 
 will not think themfelves obliged to him who defends 
 the war, but makes war againft corruption ; nor be 
 inclined to pardon the enemy of the Court, in favour 
 of the defender of the Conftitution. The caufe of 
 Europe, and the principles of civil fociety, will not 
 weigh with them againft the cobwebs of the drawing- 
 room ; believe me, the fears they entertain for their 
 country are not quite equal to their fears for their 
 falaries. — If thefe perfons will acknowledge no obli- 
 gation for the little fupport he might have lent to 
 the Minifler, ft ill lefs will the Oppofition, or the 
 Clubbifts, be inclined to regard, with any partiality 
 or favour, a writer, vvhofc virtue, let it be of what I 
 kind it za-i/l, is certainly not of their kind, but detefts 
 
 their 
 
[ '3 ] 
 
 their crimes and violence, and deprecates their mad- 
 nefs and defpair, with fo much appearance, at lead, 
 of horror and antipathy, that it has been miftaken 
 for friendship or complicity with the Court ! Yet, 
 Sir, I take my confcience to witnefs, that, though 
 I have had no party to ferve, no intereftto promote, 
 no ambition to flatter^ I have not written in an idle, 
 or an unconnected caufe ; — I have written to the 
 wife and moderate of every defcription ; and I have 
 called on thofe who yet are fullied by no crime nor 
 bafenefs, who are allied to no proflituted caufe, and 
 entangled with no dark and intricate engagements, 
 who have no defire, no intereft, but the welfare and 
 falvation of their country, who are neither corrup- 
 tion's Haves, nor ambition's dupes ; I have called on 
 thefe, and I think I have not called in vain j but I 
 will call again and again, if I have health and life, 
 till my voice is heard, and till the fpirit of the coun- 
 try is awake, till public contempt and refentment 
 brand the profligate factions that rend the State, and 
 prey upon the commonweal ; till not my voice, but 
 the voice of the people fhall be heard, and it be un- 
 fafe to be wicked ; and dangerous, as well as bafe, to 
 be publicly unprincipled and corrupt. Behold then 
 die party to which your friend is attached, to which 
 he will for ever belong ; and do not think that it is 
 a creature of his fancy, a chimera of his brain ; be- 
 lieve me, it exifts. The (latue is yet indeed within 
 ^the block, but as it is formed it lives ; the Prome- 
 thean torch has been held to it in the brute rock ; 
 
 the 
 
[ I* ] 
 
 the chiflel gives it fhape and animation at the fame 
 ftroke ; it affiils itfelf the plaflic hand that feems to 
 create it, and throws oil with the firft effort and curio- 
 iity of exiftence the cumbrous cruft that conceals its 
 iymmetiy and proportion. In the mean time. 
 
 Que puis-je faire de mieux que d'aider de toutes 
 r - forces a repandre cette verite qui prepare les votes ? 
 On commence par la ttial recevoir, peu-a-peu les 
 efprits s'y accoutument, l'opinion pubHque fe forme, 
 & cnfin Ton appercoit a I 'execution, des principes,' 
 qu'on avait d'abord traites de folles chimeres — dans 
 prcfque tons les ordres des prejuges, ix des ecrivains 
 n'avoient confenti a pailer pour des fous, le monde 
 en fcroit auiourd'hiri moins fage. 
 
 But however vifionary or chimerical I may appear 
 to be in entertaining thefe ideas, the very pamphlet 
 in quellion is a proof that I cannot hefitate to lend 
 my little aid and affiftance as often as the country is 
 in danger — Her peril will always animate my pa* 
 triotifm ; indifferent to men, and almoft to meafures, 
 when her fafety or her honour are expofed, I think I 
 mall never be afhamed ncr afraid to appear amongft 
 the foremoft of her defenders, let them belong to 
 what party they will, or be defcribed by what name 
 they think proper. 
 
[ '5 1 
 
 And now let me afk, not only of you, my dear Sir, 
 but of the enlightened and honeft of every party in 
 the kingdom, whether the month of January, 1793, 
 when Dumourier had already turned his face towards 
 Holland, when the decrees cf the National Conven- 
 tion had already taken rebellion under the protection 
 of the victorious armies of France ; when London 
 was deformed and horrible with foreign faces ; and 
 the murderers of Paris and Avignon (talked feanefs 
 through our ftreets ; when anarchy and revolution 
 refounded from every ale-houfe bench ; when ran- 
 cour and difcontent fcowled from the brows of in- 
 duftry ; when the whole kingdom heaved with 
 convulfive throes, and the great fabric cf our State 
 trembled upon its bafis ; I fay, let me afk, if that 
 had been a time to enquire, whether the Minifter 
 had arrived by wholefome means at the feat of Go- 
 vernment, or had prefided there with wifdom or juf- 
 tice ? Whether it were honeft to have triumphed 
 over and difhonoured Parliaments, to have broken 
 his word with the people, to have doubled the cor- 
 rupt and deftructive influence of the Crown, to have 
 played, and trimmed, and (peculated with public 
 juftice, and polluted with the artifice and fraud of a 
 politician, the folemn, facred acT. of a national im- 
 peachment * ? Whether it had been a time to difcufs 
 
 the 
 
 * While the impeachment is pending (if it htfts for another 
 feven years) I fliall give no opinion that can affect the accufed. 
 As it concerns the nation and the Houfe of Commons in particu- 
 lar 
 
[ '6 ] 
 
 the juflice of the plunder of India, the witllom of 
 being cheated by Spain, or the glory of being brow- 
 beaten by Ruflia ? 
 
 I know 
 
 lar, it is interefting and neceflary to confider it ; and I think there 
 is no time to be loft ; fuppofing too that any arguments of mine 
 could have weight with the Public, it is incumbent upon me not 
 to with-hold them. I fliall certainly not fay at prefent whether I 
 think Mr. Haftings is innocent or guilty. It is fufficient for me 
 that he is either one or the other, and that Mr. Pitt, as well as 
 myfelf, muft believe him to be either the one or the other. Now, 
 if he thought Mr. Haftings guilty, under the articles preferred 
 againft him, and that it was incumbent upon the honour and juf- 
 tice of the Houfe of Commons, to prefent them at the bar of the 
 Houfe of Lords, it was his duty to have carried them up with all 
 the dignity, and all the authority and all the unanimity of the Houfe ; 
 and inftead of confiding the impeachment to the conduct of the Op- 
 pofition, a weak party, whom he loft no opportunity to mortify and 
 difcredit, to have aflumed a principal character himfelf, and to 
 have named others amongft the King's fervants to fuftain the parts 
 it became them to act upon this important ftage ; it was his duty 
 to have eftabhfhed the facts, to have proved the guilt, to have pref- 
 fed the conviction, and to have demanded the punifhment. There 
 prevails a fhrevvd fufpicion in the country, that if amongft the 
 Managers of this profecution there had appeared either Minifters,, 
 or Crown-Lawyers, or any of the friends of the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, the ifllie, whatever it might have been, would have 
 been decided fome few years paft, and all thofe complaints againft 
 the indolence, neglect, and faftidioufnefs of the Houfe of Peers, 
 had either never been born, or had been ftifled as foon as they be- 
 gan to cry out. But if Mr. Haftings had been, in the opinion of 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a faithful and meritorious fer- 
 vant of the Public, I think it was his duty to have defended him 
 againft the fpleen, malevolence, and envy of thofe who were not 
 enlv the enemies of Mr. Haftings, but his own ; and I think it was 
 
 fo. 
 
C '7 ] 
 
 I know what you will anfwer, and what will be an- 
 fwered by all to whom I have appealed ; but furely 
 thofe who are difpofed to judge, or to fpeak fo fa- 
 vourably of me, where I have at beft but very quef- 
 tionable and imperfect pretenfions, might have recol- 
 lected, that it had been one of my chief objections to 
 Mr. Fox, that the conduct of the minority had been 
 fo abfurd, fo corrupt and unpopular, that it was not 
 able to refift even the moil defpotic and violent acts 
 of the administration ; that its voice could not be 
 heard, without contempt, ridicule, and fufpicion; 
 
 fo plain a duiy/that I know not whether to attribute it to cunning, 
 to cowardice, or to jealoufy, that he fliould have flirunk from it. 
 This point is, however, collateral to the queftion ; which ftands 
 limply thus ; Did he think Mr. Haftings innocent, why fuffer 
 him to be profecuted? Did he think him guilty; why not caufe 
 him to be profecuted with all the weight and afliftance of his own 
 friends, the crown lawyers, and all the authority of the Houfe ? Med*. 
 Burgefs and Rofe, or Rofe and Burgefs, for I know not your 
 etiquette of precedency, I am told you dabble in politics. What 
 fay you ? Is Haftings guilty ? Who difappoints the juftice of the 
 kingdom ? Who defrauds the national procefs of half it dignity ? 
 Who prolongs the wrongs of India, and all the crimes, and all the 
 fhame of England ? — Is Haftings innocent ? Who abandons a vir- 
 tuous minifter to the malice of a party ? Who delivers a hero to 
 feven years of legal perfecution ? Speak out, gentlemen ; but fpeak 
 with difcretion. Be fure you do not tell the people of this country, 
 that the impeachment was connived at, rather than adopted, by mini- 
 fters, for the purpofe of diverting their attention from the Reform ; 
 or that of digufting them with parliaments altogether. Remem- 
 ber, that unaccountably as Gil Bias came to be fecretary to the 
 prime minifter, he got, to the full as unexpectedly, into the Tower of 
 Segovia. Therefore, know your ground, and fpeak from authority. 
 
 C and 
 
[ >s ] 
 
 and that it was unable to procure the leaft redrefs, or 
 to refill the gicateft oppreffion. 
 
 The fecond letter was written, as the date proves, 
 after the expuliion of Dumourier from Holland ; 
 after the emancipation of Brabant and Flanders; af- 
 ter all the defeats, and the final defertion of this fan- 
 taftical general, whom M. Mallet du Pan compares 
 to Tamerlane the Great. The battles of the Prince 
 of Saxe Cobourg, upon the Maefe and Roer, the re- 
 capture of Breda and Gertrudenberg,and the invafion 
 of France, by the victorious armies, might have been 
 confidered, all together, 1 mould have thought, as a 
 public event of fufficient importance not to have been 
 overlooked by the gentlemen who are fo clair-voyans, 
 lb ready to fee into private motives. 
 
 By thefe fucceflcs, Sir, in my humble opinion, the 
 whole ftate of affairs was not only changed, but in- 
 verted. 
 
 Jnacbias jam venit ad urbes 
 Dardanus et veijis higebat Graeciafatis, 
 France, reprefled within her own frontier, difpi- 
 rited and enfeebled, by treachery and defeat, could 
 no longer afford any caufe or pretext for imme- 
 diate apprchenfion; and we had leifure to turn our 
 eyes homewards, and to confider our own domeftic 
 fituation, which had become fo peculiarly interefting 
 and myfterious, by the craft and fraud of one party, 
 and the violence and depravity of another ; where 
 
 opinion 
 
[ 19 1 
 
 opinion had been fo artfully (hocked and con- 
 founded, and paffions fo wickedly enflamed and ex- 
 afperated, that we prefented a fpectacle of madnefs 
 and defperation, of which there is no parallel in the 
 word periods of our hiftory. The caufe of liberty 
 had been coupled with the caufe of France; and the 
 caufe of corruption confounded with that of Europe 
 and of civil fociety : The perpetuity of abufes, the 
 venality of parliaments, the intolerable influence of 
 the court, appeared to be defended by the gre- 
 nadiers of Bohemia ; while there were men who 
 looked for reform, and the return of liberty and vir- 
 tue, from the fucceiies of fuch monfters as Cuftine or 
 Santerre! The conftitution feemed forgot in the 
 fquabble; and the policy of the court, afiifted by the 
 violence of the reformers, had fplit the nation into 
 two factions, in one of which tyranny was the watch- 
 word, and regicide in the other ! 
 
 I have more in petto to fay upon this fubjedt; at 
 prefent I ("hall confine myfelf to alk you, whether it 
 were not become, at this conjuncture, as necefTary to 
 watch and fufpect the conduct of miniflers, as it had 
 
 ver been to fupport and invigorate their meafures, 
 luring the dark and dangerous period which pre- 
 
 eded ? 
 
 I (hall now, my dear Sir, enter at once into my 
 ubject ; in mcdias res; and I take this opportunity to 
 lo fo, becaufe i: will feem to be a direct confequence 
 C 2 deriving; 
 
[ 1° ] 
 
 deriving from the depraved and fcandalous (late of 
 parties in this kingdom, that we fhould either look 
 for one of a purer, honefter, and more popular de- 
 ft ription, to carry our complaints where they mult 
 be heard, and to procure us that redrefs which muft 
 be granted; if we would not expofe our whole fyftem 
 to the violence of thofe, who having right in the be- 
 ginning, will, of neceflity, become guilty before they 
 leave oft'. Thofe who teach the people to demand 
 themfelves, will colour their own ambition with 
 the injufticc and tyranny of thofe who will comply 
 with no other requifitions. Both fides, in my opi- 
 nion, are criminal ; but there is one, which is not 
 only unjuft, but abfurd. 
 
 For you, my dear Sir, and a few independent ■ 
 country gentlemen like yourfclf, I am fure you will 
 forgive the good faith and fimplicity with which I 
 (peak it ; for you, and a few good men like yourfelf, 
 to imagine you can direct:, or that you can moderate 
 between thefe difcordant parties; that you can recon- j 
 cilc their jarring interefts, or temper their unprinci- ' 
 pled and infatiable ambition, is a thought more vain 
 rind more vilionary, than what you have objected to the 
 letter-writer. It may be difficult to form a pure 
 party, but to attempt to reform, or to reftrain parties, 
 inured and difciplined in corruption, or to regulate 
 the excefles of men who have learned not to blufh, 
 and have left off to feel; who know no paffion but 
 the luft of power; and are excited only by envy and ; 
 3 competition : 
 
[ « 1 
 
 competition: to pretend to awe, or to govern thofe, 
 whom fnccefs makes bold, and power hardens; or 
 thofe who are become callous or defperate, by dis- 
 appointment and mortification : I fay, for yon to 
 imagine you poffefs this power, is little fhort of the 
 madnefs of him who mould believe he poffefled the 
 ring of Solomon, or the lamp of Aladdin. 
 
 When you afk me, therefore, whether it be not 
 necejfary for an independent member of parliament, 
 who would be of fervice to his country, to give his 
 confidence to one party or the other, in the Houfe 
 of Commons ; I anfwer you, that it is impojjibk \ and 
 that it is fo far from being neceflary, that in the 
 actual fituation of parties, the utmoft that you could 
 hope for would be, by Strengthening Sometimes the 
 one, and Sometimes the other, to preferve a fpecies of 
 equilibrium between both, and prevent either from 
 being able to accomplish the complete overthrow of 
 the Conftitution. You will be obliged to imitate Me, 
 whom you have blamed, and many others who have 
 net conferled their fituation ; and to lend your Sup- 
 port without your confidence, as I .have done, and 
 mud continue to do, fo long as the preSent vicious 
 and difgraceful fyftem Shall prevail in our declining 
 empire. Yes, I have written the word, and I will 
 not recall it. A declining empire, diSeaSed- and pu- 
 trid at the heart; confuming and exhaufting the 
 Springs of life in diflant and violent exertions ; bar- 
 tering liberty for conqueft, and health for ornament; 
 
 C 3 dreSSing 
 
[ 1- ] 
 
 drefling itfclf out like a di {tempered whore, in paint, 
 and patches, and finery, while all within is fores, and 
 rags, and rottennefs, and filth, and corruption, and 
 decay. 
 
 In advifing you to withold your confidence from 
 either party, I do not counfel you to act an indolenc 
 or a negative, no nor a neutral part ; neither is it my 
 defire, that you Ihould act in a conftant and uniform, 
 oppofition to whichever fide might appear likely 
 to gain any momentary fuperiority in the competi- 
 tion. The Oppoiition, by denying the juftice, the 
 principle, and the neceffity of the war; and by the 
 indecent and violent means with which it has oppofed 
 it; by the favour it has publiihed towards the caufe 
 of France ; and the malignant pleafure, but ill con- 
 cealed, with which it has regarded our own errors 
 and difgraces ; has planted a ftrong and irremoveable 
 barrier between itfelf and the object of its ambition. 
 Whatever its panizans can now fay, will be heard 
 with diftruft and fufpicion; their jufteft reclama- 
 tions will fall pointlefs upon the ground ; their known 
 malevolence will difarm every accufation ; their avow- 
 ed difaffection to the caufe, will be a flrong chal- 
 lenge againfc their cleared proof and the injuftefl con- 
 dition. You will find, and I am not afraid to pre- 
 dict it, that the abfurd and fatal ill conduct and mif- 
 carriages of the war, which will come fo naturally be- 
 fore Parliament, will produce no real effect, no perfect 
 conviction there of the indolence and incapacity of 
 
 Minifters. 
 
[ 2 3 J 
 
 Minifters. You will find, that the inactivity of our 
 fleets, fo unaccountable, or fo criminal, will not procure 
 even the flight and illufory atonement of difplacing 
 one admiral, or one minifter ; that the ignorance and 
 want of forefight, which has attended our moil fuc- 
 cefsful operations*, will be detailed and proved, and 
 even exaggerated in vain ; that the want of concert be- 
 tween the troops and the naval forces, deftined to act 
 againft Dunkirk, and the abfurdity of that under- 
 taking, will all be eafily extenuated, or vanifh before 
 the greater crimes and turpitude of thofe who will 
 bring the accufation. And fince I am fo unguard- 
 edly acting the part of a prophet, give me leave to re- 
 mark to you, that I am neiditr new nor unhappy in 
 that character; I ventured to forete'l, that the profli- 
 gate conduct, of Oppoiinon would render it incapa- 
 ble of deriving any benefit from the miftakes, or ill- 
 conduct of the Minifters ; and this prediction has 
 
 * At Toulon, though there had been a long negociation between 
 Lord Hood and the governing people in the town ; though Admi- 
 nistration will doubtlefs pretend to have planned and forefeen the 
 furrender of the forts and arfenal ; there was not a Tingle engineer 
 officer to take the command of the place. Though not only fuch 
 an officer, but the neceffary regiments in its defence, ought to have 
 been fent out, or at leaft embarked at Gibraltar. When I heard 
 that a very diftinguifhed naval officer was appointed to the com- 
 mand, I afked of another, no lefs fo, whether he conhdered himfelf, 
 or the officer alluded to, to be qualified to defend a fortrefs. He 
 anfwered me unequivocally in the negative ; he could direct the 
 batteries, but he had no fcience to repair injuries or accidents, or to 
 defeat the regular approaches of an engineer, 
 
 C 3 doubtlefs 
 
[ *♦ ] 
 
 doubtlefs been realized : for though there is but one 
 fentiment in the kingdom, as far as I am able to dif- 
 cem, refpeifting the weak and criminal conduct of 
 affairs j though there is but one opinion with regard 
 to the incapacity, the imbecility, and unfitnefs of the 
 prefent Minifters, to conduct the war, or to negociate 
 with foreign ftates ; yet, I do not believe that the 
 fanguine opinion entertained of Mr. Fox's fuperior 
 abilities and vigour in all thefe refpects, has pointed 
 him out to the wifhes of any one thinking or reafon- 
 able man in the kingdom, as a fucceflbr to his rival, 
 or ihaken, in the lead degree, the firm feat of our 
 prefent Adminiftration. 
 
 But furely the conduct and fcheme of this war 
 has been as weak and abfurd, as its principle was jnft, 
 and its necellity was evident. Is it not then deplor- 
 able, that this country fhould fee itfelf, by the depra- 
 vity and corruption of the belt and nobleft inilitu- 
 tions, reduced to the dilemma of entrulling the con- 
 duct of its affairs ; and abandoning its fleets and 
 armies, the braveft that ever nation owned ; its 
 treafure and refources ; its fweat and blood ; to the 
 caprice and ignorance of one fet of men, or the 
 bad faith and difaffection of another ? That itlhould 
 be obliged to chufe between incapacity and treafon, 
 between abfurdity and ill-will, between folly and 
 malevolence ? 
 
 I appeal 
 
I appeal to you, Sir, and to all the world, whether 
 if Mr. Fox had followed the counfels I prefumed to 
 offer him at the beginning of the year ; if he had 
 given his fupport to the government, which was ex- 
 pofed, but expofed together with the whole country; 
 if he had difappoimed the views and expectations of 
 the factious of every fe6t and defcription, by an ho- 
 nourable and unequivocal declaration ; if he had pro- 
 claimed the juftice and neceffity of the war, and ex- 
 horted the country to engage in it with refolution 
 and unanimity; if he had relented the injuries and 
 infults offered to it, and the wrongs of Holland, our 
 natural, and our only natural ally; I fay I appeal to all 
 the world, whether the miflakes and the mifconduct 
 of his majefty's minifters during one fingle campaign, 
 would not have placed him without any effort, any 
 intrigue, any compromife at the head of affairs ? and 
 whether he would not have carried with him into 
 power, a great many perfons who are now combating 
 againfl him in both Houfes of Parliament, or ferv- 
 ing his enemies in various departments of the govern- 
 ment, or of the war ? 
 
 Perhaps, Sir, my fcheme of forming a third party 
 in the country, unon public or national principles, 
 may not by this time appear quite fo romantic, as 
 upon its firft blulli it did to you. For if thofe who 
 admit the juftice and neceffity of the war, but con- 
 demn and lament its ill-conducl, were to rally from 
 every quarter of the kingdom, it is clear that they 
 
 could 
 
[ z6 ] 
 
 coakl not, with any degree of confiflency, or with 
 any re&fonable hope of redrefs, affemble round the 
 ftanclard either of the Minifter or of Mr. Fox. But 
 I. ad Mr. Fox, whom I invited to become the head 
 of fuch a party, and in conformity to that invitation, 
 to acknowledge the juftice and neceflity of the war; 
 \lr. Fox hearkened to that advice, it is evident 
 that all thefe perfons would before now have enlifted 
 themfelves under his banners, and as far as the obfer- 
 vation of an individual can extend, and as far as it is 
 realbnable to prefume public opinion, from one's own 
 ng but unprejudiced convictions, I am encou- 
 raged to fay, that this would have defcribed five fixths 
 of the property and the talents of the kingdom ; that 
 this party would have c6nlilled of every thinking 
 man, not paid by the intolerable wealth and patron- 
 age of the crown, to belong to an exclufive and infu- 
 lated intereft, of every man not corrupted by aprofli- 
 gated court, or implicated with a criminal admini- 
 Unit ion. 
 
 But as this gentleman, by a different line of con- 
 ducf , has forfeited the confidence, nay even the car 
 of the country, and as the miftakes, errors, and crimes 
 of his Majefty's fervants, have but too great a chance 
 and probability of efcaping detection, or punifli- 
 ment at leaft, through the contempt and fufpicion 
 into which he and the remnant of his party are fallen, 
 it becomes the duty, as I trull it is yet the privilege 
 of a free and generous fpirit, to prefent thefe grand 
 
 delinquents 
 
[ 2 7 1 
 
 -delinquents to the grand jury of the nation, and to 
 convict them before that tribunal, from which neither 
 power, nor greatnefs, nor crowds of mercenary 
 friends can protect them, the tribunal of the public 
 opinion ; that high and moral court, whofe cenfure, 
 after that of our private thought, is moft painful, 
 whofe acquittal and applaufe, are the moft dear, the 
 molt honourable enjoyments of life. 
 
 When I fpeak of miftakes and crimes, I mean to 
 prove that both have been diftin&ly committed, not 
 but that miftakes are criminal, and highly criminal, 
 in minifters, particularly a repetition of miftakes ; 
 confeious by experience of their folly and incapacity, 
 it is their duty to withdraw and yield the reins of go- 
 vernment to a ftronger wrift: and a mightier mind. 
 The foldier is not (hot for being a coward, but the 
 coward is put to death for affuming the character of 
 a fclaier. It is not perhaps in our power to be wife or 
 brave, but we are the mafters to refufe a poll where our 
 folly or our cowardice maybe fatal to our country. 
 
 The fir ft charge, however, which I (hall bring 
 againft his Majefty ? s Servants, will not be of a 
 doubtful or equivocal nature; it will be criminal in 
 its fulleft and moft comprehend ve fenfe, and I will 
 prefs it upon the understanding and confeience of 
 every man in the kingdom, whether it could origi- 
 nate in miftake, incapacity, or folly ? and be not the 
 true and legitimate offspring of political intrigue, 
 
 of 
 
C ^ ] 
 
 of patronage, and corruption, or of a corrupt compli- 
 ance and condelcenfion to the peculiar views and ca- 
 price of the court ? It will be fcarcely neceiiary to 
 point our, that it is the fending of troops to Flanders, 
 and engaging the country in an cxpenfive and un- 
 profitable war upon the continent, which I prefent as 
 a wilful, corrupt, and deliberate act of delinquency 
 on the part of the King's Minifters; laying mv in- 
 dictment at the feet of the public, and coniigning it 
 to the memory and archives of the nation, I impeach 
 the King's fervants of this act, as a wilful and preme- 
 ditated crime ; and expecting as 1 do with ardent 
 vows to heaven, and maturing by every honeft and 
 honourable exertion of my own mind and faculties, 
 that period when juilice may be done once more 
 upon powerful men, in Great Britain, when the pu- 
 3 iry and integrity of our Conflitution fhall be reftor- 
 cd to us, and when we (hall be freed from the 
 noxious and blading influence; of courts, from the 
 corruption of parliaments, from the torpor, indiffer- 
 ence and defpair of the nation ; I fay expecting that 
 happy term, 1 prefer my charge. 
 
 I denounce then at the bar of the public opinion, 
 and I take all England, nay the world and pofterity 
 for myjudgesj I denounce the criminality of theKing's 
 Minifters, in engaging the country in a continental 
 war, againft the known interefts and policy of Great- 
 Britain, againft the moft evident convictions, againft 
 the moft conftant experience of the folly, extrava- 
 gance 
 
[ *9 1 
 
 gance and danger of fuch a plan ! and I affert, that 
 iiich ads are in tliemfelves criminal, abfolutely and 
 irrelatively to other events, which can only explain or 
 illuftrate the guilt of them, but cannot add to it or 
 increafe it. 
 
 Thus, for inftance, though our arms have been 
 dilhonoured in the Weft-Indies, though the expedi- 
 tions againft Martinico and Guadaloupe have mil- 
 carried, for the want of thefe very troops who were 
 mifcarrying from the folly or treachery of Minifters, 
 before the walls of Dunkirk ; I fay though our at- 
 tempts againft the enemy's colonies in that rich wefteru 
 Archipeiego, which was pointed out by the finger of 
 common fenfe, and of nature herfelf, to recompenfe 
 our maritime and commercial ifland, for the dangers 
 and expences of the war; though our attempts have 
 failed, and our interefts and honour have been facri- 
 ficed and neglected, all this can add nothing to the 
 pofitive guilt of engaging the kingdom in a conti- 
 nental war ; but it is a ftrong and irrefragable proof of 
 the mifchiefs and difgrace which have refulted from 
 that guilty conduct. 
 
