THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 REFLECTIONS 
 
 THE NATURE AND TENDENCY 
 
 PRESENT SPIRIT OF THE TIMES, 
 
 IN A. 
 
 LETTER 
 
 TO THE FREEHOLDERS 
 
 OF T^E ' 
 
 COUNTY OF NORFOLK. 
 
 BY THE REV. GEORGE BURGES, B. A. 
 
 VICAR OF HALVERGATE AND OF MOULTON. 
 
 NORWICH : 
 
 PRINTED AND SOLD BY BURKS AND KINNEBROOK : AND MAY 
 
 BE HAD OF BALDWIN, CRADOCK, AND JOY, LONDON \ 
 
 MILLER, LYNN; SLOMAN, YARMOUTH; AND 
 
 DEIGHTON, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 1819.
 
 Entered at Stationers' flail.
 
 / CANNOT send these "REFLECTIONS" forth to the 
 public without a word or two, though it may be of 
 no great avail, in extenuation of the errors which 
 will be found to cleave to them. I wish the reader 
 then to recollect, that I give them in the form of a 
 " LETTER," an apology usually for an unsettled 
 arrangement of our thoughts ; and that from re- 
 flections thrown together in almost any manner, in 
 perilous times like the present, some advantages 
 may be reaped ; some rudiments of correct judg- 
 ment may here and there be gathered up, which a 
 clearer mind and a staider consideration may be 
 enabled to turn to good. 
 
 I have laboured too under some inconvenience from 
 finding myself compelled to go over again, as it were, 
 the ground I had already r ' cupied in my "LETTER 
 TO MR. COKE." The in-; re fully adverting to cer- 
 tain subjects incidentally treated of there, may have 
 exposed me to the danger of occasionally falling, 
 though I hope in no great degree, into a repetition 
 of the same ^-ntiments. I have had time without 
 a commensurate leisure. My removal into resi- 
 dence fas exposed both my papers and my thoughts 
 to *vme confusion, and which, I fear, has been pro- 
 ductive of more oversights than it will be found I 
 have remedied. My distance too from the Press, 
 careful as the Printer has been, has subjected the 
 work to errors (not alone typographical), that, 
 when committed, could be but partially rectified. 
 
 Under these circumstances, the reader must look 
 for nothing in the following pages beyond a mere 
 desultory tract of thought spread over a large sur- 
 face } sometimes keeping to, sometimes deviating 
 
 13071 96
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 from the subject, and alternately touching upon 
 and ncglf'cting the heart of the inquiry. Yet I will 
 not conceal that these apologies are made and these 
 extenuations solicited, rather /or defects in the 
 arrangement of my Reflections than for the re- 
 flections themselves, since I know not that, more 
 favourably situated, I could have done better by 
 the general argument, or produced a better work. 
 I almost believe, though it is mortifying to confess 
 it, that 1 could not. Though, however, the subject 
 has suffered under my hands, a circumstance that 
 no one can regret more sincerely than myself, and 
 though in these pages I may be said rather to have 
 brought together materials for a future, than to 
 have bequeathed to the public a present perform- 
 ance, I still think that I may lay claim to one merit. 
 1 have set the tone of feeling for the present emer- 
 gency. I have given the language ice ought to use, 
 and the principles we ought to entertain. None 
 other will be worthy ofr$. None other will avail us. 
 
 I must, finally, oiaVjfuc that these Reflections 
 would have been published, cast in a somewhat dif- 
 ferent form, had I seen or heard nothing of Mr. 
 Coke, of the City of Norwich, 01 of the Freeholders 
 of Norfolk. That I have chosen this particular 
 mode of address is owing to mere ctsntingence ; to 
 the fair field in which J was placed for o^ er vatio?i 
 on the day of our late county election, thro^o-h the 
 courtesy of a gentleman well known for his co/. ,._ 
 tutionat principles, and /or being the best friend of 
 the people, by being the best friend to the throne. 
 
 7//c first part of this Letter, extending to p. 92, 
 I had thoughts of considerably abridging, the sub- 
 ject having become somewhat obsolete. However, 
 I venture it with the rest, though in so doing 1 am 
 doubtful whether I have done right. 
 
 HAI/VERGATE VICARAGE, 
 
 August 27, 1819.
 
 length, gentlemen, the important business of 
 returning representatives to a new parliament is at 
 an end. At length we breathe from our political 
 commotions and labours. Some we have sent with 
 heavy hearts to their bed of gloom, and others to 
 repose on their couch of victory. While Smith and 
 Gurney are in the exercise of their senatorial func- 
 tions, the former a seasoned veteran, the latter a raw 
 and awkward country recrui* while Coke and Wode~ 
 house are both equally on the alert, the one to sup- 
 port, the other to derange certain old-fashioned prin- 
 ciples that have for ages obtained among us, but that 
 are now, through the increasing light of the times, 
 getting somewhat out of date ; we shall not perhaps 
 be unusefully employed, if, like travellers at the de- 
 cline of day, we review the steps we have already 
 trod, and cast forward a searching eye on the road we 
 are about to journey, and the prospect that lies 
 darkly swimming before us. Where our adversaries 
 retire fighting, and threaten soon to be with us again, 
 we must look on nothing as gained but our present 
 advantage, nothing as sure but the ground we at 
 present stand on. 
 
 The success of Edmond Wodehouse, Esq. through 
 your auspices, has been such as to crown both him 
 and yourselves v/ith honour. You received him a 
 
 B
 
 2 
 
 short while back as a stranger, with only his character 
 and his family connections as his letter of recommen- 
 dation ; you have now, for the second time, returned 
 him as your esteemed representative; and you have 
 so returned him as to convince his haughty colleague 
 and all who witnessed your proceedings, that, whoever 
 may, in future, be proposed or rejected as a fit candi- 
 date for the county of Norfolk, Edmond Wodehouse, 
 Esq. is safe safe, because he has himself acted so 
 honourably, and because he thus, in return, secures 
 the honourable and consistent conduct of his con- 
 stituents. We had, indeed, on the late exercise of 
 our elective franchise, no county contest, and no 
 county contest was needed. Let the result have been 
 never so decisive, it could have added neither to Mr. 
 Wodehouse's triumph, nor to Mr. Coke's regret. 
 That triumph has already been sufficiently gratifying, 
 and that regret, believe me, sufficiently galling. 
 
 Some apology, gentlemen, may be due for address- 
 ing to you the following reflections, and especially at 
 such a distance of time from the event to which I 
 allude. I have not been altogether an idle spectator 
 of what has lately passed in rapid succession before 
 us. I was witness to a large portion of both our city 
 and our county proceedings, and I thought I saw in 
 both much which a serious mind could not, and 
 which an honest mind dared not to commend. The 
 meeting of freeholders on Tuesday, the 23d June, 
 1818, the day of election for the county, gave rise, on 
 the part of Mr. Coke and his adherents, to certain 
 exercises in oratory of a very objectionable nature, 
 It was not perhaps prudent that the proceedings of 
 that day should have gone forth, as they did, intirely 
 iincommented upon. What is said and done in Nor- 
 folk will have its influence beyond Norfolk. What 
 is said and done under Mr. Coke's name and sanction 
 will find its weight, be it said or c'one never so pre- 
 posterously. Norfolk is not an insulated spot. It is
 
 a large and populous county, politically important, 
 agriculturally important, so important in deed as justly 
 to be denominated " the garden of England." By 
 this chain Mr. Coke, not unably seconded by the 
 writings of his friend Dr. Rigby, has contrived to 
 give it a sort of federal connection with every part of 
 the British Empire. I wish this connection was for 
 agricultural purposes only. 
 
 There may have been reasons, though I confess I 
 saw them not, why Mr. Coke's speech at this election, 
 of an hour and a half long, was not more adverted to 
 by Colonel Wodehouse, or others of the party, at the 
 time of its delivery, but no reason why, at greater 
 leisure, we should not bring it before the tribunal of 
 that public to which it was addressed, and there let it 
 receive its reproof where it exploded its mischief. 
 The suffering these idle declamations to float upon 
 the popular mind and ear, in any dress the editors of 
 our provincial papers chuse to bestow upon them, 
 (though certainly no dress that they have the courage 
 to array them in comes, in any manner, up to their 
 pure, native, deformity of thought,) is, to say the least 
 of it, ill policy. Unanswered calumnies, usurping the 
 form, will sometimes, and with some people, pass for 
 the body of virtue. The public have been too much 
 abused by these stated political anathemas, and men 
 have been lifted into idols for their patriotism, who 
 deserved to be branded with infamy for their sedi- 
 tions. The poison is indeed rolled up in pleasant 
 forms ; but, put on what shapes of glosing, gossipping 
 eloquence it may, come it from county members, 
 or city demagogues, or Union Society delegates, or 
 Socinian sanctuaries, it is still, in its effects, poison, 
 rank, and gross. 
 
 Gentlemen, so far as the county of Norfolk is con- 
 cerned, you have my apology for addressing you on 
 the present occasion. Excuse me, however, if I add, 
 
 B 2
 
 that in these "reflections on the nature and tendency 
 of the present spirit of the times," I look beyond the 
 county of Norfolk, and its representatives in parlia- 
 ment. Had I not done so, I would have added nothing 
 to what I have already written. But a larger, a more 
 serious field is before us, and to that field it is that I 
 shall direct the greater part of my attention, and soli- 
 cit the principal portion of yours. It is not Mr. 
 Coke to whom I am an enemy, nor Mr. Wodehouse 
 to whom I am a friend ; but I am adverse to the pub- 
 lic sentiments of the one, and cordially unite me with 
 the constitutional deportment of the other. Under 
 these circumstances, were it any man beside Mr. 
 Coke, I must become his political opponent; were 
 it any man beside Mr. Warehouse, I should, to the 
 best of my ability, be his political advocate and friend. 
 Between these gentlemen, in their domestic relations, 
 I know no difference. I have no feelings in unison, 
 or at variance with either of them. I am equally a 
 stranger to them both. I trust, therefore, with the un- 
 prejudiced part of my readers, to stand clear of aught 
 in the shape of personal regards or resentments. 
 
 As to what reception a letter of this kind may meet 
 with from either party, that must not be suffered to 
 concern me. Mr. Wodehouse may not like it. Mr. 
 Coke may go further, he may not read it. He may 
 not even be conscious of i4s publication. 1 can for- 
 give any and every neglect of it that he or his admirers 
 may meditate. In this point our pride, I suspect, is 
 pretty equal ; for while they may be devising how to 
 treat me with scorn for my presumption, I am secretly 
 scorning myself for condescending to notice such 
 sorry political drivellers at all. I know too well the 
 slubborness with which men cling to their own pre- 
 conceived notions, and that, as Mr. Bedingfield ob- 
 served, " it is hardly possible to persuade those who 
 differ from us in opinion on political subjects, into our
 
 5 
 
 own way of thinking."* With no hopeless views of 
 this kind have I heen actuated on the present occasion. 
 What I do, and I do it I assure you in all humility, is 
 not to convince those who dissent from, but to con firm 
 those who are, in some measure, neutralized in their 
 feeling's, or who may already be disposed to agree with 
 us in opinion. This, if I am able in the slightest de- 
 gree to effect, I shall willingly leave Mr. Coke and his 
 party to their accustomed favourite employments, to 
 rant about the oppressions of the people, the sins of 
 the government, the curse of Toryism, and, " be- 
 daubed with ribbands and rubbish," the immaculate 
 purity of their own whig principles. 
 
 I have said, gentlemen, that in these ff Reflections" 
 I look beyond the county of Norfolk. You will see 
 the necessity of this enlarged view. You will per- 
 ceive that, in times and under circumstances like the 
 present, our duty extends itself to every county and to 
 every parliamentary representative. All are equally 
 liable to be deluded by reforming candidates, and to 
 have their happiness blighted by the revolutionary 
 doctrines which, whether with or without design, they 
 may broach among them. Every elector is, of course, 
 equally concerned to oppose such candidates, when 
 he perceives the tendency of their course, and, root 
 and branch, to tear up the very foundations of such 
 conspiracies against his peiice. I address you, there- 
 fore, not so much upon particular as upon general 
 grounds ; and, upon such grounds, all that I have to 
 advance will be most usefully said, and will most in- 
 timately engage your feelings. Still from particular 
 grounds is it that we draw general observations. 
 It is from the proceedings of our own city and coun- 
 ty that we are enabled to judge of the issue of such 
 
 * See the Norfolk Chronicle of June 27, 1818, and the Nor- 
 M ich Mercury of the same date.
 
 proceedings taken in the gross. Though, therefore, I 
 shall, in the outset of this letter, bespeak your atten- 
 tion to the individual business of the 23d of June, 1818, 
 which concerned ourselves alone, yet the application 
 of that business, as connected with what was and is 
 going forward in other places, you will find to con- 
 cern all. Further, what is known by the designa- 
 tion of the blue and white party in the city, I shall 
 venture to assimilate with Mr. Coke's party in the 
 county ; for though there may be shades of difference 
 in their religious, and even in their political notions, 
 as in the world of republicanism, like that of hea- 
 thenism, " there be gods many and lords many," there 
 is still abundantly enough in common between them 
 to convince us of the family likeness., and to perpe- 
 tuate the family deformity. I wish this Letter, in- 
 deed, to be considered as, in some measure, an APPEN- 
 DIX to my former " LETTER TO MR. COKE ;"* as 
 built upon the same foundations, somewhat extended 
 it may be and strengthened ; as written with the same 
 views ; as censuring and excusing that gentleman and 
 his more respectable parlizans in the same spirit; as 
 conceding to them the same absence of evil intention, 
 but as charging them with the same full and perfect 
 presence of most destructive tendency in the opinions 
 which they entertain, and the conduct which they 
 
 * I wish it to be particularly so considered, in respect of that 
 comparison between the state of the public mind in France, pre- 
 rious to the revolution, and in England at present, which I there 
 declined insisting npon. (Letter to T. W. Coke, Esq. p. 39. In 
 respect too of dissent being at the root of our political disaffections; 
 of the absurdity and danger of appealing to the majesty of the 
 people ; of the alarming spread and terrible nature of republican 
 principles; of the delusions every where practised to weaken our 
 regard for established government ; and of the preparation of the 
 public mind for expecting revolution, even while we are taught to 
 believe that the country is in no peril from the prevailing temper 
 and spirit of tut times.
 
 pursue. And I beg, wherecver I may seem to forget, 
 or not properly to allow for such acknowledgments 
 in their favour, that I may not be deemed designedly 
 to have omitted them. Mr. Coke's is, however, I am 
 sorry to add., becoming a sweeping feculent party in 
 the county ; and so far as it may be found leagued 
 with, and supported by hot and revolutionary spirits, 
 here or elsewhere, any body may make exceptions 
 in favour of such disgraceful coadjutors for me. 
 
 At the same time it is no wish of mine to saddle 
 upon a man opinions which he professes not to hold, 
 or to assign to him (his acts, and deeds, and general 
 deportment, not gain saying) motives which he so- 
 lemnly disclaims. Where there is any fair ground 
 for doubt, I desire he may have the full benefit of a 
 presumed integrity, and not be reckoned among the 
 decidedly disaffected, or treated as such. Still human 
 motives., in the affairs of human life, are proper 
 objects of examination andjudgment. Of those who 
 blame us for such examination, and for deducing from, 
 thence an apology for our censures, we ask, how are 
 government and civilized society to be conducted with- 
 out such precaution ? We judge with lenity of our 
 fellow creatures as long as we can, because it is vir- 
 tuous so to do, because it is politic, because it cha- 
 ritably accordeth with the frailty of our common 
 nature. And where no harm results to ourselves, or 
 to the community from our silence., we have no wish 
 to bring any man's motives into doubt or discussion. 
 But when the public, or our own individual good is 
 likely to be injured by the line of conduct, religious 
 or political, which our fellow creatures may think 
 proper to pursue, then it becomes a duty to endea- 
 vour to ascertain on what foundations such conduct is 
 built, what it is tbai leads them to adopt it, and to 
 what points, in all likelihood, it is advancing. We 
 have a right, where the necessity presses upon us, to 
 infer intentions from actions. Actions repeatedly
 
 8 
 
 tending to a certain object must convince us of the 
 probability of that object being- in view. If every 
 topic of discussion and declamation, every declared 
 opinion, every open deed, combining with time, place, 
 and circumstances, all tend, and do, in fact, go to 
 establish revolution in a state; we may too assuredly 
 rest in the conclusion that revolution is the object. If 
 this were not so, we should do wrong so to look upon 
 it ; for evermore the policy is, in the affairs of em- 
 pire, as well as in domestic concernments, to hold men 
 upright; so to hold them even against large appear- 
 ance to the contrary, even against the knowledge 
 that in their full and natural measure they are not so. 
 We must keep up a sense of shame and a principle of 
 honor in the human character as long as we can, for 
 never was virtue of so assured a stamp as long to 
 survive their departure. 
 
 Of the present opposers of government, the present 
 disturbers of the peace of the realm, part are men 
 who are themselves misled; who are weak in their 
 apprehensions, and who may probably mean well ; 
 who at any rate have no bad designs ; part are vain, 
 sacrificing to a foolish ambition and popularity, and, 
 with narrow views and selfish motives, doing an infi- 
 nitude of harm whereever they have voice and influ- 
 ence ; part (and they make up no small proportion, I 
 fear, of the whole) are subtle and insinuating, are lost 
 and abandoned, and desperate, and do seriously in- 
 tend the overthrow of every thing. To the latter 
 description of our adversaries alone it is that I confine 
 my condemnation of both conduct and motive. For 
 harsh and hardened natures like theirs, \vhoare work- 
 ing the ruin of the state, and who know that they are 
 working it, no condemnations can be too severe. 
 These are the men who make no secret of their hostile 
 views, and who even dare our vengeance ; men who 
 are ready to go all lengths, under pretence of advo- 
 cating the popular cause, and who are prepared to
 
 9 
 
 stop at that point only where death and destruction 
 meet them or us. To such we owe no delicacy, no 
 charity. They are the objects I must be understood 
 as, in these Reflections, having 1 ever in view. Those 
 less guilty, those erroneously and weakly, and even 
 ambitiously offending, we pity, gentlemen, while we 
 strike; we soften down our enmities while we guard 
 against and deplore theirs. Still enmities against such 
 adversaries we must entertain. There may, indeed, 
 be many Brutus's among them of "general honest 
 thought," but they are no less conspirators against 
 the general peace, and must be dealt by with, per- 
 haps, harder measure than, under more favorable cir- 
 cumstances, would fall to their lot. For where the 
 effect is so much to be deplored, we can make less 
 distinction in our reprobation of the cause, and in the 
 weight of our censure. They who countenance evil 
 opinions, and connect themselves with evil company, 
 must be content to be evil thought of and intreated. 
 Society can secure itself on no other terms. 
 
 I make the foregoing concessions in favor of all 
 who may be found deserving of the benefit of them. 
 It is indeed prudent so to do, but it should not be 
 prudent if I did not think it were just. For every 
 opinion and every condemnation contained in the fol- 
 lowing pages, I am myself alone responsible. I suffer 
 no man, in matters, of this nature, to suggest to me 
 what I should say, or what I should leave unsaid ; 
 how far I should proceed, or, with the nimium nee 
 laudare, nee laedere whispered in mine ear, at what 
 cautious, wary point of censure I ought to stop. I 
 am told that my severity towards Mr. Coke in a for- 
 mer letter did displease several even of my own par- 
 ly. The honourable and friendly quarter from 
 whence I received this information, precludes every 
 suspicion of the fact. I have only, therefore, to ob- 
 serve, thatty/iew I write to please any party, it will be 
 time enough to regret that I should so have offended.
 
 10 
 
 There is always remedy and consolation where our 
 censures are not deserved ; and where they are, the 
 better way will be to undermine their influence, by 
 cutting- away the ground on which they rest. I dis- 
 claim attachment to any set of men or measures, en- 
 deavouring at the best exercise of my judgment on the 
 common topics of investigation that lie equally before 
 us all. For the course I may take in such an exercise 
 there may he much to censure and somewhat perhaps 
 to pardon. Every mind is not gii'ted with the same 
 correctness or intensity of thought, the same calm 
 equitable discernment of truth and good. There 
 will be dissonance of opinion as to where opposition 
 against the adversaries of government should begin, 
 and to what degree it should be carried. The awful 
 changes that are now pervading the world, are not ex- 
 posed alike to every vision ; do not alike impress them- 
 selves upon all to whom they are exposed. Some dis- 
 cover the hidden seeds of disorganization with a 
 clearer, some with a duller apprehension ; some speak 
 of them with a more, some with a less enthusiastic 
 warmth ; and few see and judge of them either as 
 they really are, or as they may eventually turn out. 
 Were I a party man, in the abused sense of the word, 
 I should chalk me out a very different course of con- 
 duct from my present. I should be careful whom I 
 offended, that might do service to that party. 1 should 
 attack no man, nor any set of men, the possibility of 
 whose votes for a ministerial candidate could, at any 
 future election, be at all calculated upon. I should 
 suffer the dissenters to go on in their own crafty way. 
 I should let the evangelical clergy play their pious 
 pranks at their leisure. I should not " even whisper 
 to the idle air" a syllable on the subject of tithes or 
 tithe payers. All these causes of irritation I should 
 carefully keep in the back ground. But I have no 
 eye upon any main chance of this nature; no party 
 feelings of this reserved complexion in my composi-
 
 11 
 
 tion ; and though I wish well to the cause of Mr. 
 Wodehouse, and would willingly second and serve it, 
 that cause shall receive no support from me sepa- 
 rated, in any instance, from such a regard to what 
 passeth in my mind for equity and the true national 
 interest, as ought to be held sacred. Where there 
 is offence let " the great axe fall/' whether it be 
 on the head of friend or foe. My wishes go not be- 
 yond the serving a good and lawful cause in a good 
 and lawful manner. And this, with God's leave, I 
 will do without fear, and as well and as far as I am 
 able. All the disgrace attendant upon my principles 
 and conduct is my own, and, if there be any thing 
 in the shape of credit incidentally connected with 
 them, all that credit is my own likewise. 
 
 Though I profess but imperfectly to treat upon so 
 voluminous a subject as the present spirit of the times, 
 and the consequent line of duty to which such a spirit 
 obliges us ; yet, as this Letter will run out pretty much 
 at length, it may be necessary to premise, that, in the 
 division of its somewhat desultory line of discussion, 
 1 have respect chiefly to these three circumstances - 
 FIRST, the mere local politics of the county of Nor* 
 Jolk, and which I shall endeavour to dispatch as 
 expeditiously as I can. SECONDLY, the danger of 
 our constitution, ecclesiastical and civil, from the 
 prevailing evil spirit that has long been growing 
 up, and is now gone forth with great might ; and 
 THIRDLY, our imperative duty in such an alamning, 
 and, I will venture to add, unparalleled crisis of 
 affairs. This is the only division I dare venture to 
 appropriate to a subject which, I fear, it will be 
 found I have by no means treated in so connected 
 a manner as I ought. However something of use I 
 may have effected ; and where difficulties abound, as 
 in a discussion of this nature, the reader must be 
 considerate. 
 
 As to my authorities, I have not been very lavish 
 c 2
 
 12 
 
 of or solicitous about them, as lilllo, I think, will be 
 found that does not lie open to our common observa- 
 tion and fall in with our common feeling's. I have 
 drawn my conclusions, gentlemen, in good mea'inr, 
 from that useful evidence upon evidence, accumulat- 
 ing from age to age and up to the present hour, that 
 is before you, and me, and all of us For the history 
 of dissent in this country, I know not that I can plead 
 better authorities than the works of Jewel, and Hoo- 
 ker, and Stillingfleet, and more lately of cotempo- 
 rary writers whom it is unnecessary to name, alto- 
 gether forming. against her sectarian adversaries "a 
 wall of fire" around our established and calumniated 
 church. The political history of the day, as delivered 
 down in our periodical records, ournewspaper reports 
 of parliamentary debates, &c.* our voluminous anni- 
 versary and electioneering speeches, with the infinite 
 discussions on religious topics that are continually 
 issuing from the press, cannot fail of supply ing every 
 man with sufficient demonstration of the spirit of the 
 times. These, aided by what I see, and hear, and 
 turn and examine on all sides, and endeavour, as far 
 as I am able, to digest and apply, have furnished me, 
 at once, with much food and much authority for my 
 Reflections. But, above all, history, and especially 
 
 * I take the sentiments of our Whigs, our Reformers, and others, 
 whether in or out of parliament, from the speeches purported to 
 liave been delivered by them in the several periodical newspapers 
 and publications of the day. For the accuracy of these reports I 
 cannot answer. Where they are incorrect, my reflection;-, so far 
 as thry may be fairly deemed to flow from them, must be con- 
 sidered as withdrawn ; but if they are given to the public correctly, 
 I withdraw nothing. In the Norwich Mercury and the Norfolk 
 Chronicle much of Mr. Coke's party asperity is softened down, 
 much of the weakness of his votaries wisdomed over, and even the 
 republican fires are occasionally so allayed as to burn dim and 
 harmless. These county records, however^ are not without their 
 Virtues.
 
 the more ancient, is, and must be the most valuable 
 store-house for practical deduction; for there we see 
 human hopes and fears, desires and endeavors, which 
 constitute human experience, embodied. There we 
 view, at once, the effects of peculiar laws, and institu- 
 tions, and forms of government, under every variation 
 of circumstance ; and from thence, with allowance 
 for difference in times, and tempers, and local situ- 
 ations, we discover from what has happened, what, in 
 all likelihood, under any thing- approaching to a simi- 
 larity of condition, will happen ; nothing so far alter- 
 ing man's nature, and feelings, and passions, but that 
 " the thing which hath been" is nearly of necessity 
 "that which shall be." 
 
 Thus much by way of introduction. Now, gen- 
 tlemen, let us proceed to business. I will endeavour 
 to clear the way as I go by removing, in the first 
 place, what may not unaptly be termed the rubbish 
 of the late county and city proceedings, which might 
 otherwise lie sweating, and soaking, and obstructing 
 our progress at every turn. Let us begin by refer- 
 ring to the " meeting of notables," convened at the 
 White Swan on Saturday, June 20th, " to consider 
 the propriety of putting in nomination, on Tuesday 
 next, a person who will more truly represent the 
 interests and opinions of the county, and more effec- 
 tually protect the liberties of the people of England, 
 than we conceive to have been done during the last 
 session of parliament by our late member, Edmond 
 Wodehouse, Esq."* These " notes of preparation," 
 struck off blazing hot in the moment, as was con- 
 ceived, of profound peace, had symptoms about them 
 of no ordinary suspicion. More names, it seems, 
 were appended to this state instrument than lent their 
 hands to the signing of it. Indeed, one gentleman 
 
 * Norfolk Chronicle, Juue 20th, 1818.
 
 comes forward and declares, in the public papers, 
 that his signature thereto was nothing less than a 
 forgery.* Others, I understand, made somewhat 
 
 * Norfolk Chronicle, June 27, 1818. There is reason to 
 believe that tjjese forgeries amounted to nearly half the number of 
 the names. But the following documents will better explain the 
 nature of these transactions than any tiling I can advance. " Call, 
 Sir, upon our modern reformers to explain to the public, the 
 AVhite Swan forgery, when, out of twenty-two names signed to a 
 requisition, that had for its object to make the yeomanry (or rather 
 our city jacobins) dictate to the gentry of the county, half of them 
 at least were forged ! A country attorney, and electioneering 
 agent of the great man of the county, was the agent in this business ; 
 and one of our city delegates, a?Aa, having organized our Hampden 
 and Union clubs, had a mind to try his hand upon the county, 
 acted as the secretary. As the affair has been traced thus far, 
 perhaps the honorable secretary will deem it necessary to inform 
 the public from whom he received these names. 
 
 If, Sir, you would give us a regular history of the proceedings of 
 our Norwich reformers for the last two or three years of their 
 other forgeries and deceptions their organized system of falsehood 
 and misrepresentation, with all the various arts of terror and cajole- 
 ment by which they have endeavoured to mislead the ignorant, you 
 would do the nation, as well as our city, an essential service, by 
 opening their eyes to what they may expect from similar exertions 
 of their brother reformers upon a larger scale." " During the late 
 contest for this city, much was said about forging names. I should 
 hope, by a reference to Messrs. Pike and Everitt's advertisements,* 
 in the Norwich papers of this day, you will be convinced who it is 
 that take upon themselves to forge names. One of the most active 
 who actually signed, and no doubt wrote the requisition for a 
 meeting at the Swan, is a certain delegate orator," &c. These 
 productions, the former of which is a very able one, evidently come 
 from different quarters, and are both anonymous. At any rate, 
 however, they serve to prove, the only end 1 have in view in thus 
 quoting them, the suspicions entertained of this celebrated delegate. 
 Another forgery was practised during Mr. Harbord's contest for 
 the city. The hand-bill issued on that occasion will sufficiently 
 explain its nature. " Mr. llarbord's committee hasten to inform 
 the public, that, in consequence of a hand-bill issued by the com- 
 mittee of Messrs. Smith and Gurney, a deputation has been sefit 
 
 .N in other gentlemen (of the 2) b& ve made a similar declaration.
 
 16 
 
 similar declarations. As to Mr. Coke, he knew no 
 more of this mysterious transaction, this " fortuitous 
 concourse of atoms," than the man in the moon ; and 
 even the gentleman himself unanimously pitched upon 
 by this " most respectable body of yeomanry," seems 
 at a loss to determine from what precise quarter the. 
 call comes, or whether, in fact, any body called or no. 
 In short, not one of the party were in a hurry to 
 acknowledge the legitimacy of a proceeding on the 
 result of which the dictatorial succession to the county 
 crown so eminently depended. Gentlemen, in olden 
 times, when Jupiter, the great god of the heathens, 
 had no better game in view, he used occasionally, we 
 are told, to take it into his head to impregnate the air. 
 Somebody was therefore presently born, nobody knew 
 how. Perhaps our worthy White Swan senators 
 may have worked away somewhat after the same 
 imperial fashion ; for here was their terrajfilius brought 
 into existence, and actually staring you full in the 
 face, without parent, or relative, or genealogy, or a 
 single friend of any description on which to father 
 the unlucky brat. Amid the whole listening waste, 
 all was upon the dead scent. Not an archive of 
 ancestry was to be met with, and even the gales of 
 Holkham swept, in appearance, over the deserted 
 political orphan, with no fragrance on their wings. 
 Will Mr. Edward Taylor, who, as is reported, acted 
 as accoucheur on this trying occasion, be kind enough 
 to come forward and tell us the secrets of its birth. 
 
