the good opinion, the confidence, of his fellow citizens have been among the principal objects of his life; and that he has owed none of the gradations of his power or fortune to a fettled contempt, or, occafional forfeiture of their efteem.

That man who before he comes into power has no friends, or who coming into power is obliged to defert his friends, or who lofing it has no friends to sympathize with him; he who has no fway among any part of the landed or commercial intereft, but whose whole importance has begun with his office, and is fure to end with it; is a perfon who ought never to be fuffered by a controuling Parliament to continue in any of those fituations which confer the lead and direction of all our public affairs; because fuch a man has no connexion with the intereft of the people.

Thofe knots or cabals of men who have got together, avowedly without any public principle, in order to fell their conjunct iniquity at the higher rate, and are therefore univerfally odious, ought never to be fuffered to domineer in the State; because they have no connexion with the fentiments and opinions of the people.

These are confiderations which in my opinion enforce the neceffity of having fome better reafon, in a free country, and a free Parliament, for fupporting the Minifters of the Crown, than that fhort one, That the King has thought proper to appoint them. There is fomething very courtly in this. But it is a principle pregnant with all

forts

forts of mifchief, in a conftitution like ours, to turn the views of active men from the country to the Court. Whatever be the road to power, that is the road which will be trod. If the opinion of the country be of no ufe as a means of power or confideration, the qualities which ufually procure that opinion will be no longer cultivated. And whether it will be right, in a State fo popular in its conftitution as ours, to leave ambition without popular motives, and to truft all to the operation of pure virtue in the minds of Kings and Minifters, and public men, must be fubmitted to the judgement and good sense of the people of England.

Cunning men are here apt to break in, and, without directly controverting the principle, to raise objections from the difficulty under which the Sovereign labours, to diftinguish the genuine voice and fentiments of his people, from the clamour of a faction, by which it is so easily counterfeited. The nation, they say, is generally divided into parties, with views and paffions utterly irreconcileable. If the King fhould put his affairs into the hands of any one of them, he is fure to difguft the reft; if he felect particular men from among them all, it is an hazard that he difgufts them all. Those who are left out, however divided before, will foon run into a body of oppofition; which, being a collection of many difcontents into one focus, will without doubt be hot and violent enough. Faction will make its cries refound through the nation, as if the whole were in an uproar,

when

when by far the majority, and much the better part, will feem for a while as it were annihilated by the quiet in which their virtue and moderation incline them to enjoy the bleffings of Government. Befides that the opinion of the meer vulgar is a miferable rule even with regard to themselves, on account of their violence and inftability. So that if you were to gratify them in their humour to-day, that very gratification would be a ground of their diffatisfaction on the next. Now as all thefe rules of public opinion are to be collected with great difficulty, and to be applied with equal uncertainty as to the effect, what better can a King of England do, than to employ fuch men as he finds to have views and inclinations moft conformable to his own; who are least infected with pride and felf-will, and who are leaft moved by fuch popular humours as are perpetually traverfing his defigns, and difturbing his fervice; trusting that, when he means no ill to his people, he will be fupported in his appointments, whether he chooses to keep or to change, as his private judgement or his pleasure leads him? He will find a fure refource in the real weight and influence of the Crown, when it is not fuffered to become an inftrument in the hands of a faction.

I will not pretend to say that there is nothing at all in this mode of reasoning; because I will not affert, that there is no difficulty in the art of Government. Undoubtedly the very beft Administration must encounter a great deal of oppofition; and the very worft will find more

fupport

fupport than it deferves. Sufficient appearances will never be wanting to those who have a mind to deceive themfelves. It is a fallacy in conftant ufe with thofe who would level all things, and confound right with wrong, to infist upon the inconveniencies which are attached to every choice, without taking into confideration the different weight and confequence of thofe inconveniencies. The queftion is not concerning abfolute difcontent or perfect fatisfaction in Government; neither of which can be pure and unmixed at any time, or upon any fyftem. The controverfy is about that degree of good humour in the people, which may poffibly be attained, and ought certainly to be looked for. While fome politicians may be waiting to know whether the fense of every individual be against them, accurately distinguishing the vulgar from the better fort, drawing lines between the enterprizes of a faction and the efforts of a people, they may chance to fee the Government, which they are fo nicely weighing, and dividing, and distinguishing, tumble to the ground in the midst of their wife deliberation. Prudent men, when fo great an object as the fecurity of Government, or even its peace, is at ftake, will not run the rifque of a decifion which may be fatal to it. They who can read the political fky will fee an hurricane in a cloud no bigger than an hand at the very edge of the horizon, and will run into the firft harbour. No lines can be laid down for civil or political wisdom. They are a matter incapable of exact definition.

E

But

But, though no man can draw a stroke between the confines of day and night, yet light and darkness are upon the whole tolerably diftinguishable. Nor will it be impoffible for a Prince to find out fuch a mode of Government, and fuch perfons to administer it, as will give a great degree of content to his people; without any curious and anxious refearch for that abftract, univerfal, perfect harmony, which while he is feeking, he abandons thofe means of ordinary tranquillity which are in his power without any

research at all.

It is not more the duty than it is the interest of a Prince, to aim at giving tranquillity to his Government. But thofe who advise him may have an intereft in diforder and confufion. If the opinion of the people is against them, they.. will naturally wish that it fhould have no prevalence. Here it is that the people muft on their part fhew themselves fenfible of their own value. Their whole importance, in the first instance, and afterwards their whole freedom, is at stake. Their freedom cannot long furvive their importance. Here it is that the natural ftrength of the kingdom, the great peers, the leading landed gentlemen, the opulent merchants and manufacturers, the fubftantial yeomanry, must interpose, to rescue their Prince, themfelves, and their pofterity.

We are at prefent at iffue upon this point. We are in the great crifis of this contention; and the part which men take one way or other, will serve to difcriminate their characters and their prin

ciples.