 The beft Englishmen and the wifeft politicians, 
 have always dreaded this terrible fcourge, from the 
 connexion of our princes with a German electorate ; 
 but fince at length we poflefled a native fovereign, 
 there was reafon to hope that the Englifli intereft 
 might predominate in the councils of St. James's: 
 
 The 
 
t 3° ] 
 
 The paffions, the prejudices of a Britifh King, in fa-» 
 vourof his German principality, were no longer likely 
 to warp his Minifters from the plain policy of the 
 country, and to involve a mighty nation in the mu- 
 nicipal brawls of the empire. That Hanover (o often 
 preferred to the EngliQi diadem, which was fighed 
 tor by our kings upon the firft throne of Europe, 
 which we found them regretting, while they held in 
 their hands the umpire and arbitrement of the world, 
 
 §{uem fertur regia Juno 
 
 V eft habit a cohiijfe Jamo 
 
 That Hanover, feemed at lad to have found its 
 true weight in the fcale, and the worn: danger we had 
 reafonably to apprehend from it, was the giving a fo- 
 reign education to the younger branches of our royal 
 family, and adding a few more denyzens to the Ger- 
 man colony at Pimlico : by what fatality, by what 
 determined treachery, my dear Sir, could it then 
 happen, that without paffions to flatter, or prejudices 
 to comply with, without even that bafe excufe or 
 fubterfuge of deference or fubmiflion to Casfar, we 
 fhould find ourfelves unexpectedly compromifed, 
 under the firft Britilh prince of the illuftrious family 
 on the throne, and under a Tory Adminiftration, the 
 chief merit of which it hath fometime been, to oppofe 
 and to (inifli thefe continental wars ; I fay how does 
 it happen that with all thefe circumftances in our fa- 
 vour, we mould find ourfelves treading back the foot- 
 fteps of thofe guilty and unfortunate times, when the 
 
 fpirit 
 
[ 3' 3 
 
 fpirit of compliant Whigs devoted our armies on the 
 plains of Fontenoy, or before the ravins of Mount- 
 Caffel ! 
 
 Will it be pretended that we owed this good turn, 
 to the Houfe of Anuria, for the diverfion it had cauf- 
 ed in favour of Holland ? I acknowledge the fervice, 
 but was the debt (o great, that the gratuitous part we 
 had taken in the war fince the happy accompiifhment 
 of that object, could neither extinguifh nor diminifh. 
 it? Could we caufe no diveriion in our turn, with 
 two hundred and eighty veffels of war, which barred, 
 or might have barred, the ports of France, and 
 blockaded her harbours, in the ocean and the Chan- 
 nel, as well as in the Mediterranean ? Are our fubfidies, 
 our flores nothing ? Are not they to be counted to- 
 wards balancing this mighty debt to Auftria? Are the 
 ftipendiary forces of Piedmont and Savoy nothing ? 
 Are our contracts with Heffe and Hanover nothing? 
 Is the King of Pruffia preferved to the alliance by 
 the weight and intereft, and I fear the treafure of 
 England nothing ? Are Florence, Genoa, coerced 
 by the terror of our Fleets, are the manifeftos of Mr. 
 Drake and my Lord Hervey nothing ? Oh, fentiment 
 divine of gratitude fo rare in the bofom of ftatefmen, 
 fo new in the hiftory of nations ! — Oh, amiable Court 
 of Saint James's ! Oh, fortunate Chancery of Vienna ! 
 
 Ob debt immenfe of endlefs gratitude, 
 So burdensome 9 ft ill paying, ft ill to ozve! 
 
 " But 
 
[ 3* ] 
 
 But I fear, Sir, and I am compelled in candour to 
 confefs my fear, that the relief of Maeflricht and the 
 victories of Monfieurde Cobourg, are not the only- 
 obligations we may be held to lie under to the Houfe 
 of Auftria; or at lead that if we have no further ob- 
 ligations to acquit, we have errors to repair, and in- 
 juries to expiate ! I fear that the failure of the fiege 
 of Maubeuge is carried to the debtor fide of the ac- 
 count, and that the bill is fwelled not only by our 
 fatal obftinacy in dividing the allied forces, to un- 
 dertake that of Dunkirk, but by the critical af- 
 fidance we received after our misfortunes before it. 
 The main body of the armv extended its incurfions 
 from Quefnoy to the gates of Peronne and St. Quen- 
 tin's, and might have fat down before Maubeuge or 
 Cambrai, but was compelled to a virtual inactivity, 
 while no contemptible portion of its force was led 
 through the enemy's country from Valenciennes to 
 Dunkirk, along the fortified roads and intrenched 
 pods of the French, fatigued and diminifhed by con- 
 tinual and ufelels fkirmilhes, taking villages by ftorm, 
 blockading farms, and inverting paiifhes. While 
 Tournay and Courtray offered a fecure march, and 
 the army would have arrived by a route fcarce at all 
 circuitous, and free from every obftacle and danger, 
 fooner and unimpaired in the country where it was 
 dcltined to ad *. 
 
 * After the taking of Valenciennes, in confequence of a long march 
 and fuccelsful movements, the enemy retiring every way before it, 
 Maubeuge became blockaded ; the Duke of York was at Orchies, 
 
 from 
 
[ 33 ] 
 
 But when the Britifh army arrived at Dunkirk, I 
 muft afk of the moft determined partizan of govern- 
 ment, whether fuppofing the policy of that unfortu- 
 nate expedition, and the policy of not only weakening 
 but offending Monfieur de Saxe-Cobourg, I muft 
 afk. of him whether it were politic too, that there 
 mould exifl no concert nor understanding between 
 the Board of Admiralty and the Board of Ordnance, 
 and between neither of thefe and the army ? Whether 
 it were politic that the gun-boats and battering vef- 
 fels fhould have been conftructinp- at Woolwich when 
 
 o 
 
 they ought to have been in the channel, and the balls : 
 yet uncaft at Carron which were deftined to level the 
 Ramparts of Dunkirk ?* 
 
 from whence the army began its march on the i ijfh of Auguft, 
 through Cifoin, and Lannoy, near which places it encamped on the 
 fucceffive evenings, the next day it arrived at Menin, near which it 
 croffed the Lys on Pontons. In the evening the guards repafled 
 the Lys at Menin, (the bridge of Pontons having been removed) 
 for Lincelles. 
 
 * The author of this letter, for obvious reafons, cannot pledge 
 himfelf to prove this fact. He however afierts it upon his own per- 
 fect knowledge, and he defies the King's fervants, and the Mafter 
 General of the Ordnance in particular, to difpr&ve it. When there 
 came an order to the Warren for 80,000 balls, there was not half 
 that number in this great arfenal of the kingdom — the mips of war 
 were obliged to fail without their complete armament, and amongft 
 the crews of feveral (hips of the line, there was not a Angle cutlafs. 
 Fortunately the Nymphe was not amongft this clafs or number. He 
 afferts this fact with the fame defiance ! 
 
 D Let 
 
[ 34 ] 
 
 Let mc a/L too, I care not of whom, for all the 
 wealth of the treafury could not buy, nor all the im- 
 pudence of party fupply more than one anfvver, 
 whether fuppofing the policy of a continental war, it 
 were politic too to difcourage and difpirit our brave 
 troops, by the molt dreadful fpecies of neglect in the 
 provifion of the hofpitals, in the choice of the Sur- 
 geons ? Profuiion has reigned in every other depart- 
 ment, but it remains to be proved, that avarice and 
 paifimony were the caufes of the deficiency in this — 
 The drugs were of the worft quality, though the 
 quantity was an impediment to the movement of the 
 hofpitals, and is in itfelf a proper object of public en- 
 quiry, and fcarcely one man in ten who was fent out 
 knew the nature of a gun (Lot wound — The number 
 of brave-fellows who have fallen victims to their ig- 
 norance, is a iiibject upon which the callous minds 
 of Minifters can fcarce think with indifference. The 
 wounded officers have all had leave to comehome,the 
 poor privates, alas, could not meet with this indulgence, 
 ' Anima viles inhumata hifietaque turba /' But the voice 
 of humanity, but the nation. 1 honour and character, 
 will furely provoke a parliamentary enquiry. Mr. 
 Hunter is no more, or lie mio-ht in his own vindica- 
 tion have condefcended to inform us, by what job the 
 recommendation to thefe appointments was feparated 
 from his office, or by what cafuiflry he could defend 
 it to his confcience or the country, to have given a 
 diploma to a parcel of raw Scots lads, to maim, and 
 mutilate, and murder the Britifh. troops, becaufe of 
 
 their 
 
[ 35 ] 
 
 their intereft in a burgh or a corporation ? He might 
 perhaps have told the public how many of thefe fur- 
 geons or their mates, he had appointed, and whether 
 they paffed their examination before him or the clerks 
 in the treafury ? 
 
 Evlvy^Hs ixlgovs;, on rxs (jlsv sttiIv^ixs o HX/oj ogx, rxs ds. 
 avolvy^ixs tiTti kxKvtP.si. 
 
 While the folicitude of Ministers was divided be- 
 tween Flanders and their villas, while they fcoured 
 through the country, now to councils and now to 
 dinners, purfued by couriers fometimes, and fome- 
 times by admirals and commanders in chief, the af- 
 tonifhed kingdom beheld with mixed indignation 
 and gratitude, our Weft-India fleet laden with five 
 millions of property at the lead, bringing an aid of a 
 million fterling to the revenue, and two thoufand of 
 our bed and braveft feamen, to man the royal navy ; 
 I fay it beheld with mixed fentiments of gratitude 
 and indignation, our invaluable merchantmen enter 
 the channel under the protection of an eight and 
 twenty gun frigate. Afhamed of the difgraceful 
 danger we had run, we fcarce dared to be thankful, 
 frightened even at our unmerited efcape we were too 
 proud to rejoice, with a fullen but an honourable 
 filence we received this boon of heaven, which had 
 wafted our argofies, through the fleets and cruifers 
 of our enemy into our own ports, with no convoy 
 but fortune, no admiral but Providence ! 
 
 D 2 Give 
 
[ 36 ] 
 
 Give me leave to paufe for a moment here, not to 
 comment upon the crime, but to withdraw my eyes 
 from a fpectacle fo hideous, fo full of fear and dif- 
 hononr — our heads grow giddy when we look calmly 
 down from the precipice, from which an accident or 
 a miracle has preserved us. 
 
 And now let me afk you, my dear Sir, who pofTefs 
 as much good fenfe, and as much candour alfo, as 
 any man exifting, of you who have an opinion and 
 a vote to give in this extraordinary trial, of you by 
 whom other men, I fpeak not merely of your friends 
 or your constituents, by whom other men, who know 
 your independence and your integrity, and who 
 place confidence in your abilities and difcernment, 
 may regulate their own opinions and conduct ; let 
 me afic of you whether it be pofiible, I mean conlif- 
 tently with our public duties, to overlook all this 
 neglect and fupinenefs, or to excufe the criminal 
 plan laid down in the cabinet for the conduct; of the 
 war, and the abfurd and defective execution of that 
 criminal plan by the feveral boards and departments 
 of Government? Let me alk of you, whether it be 
 a fuihcient iatisfaction and atonement to the people 
 of thefe kingdoms to difplace an odious minifter, 
 or an ill tempered admiral, or to fix the unpunijhed 
 guilt upon the Admiralty, or the Ordnance? That 
 die Firft Lord of the Admiralty, and the Comman- 
 der in Chief ofthe naval forces of Great Britain deC- 
 pile and deteft each other, is no fecret to the country 
 
 at 
 
[ 37 3 
 
 at large, and the country st large is very willing to 
 range upon either, or upon both fides offo juft a dif- 
 pute. To turn out the Duke of Richmond may 
 gratify the fpleen, envy, and ill- nature of ministers, 
 and coincide, in fome degree, with the wifhes of the 
 nation; to force my Lord Chatham to decide be- 
 tween the Admiralty Board, where his apparition is 
 a phcenomenon, and White's Club, where his ab- 
 fence would be confidered as a fearful omen of public 
 misfortune, might lull the public complaints and 
 anxiety for one day, but could not, nor ought to do 
 it for a fecond. Still it is fmgular thai every accufa- 
 tion is dropped, and all animofity extinguished ; for 
 it is not here, " duo Ji dijeordia vexat inertes :" Ta- 
 citus has an exprefTion fomewhere, which defcribes 
 the cafe with greater truth and precifion — " Confaen- 
 tia criminis, fays he, pro amicitid eft :" — To be in a 
 common fault is a fpecies of friend [hip ; (you fee I 
 translate for the Attorney-General). After what I 
 have faid, and, 1 truft, after what you know of my 
 dilpofition, you will not think me particularly anxious 
 to require the immediate difmiffion or punifhrnent of 
 any of the King's fer-vants j though, were Iconfulted, 
 I mould feel myfelf obliged to advife it. Eut I can- 
 not help being fomewhat furprized, that fuch a mea- 
 fure has not been judged prudent and political, con-, 
 fidering the great difappointment of the public ex- 
 pectation, and the mifcarriage and difgrace which has 
 attended fo many of our expeditions. Indeed, Sir, 
 J am of opinion, that the root lies deep and branches 
 
[ 38 ] 
 
 wide, which enables Adminiftration to fit fo firm, 
 and to feel fo fecure, under fo great a weight of po- 
 litical difcontent and difappointment ; and I fufpect, 
 that any family, which can fo far brave and deride 
 the public opinion, muft be grown fomewhat too 
 powerful, bothfor the fafety of the country and its own! 
 
 If we were to throw our eye together over the com- 
 pofnion of the Cabinet, I think we (hould find matter 
 not only for aftonimment but for alarm: At the head 
 of all, the Minifter, his brother prefiding over the 
 Admiralty; his coufin ' one Secretary of State, his 
 creature the other ! To preferve any kind of equili- 
 brium or counterpoife to this enormous weight, fa- 
 tigues the policy, and exhaufts the genius of the 
 Court : The balance of Europe never employed fo 
 much thought, cabal, and intrigue, as the balance 
 of the Cabinet of Saint James's. For this Lord 
 Hawkefbury watches and trembles; for this all 
 colour has forfworne his cheek, and the pen (hakes 
 in his indefatigable fingers ! But it is not here 
 alone that the minifterial family feems to have ob-» 
 tained an undue preponderance ; we might contem- 
 plate it in another point of view, where it feems to 
 hold the compliant confeience of Parliament ; and 
 threatening now reform, and now diflblution, is as 
 powerful at Weftminfter, as it is fufpected, or for- 
 midable at St. James's. Shall we ftrengthen this am- 
 bitious Houfe, which is new to the country ? Are 
 we certain that we mould not entail a private defpo- 
 
 npbly j 
 
[ 39 ] 
 
 tifm over the Crown and the Houfe of Commons ? 
 I am fure you think too juftly, too honeftly, too 
 nobly ; you have family, you have property in the 
 kingdom ; you have a flake too great, both in mind 
 and body, to be committed to adventurers. If we 
 were to examine the conduct of affairs (incethey took 
 poffeffion of the helm, what promife have they kepi 
 with the people, what right have they reftored, what 
 advantage have they obtained for it ? We will not 
 rake the cinders of Oczacow ; we will not purfue 
 them too Nootka-Sound ; hiftory, posterity will 
 judge them, and with them that pernicious and dif- 
 honourable principle, that it is permitted to arm 
 where it is not permitted to go to war, and that a 
 generous and mighty nation may threaten where it 
 dares not, or cannot fight, 
 
 Habitet fecum & Jit pe clove in illo. 
 Neither will I lead you, for the prefent at leaft, to 
 examine into the artifice and duplicity which mif- 
 carried in the Commercial Treaty with Ireland, nor 
 the undifguifed fraud and impudence which made the 
 Declaratory Bill llccefsful in Great-Britain. The 
 prodigality with which the favours of the Crown have 
 been lavifhed, and the malignity with which the 
 hopes or pretenfions of particular families, too proud 
 or too honeft to worfhip the political idol of the day, 
 have been difappointed. The creation of new orders 
 of exploded chivalry, and the extenfion of the moft 
 honourable' and dtftinguiflied of the old intereft, I 
 have already (lightly remarked in the letters to which 
 
 D 3 I have 
 
[ 4° ] 
 
 I have alluded. It is true, the crime and turpitude 
 of all thefe things is more than doubled by the info- 
 lence and mockery with which they are perpetrated, 
 at a period of time when Parliaments have declared 
 the neceflity of abolifhing the influence of the Crown; 
 and the Minifies of the Crown, the neceflity of let- 
 ting bounds to the corruption of Parliaments ! And 
 it is true too, that thofe perfons who have accufed 
 the Minifter with having adopted the dangerous and 
 ungrateful policy of degrading and dilhonouring Par- 
 liaments, and reducing them to be the mere inftru- 
 ments and regifters of the will of the Court, have de- 
 rived an unexpected ftrength to their arguments from 
 the oftentation with which prodigality has been an- 
 nounced, and the impudence with which it has been 
 defended. And though thefe perfons will, it is to 
 be hoped, find fome difficulty in procuring profe- 
 lyres to their opinion, it would be uncandid in us, 
 not to acknowledge, that it would have been ealier 
 to repel their charge ; if the vice and corruption of 
 the Houfe of Commons had not been expofed with 
 fo much acrimony, and fo much addrefs by the Mi- 
 nifler himfclf ; if it had not been violently diliblved 
 and humiliated in 1784, and encouraged and incited 
 from that period to the prefcht, to fet the petitions 
 for reform at defiance, and to deny to the prayers of 
 the people the abolition of a fingle dilapidated bo- 
 rough ! 
 
 Nothing 
 
[ 4i ] 
 
 Nothing appears to me fo dangerous in public af- 
 fairs, as to leave accufations, no matter how falfe or 
 improbable, if they are attended with a fpecies of 
 plaufibility, unanfwered and unrefuted ; btcaufe the 
 family of Accufations is not only prolific, but mul- 
 tipaous ; and becaufe, notwithstanding their fer- 
 pent origin, they do not always rife to deftroy one 
 another, but fometimes unite and embrace, and de- 
 fend and promote one another, with all the zeal and 
 adherenceof Scotch confanguinity and connection. — ■ 
 Let us return to the Cabinet. 
 
 I do not only fufpect, as I have already expreffed 
 to you, that a certain Houfe may be grown too 
 powerful ; in confequence of which, it may not only 
 appear fafe to pardon, or to overlook particular 
 acts of negligence and delinquency, but unfafe to 
 punifh or to difmifs, or in any fhape to vary, or di- 
 flurb the nice equilibrium of the balance. But I 
 fear, and I more than fear, for I am convinced of it, 
 and confirmed in it, by my obfervation, and con- 
 verfation with other perfons, more able to judge and 
 determine, in fuch a matter, than I can pretend to 
 be, that the King's fervants deceive themfelves, and 
 miftake the ground they fland upon in the public 
 opinion ; an error the more eafy, and not thelefs fa- 
 tal, for them to fall into, fince the terror held out to 
 the public opinion, by the feverity of fome late pro- 
 fecutions and punifhments. Certainly, my dear Sir, 
 if the fears of one fide of the prefs, or the profligacy 
 
 of 
 
C 4* ] 
 
 of the other, have induced the King's fervarrts I 
 confider the diltruft and diflike we bear to Tome of 
 thole who oppofe them, as confidence or affection to- 
 wards themfelves ; if they vainly and falfely interpret 
 our averfion to anarchy and revolutions, into any 
 approbation of their own conduct or maxims of Go- 
 vernment ; if they will not diftinguilh between our 
 juft hatred of others and our jufl lufpicion of them- 
 felves, between our confier nation and furrow at their 
 own ignorance and imbecility, and our greater dread 
 of the principles and defigns of thofe who pofleis 
 more vigour and ability ± I fay, Sir, if they are lul- 
 led by the delulions of felf-love and vanity into this 
 fond belief, it is to be feared their errors cannot long 
 remain undetected, nor be finally difcovered, with- 
 out fome fatal prejudice to the peace and tranquil- 
 lity of the nation. For though it is difficult to fore- 
 fee, or at leaft would be vain and confident to de- 
 clare, with precision, the period of any delufion, it 
 is not only fafe, but it is modefl to alien, that the 
 people cannot for ever confent or fubmit to be guided 
 through the wildernefs of our prefent politics by this 
 pillar of fmoke, which knows no alteration of light; 
 and that, fatigued with its wanderings, and fick of 
 its diet, it will demand other leaders, or, perhaps, 
 other Gods. 
 
 The terror of French examples, and the hatred of 
 French principles, have been artfully excited and 
 encouraged by the nartizans of Minifters ; I fay art- 
 
 fully, 
 
[ 43 ] 
 
 fully, not becaofe it has been done unjuftly, but be 
 caufe it has been done with defign ; the cry of " Ja- 
 cobin, Jacobin," has been bellowed fo loudly in our 
 ears, that we have grown at lad deaf to it, juft as 
 thofe who make it, (hut their eyes while they make it, 
 that they may roar the louder. But this cry would 
 not have echoed fo conftantly to our organs, the mi- 
 nifterial tocfin would not have rung fo uninterrupt- 
 edly in every parifh of the kingdom, for the fole 
 purpofe of exciting our deteilation of the crimes and 
 maflacres that were committing in France ! Thank 
 God, there was no neceffity to imbue the minds of 
 Englishmen with hatred, and with horror, againft 
 murderers, and the murderers of women and of 
 Kings. The example of France too had ceafed to 
 be dangerous as foon as ever her arms became fo. 
 Since the ioth of Auguft, or the 30th of September 
 at lateft, in the year 1792, Europe has not been ex- 
 pofed to the danger of being corrupted, but of being 
 conquered by the Republic ; ilie has not been ex- 
 pofed to be deluded, but to be over-run ; ihe has 
 not been threatened with fophifms and paradoxes, 
 but with bayonets and canon ; me is not invaded by 
 feditious principles and revolutionary writings, but 
 by barbarous hordes, which mifery vomit? from their 
 native land, which defpair, a moral, and hunger 
 a phyfical neceffity, compell to conquer, and their 
 adopted principles to defolate mankind. No, Sir, 
 the cry fo artfully encouraged and prolonged, was 
 prolonged at lead, to anfvver the purpofes of party 
 
 and 
 
[ 44 ] 
 
 and of corruption at home. The Jacobins, who 
 were reprefented in fiich odious colours, and pointed 
 out to To much fufpicion and perfecution, were not 
 always thofe who had put all the property, and all 
 the lives in France, under a conftant flate of requi- 
 sition, and lined her extended frontiers with armed 
 peafants, compelled to march from her center ; it 
 was not always the Jacobins who threatened, and 
 who threaten Hill to deluge Europe with their na- 
 tionality and their pikes j but the Jacobins, who 
 wifhed to reform the abufes of the Court, and fecure 
 the liberty and independency of Parliaments; the 
 Jacobins, who would have been worlhipped at the 
 Revolution, and who threatened to reftore the con- 
 stitution to the principles which prevailed, or were 
 recognized at the Revolution. Thefe were more 
 terrible to our placemen and courtiers, than the Ja- 
 cobins, that were destroying the very principle of 
 property, and levelling every hedge, and removing 
 every land -mark in Europe. Could there have been 
 at fuch a time, and during fcenes like the prefent, 
 an indifferent Spectator in any part of our trembling 
 quarter of the globe, it mult have fmiled to obferve 
 the vigilance and activity of the war which had been 
 declared againft the bookfellers, while that which 
 was waged againft the Republic, feemed, liable to 
 all the demurrers and interlocutors of a Court of 
 Chancery ; he would have contrafted the vigour ot 
 the crown-lawyers, and their victories too, with the 
 caution of our Admirals, and with their mifcarriages; 
 
 he 
 
C 45 J 
 
 he would have compared the manifeftoes of the At- 
 torney-General with the informations of the Mini- 
 iler ; and 1 fear, Sir, he would have more than fmiled, 
 to contemplate the triumphs of Government, atchiev- 
 ed, not by our fleets and armies, but by our juftices 
 and juries, our prifons more filled with printers than 
 with Frenchmen, and the circuits fo much more glo- 
 rious and fuccefsful than the campaign! I will not 
 indulge the pleafantry that fuggefts itfelf unwillingly 
 to my mind; unwillingly, indeed, for it is in fpite 
 of our misfortunes and difhonour. — To return. 
 
 There certainly was no longer any danger of our 
 imitating the French Revolution. France might ftill 
 preach, indeed ; but emaciated and expiring in her bath 
 of blood, with all her fcribes around her, fhe did not 
 prefent fo lovely a picture to the eye, nor addrefs 
 fuch winning fentences to the ear or heartj that we 
 needed to dread the influence either of her precepts 
 or her example. But what at firfl fight feems unac- 
 countable, the danger that had fucceeded to this was 
 at lead as carefully concealed and difTembled by the 
 Court and the Cabinet, as ever the preceding ones 
 had been by the Oppofition, or the Reformers. A 
 learned Gentleman has written a very laborious pam- 
 phlet (I mean laborious to read, for I think too well 
 of his talents to fufpect he found any great difficulty 
 in the compofition) for the purpofe of explaining to 
 us the " real grounds of the war." But with the 
 leave of the learned Gentleman, (" quern dii donent 
 ton/ore,'" may he foon be a Serjeant) he has con- 
 founded 
 
[ 46 ] 
 
 founded the grounds of the war with the circrm- 
 flancesthat made it impoffible to delay hoftilities be- 
 yond the month of February, 1793. It is not an 
 information nor an indictment againft the National 
 Convention, that it mould have been required of 
 the learned Gentleman's induftry to draw up, it is 
 not an accufation againft thofe who are already con- 
 demned, nor is it a cold enumeration of their various 
 follies and delinquencies that could have juftified the 
 enormous promife of his title-page. I expected, I 
 confefs, when I took up his pamphlet, that he would 
 have told us what were the caufes of the war, which 
 had not yet been avowed by his majefty's fervants ; 
 or, at leaft, that he would have defended and efta- 
 bliflied all thofe which they had hitherto affigned for 
 it. To fay the truth, I was at leaft difappointed, but 
 the learned Gentleman (hall experience no afperity 
 from me. When I find, in the month of No- 
 vember his Majefty's Minifters publifliing their 
 " real grounds of the war," and find thefe 
 grounds concealed and diflembled in the Royal Ma- 
 nifefto, it would bej unpardonable, indeed, not to 
 pardon john bowles esquire ! But it would be, 
 I think, more unpardonable; nay, I think it were 
 an act of cowardice or treachery to iupprefs one's feel- 
 ings, upon all this bafe and difhonourable chicanery. 
 Thofe who arrogate to themfelves to fpeak in a na- 
 tion's name, fliould at leaft be capable of affuming, 
 fcr a moment, the national character and fincerity. 
 They mould diftinguim between their habitual dif- 
 
 fimulation 
 
[ 47 1 
 
 Smulation and falfehood as Minifters, and thofe pe- 
 riodical acts of ftate, which are authenticated and 
 impreffed with the characters of truth by name or 
 fignature of the Sovereign! The real ground of 
 this war is to repel invafion, to refill oppreffion, to 
 defend the laws, the liberty, the religion, the hearths, 
 the fields, of Great Britain ; the grond of the war is 
 the ground we ftand upon ; itis our native foil, upon 
 which we rear our children, which hides the dear and 
 facred remains of our beloved progenitors ! Let me 
 refume myfelf — What is it we are fighting for ? for 
 the ancient Monarchy in France ? Heaven forbid ! 
 For the Conftitutional Monarchy and the Jacobins 
 of 1789, as vile and criminal, though not fo able, or 
 fo bold as thofe of 1792 ? Still Heaven forbid ! To 
 deflroy the Republic under any pretence? Oh, Hea- 
 ven forbid! Why then have we combined all Eu- 
 rope in a common caufe ? And why do we cover 
 the ocean with our fleets, and the continent with our 
 tents ? To comprefs within the girdle of their ftate, 
 a ferocious race, who have declared an interneciary 
 war, againfl every efiablifhmenr, every form of hu- 
 man polity, every order of civil life and fociety ; who 
 have trampled upon every tye, every duty, every 
 principle which connects men together, who have 
 broke through every attachment, either local, or na- 
 tural, or civil, who have made all property common, 
 and put the perfons, the property, the profefiions, 
 and the will of men at the public requifition ? Who 
 fweep with indifcriminating fury, the inhabitants 
 
 from 
 
[ 43 ] 
 
 from the villages, and drive their peafants from the 
 plough to the ilaughter-houfe, indifferent to their 
 lories, impenetrable to pity or remorfc ; a race, who 
 have forfuorn commerce and the peaceful arts, who 
 have left their fields unlbwn, while they meditate the 
 plunder of foreign harvefts ; who have left their hou- 
 fes defblace and forlorn, while they threaten with 
 conqueft and extermination, the towns, the farms, 
 the cottages of furrounding nations. 
 