 Whether, however, the bantling was begotten on 
 that miscreated abortion, "the blue devils/' or sprung 
 
 to inspect a letter, signed, Thomas Back, at the request of Lord 
 Suffield. An inspection of the letter alluded to, enables Mr. Har- 
 bord's committee to declare, that the signature and postscript, in 
 which Lord Suffield's name is mentioned, are palpable and impu- 
 dent forgeries."
 
 1G 
 
 from the head of Jove himself, or was manufactured 
 into being by the skill of the delegate, or found its 
 way into our wicked political world through any wor- 
 thier instrumentality, must be left, I suspect, to pos- 
 terity to decipher. In the mean while, let us examine 
 a bit into the nature and qualifications of the candidate 
 thus strongly brought forward, and at a season when 
 certainly nobody expected and few were prepared to 
 receive him. Gentlemen, the city of Norwich, which 
 contains many good men and things, boasts one cha- 
 racter of a somewhat singular complexion. They are 
 every morning treated with the tones of a certain 
 worthy personage, bawling out, " old brass, old cop- 
 per, old shoes, old clothes, old rags; bring 'em all 
 out and here's your ready money." This valuable 
 member of society makes his peregrinations day by 
 day, and, by means of the enchantment at the end of 
 his invitation, generally succeeds, at the close of his 
 labours, in bagging up a tolerable quantity of the 
 precious commodities. But MR. PHILIP HAMOND, 
 the late halt-fledged candidate for the county, had 
 not a spark of the honest ragman's spirit about him. 
 He was for their bringing out their votes, and their 
 interest, and their support, and their good will, and 
 their Whig doings and dealings of all sorts, (those 
 political old rags that will now scarce hang together 
 and cover their nakedness); but not a syllable, thank 
 you, of "here's your ready money." No, no they 
 were, it seems, to " bring 'em all out," and find the 
 ready money into the bargain. His promises went no 
 further than, after that they were brought out, to do 
 them the especial favour of accepting " the precious 
 commodities." Hear his gracious declaration. "High- 
 ly as I am flattered by this mark of your esteem, I 
 also feel that I have only a common interest with you 
 all in the event of an election ; and I therefore think 
 it right most distinctly to state, that if 1 am elected, it 
 must be by the independent exertions of (,he free-
 
 holders. T shall spend no money in the contest, but 
 shall rely for support entirely upon your own efforts."* 
 Now is it likely that such a man should have suc- 
 ceeded in such a contest as must inevitably have 
 awaited him? For what does this high consideration 
 amount to, but a disposition on his part to be sent to 
 the parliament house, provided his constituents would 
 elect, convey him thither, bring him back, put^ pro- 
 missory note into his pocket for incidental expences, 
 and clothe, feed, and entertain him by the way. 
 What a head was here to think of setting the Whig 
 crown of "the first county in England" upon! 
 " If chnnce will have me king, why chance may crown ine 
 Without my stir,"t 
 
 may sound very well from the lips of an ambitious 
 spirit who has qualms of conscience at becoming a 
 traitor, but is a mighty wishy washy sort of declaration 
 for one who aspired to the enviable distinction of be- 
 coming the colleague of that unspotted Whig states- 
 man, T. W. Coke, Esq. " England's hope and Norfolk's 
 pride," in whose heart, as Mr. Southwell assures us, 
 " is no guile/';}; positively no guile, religious, moral, 
 or political ! The road to fame was certainly open, 
 but it was a rough road, the virtues of Mr. Wode- 
 house having strewn it with thorns, instead of roses, 
 to any competitor. Indeed, had the dictatorial influ- 
 ence been fixed deep enough; had its sic volo per- 
 vaded, as it once did, every park and homestall 
 throughout the county, it would have little signified 
 what Whig candidate might have put in for the 
 stakes, whether Mr. Hamond, or Admiral Lukin, or 
 Mr. Lombe, or even the very make-weights of the 
 party. They would probably, any of them, have 
 walked over the course at their leisure, with the conge 
 
 * Norfolk Chronicle, June 27, 1818. 
 f Macbeth. J Norfolk Chronicle, June 27 } 1818, 
 D
 
 18 
 
 d' elire pinned up in their pockets and the new song 1 
 set to the old tune, "Here is my man, one Uovr 
 P tt." But, Providence be praised, the wind has, 
 at length, happily shifted its quarter. The cutting 
 north-east is now qualified by the milder breezes of 
 the south-west. 
 
 A characteristic ec address to the Norfolk free- 
 holders/'* followed close upon the declaration of the 
 White Swan senate; a sort of crazy composit ion that 
 the public could hardly tell what to make of, or whe- 
 ther its materials were of a "radical reform" or ultra 
 complexion. However, come from what quarter it 
 might, the matter was not without its meaning or its 
 merit. It shewed us Mr. Coke's Whig party in a 
 somewhat new light. It told us what sort of allies he 
 had to second him what sort of advisers he was 
 leagued with and what sort of adversaries we are 
 ourselves opposed to. It convinced us,, judging from 
 the restrained spirit which pervaded the composition, 
 that "bee-hive banners/' and the "tree of liberty." 
 and " the flag-staff surmounted with the figure of a 
 bonnet rouge/' might not for ever remain the useless 
 lumber they have been; but that the true blues of the 
 Hampden school, under the tutorage of Socinus and 
 the tabernacle, discovering their hidden virtues, might 
 possibly, at no very distant period, feel a call lor 
 their exertion. 
 
 The farce of the White Swan Senate however, 
 gentlemen, very indifferently got up and still worse 
 performed, was soon over, nor is it now worth our 
 while too curiously to enquire how far Mr. Coke 
 was or w r as not concerned in the pantomimic heroic 
 extravaganza, or whether Mr. Philip Hamond was 
 to have been brought in by the majesty of the people, 
 
 * This address the reader M ill find hi the Norwich Mercury of 
 JuiieSO, 1818.
 
 19 
 
 or the nod of the dictator. We will conclude for it 
 will be the shortest way, I believe, of settling a com- 
 plicated affair, to cut the gordiari knot at once that 
 Thomas William Coke, Esq. did truly and bona fide 
 " stand alone" upon this memorable occasion that 
 the meeting 1 at the Swan was without his knowledge 
 the starting a candidate in opposition to Mr. Wode- 
 house without his knowledge the sending over an 
 ambassador extraordinary to the court of Westacre 
 without his knowledge the result of that embassy in 
 Mr. Hamond's rejection of the overtures without his 
 knowledge and, to crown the comedy of ignoramus 
 throughout, the change in Mr. Hamond's mind and 
 his final acceptance of the gracious invitation without 
 his knowledge. We will believe that, in all these 
 diplomatic doings, Mr. Coke was as " pure as the un- 
 sunned snow.' 1 It is a concession we can afford to 
 his comfort and dignity without any deterioration of 
 our own, requesting in return nothing more than that, 
 for the future, as was ingeniously suggested, "all 
 horses intending to start for the county plate will give 
 at least three days' notice to the clerk of the course, 
 with the weight they carry, and the names and co- 
 lours of the riders."* 
 
 Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci. We 
 must throw our picture, gentlemen, into lights and 
 shades. In addressing the great body of the Nor- 
 folk freeholders on a subject of comparatively so in- 
 ferior importance, I feel myself in the situation of a 
 manager who has pit, gallery, and boxes to please at 
 the same instant, and hie labor, hoc opus est 3 by 
 nearly the same means. With this view, and prepa- 
 ratory to the remarks which follow, suffer me to draw 
 your attention to the Hampden leaders, of the col- 
 lected multitudes of the 23d of June, (the day of elec- 
 
 * Norfolk Chronicle, June 27. 
 D 2
 
 20 
 
 tion) at the Shirehall, Norwich. Homer, you know, 
 has given us a learned catalogue of his heroes assem- 
 bled in arms for the destruction of Troy. Milton 
 too has no less learnedly, and witli equal genius, de- 
 scribed his fallen angels after their expulsion from 
 heaven. Though no poet myself, I will yet, under 
 pardon, just touch upon the edge of the same liberty, 
 by introducing to your acquaintance two or three 
 (sufficient for a sample) of the long line of unparal- 
 leled worthies, "the choice and master spirits of the 
 age," to whom we have the misfortune to be opposed 
 on almost every occasion that demands the exercise 
 of common sense. 
 
 To this goodly scene of contention, then came the 
 whole illustrious tribe of what, if we were indulged in 
 any mere earthly expression, we might be apt, perhaps, 
 to designate, for want of a better term, whig reform- 
 ers upon the radical, I had almost said, the revolution- 
 ary scale. First, and in a mental trim that perfectly 
 bespoke his consciousness of the subjection of his fol- 
 lowers, appeared the dictatorial leader of this motly 
 crew the great heathen divinity, to whose worship 
 temples were every where dedicated, and from whose 
 altars the smoke of sacrifices daily ascended, with a 
 lowering countenance, a scornful brow, and a dark 
 uneasy mind. Still was it clearly perceptible that 
 
 his form had not yet lost 
 All her original brightness, nor appeared 
 Less than archangel ruined.* 
 
 He was followed by one, inferior in dignity and haugh- 
 tinesss, for the purpose of nominating their mighty 
 chief, which he did in $ speech replete with eulogies 
 that had this peculiar feature of convenience about 
 them, to suit, with a little cutting and pruning, any of 
 the race of the Pisistratidae that migrht offer himself 
 
 * Paradise Lost. Book 1.
 
 21 
 
 for the sovereign honour. Next to him appeared u 
 certain god of the ocean, forgetful, alas ! of a more 
 natural allegiance elsewhere, to second this nomina- 
 tion, and (the old brazen nose triton being cast, I sup- 
 pose, upon the strand, or his trumpet somehow or 
 other out of tune,) to sound the praises of his idol, 
 and to feel how the popular pulse reverberated to it. 
 Lower down you might discover, half lost in a cloud 
 of sulphur, a spirit of a far daiker complexion, sorely 
 grieved that Archimedes could furnish him with no 
 foothold to storm Olympus, and to trample " thrones, 
 dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers," in the dust. 
 On the heels of this chiron to the young Hampdens of 
 the county, and apparently in his train, was perceived 
 a divinity, of a benignant countenance, but of suffici- 
 ently perverse habits, who, with his preparations piping 
 hot about him, was for setting the Slyx on fire, and 
 blowing up my Lord Castlereagh and the Scotch bo- 
 roughs in the air, though, as it unluckily turned out, 
 there was not a single spark stirring at which he 
 could light his match. And there, to clinch this 
 gathering together of immaculate natures, were to be 
 seen what, in our lower world, we should call the 
 "great seraphic lords" of the common council and 
 corporation, a set of as "majestic forms impatient to 
 be free," as ever blessed the eye of wonder, the cream 
 and flower of the blue and white regions of the em- 
 pyreum. 
 
 All these and more came flocking ; but with looks 
 Down cast and damp ; yet such wherein appeared 
 Obscure some glimpse of joy, to have found their Chief 
 Not in despair, to have found tljemselves not lost 
 In loss itself.* 
 
 Gentlemen, I pass over extraneous matter, such as 
 cavalcading and contriving, and parties thrown out 
 
 * Paradise Lost. Book 1.
 
 and parties squeezed in, and too many of one sort and 
 too few of another, and come at once to the meeting 
 itself. And here I feel it necessary to deliver my 
 opinion, in brief general terms, on Mr. Coke's speech 
 and conduct upon that occasion, for so long was that 
 speech and so strange that conduct,, as to usurp, by 
 far, the best portion of the business of the day. I 
 have no notion of mincing a matter, but will call 
 things by their right names. I say, then, that I do 
 not recollect any instance of a whole county being 
 insulted by such a jumble of political slanders and 
 absurdities as that gentleman was then and there 
 pleased to pour forth. Had others been of my mind 
 he would not have been heard half through his dis- 
 gusting details. Indeed, with any degree of patience, 
 he was not heard half through them. The constant, 
 violent interruptions he experienced, proved how 
 offensive were the sentiments he delivered, how re- 
 volting the conclusions he drew to the far greater part 
 of the freeholders assembled. How Mr. Coke could, 
 in the face ofsuch opposition, continue such aspeech, 
 of which the County Chronicle and Mercury reports 
 are a mere skeleton ; how he could brave out such 
 scorn and resentment as were manifested ; how he 
 could volunteer such a farago of inanities before men 
 of sense, such a string of calumnies before men of 
 respectability, such a list of stale, worn-out, fifty 
 times refuted positions before men of far greater 
 constitutional information than himself, is to me asto- 
 nishing. Hut so it was. To the silent contempt of 
 many, and the loud reproaches of more, he opposed 
 an ineffable disdain, and, keeping on in his career of 
 political ribaldry, set shame and all the sober virtues 
 at defiance. 
 
 So little aware, however, does Mr. Coke seem to 
 have been of any impropriety of conduct upon this 
 occasion, that he even invites inquiry and dares accu- 
 sation. " 1 address myself (says he) to all parties
 
 friends and foes, (political foes of course 1 mean, for 
 I trust 1 have no others) Whigs and Tories to all 
 who now hear me and 1 challenge nay even would 
 goad any man present, if he have any dislike to my 
 political conduct, to come forward and avow what it 
 is."* Alas ! what is this but the desperation of the 
 poor stag at bay, a ridiculous braving of the public 
 to come forward and convict a man, for the twentieth 
 lime, who has already been convicted and condemned 
 nineteen. But the challenge is vain, and vain would 
 be its acceptance ; for if Mr Coke never " makes his 
 bow and retires"* until his political delinquency be 
 proved to his own satisfaction, the sine qua non, I 
 presume, of the defiance, he must retain his " situation 
 efhonour"f long after that situation is tired and dis- 
 gusted with him. "The kmg may make a peer, but 
 he cannot make a county member."f The observa- 
 tion is correct, and equally correct would it be were 
 we to add, the freeholders may make a representative, 
 but they can neither send him to the House of Com- 
 mons with a sound judgment, nor with humility to 
 supply the lack of it ; they can neither teach him 
 compassion for himself, nor respect for his consti- 
 tuents ; they can neither, if he be weak, guard him 
 against error, nor, if he be stubborn, protect him 
 against disgrace. They can only send him forth 
 their accredited agent as they find him good for any 
 thing, if their luck so be, or, if such be their mis- 
 fortune, good for nothing. 
 
 I am at issue with Mr. Coke upon every part of his 
 political conduct. I do not think there exists, at this 
 moment, an un fitter representative for the county of 
 Norfolk than himself. I do not think the kingdom 
 
 * Mr. Coke's speech of the 23d June, 1818. See the Norfolk 
 Chronicle of J nne 27 ; consult the Norwich Mercury too of 
 the same date. 
 
 t Norfolk Chronicle, June 27.
 
 2* 
 
 has more injurious adversaries, whatever may be their 
 rectitude of intention, than he and his parly at the 
 present crisis. Under this impression, and I suspect 
 1 am not singular herein, I shall endeavour as I pro- 
 ceed to give a tongue to those bold surmizes which 
 our adversaries have indulged in ; and as Mr. Coke 
 at Norwich, and his co-patriots in other places, have 
 been strong in their appeals to the feelings of the late 
 assembled multitudes, I will strive to place those 
 appeals in such a light as that these gentlemen may 
 see whom they are hereafter to expect among the 
 number of their friends, and whom they must be con- 
 tent for ever to consider as their firm and determined 
 enemies. Their civic addresses, and my reflections 
 upon them, will each have their little day, will each 
 be patronized, or denounced by their respective ad- 
 vocates, and then, covered with laurels and with dirt, 
 sink together into the grave of one common oblivi3n. 
 Let us, in the first place, advert to some minor 
 points of consideration ; minor, in respect to those 
 more leading features that concern the kingdom at 
 large, but still not altogether without importance so 
 far as the representation of the county of Norfolk is 
 considered. Mr. Coke, gentlemen, tells us, and he 
 takes a pride in announcing it, that during his long 
 course of parliamentary service he has kept himself 
 perfectly clear of the least obligation to ministers. 
 " I call," says he, " upon any man in this court to 
 charge me, if he can, with having ever solicited a 
 single favour from government. It is true, that my 
 situation in life places me above the necessity of 
 taking such a step on my own behalf; but I, like 
 many others, have many poor dependants ; yet I 
 never have asked a single favour, so help me God.' * 
 On his honourable word we are bound to, and, with 
 
 * Norfolk Chroukle, June 27, 1818.
 
 25 
 
 certain qualifications, we do believe him herein. 
 But what does this declaration amount to? What 
 signifies it to the dignity or interest of the county 
 whether Mr. Coke has, or has not asked favors of a 
 reigning ministry, whether he has or has not put a 
 crown on the head of Pompey's statue ? A favor, as 
 he justly intimates, personally conferred on one in his 
 exalted station, would be as a new shame added to the 
 old political score, though as to his " poor depen- 
 dents," especially certain of his clerical hangers on, 
 they w r ould, I dare say, have quite as high an opinion 
 of his political wisdom, aye, and of his political virtue 
 too, were he to abate a bit of being so plaguy 
 squeamish on this said ground of ministerial inde- 
 pendence. If a good fat preferment did but now and 
 then arrive, they would never, I suspect, trouble their 
 heads to ask by what wind it found its way to Hoik- 
 ham, or whether it met with any saucy rebufs in 
 working up its passage. My Lord Castlereagh may 
 be a very great idiot in the diplomatic affairs of 
 Europe, as Mr. Coke's fidus Achates has frequently 
 assured us ; but still, could he only manage to clap a 
 mitre on the head of that self-sufficient gentleman, or 
 even merely mark him off for the next vacant 
 deanery, I doubt not that we should find him pre- 
 sently metamorphosed into as wise, and great, and 
 honourable a statesman as ever blessed the British 
 soil. Of his discernment, in so especial a selection, 
 none could entertain a suspicion, save those who are 
 so incorrigibly stupid as to behold the Earl of Buc- 
 kingham's chaplain, and not to confess a fac-simile of 
 every earthly virtue, and the very personification of 
 humility itself. 
 
 Mr. Coke, however, with his present predilections 
 about them, is not likely to save rny Lord Castle- 
 reagh's cfedit by committing himself on the score of 
 any such obligations. There is too much of a way- 
 ward stubbornness in his composition, the natural con- 
 

 
 26 
 
 commitant of pride, to suffer him to see cither men or 
 things in a true light. His doctrine upon this head 
 I will venture a protest against. I know not that it 
 necessarily follows that " we must bow to those who 
 grant us favours."* In point of gratitude the heart 
 should be ever ready to bow for all favours ; but that 
 any favours should warp our minds, should distract 
 our judgment, should change our sentiments, should 
 divert us from that independence of soul which every 
 man may preserve if he please, and without which no 
 man can continue an object of respect, is what I am 
 loath to believe, and should be unwilling to find. 
 Are there no kindnesses conferred upon men for past 
 deserts ? Are they all obtained under the secret 
 understanding that they are intended as remunera- 
 tions for present, or as temptations to future delin- 
 quency ? " What would have become of my inde- 
 pendence had I asked for a prebend, or any great 
 place in this county ?"* This coarse, common place, 
 incorrect allusion, gentlemen, disgraces Mr. Coke 
 without serving his cause; disgraces him more than 
 I am willing to say. It indeed almost breaks in upon 
 the sacredness of his private character. With an 
 example before him, in Mr. Wodehouse's family, of 
 the utmost delicacy and dignity, where was his apo- 
 logy for this miserable lack of all dignity and deli- 
 cacy ? What a pity it is that he cannot keep his 
 political littleness of soul to himself, but that it must 
 bolt out upon all occasions, and, after overwhelming 
 every courtesy in its career, return lost, disspirited, 
 discomforted into his own bosom. His declaration 
 that he was "a plain man, and should speak in a 
 plain manner,"* and that he meant " nothing offen- 
 sive to any individual whatever,"* wishing to preserve 
 inviolate my respect for his domestic repute, I refrain 
 to venture any remarks upon. 
 
 * Norfolk Chronicle, June 27, 1818.
 
 27 
 
 May it not possibly have been on some preconceived 
 notion of this kind, that " we must bow to those who 
 grant us favours/' that Mr. Coke on the day of election, 
 seemed, in some measure, indecisive whether he should 
 even ask the favor of the freeholders of Norfolk to re- 
 turn him for their representative ! If this were not 
 the case, he must have some happy art that we are 
 unacquainted with, of reconciling what, to common 
 ears and common understandings, did certainly very 
 much put on the appearance of contradiction. In one 
 part of his speech he declares, " and when I reflect on 
 the character of the freeholders of Norfolk, it becomes 
 the proudest wish of my heart to live and die the re- 
 presentative of so respectable a body of yeomen/'* 
 But forgetting, as it should seem, this balmy reflec- 
 tion as he journeys on in the higher flights of his elo- 
 quence, he afterwards assures us, "for many years 
 my feelings, speaking with regard to myself personal- 
 ly, have been those of indifference as to whether I was 
 in or out of parliament."* And as if this was not 
 enough to puzzle all ordinary conception on so hete- 
 rogeneous a subject, he presently adds, "Gentlemen, 
 I come forward in your cause as a friend to liberty, 
 and not from any wish of my own to continue in par- 
 liament ; for if the freeholders felt themselves equal, 
 without me, to call two Whigs to the representation 
 of the county, nothing would make me more happy 
 than to retire and return thanks for the honours which 
 have so long been conferred on me/'* And is this, 
 we are here ready to ask, is this the devoted servant 
 of " the first county in England/' who has nothing so 
 dear at his heart as not only to live, but " to die the re- 
 presentative of so respectable a body of yeomen!"* 
 
 Besides, if we must of necessity, as Mr. Coke lays 
 it down, " bow to those who grant us favours," will not 
 
 * Norfolk Chronicle, June 27/1818. 
 E 2
 
 28 
 
 he, in conformity with his own principle, expect those 
 lo whom he grant? favours to bow to him ? This is, 
 .1 confess, so far as it concerns the subject of county re- 
 presentation, a somewhat aukward corallary from the 
 preposition, but still, 1 think, fairly deducible. This 
 will bind many of Mr. Coke's " independent free- 
 holders" to the wheels of his triumphant chariot; 
 and if, where a thousand obligations have been show- 
 ered down by him, a thousand liberty caps are to be 
 thrown up in the air for him, I do not wonder Unit 
 despotic ideas should come across him, and the dicta- 
 torial feeling stamp itself upon his soul. Pardon me, 
 gentlemen, if I presume to subjoin a few remarks on 
 this said disputed feeling. They are such as lie plain 
 before us, and that, giving the least symptom of mean- 
 ing to words or deeds, will speak their own drift 
 without commentary. 
 
 You must have perceived, both in the friends of 
 Mr. Coke and in that gentleman himself, an anxiety 
 to divert the public attention from an opinion pretty 
 generally prevalent, that the Whig member for the 
 county of Norfolk had, for a long time past, been the 
 dictator of that county. With this view it was that 
 his friend, Mr. Southwell, in proposing him as a fit 
 representative, assured us, that "no man was so uni- 
 versally beloved as Mr. Coke"* that the county of 
 Norfolk owed its fame to the te splendid benevolence 
 of Mr. Coke"* and that "he came forward witli (he 
 greatest confidence to propose to the choice of the 
 freeholders the man whom they had tried for forty 
 years a steady patriot, whose votes had not cost 
 them one shilling, nor one drop of blood whose 
 heart was free from guile, and who had steered, 
 through good report and through evil report, the 
 Unfailing course of his duty to those who sent him to 
 
 * Norfolk Chronicle, June 27, 1818.
 
 parliament."* Admiral Lukin followed close upon the 
 same tack, and, in seconding the nomination, con- 
 cluded with " a warm and energetic eulogium of Mr. 
 Coke, characteristic of that honourable gentleman's 
 merits, as the patron of useful and industrious pur- 
 suits, the kind friend, the liberal landlord, and whose 
 attention to the interests and improvement of agricul- 
 ture had rendered Norfolk an object of emulation to 
 the rest of the kingdom."* 
 
 I will say nothing in disparagement of all this I 
 know nothing in disparagement of it. I desire to 
 know nothing. His public conduct his public poli- 
 tical conduct is all that 1 feel it 'allowable to concern, 
 myself with. But here, alas ! it is that we look for his 
 domestic virtues in vain ! Here, if he does bring 
 with him "a guileless heart," it is yet accompanied 
 with a prodigious deal of fire upon his tongue, and 
 with possibly as much political chicanery as "a. head 
 no hellabore can cure" will well furnish. Whatever 
 may be Mr. Coke's excellencies, it is certainly not 
 ne among the number of them to " keep his mouth 
 as it were with a bridle." No man rnay be " so uni- 
 verially beloved as Mr. Coke/' but that love ought 
 never to have travelled beyond the sphere of his 
 domestic attachments and pursuits. O that "his own 
 choice" had been better followed !* How much of re- 
 gret and of disgrace would it have saved both him and 
 his friends, had it long e'er this " prompted him to re- 
 tire to Holkham, and in the bosom of a happy family to 
 have devoted the remainder of his life to the pursuits 
 in which he delights !"f But the new vagary that 
 
 Norfolk Chronicle, June 27, 1818. 
 
 + These professions of an attachment to home pleasures are 
 not new with Mr. Coke. I find he made them with as great ;i 
 devotedness in the year 1802. " He was not intended by nature 
 for public situations. He was much more happy in his domestic 
 employments and agricultural pursuits." (Norfolk Election and
 
 30 
 
 has taken him, of throwing, if possible, the represen- 
 tation of the county into the hands of Whig members, 
 (no matter what stock they spring from, whether 
 1 lampden or Hobhouse,) will disturb the peace of All 
 parties, and probably in the end cover him and his 
 advisers with ignominy. In vain are we told that 
 Mr. Coke "is in perfect health both of mind and 
 body."* The physicians have given us but half the 
 bulletin they should have added, " but his political 
 insanity continues unimpaired." The gallant Ad- 
 miral is represented as declaring " that he could talk 
 on the delightful theme of Mr. Coke's virtues for an 
 hour." This would have been boxing the compass a 
 little out of season; but luckily Mr. Coke saved him 
 the trouble by pre-occupyingthat "delightful theme" 
 himself. We are sorry the Admiral should run 
 upon shoals and quick sands of this hazardous nature, 
 for there is an openness about him that induces us, 
 while we condemn,, to compassionate his alliance with 
 the house of Holkbam. He had better leave the dis- 
 play of Mr. Coke's virtues to his friend Glover, who, 
 with brushes for all sorts of scouring, and colours for 
 all sorts of characters,, can get you up an election daub 
 at twenty minutes' notice. 
 
 Mr. Coke would do well to sit down patiently un- 
 der an imputation which he certainly will never, with 
 liis present propensities about him, be able to shake 
 off. He has more claims to the title of a dictator than 
 he is probably aware of, and many more than he 
 
 Scrutiny, p. 11.) Surely some evil planet must have the rule over 
 his destiny, or a man, with a power so pre-eminent of doing as he 
 pleases, would never thus please to continue to do what he dislikes. 
 The enchanters we know had Don Quixotte constantly under fu cr 
 and thumb ; and it is possible they may have bottled up those wishes 
 of Mr. Coke nearest to his heart by the same species of magic. 
 Would we could find some student of Alcala to dash the phial into 
 a thousand pieces ! 
 
 * Norfolk Chronicle, June 27, 1818.
 
 31 
 
 will ever be brought to acknowledge. His very acts 
 of political courtesy are confirmations of his despotism. 
 He himself merely excuses the intention of acting the 
 dictator on the invitation of Mr. Hamond to become 
 a candidate for the county. t( Although there are 
 gentlemen who, endeavouring to make their own 
 cause appear as good, and ours as bad as possible, 
 have called me dictator, yet I have had nothing to do 
 with any plan of opposition on the present occasion."* 
 Our own cause we certainly do endeavour to make ap- 
 pear as good as we can, and, in the midst of so much 
 clamour and misrepresentation, such endeavours are 
 needful. But it is, I conceive, a work of super- 
 erogation altogether, to endeavour to render their's 
 worse than, in many respects, it is. To set before 
 you the several instances in which Mr. Coke has 
 evinced a spirit the most dictatorial, would be only to 
 go over his past political life and conversation. In- 
 deed he carries about with him the seal of his dicta- 
 torship in his air, his manner, his actions, his attitudes, 
 in all that he setteth his hand unto, or his heart upon. 
 Nay, we found that he actually could not address a 
 county meeting, and at a moment when, petitioning 
 for the public suffrage, a candidate has need of every 
 crumb of courtesy about him, without constantly 
 spreading forth the dictator's claw, and exhibiting the 
 dictator's countenance. We shall not soon forget 
 Mr. Coke's conduct upon the day of the late election, 
 his indifference to the applauses by which, in con- 
 junction with Mr. Wodehouse, (on the declaration of 
 the High Sheriff of their due return) he was sur- 
 rounded. While that gentleman was gratefully re- 
 turning his acknowledgments to all around him, how 
 was Mr. Coke employed? How was he employed 
 indeed ! Even his own constituents were not deemed 
 
 * Norfolk Chronicle, June 27^1818.
 
 32 
 
 worthy the honour of being thanked by this despot 
 for having reinstated him in his seat! Is this Sir. 
 Coke's best mode of fixing the house of Holkham in 
 the estimation of the county ? Is this the legacy he 
 leaves to those descendants who may be destined, we 
 fear, to discredit the representation of that county when 
 he is no more ? He may well boast of his indepen- 
 dence, if the freeholders of Norfolk can submit to a 
 degradation like this. With such scorn and indif- 
 ference to encounter, such insults to endure, such in- 
 dignities to stand publicly exposed to, such glaring 
 proofs of the estimation in which he holds his vassal 
 tenantry, a fifteen hundred acre farm, with all Dr. 
 Rigby's soothing medicaments attached to it, had 
 truly need be a pretty tempting bonus. 
 
 We have indeed upon record, and we would wil- 
 lingly give him the benefit of it, were it any thing- 
 worth, one solitary intance of Mr. Coke's apparent 
 urbanity, and that is, where he assures us he took the 
 trouble of coming from London " to pay his respects 
 to the Mayor of Norwich, on the guild day/'* But 
 had this Mayor of Norwich been, as 1 understand he 
 ought to have been, of the purple and orange party, 
 he would probably not have gone over the threshold 
 of his door to pay him his respects. Nor do 1 think 
 that even a blue and white magistrate would have stood 
 much chance of a condescension so pre-eminent, had 
 not " Mr. Smith's popular and triumphant election," 
 and the hopeful expectancies appendant thereunto, 
 (as vultures are known to follow the smell of the car- 
 case) appeared as the guiding star at the end of the 
 vista.f 
 
 * Norfolk Chronicle, June 27, 1818. 
 
 + At the celebrated political Dereham dinner, in the summer of 
 1817, Mr. Coke is represented by the Editor of the Bury Post, as 
 alluding to the Deputy Mayor ot Norwich, in these words : " a 
 man oi the name ot Haukeb," &c. bo little pains did he then take
 
 The Whig rnember for the county not a dictator ! 
 1 will not believe it it would be a contradiction to 
 the evidence of sense if I did, knowing that every 
 thing politically, and even some things agriculturally 
 done by this celebrated disturber of the peace, is done 
 dictatorially. Mr. Coke is made up of inconsistency. 
 He cannot, forsooth, bear the least act of arbitrary 
 power in the imperium, yet who more arbitrary in 
 the imperic in imperium. He cannot away with the 
 least abridgement of the people's rational liberties 
 and comforts, yet who less indulgent to those liber- 
 ties when they entrench upon his own peculiar enjoy- 
 ments ? I have now before me a document of some 
 value upon this point, purporting to be a circular of 
 Thomas William Coke, Esq. to what I should call, 
 judging from the peculiarity of its style, and the na- 
 ture of its contents, the bondmen of Egypt. And be- 
 cause it may throw some light on this said doubtful 
 subject of dictatorship, and may afford wholesome in- 
 struction to future high spirited applicants for Mr. 
 Cokeys favour, I subjoin it below, copied verbatim et 
 literatim, as delivered into my hands, with permis- 
 sion to make what use of it I think proper. I have 
 reason to believe, from the assurances given me, that 
 its correctness may be depended upon.* 
 
 to evince the least symptom of courtesy towards one who had, but 
 a while before, relinquished the office of chief magistrate of the 
 city 1 Mr. Coke's courtesies are not intended as presents they 
 are, it seems, a vendible commodity, and must be bought, 
 
 * Copy of Mr. Coke's Circular Letter. 
 
 " Holkham, February 10% 1818. 
 
 (l S:n I am directed by Thos. Wm. Coke, Esq. to address a copy 
 of this Circular letter to you, the meaning and purport of which is, 
 to endeavour to prevent any misunderstanding from arising relative 
 to the game upon the farm which you tent and hold under Mr. 
 Coke, and the following particulars may be considered as a rule for 
 your guidance in future, in respect to the game upon your farm. 
 " Ycu have Mr. Coke's free permission to dig out ? stop out, and 
 
 F
 
 34 
 
 And is this, freeholders of Norfolk, is this the 
 man who would reform parliament, and beat down 
 habeas corpus restraints, and do away the gagging 
 bill, and have the people free, and the press free, and 
 religion free, and agriculture free, (of tithes) and two 
 
 destroy all the rabbits you may find in your hedge-row, banks, or 
 other such places upon your farm, but you are not to disturb the 
 adjoining woods, preserves, and covers ; and it is expected you will 
 make the banks up in a proper manner, after digging the rabbits 
 out. 
 
 " You also have Mr. Coke's permission to course hares upon your 
 farm, at such times as you may think proper, between the dates ef 
 the first day of November and the first day of March, in each year. 
 
 " But it is expected you will sport fair ; that you will run 
 thorough-bred greyhounds OH(J/, and not more than one brace of 
 dogs at a time after one hare. 
 
 " You are requested to preserve pheasants and partridges, as 
 much as possible, upon your farm ; consequently, that you bush 
 your stubbles after harvest. That you do not disturb your hedge- 
 rows in the spring months and breeding season ; but, as the 
 breeding season may be expected to be over by the fourteenth day 
 July, it is requested, that as soon as possible after that date in 
 each year, you will cut down all the weeds in and about your 
 hedge-row, banks, and wastes upon your farm, and that you will 
 dig out and destroy all the rabbits you may find thereon. 
 
 " It is also requested, that you will give your corn weeders and 
 mowers strict charge to preserve all pheasants, and partridge uests 
 and eggs, also young hares ; to the true intent and meaning of this 
 notice, that a fair proportion of game may be preserved upon Mr. 
 Coke's estates, but not to encourage the encrease of rabbits, so o> 
 injure the tenants and occupiers of the estate. 
 " With best respects, 
 " 1 am, Sir, 
 
 " i'our humble Servant, 
 
 "FRANCIS BLAIKIE, 
 
 " Steward and Agent." 
 
 Though I am not inclined to think this circular altogether so dic- 
 tatorial as some do, yet is it far too much so for a man that, on al! 
 occasions, is foremost in advocating the liberties of the people, and 
 that lately in the house of commons took the part he did on the 
 discussion of the game laws, and so severely alluded to his neigh- 
 hours. His speech and his circular will do better apart than 
 together.
 
 35 
 
 Whig members of the same free principles for the 
 county, and all free, and happy, and comfortable, and 
 masters of their own fields and fire-sides about him ? 
 Seriously, if the term dictator be not applicable to 
 Thomas William Coke, Esq. M. P. for the county of 
 Norfolk, I know not to whom it ever was, or will be 
 so. It was in his nature, he intimates, to be grateful 
 to his friends. True but in the very front of this 
 graciousness, let any man please him ninety-nine 
 times, and, if he wishes a continuance of his favours, 
 displease him the hundredth if he dare. To serve 
 Mr. Coke is the work, I suspect, of little less than a 
 whole life, and woe to any citizen of Cizicus who 
 neglects the worship of the deified Augustus. Falling 
 short of the pander of his politics and the villein 
 of his soil, he may soon, alas ! be destined to behold 
 around him congregating clouds, coming storms, and 
 flat and blasted harvests ! 
 
 With a word or two on Mr. Coke's stale politics, 
 which he has brought to our Norwich market so 
 often, that nobody cares to purchase them at any 
 price, and we shall have nearly cast out the extrane- 
 ous matter of the county meeting. You perceived., 
 gentlemen, how on that occasion, with a view of 
 demonstrating his perfect political consistency, he 
 thought it necessary to treat us with a history of his 
 past political life. How he began and how he ended 
 this valuable bit of biography, I need not say. You 
 all heard it, and were able to appreciate its merit. 
 Abstractedly indeed, considered, his delineations had 
 little in them to cause much alarm. The dull, dozing 
 things had been heard a hundred times over. There 
 is'a sort of unbending wrong-headedness about this 
 great man that defies alike reproof or reformation. 
 He is what his own imperative feelings have made, 
 and what they will probably leave him. Again this 
 merciless assassin of departed virtue falls foul upon 
 the memory of Mr. Pitt, "that hell-born minister 
 
 F 2
 
 36 
 
 whom, it seems, he once avowed a determination to 
 oppose right or icrong."* But having already, in a 
 preceding; Letter, expressed myself' on that subject, 
 I will add nothing to it here. His very constituents 
 could have no desire to behold the remains of Hector 
 thus repeatedly dragged round the walls of Troy by 
 his inexorable opponent. Such wolves must be left 
 to their own mode of ravening ; to " dig the shrouded 
 body from the grave," and, when they have con- 
 summated their pollutions, to retire into their dens. 
 Where there is no shame there can be no reproach. 
 
 Of Mr. Fox, another subject of Mr. Coke's ad- 
 dress, it falls not in with my present discussion to say 
 much. His failings as a statesman were, I think, 
 neither few, nor trivial. He was not wanting in 
 wisdom, nor in the exercise of a sound judgment; 
 but his benevolence drew upon his understanding too 
 often and too largely. This was, 1 suspect, the 
 source of most of his errors ; " the head and front of 
 his offending." Solon never forgot whom he was 
 legislating for Fox never remembered it. Solon 
 framed for his countrymen such laws and monitions 
 as they were able to bear Fox was for giving a 
 direction to the national counsels, which the national 
 manners and feelings would have frustrated. At a 
 period unparalleled in any history, when, with an 
 equal devotedness to their country, and an almost 
 equal puissance, he and his great rival " stood be- 
 tween the dead and the living," such was the awful 
 suspence that prevailed, they might each be said to 
 have lifted up their voices and to have launched the 
 thunders of their eloquence in darkness. But now 
 that time has passed over these departed scenes of 
 desolation ; now that we can review at leisure the 
 ravages of the storm and the melancholy course it 
 
 Norfolk Election and Scrutiny. Page 30.
 
 look, and compare what was intended to have been 
 the line of Mr. Fox's political conduct with what 
 actually was the line of Mr. Pitt's; we are justified, 
 I think, in concluding that Mr. Fox's opinions would 
 have been far enough from conducing to the national 
 glory ; would, indeed, hardly have insured the national 
 safety. His politics would have thrown England, 
 and with England Europe, into the arms of France ; 
 would have conducted in chains the kingdoms of the 
 earth to swear fealty at the footstool of a regicide 
 democracy. Mr. Pitt's stronger genius saved us from 
 that shame ; saved us and sanctified us for the im- 
 mortal nation we now are ! Yet was not Mr. Fox 
 narrow in his views ; but the blendings of his soul 
 were unfavourable to his fame. He knew what men 
 ought to be, but was willing to forget what they were. 
 He would not see the artifices of his own party ; he 
 almost wished to be unacquainted with their spirit; 
 and so far did he carry his unbounded liberality as to 
 veil from eyes, not naturally undiscerning, even the 
 rancorous complexion, the deep and subtle views of 
 our unprincipled foreign adversaries, who, however, 
 soon took care to tell the world of what bitter elements 
 a revolutionary temper is composed. Nor peace, 
 nor neutrality, could we maintain with such a horde 
 of regicides nor peace, nor neutrality, could even 
 Mr. Fox's eloquence inforce upon us. The deter- 
 mination of the senate, the voice of the country, the 
 feelings of the people, fortunately went against him, 
 and the fires of Moloch were kindled for our chil- 
 dren in vain. 
 
 Yet let us be just to the memory of this illustrious 
 character. There was a nobleness of nature about 
 him that mixed itself with every thing he did and 
 said. He was " a spirit of persuasion," that con- 
 verted men to his faith by turning them to his love. 
 There was no opposing Mr. Fox with a full soul, for 
 something evermore mastered resistance, and sub-
 
 38 
 
 duccl opinion to feeling, lie was tinsconscious often 
 of his eloquence, and careless how he dressed his 
 thoughts ; but when his comprehensive mind had 
 gathered up her powers, the rush was irresistible. 
 There, where his hearers were most open, was he 
 most alive and prevailing. Me touched the passions 
 in the very point of their coincidence with virtue, and 
 brought them forth " warm from the heart and faith- 
 ful to her fires." There was no separating the ar- 
 gument from the energy of his appeal. It was a 
 hallowed flarne, that while it melted and purified 
 the soul, palsied, shattered, bound up all resistance 
 from the understanding. Much, in my younger days, 
 was I delighted with his clear and manly eloquence ; 
 nor though years are gone by, and harsher feelings 
 have, perhaps, prevailed, and judgment exercised a 
 severer sway, do I wish to blot the enchantment from 
 my remembrance 
 
 That strain again it bad a dying fall : 
 O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south, 
 That breathes upon a bank, of violets ! * 
 
 His great points of opinion I must deem destructive, 
 but his oratory is of the first cast. And something is 
 there also superadded thereto, that will consecrate it 
 with succeeding generations. Mr. Fox was all open- 
 ness, all sincerity. Nothing of cunning entered his 
 composition; nothing of malevolence harboured in 
 his 'nature ; the " hectic of a moment," it passed 
 over his countenance, but never tarried in his breast. 
 It was not his eloquence, it was not his reason, it was 
 not his legislative capacity that constituted his power. 
 That power sprang from sources still more sacred 
 from his ingenuous disposition his warm benevo- 
 lence his free, honest, unsuspecting spirit, that 
 wound itself into the affections, and, by giving to ail 
 
 * Shakcspear'i Twelfth Night.
 
 39 
 
 men their due, "drew all men after him." This was 
 (he secret of his authority, the signet of his despotism,, 
 the clue that opened to him the still recesses of the 
 soul. When he had once laid his hand upon this 
 chord, the diapason was compleat. He had no more 
 enemies. 
 
 Such, gentlemen, is the character which Mr. Coke 
 does so little credit to by his conduct, and which his 
 partizans are for celebrating by their proposed an- 
 nual commemorations. But though at no time a 
 niggard of his praise, and warm, probably, before 
 most men in his attachments, Mr. Fox would yet 
 have brushed off with disdain the vain and worthless 
 pretenders that are forming themselves on his mode], 
 and imbuing themselves with his sentiments, and 
 fitting their recreant limbs to his armour, and shaping 
 their baby forms to his gigantic stature. O could 
 lie know what wretched things would crawl about his 
 ashes what loathsome, venomous creatures, under 
 the affectation of sanctifying his principles, would 
 contaminate his memory how would he loath the 
 success of his own doctrines in the conversion of such 
 a mob of democratical renegadoes as these vam- 
 pires, that after sucking the blood of departed genius/ 
 disgorge it under the form of poison upon their un- 
 happy country ! Of this man, a man of so full and 
 noble a mind, it is to be regretted that any resem- 
 blance should there be found where only little minds 
 will be fixed on its contemplation. Mr. Coke has 
 " asked permission to place the pourtrait of that great 
 statesman and true patriot in Holkham hall"* to very 
 little purpose, if the view of so much benignity does 
 not strike him with remorse for his regular anniver- 
 sary butcheries of the character of Mr. Pitt. 
 
 I know not with what view the dictator ventured to 
 
 * Norfolk Chronicle, June 27, 1818.
 
 40 
 
 recal to our recollection the notable county meeting of 
 1817, his " march to Moscow/' as some have not very 
 unaptly termed it; for there it was that he and his 
 compeers more openly and largely broached those 
 sentiments which first taught us to suspect of what 
 " radical reform" materials their politics was begin- 
 ning to be composed. " Had you not a great meeting 
 in this hall, and did not my noble friend the Earl of 
 Albemarle and myself state to you what these men 
 would do that they would suspend the habeas cor- 
 pus act."* Truly we had a great meeting in this 
 ball truly Mr. Coke's noble friend the Earl of 
 Albemarle and himself did " state to us what ministers 
 would do" and all they then and there told us they 
 would do we did approve of and all they then and 
 there told us they ought to do we did disapprove of 
 and all they then and there told us they were doing 
 for the corruption of the constitution and the destruc- 
 tion of the empire, we did verily disbelieve, and gave 
 our decided reprobation of. And so perfect was this 
 disbelief, and so unqualified this reprobation, that 
 when Mr. Pratt shortly after came forward, backed 
 by the concentrated weight of Mr. Coke's interest, as 
 a candidate for the vacant representation of the 
 county, why we then and there defied Mr. Pratt and 
 Mr. Coke, and, in the election of Edmond Wode- 
 house, Esq. as our representative in parliament, cast 
 forth the whole firm of Hampden and Hunt, with all 
 their democratical adherents, to the public derision 
 and contempt. So much for the celebrated county 
 meeting of the 5th of April, J817, the discomfiture 
 of which its projectors, it seems, have not the sense 
 to suffer to sink into oblivion. 
 
 Of Mr. Coke's election dinner, at the repnblir.m 
 rendezvous, nothing, that 1 am aware of, was 
 
 * Norfolk Chrouicle, June 27, 1818.
 
 41 
 
 to transpire* Rumour indeed was afloat that, on 
 that occasion, his address, " at considerable length/', 
 was not of the most courteous complexion toward^ 
 his opponents. I can readily believe it. So morti-, 
 iied in his very success, we would almost in pity, 
 excuse any thing from him short of county high 
 treason. Besides, it was an allowed time; nor is 
 there any celebrating the saturnalia, as we are all 
 aware, without unbounded licence of speech. " Then 
 crowned with garlands came the festive hour." It is 
 at these Bacchanalian orgies that Mr. Coke and 
 his partizans flatter themselves they are recovering 
 their strength. A kindly heat which expands all 
 bodies, a strong quixottic fancy, " changing every 
 thing it sees into what it desires to see," shews them, 
 after the fashion of the Scotch second sight, the dis- 
 tant scene of their county triumphs, and they actually 
 behold the statues, pictures, golden crowns, the streets 
 strewn with flowers, the altars smoking with incense, 
 the dictator's chariot covered with laurel, and the 
 fugitive house of Kimberley swelling the procession. 
 Elated with " this invisible riot of the mind," their 
 "winged words," hissing hot from the reformer's forge, 
 fly forth in every direction, and as the fume mounts 
 into the brain, the wisdom collects upon the lips. 
 The Athenian raged not louder against Philip than, 
 these Holkham orators against existing administra- 
 tions. All they understood they demonstrated to be 
 infamous, and all they understood not they believed 
 to be so. 
 
 And now that we have intruded upon their trencher 
 ground, they will, I trust, bear with us if we venture 
 a remark or two upon the subject. What are all their 
 Whig dinners, their anniversary commemorations, 
 their Crown and Anchor meetings, where by the ini- 
 tiated intelligitur plus semper quam pingitur, but 
 instruments of disaffection and incentives to sedition ? 
 Whom get they huddled together upon those horta- 
 
 G
 
 tivc occasions ? All that will join them ; all that will 
 make common cause with them against the measures 
 of government ; all that, with them, will pour Out 
 their voices loaded with defamation against ministers 
 and their supporters, against the church and its sup- 
 porters, against abuses which exist only in their cor- 
 rupt fancies, and oppressions which are felt and re- 
 cognized as blessings by every body but themselves. 
 Under one standard they all range one name binds 
 together whomsoever they can pick up "in the high 
 ways and hedges." Nothing at these meetings is to 
 be found that can either captivate by its virtue, or 
 convince by its solidity. Nothing indeed of the sort 
 seems to be needed. All the orators have to do is to 
 pour forth, at once, the whole sickening load of sedi- 
 tion that has been long worreting and working within 
 them, certain that by the multitude, neither dainty 
 nor discerning, it will be f{ swallowed in the mass un- 
 chewed and crude." The pretences of these motly 
 associates to constitutional devotedness, are too idle 
 to require refutation. They remind us of the boasted 
 exertions of Bonaparte to extinguish the burning of 
 Moscow, which, as Count Rastopchin observed, he de- 
 monstrated by setting fire to the palace of the Krem- 
 lin, and destroying the very castle that had afforded 
 him a refuge from the flames ! 
 
 " They manage these matters better in France." 
 No, truly, not a whit. A Norwich anniversary din- 
 ner is conducted on nearly the same scale with a 
 dinner in the focus of sedition. The Whigs of 
 Westminster and the Whigs of Norfolk are, in this 
 respect, pretty much inclined to shake hands. Upon 
 these especial occasions Mr. Coke and my Lord 
 Albemarle take Care to put all their puny orators into 
 requisition, and the instant " Noir nobis Domine" is 
 got rid of, up start you the Glovers, the Taylors, the 
 Palmers, with the whole blue and white string of 
 political dandies. Scribimus indocti doctique. These'
 
 43 
 
 gentry are all expected to exhibit, and dressing up 
 their trumpery in the costume of the constitution 
 (their state fiddle for all sorts of tunes) to show off the 
 lean, lanky figures packed up in their political magic 
 lanthorns, for the entertainment of honest John and 
 the company, not forgetting, by the bye, to lard 
 secund. art. the great Whig representative, who gra- 
 ciously " bends his brows and gives the nod," and 
 seems mightily to relish the puppet scenery. The 
 anniversary funguses thus produced are presently 
 transplanted into the Norfolk Chronicle and Norwich 
 Mercury gardens, and, with their excrescences pruned 
 off and licked into a little shape and meaning, they 
 there become fair and hopeful plants. Know them 
 again ? I defy a single orator among them to say 
 this is my literary brat, so smirched, and whaleboned., 
 and tightened up are they in every joint and limb, 
 and all over so fumed and flummeried. Madame 
 Tussaud's celebrated wax-work figures do look a little 
 
 O 
 
 life-like, and a spark of animation certainly hovers 
 around them ; but though surrounded at the moment 
 of their birth by wine, and wit, and all the incense of 
 Arabia, these wretched, ricketty imps scarcely dis- 
 cover a breathing of common sense about them ; a 
 most vile set of pantomimics, which, seen by candle- 
 light, men affect to admire, but which beheld in their 
 naked draperies, and in the face of day, they would 
 blush to have bestowed a single glance upon. In good 
 truth, we as little know these Whig dinner and anni- 
 versary speeches when they get into the papers, as 
 we should recognize certain of our old friends in the 
 event of a revolution, where the family names would 
 be sent packing, and nothing heard (in the majestic 
 slang of "the great nation/') but the Emperor 
 Francis, the Napojeon the Great of the British repub- 
 lic, King Cobbet and King Hunt, the Archdukes 
 Woolcr and Waithman, Prince Edward of Norwich, 
 Prince Nathaniel of Yarmouth, and, perched by the
 
 44 
 
 side of his Holiness of Rome, and ready to nestle him 
 self into his very seat, his eminence (lower but by 
 half a peg) the Cardinal of Cromer ! 
 
 These anniversary commemorations are now be- 
 coming, and are, in fact, intended as a sort of rallying 
 point with (lie Whig party, as it is most proposter- 
 ously called, dispersed throughout the kingdom, and 
 with all who are disposed to range under their "Nor- 
 \veyan banners/' that are beginning to " flout the 
 fcky and fan our people cold." Of their utility, so far 
 as concerns our county, gentlemen, I entertain every 
 doubt; of their danger and absurdity none. For 
 though, allowing Homer and Lycurgus to have met 
 together, great things might naturally have been ex- 
 pected from such an interview in the reciprocal com- 
 munication of their stores of knowledge, I really do 
 not think any conferrence on the rise and fall of em- 
 pires, or on the best method of " making their Jewish 
 markets of the throne," between the regent of Norfolk, 
 the delegate of Norwich, and the posse comitatus of 
 Fox's anniversary dinner, would be productive of much 
 benefit either to the present times or to posterity. The 
 temples of the world might indeed have been proud to 
 be adorned by the wisdom and philosophy of the former, 
 but I know of no temple save one at all likely to be 
 honoured by an intaglio of the Whig principles con- 
 jured up between the latter. Seriously, these " inter- 
 changes of political sentiments and feelings"* these 
 " evenings of good fellowship,"* can never enough be 
 regretted. Who can behold, without harsher thoughts 
 than he may chuse to clothe in words, our gentlemen 
 
 * Norwich Mercury, Jan. 30, 1819; where, and in the Nor- 
 folk Chronicle of the same date, the reader will find a reckal of 
 the proceedings at the commemoration of Mr. Fox's birth-day, 
 and the speeches of the Earl of Albemarle on that occasion. To 
 the political reputation which his lordship has long possessed, these 
 sj;eecb.e.s will be certainly no discredit.
 
 45 
 
 of rank and property sinking themselves to a level with 
 i?'1i;en, whom, under other circumstances than that of 
 an unaccountable party mania against the measures of 
 administration, they would justly despise not scru- 
 pling- company and converse with them; receiving 
 and entertaining them at their houses as selected 
 guests, and sending them forth from thence, covered 
 by blandishments of no ordinary cast, if not counte- 
 nanced and commissioned, yet certainly not forbidden 
 to " take the current when it serves/' and to stir up 
 all the tumultuous passions against the executive go- 
 vernment they can find afloat? Is this a conduct 
 worthy of ancient and honourable houses in the 
 county of Norfolk, or in any county ? Is this a conduct 
 to attach respectable freeholders to a standard under 
 which all are invited to range who have eloquence, 
 or impudence, or any other inflammable commodity 
 to dispose of? Is this a conduct to support either the* 
 established laws or the established religion of the 
 realm ; to invest representatives with the present, or 
 to secure to them the future approbation of their con- 
 stituents? Is it not a conduct to ruin and for ever to 
 annihilate both? 
 
 What however by these periodical congregating.? 
 they will do, or what they can do, or what, when the 
 unsightly parts are covered up among them, and their 
 ruder spirits cast into the red sea, they hereafter in- 
 tend to do, must be left to the "old justicer" to de- 
 termine. In the mean while, gentlemen, disincum- 
 bered of a part of our load, let us pursue our journey, 
 and, as we pass along, give a glance at our City 
 politics (which possibly lurked at the bottom of the 
 late projected county contest,) and at the probable 
 issue likewise of such contest, had it in the hour of 
 their " moon-light madness," actually taken place. 
 
 The recent successes, in their canvassing, of the 
 blue and white interest at Norwich and Yarmouth, 
 may with some reason be supposed to have en-
 
 touraged the opposition to the quiet return of Mr. 
 Wodehouse. It was suspected that the popular tide 
 was running so powerfully in favour of that interest, 
 as to render it likely, that a contest began upon such 
 a foundation, would not be begun in vain. It might 
 also be within the verge of meditation, that, at any 
 rate, to draw upon the purse of their opponents would 
 be some furtherance of their designs, some demon- 
 stration of the spirit with which they intended to 
 enter upon their task, some sample of the reserved 
 stores which these Whig reformers have housed up 
 for the sustenance of their own future fortunes and 
 the overthrow of his. With the proceedings at the 
 latter of these places, it comes not within the scope 
 of this Letter to interfere. Mr. Lacon's family has, 
 1 understand, served the town of Yarmouth ; but the 
 season for further services of a like description is at 
 an end. Does Mr. Lacon so li(tle know mankind as 
 to hope that gratitude will survive when that which 
 gave life and vigour to it is no more ? 
 
 O let not virtue seek 
 Remuneration for the thing it was ! 
 
 1 would advise him to repose upon his own silent and 
 forgotten deserts, and to give up a disgraceful repre- 
 sentation to those who are suffered to prevail without 
 desert. The borough of Great Yarmouth (which, it 
 seems, a leading demagogue or two may at any time 
 advertize to be bought or sold,) will probably e'er 
 long find its punishment in its success. Prom a slip 
 of the house of Holkham what grafting will obtain for 
 them any other than a sour and unpalatable fruit, 
 which they may " dig about and dung ;" but that^ 
 most likely, must eventually be cut down as a cum- 
 berer of the ground ? 1 hope we shall be indulged 
 with no more of these " gratifying scenes.*" I hope 
 
 * Norfolk Chronicle, June 27, 1818.
 
 47 
 
 (; the fire of such independence"* will smoulder where 
 it broke forth, and never pass the bounds of its pre- 
 sent sanctuaries ; for if it " spread through the 
 county/'* tis well if it stop until it light up the torch 
 of disaffection in every quarter of the kingdom. 
 Admiral Lukin would, I am sure, be the last man in 
 the world to wish his prophecy fulfilled under such a 
 presumption. But, luckily for the community, that 
 prophecy, by a voice too potent to be either mistaken 
 or resisted, stands confounded in its own helplessness. 
 Let the gallant Admiral rest assured, that " the best 
 time to fight" with one another is not when an over- 
 whelming democratical spirit is ready to seize and 
 raven upon us all. 
 
 Upon the supposition that the success of the blue 
 and white interest at Norwich did really, in a certain 
 degree, influence the county proceedings, it may be 
 necessary not entirely to pass by an otherwise disgust- 
 ing subject. Of city politics I know, indeed, little or 
 nothing; yet in all cases of so public a nature, there 
 will be enough that lies level and open to every man's 
 understanding, The secret history of Mr. William 
 Smith and Mr. Gurney's election does not offer itself 
 before the face of day. The city doings, as soon as 
 they are over, are generally packed up, and systema- 
 tically forgotten. I can have no doubt, however, from 
 the character of our opponents for management, that 
 throughout the whole of that notable business the 
 rule and line were applied to every thing ; that all 
 was carefully weighed and accurately examined, and 
 the probabilities of success calculated to a nicety. 
 ec Chance is direction which thou can'st not see," not 
 only in4he senate house arrangements at Cambridge, 
 but in the electioneering proceedings at Norwich. 
 In the latter instance it may not merely be direction 
 
 * Norfolk Chronicle, June 27,
 
 48 
 
 but corruption that we cannot see. I wish the ar- 
 canu of these popular proceedings could be fairly 
 laid open. Indeed for the good of society, and for our 
 instruction in immaculate- ways and means of bringing 
 in well conditioned representatives, it were perhaps 
 desirable that the celebrated Mr. Cleary would come 
 down, and with his superior talents for promulgation, 
 " take care that the whole of Europe should know it/ 5 * 
 though, after all, there might be a doubt whether the 
 whole of Europe would feel very deeply concerned 
 with the cleansing week machinations of the Long 
 Ward of Norwich. Mr. William Smith is, indeed, 
 accused by a very honourable gentleman, of " having 
 refused to vote for him, because he was not a Whig, 
 but a sincere and earnest friend of the people."* 
 What a pity Mr. Hunt did not know that by actually 
 professing himself " a sincere and earnest friend of 
 the people," Mr. Smith was mainly indebted for his 
 own election. But so it is great men have not their 
 Tvits nor their information about them at all times, or 
 the Westminster orator would surely never have been 
 ignorant that a happy coincidence of feeling had 
 yoked him to the same plough with the Norwich 
 representative, and that both, at the same instant, were 
 intuitively working, and diving, and digging their 
 way into the popular heart with precisely the same 
 tools ! 
 
 From what at the time I was able indistinctly to 
 gather, Mr. Harbord's election seems to have been 
 lost, not from a delay, unaccountable and inexcuseable 
 as it was, in the determination to oppose the blue and 
 white interest, but from an ignorance of the altera- 
 tion that had taken place in the city in the extension 
 of the elective franchise. The increase in the num- 
 ber of votes led to this victory, " an increase (as was 
 
 * See the Star of July 2, 1818. t Star, July 1.
 