 Thcfe are the caufes cf the war, and the caufes too 
 why all the queftions that regard a peace are fo vain 
 and illufory ? Why fhould we treat (1 fpeak not now 
 of the national character and glory) why fhould we 
 treat? Will treaties bind this furious people ? No: 
 they muft perceive their own madnefs, and punitli 
 their own criminals before any power can treat with 
 them ; and they muft return to principles, and to 
 arts, and employments too, before we or other ftates 
 can lay down our arms with fecurity. We cannot 
 make peace, becaufe if we made peace, they would 
 only be the more intent and the more powerful to 
 make war ; but it is lingular that the King's Ser- 
 vants, who I am not afraid to affirm, defer ve every 
 punilhment, if they make the war or would make 
 the peace upon different principles, fhould preferve 
 the iilence and difcretion of their advocate, fince one 
 would naturally imagine their caufe would derive, 
 credit and popularity from the carefull and elaborate 
 difplay, either he orthemielves are (o well calculated to 
 
 make 
 
[ 49 ] 
 
 make of them. But when the conduct of the war is 
 (o criminal, and fo unfortunate, there is fome policy, 
 or rather cunning, I think, in diffembling the im- 
 portance of the ftake. I fubmit to you, Sir, whether 
 even this act of bafenefs and duplicity, could have 
 been fafely put in practice, without a greater degree 
 of power and fecurity than any one family ought to 
 feel or to poffefs ? 
 
 I appeal, therefore, to you once more, whether it 
 be poffible to give confidence (I fpeak not now of 
 fupport, but believe me, it is a terrible fituation, 
 both for the country, and for the peace and con- 
 fcience of individuals, to be obliged to feparate con- 
 fidence from fupport) to give confidence to one im- 
 perious family, or to one overbearing Minifter, who 
 either knows not, or conceals the political flate of 
 Europe, and of the kingdom; who having conquer- 
 ed Parliament, is enabled to brave and defy the Peo- 
 ple; who having publicly broken his word with the 
 People, has entrenched himfelf behind a hedge of 
 parliamcntry corruption, of titles, places, penfions, 
 and ribbands, till he fits fecure of punifhment, and 
 impenetrable to fhame ? 
 
 Ohji tejiiculi vena id I a paterni 
 Viveret in nobis I 
 
 " We are fo far," fays my Lord Bolingbroke, in 
 fome part of his political writings, " from pofTeffing 
 the virtues of our anceftors, that we have not inhe- 
 
 E This 
 
[ 5° ] 
 
 rited even the fpirit and manlinefs of their vices." 
 This was no doubt addreiled to the feelings of thofc 
 whom the proftituted Minifter of his time had cor- 
 rupted, or whom corruption enabled the Minifter 
 to infult and fet at defiance. What would that ar- 
 dent fpirit, that eloquent tongue, have faid to us, had 
 he furvived into our time, and beheld all the vices, 
 all the corruption of Walpole, near the throne ; with- 
 out his love for the Conftitution, his good-nature, or 
 fmcerity r* What would he have faid, if inftead of 
 
 * The prefs was never more free than under Sir Robert Wal- 
 pole's Adminiftration. He engaged mercenary writers it is true, 
 but not with more tafte or difcernment, nor to a greater extent, 
 than is actually practifed by Government : the field, however, was 
 open to his antagonilts ; and during the whole period of his power 
 the defpotifm of informations, and the fervility of Attornies and 
 Solicitors General were never directed, as they have fince been, to 
 crufli the liberty of opinion, and ftifle the very murmurs of liberty. 
 Unlike to fome of his fucceffors, this man was not nulla virtute 
 reclemptns a vitiis ; he poffeffed fome of the fterling virtues of the 
 country, though they were frequently extinguished or obfeured by 
 the vices of his fituation : he was not a hypocrite even in corrup- 
 tion ; and though he was enough a Minifter to bribe, he was too 
 much an Englifhman to opprefs. He loved peace, becaufe he 
 thought it was neceffary to the commerce and profperity of his 
 country : if he fubfidized the electors of the empire, or the 
 kings of the north, it was to preferve peace, and to gratify, 
 without the expence, and the calamities of war, that German 
 l1opy» which he found to be uncontroulable in the Princes on 
 the throne. His vices were prominent from the blunt Englifh fm- 
 cerity of his character ; and even thefe may be regretted in Eng- 
 land as often as his virtues lhall be wanting in fucceffors, who fliall 
 poffefc and exceed them all ; and whenever the hypocrites and pha- 
 
 rifees. 
 
 
[Si ] 
 
 his brother Horace,, patient, vigilant, indefatigable 
 in bufmefs, he had beheld a brother, negligent, ig^ 
 norant, indolent, inacceflible, prefiding over the very 
 firft adive department in the war, but invifible to an 
 officer, and a ftranger at his own board ? What if 
 the foreign feals in the hands of another relation* 
 puQied up to premature honours, and the counter- 
 part, in vanity and inexperience, to his coufin ? Oh 
 generis fiducia ! What if another Mjnifter, whom it 
 would be a libel to defcribe by any thing but his of- 
 fices, holding the fceptre of India in one hand, and 
 the Secretary's feals in the other, enthroned, in 
 Leadenhall-ftreet, and cringing at St. James's ; pre- 
 fiding befides over another board of equal emolu- 
 ment, and almoft equal importance, not to mention 
 1 know not how many offices and finecures in Scotr 
 land ? What if he difcovered another Scotfman at 
 the head of the Court of Chancery,* forming a party 
 
 under 
 
 rifees of Adminiftration fhall offer profane and oftentatious thanks 
 in the Temple, that they are not 'as this Publican ! 
 
 * It may be thought I have faid little of this important profe- 
 lyte, and it may be attributed to faftidioufnefs. But I caution the 
 public againft drawing fuch an inference from my referve. I pro- 
 teft I refpect my Lord Loughborough as much, I think, as any 
 of his Majefty's Minifters ; and I deem him, in many refpe&s, 
 a fit perfon to prelide over the Court of Chancery. As to his be- 
 ing a Scotfman, it is doubtlefs his misfortune ; but I think the ob- 
 jection would have come better when Rome was Rome, while 
 »-e could have punifhed the treacheries of our Alban neighbour 
 E a . ©r 
 
[ $» ) 
 
 under the patronage and connivance of a man, whe- 
 ther he be a Minifter or not, I defy any one to tell 
 me : a King's friend (as if Kings had friends) a King's 
 favourite, the eye-fore of every Adminiftration, the> 
 enemy and the accomplice of every Minifter : cold, 
 cowardly, and callous, intriguing, plotting, balanc- 
 ing, undermining, overthrowing every man and every 
 fyftem by turns; too bafe and timid to truft himfelf 
 in the noon and glare of power, ihrinking and 
 creeping in the rank ihade and thicket of favour j 
 like the baleful ivy that climbs and tangles round out 
 royal oak, blading the noble pith with its chill gra- 
 titude, blighting the verdant arms with its accurft 
 embraces ? What, I fay, if he faw fuch a man pro* 
 viding refources and palliatives, applying his orvietan 
 or catholicon, his political noftrums and quackeries, 
 
 or at leaft defpifed them, with a folind confcience, and with un- 
 wrung withers ; and while it was of confequence to our feelings of 
 honour, as Well as to our interefts, who were the guardians of ouf 
 Tights, and the oracles of our laws ; before it had been dreamed that 
 courts of judicature might become inftruments of minifteria) 
 revenge or policy; and while there feemed no lefs reafon to drea3 
 unjuft decifions between man and man, than between the fubjeci 
 and the crown. For my own part, I am happy to fee this noble 
 lawyer placed where his fentences can neither be liable to the fufpi-' 
 cion nor the temptation of complacency to the Court. And I re- 
 joice, in the prefent crifis of affairs, not only to behold him where 
 he is, but to mifs him where he is no longer. I will not weigh & 
 hundred Dunkirks (a town, by the bye, not unapt to prove fatal tp 
 Chancellors) nor the expence of providing for all his clan at Tou^- 
 lon, nor all the falaries, the half-pay, and the penfions that unten- 
 able town ftill cofts us, againft the purity, the unfpotted chara&ef 
 of one court of common law ! 
 
 to 
 
[ 53 1 
 
 to protect the Crown againft its own fervant ; form- 
 ing fubdivifions of parties, and fubdividing thefe, 
 marfhalling Court Lords, and inftructing Court 
 Members, appointing Chancellors, and Prefidents, 
 and Privy Seals ; and all to protect the King againft 
 the overbearing influence of his own Minifter ? Ah, 
 what would he not have faid ? He would have 
 fhaken our aftonithed fouls; his patriot accents 
 would have quivered in our degenerate hearts, would 
 have roufed the Briton -part of us, the Divina parti* 
 lidam aurtfy 
 
 Oh, Bolingbroke! thou hadft not founded a trum- 
 pet in a deaf man's ear! Truth, the neceffity of thy 
 foul; Virtue, the genius of thy birth; and Honour, 
 the nurfe and Mentor of thy whole nature; all had 
 fpoken to us in thee ! Thy lips, where Eloquence, 
 where Conviction fate; thy clamc lips, whence Rea- 
 fon and Perfuafion flowed in mingling dreams; thy 
 ardent fpirit, and thy tongue of fire, had broke the 
 deep of Haves, and flung the fouls of tyrants! St. 
 John, awake! break through thy Runic fl umber; 
 reach me thy pen of flame, to which the fall of hy- 
 pocrites and traitors is promifed' and referved by 
 Fate! Or rather come thou, like fome heaven-fa- 
 voured hero, to difpel the mill that hangs upon our 
 eyes, and hangs upon our fouls ! Come, and difpel 
 the charms of that accurft enchantrefs, that Circaean 
 hag, Corruption! Corruption! Uiat deforms 
 pur character, depraves our mind, and brutalizes our 
 E 3 exiftence \ 
 
[ 54 ] 
 
 exiftence! Bid us be men once more; the nobleft 
 of the race of men, be Britons! 
 
 It is very natural, my dear Sir, and I had the plea- 
 fure to find you fully fenfible of the importance of 
 the obfervation, to confider the relative weaknefs of 
 Miniftry, at a time when there is hardly any vifible 
 oppofition to it in Parliament; and when that oppo- 
 fition is become both hateful and contemptible in 
 the eyes of the nation. The fears and artifices of 
 Government too, are fo much the more worthy of our 
 attention at the prefent moment, becaufe its pofuive 
 ftrength is fo enormoufly preponderant, that it is 
 evident there mult exift iome fecret moral counter- 
 poife to fo great a phyiical inequality. When we 
 contemplate an Adminiftration fo powerful, as I think 
 lias no parallel in the free hiftory of our country, 
 flrengthened not only by numerous and important 
 defertions, but by the common apprehenfion and 
 danger of all the proprietors in the kingdom ; I fay, 
 when we fee fuch an Adminiftration trembling and 
 wavering, and wanting courage to announce to us all 
 the real dangers that fur round us, it is clear either 
 that it is itfelf confeious of its own incapacity and 
 inability to extricate us from them, and of errors and 
 crimes committed by it, of which the fatal confe- 
 quences can be only concealed by difTembling the 
 perilous fituation of the country : or elfe that it is itfelf 
 curbed and preffed down by the weight of fome fupe-» 
 rior, but invifible power. Another circumftance, 
 
 which 
 
[ ss 1 
 
 which I think well worthy your reflection, is the great 
 degree of caution with which, notwithstanding all 
 their antipathy to Jacobins and Republicans, the 
 King's fervants have avoided to pledge themfelves 
 again ft treating with the French regicides. Even 
 the declaration of my Lord Auckland, before they 
 would aflurae its defence, was emafculated in the 
 tranflation, with an affected ignorance of the French 
 language, and a wilful violation of one of the com- 
 moner!: of its idioms. Now, Sir, why all this anxiety 
 in Minifters to keep fome poftern for negociation, 
 fome pretence in referve, fome hope or contingency 
 for treating ? Ufque adeone mori miferum eft f Are they 
 determined in cafe of final difcomfiture and humilia- 
 tion, to treat with the Jacobins rather than refign ? 
 When they have ruined us by the war, will they not 
 be contented without dilhonouring us by the peace ? 
 Believe me, the fcabbard is thrown away, if we can- 
 not make the next peace as mailers, or as umpires 
 rather, we can only have the name of peace, with all 
 the expence, and all the anxiety, and more than all 
 the dangers of war. But if the war is to continue to 
 be carried on with the fame abfurdity and negli- 
 gence, which has hitherto given us fo many occa- 
 fions for regret and conilernation, there is no doubt 
 but that it will compel us to make fuch a peace : and 
 will not the King's fervants even then abandon the 
 ungrateful talk to the friends of whoever may happen 
 to be the Briflbt of the day; to thofe Britifli patriots, 
 the dearnefs of whofe connection with our enemies, 
 
 E 4 may 
 
C 56 ] 
 
 may win from their relenting nature, fome milder 
 terms of ruin, fome breathing time between the dif- 
 arming and the deftruction of Carthage? 
 
 The fituation of France is fuch, that (lie mud con- 
 quer and over-run all Europe, or be conquered and 
 reftrained by it. That nation, confiding of twenty- 
 four millions of inhabitants, is divided into foldiers 
 and hufbandmen ; and the fir ft clafs, let its lodes be 
 what they will, is perpetually renewed and recruited 
 from the fecond. Confifcation has hitherto reple- 
 nished the treafury : inftead of taxation, now an ob- 
 fclete, or anti-revolutionary term, the pillage of the 
 rich, and the ranfom of the fufpected, have liberally 
 fupplied the enormous exigencies of the date. There 
 is no bankruptcy, becaufe there is no book : there is 
 no doppage, becaufe there is no account : without 
 foreign commerce, the affignat is neceiiarily at par ; 
 and fince the danger is found fo great to poffefs, or 
 to be thought to poflefs, fpecie or bullion, it is not 
 impoffible that it lhould bear in its turn an agio over 
 thofetroublefome and perilous metals/againd which it 
 has fo long been indignantly difcounted : there is no 
 property but that of the nation ; every arm, and every 
 portefeuit/e, are at the immediate difpofal of the Con- 
 vention ; the whole treafure and force of the empire 
 are moved and directed by a fingle committee, which 
 pofiedes more power, and not lefs forefight and ac- 
 tivity than Louvois and the miniders of Lewis the 
 Fourteenth : and never did the vain device of that 
 
 ambitious 
 
C 57 1 
 
 ambitious tyrant, in the zenith of his afcendency 
 over Europe, become his efcutcheon half fo well as 
 it would thefe new and fanguinary colours, which 
 oppofed to all the earth, have fcarce loft an inch of 
 ground in the extended ftruggle. To conceal the 
 flrength and refources of the enemy, is, in my mind, 
 as weak and vain, as it is cowardly and bafe. What 
 hope that we fhould refift and furmount the dangers 
 which we tremble to look upon, and which thofe 
 who lead us to the onfet conceal with fraud and ar- 
 tifice from our eyes ? We are told, however, that 
 fuch a fyftem cannot endure; that thefe violent ex- 
 ertions mud end quickly in laffitude and impotency. 
 I am not of this opinion. 1 think this fyftem, and 
 thefe exertions, may very probably outlaft every other 
 fyftem, and conquer all other exertions : and I think 
 fo, becaufe I o'oferve thefe other fyftems not only to 
 be decayed and corrupted, but impelled and precipi- 
 tated to their fall, by the folly or treachery of thofe 
 who ought rather to repair and invigorate them, and 
 becaufe I obferve thofe exertions directed rather to 
 defend the rottennefs and vermin of thefe fyftems, than 
 to oppofe the (hock from without, or to ftrenghten 
 the arfenal within. 
 
 The enigma of the ftate of France is limply this, 
 why do men fubmit to be placed in a ftate of per- 
 petual requifition ; how have they been induced to 
 believe that in whatever they acquire or poflefs, that 
 in their houfes, their fields, and their bodies, they 
 
[ 58 ] 
 
 are only truftees and fiduciary committees for the 
 public ? Neither terror nor enthufiafm appear to me 
 to account fatisfactorily for this moral phenomenon; 
 individuals have felt, or profeffed to feel, this fublimc 
 of patriotifm, in every age, becaufe in every age, 
 admiration and popularity have been difcounted 
 againfl tranquillity and againft gold : but fuch a fen- 
 timent has not become common or universal, not- 
 withstanding the lbphiftry and the panegyrics of fo 
 many orators and philofophers, and the romances of 
 fo many poets, and hiftorians. In the Fable of Cur- 
 tius or the hiftory of the Decii, there is here as much 
 of vanity at leaft, and there as much of defpair, as 
 there is of patriotifm and felf-de voted nefs to the pub- 
 lic caufe j the deed of Brutus, Manlius, Virginius, 
 and fo many others, were no doubt held up rather as 
 objects of admiration in the fchools of Rome, than of 
 example and imitation; the fternnefs and ferocity of 
 the Roman charader during the republican age, have 
 probably been chiflelled in a deep relief by the bell 
 of their hiftorians, who when they fpoke of the an- 
 cient manners and fimplicity, betrayed frequently as 
 much as it was fafe for them to do of their antipathy 
 to the corruption and abufes of their own age. 
 
 The drama of Corneille, and fome of the plays 
 of Shakefpear have familiarized the moft enlight- 
 ened countries of Europe with this caricature of 
 their manners, and the effect of that vulgar and 
 exaggerated opinion, has been frequently very di- 
 ftincl in the progrefs of the revolution. We find 
 the younger Brutus fpeaking with doubt and dif- 
 
 3 fidence, 
 
t 59 ] 
 
 fidence, and confoling himfelf at length by pro- 
 found reflexion, and philofophical arguments, for 
 that extraordinary a-5t, which has made him fo cele- 
 brated amongft mankind. Pojlquam illnd confcivi fa- 
 tinus, is an expreffion made ufe of by himfelf with re- 
 gard to it ; and in the whole of the letter in which it 
 is to be found, if my memory does not deceive me, 
 you will obferve him fpeaking of it, not only with 
 modefty but with doubt, and anxious to juftify it to' 
 hisown mind, rather than to vaunt or boaft of it to his 
 vain, but wavering correfpondent. But it would lead 
 very far from the object of this Letter, were I to un- 
 dertake to defend the republicans of Rome from all 
 that imputation of ferocity, which, I think, has very 
 unjuftly been fallened upon their manners. It is fuf- 
 ficient for my argument that their fa'cinota, which I 
 understand rather in a doubtful than an accufatorial 
 fenfe, made very few proielytes amongft. them, and 
 never converted any feci: or fociety of men, much 
 lefs the majority ormafs of their nation; and I mould, 
 think it a fair inference, that the barbarities and maf- 
 facres of France were as little calculated to operate 
 fo general a converfion 3 as for terror, I think it 
 might have had its effect, while the nation looked 
 calmly down upon the crimes of its firfh knots of ban- 
 ditti ; that it might have im.pofed a momentary afto- 
 nifhment or filence, while the firft heads were fpiked, 
 and the firft victims mangled at Paris, but that it 
 never could have caufed all that activity, ail that con- 
 currence and competition in cruelty, that rival race 
 
 La 
 
[ 60 ] 
 
 in guilt and horror that has been run by every de- 
 partment, every diftridt, every municipality, every 
 contemptible club and fection of the empire. I think, 
 'therefore, we muft look for fome other principle to 
 account for the extraordinary fpectacle which we arc 
 eonfidering. Thefe men who fuffer fo horrible a ty-- 
 ranny, who breathe {o oppreffive a fanaticifm, why 
 do they fubmit to it? becaufe they eat, becaufe they 
 «h"ink,.becaufe they have a phyfical fuhiciency, which 
 the hard heart and habitual tyranny of their Lords 
 denied them before. The French, I believe, in my 
 confeience, are the mod corrupt, the moft. wicked, 
 and the moft fanguinary nation upon the face of this 
 earth, but they are not a ftupidnor a dull one. They 
 compare the pad tyranny with the prefent, and prefer 
 the prefent, becaufe the firft, like the interrogators of 
 their Baftilles, reduced and exhaufted the body be- 
 fore it began to intimidate or excruciate the mind ; 
 and the fecond, with all its cruelties, at leafh accom- 
 panies the prels with the bounty ; and though it forces 
 them to fight, both feeds and rewards them for fight- 
 ing. The French people, therefore, are doubtlefs 
 happier fince the Revolution than ever they were be- 
 fore it, for this plain reafon, that they eat and drink, 
 and their health and fpirits encreafe with their repub- 
 licanifm. They do not, indeed, perceive, that the 
 banquet cannot lad at which all fit down ; they do 
 not read the writing on the wall, nor behold the 
 ghofl of '* Famine fcowling at the feaft ;" but " plus 
 fapil papa/us," fays Lactantius, I think, in hb Trea- 
 ties 
 
[ «* ] 
 
 tife Ds Divina Sapientia, " quia tantum quantum opnx 
 tji fapit; but whether he has laid fo, or I hwo 
 dreamed it, I am equally convinced, that the French, 
 nation, in contradiction to the pufillanimous Mani- 
 fefto of our own, is attached, and firmly attached by 
 thefe powerful, thefe natural ties to the new form of 
 its Government ; and this, in fpite of the new prin. 
 ciples of requifition and nationality, which have hitherto 
 defeated the calculations of Statefmen, and the con*, 
 federations of Courts. 
 
 I mall now, Sir, if you will pardon me, for em- 
 ploying fo much of your leifure, take fome (light no-. 
 lice of the Jacobins, of whom I (hall venture to 
 fpeak in terms, rather unufual in this country, and 
 very different from all that j.uft horror, and that 
 vulgar abufe which have been fo induftriouily excited 
 and directed againft them. The Jacobins have com- 
 mitted no crimes that 1 know of, which have not 
 been participated and avowed by the nation : even in 
 all the feries of emigrations, if 1 except the very nrft 
 of all,, and afterwards that of the priefts, I can difcover 
 no emigrations bur emigrations of Jacobins. The Fei> 
 illans, Monarchies, Conflitutionalifts, Miniflerialifts, 
 Moderates, by whatever name they have been cele-,. 
 brated for a moment, what are they but Jacobins ? 
 Were the Jacobins lefs Jacobins when they were pre- 
 fided by BritTot than by Marat ? Is Mirabeau lefs a 
 Jacobin, that now his bones are turned out of the 
 Pantheon ? The fact is, every man while he moves on 
 
 with 
 
[ 61 ] 
 
 with the'ftream is Jacobin, and when he thinks of flop- 
 ping his career, or of bn. ailing the flood, he becomes 
 Conftitutionalift, or fcederalill, or fomcthing elfe, no 
 matter what, the name of which is a pailport to the 
 guillotine. The Jacobins arc neither more nor lefs 
 than the French nation, with the exception of fome 
 of the nobles and the majority of the priefts, and 
 though by their fuperior abilities and courage, fome 
 of them have been able to aiilmic great power, and 
 to obtain a v r ery high afcendency in the public coun- 
 cils, it is clear that they have accompliflied thefe ob- 
 jects of their ambition, by complying with the unjuft 
 and inteieiled deiiresof the people, not by forcing or 
 tyrannizing their will, and that no crimes have been 
 committed that were not popular, and demanded by 
 the nation. Nothing can therefore be fo abfurd, fo 
 mean, fo pitiful, as to endeavour to rcprefent them, 
 as a particular and infulated fiction, who have ufurp- 
 ed the powers of government, and flill retain them 
 in fpite of the wiihes ot the nation, in favour of 
 Lewis the Seventeenth ; this miltake coft Monfieur 
 de Leifart his life, and five months imprifonment,- 
 difgraced the Prince of Kaunitz, * for whole dotage 
 
 * It is but juftice to the Prince of Kaunit2, to diftinguifh his 
 office from our own manifefto; his was abfurd, but it was not 
 indecent. In March 1792 the Conftitution prevailed, and the Ja- 
 cobins or republicans were as much a faction as a great majority of 
 of any country is capable of being. In November 1793, the re- 
 publicans were the conftitutcd authorities of the ftate, and the Bri- 
 tifli Miniflxy renewed the abfurdity of M. de Kaunitz, with an imr 
 pudeuce entirely its own.. 
 
 it 
 
E 63 J 
 
 it paffed, I believe very unjuftly, in the eyes of Ei> 
 rope, (for I can fcarce hefuate to think his famous . 
 di [patch was a mere charte blanche, filled up by the 
 Auftrian Committee in the Thuilleries) and it is now 
 again reproduced, with no better omens, in the ma- 
 nifefto of the Court of St. James's. 
 
 It is certain, however, that the Jacobins of to day, 
 are of a deeper ftain than the Baillys and Fayettes who 
 have faded off the canvafs of revolutions ; even Brif- 
 fot and Condorcet, that cold calculator of ufeful vil- 
 lainy, pretended to Come degree of humanity, when 
 forced to oppofe the Marats and Dantons ; and it is 
 now very eafy to obferve the young ambition of 
 Hebert and Chaumette, goading and pricking the 
 jaded cruelty of the Robefpierres and Barreres ; thefe 
 men however will probably reign a little longer, and 
 whenever they ceafe to reign, it will not be, becaufc 
 their ufurpation is difcovercd or their yoke uneafy, 
 but becaufe they have not advanced in Jacobinifm as 
 fart as the current of the nation, but fuffered them- 
 felves to be fur paffed by men ftill bolder and more 
 remorfelefs than themfelves. Were Briffot, or any of 
 the twenty deputies who fuffered with him monar- 
 chists ? No : Was Charlotte Corde a royalift ? No : 
 this affaffin was as Jacobin as Marat himfelf ; fhe 
 was a republican , and fhe was converted to the doc- 
 trine of the lawfulnefs of ufeful crimes. Clement, 
 Ravaillac, would have been fuch republicans had they 
 cxifted in our age or had republicanifm been fubfti • 
 
 tuted 
 
E «4 1 
 
 tutcd to religion in their own. It is extraordinary 
 that La Vendee with all its fuperflition, (for it is really 
 fuperftitious and prieft-riddcn) has not produced a 
 fingle faint of this order, while infidelity feems to be 
 fo fertile in enthuiiafts and martyrs. Where are the 
 figns of royalifm to be found in France? At Toulon? 
 Surely not, for it is that very Conllitution tlu-y de- 
 clared for, which has been found incapable of pro- 
 tecting royalty, and of which the republic is the true 
 and lineal defcendant. But this they never dreamed 
 .of, till having failed in their plots of foederalifm, and 
 frightened by the puniihment. of their accomplices 
 at Marfeilles, and the flight of the Girondists, they 
 faw no hope of efcaping punifhment, but by cal- 
 ling in the combined fquadron, upon almoft any 
 terms, to their protection. All the deputies expired 
 invoking the duration of the republic. — But is it 
 in La Vendee ? Alas ! It had taken refuge here with 
 perfecuted faitli ; and here they both lie buried in 
 one undiftinguillied heap of cinders, a monument of 
 the power and of the implacable ferocity of their per- 
 fecutors. 
 
 There is only one fenfe in which I can confent to 
 confider the Jacobins as diflind from the nation at 
 at large, and that is as the leaders or Minifters of 
 the nation ; in that fenfe, I think, they would have 
 the advantage in comparifon, over thofe minifterial 
 factions which prevail in Courts, and adminifter fo 
 frequently the afftirs, in contradiction to the willies 
 
 of 
 
[ «5 ] 
 
 of nations ; and to confider them in this the word 
 point of view, I imagine they will not be found to be 
 contemptible, fince they have hitherto fairly beat and 
 outwitted every Court and Cabinet in Europe, in i' ..- 
 ufe of fraud, bribery, and perfecikioj 
 ftruments cf our modern £overnr> - 
 the force of their unhinged and disjoint . ft 
 a degree of vigour, ability, and fuccefs, that oiiglit to 
 extort blulhes from other Minifters, who are at lead: 
 as far removed from refembling them in theif talents 
 as in their crimes. — They are men, to ufe the words 
 of one of our poets, 
 
 Fit to dijiurb the peace of all mankind, 
 And rule it when 'tis wildejl. 
 
 The Prince of Kaunitz-Ritzberg in March t 792, 
 complained in the name of his foverd a n, of the 
 cobins, vvhom he called a cabal, and accufed of \ 
 ing " imperium in imperio j'* he even in (inn 1 that 
 while the Jacobins remained, the Empcr I hot 
 
 fee any fecurity in treating with the Con! 
 King. What was the confequence ? Did 
 of the people rife and fhake off the yoke ciT this pre- 
 tended cabal, or did they adhere to the Jacobins to 
 whom the imperial Philippic had lent fre(h im; - 
 tance and consideration ? The decree of ace: G 
 againft the Minifter followed inftantiy, and *. : 
 of June, and the 10th of Auguft were but corolla 
 to the problem which had been folved with fo 'much 
 
 F indifcretion, 
 
[ 66 } 
 
 mdifcretion. How long will Minifters continue onty 
 to imitate the faults and blunders of each other, de- 
 termined to profit by no experience, and incapable 
 to act with common prudence and precaution ? 
 When they declare from authority that the great ma- 
 jority of France is anti-republican, do they recollect 
 that what they announce with fo much triumph and 
 exultation at London, is either a lye'or an accufation 
 at Paris ? And that in either cafe it ftrengthens the 
 hands of thefe very Jacobins, who will convert it ei- 
 ther into a caufe or pretext for frefh extortions, and 
 new requifitions, and make an engine of it to revive 
 the weary fanaticifm of the country, by frefh abjura- 
 tions and new invented oaths ? Or do they calculate 
 merely for the meridian of London, and confider a 
 three-weeks dclufion as victory and fucccfs, though 
 they expofe by it their own weaknefs, unpopularity, 
 and defpair to thefe very Jacobins, whom they would 
 be thought to deteft and dcfpife ? 
 
 Now, Sir, fince I am engaged upon the fubject of 
 the Jacobins, and of the nation which they rule, and 
 having, I hope, declared my fentiments of the means 
 by which they rule, in terms which cannot be mis- 
 taken, though I fear they will not be imitated by his 
 Majefty's fervants, give me leave to fay thus much 
 of thofe deteftable principles, which it is thought 
 more loyal to abufe, than to forefee any danger 
 from the arms by which they are fupported, and 
 which it is become a kind of ton and fafhion to re- 
 ject, 
 
C <7 3 
 
 je6t, not bccaufe they are wicked or deftruetive, but 
 becaufe they are ungenteel and uncourtly; I fay, give 
 me leave to exprefs myfelf thus plainly with regard even 
 to thefe principles, for even thefe ought not to banifh 
 from our minds all remembrance of former oppref- 
 fions, which have fo plentifully flowed from that great 
 refer voir and fountain-head of human mifery, the 
 Court. I think, Sir, and were i to be banifhed for 
 faying it, I would confefs I thought it, chat the crimes 
 of France -free are too much detefled, if they make 
 the crimes of France-enilaved, either regretted, or 
 pardoned, or forgotten. 
 
 I know not whether the earth prefents not as fair a 
 profpect to the cope of heaven, and to the eye of 
 pure philofophy, overrun by the, Tartar liberty that 
 roves and ravages her untillaged boforn, as when de- 
 jected, chained, and drovvfy, (lie feems a frozen foot- 
 ftool for the Sultan Power ! A horde of tented Arabs 
 on the free banks of the Tanais, is a nobler fpectacle 
 of human fociety than a Conftantinople or a Vienna 
 of cowled or turbaned ilaves. The cataract that tears 
 the rooted oak, or fweeps away the village, when 
 its firfl violence is fpent, defcends with gender influ- 
 ence, fupplies the rivulet, nurfes the vegetable herb, 
 and grain, and vivifies the face of nature ! But the 
 ftagnant pool that ileeps and (links, where every rank 
 weed rots and rifes to the fur face, poifons the very 
 air, excludes the beams of heaven, and makes no 
 reparation to the polluted earth. — Courts, Courts 1 
 
[ 63 1 
 
 Now, Sir, having faid fo much, as I have no doubc 
 it will be reprefented, in defence of the crimes of the 
 Jacobins, give me leave to lay fomething in extenua- 
 tion, at lead, of the conduct of his Majefty's Minifters; 
 in truth 1 have fome doubt whether what I have to of- 
 fer for them will entitle any hunter of comparifons to 
 draw an analogy between thefe pages and the fabu- 
 lous fpear, which healed, we are told, with one end 
 as fad as it wounded with the other ! But I have not 
 much fear of being taken a fecond time for their par- 
 tizan ; and I owe it to juftice to fay what I know in 
 their excufe. Minifters, I am aware, are too fre- 
 quently but inrcruments and utenfils in other hands. 
 They obey too often where they appear to command, 
 and follow only what others imagine and devife for 
 them. The Court, the Court, the wealth, the patron- 
 age, the corruption of the Court, is the parent caufe 
 of all our wrongs and all our forrows ! Minifters- 
 are but the inftrumenta Deiim ; though I will not taks 
 upon me to fay of what deities they are the inflru- 
 ments, nor rake the peaceful rubbifh of mythology 
 for the capricious or malicious gods that could em- 
 ploy or protect fuch inftruments. Could I but re^ 
 move the Veil that dims your mortal fight, as Veaiis 
 did from her fon's, you would no longer rage and 
 fret, and meditate revenge again ft poor Helen; you 
 would behold the golden trident that overturns our 
 foundations ; you would fhudder at the cruel Juno, 
 that fits upon our gate, and calls in the hoft of crimes 
 and vices that coniume and deftroy our Ilium! While 
 
 tkis 
 
L 69 ] 
 
 this dreadful fource of every mifchief remains un 
 dammed, undrained, in the midft of us ; while thefe 
 waters of bitternefs and corruption are permitted to 
 flow, with no dyke, no lock to reftrain them ; while 
 by ten thoufand pipes and conduits they difperfe 
 their poifonous ftreams to every field and every little 
 garden, to every plant, and flower, and tree, from 
 the heel- root to the extremeft leaf, it will be vain to 
 look for wholefome fruit upon our blighted branches, 
 or noble timbers from our difeafed and enfeebled pith. 
 
 If Parliaments have ever been deceived, or corrupted, 
 or over-awed by Minifters, which I think no one can 
 be found to deny, have not Minifters been as fre- 
 quently corrupted, and deceived, and intimidated by 
 -Courts ? But this Minifters will be careful how they 
 own, becaufc they feel more lhame in confeffing their 
 defpotifm than their fervility, and lefs fecurity in avow- 
 ing their weaknefs than their crimes. Are not Courts 
 then become too powerful for Minifters, as well as 
 too burthenfome for the people ? And would not 
 Minifters gain as much in the. independency and the 
 dignity of their fituation, by the reformation of 
 Courts, as the people would recover in the 'reduction 
 of taxes, and the return of morality ! , 
 
 There are two duties, of peculiar magnitude and 
 importance, incumbent upon Minifters at the actual 
 conjuncture of affairs ; the one is to reform, and the 
 other to defend us. I will not debate their priority ; 
 but what I will refolutely and eternally deny is their 
 
 F 3 incom- 
 
L 7° 3 
 
 incompatibility : The foreign war menaces every 
 rank and order of men, from the palace to the farm j 
 and it docs (o, not becaufe the greater part of France 
 is difpofed to declare for Lewis the XVIIth. but be- 
 caufe, excepting a few partial infurrections, not al- 
 ways in his favour, the totality of France is converted 
 to thofe theories of atheifm, " nationality," and 
 plunder, which it calls philofophy, patriotifm, and 
 equality; not becaufe France defires the refloration 
 of monarchy, but becaufe ilie is ready to emigrate 
 with her armies, and to over-run the earth with her 
 principles and her pikes ; not becaufe Ihe is anti- 
 republican, but becaufe fhe is not only republican, 
 but, in fpite of the fir ft real conftitution fhe has ever 
 poffefTed, fhe remains revolutionary, and threatens 
 with revolution ! — This is the reafon why, notwith- 
 standing our apparent fuperiority, notvvithftanding 
 our vain, but ineffectual parade of force, which we 
 difplay, like fome gorged or paralytic giant, without 
 fkill, activity, or prudence, and without, I fear, any 
 omen or favour from above; I lay this is the reafon 
 why we are in fo much danger from the foreign war ; 
 for I am not afraid to fay, that whoever pretends to 
 yield implicit credit to the Manifefto of the Mini- 
 fter, " dedit latus apertum" and cannot defend him- 
 ielf againft the arguments forpeace. Now, the re- 
 form, I mean if no innovation or fpeculation is 
 included in it, Sir, menaces nothing that I know of, 
 unlets it be the Court ; and it promifes a thoufand 
 bleflings, not only to the farm but even to the cottage; 
 z and 
 
[ 7' ] 
 
 and accordingly we may obferve, without pretending 
 to any great degree of perfpicacity, how popular it is 
 in the country, how unpopular at St. James's ! 
 
 We ought, no doubt, in candour, to allow for the 
 feelings of the Minifter, who muft have found himfelf 
 in an aukward and unpleafant predicament, becaufe 
 no man had contributed more to expofe and revile the 
 corruption of Parliament, nor animated in fo great a 
 degree the refentments of the people : The coarfe li- 
 bels of Mr. Paine had difturbed. the fleep of the igno- 
 rant, but the eloquent appeals of Mr. Pitt had con- 
 vinced the wife, alarmed the timid, and determin- 
 ed the energetic and the free : He had raifed a 
 fpirit in the country, and the fpirit he had raifed had 
 ferved him with zeal and with affection ; it had la- 
 boured for his interefts, and ufed its innocent magic 
 in his fervice with fidelity and with fuccefs. It had 
 conjured him into power, and had rivetted him there 
 with an irrefiftible, but fecret fpell ; yet ftill, from 
 time to time, it put him in mind of the liberty he 
 had promifed, and demanded the performance, after 
 every labour, and at every turn ; but when, he had 
 fatigued, and difpirited, and difappointed his little 
 Ariel fo often, that it moped and fulked, and hung 
 its wing, and difobeyed, or obeyed unwillingly, in- 
 ftead of the free elements to which he had promifed 
 to reftore it, " he wedged the delicate fpirit in a 
 rifted oak," and betook himfelf to that foul witch, 
 who had fo long ufurped the ifland - 3 he formed 
 
 F 4 an 
 
[ 7* ] 
 
 an accurfcd confpiracy with that dctcftcd Syctyrax 
 
 the Court, and prepared himfelf to act 
 
 " Her eartbv and abhorred commands." 
 
 It will be curious, my dear Sir, to confider the 
 language the Court mud have held to the Minifter 
 upon this honourable and difinterefted occafion. Per- 
 haps might it have faid, " You may become a little 
 unpopular, from undertaking my protection at this 
 time, and defending all my avarice and prodigality, 
 all my meannefs and oppreffion ; but it is not my cuf- 
 tom to receive or offer friendihip empty-handed ; I 
 have fomething to confer, as well as to obtain : The 
 reform is my enemy, the war is your danger j now as 
 long as you will protect me from reform, I will grant 
 you a perfect liberty to conduct the war after your own 
 faihion, with any degree of profufion, intrigue, neg- 
 ligence, or abfurdity, that you may judge expedient or 
 neceflary ; my troops are ready, not only to defend 
 every crime or error you can poflibly commit, but to 
 perfecute whoever (hall dare to accufe you." Now, 
 Sir, would it not be lamentable, if fuch conditions 
 had been accepted, if fuch a treaty had been exe- 
 cuted, if a great and generous nation had been made 
 the victim, if liberty and virtue were the forfeit of a 
 Statefman's cowardice and a courtier's cupidity ? 
 What think you would have been the anfwer of Cla- 
 rendon, or his Southampton, to this vile and court- 
 like propofition ? I will not attempt to exprefs the 
 fcorn, nor paint the proud and virtuous indignation, 
 
 nor 
 
[ 73 ] 
 
 nor that elated forehead with which they would have 
 rejected thefe * c dona nocent'wni." i( I will haften the 
 reform of abufes," would either of them have {aid, 
 " not only becaufe it is honed, but becaufe it is ex- 
 pedient : I will fatisfy the juft cries of the nation, not 
 only that it may be more happy, but that it may be 
 flronger ; more able, as well as more willing, to fup- 
 port the burthens, and overcome the calamities of the 
 war: I will reduce the Court and the Civil-Lift* 
 which are unneceflary and inexcufable evils, that the 
 country may the better fuftain the war, which is an 
 evil inevitable and irremediable; if there are griev- 
 ances in the Government, if the Conflitution is im- 
 paired, I will redrefs thofe and reftore this, without 
 a moment's delay, that the people may have the full 
 benefit, and perceive the perfect excellence of that 
 fyftem, in the defence of which I am fo foon to call 
 for its treafure and its blood ; and that I may be 
 able to oppofe the enemies of that Government, and 
 of that Conflitution, with the united fentiment and the 
 united ftrength of the whole kingdom. And as for you" 
 would he perhaps have' continued, "for you, whofe vice 
 and avarice abforb thefe refources which might be car- 
 ried to the war, who are the caufe of all the miferies 
 and all the murmurs of the people, who prefume to 
 offer impunity, inflead of deprecating your own pu- 
 nifhment, and to forgive uncertain to be pardoned, 
 know, I defire not the protection that you can grant! 
 — If I am miftaken, if I am unfortunate, I will retire, 
 becaufe it is my duty neither to perfevere in error 
 
 nor 
 
[ 74 ] 
 
 nor in misfortune ; but if I am guilty, from what pe- 
 nalty can you fhelter me ? From the laws ; by what 
 means ? By intngue and corruption : — But can you 
 bide me from myfelf; can you exclude the reproaches 
 of my own mind ; can you (hut out confeience, the 
 judgment of the Public, the dread of that of pofte- 
 rity ? Ahs, banifhment and death itfelf are but a 
 form of words, compared with the verdict of our 
 own minds, with the fentence of the greatjury of all 
 our race !" 
 
 Such, I think, would have been, Sir, at lead not 
 very unlike to it, the language of the only Minifter 
 I know of, who never dwindled into a courtier, 
 whofe affinity to a King never corrupted his heart, 
 whom neither power nor adverllty elated or depref- 
 fed ; equal and juft in every turn of fortune, and 
 great alike, whether perfecuted by an ungrateful 
 Prince and a deluded people, or moderating between 
 their la villi zeal and his unprincipled ambition j in 
 every ftage and character of life a generous and ex- 
 alted perfonage, whofe memory will be dear to En- 
 glishmen, as long as they have hiftories to read, and 
 it ihall be permitted to read them. 
 
 Jamais Pair de la cour, & fon fouffle infcRe 
 N 'altera dejon ccsur Vauftere purete. 
 
 Would Clarendon, do you think, Sir, inftead of 
 preparing to acquit himjelf of both thefe honourable 
 
 duties, 
 
C 75 ] 
 
 duties, have abandoned this as the price of that, and 
 bought the defpicable privilege of performing one 
 ///, by the facrifice or defertion of the other ? Would 
 he have allied himfelf to a bafe and rotten caufe, for 
 the fake of being obliged to ufe lefs energy or- wif- 
 dom in a found and perfect one, or of being able to 
 cover a blot in the game by diifembling the value of 
 the flake? Would Southampton have left that 
 manly and tender panegyric upon his friend, which 
 it is impoffible to read without emotions of tender- 
 nefs, and fentiments of gratitude and veneration, if 
 he had not thought him able to reject the overtures, 
 and repulfe the impudence of courtiers, with all the 
 dignity, and all the fcorn, with which he was ufed to 
 refift the arts and importunities of other favourites, 
 no doubt as virtuous, and as refpectable as thefe ? 
 
 I think, Sir, I fhall not, after what has been faid, 
 though to fpeak truth, I have not ventured to fay it 
 with all the precifion and perfpicuity of which it is 
 fufceptible, (but you will eafily fupply that defi- 
 ciency, and pardon any other) I think that I (hall not, 
 after what has been faid, even as it has been faid, in- 
 cur much danger of being treated as paradoxical, if 
 I mould venture to affert that courts are not only N 
 grown too powerful for Minifters, but that none 
 would gain more by their reduction than Miniflers 
 themfelves, provided they defigned to govern byjuft, 
 by honourable, or even by popular courfes. 
 
 You 
 
C 76 I 
 
 You have been pleated to exprefs your approba- 
 tion of thofe parts of my former letters, which related 
 to the duties and conduct of their chiefs, and the 
 compofuion and management of mil may 
 
 they make the fame impreffion upon the \ mind, 
 
 and upon the mind of thofe who are more immedi- 
 ately interefted in judging thefe things right, and in 
 acting according to a right judgment of them. They 
 may prevent (I think it is yet time) many a violent 
 convulsion, perhaps many a defperate wound co our 
 happy and glorious Conftitution. Give me leave at 
 prefent to prefent you with a few the that have 
 
 occurred to me upon the Situation, duty, and relative 
 interefts of Ministers and Courts. They will not, I 
 fear, be fo pleating as the others; I cannot contem- 
 plate the fubject with equal delight : my own obfer* 
 vat ion of them, and the difsuft with which all hif- 
 tory and experience have infpired me towards them, 
 have made the contemplation of them painful to my 
 mind : and I can dwell no longer upon the fubject, 
 than I think neceflary to the object of my letter, and 
 neceflary or ufe'ful to be understood clearly by the 
 public. 
 
 We have fome few years back, you will remember, 
 heard it canvaffed with great earneftnefs, and decided, 
 I think, with more heat, exultation, and triumph, 
 than with either candour, deliberation, or jufiice, that 
 the Minlfier is the Miniiier of the Crown. Jf ever 
 you, Sir, mould, fortunately 'for your country, attain 
 
 that 
 
C 77 J 
 
 that dangerous ennMTettce, I think I know you will 
 feel yourfeif the Mmifter of tbo People. You will 
 never remain in p " :r, if you cannot ufe it for the 
 benefit of the people. You will advife the King, and 
 you will execute ch« 3 king's pleafure, and you will 
 carry his councils into effect, as long as you think 
 them ufe ful and honourable for your country; and 
 when you cannot ferve him upon thefe terms, you 
 will know the poll of honour is a private ftation j 
 you will retire into your individual capacity ; and 
 you will watch with unceafing vigilance, and oppofe,^ 
 with all the force and energy of your character, the 
 meafures of thofe who will take your place upon 
 other terms, and condefcend to be the King's Mini- 
 nifters, in contra-diftinction to being the Servants of 
 the Public. Give me leave then to a£k of you, whe- 
 ther when you had accepted that important poft, to 
 which the confidence, the efteem, and the refpect of 
 the people is fo neceifary, and fo indifpenfible — un- 
 lefs you could confent to a fervile and mechanical 
 execution of the views and pleafure of the Court, 
 whatever they might be, whether pofiefiing, and 
 defiring to pofTefs, no power, nor permanence in 
 power, but what this confidence would give you, and 
 which muft neceffarily encreafe every day, and keep 
 pace with the fervices you rendered your country, 
 and the gratitude with which it would repay them'; 
 I fay, give me leave to afk you, whether you could 
 entertain any defire that the people mould continue 
 aggriered and oppreffed under the enormous load of 
 
 i the 
 
[ ?s ] 
 
 the Civil Lift, merely to fubfidize a horde of merce- 
 naries, in the pay and intereft of the Court, not 
 yours; nay, on the contrary, always intriguing to 
 govern or to perplex you, and always ready to vote 
 and to act againft you, as foon as it is difcovered 
 you are more the people's friend, than the friend of 
 thofe who fuck the blood of the people? Now, Sir, 
 were it to appear ever fo problematical, or paradoxi- 
 cal, I confefs I could have no fcruple to affert, that 
 by the abolition of this ufelefs and deftructive band 
 of janiffaries, every Minifter, who was fit to be one* 
 who loved his country, who refpected parliaments* 
 who defired the prefperity of the nation, or the dura- 
 tion and integrity of the conftitution, would find 
 himfclf more flrongly, more firmly feated in power, 
 and more independant too of every oilier power : he 
 would find himfelf freed from a thoufand intrigues^ 
 impertinences, and vexations; and above every 
 thing, from that habitual cabal, that familiar fraud* 
 falfehood and treachery, with which he is furroundech 
 
 The party that belongs exclufively to the Crown, in 
 either Houfe of Parliament, is certainly not the party 
 of the Minifter, though, during the pleafure of the 
 Crown, he may prompt its pliant voice, and com- 
 mand its proftituted fufFrage ! Let him hefitate or 
 refufe to comply with the maxims or the command 
 of the court, this party becomes inftantly hoftile and 
 menacing ; it enables the Crown to dictate to the 
 Minifter, and intimidates a mean or an interefted 
 Minifter, (and we have now no Clarendons or South- 
 
 amptons) 
 
[ 79 3 
 
 amptons) from refilling the dictates of the Crowri, 
 If thefe mercenaries were therefore reduced or re- 
 formed, the ftanding forces of the Court would in- 
 deed be diminifhed; but the Minifber would gain in 
 independence on the one hand, more than he could 
 lofe from his precarious and verfatile majority on the 
 other : he would, it is true, count fewer mutes in 
 the Houfe, and mufter a fnialler number of what are 
 called dead votes ; he would be iefs able to carry by 
 violence, unwife 'or unpopular meafures in Parlia- 
 ment; but neither would he be obliged, nor per- 
 fuaded, nor intimidated into propofing them ; he 
 would be more free himfelf, as well as the Houfe, 
 and the Country ; and the confidence of the Coun- 
 try, which he could not mifs, would confer more real 
 power upon him, than he derived from all the fyco- 
 phants of the Court, and all the corruption of the 
 Houfe. The King too would be reduced to what 
 he ought to be, the Chief Magiftrate, not the Chief 
 Politician of the kingdom ; he would be fironger 
 and firmer in that popularity, which he mufl gain to 
 govern eLher well or happily, than he could be in 
 any hurtful privilege which might derive to him 
 from the decay, abufe, and rottennefs of our Condi- 
 tution, of chufing Miniflers, or of carrying meafures, 
 with indifference, or in oppofition to the fentiments 
 of his people. 
 
 Now, Sir, let me afk of you, fuppofing there were 
 really to be formed in this country, a national party, 
 
 upon 
 
[ So 1 
 
 upon national principles; and fuppofing you were 
 placed where you fo well deferve to be placed, arid 
 where you will one day, I do notdoubt, be called by 
 the voice of all the wile, and all the virtuous of your 
 country ; whether you could hefitate to difband thele 
 odious troops, and to pour back into the lap of the 
 people, that part of the Civil Lift at lead, which is 
 allotted to their pay? Could the Minifler regret, or 
 could the people regret the difperfion of thefe hire- 
 lings, who arc the tyrants of Ministers, as well as the 
 enemies and the famifhers of the people ? Could the 
 dignity ot the Crown be diminished, or compro- 
 mifed, by removing that profligate band, which 
 alone could bring it into danger or difcredit with 
 the people — with the people, not fufficiently able to 
 diftinguifh between the ufe and abule of any inftitu- 
 tion, for example, between a Crown and a Court ? 
 But if Crowns undergo any great degree of danger in 
 Europe from the convulfions of modern opinions, 
 and the influence of new principles and fyftems of 
 politics and philosophy, they have been brought 
 into all their perils, and expofed to whatever hazard 
 they appear to run, by Courts j becaufe Courts are 
 believed to be infeparable from Crowns, and corrup- 
 tion, prodigality, avarice, and venality, are known to 
 be infeparable from Courts. But were the filth fwept 
 out of Courts, and were Crowns lightened and re- 
 lieved from that mafs of meannefs, of vice and im- 
 morality, which rots or ferments around them; were 
 the taxes levied upon the fweat of the people to 
 
 nourifh 
 
[ 8t ] 
 
 hourim, and to pamper thefe ufelefs drones, or fa- 
 ther poifonous wafps, that rob and fling fociety, were 
 thefe taxes remitted to it, were the odious and infup- 
 portable object removed, at leaft further out of fight, 
 or even reduced to a fmall part of its prefent volume, 
 not only would Governments be more fecure, but 
 Kings would have nothing to dread, either for them- 
 felves or their fucceffion. It is their Courts which 
 create the danger ; it is Courts which are to be de- 
 fended, and not Crowns ; but, unfortunately, Courts 
 have the means of abufing the weaknefs of Crowns ; 
 and if Crowns will enlift in the caufe of Courts, there 
 is no doubt they muft abide by the fate of the gar- 
 rifon. 
 