 49 
 
 observed) found to have arisen principally from a set- 
 tled and long-formed design on the part of the win- 
 ing candidates to secure a certain victory. It lies 
 chiefly, we are told, in the freeholders, augmented by 
 annuitants. Of this fact the leaders of the orange and 
 purple party seem to have been in total ignorance."* 
 Where falls the censure ? What 'With the hearts of 
 their adversaries full before them with their machi- 
 nations by night and by day constantly sounding in 
 their ears with a sufficient feeling of their power, 
 and a more than sufficient experience of their trea- 
 chery, could the Harveys, the Days, the Ketts, the 
 Backs, and every active and intelligent mind among 
 them sleep at their posts, and hesitate, or despond, or 
 while away those golden hours that ought, one by one, 
 to have come loaded with additional securities against 
 their subtle and enterprising enemies ? We with dif- 
 ficulty pity failures that result from such a negligence 
 as this. It is not pleasant for a candidate to be in- 
 vited to an unpromising contest for a candidate of a 
 thorough constitutional complexion, it is not politic. 
 1 know not, however, that Mr. Harbord deserves the 
 praise which has since his rejection been somewhat 
 suspiciously lavished upon him. Indeed I am almost 
 inclined to hope he does not ; for it seems to me to 
 go the length of nearly assimilating 1 him with those 
 unsteady politicians who are never constant in their 
 opinions two moons together, and can hardly deter- 
 mine whether, on the broad line of general conduct, 
 they will be most likely to side with, or to oppose an 
 existing administration. " His (Mr. Harbord's) elec- 
 tion could only have been gained by a sudden revul- 
 sion of popular feeling, and the people in such cases, 
 he needs not to be told, are only to be wrought upon 
 "by a display of talent, generosity, enterprize, a"hd 
 
 * Norwich Merctiry, June 20, 1818. 
 H
 
 50 
 
 determination, brilliant, open, captivating, rcsisllc.e. 
 The candidate must \voo opinion like a mistress, and 
 offer himself to every occasion with the gallantry of a 
 soldier of fortune."* What sort of doctrine is this ? 
 It carries with it truly a gallant sounding, but I am 
 am yet to be made a convert to its seeming sense and 
 bearing, If it mean any thing, it is an intimation 
 that Mr. Harbord should have followed the track of 
 his competitors, and made his obesance to the popular 
 idol, or in more appropriate terms perhaps, to " the 
 sovereignty of the people." " Mr. Harbord came 
 upon a forlorn hope"* that, I fear, we must admit. 
 " He would have stood higher on the poll had his real 
 sentiments been better understood ;" that, I hope, 
 looking to the learned editor's leaning towards a "libe- 
 ral and enlightened" construction of such sentiments, 
 and to the sound attachment to our established go- 
 vernment, civil and ecclesiastical, of those by whom he 
 was supported, we may with one heart and one voice 
 be allowed peremptorily to deny. " This gentleman 
 has been much misrepresented, and we believe he now 
 regrets that he has had so little opportunity of vindi- 
 cating his principles more generally."* I have ne- 
 ver yet understood in what this misrepresentation con- 
 sisted. Assuredly it could not consist in taking him 
 for, and speaking of, and treating him as a fit candi- 
 date for the expression and representation of those 
 genuine constitutional principles which politically 
 characterize the purple and orange interest of the 
 city of Norwich. 
 
 The thing, however, is gone by, and the discom- 
 fiture, though not decisive, has yet been sufficiently 
 mortifying, inasmuch as by ingenuous conduct, timely 
 union, and only ordinary foresight, much might have 
 been carried of what, in seasons so unsettled as the 
 
 * Norwich Mercury, June 20, ISIS.
 
 v 1 
 
 Jl 
 
 present, it were so desirable to have carried. Per- 
 mit me, gentlemen, under these circumstances, with- 
 out the imputation of wandering from my subject, to 
 advert to a few of the goodly instruments by which, 
 in their triumphal career, our adversaries seem to 
 have worked. If city representation be at all an ob- 
 ject, which it ever must be if the preservation of 
 church and state be an object, and it be an object 
 with men to indulge in laudable ambitions, by dis- 
 covering their line of conduct, we may be better able 
 hereafter to model our own. It is allowable to imi- 
 tate the weapons of an enemy and to improve our 
 means of annoyance by the examination of theirs, as 
 the wreck of the Carthagenian vessels gave a turn to 
 the manner of the Roman ship-building, that presently 
 insured to them the dominion of the sea. I will not 
 however say that we are at liberty, in any case, to use 
 envenomed darts, or to poison the common stream. 
 Success so atchieved is infamy. 
 
 One of the first instruments then, among the blue 
 and whites, in the furtherance of freedom of election, 
 is what is termed the system of cooping. This, I 
 understand, is but too much of a mutual practice, and 
 is surely sufficiently obnoxious, sufficiently degrading, 
 and sufficiently ridiculous. These honest souls are, it 
 seems, not kept in their virtuous plight at a little cost ; 
 for, pen-cling the eve of an election, they are calling 
 out for tit bits morning, noon, and night, and threaten- 
 ing to forswear " worshipful society" if they have not 
 ham and eggs to breakfast, a table fit for an alderman 
 for dinner, and the best Cogniac to top up with after 
 supper. Supporters of the constitution these! Sup- 
 porters, I presume, of the Norwich union club and 
 Holkham constitution. O mark and avoid them. 
 Be you sons of freedom with hearts made of a differ- 
 ent stuff, and with affections pointed to a very differ- 
 ent object. It is a bad game to play when we cor- 
 rupt the common mind to bad party purposes. 
 
 H 2
 
 52 
 
 There is a point, if we carry not about with us a 
 scard conscience, at which our most outrageous feel- 
 ing's, our most determined hostilities must pause ; 
 because there is a point at which determined hostility 
 will shudder at the means it is delusively employing;. 
 The system of corruption is a system that must fail 
 us. It carries with it both its own destruction and 
 oui*s. The baseness of those means by which we 
 may drive out our opponent, or subvert an existing 
 administration, or a ruling government, shall soon be 
 pointed, and with no impotent effect, against whatever 
 rule or order we may establish in their place. Let 
 ts buy our allies in sedition or villainy once, and we 
 must purchase them again and again; and whatever 
 may be the maximum of bribery to day, we must 
 bribe higher to-morrow. As there is no stop on their 
 part, there must be none on ours. They are pre- 
 pared for the debasement of their souls to absolute 
 rottenness, and, if we would make our market of this 
 disgusting ruin, we must subject ourselves to a like 
 debasement. For never let us flatter our pride or 
 our virtue, that he who is willing to corrupt is not, to 
 the full, as guilty as he who is willing to be cor- 
 rupted, and to the full, in every part of his conduct, 
 as amenable to the public judgment, and as deserving 
 of the public indignation. Could such minds, in- 
 deed, by such measures, insure stability to their ill- 
 acquirjed success, no bribery of minds as politically 
 hardened as their own ought, prudentially considered, 
 to be held too extravagant. The misfortune, or rather, 
 socially speaking, the blessing is, that in all cases of 
 this kind, where we thus dare to "erase the sanc- 
 tuary" of our common frailties, the slaves become the 
 masters, and, by an equitable retributionary process, 
 extort conditions almost at their pleasure. It is your's, 
 freeholders, by a different exercise of the elective 
 right, to stem this foul torrent ef city licentiousness . 
 to shame them, if possible, into a nobler way of think-
 
 53 
 
 ing, an honester mode of acting ; to show them what 
 men are, and what vile shreds and patches of men 
 both those who practice and those who permit them- 
 selves to be practiced upon by such wretched expe- 
 dients are. I care not of what party such persons 
 call themselves. It is a despicable party that can 
 stoop to moral violations for the furtherance of poiiti- 
 cal interests.* 
 
 * Cn the subject of Norwich ward corruption much has been 
 advanced on both sides. Both have admitted its existence to an 
 alarming degree ; and the only question of dispute seems to he, 
 which of the parties is the most guilty, and who first introduced 
 this pest. Mr. J. J. Gurney, in a letter to the magistrates of 
 Norwich, lamented this disgraceful practice in very warm terms, 
 bat in a manner that, it appears, gave reason to believe he thought 
 the odium of it rested principally with the orange party. This 
 brought forth a short but forcible reply from Mr. Atkinson, who 
 observes, *' does not the sin, Sir, lie at the door of those who last 
 year subscribed many thousand pounds to bribe and corrupt the 
 freemen of the long ward ? Were not these poor men, after they 
 had promised to vote in the same interest they had always sup- 
 ported, induced to break their promises by bribes of 4Ci. and 501. ? 
 a temptation too great to be resisted by most needy voters ! Were 
 not a large number of these men cooped up at one of Mr. R. G.'s 
 tenants at Northrepps, and there maintained in idleness and drun- 
 kenness ? And did not the same disgraceful scene pollute Hapton- 
 liall ? Were not the carriages of some of the Gurney family em- 
 ployed in conveying these miserable promise-breakers, in a beastly 
 state of intemperance, to the poll ? And did we not, for the first 
 time, see Quakers, who refuse to bow to Royalty itself, pulling off 
 their hats and saluting, with encouraging approbation, these in- 
 toxicated wretches ?" I have seen no answer from Mr. Gurney to 
 this bold statement. An anonymous writer, hideed, who is not 
 wanting in spirit, nor, to give him his due, in force, in his " Letter 
 to the Freemen of the Ward of Wymer," has defended the Gurney 
 family from these severe imputations. But, I fear, he will not be 
 deemed a sufficient advocate ; for Mr. Francis (in a mild but effec- 
 tual Letter to the Editor of the Norwich Mercury, May 8, 1819,) 
 has already detected him in a rathe'r gfoss misrepresentation ; and 
 the editor himself, as well as Mr. Francis, hints at other very 
 weak parts of his pamphlet. The reply to Mr. Francis is, I think, 
 defective. The Gurney family, however, (with one single un- 
 happy exception) will, I trust, find their best advocate, where
 
 34 
 
 Another potent instrument with which the blue 
 and while sons of freedom work, in order to increase 
 and insure their city influence, is the press. Almost 
 all thi ir dealings herein are, indeed, in a coarse and 
 little way, but still the expedient goes round and 
 answers. The petty aspersion ets into circulation, 
 and generally in time for the political purpose, the 
 character is pretty well disposed of. Towards this 
 essential accomplishment they put into requisition 
 every species of vendible literature. Whatever ar- 
 ticle best answers, the demand, becomes the staple 
 commodity of the firm. Nothing is too great, nor is 
 any thing too low and contemptible for them to trade 
 in. Thev have all sorts of goods for all sorts of cus- 
 tomers. They have sound wares for the under- 
 standing, and trash and tinsel for the simple. Their 
 dealings, in short, (to say nothing of their perennial 
 resources in the new speaker of the commons,) * are 
 upon a scale of almost endless variety ; from the 
 " Agriculture of Ilolkham" and the " Considerations 
 on Cambridge/' to the songs and sonnets of Bride- 
 well-alley ; from the daring sublimities of the Athe- 
 nian sage, to the vile gropings after genius by the 
 " blind Meonides" of Southrepps. 
 
 they have ever found it, in their own bosoms ; and let them rest 
 assured, that the less they know of the political world, the more 
 they will be respected by it, and the better they will thrive in it. 
 
 * How is it that this gentleman has contrived to get so com- 
 pleatly into the good graces of our provincial editors f For no 
 sooner does he rise to deliver himself, than instantly follows you a 
 long column of most commanding eloquence from the speaker of 
 the commons; from, in fact, one who, I suspect, was never known 
 to deal very largely, (whether very much to the purpose or no I 
 leave out of the question) in political speaking before. My respect 
 for this gentleman's character and connections iu private life, in- 
 duces me to regret that the rotation of fortune's wheel should ever 
 have cast him upon so public and exposed a station. He h^s at- 
 tained, I know not how, to a giddy height. I wibh him once more 
 safe and sound upon torrAlirana.
 
 55 
 
 Not certainly devoted to the blue and white interest ; 
 not probably very highly in their confidence, but still 
 sufficiently at times in unison \vith their principles, 
 our provincial papers, the Norwich Mercury and the 
 Norfolk Chronicle, too often play into the hands of 
 these political jugglers. The former of these peri- 
 odical records, though with manifest regret and a de- 
 sire, at intervals, to return to its native home, is, I 
 think, gradually partaking of many of the character- 
 istics of an opposition print. It is seriously to be 
 lamented that a work, whose postscript is written 
 with such ability, should be, in so many instances, ob- 
 jectionable, and in some even adverse to, if not de- 
 structive of the best interests of the community. It 
 is to be lamented that the very manner of its compo- 
 sition should be of so ensnaring a texture, and that 
 the eloquence of its language should add such authori*- 
 ty to the unfriendliness of its sentiments. The learn- 
 ed editor must be aware how many reasons, in all 
 cases, there are for the support of an established go- 
 vernment how many additional reasons in support 
 of a government established like our own rhow many 
 reasons, doubling in potency upon him, for its support 
 in times, among adversaries, and under circumstances 
 like the present. He must also be aware of the diffi- 
 culties which surround the executive duties of any and 
 every existing administration in this country, whe"re 
 impediments of a countless description impedimenta 
 arising from patriotic, from perverse, from vain, from 
 ambitious, from interested and malicious opposition, 
 are hourly harrassing the process, and injuring the 
 tendency, and palsy ing the effects of the best concert' 
 ed measures. Yet how frequently do his lucubra^ 
 tions tend to diminish our veneration for the one and 
 to annihilate every feeling of respect towards the 
 other. Few men can read the Norwich Mercury 
 without having their hopes and fears strongly influ- 
 enced, and frequently their faith and patience put to the
 
 56 
 
 severest test. All hot and feverish, all glowing and 
 animated and eloquent as it is, we are not, believe me, 
 permitted to rise from its perusal with neutral feelings. 
 Bold in its assumptions, rich in its materials, lofty in 
 its tone and language, frequently not unhappy in its 
 argument, and always daring and decisive in its con- 
 clusions, it compels its readers into active service 
 either for or against the cause it advocates, for or 
 against the constituted authorities of the realm. If 
 it carry us not on to the conservation, it will hurry us 
 into the demolition of all that ought to be held sacred. 
 - If it fail to make us patriots, it w ill turn us into as 
 errant demagogues as ever contaminated the soil of a 
 free country ; for it carries about with it a circean 
 charm that throws its readers into the bed of a politi- 
 cal voluptuousness, where, if they attempt to sleep, 
 they die. 
 
 The' Nor folk Chronicle, more guarded and uni- 
 formly more mild and conciliating, can yet not, I 
 think, be considered as, in the main, firm to the orange 
 interest, though, in a certain degree, friendly to it I 
 repeat in a certain degree, for it is neither warm nor 
 even regular |in its friendship. But if that interest 
 be, as many believe and feel, the interest of society 
 well regulated, and turning in all the changes and 
 chances of political warfare, to an hereditary monar- 
 chy and an established church as its best security for 
 established freedom and comfort, it is surely no crime 
 to wish that, at least, one of our provincial papers 
 should be entirely and cordially devoted to it ; should 
 be so devoted as to slur over nothing ; that makes 
 for, nor directly or indirectly to. clap its recommen- 
 datory seal upon any thing that is likely to tell 
 egainst it. At any rate, until some editor shall arise 
 who, discarding the dubins mentis, will conduct a 
 public record of this description in the spirit of a de- 
 ermined opposition to all county Whig orators, all 
 "ra-dical reformers" and revolutionists, all Socinian
 
 57 
 
 morality and sectarian politics, all infidel doctrines and 
 republican practices, the blue and white faction of the 
 city of Norwich will have a manifest advantage over 
 their constitutional adversaries. What, is there not 
 power, is there not inclination, is there not ability 
 enough in the orange party, if these provincial papers 
 conscientiously can not, or prudentially dare not, or per- 
 versely will not, advocate their cause is there not spirit 
 enough among them to set up and support a paper of 
 their own, and to withdraw all encouragement from 
 those who so inadequately answer the expectations and 
 fulfil the hopes of such as believe the country to be 
 in danger, and who are therefore unanimous in their 
 support of established government ? Surely this 
 wight be done with, at least, an equal probability of 
 success with that which has attended " The Norwich 
 and Yarmouth Courier," a sickly conditioned thing, 
 planted and nurtured by the deistical leaders of the 
 blue and white firm, and which, had it not been bol- 
 stered up by medical infidelity and republican ran- 
 cour, would long since have fled with the shades of 
 night. Yet is this the paper, it seems, that fc has the 
 cordial support of all the principal leaders of the 
 Whig party in the county."* If such be the fact 
 (and it is strongly and respectably asserted) the Whig 
 party of Norfolk deserve every reprobation that has 
 been cast upon the Whig character by the Burdet- 
 tites of Westminster. If I could seriously believe 
 that they, "the first men in the county," did cordially 
 support the Norwich Courier, "as the only sure ve- 
 hicle of the Whig party,"* I should hardly hesitate 
 to conclude, that they would support too, Gobbet's 
 
 * See the speech of Mr. Archdeacon Bat hurst, at the celebra- 
 tion of Mr. Fox's birth-day, as given in the Norwich Courier of 
 January 30, 1819, where the above assertion is reported to be 
 made " from his own knowledge," and where he represents it as 
 the general wish of the Whig party, that this paper " shoxdd be 
 supported by every means of advertisements and circulation ! " 
 
 I
 
 58 
 
 Journal, Wooler's Black Dwarf, Hone's Sacred Pa- 
 rodies, and though last, not least, an exposition of the 
 genuine fundamental Whig principle of "the Sove- 
 reignty of the People,"* by Edward Taylor, E*q. 
 president of the Norwich Union Society, nominee of 
 "the great Northern Ward," and the friend of every 
 " wise and good man" who has courage enough to 
 abuse church and state. f 
 
 Nor, further, are conventicles and bible societies to 
 to be utterly despised as instruments of political supe- 
 riority. The blue and whites, themselves for the most 
 part conventicle and bible society men, bring up and 
 play off this battery upon us with assured success. 
 The conventicle is their manufactory for all articles 
 of reform in church and state.' From that store- 
 house of disaffection they fetch out their republican 
 materials and their recipes for "rump parliaments." 
 
 * Norwich Courier, January 30, 1819. 
 
 r This gentleman, in a Letter on the state of Ireland, inserted 
 in the Norwich Courier of September 5, 1818, is pleased to express 
 himself as follows : " I would recommend the Rev. Mr. Burges, 
 whose religion seems to consist in heaping abuse and scurrility upon 
 the wise and good, before he ventures again to attack the character 
 of Mr. Coke as a landlord and agriculturist, to visit Ireland." 
 With the former part of this extract I am alone concerned : Mr. 
 Taylor does here unjustly accuse me of abusing " the wise and 
 good." Sucli men I have ever taught myself to consider as sacred 
 from censure. But I can easily believe that " the wise and good," 
 in Mr. Edward Taylors estimation, would be far enough from 
 oil her wise, or good in the estimation of any one else. On such 
 men, probably as like to himself as he can find them, I trust I 
 hhall never cease to heap " abuse and scurrility." Of " the wise 
 and good " of this description, that would tear the mitre from the 
 lioad of the church,' and plant the diadem on the brow of demo- 
 cracy, I will continue to speak as 1 think; and I tell them to their 
 head, th;it. ;i. patriots, as citi/ens, as supporters of the British Con- 
 stitution, 1 can hardly think worse of them than I do. From such 
 * wi<e and good men," (viewing the matter in a mere political 
 light) come they from Hoik ham, or come they from Quiddenham, 
 t>r, thoroughly cleansed and purified, come they even from u the 
 (ji eit Ward of \Vymer," Providence and proper legiblative regu- 
 la lions protect ui ! 
 
 1
 
 59 
 
 There they club their abilities fora sort of pic nic an- 
 swer to all opponents. There they prove to their 
 admiring- congregations that we should be better 
 without an ecclesiastical establishment than with one, 
 and that a Socinian synod of the delegate's ec wise and 
 good men" is before all the episcopal benches in the 
 world. There these tabernacle divines go to work in 
 earnest, and do more in a week in settling the knotty 
 points of theology than our superannuated establish- 
 ment in a twelvemonth. Why, gentleman, while a 
 deep sleep has fallen upon the church all the learning 
 and virtue of the realm have actually crept into the 
 conventicle. There the spirit of the protectorate 
 breathes night and day there the politics of the pro- 
 tectorate are in ceaseless operation there the reli- 
 gion of the protectorate cc flourishes like a green bay 
 tree" and there, to bang up this precious pious bu- 
 siness to its last fervours, the restoration of that happy 
 golden age is predicted when, as these profound as- 
 trologers assure us, religion and government shall run 
 upon their own wheels without a penny of expence to 
 any one when there shall be no occasion for laws 
 to restrain vice, or for industry to procure sustenance, 
 but that all shall be amply provided for, and free, and 
 happy, and virtuous, and obedient by the mere force 
 of democratical feeling and Socinian instinct. This 
 approximates, I conceive, to that state so admirably 
 depicted by the poet as the consummation of our 
 earthly political perfection. 
 
 I' the commonwealth I weuld by contraries 
 
 Execute all things : for no kind of traffic 
 
 Would I admit; no name of magistrate ; 
 
 Letters should not be known ; no use of service, 
 
 Of riches or of poverty ; no contracts, 
 
 Successions; bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none: 
 
 No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil : 
 
 No occupation ; all men idle, all; 
 
 And women too ; but innocent and pure : 
 
 No sovereignty.* 
 
 * Shake-pear's Tempest. 
 
 i 2
 
 60 
 
 In the contemplation of such felicity are these 
 blue and white phaetons petitioning Apollo to intrust 
 them with the reins of his chariot for only one little 
 day, and in that nick of time do they undertake to 
 fire the world about our ears and purify at once Lords 
 and Commons, high Church and low, Whigs and 
 Tories, Placemen and Pensioners, the aristocratical 
 kingdom of the continent of Europe, and the whole 
 of the purple and orange interest, in the departments 
 ofConisford, Mancroft, VVymer, and the Ward beyond 
 the Water, in the city of Norwich ! 
 
 But there is another instrument of influence which 
 our adversaries make use of, and, compared with which, 
 as to its local effects, the rest are but mere paper and 
 pack thread. What I mean, gentlemen, is theasso- 
 ciation system, or the playing into each others hands 
 in all matters and on all occasions any way connected 
 with their public or private interest. They have, at 
 one time or other, read us many lessons of vexation., 
 but, properly digested, they may turn out lessons of 
 profit too. What opportunities do they suffer to es- 
 cape them of rivetting and binding up this system? 
 Where men are constantly laying their political baits 
 and digging their ambushes, they must be dangerous, 
 whether they be honourable adversaries or not. 
 They have chalked out a road, which, if we are de- 
 sirous of frustrating their machinations and of ce- 
 menting the orange interest, we shall be compelled, 
 I apprehend, to follow. Active, hostile*, working in 
 the dark for weeks, and months, and years, and often 
 so working as to set all decency and delicacy, and, in 
 consequence, all calculation at defiance, are we to meet 
 such expedients by a sleepy reliance upon the com- 
 mon place measures and maxims that have formerly 
 insured success? Is not everything these men do 
 done in the true electioneering spirit and with the 
 sole view to their electioneering interest? Where do 
 you see a dissenter leaving his own shop to go to a
 
 61 
 
 churchman's? All their business they prudently do 
 at home. The dissenting interest is with them the 
 dissenting interest every hour of the day, and only 
 \vhere, by some crooked device, they can (urn their 
 penny into a shilling 1 and their shilling into a pound, 
 do they touch, taste, or handle any thing appertaining 
 unto the church. 
 
 Yes the blue and white, or dissenting party 
 for the terms at Norwich are nearly convertible 
 beat us by a policy at once as narrow and pitiful in 
 its spirit as it is effective in its operation. While 
 they obey one part of the Christian precept by being 
 " wise as serpent," they leave us to evince, by the 
 simplicity of our conduct, the happy application oi 
 the other. Does a Socinian lawyer, a Socinian phy- 
 sician, a/ Socinian tradesman, ever lose sight of this 
 grand compactive principle ? Is any temporal busi- 
 ness transacted which is not transacted upon this 
 "'one and indivisible" ground ? Are not their public, 
 charities, their private benevolences conducted, as far 
 as may be, in the like spirit ? Nay, do they not even, 
 in the same breath, bestow a bible to secure our salva- 
 tion in the next world, and ask a vote to insure their 
 election in this? A blue and white sticks to a blue 
 and white in every important, every petty transac- 
 tion. Not even a pound of sugar, or a pennyworth 
 of soap, is disposed of without the " electioneering 
 -ymbol" stamped upon its forehead ; so solicitous 
 ^eem they to draw their line of circumvallation around 
 all that may conduce to their interest. 
 
 But what, gentlemen, suffer me to ask, what is the 
 conduct of the purple and orange party herein ? 
 How do they manage the barter and brokerage sys- 
 tem, the allowances of tare and tret ? With what 
 sort of feelings do they behold these petty granulated 
 links which their blue and white neighbours ar 
 adding, drop by drop, to the dissenting chain, till if. 
 become powerful enough to " bind our kiugs" and to
 
 62 
 
 fetter the nobles of the land ? Truly they give 
 themselves no sort of trouhle at all about it. Good 
 easy creatures! they bank with the blue and whites, 
 and they buy with the blue and whites, and they 
 counsel with the blue and whites, and they physic 
 with the blue and whites. The blue and whites are 
 their corn factors, their merchants, their drapers, 
 their grocers, their very butchers and barbers, and 
 man-milliners. In short, they every way suffer them- 
 selves to be palavered and pillaged by them ; and 
 when they have sucked their brains, and lightened 
 their purses, and fairly milked them dry, why instantly 
 they are off to the slave market, and, with the purple 
 and orange money, actually purchase the very blue 
 arul white votes against them. 
 
 Flow it is perfectly clear that these men, to be met 
 with any prospect of success, must be met and con- 
 tended with upon their own ground and with their 
 own weapons their own steps must be followed, 
 their own devices adopted, and that must, in some 
 degree, be done for our safety, which, on cooler re- 
 flection, we might hesitate to do for our credit. Let 
 us then turn their arts and their assurance against 
 them. Let us form our system of counteraction, and, 
 like certain of their own late high official characters, 
 confine the run of our custom where we can depend 
 upon the adoption of our principles. And, be assured, 
 until we do so, the blue and white interest will have 
 the mastery over us in every city regulation and every 
 popular election. In the words ot an able editor, 
 " new combinations must arise and new talents must 
 be engaged to stimulate, unite, and lead, before a 
 contest can be hazarded with the smallest pro- 
 bability of success;"* and, contemptible as they 
 may appear, these are the kind of combinations that 
 
 * Norwich Mercury, June 20, 1818.
 
 G3 
 
 have long been the heart and soul of this faction, not 
 only in the city of Norwich, but in every part of the 
 Hritish Empire These then must be met, on our 
 side, by measures of a similar description, which, 
 without partaking of much of their meanness, or any 
 of their rancour, may yet possess no inconsiderable 
 portion of their efficacy. The thing is not a matter 
 of choice it is not a deduction of judgment it is far 
 enough from an act of approbation but it is expe- 
 dient it is imperiously imposed upon us, and, until 
 we have more generous adversaries, we must sub- 
 mit to it. 
 
 The last dangerous instrument which these gentle- 
 men use to insure their influence is one which I must 
 mention, though I can barely trust myself to touch 
 upon it. It is an instrument, moreover, that I am 
 willing to believe is no less reprobated by many of 
 the more respectable of their own party than scorned 
 by the greater part of ours. The instrument I allude 
 to is slander slander constantly hawked about under 
 the coarsest coverings, with a view of degrading the 
 characters of such as feel it their duty to oppose the 
 blue and white politics of the cily, but which, in fact, 
 is only a disgrace to those " snakes in the grass/'* who 
 
 * I must here waste a note upon an unworthy subject. I was 
 present at the Guildhall, in Norwich, June 16, 1818, when Mr. 
 Steward Alderson addressed the new mayor (Barnabas Iceman, 
 Esq.) on coming into office, and the old one (Crisp Brown, Esq.) 
 pn going out ; and I think I may venture to say, that an address 
 more incautious, more insulting, more poor and weak, and every 
 way disgusting, was never intruded upon au audience. The learned 
 Steward complained that " he had never had the honour of Mr. 
 Brown's confidence." I can well believe it. I only wonder, look- 
 ing upon his political and religious life throughout, how he has 
 managed to possess the honour of any man's confidence. The re- 
 bukes received by Mr, Brown, upon that occasion, from Mr. Al- 
 derson, need never give him a moment's uneasiness ; they rather, 
 indeed, serve to strengthen his claim upon public approbation, and 
 to seal his merit with the sober part of the community.
 
 64 
 
 are mean and cowardly enough to countenance, or 
 employ it. Whatever may be the advantages of this 
 tomahawk and scalping system, (and, on the spur of 
 the occasion, it is possible they may not be small,) I 
 hope that honourable minds will evince a sufficient 
 feeling of decorum to forego them, and will treat all 
 such methods of increasing their influence with in- 
 dignity. Let them be buried, where they are first 
 cradled, with dark and narrow and dirty souls. The 
 dastard that flies from the public attack of a man's 
 political principles, to the private slander of his do- 
 mestic connections, can have no feelings in common 
 with generous minds of either party, and ought 
 equally to be blackballed and given up to ignominy 
 by both. 
 
 These, gentlemen, are some of the instruments by 
 which the blue and white party, the dissenting in- 
 terest, the Whig junto, the radical reformers, for it 
 is daily, I fear, becoming more and more immaterial 
 by which of these designations they are characterized, 
 have obtained and are increasing their city influence, 
 and by which they hope, at no distant period, to 
 increase also Mr. Coke's county influence. Mr. 
 Coke's county influence it is certainly becoming ne- 
 cessary to increase ; for, some how or other, his 
 celebrity is getting materially upon the wain, and, 
 like many popular characters that have figured away 
 before him, he may live long enough to outlive big 
 reputation. Of the result of a county contest during 
 the late dissolution, had it been adventured upon, i 
 should have thought there could not have been two 
 opinions. But as I perceive that both JMr. Coke and 
 his party affect to consider their success as certain, 
 had they made the attempt, I will hazard a few 
 remarks on the subject, though I do it wifh reluct- 
 ance, as it only serves to waste time upon helpless 
 absurdity, and to detain me longer from the more 
 important drift of my Letter.
 
 65 
 
 
 
 Upon what ground it could be taken up I know . 
 not, but certainly the opinion was (and continues to 
 be) current, both that present success might have 
 been and that future success would be insured in the 
 event of a county contest. Mr. Philip Hamond, in 
 his address to the freeholders on relinquishing the 
 honour intended him, goes off like a true Parthian, 
 with declaring, " I trust, however, the day is not far 
 distant when we shall see the principles of real inde- 
 pendence asserted, and again triumphantly main- 
 tained in the county of Norfolk/'* In adverting to 
 the flame of freedom which had burst out, and which 
 promised such glorious effects, Mr. Coke " ascribed 
 them to a cause which afforded him great pleasure ; 
 they had arisen out of the blessings of peace, which 
 had created a spirit of independence,"* and imme- 
 diately subjoins, " my own opinion is that if the 
 battle had been fought in this county it would have 
 terminated in the same manner/'* To this, in the 
 true quixotte style, he adds " I was as ready to fight 
 that gentleman as any of the committee, and had it 
 gone on, the popular feeling would have carried it as 
 at Yarmouth and Norwich/'* If I could be induced 
 to suspect the integrity of any part of Mr. Coke's 
 political statement, I should do it in the present 
 instance. These are assertions so bold, so bare- 
 facedly against general credibility, so uncalled for, so 
 unlooked for, so totally at variance with all the ap- 
 pearances floating about him, all the convictions 
 glowing around him, at! the symptoms of cool, col- 
 lected, determined hostility arrayed against him, that 
 1 can only believe such a declaration honourable by 
 believing it to be insane. The gauntlet, however, 
 thus preposterously thrown down, I venture to take 
 up. Mr. Coke and his party did not dare to try this 
 
 See the Norfolk Chronicle, June 27, 1818. 
 K
 
 66 
 
 contest, yet they dare to triumph in the anticipation 
 of its issue ;* they did not dare to try it, because they 
 too fearfully and too justly suspected the inevitable 
 result of it ; that it would have shaken the influence 
 and credit of their great idol to its base, and covered 
 these pragmatical prophecies with the ignominy they 
 deserved. 
 