 If Kings did but perceive how much their pomp 
 and pageantry, their ftyle and ceremony, in one 
 word, their Court, has coil them in the genuine love, 
 in the fimplicity of their people's affection, how far 
 aloof it keeps from them the wife, the modeft, and 
 the virtuous ; how it alienates the jufl, the generous, 
 and the free ; what envy and contempt it breeds, 
 what difcontent and indignation it nourifhes, they 
 would difcover one great fource of the republican fpi- 
 rit, which feems to menace the thrones of F.urope, 
 and they would haften inftinctively, as it is pretended 
 of that harmlefs animal which is hunted for its per- 
 fume, to feparate themfelves from that fwollen and 
 foetid bladder, which fupplies neither force, nor vi- 
 gour, nor enjoyment, but retards and delays their 
 
 G flight, 
 
C Sz ] 
 
 flight, and betrays them to the purfucr by the rank- 
 nds, as much as it invites by the riches it con- 
 tains. 
 
 But there are fome gentlemen (difinterefted no 
 doub.) who are extremely apprehenfive left the dig- 
 nity of the Crown lhould be impaired or diminished 
 by the fweeping of Courts ; it feems to be their opi- 
 nion, that if fome of the ceremonial offices were abo- 
 lifhed, if penfions were limited, and finecures de- 
 ilroyed, the Sovereign would be abfolutely deferted 
 and neglected by the nobility and gentlemen, by the 
 learned and virtuous of England ! Such an opinion 
 is at lead a libel upon a loyal and noble nation, who 
 will crowd around their King to do him honour or 
 iervice, and cover the Throne with their generous 
 bodies, as often as it ihall be expofed to danger or 
 contempt, and after this mean and mercenary crew 
 ihall have fled and deferted, and flopped its alle- 
 giance with the ftoppage of its pay ! It is only, be- 
 iicies, in times of ignorance, and confequemly of 
 fear, that date and ceremony can impofe to any 
 great political purpofe upon the people; knowledge, 
 happily for mankind, as it fp reads amongfb men, 
 equalizes them by rapid, but imperceptible de- 
 grees ; and fhew and form lofe much of their 
 charms and prefnges, in proportion as a real under- 
 {landing prevails amongft men ; Courts, when viewed 
 from afar, may refemble thofe flatues of Phidias* 
 which prefented to the diftant eye, we are told, the 
 
 gigantic 
 
[ H 2 
 
 gigantic forms of Jove or Neptune, all fmootli and 
 glofTy bright, fhining with poliflbed ivory and gold ; 
 but if you approached, and examined them within, 
 you beheld the cranks, and nails, and fcrews and ce- 
 ments, the mortar, and rubbifh, the «"•"» «/swf?/*», of 
 their conftruction. Now, unfortunately for Courts, 
 all this itpagfxa is glaring to the eye, and few ftand at 
 fo great a diftance from the ColofTus, as to perceive 
 the fymmetry of its form, and not to perceive the 
 filth and uglinefs of its compofition. But let thofe. 
 Who think fo meanly of monarchs, and of nations 
 too, as to imagine, that the virtues of the firft could 
 not obtain the refpect and affection of the latter, 
 without the aid of falaries and bribes : who think tlie 
 wealth of the Civil Lift is neceffary to fubfidize the 
 venal loyalty of Britons, and would corrupt us into 
 virtue and allegiance, let thefe doughty champions 
 for Courts produce the Monarch of Europe who en- 
 joys a ftate or fplendor, though purchafed with the 
 iweat and tears of millions, fo calculated to dazzle 
 the eye and win the hearts of their people, as the mild 
 and faintly luftre that beams around the brows of 
 Wafhington ; the parental dignity, the pia auEloritas, 
 that diftinguilh and defend the firft citizen of Ame- 
 rica ! 
 
 Thofe too who would trace the kingly government 
 to early or to divine origin, might do well to remem- 
 ber, that their favourite prototype is a King 'without a 
 Court. Indeed, what a Kingfhould be, and what he 
 might have been, in the infancy and innocence or 
 
 G 2 fociety, 
 
t s 4 ] 
 
 iocicty, before craft and artifice, the word vices of 
 the heart, were taken to be the excellence and per- 
 fection of the under (landing, — a father in the bofoni 
 of his family : — Where have they read of his Mini- 
 fters and Chamberlains, of his Grooms of the Bed- 
 chamber, Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, Lords of 
 the Bedchamber ? Of his Pages, his Mailers of the 
 Ceremony, and that endlefs chain of pride, extrava- 
 gance, and folly, which is politically, morally, and 
 phyiically, acurfe upon the country ? Had Abraham, 
 had Abimelech, Stewards of the Houfehold, Mailers 
 of the Horfe? Of the Hawks, of the Hounds ? What 
 were the ilnecures in an Arabian tent, or the con- 
 tracts for a progrefs from Kadek to Gerar ? How 
 unfortunate that we have no memoirs of their great 
 officers of ftate ; probably they bore as perfect a re- 
 femblance to our own courtiers, as the bed of our 
 Kings has done to the woril of the patriarchs. 
 
 Every form of Government, whatever be its pe- 
 culiar excellence, has alfo fome correfpondent defect, 
 fome propenfity and bias to its fall. The violence 
 and injuflice of popular judgments, are, I think, the 
 immediate caufe of the ruin of democracies. Excef- 
 fivc inequality of wealth, the accumulation of offices 
 and honours, and their becoming hereditary, are the 
 paths by which ariilocratical inliitutions arrive at the 
 tyranny of a few or of one. But Courts are the pe- 
 culiar vice and cordial rottennefs of monarchies ; 
 they corrupt and are corrupted ; they are oppreffed, 
 and they onprefs ; their bed virtues are the virtues of 
 
 flaves •, 
 
[ «5 J 
 
 flaves ; fervile duties, perfonal attentions, and fide- 
 lity ; but their vices are the worft that flaves can 
 own ; for befides lying, flattering, and cringing, to 
 whatever is above, they are necefTarily callous and 
 cruel to all that is beneath them. The jealoufy of 
 the eunuch is greater than the hufband's; the ty- 
 ranny of courtiers more intenfe than that of the Sul- 
 tan : They are enemies to liberty, becaufe they have 
 fold their own ; and to virtue, becaufe it ceafes not 
 to upbraid them with the barter. 
 
 Courts too, befide their profligate character, fo 
 deftructive of the national morals, are politically mif- 
 chievous, and full of danger, fince they have af- 
 fumed and ufurped to be an intermediate body be- 
 tween the feveral branches of the public authority. 
 They are interpofed between Kings and their people, 
 they damp the affectionate loyalty of their approach, 
 and convert their honeft love into a diflant awe, a 
 forced and cold refpect; and, on the other hand, by 
 the forms, the delays, and the difficulty of his ac- 
 cefs, they obftruct and impair the parental feelings 
 of the Prince in their way to the people. They be- 
 come the channel of every grace and favour ; even 
 the godlike prerogative of mercy flows through pol- 
 luted flreams, and crimes unpuniihed, are the price 
 of the carefles of a proftitute, or the importunity of 
 a liveried companion. But thofe perfons who are fo 
 anxious for the dignity of the Crown, will tell us 
 again, that thefe bands of courtiers are neceflary to 
 
 G 3 its 
 
[ S6 ] 
 
 its fupport. Can any man ferioufly think, Sir, that 
 the loyalty and affection of the nation are encreated 
 by pafling through luch channels as a Lord of the 
 BcdDhamber, or a Chamberlain of the Houfehold ? 
 
 Purior in vicis aqua tendit mmpere plumbum, 
 Quarn qiue per pronum trepidat aim murmur e rivum* 
 
 Do the loyalty and affection of the people flow 
 purer through thefe leaden conduits, that communi- 
 cate its withes, or its complaints, to the dull and 
 diftant ear of royalty ; does the cuftomary transfer of 
 a fubjecYs petition to the tender feelings, or confci- 
 cntious policy, of a Lord Chamberlain, en create the 
 gratitude or the attachment of the fuitor ? Or do even 
 the Lords with white flaves tranfmit the gracious 
 pleafure of the Prince with more amenity, or with 
 encreafed benevolence to his dutiful iubjecls, the 
 co-eftates of the realm ? 
 
 And of what fervice, let me afk you, could a 
 Prince, and a Prince that fliould be a ftatefman, or 
 a politician at leaft; of what fervice could he think 
 it to himfelf, or to his fituation, to have the tenfe of 
 every fav6ur he beftows, the gratitude for every gift 
 he difpenfes, diverted from his own perfon to an of- 
 fice or an individual ? 
 
 forinnatos Reges fua Ji bona norint ! 
 
 With 
 
[ 37 ] 
 
 With the power they have to oblige, with the facility 
 they enjoy to engage affection ; with the prerogative 
 they poifefs of granting honours, favours, pardons, 
 and exemptions, to be lefs beloved, lefs popular, ' 
 than their own fervants ! Can the Prince be made to 
 believe, that it promotes his fervice, or attaches men 
 to his perfon or his caufe, that the chief of a party, 
 or his dependants, fhould nominate to offices, mould 
 fill up vacancies, and that all the hope and all the 
 gratitude of the nation mould be withdrawn from 
 himfelf, to crowd the train of fome Neckar or Seja- 
 rms ? — Can he be ignorant of the cypher he becomes 
 at his own levee, where every vow is fecretly addref- 
 fed to his own fatrapes and officers, and himfelf re- 
 mains at beft but the mandarin with the longefc 
 nails, too remote from affection, too ftately even to 
 be feared. Alas ! why does it appear infeparable 
 from royalty, to feek to remove itfelf to an unmea- 
 furable diftance, to plant an hoftile and impaffable 
 barrier between itfelf and the people ? — The people 
 who give it, fweat for it, bleed for it ? 
 
 There is yet another point of view, in which it 
 may be expedient, at fome litter opportunity, to con- 
 fider the Court \ namely, as the capital of the great 
 pillar of ariftocracy. At the prefent, I Oiall content 
 myfelf with fubmitting to you, Sir, whether it were 
 not more wife, more natural, and more fortunate, if 
 the political order of nobility appeared to poflefs more 
 intrinlic dignity of its own, a higher Tenfe of its ex- 
 
 G 4 alted 
 
[ ss ] 
 
 alted privilege and independent flalion, with fome- 
 what lefs of eagernefs and anxiety for the fmiles and 
 favours of St. James's ? Whether that body, which 
 is intended by the Conftitution to be a check and 
 controll upon the Crown, as well as the Houfe of 
 Commons, might not enjoy its great prerogative in 
 more fecurity, and acquit itfclf of its illuflrious du- 
 ties with more efTed and authority, if it were too 
 proud to divide the infamous bounty of the Court, 
 upon the one hand, and too honeft to feduce the 
 frail integrity of an indigent elector on the other ? 
 If it fcorned to (Line with borrowed rays, and re- 
 volve in an orbit not its own, a cold and fervile 
 moon to a mightier planet, whofe courfe it ought to 
 regulate, and incline by its own volume and attract 
 tion ? 
 
 " Repetenda eft" fays Cicero, fpeaking of the 
 noble order of his own countrymen, " repetenda eft 
 Veins ilia feveri/as, Jiquidem aucloritas ftnatits, decus, 
 homftatem, laudem dcjidcrai> quihus hie ordo eantit ni- 
 mium dhi." And it cannot have been {aid with more 
 truth of the Roman, than it might be laid of the 
 Britith Senate ; for the corruption of both has de- 
 rived from the fame fource ; and the reigns, if I 
 may fo call them, of Sylla and Pompey, by fetting 
 up the protection and favour of a Court as an 
 object of ambition, and fometimes of fecurity, 
 had only done that, which has been accomplished, 
 in a greater degree, by the longer operation of the 
 
 fame 
 
[ »9 ] 
 
 fame caufes in Britain. It had withdrawn the Senate 
 from the proud contemplation of its own indepen- 
 dence and dignity, and delivered over the Senator 
 to fpeculations of individual greatnefs and advan- 
 tage, from a corrupt compliance with the views, and 
 a corrupt hope from the gratitude of the Executive 
 Power. — In England, I am fure, one good confe- 
 quence would have been felt at this time, if the 
 laws of our political fyftem had not been violated by 
 the magnetifm of which I have complained : The Poli- 
 tical Nobility would not have been confufed and amal- 
 gamated with the Court Nobility ; and the ariftocracy 
 of Parliament would not have been debafed and de- 
 preciated by that impure alloy of the ariftocracy of 
 the Palace j the nobles of the nation would not have 
 been presided by the Liberti and Libertini, the freed- 
 men and parvenus of the houfehold : The names and 
 virtues that are dear to the country, the Ofbornes 
 and the RufTels, the Bentincks and the Cavendiflies, 
 would not be eclipfed by the fudden elevation and 
 fplendour of fome ennobled (not emancipated) Have, 
 whofe enormous wealth, and refifllefs favour feem 
 defigned for no other ufe nor object, but to fhew a 
 repining people the caprice of his fortune, and the 
 cruelty of its own ! 
 
 While the iEmilii and Camilli were diftinguimed 
 only by the dangerous popularity of a race dear to 
 the Romans : Pallas, Callifthns, Nymphidius, whofe 
 new honours had eternally dishonoured the fenate of 
 
 Rome, 
 
[ 90 ] 
 
 Rome, and whcfe names I hi u 111 to remember, were 
 tyrannizing and corrupting the empire. 
 
 Much, Sir, has been faid of late againft this order 
 of the State, and it has never been fo well defended 
 as it aught have been ; and this, I think, for want of 
 making the difcinction I have juft pointed to you. 
 Nobility is the blood of thofe who have faved or died 
 for their country : there is an eternal ariftocracy in 
 the gratitude of nations to the pofterity of patriots 
 and heroes, and in thefean eternal obligation to emu- 
 late the deeds and virtues which have endeared their 
 names to their country. This is the true and folid 
 bale, the foundation and comer-Rone of genuine 
 Nobility; and it will refill: the wild and fenfelefs ef- 
 forts of popular malice and captious philofophy : if 
 it be not betrayed and undermined by the fpurioua 
 n.Qbility of Courts ; by the contempt and odium in- 
 feparable from a proiligate or venal diflribution of 
 honours. The prince who ennobled his proftitutes, 
 and he who mould openly bellow the peerage at the 
 r&omme ndaticn of his Finance- Miniiler, infringed, or 
 would infringe, the hilt and fundamental privilege 
 of that Houfe of Parliament, and give a deeper ftab 
 to the political ariftocracy, than a thoufand Mira- 
 beaus and Syezes could ever have inflicted. 
 
 One word more upon this important topic, which 
 1 find it difficult to re'inquifh, and upon which I re- 
 prefb myfeif alavjil iu vain \ wj have (ccn with ge- 
 neral 
 
[ 9" 3 
 
 neral latisfaction, even in thefe times, the high fpirit 
 of our real nobility difdain the charm of office, and 
 all the bribes of power, when this vulgar greatnefs 
 could be retained no longer without facrifices of ho- 
 nour : at the fame time that we beheld, with fenfations 
 which no language that I am matter of can defcribe,. 
 our artificial Lords, the Court Nobility, fucceed to the 
 vacancy, or remain in their offices, chaunting the 
 palinody of their own declarations, figning the retrac- 
 tations oC their own counfels, without feeling humi- 
 liation, or confeffing fhame. 
 
 But it were unreafonable, perhaps it is unjuft, to 
 expect fuch facrifices from fuch men ! Alas ! how 
 inould they think of retirement ! Their woods are not 
 ready to conceal them ! It is furely but good-nature 
 to give time to the trees and the builders, before we 
 fend in the family ; and it would be cruel to divert 
 from their young plantations the ftreams that flow 
 four times a year; enriched with prolific flime from 
 the Treafury ! 
 
 Serioufly, Sir, we ought not to exact efforts of vir- 
 tue, or of courage, foreign to the principles and ha- 
 bits of men. To be happy in feclufion, we mud 
 bear along with us the regrets at leafh of others, and 
 our own applaufe. Retirement without repofe, and 
 folirude without a contented memory, are but vain 
 opiates, full of difturbed and ceftlefs dreams, and do 
 
 . but 
 
r r- 1 
 
 but irritate the fever of the foul by forced and violent 
 
 abllractions. 
 
 And when I fpeak of retirement, it is ncceflary to 
 remember, that to the wife and virtuous, it brings 
 ibciety, domcftic joys, the offices of friendship, and 
 the teftimonies of efteem, with all the jucunda ob/ivia 
 ofabufylife; but to difappointed vanity, and dif- 
 cardcd meannefs, it prefents a defart, a wide and 
 dreary void. The fhade is dark and gloomy which 
 no reflection chears, no horizontal beam enlivens in 
 the crimfon evening of life's dujly day. The palm 
 obtained without a linglc public or private virtue, 
 fheds neither peace nor honour ever the purchafed 
 palace. Forgive me, but when I think of the latter 
 end of thefe dupes, I will not call them favourites of 
 fortune, and of their vows conceded by malignant 
 deities, I cannot refrain from reminding you of a 
 wifcr and a nobler prayer, and the wi(h of one who 
 had been truly great, if he had never been condemn- 
 ed to be a Courtier. 
 
 Sic cum tranjierint met 
 
 NttUo cum Jlrcpitu dies 
 Plebeius mortar fenex f 
 Jlli mors gravis incubat 
 Qui notus nimis omnibus 
 lgnotus mo) itur f;bi ! 
 
 To thefe beautiful and well known lines, permit me 
 to add one brief reflection, which docs not feem to 
 
 have 
 
t 93 ] 
 
 have occurred to Seneca, and which I mould be forry 
 fhould efcape your obfervation. There are men fo 
 different from him, and they are not plebcii fenes, but 
 have grown old and noble cum Jirepitu and cum pul- 
 vere, in dirt and noife, that folitude is therefore ter- 
 rible to them, becaufe it will not permit them to die 
 unknown to themfelves, but flops them on the brink 
 of death to form this late and painful acquaintance, 
 and compels them to concur before they part in the 
 fentiments of ail their contemporaries ! 
 
 It is not my intention to exhaufl this endlefs fub- 
 juct upon the prefent occafion ; I have only fkimmed 
 the furface with a light and rapid hand. It certainly 
 feems to me important at the prefent conjuncture, to 
 direct the public attention towards the Court, and to 
 open the eyes of the public and of the Court itfelf, 
 with refpect to their relative fituation and intereft ; 
 but it is enough to prefent the nuifance to the moral 
 grand jury of the nation, and to deftroy the falfe 
 opinion, that the Court is any part of the Conflitution 
 of Great Britain ; certainly it is neither a viral ncr an 
 integral part of it. It appears to me, 1 confefs, to 
 grow a fungus cut of the decay and rottennefs of 
 other inftitutions, and to be a foul and ugly wen, or 
 rather a rank and dangerous cancer upon the body 
 politic. Let it look to itfelf! It is time when the 
 eyes of the country are turned towards it. No man 
 can deteft more than myfelf, as you well know, Sir, 
 the operations of ftate-furgery ; but it is proper that 
 
 this 
 
t 94 ] 
 
 this wen fliould learn, that if will not take phyfid, 
 and reduce itfcJf, the knife may be applied with per- 
 fect lecurity to the Conftitutiom 
 
 I will now go one flep further; and I will tell you 
 (though thefe are times which require circumfpec* 
 tion, and we poor hares cannot make ourfelves quite 
 fure that our ears may not be taken for horns) 
 that the people defire, and mufl have reform. The 
 truths of Mr. Paine have been more confounded with 
 his treafons, by the arts of interefted governments, 
 and the chicanery of impudent lawyers, than his trea- 
 fons have been with his truths, by the plain fenfe and 
 iincerity of the people. The firft effect of his pub- 
 lications was alarming j -the fuddennefs with which 
 certain truths were let in upon the eye, both dazzled 
 and confounded. The infidioufnefs with which ab- 
 ftraet and impoflible perfection was held up to view, 
 was itfelf dangerous, as light is to thofe who have 
 long been immured in dark nets; and the hatred and 
 contempt of all governments, fo induftrioufly in- 
 Ipired, and fo plaufibly defended by the eafy and fud* 
 den difplay of their enormous defects, abufes, and 
 corruption, formed together a crifis, which providen- 
 tially has not proved fatal to fociety. But it is not 
 only Mr, Paine, and the abettors of luch wild and 
 fanciful doctrines, who have polluted and poifoned 
 the public mind; other writings have been poured 
 profufely into the world, and diftributed with equal 
 indultry and perleverance, in a caufe, I think, not 
 
 purer, 
 
95 ] 
 
 purer, nor more honed than Mr. Paine's ! The clan- 
 ger is not indeed equal, becaufe the ileep of defpo 
 tifm itfclf is preferable to the eternal convulfions of 
 an organized anarchy, and a fyftematic (late of revo- 
 lution; but I doubt whether it be a nobler principle 
 to corrupt into flavery, than to inflame to licentiouf- 
 nefs ; whether it be bafer or wickeder to forge the 
 pikes, than the chains of the people ! 
 
 "When the Court and the Miniflry had made com- 
 mon caufe, and agreed to refill and to calumniate 
 every fpecies of reform, it was politic perhaps to raife 
 a cry, but I think it was unwife to declare a crufade 
 agrainft the reformers — The Court refufed reforma- 
 tion becaufe reformation was a Jacobin pretext, and 
 fuch was the folly, or the infincerity, or the unutter- 
 able abfurdity of Come of thofe who cried the loudeft 
 for reform, that they confefled they confidered the 
 reform they demanded as a revolution in the govern- 
 ment, hide mail tubes — From that time, the Court 
 had a pretence, a weak one no doubt, and no dcuht 
 a wicked one, but where the ends were [q virtuous 
 and fo honourable, it would have been a paltry and 
 and fuperftitious fcruple, to have enquired into the 
 delicacy or the purenefs of the means ; the Court had 
 pretext at leaft, of which it did not fail to avail itfeif, 
 to decry every fpecies of reform, and to confound 
 every defcription of thofe who demanded it ; to con- 
 found them at fir ft with one another, and afterwards 
 in a body with the Jacobins of Paris, as if it were 
 
 4 one 
 
C 96 ] 
 
 one and the lame thing to defire greater virtue and 
 integrity in the reprefentative branch of our own 
 Conftitution, and to applaud the horrors that had 
 deiblated France ; as if it were equivalent to murder 
 and maflacre, to defire fome limits to corruption, 
 and were become treafon, or regicide itfelf, to pro. 
 nounce the name of liberty, or to look back with 
 wiflfulnefs upon the brighteft and pureft annals of 
 our own hiftory ! Oh memorable delufion ! Oh in- 
 credible credulity ! Oh matchlefs example of politi- 
 cal craft and folly, of fraud and faction, of fuccefsful 
 impudence and ambition ! 
 
 Mr. Paine, however, is an enemy to every fyftem 
 and to every Conftitution 1 What then ? He has con- 
 vinced men, who are aware of the treachery with 
 which he writes, that there is much to be reformed, 
 and fomething to be atoned for in our government ; 
 He has convinced men that reformation will not be 
 more fpontaneous from a Houfe of Commons fo con- 
 fiituted as ours; and that the finecures diftributed 
 amongft the members of oppofition, from an obftacle 
 to the people's demands, as ftrong and infurmount- 
 able as if they were held by the partizans of the 
 government itfelf; he has (hewn that the fupport af- 
 forded to the exifting abufes by Lord Grenville a Mi- 
 nifter, and Lord Stormont a Peer in Oppofition, is 
 alike natural in both, fince both are placemen ; and 
 that abufes mud neceflarily be perpetuated and en- 
 creafed under fuch a fyftem of corruption as this is, 
 
 which 
 
C 97 J 
 
 which pervades every branch of the Government, and 
 of the Oppofition too : without purfuirigthe reafon- 
 ing of Mr. Paine, which in whatever fpirit it is writ- 
 ten,- is fometimes folid and convincing, I fay convinc- 
 ing, for fas ejl ct ab hqfie doceri— and is mofl dangerous 
 perhaps where it is the falfeft and the mofl metaphy- 
 seal; without purfuing Mr. Faine's reafoning any far 
 ther, and avoiding, as I do by defign, to enumerate 
 other inftances which occur to me of finecures held 
 by rich and noble families, on both fides of both 
 Houfes of Parliament, becaufe I think it unpleafant, 
 or perhaps invidious to point out gentlemen who have 
 fo much to anfwer for, without being in refponflble 
 fituations; I do not diffemblc that it is my earned 
 wiih, that there tliould be no fecret in the whole 
 kingdom with refpect to thofe who are now fecretly 
 attached to the caufe of corruption and abufes, by the 
 falaries they draw from them. I think it hard at the 
 fame time upon Minifters themfelves, that Peers, at 
 leaft, will not defend their own privileges and ex- 
 clufive greatnefs, without being hired to it like the 
 underlings of the prefs or the treafury ; and I pity 
 the difficult and laborious fervices of Mr. Long 
 and Mr. Rofe, as much as I refpecl thofe talents 
 for perfuafion which cannot perfuade a Peer to 
 vote in his own caufe, without giving him the 
 bribe defigned for a commoner, and 1 think it cruel 
 too, that no can: nor individual will defend his 
 own prerogative and intereft, unlefs he be paid 
 for it; — but though I think all thefe things, my 
 
 H dear 
 
t 93 ] 
 
 dear Sir, I fhall leave a lift and catalogue of (ir.eCurcs 
 and abufes, to be furniflied by thofe who lament 
 them lefs, and can bring themfelves to contemplate 
 our mifery and depravity with calmer nerves and a 
 more philofophical temper, than it is my lot to pof- 
 fefs. It (hall not however be wanting when occafion 
 demands it ; it will make a fupplement, and furnifti 
 no uninterefting comment upon our livre rouge— 
 Would the people of this enlightened country give 
 credit to me were I to tell them, without demonftia- 
 tive proofs, the enormous fums they annually pay, 
 to buy themfelves enemies, to bribe traitors againft 
 their own caufe, to bind down powerful families in 
 eternal hoftility to their liberty, prosperity, and peace ? 
 
 I am now going to afk you a queftion, which I 
 doubt not youhave already anticipated, though Ifufpect 
 rather with apprehension than impatience. I am go- 
 ing to afk you, whether you can believe, for an inftant, 
 that any fet of Miniiters could deliberately continue 
 and encreafe all thefe abufes and dangers, which are 
 fo many infults befides, and a cruel mockery upon 
 the underftanding and diftrefs of the country, unlefs 
 they wifhed them to arrive at fomc fatal crifis, or ex- 
 pected fome dangerous climacteric? Would any fur- 
 geon neglect or foment fo foul a wound, unlefs he 
 defigned to bring the fore to a gangrene, and an am- 
 putation ? 
 