 For such presumption it is natural to ask what were 
 the foundations? His partizans will probably an- 
 swer, the consistency of Mr. Coke's political princi- 
 ples, his agricultural fame, and his unspotted reputa- 
 tion in private life. Against Mr Coke's private life 
 I can say nothing if I were desirous, nor should I be 
 desirous if there were any thing to say. We should 
 separate at all times, as much as possible, a man's 
 political notions from his private character and con- 
 duct ; not because we have a right, or are under any 
 obligations to spare private conduct where it deserves 
 reproach, but because, generally speaking, reflec- 
 tions of this nature are carried to indefensible lengths, 
 frequently to the very verge of slander, do more or 
 less give uneasiness to his domestic relations, and point 
 against the bosom of others that severity which should 
 only attach upon the offender. Still the line of de- 
 marcation is indefinite, the course we will pursue 
 is optional, though, if we be prudent and have any 
 generosity in our composition, we shall consider a 
 man's private connections as neutral, as, in most in- 
 stances, sacred ground, and forbear to violate it. I 
 can easily believe Mr. Coke's assertion that he has 
 " no other than political foes." In me, at least, he 
 
 * In this opinion, which Mr. Coke repeated at the late celebra- 
 tion of Mr. Fox's birth-day, he does not stand alone. Many of 
 the leading men of his party have made, and are daily making, 
 similar absurd declarations. The lawyers and bankers of the 
 Hoik ham treasury bench affect to be equally confident. Yes- 
 they affect, to be so.
 
 67 
 
 has no other, and I am yet to learn that,, amid the 
 host of his opponents, the malus animus is to be found 
 among any of them. In his domestic relations few 
 will have the heart, and fewer still the temerity to at- 
 tack him. To this "city of refuge" he can at all 
 times flee and be safe, let his political crimes or follies 
 have been what they may. Its gates are ever open to 
 receive him, its inmates ever ready to pardon him ; 
 and beholding only his virtues and feeling only his 
 benevolence, in the splendour of his bounty they for- 
 get (and God forbid I should blame them for it) the 
 very existence of his infirmities. 
 
 In this sacred temple let us leave his lamp burning 
 and brightening upon all around him. Ours is a more 
 painful task, to trace him through a stormy sky where 
 he glimmers for a while and is then lost amid the 
 overpowering- darkness. On Mr. Coke's political con- 
 sistency, though he declaims so largely himself, the 
 less his partizens insist the better. Mr. Southwell 
 tells us that his honourable friend " had never seceded 
 from his first principles of public conduct not an 
 inch not a hair's breadth, had he deviated from those 
 principles which he had imbibed even with his mo- 
 ther's milk ; and he would die rather than desert 
 them,"* and he tells it with such an air of triumph 
 that we may be assured he looks upon it as a fair 
 ground of boasting. We may venture to say of Mr. 
 Coke's principles, as Ben Johnson said of Shakes- 
 pear's poetry, that it would have redounded to his cre- 
 dit had his expurgations been more numerous. For 
 to what have these principles tended ? To no good 
 purpose under the sun. They have neither added to 
 the glory of his country, nor to the "character of the 
 freeholders of Norfolk/' That character he has, on 
 the contrary, laboured to deteriorate by every means 
 
 * Norfolk Chronicle, June 27, 1818.
 
 68 
 
 in his power. But he has laboured in vain. The 
 greater portion of these freeholders have larger and 
 more correct views than he has ever given them cre- 
 dit for. They talk less of the principles of the revo- 
 lution of 1688, but evince, by their conduct, that they 
 understand them better, and feel them nearer to and 
 warmer at their hearts. The character of the Nor- 
 folk freeholders, debased by the haughty and inflamma- 
 tory harrangues of Mr. Coke, has been, and, as years 
 proceed, more and more will be ennobled by the 
 sound, constitutional, unobtrusive sentiments of Mr. 
 Wodehouse. 
 
 The Holkham patriot is no man to mince a matter. 
 "Those principles are indeed as different from the 
 language of gentlemen on the other side as liberty is 
 from despotism ; as the principles of William were 
 from those of James, but they are such as I shall never 
 shrink from. I am now an old man, and I hope for 
 the benefit of mankind and the liberties of Europe, 
 that they will be those of my decendants."* Truly 
 the liberties of Europe are in a pitiable condition if 
 they need support from the principles of Mr. Coke ! 
 For " the benefit of mankind," we, on the contrary, 
 presume to hope that if this gentleman's descendants 
 are rocked in his cradle, and swaithed in his bands, 
 and put in his leading-strings, and dandled and 
 cockered up to tread in his steps, the less the county 
 of Norfolk and the kingdom in general know of them 
 the better: for the Whig sentiments of this modern 
 Hampden have seldom answered any end so effectually 
 (whatever end they may have been designed to 
 answer) as to make the subject discontented with his 
 sovereign, the people disaffected towards their rulers, 
 and the ecclesiastical establishment, intended for the 
 security of the state by securing the obligations of all 
 
 * Norfolk Chronicle, June 27, 1818.
 
 69 
 
 duty., divine and human, an object of distrust with the 
 reflecting and of contempt with the ignorant part of 
 the comjnunity. Mr. Coke, who is trumpeted forth by 
 his obsequious admirers as possessing a warm affection 
 towards the church, seldom, indeed, omits an oppor- 
 tunity of convincing us of the nature and extent of this 
 affection. Thus in his tirade on the day of election, 
 adverting jto Mr. Brougham-'s "researches into the 
 state of public charities/' he tells us, that " though 
 the bill passed the house of commons, it was returned 
 back from the lords, where, among other peers, it was 
 opposed by some of the bishops."* And, as if this 
 hit was not sufficiently palpable, he subjoins "it was 
 found that charities to a lar;e amount were in the 
 
 O 
 
 hands of certain great families a bishop also was 
 possessed of some of them."* These are the speci- 
 mens (and there are many more in reserve) of Mr. 
 Coke's good will to the church, the proofs of his 
 esteem for the hierarchy of the realm. That the insi- 
 nuation is treacherous ; that it will not probably stand 
 the test of sober examination; and, if it do, ought no- 
 thing to affect the general integrity of the established 
 clergy, is little to the purpose, A.11 political treachery 
 seems to lose its nature if it smack but of political uti- 
 lity, or party annoyance. The church receives the 
 wound, and may get rid of the arrow as she can. 
 Upon these slow poisons it is that Mr. Coke, and cer- 
 tain of his partizans, live, and thrive, and swell. On 
 the ejection of these mean and venomous compounds, 
 on all that is gracious and sacred about him, is founded 
 one of his claims upon the good will of the dissenting 
 and republican part of his constituents. For sucii 
 conduct, had he lived in the times of superstition, 1 
 know not how many monasteries he must have found- 
 ed, or how many penances he must have performed. 
 
 * Norfolk Cbroaicle, June 27, 1818.
 
 70 
 
 He lives in better times, and gets off on easier terms. 
 He has only to repeat the offence and brazen' out the 
 shame of it. Mr. Glover, in showing the lions on 
 these white-washing occasions, would do well to desist 
 from this sickening part of the ceremony ; for so wily 
 and slippery is his great patron in all matters of eccle- 
 siastical polity, that, though he wore the cross on his 
 right shoulder, we should still give him no credit for 
 his attachment to the holy land. 
 
 Upon the whole, I do not think that Mr. Coke's 
 political consistency can any thing avail him with 
 those who consider soberly the nature of such con- 
 sistency, that it is, in fact, nothing more than a weak 
 attachment to political folly and a hardened conti- 
 nuancje in political guilt.* How far the fame of his 
 agricultural improvements may redeem him from 
 this guilt, 1 will not take upon me to say. The 
 third edition of " HOLRHAM, ITS AGRICULTURE, &c." 
 \vill contribute more to the vindication of Mr. Coke 
 than any thing, I suspect, which has been hitherto 
 written, or spouted in his favour. Dr. Rigby has 
 certainly executed an uncommonly cross-grained task 
 to admiration. He has wrought, like Bernini, upon 
 the hardest marble, and turned it into living flesh. 
 The work will, however, after all, contribute more 
 probably to the doctor's reputation than to the dicta- 
 
 * I am called upon here to make one exception. The Rer; 
 Archdeacon Bathurst, at a late celebration of Mr. Coke's birth- 
 day, after an appropriate and elegant address from the Rev. Dr, 
 Langton, arose and spoke substantially as follows: " \Vhatevejc 
 could dignify or adorn human nature might be found in the private 
 character of Mr. Coke, but he thought his political character wai 
 an object for even higher commendation ; it embraced views sA 
 extensive as society itself, and instead of being confined to the mere 
 influence of example, or the benefit of the present times, it might 
 be said to anticipate the prosperity of mankind in general, and of 
 thii countrr in particular, to the latest periods of our posterity." 
 Norwich Mercury, May 1$,
 
 71 
 
 tor's for alas! so rooted is bis patients' political 
 malady, that, without some philosophical process for 
 taking- out old stains that have been worming and 
 eating themselves in for years, 1 see not how the 
 Ethiopian will be persuaded to "change his skin/' 
 or to exhibit any other than that swarthy, hideous 
 glare, so seriously, at times, alarming to both friends 
 and foes. The mere agriculture of Holkham must 
 have its praise. Indeed I am willing to believe, that 
 we may apply to Mr. Coke and his improvements 
 therein, what, in allusion to those of Rome by Augus- 
 tus, Johnson applied to the state of poetry under the 
 genius of Dryden, lateritiam invenit, marmoreal,, 
 reliquit ;* but the politics of Holkham, of so loath- 
 some a cast as to defy being varnished into bearable- 
 ness by either the classic colouring of Dr. Rigby, or 
 the fulsome flattery of Mr. Glover, will never be any 
 other than what they always have been the wonder 
 of the county, and its shame. 
 
 In the few remarks which I feel called upon to 
 make on " the three proud days of the forty-second 
 anniversary of this most extraordinary and incalcula- 
 bly useful meeting, by far the most interesting and 
 the most brilliant that has yet been recorded/'f I 
 shall be both more concise and less complimentary 
 than the learned doctor, dismissing as rapidly as pos- 
 sible these annual despoliations of taste and genius, 
 with all their adscitious trumpery, in vicum venden- 
 tem thus et odores. The Holkham sheep- shearing, 
 that celebrated centre towards which all bodies, lig' t 
 
 * Mr. Arthur Young, in a letter to the Editor of the Burr 
 Post, seems inclined, however, to make some abatements from JBr, 
 Rigby's full-measure of agricultural praise awarded Mr. Coke 
 He intimates, that the doctor's pamphlet '* would afford matter for 
 observation." I think so. 
 
 See the Norwich Mercury of August 2^ 1817. 
 
 + Holkham, its Agriculture, &c. 3d Edit.
 
 72 
 
 or heavy, equally gravitate that exhausted receiver 
 in which a leaden bullet and a feather are of the same 
 weight the Kolkham sheep-shearing possesses one 
 advantage, which Dr. Rigby has forgot to notice, of 
 a very peculiar description. It is a field that appro- 
 priates itself in a most wonderful manner to versatility 
 of talent. There you behold the genius of our com- 
 mon nature bursting its chains and spreading itself 
 forth in the most appropriate forms the under- 
 standing alternately swelling into its largest capaci- 
 ties and coroprest into its very puniest dimensions 
 this moment exhibiting " all the talents/' and the 
 rext shrouding its insufferable superiority under a 
 thick intellectual darkness Men, in short, no where 
 feel themselves so much men. and capable of tossing 
 and tumbling about their hidden energies as at the 
 celebration of this periodical festivity. For getting 
 upon stilts, and descanting on government in all its 
 diplomacies, they descend, in a twinkling, to " breed- 
 ing in all its branches"* from the ministers set fast 
 for want of popularity, they hurry to "the turnips set 
 fest for want of rain"* from the cause of liberty, 
 civil and religious,"* to "wheat and lavender and 
 gouthdowns and merinos"* and leaving them this 
 minute amid the solemnities of "the temporal and 
 spiritual interests of religious establishments," * you 
 
 * Holkham, &c. and Norwich Mercury and Norfolk Chronicle : 
 I tliink it proper to refer my readers to each of these sources. For 
 though, (wondering by the bye how Hercules came to bind himself 
 to this distaff) we readily award the palm of superior correctness 
 to the learned doctor, being, like Xeuophon and Caesar, himself a 
 prime actor in the scenes he describes ; yet are these records, upon 
 the whole, more just, perhaps, to the fame of cotemporary genius. 
 One speech, in particular, which at the time was mightily relished, 
 and for its wit and poignancy considered as the first specimen of 
 : rep-shearing eloquence delivered during the " three proud days," 
 ( ? doctor has not condescended to notice in any dther than a most 
 
 vokingly incidental manner. .Alai! when will envious feelings" 
 ur !
 
 73 
 
 find them the next with Mr. Coke's "wild breed of 
 boars, and a sow of Mr. S. Taylor's."* Truly it is 
 a most admirable " preparatory school" for the young 
 politicians and wool-growers who flock from the four 
 quarters of the kingdom, where nothing is started that 
 is not pursued to its last ramifications,, and where 
 men and measures are disposed of with exactly the 
 same facility as beans and barley. 
 
 And to see the dignified attitudes, too, of mind 
 that pervade this assemblage of the collected wisdom 
 and worth of the county, and how when their great 
 idol rises to declaim upon the quid sit turpe whether 
 pointed at sheep-folds or senates, the little images 
 prepare to fall down and worship, especially when 
 the oracle is delivered from the mouth of the decanter 
 and the response comes shadowed out in the fashion 
 of a toast.f From that sacred store-house of their 
 divinity, the first Pythian breathing delivered was, 
 not according to the good, old-fashioned style in 
 vogue with our forefathers, fe king and constitution," 
 but, after the new " radical reform," borrowed from 
 the French revolutionary model, "constitution and 
 king," the Ego et Rex meus of one who never suf- 
 fered his modesty to take precedence of his pride. 
 
 * Norfolk Chronicle, July 18, 1818. 
 
 t For these toasts see the Norwich Mercury and Norfolk 
 Chronicle of July 11, 1818. Nor must we think lightly of them, 
 for Dr. Rigby has remarked, speaking of Mr. Coke's exertions 
 upon this occasion, (Agriculture of Holkham, p. 85.) " Nor did 
 his labours terminate in the field ; it has already been seen that 
 on his return, he only met new duties, in a varied attention to his 
 guests, scarcely less numerous than in the field, and much more 
 concentrated at his tables. It was each day no light effort to 
 select healths and give appropriate toasts, to preface each with ap- 
 posite remarks, to keep up the attention of so large a company, 
 and even excite in them something like agricultural discussion !" 
 I can easily imagine this. They had had enough of agriculture 
 " in the field ;" they wanted a dish of jwlitics over the bottle, and 
 the higher its seasoning, the finer probably the relish of the grape, 
 
 L
 
 74 
 
 " Constitution and king" was therefore drank \\\i\\ 
 profound reverence, and with much more loyalty, 
 we may be assured, than Mr. Conjurer Thiodon 
 could confine within a nut-shell. The next oracular 
 inspiration came loaded with all Arabia Fejix, " pros- 
 perity to the county of Norfolk, especially the en- 
 lightened yeomanry." The enlightened yeomanry, 
 of course, put on their sweetest smile and make their 
 lowest bow. Another inflation follows, and another 
 bit of wisdom is born ; " live and let live." The 
 former part of the response, the Holkham tenantry, 
 with full glasses, echo to the skies ; the latter, a mere 
 make-weight in the scale of discretion, they twist 
 their heads over the left shoulder, and pray Jupiter 
 to disperse in air. Again the Pythia becomes dis- 
 torted, and another bubble instantly makes its ap- 
 pearance ; " the clergy of the diocese." Yes, " the 
 clergy of the diocese," given by the dictator of the 
 county ! And this calls up the egregious Mr. Glover, 
 (always forward to have a finger in every pie,) in the 
 name, and as the representative of the said clergy, 
 to return thanks for the very especial honour thus 
 graciously conferred upon them. Really, really this 
 is too much. The clergy do indeed bear and bend 
 under many indignities; but to find themselves thus 
 treacherously crowned in these Holkjiam cups, thus 
 eulogized into infamy by this Holkham political 
 hack, is among the number of their severest, their 
 most nauseating trials. 
 
 And this versatility of talent in the field itself has 
 given rise to a correspondent versatility of character 
 in the noble host, who in dilferent situations assumes 
 a different costume, as the celebrated Roscius was 
 occasionally called upon to personate " King Lear" 
 to-day and " Abel Druggcr" to-morrow. Thus, meet 
 him at the head of his political sheep-shearers, and it 
 is Mr. Coke of Holkham catch him in the first 
 circles in town, and it is Mr. Coke of Norfolk. Pop
 
 75 
 
 upon him in the highlands of Scotland, and it is the 
 agricultural hero of the south accompany him to a 
 political Dereharn dinner, and he rises up in the form 
 of a Lacedemonian law-giver. See him in the epis- 
 copal palace with "the best shepherd in Christen- 
 dom/' nil fuit unquam sic dispar sibi, and, he is 
 metamorphosed into the guardian of the church and 
 an assertor of the rights of the priesthood ! Behold 
 him, finally, haranguing a county meeting in the 
 shire-hall, Norwich, and he dwindles down into the 
 decayed politician, the "lean and slippered panta- 
 loon " " sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every 
 thing."* 
 
 Whatever may be the advantages of the Holkham 
 mode of agriculture, 1 confess I see no advantage in 
 these annual Holkham commemorations, where men 
 assemble to display their improvements, to swallow 
 down (a sort of quid pro quo} Mr. Coke's wine and 
 Mr. Coke's opinions, f and to abuse that government 
 under which they live and thrive, and which protects 
 them, unworthy as they are, in their possessions. 
 Nor is the evil a small one, that even gentlemen, of 
 very different, nay, of nearly opposite political persua- 
 sions to Mr. Coke, are sometimes tempted, under the 
 
 * Shakespcar's " As you like it." 
 
 f As Rowland Hill once observed in a sermon of his, (the first 
 I erer heard, and the last probably I ever shall hear,) speaking of 
 the various comers and goers of his congregation, who were usur 
 ally most devout in their admiration of the psalmody, " but they 
 cannot listen to our singing without listening to our preaching; we 
 eatch'ern there ;" so neither can the four quarters of the kingdom 
 assemble at the Holkham sheep-shearing without having set before 
 them a dish of the Holkham politics there is no partaking of the 
 delicacies unless you attend to the oratory. It is a harmonic so- 
 ciety, where all that have instruments in tune and musical voices 
 are expected to exert them. Not a string must jar in this " con- 
 cord of sweet sounds," with no crossing of the breed^ this beautiful 
 blinding, of religious, moral, and political, Southdown and Merino 
 passions. 
 
 L 2
 
 notion that it is illiberal to absent themselves on such 
 narrow grounds, to become his visitors upon tin se 
 occasions. And though there are instances upon 
 record where they have, some of them, not met with 
 altogether such a reception as they were led to 
 expect, yet such is the good-natured cullability we 
 carry about with us, that Romulus has but to proclaim 
 a feast in honour of Neptune, and his Sabine neigh- 
 bours will instantly flock to it, in spite of the rape tlnit 
 may be plotted against their political continence. In 
 this focus, the Whig representative and his friends 
 concentrate their agricultural information, their mi- 
 nisterial disaffection, and their ecclesiastical con- 
 tempts. Here it is that they indulge in their state 
 censures, forgetful, that but for the provident care of 
 those whom they are hourly denouncing as the be- 
 trayers of their country, their extensive domains, the 
 rcgnum priami vetus, would long since have been 
 divided into republican dynasties, and wool-growers, 
 and wool-buyers, and butchers, and breeders, with 
 the whole host, noble and ignoble, of idolizers of the 
 house of Holkham, have been all huddled together in 
 one common oblivion. I wish we may not, by and 
 bye, find " the glorious principles for which Hampden 
 fought and Sydney suffered," degenerating through- 
 out the kingdom into those rebellious movements for 
 which Cataline was driven headlong from Rome, and 
 Caesar lost both his dictatorship and his life. " Eng- 
 land's anchor, the hope of the world," heated in 
 the political furnace of our Whig reformers, would 
 never, 1 fear, come out the precious metal we have 
 hitherto found it. Let the gallant admiral (the right 
 hand of the regent of Norfolk,) in some future con- 
 test with the enemies of his country, address his sailors 
 in the language of that gentleman and his co-patriots, 
 and instil into them their principles, their affection 
 for their employers, and the dying declaration of the 
 jmmortal Nelson, shall never stir a soul among them
 
 77 
 
 more. " E tig-land expects every man to do his duty" 
 would only* he construed into the duty of every man 
 to withhold as much, and to afford as little assistance 
 as possible to those who were, at that moment,, guiding 
 the helm of state., and directing, by their counsels, 
 the very operations that led them on to victory, to 
 fortune, and to fame. 
 
 If I made it any part of this Letter to return a 
 regular reply to those remarks in the third edition of 
 " Holkham, its Agriculture," which more imme- 
 diately concern myself, I should do it here. But f 
 have neither the time nor the room, and if I had, HIM 
 subject would be confessedly out of its place in an 
 address to the freeholders of this nature. Dr. Rigby, 
 of whom my mind carries me to speak in no oth&r 
 than respectful terms, has in this tract descanted, in 
 his usual chaste style, on the merits of Mr. Coke's 
 agricultural labours. I will not say that he has over- 
 charged his picture, but I must be permitted to think 
 that the genius loci hath certainly imparted to it a 
 higher finish, than, naturally and divested of extrane- 
 ous excitements, it would seem to deserve. Of such 
 a production time may, indeed, mellow the colours, 
 but he will never, as Dryden elegantly observed of the 
 portraits of Kneller, "give more beauties than he 
 takes away. " The policy or impolicy, the advantage 
 or want of advantage, the moral good or evil of such 
 a division of his landed possessions as Mr. Coke has 
 thought proper to adopt, must be left to the general 
 opinion and feeling to decide. It were well if every 
 growing empire could be kept in a due measure of 
 lowliness and industry ; if the habits which first made 
 a people great and flourishing could defend them from 
 corruption and decay ; and if increasing success, with 
 its concomitant increasing luxury, did not enervate- 
 faster than poverty and temperance have invigorated. 
 Measured upon the great scale of kingdoms, or the 
 inferior scale of farms, it is I fear alike certain that
 
 78 
 
 improvements producing plenty and elegance will 
 produce also, and at no very distant period, a state of 
 indolent repose utterly subversive of virtue, and in- 
 adequate to the maintenance and continuance of this 
 original creative prosperity. Between covering a 
 nation with large farms and parcelling it out into 
 small ones, there might perhaps, to a reasoning mind, 
 be no choice. The due admixture of both is, 1 think, 
 the point where all sober opinions would be most 
 likely to meet ; where abundance might be compelled 
 to afford us her comforts without their alloys, and 
 where moral habit might be induced to remain with 
 no risk of insult, or injury from vicious indulgences, 
 As to the doctor's remark that the great farmers have 
 " much weight in the political scale of the county/' I 
 answer, yes too .much weight if their principles be 
 no better than what they suck in at the Holkham 
 sheep-shearings. Lartius, the dictator, though he 
 struck the people with (error, brought them back to 
 milder feelings and a nobler devotedness to their 
 country. I wish we could say as much for our 
 modern Lartius of Norfolk. But alas ! soaking his 
 seeds in a strong political brine., the wheat and the 
 tares generally spring up together, and the husband- 
 nan is in danger of housing, at once, both his sheaves 
 Sod his seditions. 
 
 The "agriculture of Holkham" will be read by all 
 TV ho do, and by many who do not think with its author. 
 At once chaste and animated, it will insure attention 
 whether it produce conviction or no. He who is un- 
 answered, it hath been said is unanswerable ; but 
 as we are taught to believe that there is now a days 
 " a philosophical indulgence of vanity/' I leave the 
 doctor in full possession of the benefit of this some- 
 what illogical deduction. I am sure from his known 
 meditative habit, he will be very moderate in its use. 
 1 look, at any rate, to no abuse of it, until peradven- 
 tuie the arrival of the "three proud days of the
 
 79 
 
 forty-third anniversary/' when, if at all, the fascina- 
 tion of circumstances may, for a moment, prevail over 
 ei the modesty of nature." We all know the blandish- 
 ments of these " interesting 1 and brilliant meeting's," 
 and as Hannibal melted down his soul in the deliriums 
 of Capua, so may even Doctor Rigby's stoical forti- 
 tude, with the non sum qualis cram fastening- upon 
 every feeling 1 , and reducing the very Venus, regina 
 Cnidi, Paphique to a mere tantalizing 1 shade, be una- 
 ble to combat the enchantments glowing around him. 
 I cannot, however, but wish, for the credit of his la- 
 bours, that he had had a more able competitor,, and 
 that he had not shewn himself so lost to the soundings 
 and bearings of certain minds as to defend those who 
 were scarcely aware of ever having been attacked. 
 It is, indeed, searching for laurels in a barren field to 
 expose the errors of a production which, it would 
 seem, Mr. Coke only knew to be in existence from 
 the doctor's remarks upon it.* What then was Mr. 
 Glover's '" Reply to a clergyman's letter/' dispersed 
 north, east, south, and west throug-hout the county, 
 
 * " Mr. Coke then gaye the health of a gentleman, who 'had, 
 he said, for the first time, done him the honour of attending this 
 meeting ; a man whose activity of body and strength of mind were 
 unimpaired, though older than himself, and to whom he felt infi- 
 nitely obliged for having defended his character from certain 
 aspersions cast upon him by Mr. Burges, in a pamphlet, which, 
 however, he had not condescended to read, except, indeed, such 
 passages as his learned friend had thought proper to comment upon 
 in his amusing work, descriptive of Holkhara and its Agriculture, 
 he meant Dr. Rigby, and he should not give him merely as a man, 
 bat as a friend." Holkham, its Agriculture, fyc. p. 48. The re 
 port of this allusion of Mr. Coke's to Dr. Rigby's pamphlet, as 
 printed in the Norfolk Chronicle of July llth, is rather more iu 
 point. " Mr. Coke took this opportunity to thank the doctor for 
 the handsome manner in which he had vindicated him against an 
 attack made upon him by the writer of a pamphlet, which pamphlet 
 he had however never seen, bnt learnt from Dr.-Rigby's pamphlet 
 that such an one had lately be*a published."
 
 80 
 
 unknown to Mr. Coke ? Was he honoured with no 
 copy of that inimitable production, which, without be- 
 ing contaminated with a syllable of scurrility itself, so 
 compleatly exposed the scurrility of its opponent, ex- 
 orcised its imprecations, put to shame its assertions, 
 annihilated its arguments, and set Mr. Coke and his 
 colleagues again upon their legs, thoroughly purged 
 and purified, and more constitutional, more firmly 
 attached to monarchical government, aye, and more 
 seriously devoted to our excellent and blessed church 
 establishment, than they were many of them ever 
 suspected of being in their lives before ? Sensitive 
 to the fame of all and every thing about him, how 
 could Mr. Coke be dead to the energies of a man 
 whose political sagacity has already shook our poor 
 crazy administration to atoms, and in whose writings, 
 a perfect world of intellect, he and his Hampden ini- 
 mitables, like straws in amber, are deliciously em- 
 balmed for ever? The circumstance is indeed ex- 
 traordinary !* 
 
 * The "Agriculture of Holkhant" will, I think, serve Mr. 
 Coke's best interest more effectually than either Mr. Glover's 
 oratory, or than even the annual celebrations of his birth-day 
 throughout the county. However, these must, in some measure, 
 be looked upon as decisive of the esteem in which he is held, and 
 perhaps, generally speaking, though set forth with here and there 
 a little too much pomp, they are conducted with sufficient decorum. 
 But an instance lately occurred, where a Mr. Taylor, of /')/- 
 TJiondham^ was chairman, which exhibited a rat'ier striking excep- 
 tion to this decorum. I thought we had toasted of as violent a 
 Taylor at Norwich as in any part of the kingdom ; but here, it ap- 
 pears, they have got one of the name quite as violent, and a great 
 deal more vulgar. Indeed he seems better fitted, if the editor ha* 
 not a little strained the coarseness of his language, to preside over 
 a dinner at St. Giles's, in the metropolis, than at the celebration of 
 Mr. Coke's birth-day. Let these meetings be headed in other 
 places by such men as this Mr. Taylor, of Wymondluim, and they 
 will presently become all that Mr. Coke's adversaries can wi>h 
 them to become ; demonstrations of a coarse Jacobinical spirit, that 
 mill more effectually overthrow hib future interest than any present
 
 81 
 
 I3ut the probability of success, had a county con- 
 test been persisted in, if it would not have been aided 
 by either Mr. Coke's political consistency, or the hos- 
 pitalities of Hoik ham -hall, would, I suspect, have been 
 considerably reduced^by the amiable conduct and the 
 strict constitutional principles of Mr. Edmond Wode- 
 house. That gentleman, scarcely fixed in his seat, 
 the Whig Junto, headed by certain petty partizans 
 who have, it seems, wormed themselves into confi- 
 dence, were determined if possible to cast out. For 
 this purpose it was that they brought forward, in a 
 sort of mock majesty, and after the universal suffrage 
 idea, "-the man of the people," who luckily, however, 
 weighed in the Norfolk freeholder's balance, turned 
 out a mere man of straw. But indeed had Mr. 
 Hamond come forward under better auspices and 
 fairer and fuller hopes, with all the respect attached 
 to his character, it is very unlikely he should have 
 succeeded. Gentlemen, our worthy candidate, Mr. 
 Wodehouse, has answered every expectation that his 
 friends formed of him. He has belied those expecta- 
 tions in, I believe, no one instance. No part of his 
 parliamentary conduct hitherto has been other than 
 he gave us reason to think, and than we, on our part, 
 plainly understood and desired that it should be. The 
 line of that conduct was firmly, impartially, nobly 
 
 censures we can bring against him. I trouble not myself to en- 
 quire who or what .this Mr. Taylor is. He may possibly (for I hare 
 no knowledge of Wymondharn or its neighbourhood,) be some per- 
 son there of large landed possessions. From his being called to 
 the chair on so important an occasion he probably is. Bat surely 
 no dignity of station can apologize for low scurrility of language. 
 In proportion to tke exaltation of his rank should have been the 
 urbanity of his demeanor. He should have scorned to adopt a 
 mode of address that, under any circumstances less favourable, 
 would have rather seemed to mark him out for some petty itine- 
 rant tradesman than for a resident gentleman of fortune and 
 family. 
 
 M
 
 82 
 
 drawn from the very first, and firmly and nobly 1ms 
 he followed upon it. That he has not therein pleased 
 Mr. Coke's friends is the strongest pledge and de- 
 monstration that he has pleased his own. That he 
 has incurred thereby the displeasure of that venerable 
 body, the " White Swan senators," and of every wild 
 and wanton reformer, whether of Whig origin or 
 ultra complexion, is an earnest, deep and grateful, of 
 his having satisfied the friends and admirers of our 
 constitution in church and state, as well as every 
 thoughtful and sober mind in the varied ranks of 
 community* He, therefore, who supported Mr. 
 Wodehouse in his first election, would have felt it his 
 pride and duty to have supported him in his late one, 
 and will, I trust, feel it his increased pride and duty to 
 maintain his future interest in the county. He who 
 voted for him before he was tried, will, with a fuller 
 satisfaction, continue to vote for him after having 
 
 J O 
 
 been tried and found worthy. He, in short, that at 
 his gratifying re-election placed the pink and purple 
 in his bosom, will, in any contest that may hereafter 
 be adventured upon, press these revered colours still 
 nearer to his heart. Indeed one only purpose (and 
 that not of the purest cast) would it seem that any 
 future contest, undef existing circumstances, could 
 answer to harrass Mr. Wodehouse's friends and to 
 distress Mr. Wodehouse's family. But such friends 
 are not lightly to be alarmed by such unworthy de- 
 vices, nor, fortunately for the peace of the county, are 
 the walls of Kimberly to be shaken without the towers 
 of Holkham trembling to their very base. 
 
 Thus far I really think Mr. Wodehouse's triumph, 
 though of a calm and quiet complexion, has been as 
 decisive as possible. It was, as was truly asserted of 
 one of the representatives (Mr. Wilson) for the city 
 of London, " the triumph of character,"* and most 
 
 * Star, July 3, 1818.
 
 83 
 
 appositely is it subjoined that " with it any thing 
 wig-lit be done, but without it nothing."* Every 
 expedient to injure Mr. Wodehouse has turned out 
 an injury to those only who were mean enough to have 
 recourse to it. Virtue will always find her level amid 
 contending interests. " There is a call upon man- 
 kind to value and esteem those who set a moderate 
 price upon their own merits. "f It is not in human 
 nature to desert one who appears to possess no confi- 
 dence but in the justice of his cause and the honour 
 of his constituents. While his haughty rival in the 
 public esteem,, proud " even to the altitude of his vir- 
 tue/' invites, nay dares any rnan to come forward and 
 point out his political errors, Mr. Wodehouse,, with 
 far better grounds of hope., deems it more respectful 
 to "" challenge no presumptuous inquiry into his 
 conduct. "J We know that " no interval will ever 
 deaden the impression of his gratitude for the favour 
 lie has already enjoyed/' and we feel that neither 
 \vill any interval obliterate the corresponding im- 
 pression on our minds that he has deserved to enjoy 
 that favour. What would become of the return to 
 parliament of our celebrated Whig member had he 
 made the same determination with Mr. Plunkett, the 
 representative for the university of Dublin, " I will 
 not receive the vote of a single individual whose heart 
 is not with me ?" || If all were at liberty to forsake 
 the Holkham standard who do not approve of the Holk- 
 liam principles, Mr. Coke might be left to fight his 
 electioneering battles with a mere host of Braban- 
 cons. When the political character of this gentle- 
 man, deformed by the persevering rancour of his op- 
 position, by his narrow prejudiced feelings, his wild 
 
 * Star, July 3, 1818. * Spectator, No. 206. 
 
 ; Norfolk Chronicle, June 27, J 81 8. 
 
 i) See Mr. Wodehouse's address, Norfolk Chronicle, June 20, 
 1818. || Star, June 29, 1818. 
 
 M 2
 
 84 
 
 and wanton opinions, his mad party spirit, corrected 
 by no judgment and softened by no consideration, shall 
 no longer be an object of reverence, * Mr. Wode- 
 house shall feel the rectitude of his own -sentiments 
 and the consistency of his own conduct in the grow- 
 ing esteem of those who have witnessed them, and 
 have witnessed them as leading- on to the dearest in- 
 terests not only of the sovereign, but of the subject. 
 He shall live in many a heart when Mr. Coke has 
 lost his hold upon all hearts. 
 
 We were told, indeed, by this gentleman on a late 
 occasion, that " he meant to stand alone, but that he 
 could not prevent those of the same principles with 
 himself coming forward for the county. "f How much 
 he wished to prevent them, he nearly in the same 
 breath takes care to inform us. " But such is my de- 
 sire to see the county of Norfolk represented by 
 Whigs, without which I do not consider it to be re- 
 presented at all, that I should certainly have given 
 my support to the popular and independent cause 
 of Mr. Hamond." f Admirable ! And so unless 
 the county be represented by men like himself, it is 
 not, it seems, to be considered as represented at 
 all ! Why, gentlemen, this is really the very climax 
 of political assurance. That county however desires 
 no greater honour and no greater security, than under 
 such circumstances to continue unrepresented to the 
 last breath of the British constitution. Indeed, with 
 puch state physicians, the last breath of the constitution 
 might probably tire no man's patience to wait for. 
 With such principles as Mr. Coke and his Whig 
 associates are known to advocate, they will have no 
 
 * I would have those who go round like bell-men crying up 
 Mr. Coke's principles and popularity in the county, to recollect the 
 state of the poll, as to the number of single votes, in the election for 
 the year 1802, Astley 70 Coke 159 Wodehouse 2794! 
 
 t Norfolk'Chronicle, ^une 27, 1818.
 
 85 
 
 occasion to copy the disinterestedness of Mr. Orator 
 Hunt, and to make a solemn covenant before the 
 Mayor of Norwich, that " they will never suffer 
 themselves to be made either dukes, privy counsel- 
 sellors, field marshals, archbishops, or lord chancel- 
 lors."* 
 
 In any future contest for the representation of the 
 county, where Mr. Coke may be smit with the pre- 
 sumption of bringing- in another member cut out pre- 
 cisely after his own fashion, he will, 1 suspect, have 
 an Herculean task of it. He will have, as Mr. Bruce- 
 observed of Sir Francis Burdett, rf to contend against 
 all the arts of government, all the expedients of cor- 
 ruption," and, what is often with considerable difficulty- 
 overcome, " the influence of many of the fair sex."f 
 And if, " in spite of the threats of power and the seduc- 
 tions of beauty," f he can still manage to carry a brace 
 of Whig representatives, he must possess some means 
 of persuasion and placidity which neither friends nor 
 foes have ever yet, I believe, given him credit for. 
 What popular enthusiasm, often an honest fool, may 
 in future do in his favour, I am not able to say. 
 " Reform (asjwe were lately told) had seemed so elated 
 with what she had done with the election of -Wood, 
 Waithman, and Thorp, and with the triumph which 
 she was about to obtain in Westminster, by the elec- 
 tion of her favourite child and champion, Sir Francis 
 Burdett she seemed so elated with these triumphs, 
 that in a frolic, in a playful mood, she said, let us 
 elect honest Tom Clarke." J And it is possible re- 
 form may be so tickled too with her miraculous 
 Norwich triumphs, as, by and bye, to consent to 
 elect, as his colleague for the county, Mr. Coke's 
 honest game-keeper, or whipper in, or cleaner of 
 
 Norwich Courier, June 20, 1818. 
 
 Star, July 3, 1818. J Ibid, June 27, 1818.
 
 86 
 
 his kennels, or any other Whig urchin of the sunc 
 description, who will follow upon his master's track, 
 snuff the ministerial scent, and, whether in couples 
 or with the pack in full cry, hunt down the Tory 
 game whereever he can come at it. 
 
 Though, however, I believe the season to be past 
 for their looking from the towers of Holkham for the 
 laureated letters from Norwich though I think that 
 no shouts of county victory will, for a considerable 
 time to come, greet those lonely and desolate walls, 
 vet let it not hence be inferred that we deem Mr. 
 Coke in danger, or deserving of general desertion. 
 No while he has a foot to stand on, while a spark of 
 real patriotism and devotion to the house of Hanover 
 remains about him, let him be supported. The coun- 
 ty of Norfolk has indeed little to boast of, independent 
 of his respected name and family, by his representa- 
 tion of it, but, in times like the present, we see the 
 possibility of its having still less. The Westmorland 
 election has opened a door to all sorts of customers, 
 nor is it certain that they may not send us over a sup- 
 ply of their own wares, and colonize the county with 
 new Hunts and Hobhouses, under the patronage of 
 theblife and white interest of the city of Norwich. 
 In such a city such auxiliaries will never be un- 
 welcome, and the clerk of the democratic course will 
 thus be enabled to furnish out a list of candidates, re- 
 ceiving their credentials from the forged signatures 
 of some White Swan senate, all flaming hot with the 
 republican spirit and ready to start for the represen- 
 tation at four and twenty hours' notice. 
 
 lam glad to find, and I can readily believe, that 
 the late " contest for Westmorland, between Lord 
 Lowther and Mr. Brougham, was a contest of prin- 
 ciples, not of men/'* and I wish, gentlemen, that all 
 
 * Star, July 8, 1818.
 
 87 
 
 future contests for our own county may be of the 
 like distinguishing- description, and that whereever 
 such principles as Mr. Brougham's ohtrude them- 
 selves, however sanctified by talent, however palliated 
 by professions, however qualified or intended to ope- 
 rate, they may meet with the same hearty reproba- 
 tion, and be considered, as there is every reason to 
 apprehend they will turn out, as the seeds and rudi- 
 ments of rebellion scattered up and down the country' 
 under the pernicious notions of reform. Men of 
 this political stamp and character bid fair to become 
 the deepest stains upon her national glory that Eng- 
 land was ever blasted with. With, I am willing 
 to believe and hope, a wild uprightness in their 
 views, an undefined' respect for the' constitution in 
 their parliamentary discussions and their popular 
 appeals, I can yet only behold them in the wretched 
 effects of such appeals, congregating their living 
 energies with th departed ashes of the Ca3sars and 
 Syllas of Rome ; the Dantor.s and Roberspieres, and 
 Marats of France. That Mr. Brougham was thrown 
 out for Westmorland will give satisfaction to every 
 man who does not think with Mr. Coke of Norfolk. 
 There is, in fact, but one satisfaction we could have 
 had above it, to have found that he had been thrown 
 out for every place, and that even the rotten boroughs, 
 as a heavy loathsome drug, had cast him up again. 
 That he was " defeated on ground, where, if he had 
 been believed, victory was in his grasp e'er the battle 
 began/'* will s'urprize those only who are strangers 
 to the spirit of his politics and ignorant of the weak- 
 ness of his presumption. 
 
 Before I bid adieu to this Jocal department of my 
 subject, I must beg leave, gentlemen, to advert to a 
 peculiar species of delusive effrontery on the part of 
 our county and city members, and which they have 
 
 * Star, July 6, 1818.
 
 88 
 
 played off upon their adherents with the utmost cool- 
 ness imaginable, and with, probably, no mean portion 
 of success. Some assurance it certainly requires to 
 go boldly into our neighbour's field and reap the grain 
 which his care and industry have produced, and fairly 
 carry it home and house it in our own barns. But 
 in the shuttling politics of this wayward world there is 
 no getting on, it seems, without assurance, as a cer- 
 tain travelling apostle of Norfolk Whig liberty, more 
 efficacious than precept, frequently teaches us by his 
 example. The regent's speech on the 10th of June, 
 1818, was read, at the time, by every true patriot 
 with the full glow of satisfaction, but with contempt 
 for the sagacious prophesiers of our ruin. " 1 cannot 
 (says he) refrain from adverting to the important 
 change which has occurred in the situation of this 
 country and of Europe, since I first met you in this 
 place. At that period the dominion of the common 
 enemy had been so widely extended over the conti- 
 nent, that resistance to bis power was by many deemed 
 to be hopeless; and in the extremities of Europe alone 
 was such resistance effectually maintained. By the 
 unexampled exertions which you enabled me to make, 
 in aid of countries nobly contending for indepen- 
 dence, and by the spirit which was kindled in so many 
 nations, the continent was at length delivered from 
 the most galling and oppressive tyranny under which 
 it had ever laboured; and I had the happiness, by the 
 blessing of divine providence, to terminate, in con- 
 junction with his Majesty's allies, the most eventful and 
 sanguinary contest in which Europe had for centuries 
 been engaged, with unparalleled success and glory."* 
 Lord Castlereagh too, on a later occasion, taking a 
 view of the return of the country since peace to a 
 state of renewed comfort and prosperity, "contrasted 
 
 * Norwich Mercury, June 13, 1818.
 
 89 
 
 the time when he last visited that country with the 
 present. The country, he observed,, was then in the 
 utmost distress, owing to the recurrence from a state 
 of war to that of peace, for we had been engaged in 
 a contest for our very existence as a nation ; and in 
 that contest Great Britain had triumphed, and crowned 
 herself with glory. Providence, however, then, in 
 order to check our exultation, had visited us with a 
 most inclement season : he recollected, in a particular 
 manner, that the wheat on a farm which was occu- 
 pied by his father was covered with snow. Now the 
 contrast was most grateful, and it was his hope that 
 prosperity would again visit the land. Nothing could 
 exceed the beautiful verdure of that happy country, 
 and he could assure them it was not confined to that 
 country, for it was general. Arts and manufactures 
 also were again flourishing, and all was one active 
 scene of employment."* And do our Whig op- 
 ponents, whose counsels would have ruined every 
 thing, and whose principles would have turned us into 
 little short of a nest of jacobins, do they now come 
 forward and claim, as the effect of those counsels, this 
 improved state of things, produced by acting firmly in 
 direct opposition to them ? Do they come forward 
 and inlist on their own side, and endeavour to turn to 
 their own advantage, what the spirit, and wisdom, 
 and virtue of administration so ably wrought for us ? 
 Do they dare, in the very face of the sun, to steal our 
 arms to fight their own ignominious battles with, and 
 for their preservation from ruin evince their gratitude 
 by stinging their deliverers to the quick ? 
 
 Yes upon the foundations an upright and most 
 efficient administration have laid, they erect their bat- 
 tery against us. To the very wealth of the nation 
 did Mr. William Smith, in his late contest, impute
 
 90 
 
 the increased independence of the city of Norwich. 
 And who created this wealth, and how has it been at- 
 tained ? Under the auspices of that very govern- 
 ment which Mr. Smith's partizans were daily de- 
 nouncing. Ministers had told us to be patient and we 
 should see England revive. They told us this at the 
 close of a glorious but gigantic war that had torn our 
 sinews, and shattered our nerves, and worn down our 
 strength, but nothing abated of our spirit. They told 
 us this, freeholders, when the Whig leaders of our 
 own and of other counties, followed by the whole rab- 
 ble rout of Jacobin orators and inflamers throughout 
 the kingdom, were moving heaven and earth to make 
 the people believe that their destruction was sure and 
 sealed, that all was over with us, and that nothing was 
 left, as our last resource, but an immediate extirpa- 
 tion of the ministry and a thorough reformation of 
 the state ; in other words, I presume, adapting these 
 stale phrases to the new vocabulary of their new col- 
 leagues a revolution ! But, lo ! and behold, accord- 
 ing to their own concessions, how is this dark prophe- 
 cy fulfilled ? About this city recollect, gentlemen, 
 it is not my Lord Castlereagh, but Mr. William 
 Smith, the dissenting member for Norwich, that is 
 speaking : " About this city he saw new houses 
 building, he heard looms working, and it was not now, 
 who should obtain employment, but where to obtain 
 workmen; the demand for manufactures was im- 
 mense, and it arose either from the wants of the public 
 at home or from foreign trade; this it was which 
 would diffuse that universal content, and peace, and 
 ease, which commerce invariably bestows."* 
 
 Let us take another example of blue and white 
 Whig consistency. " Mr. Coke then came forward 
 and said, that he was glad to observe the alteration 
 
 Norwich Mercury, June 20, 1818.
 
 91 
 
 which had taken place in the sentiments of the peo- 
 ple. It was, he maintained, a change produced by 
 the return of peace, which had had the effect of 
 placing the middling classes of society in comparative 
 independence, and thereby enabling them to -think 
 and act for themselves." * And who, gentlemen, 
 who effected this peace which had thus wrought 
 so great and good a change ? The counsels of 
 Mr. Coke and his party? the conduct of Mr. Coke 
 and his party ? the constitutional principles of Mr. 
 Coke and his party ? So far from it, that had that 
 conduct, those counsels and those principles been 
 closely followed up and firmly acted upon by a bins 
 and white majority throughout the kingdom, the Bri- 
 tish house of parliament might by this have been turned 
 into a republican assembly, and the established church, 
 shorn of its revenues, liberalized into a dissenting 
 conventicle. Almost out of their own mouths we 
 condemn them. What could the most determined 
 supporters of a court party say more in defence of the 
 measures of the late administration than is implied in 
 such confessions ? What could we say more in con- 
 demnation of their duplicity, their treachery, their 
 principles, leading year after year to discontent and 
 disobedience, and now that peace with its concomi- 
 tant blessings were restored, representing these bless- 
 ings as the effects of their rancorous and disgraceful 
 opposition ? Yes, freeholders, carefully treasure up 
 in your recollection that these were the men, who, in 
 the midst of an exterminating war, when life, and 
 liberty, and honour, and all were at stake, clamoured 
 for peace and obstructed, by their opposition, every 
 measure for the security of the empire these were 
 the men, who, when a glorious peace was accom- 
 plished, amid such a solemnity of success as the 
 
 * Norfolk Chronicle, June 20, 1818. 
 N 2
 
 92 
 
 annals of no nation in the records of time ever before 
 boasted, reverted, like idiots, to the losses we had sus- 
 tained, and by their seditious harrangues inflamed ths 
 populace to madness, even in the full blaze of our na- 
 tional glory and now these are the men, that, when 
 in consequence of this peace, England was beginning 
 to breathe, and commerce to revive, and agriculture 
 to stand on a firmer basis, and plenty once more to 
 feed the hungry and to clothe the naked these are 
 the men, that, with dauntless unabashed brow, stand 
 up and address you from their popular thrones, and 
 on the very foundation of this returning national 
 prosperity which they never, in one instance, aided, 
 but uniformly by their dark, dull, heavy denuncia- 
 tions thwarted and opposed on, I repeat, this sacred 
 ground, tainted by their very touch, have they the 
 temerity to erect their claims to public favour and 
 gratitude ! All that has been accomplished for the 
 salvation of the country, not only without any succour 
 from them, but in the very teeth of their insults, their 
 calumnies, their obstructions, do they take as it were 
 to themselves, and, such is their reliance upon popu- 
 lar credulity, impudently build upon as if positively 
 us if they had accomplished it ! ! 1 forbear to reflect 
 further upon such gross violations of political honesty, 
 such evanescent instruments of political popularity. I 
 leave the business in good hands 1 leave it to your 
 reflection, certain that it will find its way to your 
 contempt. 
 
 Having thus at length, gentlemen, " escaped the 
 Stygian flood," and got out of the stench and smoke 
 of the city doings and the county contrivances, let us 
 enter upon a larger field, where we can throw off the 
 shackles of local politics, and expand our thoughts in 
 investigations of a more general nature, of a finer 
 fioul, and of a fuller and more efficient tendency. It 
 is not indeed, as you will perceive, for any present 
 purpose, for the sake of serving any peculiar isolated
 
 93 
 
 interest, that I address this Letter to you ; for 1 have 
 suffered time to elapse and all such interest, in a good 
 measure, to die away. But I have written it on the 
 ground that the country is in great and imminent 
 danger, and that this danger ariseth from the pre- 
 vailing temper and spirit of the times ; and that even 
 with every man of property and respectability on the 
 *ide of government, instead of being, as they many 
 of them are, unnaturally leagued against it, it would 
 be sufficiently alarming and difficult to contend with. 
 You will consider these reflections then as a guide, 
 I hope not a presumptions one, and persuasive to 
 your future conduct, and not to your's only, but to 
 the conduct of every freeholder throughout Ihe king- 
 dom ; that looking upon " the signs of the times/' 
 and the conjunction of circumstances, and the syste- 
 matic arrangement of every instrument, moral and 
 political, for the bringing about the grand crisis of 
 ce radical reform/' (the modern unalarming term for 
 revolution) you may hold fast to those principles, civil 
 and religious, which have made us the great nation 
 we are, and oppose with firmness eveiy endeavour to 
 seduce you from your duty, whatever may be the 
 rank, the character, or the professions of sucli 
 seducers. 
 
 In the first place then, and as preparatory to all 
 discussion as well as to all steady exertion, let us, 
 gentlemen, entertain right notions of what are called 
 politics and party spirit, and how far we may specu- 
 latively engage in the study of the one, and suffer 
 ourselves with credit to be practically influenced by 
 the other. Politics must not be scorned. It is a 
 high and holy part of Ethics, and, in its influential 
 consequences, is second only to religion. Much of 
 man's moral conduct will be found to depend on tlis 
 form of government under which he lives, on the 
 laws he is called upon to observe, on the duties he is 
 expected to fulfil, and on the rights he is permitted to
 
 enjoy. It is not politics, but what people are accus- 
 tomed to call by that staled name, what they under- 
 stand by the term in its idle or abused sense, and 
 what designing- men take in any sense that serves 
 their selfish, or ambitious, or unjust purposes, that is 
 worthless as a science. But the true policy of a state, 
 what is it but a knowledge and adaptation of the best 
 laws for its government, and of the best means for 
 the perfection and conservation of those laws; what 
 is it but an endeavour to assimilate the power and 
 dignity of the sovereign with the security and liberty 
 of the subject, and so to assimilate them, that any 
 prerogative stretched too far on the one side shall be 
 met and modified by some opposing right on the 
 other ; any right too vehemently insisted upon by the 
 people, shall find its best refutation in some corres- 
 pondent and balancing duty. What, in short, is 
 politics stript of its vulgar trappings, its servile de- 
 basements, but an illustration and enforcement of the 
 welfare, springing from the virtue of man in all his 
 capacities, civil, social, and domestic ? 
 
 Evil disposed men, and men of weak and vain 
 tempers, have long been politicians in the worst 
 sense of the word; and why, therefore, may not 
 the honest and thinking part of community be such 
 in the sounder and better sense. He who asks 
 what a plain man, or a freeholder attached to his 
 King- and country, has to do with politics, may 
 as well ask what he has to do with good govern- 
 ment, good laws, proper wholesome submission, vir- 
 tuous discipline, all of which tend to the advance- 
 ment of Christianity ; are built upon the foundation 
 of Christianity; do add to the credit and strength 
 of Christianity ; and, by rendering man obedient to 
 " the powers that be" at present, best fit him for 
 communion with the powers that shall be hereafter. 
 Jf we feel it any portion of our duty to enforce the 
 obligations of religion, (particularly of " that pure
 
 95 
 
 and reformed part of it to which we belong,") it is 
 surely no less a duty to imbibe and recommend such 
 political principles as are adapted to second and sanc- 
 tion such obligations. It is no condemnation of pub- 
 Rc freedom to restrain brutal minds from the attack of 
 all that ought to be held sacred. It is no slur on pub- 
 lic liberty to draw the sword against those who, by 
 their gross abuse of it, turn all liberty into licentious- 
 ness. It is no injury to pure religion or sound philo- 
 sophy to expose the seceders from the one, the puny, 
 mischievous pretenders to the other, nor any discredit 
 to those who stand up for church and state, to subvert, 
 to denounce, to drive into utter darkness and despair 
 the demagogues who, under fair names but foul de- 
 meanours, are moving heaven and earth to tear church 
 and state, government, civil and ecclesiastical, to 
 pieces. The discredit is, with all things in commo- 
 tion about us, to stand lost, unreflecting, indecisive. 
 
 For my own part, though some of my clerical bre- 
 thren,from motives perfectly conscienciousand honour- 
 able, may herein, perhaps, not be altogether disposed 
 to accord with me, I take no shame from engaging in 
 the political discussions of the day, when 1 recollect 
 the awful grounds of our contest, and the duty of every 
 man, both in the house of God and out of it, to " re- 
 frain not to speak when there is occasion to do good.'* 
 A clergyman in this respect stands, I conceive, in the 
 same situation with other men. He must do what he 
 can for his religion, for his church, and for that upon 
 which both are so immediately dependant, bis govern- 
 ment. From the pulpit, indeed, he can politically do 
 little or nothing. He is restrained ; he is awed. 
 "The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth 
 keep silence before him." In the church, only the 
 voice of God must be heard, only the mediation of his 
 divine son must be recollected ; only the breathings of 
 his divine spirit must be felt. In the church we must 
 shut out the world ; the vain and empty contentious
 
 96 
 
 and ambitions of the world. All tliat makes up the 
 pomp and pride of life must be suffered to go out in 
 darkness, and a new world must be opened to our in- 
 spection, a new and awful world, where other forms of 
 being await us, and unknown solemnities rush upon 
 our souls. There, discarding the evanescent con- 
 cerns of mortality, we are to have "our conversation 
 in heaven," and, with holier feelings and higher pow- 
 ers in prospect, to forget the feelings and renounce 
 the powers by which we are influenced upon earth. 
 It is from the press alone that we may speak of what 
 appertaineth merely to " the smoke and stir of this dim 
 spot;" nor, through this medium, will it contaminate 
 either our profession, or the more spiritual grounds of 
 it, to vindicate from the aspersions of unjust men the 
 established government under which we live, and the 
 established church whose more immediate ministers 
 we are. I am sure none are more interested in the 
 preservation of a monarchical government than the 
 clergy of the church of England. They are the first 
 men that would suffer by its demolition, and ought, 
 therefore, to be the first to move in its support, and 
 the last that under any, the most deplorable, reverses 
 should consent to forsake it. There was a time, gen- 
 tlemen, and in our own recollection, when the clergy 
 took up arms, other than spiritual, in defence of the 
 establishment in church and slate. It was an awful 
 time, and there might be no need of a precedent for 
 such a conduct. Let us however be consistent. -May 
 we not take up the pen as well as the sword? May 
 we not take it up when so m&ny are employing 
 it, and with such acrimony, against us ? May a 
 clergyman be a soldier, a farmer, a magistrate, but on 
 the subject of politics, that pledge of our orthodox re- 
 ligion, that bond of our common happiness, that secu- 
 rity of our social complicated interests, not dare to ut- 
 ter a syllabic ? What arguments, I beseech you, can 
 tUey alledge against the latter avocation, which may
 
 97 
 
 not, with redoubled force., be brought against the 
 former ? 
 
 I rest in the conclusion then that politics, with the 
 clergy as well as with the laity., is a lawful study, that 
 it is a useful study, that it is a righteous, study,, being 
 a perpetual exercise of our judgment,, a perpetual in- 
 centive to our virtues, and a perpetual call upon our 
 duties. An almost perfect impeccability, indeed., runs 
 through every vein of it. On the subject of party 
 spirit (to borrow a known term) it may be necessary 
 to treat somewhat more at large, both because it is of 
 a less defined nature, and because common opinion, 
 ignorantly taken up, hath stamped it with meaner 
 compliances and grosser culpabilities. Party spirit, 
 as I understand and feel it, has, in fact, nothing at all 
 to do with party. It is the warm adoption and de- 
 fence of what we deem the most efficacious measures, 
 accordant with the purest principles of our constitu* 
 tron, for the general good of the community. Such 
 party spirit is never to be despised, because it buildeth 
 upon public welfare, and evermore directs its exertions 
 through staid and legal channels. It is a spirit not 
 attached to any particular set of men, to any particu- 
 lar set ot measures, to any particular executive admi- 
 wistration, but coalescing with such men and such 
 measures as evidently intend, and are directed to the 
 good of the whole. We call it indeed (for we must 
 have a name for every thing,) party spirit; but it is 
 the spirit of virtue seeking and holding communion 
 with congenial tempers, and gathering up from every 
 quarter, from the nobles of the land to the little free- 
 holder and the poor cottager, materials for the public 
 weal and securities for the public tranquillity. 
 
 Without, however, too much generalizing this 
 idea, and to bring the business home to our bosoms 
 at once, the party spirit, gentlemen, to which I would 
 urge you on the present occasion, is a spirit strongly 
 attached to our venerable institutions in church and
 
 9S 
 
 state, strongly opposed to the miscreant spirit which 
 is abroad and seeking their destruction. Be not 
 ashamed ; such party spirit is now your glory. Be 
 not alarmed ; such party spirit is now your refuge. 
 Enter the field boldly against your desperate adversa- 
 ries, or never enter it at all. If you come into the 
 present contests of the times without party feeling, 
 and a high party feeling too, you come into an 
 aceldama prepared to lay your neck upon the next 
 block. It is not Sir Frances Burdett, or Mr. 1 lob- 
 house, or the Whigs of Westminster, or the Whigs 
 of Norfolk, miserable and mischievous as are their 
 politics, that are the primary objects of alarm with 
 thinking minds. It is the hordes of radical up form- 
 ers, the revolutionary banditti dispersed through every 
 quarter of the kingdom, that are looking up to their 
 conduct to see how far they may dare to go in their 
 own. I care not how fair some of these gentlemen 
 may stand in private estimation ; the fairer the worse, 
 for all their unhappy virtues will be brought into the 
 field against their country. It is this that makes the 
 highest party feeling on our side the highest praise. 
 It is this that makes it our duty, in the spirit of such 
 feeling, to condemn the Whig politics of the present 
 day, as we would execrate those principles that go 
 to the overthrow of all order and happiness in the 
 community. 
 
 Not that we would permit no investigation of the 
 measures of governnrent, no opposition to legislative 
 authority, be it employed in what reprehensible man- 
 ner it may. It is only our adversaries that charge us 
 with such feelings of undue submission, such an ex- 
 emplification of the slavish spirit of party. It was 
 well observed upon a late occasion by my Lord Cas- 
 tlereagh, (a name high in the esteem of honourable 
 minds, though detested by many of the ranker 
 adversaries to whom we are opposed) that " It 
 was only by the honest conflict of opinions that
 
 99 
 
 truth was elicited. It would be impossible for the 
 most enlightened cabinet to govern a nation with- 
 out an honest conflict of opinions." * To this 
 point,, gentlemen, our excellent constitution suffers, 
 nay even enjoins us to go. And here if this con- 
 flict stopped all would be well ; the air would be 
 cleansed, the political atmosphere ventilated, and 
 purer skies and softer gales would succeed. There is 
 a rational liberty for which it behoves every man to 
 contend. There is a wild blasting licentiousness, 
 against which it becomes every man to protest. 
 There is a ministerial corruption to which no man, 
 be he of what party he may, should disgracefully bow. 
 There is a popular corruption to which, if we bow, 
 our disgrace will be our lightest punishment. There 
 is, finally, a mean neutrality, a poor base prostration 
 of judgment, which tells us that a man has no soul, 
 and scarcely any but a set of half formed, hide 
 and seek principles, evermore controlled by the 
 stronger feelings of his interest. Such are not the 
 men for the present moment. Such are not the minds 
 to be imbued with the party spirit we are recommend- 
 ing. They must be suffered to rest in their igno- 
 miny, in that cool, calculating, heartless indifference 
 which is content to see every thing going wrong and 
 ingloriously to sit still and assist in nothing. Their 
 country will owe them no recollections of fondness 
 whether she stand or fall. 
 