 A* 
 
C 99 ] 
 
 As to thofe who deny the neceffity of reform, 
 and pretend to be perfectly fatisfyed With the exifting 
 htuation of government and the Conftitution ; I will 
 juft afk them, why in that cafe they do not provide 
 for the fecurity and permanence of a fyftem they 
 think fo happy and fo perfect? I will afk them, whe- 
 ther they can think any eftablifhment feeure, againfr. 
 which its enemies can bring fuch charges as have 
 been brought by the enemies of our own ? If corrup- 
 tion be neceffary, as they pretend it is, (and who will 
 deny that it is the neceifary refource of Minifters 
 who have neither wifdom, nor virtue, nor real honeft 
 popularity ?) Can it be neceffary too that it mould 
 (link in every noftril, and glare in every eye ? Would 
 it not be prudent to heap the dunghill on the other 
 fide of the hedge, where the fchool-boys could not 
 find it out, and rake it to the annoyance and offence 
 of every nerve in the neighbourhood ? For my part, 
 if I wiflied to continue this abominable and immoral 
 fyftem of bribery and burgage-tenure, I fhouid be 
 as eager to disfranchife Old Sarum and half the towns 
 of Wilts and Cornwall, as thofe perfons could be who 
 wifhed honeft iy for a real and radical reform — and I 
 confefs ferioufly, that thinking as I do, 1 mould be very 
 forry to fee juft fo much done and no more ; becaufe 
 I am convinced that every abufe and injury that has 
 not become plain and palpable to the people, may be 
 continued, and will be continued, with unfeelingnefs 
 and with impunity, as long as the wealth and fatelli- 
 tes of the Court, fhall be able to corrupt or intimi- 
 
 H 2 date 
 
[ ioo ] 
 
 date every Adminiftration. It is here that every ar- 
 gument will return ; it is here, that whoever would 
 fave his country from revolutions, the event of which 
 no man is able to forefee j and whither men can be 
 driven only by the violence of their paflions, excited 
 more by contempt and infult, than by the fenfe of 
 habitual wrongs : It is here, I fay, that every friend 
 to England mud look for, and muft carry reform ; 
 without this, we can have no fecurity for the free- 
 dom or independence of any Parliament : we can feel 
 no hope of the integrity of any Minifier, of the du- 
 ration of any fyflem, of the period of any evil. 
 
 The enormous power and preponderance of the 
 Crown, the excefs of falaries and penfions, the num- 
 ber of (inecures, and places without number, have 
 united a formidable phalanx, more formidable from 
 the ground they occupy, than from their fkill, their 
 courage, or their refources : All thefe will aflemble 
 to plant a barrier between the people and its willies : 
 But heaven forbid that an enlightened Prince fhould 
 range himfelf on the fide of a bafe and abandoned 
 Court, againd a patient, a loyal, and a virtuous 
 people ! But heaven forbid, that a patriot King 
 (hould hefitate between a nation and the furniture of 
 a drawing-room, or know a doubt between the mil- 
 lions he was born to blefs, and the harpies who (leal 
 the viands from their lip ; who fteal the viands from 
 their lip, and poifon the fcraps they leave, with their 
 riaufeous touch, and their corrupt effluvia. 
 
 The 
 
 
[ <oi 1 
 
 The unexampled rigour of the courts of juftiee 
 will, in my apprenfion, produce but a very momen- 
 tary effect, and that effect will be followed by a di- 
 rect contrary impreflion. Far be it from me to enter 
 into the defenee of thofe who have been condemned 
 by a verdict of their country, however it may be to 
 be lamented, that the fentences pronounced upon 
 them fhouid have appeared fo generally fevere, as to 
 have difmhTed the audiences from our tribunals of 
 juftice with an enthufiafm very unlike to that which 
 affembled them : In foine places they feemed to feel 
 themfelves not iimple fpectatovs of a trial, but en- 
 trufted with the character of the Chorus at leaft in 
 the antient drama; to have breathed their ardent 
 vows to heaven. 
 
 Ut redeat miferis abeat for tuna fuperhis. 
 
 That they mould have feparated with fentiments 
 like thefe could have been more properly confidered 
 as unfortunate, if it ought not to have forefeen and ex- 
 pected : the hardfhipof fome trials, and thefeverity of 
 fome fentences, which I do not think it necefiary to 
 cite, have done more real mifchief to Adminiftration^ 
 than any libels, or any treafons, which the objects of 
 all this rigour were capable of writing or difperftrig 
 among the people. Eager profecutions and exceffivc" 
 punifhments againft this fpecies of crime are amongfl 
 the figns of the weaknefs, as well as the violence, of the 
 fears, as well as the fury of Governments—the fever 
 
 H 3 that 
 
[ IQ 2 ] 
 
 that makes power mad, makes it tremble too; it 
 flvkes long with the fit, which made it flrong and 
 terrible for a moment : — Fear is constantly cruel, but 
 the fenfe of fecurity is naturally kind and forgiving. 
 Julius Cseiar could pardon the lampoons of Catullus, 
 but Afinius Pollio, or Cafiius Chierea, I think it was 
 one of thefe perfonages, and I cannot go to book 
 for them, was forced to die for a compliment to the 
 memory of Brutus, and his brother-in law. 
 
 There feems, indeed, to enter as much fpleen and 
 bile into the conftitution of political as of natural 
 bodies. Republicanifm has frequently meant no- 
 thing but the hatred of monarchs : and 1 think that 
 I could (hew that in the ftates of Greece, and re- 
 publican Rome, there prevailed more virulence and 
 malice againil kings, than love or underfbinding of 
 liberty ; this was, perhaps, the natural effect of the 
 experience they had had of them ; for how many 
 have been fit to be entrufted with the conduct of their 
 fpecies ? Flattery can go no further than to compare 
 the beft of them living with one or two, and to di- 
 flinguiih and contraft them from all the reft of their 
 order — Quomodo Augvjius fie et Antoninus — and Hif- 
 tory, which judges all men, has her crofs to make 
 againft the very prototypes of perfection*. The 
 great political fecret was not yet difcovered, that 
 
 * Nonfujifanto ni henigno AuguJ?o t 
 C»me la trmba di Firgiliofuona, 
 
 Kings 
 
[ iG 3 3 
 
 Kings might be tolerated even in republics, and 
 Freedom, a Chareatid nymph, fubmit her generous 
 neck to the gentle burthen of a legal and limited 
 throne : Androcles had not tamed his lion ; and Li- 
 berty, leading a muzzled monarch by her fide, had 
 been a bolder hieroglyphic than CEdipus and the 
 Sphynx herfelf would have dared to decypher. Even 
 row, how few flates of Europe, adminiftered under 
 republican forms, have any juft idea of liberty ! In 
 Venice, where there is a direct, intenie, and meridian 
 political tyranny, the people exult, becanfe they have 
 bo King ; even in Holland, what notion do they en- 
 tertain of reprefentauon ? 
 
 We read but of one people, however, who have 
 rejected liberty ; the Cappadocians, we are told by 
 Strabo, as he is cited by Lord Bolingbroke, Liber- 
 tat€m 9 repstdtavenml vJ tpsamjibi drtertxt inUferaMiem 9 
 1 fofpeet, however,, that this determination of the Cap- 
 podacians, in eSeck* was little more than a compli- 
 ment to Rome, and regarded no part of their own po- 
 litical conftkution., £0 uracil as. the reSdcnce or ab- 
 fence of a legate or his aSdOTor, (who might probably 
 have potXefied fumcient intereft to procure lb loyal an, 
 addrefs) ; but of this I am confident., that freedom is 
 intolerable to every vicious and corrupted people, 
 whether they have the means of rejecting it or not, 
 as we may contemplate it in France, where it is new ; 
 and, I am confident, that it will be mod intolerable to 
 a corrupted people, where (he has long been eitab- 
 
 H 4 Lifhed, 
 
[ i°+ ] 
 
 lifhcd, as I hope we (hall never be able to learn by an 
 example icill nearer home; for though in a depraved 
 ftate, in which liberty is new, (he may be vie d 
 and abijfed, (he can fcarce be made the bawd and 
 pimp of defpotifm, or turned into a ftate-engine and 
 pretext for oppreffion : but in a country which bas 
 long been free, but has ceafed to be fo, becaufe of 
 its corruption, lhe will eafily become all thefe, and 
 woi fc, if there is worfe than thefe ; the names, the 
 forms, and even the memory of the anticnt freedom., 
 wilt become not only decoys and fnares, but crimes 
 and treafons, wherever they are difcovered; it is there 
 that fghs will be regiftered, and regrets indicted, 
 that thought will be dogged by danger, and filence 
 haunted by fufpicion : In fuch a ftate, the laws will 
 not be abrogated nor forgotten, but they will be 
 ftrained and perverted ; a fpecies of horrid mockery 
 will be engrafted upon oppreffion, and the virgin be 
 delivered to the hangman's luft, that (he may pafs 
 jegatty to the torture or the fcaftbld. 
 
 • In mixed Governments like our own, it is natural, 
 perhaps it is unavoidable, that fome of the citizens 
 ihould incline with predilection and favour towards 
 one branch of the Conftitution,and regard the others 
 with jealoufy at the leaft : Amongft: the fubjects of 
 fuch a ftate, there will be fome who may miftake 
 themfelves into an exclufive loyalty and attachment 
 to the regal branch, incompatible with the prin- 
 ciples of free Government?, or the fentiments of free 
 
 Men; 
 
Men ; while there will be others, whom an unmea- 
 fured love of liberty, and of the very forms of liberty, 
 may induce to lament the loft republic, and to offer 
 vows not very favourable to the monarchical part of 
 the Government ; there may be perfons too, amongfl 
 either or both of thefe defcriptions, who may be but 
 ill affected towards the ariftocratic order, and averfe 
 to titles of nobility and hereditary distinctions, which 
 have not, they may imagine, io much decorated and 
 exalted the individuals who bearthem,as they have de- 
 bafed and degraded the great mafs of mankind, from 
 which they have invidiouily ieparated and divided 
 them ; but none of thofe individuals, it is clear, can 
 be perfectly contented with the abftracl theory of our 
 exiiimg Conftitution ; one will wifh that in the distri- 
 bution of powers, more weight had been thrown into 
 this fcale, while another will defire to give a preponde- 
 rance to the oppofite fide of the balance: but bringthefe 
 men together, and they inftantly become contented, 
 becaufe they inftantly perceive theneceffity of mutual 
 concefhon and adjustment. Three citizens, fuch as 
 I have defcribed, deputed to felect a Conftitution, 
 mufl of neceffity form one analogous to our own: 
 virtus eft medium vitiorum cf? uirinqite redutla. Would 
 i,c not therefore be tyrannical, unjuft, and abfurd, to 
 pu»Hh any one of them for the eccentricity of his 
 opinion, fince the union of thefe opinions makes the 
 very fyftem which they all feverally prefer to the fyf- 
 |tem of each other, and which they all have made 
 
 their 
 
[ 3o6 J 
 
 equal facrifices to obtain? Were the Tories perfectly 
 : ed at the Revolution., did the Whigs carry all 
 points ? Was it not accompliihed by reciprocal 
 cone by mutual forbearance, by a compro 
 
 jnife of political tei . pretenfions? Is it con- 
 
 tend c . every .-.a! of the ftate muft be 
 
 ;, who conceives a greater degree of per- 
 ie m the Government, than he 
 exift there, or a jufier ba. 
 and diftribution of powers than he believes is to 
 be foim d } Alas, . we are all 
 
 guilty, V id Tories, Court and country, every 
 
 description and party of us are criminal before fo fe- 
 a tribunal I 
 
 Give me leave to take this opportunity of expref- 
 iing the regrets I reel, that the privilege of thought 
 (houkl be allowed of to a greater extent in our fchook 
 and univerfeies than in the great forum and theatre 
 of life. If we are to go on according to the maxims 
 row' adopted, and become popular in Courts and in 
 Courts of Juflice, I am (earful we are guilty of a fatal 
 error, in teaching our children the republican lan- 
 guages of Italy and Greece, and in imbuing their 
 minds with principles fo Sikely to lead them to high 
 treafon as thofe of Tacitus, of Salluft, and Cicero, 
 of Plutarch, Xenophon, and Socrates. I think it is 
 Diogenes Laertius in his life of Antifthenes the philo- 
 fopher, who has the following remarkable fentence, 
 
[ i©7 1 
 
 Tof 1o<pot a kxIx r«r xt/puta No^ar mxflsvta-Qxi, otiXa. xulx tov wi^- 
 Afsl'/jr, k«; f^aicr^o-Eo-Sai 5e : /aovov ya£ £<&hjh tov 2of>o» rtvuv yjv tf&v*. 
 
 I fhall certainly not put this maxim into Englifli, 
 becaufe I cannot approve of all the difcretion and 
 arbitrement it eftabliihes in the breafts of learned 
 men ; it authorizes them, no doubt to exercife their 
 judgment, at lead upon exifting laws and coniutu- 
 tions, and more than to publifli their opinions ; but 
 flill lefs can I applaud the axiom, that feems to pre- 
 vail at prefent, and to make it treafon or difhonour 
 to fufpecl, that there might be compounded a better 
 fyftem of government, or invented a vvifer code of 
 laws than that by which we are guided ; though I 
 am firmly convinced, that all who aim at this greater 
 perfection, by any other means than by reftoring 
 them to the purity they once enjoyed, and bringing 
 them back to the fimplicity and virtue of their origi- 
 nal institution, will find themfelves miferably mis- 
 taken in the experiment. However, while this fpe- 
 cies of perfecution prevails, and even when it mall 
 have ceafed, it might certainly be prudent to efta- 
 blifh a greater degree of conformity between outlaws 
 and our education ; for furely, my dear Sir, it is 
 ferioufly to be apprehended, that it is not lor the 
 happinefs of the rifing generation to be educated for 
 freedom and virtue, nor to become enamoured and 
 familiar with the great examples of free and virtuous 
 antiquity, at this period, when not only con ampere 
 &? corrumpi is the falhion of the age, but when there 
 is fo much danger and difgrace in refitting the tor- 
 rents of falhion and corruption. Surely we do nor 
 
 only 
 
C *°8 ] 
 
 only nurfe their opening mind?, " nihil f lit- 
 
 teris," but with dangerous longings, and with fatal 
 affections ; we do not form them to be happy or con- 
 tented citizens in fucha (late as ours, but bring them 
 up rather to the pillory, to banilhment and the fcaf- 
 fold ; — will they not one day exclaim againft: us, 
 nay, may we'not ourfelvcs already cry outagainftouf 
 predeceffors, as Sir John Sarile did , "Oh, impro- 
 vident anceftors ! Oh, unwife forefathers !" or may 
 not even thefe fighs and regrets very foon become 
 treafonable or feditious ? 
 
 With regard, however, to the terrors infpired, or 
 capable of being infpired, into a whole people, it is 
 worthy of remark, that men are more eaiily afco- 
 nifhed than they are frightened : though aftonilhment, 
 particularly in political cafes, is frequently miftaken 
 for fear. But there is this important diflin&ion be- 
 tween them, that though the impreffion is inftan- 
 taneous in both, its duration is different and un- 
 equal Aftonimment is rarely, or perhaps never 
 
 followed by fear; for the very fenfe of recovery 
 from it is acYive and encouraging ; men relieved 
 from the weight of it, naturally turn to examine the 
 object or the circumftance that caufed it, and cou- 
 rage always arifes from the minute examination evert 
 of real danger. But that torpor which you have ob- 
 ferved in the people, has its fource, according to 
 my judgment, and according to my fears, in an- 
 other, and a fatal cauie, in its contempt and equal 
 indifference towards both Minifters and Oppofitian ; 
 
 in 
 
[ «09 1 
 
 lii its defpair' of deriving any redrefs or remedy 
 from either, and in the cool determination it feems 
 to pofTcfs, to do itfelf that right which it thinks is 
 impudently and unfeelingly denied to it on the one 
 hand, and feebly and hypocritically demanded for it 
 on the other. But if it does fleep, I would advife 
 his Majefty's Servants to watch carefully and con- 
 ftantly over its il umbers; its waking will be terrible, 
 whenever it happens; and any clam, in any part of 
 Europe, may echo fo ftrongly in its ears, as to occa- 
 fion it to ftart up unexpected and fudden. They 
 who are fo well accuftomed to rock the baby, fhould 
 be ready to hufh. its cries -when it wakes. 
 
 You know, my dear Sir, the anprehenfions 1 have 
 long entertained of this waking; — what I have already 
 written will always be a proof of the anxiety I have 
 entertained left this Reform fhould be accomplished 
 by other hands than thofe of Parliament : a Reform 
 in any other way appears to me to differ in nothing 
 from a Revolution : for if the power of the State 
 exifts for a moment in any other body than in the 
 Houfes of Parliament conferring with the Crown ; 
 it may exift there for a month, a year, for a century, 
 or forever. Firmly convinced in my own mind of 
 the danger of this important crifis, to which we are 
 made forcibly to approach by the ignorance, the ob- 
 flinacy, or the defign of his Majefty's Servants ; by the 
 corruption of the Court, and by the perverfenefs of a 
 majority in the Houfe of Commons : and ftill more 
 
 immediately 
 
t Mo I 
 
 immediately by the abfurd and criminal ill conduct 
 of [he war, which difgufts the people, more flronglyj 
 and more fenfibly, than remote and habitual evils; 
 and teaches thtm to defpife Minifters, as well as to 
 hate them, (the mod dangerous of all fituations). Con- 
 v: need of this danger, and alarmed at the difficulty 
 which every honeft mind muft experience, in chiif- 
 ing the part he will act., and even the fide upon which 
 he will range himfelf, I have felt it my duty, as a 
 good citizen (I pretend to no other title) to make 
 thofe fenlible of the peril who are able to avert the 
 florin, or affed to be able to govern the helm. And 
 furely if we can efcape the danger by throwing over- 
 board fomeof that ufelefs lumber, and of thofe cum- 
 brous impediments which I have already pointed out, 
 I think neither yourfelf, nor any good Englishman, 
 will regret them ; we llia.ll fail the lighter, the hap- 
 pier, and the fafer without them ; more united 
 amongft ourfelves, more formidable to the pirates 
 -and privateers, that envy our flag, or covet our car- 
 goes ; and we (hall fail too, with better omens, and a 
 more favourable heaven 1 
 
 As you are decidedly of opinion that the fafeft 
 and propereft method to obtain this Reform for 
 the people, in a legal and conlbtutional manner, is 
 to develope the plan gradually and according to the 
 circumftances of the time ; and as you are convinced 
 that it might now be granted them, with perfect 
 fafety, in a parliamentary manner, and by means fa- 
 miliar 
 
I i i i ] 
 
 i to our Coiiftitu&On ; by f.. :.;•;,. fot jnftancej as 
 
 X have incidentally and occafion 3 :t in 
 
 toe fecofwi of my letters, there will remain not : . yr 
 for me of much importance to fay upon that head, 
 farther than that the time ought not wantonly 
 fporteo with", nor any occafion fuflered to go by, of 
 givi te an affurance at leaft, tl l an be 
 
 done for them in Parliament, of which many of tb a 
 have began to doubt or to defpair; and to which m 
 <from frequent d ifappointmcnt, as well I fear as from 
 other promifes and expectations, have grown " 
 indifferent. 
 
 I fllall now, before I take my leave of you, my 
 dear Sir, in compliance with your withes, which will 
 always be laws to me, but with great hesitation and 
 deference, fubmit to you a few thoughts upon "what 
 might have been, in my humble opinion, the con- 
 duct of this war, and upon the expediency or pro- 
 priety of making peace, which you feem to imagine 
 exifts at the actual conjuncture of affairs. Refpect- 
 ing the war, I confefs, that as (owing to her infular 
 fituation, and the immenfe fuperiority of her mari- 
 time force, as well as the happy influence of her Con- 
 flitution, and a jufter diftribution of properly, than I 
 think prevails in any other kingdom of Europe) the 
 danger could not be nearer, nor fo near to England 
 as it was to the Mates on the continent, it has ap- 
 peared to me to be abfurd to thrufl ourfelves fo for- 
 ward upon the fcene, and to aflume the principal 
 a character 
 
[ "« ] 
 
 character on the drama. It has always been the £>!ty 
 and the vain-glory of this country, to do every thing, 
 and to pay every thing for all her allies ; and God 
 knows how long, how often, and how lately, (he has 
 had occalion to repent of the power her prodigality 
 procured her of dictating in councils, where fhe dis- 
 played none of the national qualities, excepting its 
 vanity ! — yet there were councils in which it would 
 have been for her intereft, and for her honour, to 
 have borne fway, where her afcendency would have. 
 • been a common advantage to the caufe of the allies, 
 and cf humanity ; and where, if (lie had bought or 
 won the power to dictate, the benefit would hive 
 been acknowledged by Europe, and by mankind. 
 
 The war, Sir, was inevitable from the very begin- 
 ning of the French revolution, notwithftanding the 
 opinion of the learned gentleman who derives it from 
 an act. of their third Legiilature ; and notwithftanding 
 the manifefto of the Mi miters, who feem to think 
 that things cannot be placed upon a better footing 
 than they were upon the 9th of Auguft, 1792. — But 
 Pace virorum tantorum, the war was unavoidable from 
 the very beginning and principle of the revolution in 
 France : and it was evident that it was fo, to every 
 man acquainted with the temper of parties, and the 
 moral and political fituation of that kingdom. On 
 the 10th of Auguft, however, by the confeflion of the 
 manifefto, it became fo, and in truth, 1 know of no 
 alternative of events which could have difpenfed with 
 it, though there exiiled, no doubt, the means of ac- 
 celerating 
 
[ ",3 ] 
 
 celerating, and of retarding it. Government difTem- 
 bled this neceffity as long as it was able, and fuffered 
 itfelf to be infulted and injured, and puttied to ex- 
 tremities, before it pulled of the mafk. Whatever 
 objections the other Courts of Europe, and the wifeft 
 of the Royalifts, have made to this policy, I (hall not 
 venture to blame it, confidering the internal ftate of 
 rhe country, which was neither ferene nor fecurei 
 This interval, Sir, however, I mean the interval be- 
 tween the depofition of the King, and the declaration 
 of the war, ought, I think, to have been employed 
 by England in bringing the other powers of the in- 
 tended confederation to a plain and unequivocal de- 
 claration of their ultimate views and intentions, and 
 in binding them by formal and explicit engagements, 
 both tothefpeciric conditions, and to the public object 
 of the alliance. Perhaps, Sir, for example, it would 
 ot have been unwife or improper to have ftipulaied, 
 that none of the,high-contracting-parties, who were 
 to form this political crufade againft the crimes and 
 ufurpations of France, mould, during the actual 
 term of the contract at leaft, invade, or plunder, or di- 
 vide > the pofTeffions and territories of any other (late : 
 That none of the powers who acceded to this en- 
 gagement, fliould adopt the principles of the Jado- 
 bins, againft whom it was directed, or commit any 
 crimes which might extinguish or extenuate, by com- 
 parifon, the horrors excited by thofe which were 
 daily perpetrating at Paris ; that it fliould be held to 
 be as unjufl and unlawful to hold, a fovereign pri- 
 ..'■'. I fone* 
 
[ "4 ] 
 
 foner upon the banks of the Niemen as upon thofr 
 of the Seine; by foreign, as by domeftic opprcf- 
 iion j and be reputed as violent and arbitrary,, to tear 
 a province from a Republic as from the Pope him- 
 felF. 
 
 When thefe preliminaries had been figned and 
 exchanged, perhaps it would not have been found 
 more difficult to have procured from the King of 
 Pruflia in particular, our old friend and ally, diltin£t 
 and politive engagements, which might have pre- 
 vented any treachery or interruption being given to 
 the progrefs of the war, than it has been found 
 to repair thefe aeddents of the alliance by the re- 
 monftrances of my Lord Yarmouth or by the dex- 
 terity and addrefs of my Lord Malmfbury. This 
 precaution, Sir, would-, befides the important advan- 
 tages it would have fecured to the Allies ; befides the 
 gates of Landau, which it would have opened \ be- 
 fides the influence it rhigjit have had in the councils 
 of the Duke of Bvunfvvick, when the retreat from the 
 plains of Chalons was under deliberation ; I fay, be- 
 fides this common benent, iti would have laved much 
 anxiety, much dishonour, and much cxpence to 
 Great Britain. And though, indeed, the Earl of 
 Yarmouth might not have been fo foon convinced, 
 or fo eaiily converted by the fyrens ofthe Rhine, yet 
 the Goddefs of Perfuaiion herfeif fate upon the 
 banks of the Tagus, and beckoned him to the gar- 
 dens of Aranjuez. 
 
 Serioufly, 
 
C "5 ] 
 
 Serioufly, my dear Sir, it appears to me to be 
 worthy of all our regrets, for it is not our lofs, but 
 our difhonour alfo, that the interval of time which 
 elapfed from that period when Minifters were con- 
 vinced, or ought to have been convinced, of the in- 
 evitability of the war, to the moment when the head- 
 long violence and infatuation of France compelled 
 the actual commencement of hoftilities; that this 
 interval mould not have been employed with more 
 wifdom, precaution, and political fkill. The King 
 of Pruffia at leaft, might have been induced, 1 mould 
 imagine, to covenant not to difturb, if joined to the 
 Houfe of Auftria, he had not been able to guarantee 
 the tranquillity of Poland. But it occurred, no doubt, 
 to our fagacious and liberal Adminiftration, that it 
 waseafierand more confiftent to fecure Pruffia by the 
 abandonment of Poland, by a ftri£t analogy to that 
 honourable principle which had induced it to fecure 
 the Court by the facrifice of the reform ! And after 
 all, are they to blame, if there are Kings more Jacobin 
 than the Jacobins of Paris, and Courts more treache- 
 rous than thefchools of Danton andBarrere? 
 
 I think, Sir, however, that the people of this coun- 
 try would have been better fatisfied, if they had feen 
 the extraordinary ability and peculiar talents of my 
 Lord Malmfbury dire&cd, during that interval, to 
 the attainment of this object; and that at the prefent 
 moment they would be happier to think them ex- 
 erted to obtain, I will not fay fome afiiftance, but 
 
 I 2 
 
[ "6 ] 
 
 fomc definitive explanation, from that ambitious 
 prm;. \ a fc?ds the flames and fury of contention 
 her refcrij a er manifeftos; who halloos 
 on ti e .logs of war; but neither riiks her blood, nor 
 her treafure, nor fatigues her ftrength, by 
 | king in the chace : Of that ambitious princefs, 
 who beholds with equal joy, difeafe, defeat. 
 or famine', or maflacres or battles, thin the .< | Hid- 
 ing nations ; who exults in the common ruin and de- 
 fplation, and prepares herfelf to be the 1 
 dreat urge of our European world; i 
 
 us by wounds our own hands have made; founding 
 her barbarous throne upon the ruins we have pulled 
 upon our own heads; and enflaving us by our own 
 madnefs, folly, depravity and crime 
 
 .. But if any meaiures of prudence or precaution i 
 cd beneath the grandeur and magnanimity of the ca- 
 binet of St. James's; or if the King's Minifters in fact 
 knew nothing of the war till it was declared by the 
 Convention, and Breda was invented ; if we arc to date 
 all their preparations from the embarkation of the 
 . Greenwich, and the manifefto of General 
 urier: then, Sir, I cannot but acknowledge that 
 their refentment was equal to their aftonifhment, and 
 . they refolved to make the war every where with the 
 fame wifdom that had made them expect it no where ; 
 and they divided their force accordingly intofo many 
 different objects and directions, that in return they 
 might furprize France every where, and be able to 
 
 make 
 
[ J <7 3 
 
 make an impreffion upon her no where ! — After the 
 expultion of the French from Holland, I believe I 
 may fay the whole kingdom (I beg pardon ot the. 
 Court, but I had really forgot it) was appalled and 
 afflicted at the minifterial pevfeverance in fending 
 troops to Flanders; but I have already expreffed my- 
 felf upon this fubjecl, and I had long before impef- 
 feclly conveyed my fentiments to the public upon 
 the propriety of that meafure *. Some other ma- 
 terial points in the conduit of this diiafbo'us cam- 
 paign, I have examined in the early parr of this Let- 
 ter ; it remains for me to fay a few words upon 
 others, of which I have purpofely referved the con- 
 federation for the prefent opportunity, that their im- 
 preffion might not be diminifh the horror T 
 am fure you have felt at the too fastb'fol detail I 
 lhave given you, of the corrupt and guilty caofcs ql' 
 fo many andfuch fatal confequene. 
 