 Few reflecting men can go through life without 
 some suspicion of change in their political sentiments. 
 In a nation like our own, there is, perhaps, hardly the 
 possibility of being, and, at the same time, seeming to 
 be consistent, unless the frame of government, like 
 the sun in the firmament, could travel through the 
 
 * See his Lordship's address to the freeholders of the county of 
 Down, Star, July 8, 1818. 
 
 o 2
 
 100 
 
 revolutions of time without concussion from the sur- 
 rounding elements. There are periods in our history 
 when the prerogatives of the crown needed curtail- 
 ment. There are other periods when the aristocracy 
 was gaining too much upon us, and others, again, 
 when the democratical part of the constitution was 
 bearing down with a force too preponderating the ba- 
 lance of power opposed against it. A wise man, un- 
 der the operation of these varying emergencies, will 
 see his wisdom in a skilful appreciation of contend- 
 ing difficulties, and in acting accordingly. He will be 
 there with his best counsels and his steadiest defence, 
 where, for the time, the greatest danger lies brooding, 
 and will despise the idle imputation of a change in 
 sentiment, because at one period he discerns the ne- 
 cessity of supporting the prerogative, at another of 
 standing up for rank and property, and afterwards, 
 when monarchy and aristocracy are making fearful 
 head in the state, for altering his political attitude and 
 vindicating in the same spirit, though circumstances 
 have changed the course of its direction, the constitu- 
 tional rights, the constitutional privileges, the con- 
 stitutional freedom and happiness of the people. In 
 all these situations he is the same man, the same poli- 
 tical character, and with a soul composed of the very 
 same political stuff. 
 
 When Mr. Burke, in the year 1772, defended the 
 dissenters from our establishment, and, at a more 
 advanced period, ceased to defend them, will any one 
 say, considering' the great and awful changes in the 
 times, and the changes almost as great in the demands 
 of the dissenters themselves, that he could fairly 
 be charged with inconsistency ? When again Mr. 
 Burke, Mr. Windharn, and other eminent men with- 
 drew from the Whig club in the beginning of live 
 year 1793, on a resolution passed by that chib ap- 
 proving of Mr. Fox's sentiments on the French revo- 
 lution, and indirectly censuring the opinions of those
 
 101 
 
 who differed with that great man, did any one, save 
 the members of that association, attach blame to their 
 conduct ? No they believed the Whig club (with 
 too much reason as it afterwards appeared,) to be 
 entertaining- opinions inconsistent with the honour 
 and security of the kingdom; and, thougli with much 
 veneration for many individuals among them, instantly 
 erased their names from the society. They ceased 
 to be members because they had no desire to cease 
 to be Englishmen. 
 
 Let us not then, gentlemen, be deterred at the 
 imputation of forsaking our party, or of changing our 
 principles. It is no dishonour, but a proof of large 
 virtue to reconsider our course of conduct when we 
 feel or fear that we are going wrong, and when dan- 
 gerous times may induce us to aid the government 
 we had been in the habit of opposing. When the 
 French revolution burst forth, almost all parties, it 
 will be recollected, rallied round the throne, and we 
 now see that it was well for them and their country 
 that they were wise in time. Besides, if the men 
 with whom we are acting are attempting to mislead 
 us, our only chance of escape is to discard such guides 
 and to look out for better. We may be canvassing- 
 speculative points of government with the best inten- 
 tions ; we may be contemplating the measures of 
 government with the purest views to their correction 
 and amendment, but these traitorous colleagues may 
 be all the while holding communion with the darkest 
 thoughts, conceiving the darkest plans, giving life to 
 the darkest attempts, and triumphing secretly in the 
 success of every measure that has for its implied, 
 though not perhaps its avowed object, the destruction 
 both of our civil and of our religious establishment. 
 Now though great minds have, generally speaking-, 
 yio animosity beyond the line of their political dis- 
 sentions, and as proofs of which we may adduce the 
 reciprocal ties of good will between Lord North and
 
 Mr. Burke, even in the height of a most virulent 
 opposition during the American war, and the suavity 
 of Mr. Fox's temper, which formed him for coalescence 
 with his illustrious rivai, Mr. Pitt, whenever coales- 
 cence came within the verge of possibility ; yet where 
 men are decidedly revolutionists in their sentiments, 
 their language, their conduct, the very same duty 
 that, under other circumstances, would urge us to a 
 reciprocation of civilities, must here abstract us from 
 every shadow of friendly regard. When such cha- 
 racters intrude themselves, whether with or without a 
 mask, they must engage every man's eye and no 
 man's heart. Where the destruction of their coun- 
 try, thinly veiled under the varied pretences of reform, 
 is the first thing such mischievous spirits seek, the 
 reprobation of so infamous a conduct should be the 
 first, and last, and only thing we must permit our- 
 selves to feel. 
 
 Party spirit, gentlemen, is virtuous, and will con- 
 tinue virtuous so long as it makes the public good its 
 undcviating object, amid the deviations therefrom by 
 which it is surrounded. But there is a party spirit too 
 that is adverse to all connection with virtue, one cer- 
 tain mark of which is a uniform, systematic opposi- 
 tion to the measures of government, be they of what 
 nature or tendency they may. Opposition to the 
 measures of administration is not to be lightly censured. 
 A well governed and well grounded opposition we are 
 rather disposed to consecrate. It is formed for the 
 production of the tranquillity and happiness of the 
 realm, it is persisted in for their improvement, and 
 when that improvement is secured, it receives its 
 crown and reward. But a vexatious opposition is of 
 a quite different complexion, springing from no prin- 
 ciple of good, nor intended to insure any such prin- 
 ciple. It sets out with loose, narrow, shameful views. 
 Kvery step it takes is taken at theexpence of political 
 integrity. Every vote it gives it gives to the annoy-
 
 103 
 
 ance of such integrity. Its motives, its means, and its 
 ends are all of the same dye, and parts of the same 
 woof. Who suffers, or \vhat suffers,, or to what ex- 
 tent the suffering may reach, is neither calculated 
 upon nor cared for. These men, if their strength 
 could become their law, would remove the everlasting 
 mountains, that the world might behold them perched 
 on the top of their own contemptible molehills. 
 Nothing is too exorbitant for the ambition of their lit- 
 tle souls, nor can any national evil be considered as 
 alarming that has a tendency to undermine a reigning 
 ministry, or to advance their own frequently ridicu- 
 lous pretensions. 
 
 Men of this character, who seek the establishment 
 of their private views, and will, if possible, carry it 
 through all checks of honour or conscience, are very 
 likely to attempt to do that which reason will con- 
 vince them they can never do. There is no giving 
 up the mind in political warfares to an uniform pur- 
 suit, to a uniform set of opinions, to a uniform rev i le- 
 nient or vindication of ministerial measures. Justice 
 knows nothing of such a monstrous procedure, virtue 
 abhors it. How can an honest man systematically 
 defend all legislative enactments alike? How can he 
 alike oppose all legislative enactments? What bene- 
 fit is there in so preposterous a conduct what credit? 
 It is a waste of intellect, a sacrifice of reputation, an 
 unpardonable forgetfulness of the naturally infirm, 
 changeable, and suspicious bearings of every human 
 mind, however eminent, when modified or operated 
 upon by circumstances. A strong party spirit indeed, 
 adverse alike to every measure of administration be- 
 cause it originates with administration, is a nuisance, 
 and must involve public affairs in ruin if it be suffered 
 to draw upon the approbation of the country, Strong 
 and headlong party feelings approach to the nature of 
 civil war, relaxing all the bonds of brotherhood, all 
 the ties of courtesy that bind together the various
 
 104 
 
 casts in a well ordered society. Strong party feelings 
 against government, uncalled for by a commensurate 
 necessity, are enmities against the state, are incentives 
 to disobedience, and corrupt the moral impressions of 
 our nature to an alarming degree. They make us 
 wish to find in our adversaries the defects we are 
 anxious to discover in them. They go even further, 
 they unsettle our notions of right and wrong, and ac- 
 tually render us the offenders against virtue which we 
 often only affect to consider them. I do not wish 
 these men the punishment of Marsyas,* though their 
 crimes certainly more than equal his. But I wish 
 them to consider, that the perpetually brooding over 
 disaffection and sedition will have a strong tendency 
 to render them disaffected. The mind may acci- 
 dentally entertain, but does not naturally dwell upon 
 that to which it lias an aversion. There is no con- 
 stant meditation but upon subjects of desire. 
 
 There may be, and frequently are, feelings of 
 honor in individuals of the most violent and factious 
 parties; but these feelings are overpowered by a more 
 deep and congregated interest for the success of their 
 plans, to insure which they disregard every motive 
 that ought to sway men to an equitable conduct, and 
 etfen to a patriotic demeanour. Who will say that 
 the eloquence of Mr. Burke \vas \vell employed, when, 
 in speaking of Ireland in the year 1783, he observed, 
 " why have not the ministry adopted the same measures 
 respecting Ireland as they did respecting America? 
 Why have they not treated Dublin as they treated 
 Boston? Why have they not shut up the port of 
 Dublin, burnt Cork, reduced Wateribrd to ashes? 
 
 * Marsyas dreamt that he had cut Dionysius's throat. (Plu- 
 tarch). Dionysius put him to death, protending that he would 
 never have dreamt of such a thing by night if he had not thought 
 of it by day. Spirit of Laws, vol. I, '27-1.
 
 105 
 
 Why have they not prohibited all popular meetings 
 in that kingdom and destroyed all popular elections? 
 Why have they not altered the usual mode of striking; 
 juries, as was done by the Massachuset's Bay Charter 
 Bill ? Why were not the Dublin rioters brought 
 over to this country to be tried by an English jury? 
 Why were not the principal leaders of the Irish arm- 
 ed associations proscribed, and the whole kingdom de- 
 clared to be in rebellion? The answer was plain and 
 direct; the ministry dare not." * Who does not see 
 that such a speech was inflammatory in all its bear- 
 ings, and that if the Irish were not driven by the 
 force of it to insurrection and rebellion, it was none of 
 Mr, Burke's fault. In fact, that conduct which, in, 
 their domestic transactions, men would not bear to 
 be thought guilty of, they are sometimes well nigh 
 ashamed in their political corporate capacity, to be 
 suspected of not being guilty of, so powerful is virtue 
 in the one case, so miserably helpless and without all 
 weight or influence in the other! 
 
 Carry your recollection, gentlemen, through the 
 various measures of the various administrations in this 
 country, from the period of the revolution down to 
 the present time, and you will find that, let those ad- 
 ministrations have been of a Whig or of a Tory com- 
 plexion let such a man as Fox have stamped upon 
 them the greatness of his soul, or such a minister as 
 Pitt have consecrated or confounded them by the wis- 
 dom of his foresight, there is, at least, (either party 
 being judge) as many of those measures entitled to 
 the common praise as to the common censure, as many 
 as were considered as redounding, at the time, to the 
 good, as to the injury of the nation. But, this allowed 
 as the fact, (and I see not how it can with any impar- 
 tiality be denied) how, I beseech you, freeholders of 
 
 * Annual Register, 1780. 
 P
 
 100 
 
 Norfolk, that we may bring the matter to our own 
 thresholds, how stands the case, in this particular, with 
 our admired Whig member, Mr. Coke? What has 
 been the line of his opposition to government for the 
 many parliaments in which you have returned him as 
 your representative ? Has it been marked, as all strong 
 opposition ought, by a uniform adherence to political 
 virtue and wisdom? Has he, at all times, reasoned 
 with his mind before he consented to commit hisjudg- 
 ment ? Has he considered, that as no administration 
 was ever known to have been uniformly corrupt, so 
 npne, on any principle of justice, any commonly re- 
 ceived maxim of doing unto others as we would be 
 done by, can be uniformly opposed and condemned? 
 Alas ! to his own mind he seems never to have put a 
 single question of the kind ! He seems never even 
 so much as to have pretended to the shadow of moral 
 casuistry upon the measures of government. Right 
 or wrong, wise or foolish, virtuous or divested of all 
 virtue, those measures have alike found him their de- 
 termined adversary. In other words, and referring to 
 the necessary complexion of the acts of every admi- 
 nistration, he has rushed furiously forward and opposed 
 all that wise men would call wise, all that good men 
 would call virtuous, merely because those measures 
 originated with senators who were not, Providence be 
 praised, of the same constitutional cut and cast with 
 himself. And does Mr. Coke call this parliamentary 
 independence? It is a base slavishness to his pas- 
 sions ; a murder of independence, body and soul ; a 
 sacrifice of those honourable feelings that sway him 
 in his domestic relations to his political ambitions, 
 and which, under any other state of society than the 
 present, any less powerful interest than his large land- 
 ed possessions, would, 1 am persuaded, disqualify him 
 for ever sitting in parliament more, or for ever more 
 disgracinga British senate with such unworthy and re- 
 vulsionary feelings. This gentleman has taken an un-
 
 107 
 
 happy course. The fair progress of his life was before 
 him, as his literary friend,, Dr. Rigby, has elegantly 
 intimated, in making "the barren wilderness to smile 
 around." But he hath chosen to build his fame on 
 another foundation ; on a foundation which is gradu- 
 ally mouldering away under the power of time, and 
 which has all the emptiness, without any of the gran- 
 deur, of its dilapidations. 
 
 It is not then, gentlemen, recollect a proper party 
 spirit that we need any of us be ashamed of, neither 
 is it any varying application of that spirit that should 
 give us a moment's uneasiness; for seasons and cir- 
 cumstances may so work as to render sometimes the 
 support, sometimes the rejection of certain measures 
 most eligible. There is not only a foreign, but a do- 
 mestic balance of power that must be preserved, and 
 this can alone be done by observing where the danger 
 at any particular period hinges, and there guarding 
 against it even by a temporary dereliction of our 
 slaider and more permanent feelings. All this while, 
 I humbly conceive, we may preserve not only our po- 
 litical principles, but our political independence. 
 A truly independent mind will not scorn all obli- 
 tion, but will hold fast to the line of its duty amid 
 every versatile bearing of either gratitude or inter- 
 est. It is well to avoid the yoke and burthen of 
 obligation as much and as often as we can; but 
 there ^are many situations we are compulsatorily 
 thrown into where that " yoke is easy," and that " bur- 
 then is light." Let me know my man, and I will 
 soon tell you whether and how far he shall bind me. 
 If he seek to engage me in a good cause and with 
 good and righteous views, I will endure obligation and 
 feel the better, the prouder, the more in dependent for 
 it. It is a sacrifice that I dare to offer in the face of 
 heaven without fearing the frown of heaven Obli- 
 gations conferred upon us by the virtuous only bind 
 us the faster to virtue. Instead of depressing they
 
 108 
 
 elevate the soul ; instead of debasing they ennoble our 
 principles ; instead of lowering us in our own estima- 
 tion, they exalt us in the estimation of those about us. 
 Such obligations find us free, and they leave us so. 
 They require nothing from us but what we were pre- 
 viously disposed to do. They abridge not an atom of 
 our liberty, they merely enlarge the sphere of its ex- 
 ertion. They enable us to work upon a larger scale, 
 -to act in a fairer field, to cope with a fuller force, and 
 to contend with a higher spirit. 
 
 Surely there is something fixedly illiberal in giving 
 credit to no man for either honest or honourable feel- 
 ings, who, in an hour of danger, defends an establish- 
 ed government and administration. It is, I know, 
 difficult (o divest a strong party feeling of occasional 
 undue partiality. But few willingly commit their 
 judgment by lavishing applause at random or disgrace 
 their integrity by a voluntary renunciation of it. In 
 nothing more apparent is the injury resulting from an 
 unprincipled party spirit, than in our lack of honor- 
 able feeling one towards another, where a man's pub- 
 Jic conduct is decidedly unsuspicious. We can afford 
 to let the ages of chivalry, all bright with glozing vir- 
 tues, pass into oblivion ; but we cannot afford to part 
 with this remnant of ancient days, by which men are 
 bound more strongly together than by religious creeds 
 or human laws, and carried further on in a right con- 
 duct than by the persuasions of reward or the threats 
 of punishment. Honour is indeed not integrity, nor 
 ability, nor rank, nor influence, and yet it is very in- 
 timately allied to them all. There is not a brother, 
 or sister of this fair family that is not proud to acknow- 
 ledge her as a relation. Drive honor from the human 
 mind and what becomes of virtue; what becomes of 
 the grace and polish of society which makes 't, in 
 spite of the rudeness of its surroundings, so fascinating 
 to man, and which balances by its blessings the cares 
 that corrode and the slanders that disgust his soul?
 
 109 
 
 Honor will do for some men what nothing cko will. 
 When all calls of duty, all feelings of interest, all ties 
 of blood and friendship, nay even all appeals to con- 
 science have failed to move, honor tracks the heart 
 through her hidings, and brings her home, and ex- 
 horts, rebukes, compels (o a decorous conduct. 
 
 There is I know not what of a sublime betokening 
 in this sacrifice of our baser passions at the shrine of 
 an imaginary, airy being. There is a witching sweet- 
 ness in this ideal substitute for the absence of solid 
 virtues, this silken thread which binds together all the 
 social affections, all the comforts and amities of do- 
 mestic life; and, properly cultivated, there is some- 
 thing too in the mind of man wonderfully wrought ap 
 and prepared for the reception of this noble quality. 
 It is a soil indeed full of weeds, and rank garniture, 
 and unsightly elements, and naturally productive o? 
 " all monstrous, all prodigious things." But a seed i> 
 sown in it, by an invisible hand, that occasionally 
 produces a rich harvest, and converts the wilderness 
 into fine pastures, and still waters, and awful solitudes 
 that tell us God has been here and mixing his spirit 
 with the vile and loathsome clay. We can do without 
 any thing, gentlemen, better than without honourable 
 feelings one towards another, while such feelings can 
 with any degree of propriety be cherished. When 
 that spell is broken every prospect is involved in 
 darkness, and every fellow creature's virtue lies useless, 
 or dead at our feet. 
 
 Though, however, under the circumstances I have 
 mentioned, obligation may well be endured and in- 
 dependency maintained, essentially different is it whe-i 
 weak or vicious men endeavour to bind, or bribe uy 
 to weak or vicious purposes. Then it is that we ought 
 to solder up every avenue of the soul, and to spurn 
 even the remotest notion of obligation. When men 
 in power have so little regard to principle as to 
 seek to engage intelligent minds in the defence of
 
 110 
 
 conduct which is alarmed at investigation ; when they 
 would seduce, us into a vindication of measures which 
 they know will not bear the light, and which the 
 world knows, by woeful experience, to be productive 
 only of corruption and unhappiness; when the exe- 
 cutive government of a country is so given up to a 
 tyrannical and oppressive [rule, that nothing is done 
 for the common good, but all for the purpose of mi- 
 nistering to their own delinquent views to accept of 
 favours from such men, and under such circumstances, 
 is indeed to relinquish integrity and to set a corrupt 
 soul to sale at once. But, barring the almost total 
 impossibility of such an administration obtaining 
 under such a government and constitution as ours, 
 how rarely do we meet with those who have any res- 
 pect for themselves, or who are in possession of the 
 least portion of it from their fellow citizens, that 
 would thus condescend to serve such a government. 
 There have indeed been bad statesmen, and bad 
 statesmen will naturally elicit bad measures, and bad 
 measures will call for unprincipled espousers ; but 
 surely only those who are lost to shame, and dead to 
 censure, and hardened against all reproach, will con- 
 sent to sink into the last stage of debasement, by 
 playing into such hands, and fighting the battles of 
 such enemies of all virtue, public and private, as these. 
 I would have it carefully then remembered, gentle- 
 men, that there may be, and very often is, dependence 
 without debasement, because there very often is a 
 necessity for engaging strenuous support in the de- 
 fence of useful, though perhaps unpopular measures. 
 Mr. Coke may boast of his independence as loudly as 
 he pleases, but in the better, nobler sense of the word, 
 Mr. Coke knows little of it, if it consist, as I am in- 
 clined io think it does, in the uniform exercise of a 
 sound r.r.d discriminating-judgment. For whose judg- 
 ment, in every case of vital importance, less sound 
 and discriminating than his? Whose judgment, even
 
 in the most petty political occurrences, oftener carried 
 away by his passions ? What more little, more frothy, 
 more removed from that experience which a wise and 
 broad reflection affords to every thinking man, than 
 Mr. Coke's assertion, " had I placed myself under 
 the cloak of ministers, from that moment I should 
 have felt myself bound to adhere to them."* To ad- 
 here to them, so long as they adhered to what he 
 conceived to be constitutional and beneficial ; con- 
 stitutional according to the established laws and regu- 
 lations of the realm, and beneficial, not only to that 
 part of the county of Norfolk devoted to his imme- 
 diate interest, but to the whole of the county ; not 
 only to the county, but to the whole of the united 
 empire ; to have done this, would certainly have been 
 both Mr. Coke's duty, (though it has rarely, I doubt, 
 made any part of it,) and every man's duty. But 
 because we approve of their general principles, to sup- 
 pose that we are pledged to every particular measure 
 of government; because we are ready to meet them 
 on subjects of confessedly prime and public impor- 
 tance, to imagine that we must coalesce with them 
 too in every domestic regulation, is to confess the 
 ifarrowness of our researches, and the slender views 
 we have taken of that large and varying polity by 
 which governments, constituted like our own, and 
 eternally subject to the influence of sinister designs, 
 can alone be preserved. It little signifies that Mr. 
 Coke tells us " he was born a Whig, he was educated 
 a Whig, and a Whig he will die,"* if he entertain 
 such pitiful notions as these. If these be his standards 
 of representative perfection, his grounds of parlia- 
 mentary action, he has not fallen, only because he has 
 not been tempted, and, grating as he may feel it to 
 his pride, has to thank the imbecility of his politics 
 for the boasted independence of his conduct. 
 
 * .Norfolk Chronicle, Jne 27, 1818.
 
 113 
 
 It is, Mircly, not to such a man that, on any prin- 
 ciple of party spirit, short of a total surrender of the 
 exorcise of our judgment, we can give either vote or 
 interest. It is not such a man, whatever be his do- 
 mestic virtues, that deserves it. It were well if we 
 would consent to draw the line a little closer between 
 the conduct which our policy may impose, and that 
 which our conscience demands of us. Some sever- 
 ance, if we would not put " bitter for sweet and sweet 
 for hitter/' is necessary between our interest and our 
 inclination. I see not how we can make a promise, 
 or bestow a vote, or exert the smallest portion of in- 
 fluence, where, bona fide, we approve not of the can- 
 didate. No patron ought to ask such a sacrifice of 
 us : no patron ought to be obliged if he did. To vote 
 for the man whose principles we inwardly condemn, is 
 bad every way. It may teach the honest mind to 
 believe that we have ourselves adopted those princi- 
 ples. It may lead the unwary to imagine that little 
 attention is required in the examination ot'a candidate 
 for public favour. It may encourage the self-inter- 
 ested to conclude that, provided we see our" own gain 
 in the selection, to whom, or for what purpose we give 
 our votes is of very inferior consideration. It, in 
 short, goes far to disfranchise us in conscience though 
 not in law ; to overturn all principle, all wisdom in 
 our choice, and all virtue in our election of parliamen- 
 tary representatives. The act is before the public, 
 and the sentiment will be presumptive from the act. 
 In gratitude we are bound to our friends and patrons, 
 and that gratitude shoukl induce us, in the transac- 
 tions of private life, to wish them well, to do them 
 service, and evermore to hold their kindness in re- 
 membrance. But no feelings of gratitude should be 
 suffered so tooperate upon our minds, in the larger con- 
 cerns of the public good, as to influence onr opinions 
 where our hearts are not influenced, and where the 
 due exercise of our judgment might, perhaps., induce
 
 113 
 
 us to a diametrically opposite conduct. We must in 
 such a situation recollect that persuasion is bribery, 
 that over-awing is corruption., and that yielding there- 
 to is debasement. The constitutional exercise of the 
 elective franchise (and shame be upon the head of 
 those who disturb it) must be sanctified by the previ- 
 ous exercise of reason, of honour, and of conscience. 
 
 It is difficult to detect the motives by which even 
 the virtuous themselves are sometimes influenced to 
 bring virtue into discredit. Man hath indeed a soul 
 of celestial origin, and fitted to any purpose commen- 
 surate with its restrained nature. But when it is 
 drawn from its native bearing, it may so waste its 
 powers upon ignoble objects, that the very sons of 
 Brutus shall be found among the abettors of wrong. 
 Every mind is occasionally subject to those vicissitudes 
 of passion and contentions of interest which too often 
 sway us in the narrow concerns of mortality. Yet I 
 know not that any apology can be made for deviations 
 from the usual course of integrity, which are not 
 forced upon us by an over-ruling compulsion, but 
 which, though it may be with some hesitation, we 
 voluntarily embrace, 
 
 What them would'st highly 
 
 That would'st thou holily ; would'st not play false 
 And yet would'st wrongly win.* 
 
 Alas ! the laws of social intercourse, and they are 
 well understood ; the usages, and regulations, and 
 decorous bearings of social life cannot tolerate any 
 such censurable descrepancies ! Elpquence is for- 
 gotten where any thing short of what ought to be its 
 aim is consulted ; and that man is learned in vain 
 who suffers his powers to desert him at the moment 
 when he should call them forth in the support of those 
 duties which his conscience and his country demand 
 of him. 
 
 * Shakespear's Macbeth.
 
 114 
 
 There is, if I may be allowed the term, a political 
 sympathy that is noble, and there is a political sym- 
 pathy that is every thing but noble; a species of 
 liberality for which, in the plain, undisguised vocabu- 
 laries of mental integrity, 1 confess I can find no 
 name. It is Tully's advice,* never to venture upon 
 that which is discreditable for the sake of obliging 
 our friends. I love the principle, and I love it not 
 the less because it is the old, and tried, and venerable 
 principle of ancient and better days. We are all 
 indeed, at times, the children of circumstance; wil- 
 ling to concede, as far as we can, to our private 
 feelings of respect, and sometimes even to surrender 
 our better judgments at the shrine of our friendships. 
 Dulce periculum est; yet thus far we may, perhaps, 
 go, and nobody have the heart to chide us. Thus far 
 we may venture, and the world still give us credit for 
 all that it had been accustomed to credit us for. But 
 when, with a temerity for which it would be difficult 
 to plead a becoming precedent, we hazard our steps 
 beyond this farthest bourn; when we evince an im- 
 plicit faith in the public virtue and wisdom of men 
 less wise, probably, and virtuous than ourselves ; when 
 we subscribe to political doctrines which we care not 
 perhaps to examine, and cleave to political conduct 
 which we venture not too nicely to analyze ; when we 
 openly, and with no checks from private feeling, or the 
 regards due to popular decorum, tell the astonished 
 world, that on even/ future occasion we shall give 
 our vote, not according to our own deliberate choice, 
 our own serious conviction after due investigation of 
 the fitness of the candidate for so solemn and impor- 
 tant a trust, but no matter of what motly descrip- 
 tion he may eventually turn out to the candidate 
 who is approved by our long-tried and honourable 
 
 * De Officus. Lib. 2. c. 20.
 
 115 
 
 patron* we then deservedly sink in the public esti- 
 mate, and can only find security from exposure where 
 either we are not noticed, or are not worth notice. 
 Our patron may be gratified with so rich and rare a 
 tribute, but surely ' our graver business" must " frown 
 at this levity." It is the sacrifice of intellect at the 
 shrine of presumption, reflecting 1 no spark of honour 
 upon the dumb idol, but overwhelmning his literary 
 worshipper with piteous and unintermixed ignominy. 
 
 Who but must laugh, if such a man there be? 
 
 Who would not weep, if Atticus were he!t 
 
 From such a party feeling, gentlemen, warped from 
 its eagle eyed discernment, its naturally righteous 
 bias by endearments of private connection, you will 
 do well, notwithstanding this high authority, very 
 carefully to guard yourselves. From such a passive, 
 despicable, destructive surrender of the exercise of 
 your judgment upon the public principles of the can- 
 didates for your favour, you will refrain at all times, 
 and especially in times of so potent a concernment as 
 the present. J ' 
 
 * It is unnecessary to refer to the record from whence this 
 passage is extracted. . It is, I doubt, but too well known and too 
 largely circulated. 
 
 t Pope's Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. 
 
 ^ Some, however, there are who seem to hare followed this 
 example, destructive of all public virtue, as of necessity it must be. 
 Thus General Fitzroy is reported as declaring, (Bury Post, Sept. 
 3, 1H17) that " his love and aflfectiqn for Mr. Coke, and the con- 
 fidence he placed in his principles, would always induce him to 
 give his vote for any friend he (Mr. Coke) might support." Thus 
 too the Hon. D. Kinnaird observed at the late Westminster elec- 
 tion, (Courier, Feb. 13, 1819) "that he would vote for Mr. 
 iiobhouse, for he was a radical and intellible reformer ; and such 
 was his entire confidence in his principles, that he would unhesi- 
 tatingly subscribe his name to the principles upon which he knew 
 he would act." These gentlemen certainly here go great lengths, 
 yet if madam Fame be not an errant baggage, (which I am inclined 
 to believe, from the consummate impudence of her report, she is)
 
 , 116 
 
 With these preliminary observations upon the 
 nature of party spirit, I proceed, gentlemen, to con- 
 sider the evil we are exposed to, and the danger of 
 our constitution, civil and ecclesiastic, from the pre- 
 vailing spirit of the times, a spirit flowing from many 
 various sources, and inundating the empire, from one 
 end to the other, with principles of the most disor- 
 ganizing complexion. All I dare aim at in such an 
 investigation is the hope that I may be able to call 
 forth your reflection to go along with me, to assist 
 and to strengthen me; for very inadequate must 
 otherwise be my endeavours, in so desultory a tract 
 of thought, to possess you of the extent, or even 
 perhaps of the existence of our common danger. 
 Situated,, however, as we are amid much solemnity of 
 expectation, it is needful to rouse your feelings to a 
 prospect at once gloomy and imminent, and in which 
 you, and the pledges of your affection, may be des- 
 tined to possess so intimate a concern. Yet I will 
 not answer for it that any representations shall have 
 their proper saving effects. Perhaps the general 
 judgment may be averse to imputations of disaffec- 
 tion where it had only contemplated prospects of 
 patriotism. No man can do more for the public 
 
 we can produce you in Norfolk an example of this nature, in a high 
 official law character, still more remarkable, who, it is spid, did 
 actually vote for the Whigs of Norwich one day, and for the Tories 
 of Yarmouth the next ! The fact admitted, how can we account 
 for so. unblushing an exercise of the elective franchise? " You 
 are always to bear in mind (says this learned justicer) that a 
 chief magistrate^ as such, should be of no party." (Norfolk 
 Chronicle, June 20, 1818.) But does it therefore follow that, by- 
 way of calling <juits, the steward of the corporation may be of both? 
 I will forbear to dwell on a circumstance which I feel confident 
 cannot have its foundation in truth ; for I see not how human 
 nature, debased to its very lowest, vilest condition, can, politically 
 speaking, produce a rnind so thoroughly contemptible. The re- 
 port is current. Mr. Alderson has now the opportunity of con* 
 jradicting it.
 