 Of thole vain and dilatory expeditions to the Weft- 
 Indies, after the unhappy attempts o. .*'ard- 
 ner, perpetually poftponed and facrificed by the 
 folly and trepidadon of Government ? to new and fu- 
 gitive objects, to wild and ini£iiic~Uca.b!e projedts a to 
 Dunkirk „ to Toulon, to St.Maldes^bnt always to the 
 favourite fchenae of Continental warfare and ii 
 iions, I thai! not permit myfelf to examine the details. 
 The evident abfurdky and deplorable iiTue,, of the at- 
 
 Vide Poftcript to the Firft Letter to Ms. Fox. 
 
 I 3 tetrpt 
 
[ itS .] 
 
 tempt againft Corfica, has almoft been overlooked 
 and forgotten in the general mafs of our errors and 
 mifcarriagcs, in the great toial of public misfortune 
 and difgrace ! the imperfect accounts hitherto receiv- 
 ed from Toulon, make me necelTarily referved, 
 though I cannot fupprefs the whole of my forrow and 
 confternation, nor conceal the difguft and ihame 
 with which I have beheld that unhappy and disho- 
 norable fcene, which has clofed our tragic pantomime 
 in the Mediterranean — I leave to others to lament 
 with real or affected grief, the miferies of that unhap- 
 py city, and to deplore with feeling or eloquence, 
 the fierce revenges which defolate her habitations. To 
 others I abandon the fed and painful tafk of recapi- 
 tulating our own lofTes, and of mourning the brave 
 and Britifh blood which has {beamed fo plentifully, 
 which has been fo ufelefsly, and fo prodigally fquander- 
 ed under its walls. To others I depute the invidious 
 labour of counting the treafures which have been la- 
 vifhed to retain it, the penfions, falaries, and annui- 
 ties which furvive its furrender ! I will confine myfelf 
 to one plain and difpafiionate argument, and I will 
 leave it to make its own imprefiion upon the unbias- 
 ed reafbn of the public, without any aid from an 
 arrangment of words, from reflexions of forrow, of 
 humanity, or if I can fupprefs them, of indignation. 
 
 Either Toulon was tenable, or it was not tenable : 
 in the firft cafe, it is plain, that it ought to have 
 been defended on the 1 9th of December ; in the fc- 
 
 cond 
 
[ "9 1 
 
 cond, it ought to have beea relinquished long before 
 the republican army was in fufficient force to compel 
 and to impede our embarkation ; — not a fhip, not a 
 military magazine, not thirty pieces of cannon,. not 
 a quintal of gunpowder ; and much more, not a 
 man, or a woman, or a child, defirous to embark, 
 ought to have been left, or needed to have been left 
 at Toulon. No blood, no treafure, needed to have 
 been lavifhed there ; Sir Gilbert Elliot, and all his 
 fuite, needed not to have been appointed, nor the 
 troops' of Naples, and fo many other nations, to have 
 been tranfported there. So many brave but unpro- 
 fitable fallies, needed not to have been attempted ; 
 General O'Hara need not now be a prifoner, nor our 
 bofoms to be troubled for the fate of this gallant, but 
 unhappy Commander. There is blame fomewhere, 
 and it cannot be denied. MeiTrs. Rofe and Burgefs, I 
 appeal to you once more ! Was it tenable, or was it 
 not fo ? — My opinion is that it was not, for I know 
 the valour and the fkill of the noble Lord who com- 
 manded the fieet, and of the General and troops who 
 were in poffefiion of the fortrefs ; and 1 think too that 
 it was «a/, becaufe I know that the corruption of 
 the Adminiftration is as great as its ignorance, and 
 its profuiiqn equal to every thing but its contempt 
 both for the public intereft and the public opinion. — • 
 While Toulon ferved as a pretext for patronage, 
 while it fumifhed appointments and falaries, and 
 procured mercenary friends to the Miniflcr, Toulon 
 was tenable; while it provided for their profclytes, 
 
 i 4 ana 
 
[ 120 ] 
 
 purchafed impunity for themfelves, Toulon was te* 
 ; while it conferred finecures and paid votes 
 in the Houfe of Commons, Toulon was tenable. — 
 But when the fyftem was complete, when the ob- 
 jects were attained, when avarice was gorged, and 
 corruption Saturated ; when the ftipulated reverfions 
 and the promifed penfions were merited and lega- 
 lized, Toulon became untenable, though it was too 
 ufcful to be abandoned till the precife moment of 
 attack ; the Minifters regarded it with affectionate 
 regret, and, longed and lingered, till a great part 
 of our mod important acquisition was neceflarily 
 loll, till our blood had dreamed, and the (hips and 
 ft ores which might have been brought off before with 
 perfect fafety, were, 1 fear, but imperfectly destroyed, 
 
 1 will not give way to my feelings upon this Sub- 
 ject ; but I mould neither do juftice to the Public 
 nor to myfelf, who have been once accufed of par- 
 tiality to Minifters, if 1 did not declare, in the molt 
 unequivocal and explicit terms, that here again is 
 matter of impeach m entj that the marks and footiteps 
 of corruption are plain and viable through all this 
 opprobrious tranlaclion, and that it is the duty of 
 every man, whofe talents, whofe zeal, or whofe in- 
 dustry can enable him to Supply, in any degree, the 
 irreparable deficiency of a virtuous minority in Par- 
 liament, to trace it to its laire, to that impure and 
 naufeous den, where the monSter retires to devour 
 
 and divide its prey Oh, Sir, what might not, at 
 
 this 
 
r •*• ] 
 
 this time, a virtuous minority, a national party, 
 w! at might it not atchieve for the country? what 
 might it not procure, what might it not prevent, 
 what blefiings might it not confer, what miferies might 
 it hot avert from our heads and thofe of our chil- 
 dren ! Yes, Sir, I have already laid it, but i i 
 repeat it again and again, majorities may plunge us 
 into diftrefs, but minorities only can plunge us into 
 defpair — where are we to look for redrefs, and where 
 for atonement ? Who fhall break that horrid con- 
 tract, who fhall finifli the impunity, which is the 
 fourcc of minifterial crimes, and the price of the 
 public mifery and misfortune ? Where are the de- 
 fenders of liberty, where are the champions of the 
 Conftitution ? Alas, our eyes feek them in vain, or 
 weep to find them wandering, like fullen ghoits, in 
 the aifles and avenues of the Court, or hiding them- 
 felves in the guilty crowd that furrounds them, from 
 our reproving fearch, from their own furviving fen- 
 timents of honour — *The fupprefTed, ■ but i : -ctin- 
 guifhable flame of public virtue, fcorches and con- 
 fumes the fouls that have dared to defert or to betray 
 her ! 
 
 Give me leave now to enter into a very brief.coir- 
 fideration of the profpects of peace, and the c 
 nion I am forry to iufpecr. you entertain of the expe- 
 diency of the negociation I 
 
 * 
 
C ^ 2 ] 
 
 The only found argument, I confcfs, I have heard 
 for making peace, is the extreme imbecility and in- 
 capacity of his Majefty's fervants to make war, and 
 the danger of confiding the management of it to any 
 party that could fuddenly be found to fucceed to 
 them. And I freely acknowledge that I think it a 
 ftrong argument, and one which, under other circum- 
 flanccs, it would have been very adventurous, and 
 perhaps very prepoflerous, to controvert. But firmly 
 i :ded as I am that the falvation of the country 
 and of Europe depends, not only upon our fuccefs, 
 but upon our perfeverance in the war ; and that time 
 is at leaft as neceffary as force itfelf, 10 coerce the in- 
 fatuated people againft whom we wage it; I am forry 
 to. fee the efforts of the kingdom made fo furious and 
 violent, and our flrength and refources exerted and 
 exhaufled with fo little forefight or difevetion, as to 
 leave us no alternative between immediate triumph 
 and immediate ruin. And this I fay, Sir, ind$j 
 dently of the abfurdity and ignorance with which 
 thefe efforts have been directed, and which have na- 
 turally cauied them to mifcarry in Co many places. 
 
 The force of France has always been proportioned to 
 the vigour of the attack made upon her, and has ne- 
 ver been greater than it, becaufe it required the dan- 
 ger to create the fpirit, and the exigency to furnifli 
 the means of refiftance. If France had been attacked 
 by us at fea only, fhe would have beheld St. Do- 
 mingo, Martinico, Gaudaloupe, the Mauritius, the 
 
 Ifle 
 
[ I2 3 ] 
 
 Me of Bourbon, and all her Indian poiTeiTions in either 
 world, furrender one by one, with a careleflhefs and 
 indifference, of which it is not eafy to form an idea, 
 without having read the books, and obferved the ef- 
 fect of the books, circulated fo long at Paris, by the 
 "Briffotine party in particular; and without having 
 witnefied the enthufiafm with which, even before the 
 gates of the Hotel de MarTiac, ic perijfent les colonies" 
 had been echoed upon every occafion, where there 
 had been a queftion of commerce or colonization, in 
 opposition to Republicanifm or war. But fuppofing 
 me to over-rate the indifference with which thefe 
 loffes might have been received at Paris, I fhal! net, 
 I apprehend, be contradicted, when I afiert that they 
 could not have caufed all the fenfation there, nor all 
 the alarm, nor all the indignation which we have 
 feen excited by dangers nearer home, and by the fiege 
 of towns, in which we have, preferred to take a part, 
 to fo many richer and more eafy acquisitions. Tobago 
 loft occasioned fcarce a murmur; but the unhappy 
 attempt again ft Dunkirk put all France into a ftate 
 of requifition, and embodied the very mafs of the 
 people in one innumerable militia. — The whole plan 
 of the war, I confefs, appears to me to have be:rn 
 miftaken, defective, and ab'furd. If if was thought 
 poffible to frighten France, as it appeared to M. 
 Mallet du Pan, and the royalifts, we ought to have 
 declared, or according to a more favourite fyftem of 
 the Cabinet, to have threatened at leaft, when Auf- 
 fria and Prufila coalefced, and to have become parties 
 
 to 
 
t **4 1 
 
 tori-. -..tion of Piluitz. The common dec 
 
 tion of a ight perhaps at that time have 
 
 ice, but the Courts came fo iiowly 
 into ;ration, and dropped fo childiihly and 
 
 fo timidly o r another into the fcheme, that 
 
 i effect might have been hoped from terror 
 
 w entirely forfeited and paft. 
 
 If it :v tocrufh i ranee by one ge- 
 
 art, and that Auftriam, Pm Spaniards 
 
 and Piedn b, by a common and eon crop* 
 
 ticn,, difregardiag ry obitacles as the Rhine* 
 
 and the Pyrenees, and the Alps and Py- 
 fences of Vauban in particular, might unite their 
 forces at the capital, as it appeared to M. de Bouille 
 and the wives of the emigrants ; then the Biitifh 
 Fleet was tc hers de cemBat" and the Marefchal de 
 Freytag became a perfonage of mere importance 
 than my Lord Howe, my Lord Hood/ and all . 
 Admirals [ If this fyftem had been adopted, or rather 
 confided in, for I am afraid it was never defpaired off 
 intircly, before experience had begot a flill worfe kind 
 of defpair, if this fyflem had been milled to, the fub- 
 fidies to Sardinia, Hefle, Hanover, &c. &c. would not 
 abiurd, becaufe they would naturally 
 have derived from the abfurd fyflem which had been 
 adopted ; but when that fyftem was adopted, which 
 for the fake of being intelligible, 1 call a fyftem, and 
 i was determined to carry on hoililities every where, 
 without carrying war any where; when it was agreed 
 to fritter and dribble away the force of the kingdom 
 
 without 
 
[ I2 5 J 
 
 out any fixed objecl or de%n, and to puzzle, 
 
 : could not frighten France, with the immenfity 
 
 and the multiplicity of our objects, when with two 
 
 hundred and eighty veflels of war, it was determined 
 
 to do nothing by fea, and in fpite of nature, p 
 
 :rience, to attempt every thing by land ; I 
 ten thefe views were adopted, which feemea, 
 no doubt, fo wife and fo eafy to my Lord Chatham, 
 and fo wife and fo natural to. the Duke of Richmond, 
 when thefe views were adopted, and we had troops, or 
 comrniffioners in every camp, not to fpeak of the 
 criminal abfurdity of having a camp of our c 
 when all thefe things were evident, it feemed evident 
 alfo, that the prodigality of the war, was not only 
 accidental or negligent, but defigned and acceubry 
 to other plans and defgns, and the fate of Europe 
 wilfully and deliberately Cet upon one defperate cafu 
 This no doubt encouraged the enemy as much as it 
 difcouraged the nation • and difgufted the nation by 
 its juft appreheiifiOns, as much as it irritated the ene- 
 my by its juft cqntempt, and by the partial but in- 
 effectual inipreffions which were fo ufelefsly made 
 upon its territory. 
 
 Now, Sir, the object of the war, which is as dif- 
 ferent from its caufe, as its caufe is from the circum- 
 {lances thatn eceMitated its declaration, is, in my opi- 
 nion, neither more nor lefs, than torepulfe the Fre 
 within theii own territory while they are mad, and 
 'having cured them of their madnefs, or awaited the 
 
 abatement 
 
t ,26 ] 
 
 abatement of the fit, to fend every man home to his 
 particular employment and profedion, and to extin- 
 guifli the principle that every man is a foldier, and 
 every field common. Wherever thefe doctrines arc 
 believed or enforced, there can be no fecurity for 
 any neighbouring State, for either it muft be con- 
 . _d and overrun, or it mud grow mad too, in 
 r to be able to refift by the fame numbers and 
 iions. A Handing army fet up in one kingdom 
 has forced all the States of Europe to maintain {land- 
 ing armies, and a {landing revolution will neceffitate 
 {landing revolutions. France is juft now powerful 
 becaufe Ihe is ruined, we are weak becaufe we fear to 
 be ruined; but the fame crimes would enable us to 
 difplay the fame vigour, and rather than be dedroy- 
 ed by France, it is probable we mould declare the 
 property and lives of the kingdom in a date of requi- 
 lition too. I have dated this becaufe it was our duty 
 and intered to fuffer France to crumble by her own 
 rottennefs, to oppofe her only fo much and no more, 
 as her own particular violence and ambition fliould 
 require from us, to have aflided the royalids and the 
 federalids too, and every feci or party, that divided 
 or oppoil d the Convention, and diminished the cen- 
 tral drength and authority of Paris ; and to have 
 neither declared nor betrayed any predilection for any 
 form of her difputable Government, much lefs to 
 have pledged ourielves in favour of the mod defpe- 
 rate of all ; and to have aliened in our Manifedo as 
 a fact, what every individual in that country knew 
 
 2 to 
 
[ I2 7 ] 
 
 to be a falfehood, the operation of which they would 
 inftantly conclude to be intended to deceive and to 
 blind another country than their own. The war ought 
 to have been confidered as fecondary and auxiliary 
 to the infurrections, and no counter-revolution to 
 have been looked for except from the experience of 
 their own mifery and crimes, and from their own re- 
 pentance and remorfe. 
 
 The Jacobins, who one would imagine were the 
 the only ftatefmen in Europe, infread of being: dif- 
 maved with the formidable but ill-connected force 
 which menaced them, were well pleafed at an idle ap- 
 pearance, which lent them real ftrerigtkand refources, 
 and enabled them to unite almoft every defcriptipfl 
 of perfons in the caufe of the capital, which it 
 -was now eafy to confound with that of the 
 their violence kept pace with the threats of the in- 
 vader, and their force redoubled even with his fuc- 
 ceffes ; they Were able to confifcate and to plunder^ 
 to confine, to try, to execute, and to grow rich and 
 terrible together, in proportion as he advanced into 
 their territory or triumphed over their volunteers. 
 They knew to turn every misfortune into an advan- 
 tage, and gathered ftrength from every defeat; they 
 had nothing to apprehend in particular from any one 
 quarter of the war, and they derived a general and 
 univerfal powerand augmentation, from every particu- 
 lar lofs or accident which happened" to them in any. 
 Such were the confequences of the mode adopted of 
 
 carrying 
 
[ W* ] 
 
 carrying on the war. But if the war bad been con- 
 du6 lioufly, (if I may ufe fuch an lion) 
 
 ir Great-Britain in particular had precifely propor- 
 tioned her efforts to the efforts of France, obferving 
 -s that fuperiority in each department of it 
 which was neceilary to infure fuccefs ; the long and 
 diftant profpect would have damped and obfeured 
 the (anguine virion of the Convention ; it would have 
 carried defpair into its own boibm, and given it no 
 pretence, no opportunity to animate and exalt the 
 paflions of the people; it would have feen many years 
 of hoilility and danger hanging over it, and its 
 object would have become faint and indiftinct from 
 the remotenets and contingency of its completion. 
 It would have feen its ports blockaded, its commerce 
 mined, its fupplies cut off, its provifions intercepted, 
 ferhaps its Fleets attacked and beaten ; fhill Great- 
 Britain would fcarce have perceived the was at war ; 
 her expences would have been moderate, and her 
 commerce might have encreafed from the encreafe of 
 her maritime poffefTions, from the complete com- 
 mand of the Levant trade ; and even of the Baltic, 
 if (he had thought proper to negociate before the 
 actual commencement of hoftilities ; and what, in my 
 mind, is more valuable than any other consideration, 
 ihe might have remained at the end of the war the um- 
 pire and arbitrels of Europe, inftead of an interested 
 and exhaufted party in the quarrel, and pofhbly inftead 
 of being compelled to accept the terms of pacifica- 
 tion, 
 
L I2 9 J 
 
 tion, from another power, who may difcover an Oc- 
 zakovv in the Weft-Indies, or the Mediterranean. 
 
 From what I have faid, my dear Sir, you will ea- 
 fily underftand that my objection to treating (though 
 1 would not in any cafe treat with thefe who had 
 been pcrfonally inftrumental in the public crimes) is 
 not becaufe France is republican, but becaufe fhe is 
 revolutionary, it is not the form of her government, 
 but the principle of her civil union, (if it may ftill be 
 called fo) which forms an eternal barrier to peace, be- 
 caufe it is incompatible with the confidence orfecurity 
 of furrounding States. The queflion, therefore, will 
 be this, are we to reduce or to exterminate this people 
 with whom we cannot treat, before we can lay down 
 our arms, and return to our fields and manufactures? 
 Or at what point of conqueft and fuccefs will it be 
 fafe to fufpend our hoftilities ? I had rather his Ma- 
 jcfty's fervants would condefcend to anfwer this im- 
 portant queflion, than attempt it for myfelf ; but it 
 appears to me, Sir, that we need not to carry on an 
 eternal or indefinite warfare, notwithftanding the im- 
 poffibility of treating. It is, I think, pretty much 
 with nations as it is with individuals, in whom it is 
 impoffible to confide ; a pledge or a depoiit is as va- 
 luable and as fafe from the hands of a knave, as from 
 thofe of a man of honour, and the poflefiion of towns 
 and iflands, of territories and of commerce, may 
 oubtUi be as good a*fecurity for obferving the 
 
 K terms 
 
terms of a contract, as the oath of a King, or the fig* 
 nature of an AmbafTador. In the drift cafe of tbs 
 uti-pojji.detis I can fee no occafion for any treaty at all, 
 and I am convinced that a treaty is an ufelefs forma- 
 lity. I make war to obtain poffeffion of Calais, I take 
 Calais and no one endeavours to retake it ; I might 
 iurely reft upon my arms in fuch a cafe, and might 
 difpenfe too with a treaty, becaufe no treaty could 
 ever make out a title, or convey it to me by any bet- 
 ter or fafer tenure than my own fuperiority. 
 
 He who looks for any other treaty than this, under 
 any event, or any other fecurity from the phyfical 
 preponderance of France, than our own ftrength and 
 thofe moral rcfources, which the fpirit, the induflry, 
 and the virtues of our nation, have hitherto fupplied 
 to combat in this unequal field ; is blind to that un- 
 conquerable malice and envy, with which our little 
 ifland is regarded by that vain and difappointed peo- 
 ple, to that fpirit of ambition and revenge, to thofe 
 idle boafts of "delenda eft Carthago" which have been 
 echoed from the impure mouth of Barrere and his 
 colleagues, to every lea and every mountain that en- 
 circles France ; and what is more, which have been 
 caught up and prolonged in diftant realms, by the 
 very exiles and fugitives of France; who in the 
 wreck of all their fortunes, amidft the maflacrcs of 
 their friends and companions, amidft regicide and 
 iacrilege, and univeri.il mifery, feem to regret no- 
 thing 
 
C »3' ] 
 
 thing in bariimment or poverty fo much as the op- 
 portunity they have loft of conquering their hofts 
 and benefactors. 
 
 If there be any man in this kingdom fo abfurd as 
 to expect from the reitoration of the French monar- 
 chy, any firm alliance, or any fenfe or memory of 
 obligation from France, he knows little of nations in 
 general, and nothing, I think, of that nation in par- 
 ticular. If we are really to make the war for this 
 end, we are fighting for thofe who are already, I fear, 
 ungrateful, and will add ingratitude to all the vices 
 and crimes that have plunged them in fo many mis- 
 fortunes. To his Majefty's Miniilers I can only ad- 
 drefs my earnefl prayer, that they would be pleafed, 
 at laft, to explain " the real grounds of the war," in 
 a precife and unequivocal manner, let them conduct 
 it how they will ; for almofl any war is better than a 
 fhameful, an infincere, and an infecure pacification ; 
 let us know what we bleed for, and how long we are 
 to bleed ; remove this cloud , from our eyes, £v h p a£< 
 xxt oteiovqv. It is indifferent to me whether Jupiter dif- 
 peifes the mi ft by the help of Mr. Bowles or of an- 
 other Manifefto. 
 
 But if it mould be judged imprudent in his Ma- 
 jefty's fervants, who, notwithftanding the calumnies 
 of their enemies, «^eem determined to treat at one 
 time or other, and to treat with Danton rather than 
 
 K % not 
 
[ i r - ] 
 
 not to treat at all ; if it is judged imprudent in thofe 
 who chofe to mif-tranflate Lord Auckland, rather 
 than to avow him, to preclude themfelves, by any pre- 
 vious engagement or explanation refpec~ling the caufes 
 or objects of die war, from concluding the peace un- 
 der any other event or circumftance than thofe which 
 they had flipulated andforefeen ; then, it will be pro- 
 per to change the queftion, and to intreat, that his 
 Majefty's Minifters will be pleafed to acquaint us (a 
 piece of information, I confefs, 1 expected when I 
 heard of the treaty concluded in the camp of the 
 King of Pruffia, under the aufpices of my Lord 
 Yarmouth) whether the republic is in any cafe to be 
 treated with, and to be acknowledged under any 
 condition ? And as we cannot learn at what point of 
 fuccefs it may be poffible to paufe with fecurity, 
 we may demand without much danger, I imagine, 
 what degree of misfortune, ill-conduct, abfurdity, 
 and difhonour, will make it appear neceflliry to ne- 
 gociate, or at lead to fufpend hostilities ? but per- 
 haps they will have no judges but experience itfelf of 
 the period beyond which it will be impoflible to con- 
 fide to them any longer the conduct of the war ? 
 
 In my own opinion, to declare we will not treat 
 with the republic, is as unwife and as unjuft, as to 
 infift upon the reftoration of any form of govern- 
 ment, whether republic, defpotifm, or conftitution ; I 
 mould be willing to treat with either, as foon as we can 
 
 have 
 
[ *33 ] 
 
 have any fecurity for the obfervance oftheftipulations 
 of peace. Difarm, fend back your labourers, your pea- 
 fants, to their farms; refcind your decrees of general 
 requisition j thefe are the firft articles of any treaty ; 
 whoever is able to promife and to perform thefe fti- 
 pulations, is Government enough to treat with, be- 
 caufe it is Government enough to afford fecurity to 
 the parties in the contract ; and if we refufe to treat, 
 whenever we can treat with this fecurity, it appears 
 to me that the objects of the war are more extenfive 
 than the caufes, and that we are fighting for fome- 
 thing elfe befides our own fafety and the tranquillity 
 of Europe . 
 
 But, believe me, my dear Sir, that this fatisfac- ' 
 tion, which I implore for the nation, is not merely 
 to gratify its curiofity, nor to exiinguifh any vain 
 doubts, or unreafonable fufpicions; when that cor- 
 rupt agreement took place, between the Court and 
 the Minifters, by which the ftrength and popularity 
 of reform were abandoned for the power of prodiga- 
 lity, and the means of impunity : by which the Court, 
 with true papal cunning, exchanged its bull of in- 
 digencies for anundifturbed and fecurer term in its 
 own luxury and uncleannefs ; when this union and 
 alliance became known by its effects, and the war 
 was jointly declared a gain ft the French and the Re- 
 formers, againft the Convention and the prefs, it 
 was natural, at leaft during ib much noife and cla- 
 mour, that it mould diftract and perplex the under- 
 K 3 . Handing 
 
[ '34 ] 
 
 ftancling of the people; and accordingly we found, 
 that fome of them very early confidtred the war as 
 the war of the Court, and dreaded the fucceifes of 
 our arms, as an acccfiion of power to this domeftic 
 enemy, whom they defpifed, and dreaded, and de 
 tefted infinitely more than the foreign. There were 
 others, who openly dellred the fuccefs of the French 
 arms, which they thought could alone protect us 
 againft the- formidable league, which net only ex- 
 cluded reform, but threatened the remains of liberty 
 and independence : and who would have feen the 
 Convention triumph with exultation, as the means of 
 punifhing, or abolilhing the Court. I cannot help 
 (topping in this place, to remark to you the fquea- 
 mifhnefs and coquetry of the Court upon this occa- 
 sion, which aflefted to pout and to be vaftly fur- 
 prized and affronted, that the people fhould defpife 
 or dcteft it as much as the Jacobins ; juft as if the 
 ferocious vices were entitled to all our hatted and 
 contempt, and we fhould have no refentments lefc 
 for the bafeand degrading ; as if the bold and hardy 
 character ot crimes were alone the caufe of horror, 
 and we were to feel no indignation at meannefs, 
 fraud, iervility, avarice, extortion, and oppreffion I 
 
 It is certain however, that the people, upon their 
 fide, very loon began to apprehend, that victories 
 would only procure to their old enemy a new leafe and 
 perpetuity in its abufes, and to consider the Prince 
 of Saxe-Cobourg as fighting the battles of Lord 
 
 Chamberlains 
 
[ iSS ] 
 
 Chamberlains and Lords of the Bed-chamber, in- 
 stead of thofe of Europe and of mankind; an opinion 
 the more dangerous, as, joined to the perfecution of 
 the bookfellers, it had introduced a real fchifm into 
 the kingdom, which could not have been otherwife 
 than united, if the Government had explained all 
 the danger which threatened us, and left the fenti-' 
 merits of horror and antipathy it defired us to feel, 
 to the free -workings of our own underftanding. But 
 feeling its own weaknefs, from the unpopularity 
 of its new ally, it was always afraid to confefs 
 the whole of the danger; till the ill conduct and 
 mifcarriages of the war, by encreafing this fear, 
 have at laft forced its weaknefs into the abominable 
 impofition, to which it has condefcended, of repre- 
 fenting the generality of the enemy as difpofed to 
 counter-revolution and monarchy : Thus is a fyflem 
 of fraud, difllmulation, perfidy, and dilhonour, natu- 
 rally engrafted upon a treaty, in which public virtue 
 and public utility were made to give way to a mean 
 and contemptible policy, unworthy the Viziers and 
 eunuchs of an Eaftern Seraglio, and by which the 
 impunity of Minifters was purchafed, by prolonging 
 the wrongs and miferies of the people. 
 
 Now, Sir, nothing can be more important than to 
 do away this fatal impreffion ; the reduction of the 
 Civil Lift, and the reform of the Parliament, would, 
 doubtlefs, be the molt effectual meafures which could 
 be purfued for this defirable purpofe : but an explicit 
 
 K. 4 declaration 
 
declaration from authority of the true lituation of the 
 kingdom, of the views entertained by Government, 
 of the profpects of peace, or of the term of hoftili- 
 ties, could not be without a ftrong and beneficial 
 effect for the prefent ; and I fmcerely indulg e the 
 hope of feeing the next State Paper, whether diftin- 
 guifhed by the appellation of Speech or Manifeiio, 
 that mall be dated from Weftminller or St. James's, 
 conceived in a more manly and more honourable drain, 
 polluted by no craft or diffimulation, advancing no 
 falfehoods, no equivocal facts nor opinions, but ad- 
 dreffed to the plain fenie and magnanimity of the na- 
 tion, worthy of it, and of him who is to ipeak to it. 
 
 But though from the paft conduct, and actual dif- 
 pofition of the King's fervants, I cannot entertain 
 any fanguinc expectation of finding them inclined to 
 diminiih corruption, or to concur with thofe who 
 demand a greater fecurity for the freedom and inde- 
 pendency of the Houfe of Commons ; whether they 
 feek it by new experiments, or would have recourle 
 for it to ancient and approved remedies, I mould 
 blame myfelf exceedingly, were I to fupprefs the 
 aftonifhment and concern I feel at the imbecility and 
 the obftinacy of thofe perverfe or perfidious coun- 
 cils, which have not only refufed redrefs to the 
 people, but dared to multiply grievances, and to ac- 
 cumulate the caufes of complaint. I confefs, Sir, I 
 doubt whether the nurfery for young Itatefmen will 
 ever repay to the nation all the charges of this new and 
 
 3 delicate 
 
C *37 3 
 
 delicate attention ; and I entertain iome fears led 
 they fhould efcape out of it too foon, notwithstand- 
 ing the mefs of porridge which might otherwife tempt 
 them to fojourn, becaufe fo many others of the fons of 
 the prophets may be defirous to partake of it in their 
 turn ; in truth I fear that fome cf them may prove tru- 
 ant, and be dilcovered to be Ambafladors and Pleni- 
 potentiaries at foreign Courts, before, in fpite of then- 
 political accomplishments, the law will allow them 
 to be at age of difcretion. I proteft, Sir, 1 entertain 
 this apprchenfion, not from want of refpect to any of 
 the young gentlemen, who are actually :harged with 
 his Majelty's procuration to fo many of the Sovereigns 
 Europe ; but becaufe I think the nation may be dif- 
 honoured by it. If other nations are not infulted, by 
 making their Courts, the nurfery of our infant-po- 
 liticians I think our own nation difhonoured by it, 
 not becaufe thefe young men do not acc]uit them- 
 felves, at ieaft as well as might be expected in 
 their tafk, but becaufe it inclines all Europe to be- 
 lieve the calumnies that are vomitted againft our Con- 
 ftitution, and to fufpect that every employment, 
 every department of the State is ufurped by the ty* 
 ranny and injuflice of arifcocracy and connexion ! ,_ 
 
 To return from grievances to thofe who fweat and 
 fufter under all, who feed thefe nurferies, and pay thefe 
 baby embadies, — to the people: is it wife, for I fpeak 
 not of its honefty, to provoke and exafperate, and 
 infult it, at a lime when fo much induftry and artifice 
 
 have 
 
C 138 ] 
 
 have been employed to difgufl it with the Conflitu- 
 tion all together ? Jf the people were gratified in half 
 its }uft and reafonable defires, it would be out of the 
 power of agitators and reformers to make it an in- 
 ftrument to extort unjuft or unreafonable conceffions. 
 But when the people is once made to demand, he 
 who can cry the loudeft, and demands the mod, ap- 
 pears its true and only friend ; it favours the violent, 
 and confides only in the enthuliaftic and the head- 
 strong. We begin by demanding its rights; an- 
 other demands exemptions or favours ; a third flat- 
 ters its paflions and prejudices, and a fourth offers 
 majefty, and proclaims the fovereignty of the people. 
 All thefemen have their turn, but the wickedefl and 
 mod defperate is always the lafl ; Petion fucceeds 
 to La Fayette, Marat to Petion ; and after Marat 
 comes a Robefpierre, a Danton, or a Barrcre. Let us 
 not prefume too far upon the character and virtues of 
 the country; all crowds are dangerous, all affembliea 
 cruel. Were we to undergo in England a violent 
 reform, or to depute a National Convention, I am 
 not convinced tkit we fhould legiflate with much 
 more wifdom or juflice than we have feen in France ; 
 though I think we mould execute, or even violate our 
 laws, with more regard to humanity, to mercy, and 
 to nature. We fhould no doubt have our plunde- 
 rers and levellers, but perhaps ailliffins and murderers 
 would be more uncommon ; we fhould have pro- 
 fcriptions, though we might efcape mafiacres; and 
 we might be violent, without being deliberately 
 
 4 cruel 4 
 
[ ijJ ] 
 
 cruel; even punifhment and revenge itfelf might di- 
 vert themfelves amongft us of fome of their French 
 ferocity, fome of their adventitious refinement and 
 horror. But this is all that I dare indulge my national 
 vanity to hope for in fuch a ferment and convulfion of 
 men's minds, during the (hock of authorities, the 
 filence of law, and the fubverfion of every rule and 
 principle of human fociety. Thofe who would 
 plunge us into this-crifis, whether they be ftatefmen 
 or the enemies of dates, whether they be the followers 
 of Mr. Pitt or of Mr. Paine, are, in my mind, the 
 molt deliberate incendiaries ; and I am forry to fay, 
 that in fuch a complicity of crime, I can only diftin- 
 guifh, in favour of thofe who may have overftepped 
 in a juft caufe, againft thofe who (hall have been un- 
 juft and tyrannical frem the beginning. 
 
 If therefore you, my dear Sir, remain as thoroughly 
 convinced, as you appeared to be a few weeks fince, 
 of the impolicy and injuftice of the King's Minifters 
 and the majority of the Houfe of Commons, in re-r 
 fuiing fatisfaction to the people upon this fubjecl; : 
 Of the danger of trifling with the wifhes and the 
 complaints of a free and powerful nation ; of the 
 crime and flagitioufnefs of driving the country to 
 defpair, and forcing, men to have recourie to mea- 
 fures, which defpair alone can juftify : If you re- 
 main convinced of the wickednefs of having engaged 
 us in a continental war, and the folly and incapacity 
 with which that war has been conducted ; of the 
 
 ihameful 
 
[ r 140 J 
 
 Oiamcful and inexplicable inactivity of our fleets, of 
 [honour attending our mifcarriages before Mar- 
 and Guadaloupe; of the neglect and want of 
 fqxefight at Toulon, to which I have fince been forced 
 to add a heavier charge, and of the univerfal ill con- 
 of the Admiralty-Board ; of the ignorance, er- 
 rors, and treachery, which caufed the mifcarriagc of 
 the Duke of York before Dunkirk, the defeat of 
 the I'ekk Marefchal de Freytag, and of General Clair- 
 fait, the railing the liege of Maubeuge, and the repaf- 
 ling of the Sambre, which inverted or ruined all 
 the plans of the campaign, and fowed the fruitful 
 feeds of difcord amongft the combined armies ; of 
 the conceit, impertinence*, and abftract abfurdity, of 
 impofing that mealure upon his Royal Highnefs and 
 the allies; if, in (lion, you are convinced, as I have 
 reafon to believe, that we can expect nothing good, 
 either at home or abroad, from his Majefty's Mini- 
 flers ; that they act without plan or forefight, with- 
 out conceit or principle ; that they have contrived to 
 reader abfolutely ineffectual, and paralytic, all our 
 efforts by fea, and unfortunate all our expeditions at 
 land ; that they have dishonoured our arms, for I 
 can never repeat it too often, upon that element, 
 where we never poflefled, no Sir, nor any nation, 
 cor any confederacy of nations, ever poffefTed fo great 
 and decided fuperiority over the enemy ; that they 
 have expofed the Britifli name to reproach and igno» 
 miny, by the comparifon which mult be made by 
 every Court in Europe, between the glorious victo- 
 . e obtained in the laft war, when we combated 
 
 asainfr. 
 
[ '4i ] 
 
 againfl France, and againft all the world, and our late 
 achievements, now that we combat againft France 
 alone, with all the world on our fide, now when we 
 want nothing but an enemy, and then when we could 
 find nothing that was not an enemy ; if you are con- 
 vinced, in ihort, that the King's (etvants poffefs nei- 
 ther the talents to give us glory or fuccefs abroad, 
 nor the virtue to grant us peace and juftice at home, 
 you will find yourfelf, like me, unable to give theni 
 vour confidence, and you will iuft give them thai 
 degree of fupport, which will appear to you to be 
 neceiTary to hinder their adverfaries from feizing the 
 helm of affairs, and making an infamous peace with 
 our enemies ; you will fupport them upon that prin- 
 ciple which induced the woman of Syracufe to pray 
 for the life of Dionyfius the tyrant, from the greater 
 appreheniion fhe entertained of his fuccefforsj you 
 will neither approve nor applaud their meafures, nor 
 even join in the formality of an addrefs ; you will 
 fufpect, you will watch, you will reftrain the Admi- 
 flration; you will awe, you will intimidate, you will 
 filence the ambition, the madnefs of the Oppolition % 
 you will reprefent the anxiety and fufpence that agi- 
 tate the nation, and the imminent hazards which 
 refult, from its being unable to place its confidence, 
 or entruft its complaints to any known or refponfible 
 party in the kingdom ; you will imprefs Miniflers 
 with the neceffity of yielding to the remonftrances of 
 the people, of avoiding infurrec~tions by juft concef- 
 fion and difappointing revolutions, by rational re- 
 form ; 
 
[ *4* ] 
 
 form ; you will inculcate the hatred and contempt 
 of corrupt placemen and courtiers, and diftinguiih 
 the pure and generous loyalty of Britons to their 
 King, from the bafe crouching of ilaves to the man- 
 darins and fatrapes of St. James's ; you will imprefs 
 even Minifters themfclves with the prudence and the 
 neceffity (you will not, perhaps, think it incumbent 
 upon you to talk to them of the duty or the virtue) 
 of difbanding thofe mercenary troops, which are their 
 own tyrants, as well as the tyrants and the familhers 
 of the people ; of the advantage and popularity of 
 reducing finecures and diminifhing the Civil Lift, 
 before they venture to levy that enormous mafs 
 of frefh taxes and impofitions, which their prodigal 
 and abfurd mifmanagement of the war has made ne- 
 ceflary, and which cannot be diiTembled or palliated 
 by loans, or by an averfion, a delay, or an impofli- 
 bility to fund them. You will do what is in your 
 power, and more is in no man's power, to bring 
 them to a fenfe of policy and of fear, the only 
 impreflion under which it is reafonable to expert 
 from them either wifdom or juftice, and you will be 
 ready to (land forth the champion of the people's juft 
 rights, and to difappoint the ambition of both fac- 
 tions, the minifterial and the revolutionary ! 
 
 You who are fo well acquainted with my fenti- 
 ments upon thefc fubjects, will not be inclined to- 
 fufpect, from any thing that I have {aid, that 1 lean, 
 beyond a juft bias towards the representative fyf- 
 
 tcm ; 
 
[ *.43 ] 
 
 tern ; but as I am anonymous to nearly all the world 
 but yourfelf, it is neceflary for me, or at lead pru- 
 dent, to give my political creed and confeilion with 
 regard to it ; and 1 (hall do it with fmcerity, per- 
 haps with too much fimplicity. I think then no fyf- 
 tem fo true, fo beautiful, fo natural, or fo fublime, 
 in theory ; and I am convinced, that republics upon 
 this principle, mull be the favourite governments of 
 all enlightened minds, and the idols of every gene- 
 rous fpirit, I mean till they have been tried ; for in 
 the practice and experiment they are found to fail 
 miferably, and to depart widely from their promife 
 and expectation ; it is the experience of the ill, and 
 unliable government of republics that has made 
 any man of fenfe or fpirit fubmit, or defire to live 
 under monarchies ; now, unfortunately, the people 
 who cannot read nor reafon, and have no experience 
 but their own, unacquainted with hiftory, and ftran- 
 gers to the States and Governments around them, 
 know of no bad or unliable Government but their 
 own ; born under monarchy, they attribute to it the 
 evils infeparable from human focieties ; and think, 
 that if they could get rid of a particular form of Go- 
 vernment and of a King, they fhould be freed alfo 
 from the hardships they fuffer and the burthens they 
 endure. If a people be oppreffed and unhappy un- 
 der a republican form of government, which is more 
 likely than under the monarchical, becaufe there 
 rarely exifts a great degree of civil liberty under this 
 regimen (and political liberty is of fmall comparative 
 
 importance 
 
[ *44 ] 
 
 importance to the mafs of fociety,) the fame principle* 
 will operate under a different form, for they will 
 think that by getting rid of a fenate or of a council, 
 or by accepting a King, they (hall be dilcharged from 
 their contributions, and that their grievances will be 
 inflantly redreficd. — The people therefore detire a 
 change, becaufe from a change they expect every 
 thing : Uncertain of the future, weary of the 
 and impatient of the prefent, they indulge the hope 
 and deldfive dream, of a languine imagination, and fa- 
 tigued and exhausted with their known grievances 
 willingly commit themfelves with confidenceand ardor 
 to whatever is new and untried. Of the reprefentativc 
 fyftem therefore, which is theoretically fo beautiful, I 
 entertain this opinion, that it is calculated peculiarly 
 to leduce the imagination, and to bfafs the j 
 ment, of thofc perfens, eipccially, who have neither 
 le in re nor opportunity to conlider it when reduced 
 to its action and experiment as a Government ; and 
 I think it more eafy to make the mafs of a people 
 difcontentcd with the monarchical inftitution, from 
 the hope and beauty of the repreientative, than it is 
 : to difgull republican States with their form 
 of Government, and to induce amongft them a defire 
 and eagernefs after the monarchical fyftem. For this 
 rcafon too, I think it abfard and dangerous in the 
 extreme, in the King's tenants to break their faith, 
 and trifle with the people upon fuch delufive and 
 flattering ground. — As to the reprefentative part of 
 our own Condi tntion, I am free to confefs, that I 
 
 think 
 
[ MS ] 
 
 think all the liberty, all the bleffings we either enjoy ,'or 
 have enjoyed, or have a right to look for, have been, 
 and mull be, derived implicitly from this branch of 
 our legiflature, and muft depend for their fecurity 
 and duration upon its independence and virtue j 
 and this fentitnent would make me groan over the 
 corruption and depravity of the Houfe of Com- 
 mons, while the vices of the Court, and the indo- 
 lence and vanity of the Houfe of Lords, could fcarce 
 excite any fenfation in my breaft but that of fcorn or 
 faftidious pity, or perhaps involuntary difguft. 
 
 Neither am I at all clear, that the reprefentative 
 fyftem could long fubfifl in its vigour or purity in 
 any State, where it was not reftrained and coereed 
 by fome other independent and integral body ; and 
 I am far from being fatisfied, with the experience 
 which is faid to be furnifhed us in the American 
 form of Government. — In France we have found the 
 Monarch was unable to controul it, but I think this 
 inftance proves very little againfl it, juft as the 
 former proves very little in its favour ; for both, in 
 my opinion, are matters of circumftance, which have 
 never been fairly brought to experiment or trial. 
 Had Louis the fixteenth, enjoyed, or had Wafhing- 
 ton not enjoyed the confidence of their refpective 
 countries, I think it very poffible, that, the direct 
 contrary inference might now have been concluded 
 from each of thefe examples j that the French Con- 
 ftitution might have yet flood, and the American 
 
 L have 
 
L '46 ] 
 
 have given way. So little do I feel myfelf entitled 
 to appeal to cither of thefe queftionable and imper- 
 fect authorities. Yet 1 think from a remoter expe- 
 rience and analogy, it is more probable that the re- 
 preientative fyftem mould exift, under the mild and 
 gradual compreflion or reaction of a fenate, than 
 under the enormous weight and difparity of a throne, 
 not only on accountof the hatred and danger of Courts, 
 but becaufe between a King and a people, there is a 
 fudden and a mighty difproportion, and an interme- 
 diate political body feems to be abfolutely neceflary 
 to connect them together, if a people would have 
 any liberty, or a King any fecurity at all. A people 
 too may redd a fenate, and make a hundred partial 
 revolutions without totally overthrowing or fubvert- 
 ing the fyftem of Government, becaufe fome of that 
 body will remain, and the reft may be fupplied ; and 
 of thofe that remain, the majority will have probably 
 become popular, by adopting the prevailing fenti- 
 ments of the times, and thereby be able to damp or 
 to intercept the blow, before it cruflies or annihilates 
 the order. — Individuals may perifh, but the political 
 body may remain, be invigorated or renewed, which 
 can fcarqe happen for the mod evident reafons, in the 
 cafe of a violent revolution, in monarchical Govern- 
 ments. 
 
 The deli re of change (o natural therefore to every 
 people, (for the lot of every people is, I fear, 
 unhappy j and certainly is not fo happy as it always 
 
 feems 
 
[ '47 ] 
 
 fcems poflible to make it) appears to me to be more 
 dangerous in monarchical flates, than in republics of 
 any defcription : and there is great room to appre- 
 hend that it is now exceedingly flrong in our own, 
 and that it will acquire force, and break out with ir- 
 refiftible fury as foon as the fear of anarchy and maf- 
 facre (hall have evaporated, or as foon as any poffible 
 fuccefs or advantage mould attend the arms of 
 France, or the French Revolution become at all 
 eftablifhed upon any firm or apparent bafis. It 
 is then, my dear Sir, I think peculiarly to be de- 
 fired, at this awful and important crifis, that the peo- 
 ple mould have no wanton or unneceffary caufe of 
 complaint; and that the love of change, and the 
 temptation to change, mould be as little encouraged 
 or encreafed as is poflible. And I think befides, that 
 Minifters and Courts would act wifely to confult not 
 only the interefts and the rights, but the affections 
 and the paflions of the people, at a time when fo 
 many arts and delufions are practifed to inflame 
 them. But the vanity and ambition of fome men 
 caufes them to defire and prefer turbulent times, in 
 which they flatter themfe Ives they (hall be able always 
 to bear fway, and makes them confide in being re- 
 ceived at any time as chiefs and heroes by the par- 
 tizans of every revolution. 
 
 This was the precife cafe of the Minifter Neckar, 
 and may be the cafe of Minifters as vain and lefs ho- 
 ped than Neckar, if they will not take warning by 
 
 L 2 his 
 
[ H« ] 
 
 his example, to extinguifh juft complaints as fad as 
 they arife, rather than to encourage and provoke 
 them, delaying the remedy, and fomenting the dif- 
 eafe, till fuch critical and dangerous periods, 'as they 
 expect, will make the relief more valued, and them- 
 felves more popular and powerful for affording it. 
 But thefe eourfes are the mod dangerous, as well as 
 the moft wicked they can purfue ; for in fuch mo- 
 ments of heat and fermentation, the people is not 
 contented with the redrefs of its grievances. It is 
 fenfible of its force, as well as of its wrongs ; and as 
 it attributes every conceffion on the part of its op- 
 preffors to the effect of their fears and apprehenfions, 
 it determines to encreafc or to continue the impref- 
 iion, which is fo favourable to its own interefts and 
 paflions. In fuch a moment, thofe who demand are 
 more popular than thofe who grant ; and he that 
 menaces is more powerful than him that concedes. 
 The people enjoys a triumph as often as it obtains 
 redrefs, and had rather conquer its rights than re- 
 ceive them. 
 
 If the people had been indulged at fird with that 
 temperate Reform which they wanted, and which it 
 is fo bafe and fo indecent to refufe them, the Mini- 
 fter, it is true, would not have derived a dangerous, 
 but he would have gained a folid and a jud populari- 
 ty : as there would have been neither anxiety nor peril, 
 fo there would have been neither intemperance nor ex- 
 ceflive exultation. It is to be apprehended it cannot 
 
 now 
 
[ *49 1 
 
 now be granted without the people's being induced 
 to believe they owe it to the fears and pufillanimity 
 of Miniflers or of Parliament; and that they will 
 look upon it rather as a triumph that they have won, 
 than a right reftored, or a benefit conferred upon 
 them. The Miniiler and his rival may run a race 
 for this popularity, but the wife and honeft, will fee 
 that it is extorted from both, and the people will 
 not long remain the dupes of the competition. I 
 think it neceffary, therefore, that the party I have 
 fpoken of mould be formed fpeedily, not only to 
 procure a Reform from the unwilling juflice of both 
 fides of the Houfe, but to confer it with any grace or 
 fafety upon the people: and I am the more defirous to 
 fee the foundation at lead laid, of fuch a party, becaufe 
 I think its very appearance might check the impatience 
 and indignation of the people, and perfuade them to 
 expect the reafonable gratification of their wifhes by 
 calm and temperate means, and from hands at which 
 they would be content to receive it ; which it is 
 much to be apprehended they would not, in the pre- 
 fent irritable difpofition of their minds, be inclined 
 to do from fuch as have already bafely and impu- 
 dently violated their promifes and engagements with, 
 regard to it, or from fuch as have funk into con- 
 tempt and difcredit, from the profligate oppofitioa 
 they have given to meafures of public neceflity, and 
 fallen fo low,, both in number and eflimation, as to 
 move no fentiments but thofe of ridicule, averfion, 
 or pity. 
 
 That 
 
[ »*> ] 
 
 That a third party will arife to extort this benefit, 
 and to take the ambitious merit of having conferred 
 it upon the people, appears to me fo plain, and fo 
 evident, that my only concern, and my only ap- 
 prehenfion, is with regard to the purity, the in- 
 dependence, and the integrity of its compofition. 
 That the people will finally acquire the benefit I have 
 no doubt ; and therefore I am exceedingly anxious 
 that it fhould acknowledge the obligation, where it 
 is fafe for it to be grateful. For this reafon I anxioufty 
 wifh, that the body who fhall procure it for them, 
 and prefent it to them, were fo compofed that it might 
 embrace the untainted part of the actual authorities, 
 and men of honour, and of abilities, and of property, 
 of every party and defcription ; and it is for this rea- 
 fon that I fear, left from the overfight or the too great 
 caution of fuch perfons, it mould be formed out of 
 the bold and bad men, who have prefided in clubs 
 and aflemblies, or led our mutinous deputations of 
 Englilh to the bar of the French Convention, or cir- 
 culated its wild theories and inflammatory manifeftos 
 amongft the people ; and left the people, either in 
 the eagernefs to obtain this benefit, or in gratitude 
 for it, fhould throw itfelf into the arms of thefe tur- 
 bulent and unprincipled men, in whole hands it will 
 prefently become a dangerous inftrument to level 
 every rank, introduce new and deftm&ive princi- 
 ples of property, and lay the admired fabric of our 
 Conftitution lower than the throne of Louis the Six- 
 teenth. 
 
 In 
 
[ *5 X ] 
 
 In calling upon Mr. Fox to prefide over fuch a 
 party, I had entertained the double view of gaining 
 a leader of his power, experience, and abilities on 
 the fide of honed and conftitutional reform ; and of 
 cutting off the hope and expectation of the fpecu- 
 lative and the diffafFected of every feci: and party, 
 who evidently courted him, and looked up to him, 
 as one that was foon to take the command and direc- 
 tion of them. His conduct at that time caufed mc 
 extreme uneafinefs ; and I cannot repent of the pains 
 I have taken, and the inducements I have held out 
 to recall him from a precipice, fo dangerous to himfelf 
 and to his country. I had confidence befides in the 
 virtues of his mind, and I was in hopes to make them 
 combat with me, againd the impetuo(ity of his paf- 
 (ions, the rancour of his difappointment, and the vio- 
 lence of his ambition. I may not perhaps have failed 
 fo entirely in my attempt, as the imperfect fuccefs of 
 it may at firft fight induce you to imagine ; from 
 my own motives, and from the honed rewards I held 
 out to him, I had reafon, no doubt, to hope a better 
 and more entire converfion. 
 
 Diis aliter vifum eft. 
 
 But whatever may be your opinions or prejudices 
 with regard to this extraordinary perfonage, you will 
 allow, I am fure, that he has always acted an impor- 
 tant character upon our political theatre ; and that 
 it would be unwife, if it were not ungrateful to 
 leave him out in any new cad of the parts. His abi- 
 lities, 
 
[ '3* ] 
 
 'litics, Ins vigour of mind, his comprehenfive judg- 
 ment, his experience, his eloquence, even his inor- 
 dinate ambition, are fo many arguments with me for 
 employing him wherever there is room for him, if 
 it were only ne noceat : but I confefs I think he may- 
 yet render fervices to Greece, that may make his Per- 
 sian voyages be forgotten. 
 
 Sn taking leave of you, Sir, and my fubject together, 
 let me intreat of you, whenever you are inclined to can- 
 vafs thefe ideas, to recoiled not only what I have writ- 
 ten, but what I have (aid to you, with regard to them. 
 I have written with as much freedom as I dare, having 
 no intention to become a martyr toanycaufe; in con- 
 verfation there is lefs danger ; and warmth and ani- 
 mation are more natural and becoming; in that re- 
 fpetf:, what I have luppreiled in this Letter, will re- 
 ceive infinite advantage, if it is recollected and re- 
 peated by you ; and you will poffibly gain for me 
 fome profelytcs, more than you iufped, if you en- 
 force my principles with the grace and elocution 
 which belong almoft excluiively to yourfelf. For 
 the reft, your political conduct and opinions, as long 
 as they are confiftent and lincere, let them ht pour ou 
 contre, can neither encreafe nor diminim the efteem 
 and affeclion, with which I am, my dear Sir, 
 
 &c. &c. &c, 
 
 London, Jan. 10, 1794. 
 
 F I N I S.