 117 
 
 good than the public voice and inclination will suffer 
 him to do. No investigations can benefit society to 
 a larger extent than society desires, or deserves to 
 be benefitted by. When the popular feeling takes a 
 turn that is not consistent with, or friendly to virtue, 
 virtue must be content patiently to lay herself out for 
 sacrifice. There are times when men will not bear 
 those reflections on their conduct and those restric- 
 tions on their passions that are necessary to the well- 
 being 1 of themselves and of their fellow citizens. In 
 such a case they must be left to feel their punishment, 
 where, by a more chastised demeanour, they might 
 have found their comfort. Still, however, the voice 
 of truth and reason ought to be heard. The unhappy 
 portraiture ought to be drawn, though few may be 
 found to acknowledge the fidelity of the features. 
 
 The present deplorable state of tbe public mind in 
 this kingdom, to which indeed, mediately, many things 
 conduce, may yet be contemplated as springing more 
 immediately from the late French revolution, that 
 revolution (to which other inferior causes contri- 
 buted) from the philosophical infidelity of tlie higher 
 classes among them, together with a systematic defa- 
 mation of religion, ripened and brought into action 
 by the American rebellion, and that rebellion from 
 the principles of dissent introduced into our colonies 
 by those who seceded from our establishment soon 
 after the reformation, aided by the rancour of dis- 
 senting and Whig opposition and the popular sedi- 
 tions, at a period when an insolent demagogue was 
 permitted to insult, almost at his pleasure, every con- 
 stituted authority, and when an administration, nei- 
 ther wanting in wisdom nor virtue, was yet alarmed 
 enough weakly to bow before as foul and loathsome a 
 storm as ever poisoned the air, or blasted the honour 
 of the British Empire. These, gentlemen, seem to 
 me among the primitive sources, the dark and defiled 
 channels to which, if we would fairly trace the rcvo-
 
 118 
 
 lutionary spirit as it has flowed on, and progressively, 
 in a fuller stream from year to year among us, we 
 shall be constrained to go back. 
 
 At both the reformation and the revolution much 
 was done in this kingdom to insure the sacred regards 
 of posterity ; but at neither of these periods could 
 preparations be made against evils which were not in 
 existence, nor even probably in contemplation. That 
 deadly spirit of dissent which now, like a demoniac, 
 possesses us, had not appeared at the former of these 
 junctures, nor those seditious movements, the natural 
 result of religious secession, been disciplined and 
 embodied in the latter. Too soon, however, these 
 factious zealots from the pale of the establishment 
 began their disorganizing operations. Dissent ra- 
 vaged the church and disaffection infected the state. 
 A point of union in the freedom of our constitution, 
 as settled at the revolution, was presently discovered, 
 and there they met there the seceders from the re- 
 ligion met and embraced the hitherto feeble oppo- 
 nents of the government of the realm. They pre- 
 sently knotted themselves into an indissoluble body. 
 They both hung together, and worked together, and 
 brought their common energies and their common 
 hostilities, and cast them into one daring and per- 
 nicious heap. From a few doubtful principles of 
 religious dissent, they contrived to elicit as many 
 maxims of political sedition, as, at various periods and 
 under various emergencies, they have deemed neces- 
 sary to their purpose; while the democratical corol- 
 laries, from their dissentient propositions, became as 
 numerous as an unsound head, or a corrupt heart 
 might chuseto make them. 
 
 Political parties against government in this coun- 
 try, gentlemen, do certainly owe much of their ran- 
 cour to repeated secessions from the established 
 church. Trace the current of opposition in our 
 commons house of parliament, from the era of the
 
 119 
 
 revolution, prior to which systematic opposition was, 
 I think, but little known, down to the present times, 
 and you will find it increasing in a coarse, overbearing 
 fervour,, as the principles of dissent have increased. 
 These principles have given rise to a spirit of politi- 
 cal and religious investigation, which acknowledges 
 no bounds of either virtue or decorum. Nor is there 
 any telling at what point the contumacious disposi- 
 tion thus generated may stop, as enthusiasm is daily 
 more and more mixing itself with political enmity, 
 and conjointly forming a disorganizing power, which 
 bids fair to be an over- match for the firmest legisla- 
 tive regulations against it. This broad, blasphemous 
 spirit, amalgamating a bitterness of political wi(h a 
 wild wantonness of religious discussion, has at length 
 settled the minds of many into a remorseless op- 
 position to almost every measure which an estab- 
 lished government deems proper for the security of 
 the state. Indeed every thing now done against the 
 state, may be considered as done with the connivance, 
 and under the sanction of those who are adverse to 
 the church. 
 
 I beseech those who have any doubt of the dis- 
 senters mixing themselves with, and being, in fact, at 
 the root of the revolutionary movements at present 
 discernible among us, I beseech them to look to the 
 description of men throughout the kingdom who are 
 most forward in reviling our established church, in 
 censuring the measures of our established govern- 
 ment and administration, and in advocating what 
 they are pleased to call the cause of reform. Of what, 
 gentlemen, is this long and formidable list composed ? 
 Of sectaries of various and untold description of all 
 who have been bred dissenters of all who have left, 
 and who, with pretexts as flimsy as their faith, are 
 leaving their church of those who still continue with 
 us, and call themselves churchmen, evangelical church- 
 men, but who, so far as the doctrines and church
 
 120 
 
 practices of many among them go, arc as errant dis- 
 senters in life and spirit as ever dishonoured the credit 
 of the establishment of lose, and light, and in- 
 different characters who care nothing about either 
 eathedrals, or conventicles, so they can but see the 
 game up and ready for pursuit and (it grieves me 
 to add such men to such a catalogue) of those who 
 representing the clergy as little better than oppressors 
 and pillagers for the revenues which they draw from 
 the landed property of the kingdom, and which the 
 legislature has thought fit to protect them in the pos- 
 session of, think they cannot better serve their own 
 interest than in pleading the cause of ecclesiastical 
 reform, though, so far as respects themselves, they do 
 it with a conviction of the impolicy of such a conduct 
 rivctted on their hearts, and so far as the clergy are 
 concerned, with the injustice of it awfully dispersed 
 throughout every fold of their conscience. . 
 
 Such are, for the more part, the determined and 
 disaffected reformers of the day. Few attached to 
 the church, seriously, sacredly, hereditarily attached 
 to it, have joined this seditious standard. I send those 
 who desire conviction on this subject to their respec- 
 tive neighbourhoods, and they will soon discover that 
 the enemies of our established institutions are, in 
 every place, the sectaries around them, seconded by 
 those who never were churchmen in any thing but 
 appearance, and who would, many of them, long 
 since have cast off the very cloak of their profession, if 
 feelings of interest, constantly uppermost in all their 
 plans of radical reform, had not compelled them still 
 to consent to wear it. The doctrines advocated by 
 these men, formed upon the principles of dissent, and 
 so well calculated for stirring up a seditious spirit 
 among the people, can indeed only be gathered from 
 their practical effect, for other evidence of them than 
 this they rarely chuse to afford us. They withhold 
 what every man has a right to claim at their hand*.
 
 121 
 
 They permit no questions nor return any answers. 
 We must gather up their character as we can, and 
 judge of their conduct as we please. This is the true 
 tone of insolent and designing; minds. " Subborn 
 atdacity (as Dr. Johnson has remarked,) is the last 
 refuge of guilt." 
 
 Gentlemen, if we wish to preserve our constitution 
 in church and state, (the key stone of our private pa- 
 trimonies and possessions) we cannot too narrowly 
 watch this growing phalanx of opposition. The dis- 
 senting interest is a power that never sleeps, and that 
 requires, on our part, a searching, bold, determined 
 spirit, that will neither sleep norfaint, nor bedrugged or 
 possetted into that stupid repose which must inevitably 
 end in ruin. Daring in its nature, alarming in its 
 principles, and, beyond conception, dreadful in the 
 operation of such principles, the dissenting interest 
 is even now fostering disaffection throughout the 
 kingdom by its religious doctrines, its political spirit, 
 its insolent demands, its crafty subterfuges, its plau- 
 sible appeals to national liberality, its inlisting in its 
 own service all the honest simplicity and all the bad 
 ability that forsake ours. The dissenters are canvass- 
 ing the people for their votes for revolution, under 
 colour of the bible, hypocritically held out for their 
 salvation. These saintly apostles of the French 
 school, never losing sight of their unholy purposes, 
 represent the church as the people's enemy, the state 
 as their enemy, the existing administration and every 
 good and wholesome enactment thereof as their ene- 
 my. Indisposition towards a monarchical govern- 
 ment marks all their proceeds. The very catechism, 
 of their conventicles is a manual of disaffection tow- 
 ards their rulers. Give us heresies in the church, and 
 feuds in the state shall never be far behind. Dissent 
 in religion is dissent in every thing appertaining, how- 
 ever remotely, thereunto. The principles of dissent v 
 never did, or can accord with the feelings attached to 
 
 R
 
 122 
 
 n monarchical government. They are all of repub- 
 lican growth. All tend to the nourishing of a repub- 
 lican spirit, and all verge towards that point where 
 ecclesiastical establishments are despised, and civil 
 establishments, by any ties whatever attached to them, 
 despised also. 
 
 The dissenters are a veering, variable race. Ow- 
 nia transformant sese in miracula rerum ; but none 
 of their protean shapes are other than alarming. 
 They are now casting off their spiritual incumbrances, 
 and becoming, more and more, a political body in the 
 state, and such a political body as the state will, by 
 and bye, be unable to awe by any restraints, to ap- 
 pease by any promises, or to conciliate by any con- 
 cessions. Look, gentlemen, to our history from the 
 reformation, and you will perceive that there is no 
 pretext for separation from the established church in 
 which these men will not be found to have offended. 
 When they made our rites and ceremonies their 
 stalking horse it was decidedly separating for mere 
 trifles. When to these ceremonies they joined the 
 censure of our discipline, it was still a very insufficient 
 plea for the mischief that dissent spread around it. 
 Whey they enlarged the borders of their spiritual re- 
 bellion, and made their objections to the weightier 
 matters of our doctrines and to the manner in which 
 we conceived of the mysteries of Christianity, they 
 sacriiied all sobriety and humility of mind, and in- 
 dulged in prophane explanations, which they were 
 certain could not be admitted by us, and which, with 
 honest intentions of reconcilement with that church 
 from whose pale they had departed, ought never to 
 have been admitted by themselves. After exhausting 
 every tenet of a religious, their principal objections 
 are now of a political nature, and the reprobation of 
 rites, and ceremonies, and discipline, and doctrine has 
 given way to the denunciation, open and unqualified, 
 of test and corporation acts. The dissenting interest,
 
 123 
 
 in short, managed by the artful among them in every 
 period, (for I would be far from implicating the staid 
 and conscientious members of dissent in these unna- 
 tural conspiracies) has been swelling and rolling it- 
 self out from time to time, and using every season of 
 difficulty and public commotion to the furtherance of 
 its views, and filching here a little and there a little, 
 and petitioning much, and complaining much, and 
 threatening much, and receiving much ; until at 
 length, feeling its ground and perceiving how the de- 
 luded world is gone after it, it at once reposeth in its 
 strength and its impudence, and petitions nothing and 
 demands every thing. 
 
 O shame upon us, to be paying danegelt in such 
 days, and to such apostate freebooters as these ! 
 What, are we to be constantly changing our legisla- 
 tive regulations because dissent is constantly changing 
 its form and figure, and pleases to ask one boon to 
 day, and, immediately chopping it down, to stand 
 with its mouth wide open for another to-morrow ? 
 Because Dr. Priestley believed the church of England 
 to be corrupt, branch and root, branch and root is the 
 church of England to be exterminated ? Because 
 Dr. Price took it into his head to teach from the 
 pulpit (a doctrine as rebellious in spirit as it was false 
 in fact,) that the people of England, by virtue of their 
 constitution, were empowered to chuse their own 
 governors, to turn them adrift at their pleasure, and 
 to cobble up, after their own fashion, a new govern- 
 ment for themselves, are we to dissolve the whole 
 frame of our political society, and, in conformity 
 with this prolific pandect of disorganization, to begin 
 the work afresh ? Because Mr. Belsham, as super- 
 ficial in his casuistry, as he is contemptible in his 
 historical researches, takes upon him to assures u 
 that " the sacred unalterable rights of conscience 
 extend to the adoption, the profession., and the peace-
 
 124 
 
 able promulgation of religious principles,"* are we 
 therefore to allow to a Socinian conscience all tin* 
 play, which, under such an easily abused and mis- 
 chievous deffinition, it might be disposed to indulge 
 in ? I am sure, if we did, our legislative folly would 
 far exceed their spiritual knavery, ample and consum- 
 mate as it is. No though we have suffered these 
 men, a circumstance never enough to be regretted, to 
 overleap by their insolence and subtlety some of our 
 strongest barriers, yet at last surely government will 
 be persuaded to make a stand. Even Mr. Belsham 
 himself allows that our toleration act " goes as far as 
 the great body of non-conformists of that day wished 
 it to go."* And if it had never gone further, the 
 church would have been benefited, the state would 
 have been benefited, our legislators would have shewed 
 themselves wiser, and our dissenters better men. 
 
 In the beginning of the present reign, secession 
 from the church had produced a strong alienation of 
 the popular mind from the state. It had gathered up 
 in one inflammable heap all the bad and daring spirits 
 of the realm, and the rebellion that broke out in 
 America was the signal for its explosion. This re- 
 bellion in fact was, in a great measure, the offspring 
 of dissent out of the kingdom, co-operating with dis- 
 sent in the kingdom. At an early period those un- 
 ruly members who were a thorn in the church's side 
 so long as they remained in their own country, passed 
 over to the continent, and there, imbibing with a full 
 soul the Geneva confessions, at once spiritually placing 
 them out of the pale of all ordinances, human or 
 divine, added fuel to their ungovernable tempers. 
 The descendants of these men were among the first 
 settlers in our American colonies, thither transplant- 
 ing, with themselves and their families, their rancour 
 
 Rights of Conscience asserted and defined.
 
 against the established laws and institutions of the 
 mother country. The puritans of England therefore 
 soon became the revolutionists of America ; and in 
 all the proceeding's of those unhappy times we shall 
 find them foremost in urging their brethren to shake 
 off the British yoke, and to free themselves from what 
 was represented as an intolerable slavery. 
 
 Nor were these disloyal endeavours on their part 
 met by any deficiency of a similar spirit on the part 
 of their seceding brethren here. For never was pub- 
 lic faction at a more deplorable height in England 
 than during this period. Never was a dissenter found 
 idle at his post, but leagued with the wayward politics 
 of the day, his lo triumphe was joyfully added to the 
 tumultuous movements and insults of the multitude. 
 The party spirit then prevalent, made up of Whigs 
 and dissenters, as the most violent and dauntless par- 
 ties in this country usually are, carefully nourished 
 every resistance to the measures of government in 
 America. It was their virulent abuse of ministers at 
 home that palsied all exertion for the public good 
 abroad. It was the deadly animosity against both 
 church and state of those out of power, with the view 
 of extirpating those in power, that aided our rebel 
 subjects more than their strongest armies. Every 
 thing was held up to insult, before any thing could 
 be executed. The opposition throughout to the 
 American war which our county member so idly 
 vaunts upon, was a dastardly, a dishonourable, a dis- 
 honest opposition; an opposition to men and not to 
 measures. The contest stamped indeed an indelible 
 rancour on the minds of nearly all who, on that occa- 
 sion, set themselves to harrass ministers. I think, in 
 certain instances, it almost went to the length of trea- 
 son ; and whoever will read and compare the most 
 impartial records of that period of our history, will 
 perhaps feel disposed to rest in the conclusion that it 
 was the seditious Whig and dissenting spirit of the
 
 126 
 
 English nation, aided by the pernicious eloquence of 
 certain of their senatorial leaders, that set free the 
 American revolutionists, and made them finally tri- 
 umphant in the cause of republican disobedience. 
 
 And while all this was transacting, the very men 
 who thus sacrificed their country to their own narrow 
 party views, and their inordinate notions of poli- 
 tical and religious freedom, were most bitter in their 
 reproaches of that administration whose plans they 
 were constantly thwarting, and in their denunciations 
 of the motives of such as dared to differ from them in 
 opinion. Even Mr. Burke, it is to be lamented, lent 
 his large powers to this unjustifiable procedure. All 
 the philosophy, all the morality, all the commanding 
 eloquence of that great statesman, were well nigh ship- 
 wrecked "on this shoal and tide of time," and the 
 mind intended by providence as the future saviour of 
 empires, shrivelled up its feelings of honour at this 
 distracted period, and became the mere cat's paw of a 
 most debased and disorderly party. Ministers in the 
 mean while acted as, I fear, they may be disposed but 
 too similarly to act now. They saw the danger, but 
 discerned neither the dignity nor the policy of their 
 situation. They conceded to the popular mind all 
 which they should have religiously withheld. They 
 countenanced, because they did not dare to awe the 
 most bold and seditious language, the most vile and 
 seditious movements, and suffered a celebrated and 
 insolent demagogue, under the revered name of liber- 
 ty, to offer the grossest violation to its spirit, and to 
 introduce licentiousness, and corruption, and disobe- 
 dience, and disloyalty, and almost at his pleasure, 
 among every class of the community. Contingent 
 rircu instances are sometimes unhappy circumstances. 
 My lx>rd North was just such a minister ns Wilkes 
 and hispartizans,and the partizans of America wanted. 
 His firmness, at such a crisis, might have disarmed 
 the rancour of opposition, and saved the nation much
 
 127 
 
 loss and shame ; but his vaccilating policy, his irreso- 
 lute temper, his want of confidence in his own abili- 
 ties, and his consequent half measures compleated 
 what their seditious oratory and turbulent movements 
 had begun. As soon, therefore, as the American war 
 broke out, the heart and soul of the rebellion were 
 found lodged in the inflammatory means used to diffuse 
 discontent and to provoke disloyalty in the mother 
 country. 
 
 Still at no period, gentlemen, as Mr. Coke and his 
 coadjutors would have us believe, was the contest 
 with America unpopular with the nation at large, 
 though every measure of government was cruelly 
 thwarted and every slander thrown upon the constitu- 
 tional abettors of it. The eloquence of the first men 
 in parliament against it could not efface the impres- 
 sion of its justice from the minds of the people of 
 England. The resistance of America bore, in fact, 
 the brand of rebellion upon its front, and sostrongty 
 bore it, that not even our own national disasters and 
 disgraces could give it any other figure. The people 
 were well aware to. whom and to what such disasters 
 were attributable, and they less censured them as 
 proofs of ministerial weakness, than as demonstrations 
 of dissenting rancour, and of wild, headlong", ungo- 
 vernable Whig opposition. The great Lord Chat- 
 ham never contemplated the independence of Ame- 
 rica but with feelings of deep regret; and even those 
 who most contributed by their powerful eloquence to 
 that result, yet acknowledged the result as unhappy. 
 The first opposition for talents which this country 
 perhaps ever produced, when they saw the fruits of 
 their own devices, and looked on the desolation they 
 had caused, if they repented them not of the evil, had, 
 at least, remorse enough to conceal their unholy tri- 
 umph ; and I have no doubt but that there were mo 
 ments when the success of their machinations stun^ 
 them to the very quick. With no sentiments of ap-
 
 probation does it appear that even Louis the XVlth. 
 himself acknowledged the independence of these un- 
 ruly subjects, whom yet, by a fatal policy, he was per- 
 suaded to assist. Alas ! when the Princes of the 
 blood and the French nobility were so eager to pro- 
 claim what they called the cause of freedom in Ame- 
 rica, they foresaw not the bloody apparitions that, 
 issuing from that charnel house of rebellion, were 
 soon to appear upon their own stage, and that but the 
 pause of a moment was allowed e'er " their country 
 should be disolate and their cities burnt with fire!" 
 
 Some indeed there are who consider America, 
 thus set free, as a sort of " promised land," a general 
 blessing to the various nations of the earth. For my 
 part, gentlemen, I can only contemplate her as a 
 frightful excrescence upon the face of the civilized 
 world. When she has purged and purified herself, 
 she may, if she can hold together, (which I much 
 doubt) become a great nation. At present she has 
 nothing great about her but her baseness. She is 
 the Roman state in her infancy, making, as far as she 
 is able, " her strength her law," and, like the com- 
 mon enemy of mankind, roaming up and down seek- 
 ing whom she may devour. I see nothing in America 
 at present, to remove from us the recollection of her 
 past detestable conduct. Her destination in the scale 
 of nations is known to that power alone "whose 
 tli rone is for ever and ever." She may at some dis- 
 tant period, under such a guidance as that of her 
 modem scourge, General Andrew Jackson, become to 
 the effeminate nations of Europe, the Huns and 
 Guths that brought about the decadency of Rome. She 
 may over-run our provinces, demolish our temples, 
 change our institutions, plow up the foundations of 
 our religion and laws, and on the scite erect her con- 
 venticles of democratical devotion for "Jews, Turks, 
 Infidels, and Heretics;" where "Christ, the author 
 and finisher of our faith/' shall, " finding no faith,"
 
 129 
 
 for ever be obliterated from human recollection. In 
 fact, there is no saying 1 what this same America may 
 turn out in the lapse of ages, or how far that unprin- 
 cipled oligarchy may extend her growing plagues 
 into futurity, which, at present, exhibits the young 
 serpents crawling out of their beds of venom in every 
 direction where the heavens may smile, or the air 
 freshly blow upon them.* 
 
 These remarks, gentlemen, may not be found to 
 be entirely irrelevant. The independence of Ame- 
 rica, in whatever light it may be viewed, can never 
 be viewed in an indifferent light, because it can never 
 be separated from the still greater changes that fol- 
 Jowed. Sober people have certainly considered it 
 with varying opinions. As for the mere demagogues 
 of the day, all changes are the same to them pro- 
 vided they can but profit by the unhappiness of the 
 times. To the dissenting interest the result of the 
 American rebellion was full, defecated satisfaction. 
 Rejoicing in this work of destruction, and transported 
 with the prospect of future revolutionary conse- 
 quences, that interest was again speedily upon the 
 alert, and, like the "last enemy that shall be de- 
 itroyed," 
 
 Grinn'd horrible a ghastly smile, to hear 
 
 His famine should be filled, and blest his maw 
 
 Destin'd to that good hour, t 
 
 That good hour, alas! was not far off! Those future 
 levolutionary consequences were soon to follow ! 
 
 * It is impossible America should preserve peace with the 
 nations of Europe. Constituted and situated as she is, it is im- 
 possible she should wish to preserve it. Her political concerns are 
 beginning to be transacted upon a large scale. Upon an infamous 
 scale I need not add, for they have never been transacted upon any 
 other. Her nefarious jobbings at present surprize us. They will 
 by and bye alarm us. 
 
 f Paradise Lost. Book 2.
 
 The seal of American independence was hardly cold 
 e'er the revolution of France burst forth, and the 
 subjugation of nearly half the civilized world was an 
 almost immediate consequence. Not only indeed 
 did the success of the American rebellion hasten the 
 French revolution ; it did more ; it formed and 
 moulded that revolution, it gave to it its own dis- 
 located limbs, its loathsome features, its coarse linea- 
 ments, its dark, unnatural, unrelenting heart, and 
 contributed very essentially to make it what it was, 
 the aceldama of modern Christendom. It chalked 
 out its line of procedure with the republican pencil. 
 It imparted a republican spirit to all its operations ; 
 and that spirit, working in a field where religion had 
 previously been debased and nearly driven out, de- 
 generated into crime without virtue, and cruelty with- 
 out remorse. Under the fair guidance of this elder 
 sister of disloyalty, the guillotine presently became 
 the standing legislature of the land, and, as was easy 
 to be foreseen, the red cap of the indivisible republic 
 ended in the iron crown of the dictatorial usurper. 
 
 I wish it, gentlemen, to be firmly impressed upon 
 your minds, and evermore to make a solemn part of 
 your political creed, that there are but too many 
 reasons to bear us out in the persuasion that we are 
 at this moment, in this kingdom, travelling hard upon 
 the high road of the French revolution. It is, I allow, 
 a great thing to say ; but, for any efficient purpose, 
 we cannot say less, and we had better be taxed, if the 
 event should so prove, for want of judgment, than 
 where the safety of an empire is concerned, for hack 
 of reasonable apprehension, or timely preparation 
 and prevention. At all events, whatever may be the 
 scorn, whatever the aspersions that await me, that 
 opinion of the tendency of the present bad spirit 
 among- us I do most seriously entertain, and do make 
 it the foundation of the principal drift of this Letter. 
 If, from a consideration of the points in which our
 
 adversaries seem to coalesce, there be no symptoms of 
 a national revolution among us, the main grounds of 
 my Address I acknowledge to be taken away, and the 
 reader has only to finish his perusal at this point and 
 to close the book. 
 
 The causes of the French revolution it will not be 
 necessary to advert to ; they are in recent recollec- 
 tion. We must not, however, be forward to believe 
 that it was the sins of the old government of France 
 which brought about this dreadful catastrophe. The 
 old government of France certainly had sins, but 
 none that might not have been corrected by milder 
 remedies. The sins of the philosophers, as they 
 vrere called, (those pests in every nation) had a much 
 greater share in this revolution. They were crying 
 sins (hat had been defiling God and man for years, 
 and that, in their impious pages, had appeared in a 
 blacker cast and done more mischief than all the 
 hypocrisy of their church and all the despotism of 
 their throne. Into a hot and seditious soil we must 
 needs be careful what seed is thrown. All Ihe dregs 
 of the French revolution have long been settling on 
 English lees, and such is the affinity of the mixture 
 that hardly any alchymy can detect the transmuta*- 
 tion. Gentlemen, it is to this revolution, brought on. . 
 partly by our own political and religious attaintures, 
 that we must look for our greatest danger. It has 
 already spent its rage in its .native bed, but driving 
 over the civilized world in a night of blackness and 
 darkness, its disorganizing remains are found but too 
 plentifully cast on every shore, and more particularly 
 upon our own. Certainly at the commencement of 
 the eera we are speaking of, much approbation was 
 expressed in this country by all who wished well to 
 regulated freedom, by many who hoped that the new 
 French constitution would settle down into something 
 like our own, and by more who believed that civil 
 and religious freedom in England would eventually 
 
 s 2
 
 132 
 
 be consolidated by this apparent triumph of it in 
 France. It was thought that that kingdom, ever rest- 
 less and aspiring under a regal despotism, would, on 
 this recovery of its rights and liberties, learn to vene- 
 rate and even seek (o improve the rights and liberties 
 of other states ; and that the epoch of political reform 
 was at length arrived when what was termed the 
 balance of power would no longer be necessary, but 
 that every nation might from henceforth afford to 
 rest upon its arms, and not constrained to " learn war 
 any more/' might " beat its swords into plough- 
 shares and its spears into pruning hooks." 
 
 The first ebullitions in favour of liberty, especially 
 under despotic governments, we can forgive we can 
 forgive the overflowings of the heart, and suffer it to 
 take somewhat from the cool deductions of the judg- 
 ment. As the past had been viewed in the darkest 
 colours, it was natural to expect that the future would 
 be clothed in the sweetest drapery. This feeling was 
 full, animated, extensive but, " brief as the lightning 
 in the colly'd night," it was the feeling of the moment 
 and died almost in its very birth. Like a beautiful 
 corpse exposed to the air, we touched it and it became 
 dust ! The French revolution presently spread itself 
 over the earth in all its republican deformity. It 
 filled its unhappy country with domestic horrors. It 
 threw its gigantic limbs abroad, and subjugated to its 
 fraternal embrace every state that was not potent, or 
 politic, or fortunate enough to resist the progress of 
 its strength and villainy. It settled within its bowels 
 a huge centre of anarchy, from whence war rushed 
 forth and almost depopulated the kingdoms of Europe 
 exposed to its exterminating principles. For upon 
 the track of those principles rebellion in every nation 
 followed, and blood and murder followed upon re- 
 bellion, and the land was darkened, and the heart 
 hardened, and morality changing its very body and 
 nature, crime became virtuous and virtue criminal.
 
 Tacitus, rn his description of the calamitous con- 
 dition of Rome after the death of Viteliius, has dra* a 
 a picture for posterity, which posterity will do \vell to 
 recollect, and to recollect that this horrible painting- is 
 from the life. " Interfecto Vitellio, bellum magis 
 disierat, quam pax cceperat. Armati per Urbeni 
 victor es, implacabili odio, victos consectabantur. 
 plence cadibusvite, cruenta fora templaque, passim 
 trucidatis, ut quemque sors obtulerat. Ac mox au- 
 gescente licentia, scrtitari, ac protrahere ahditos : 
 si qucm procerum habitu fy juventa prospexerant, 
 obtruncare, nulio militum, aut populi discrimine. 
 Quce stevitia recentibus odiis sanguine explebatur, 
 dein verterat in avaritiam. nihil usquam secretum 
 autclausum sinebant, Vitellianos occultari simulan- 
 tes. Initium id perfringcndarum domuum ; vel si 
 resisteretur, caussa cadis, nee deer at egentissimus 
 quisque ex plebe. $g pessimi servitiorum prodere 
 ultro dites dominos : alii ab amicis monsirabantur. 
 Ubique lamenta, conclamationes, fy jortuna cap- 
 t& urbis, adeo ut Othoniani Vitellianique militis 
 invidiosa antea petulantia desideraretur. Duces 
 parlium accendendo civili bello acres, temperandcs 
 victories impares. quippe in turbas 8$ discordias 
 pessimo cuique plurima vis : pax et quies bonis 
 artibus indigent."* Has not the historian here 
 darted his discerning eye through future remote ages, 
 and placed before us, with all the glow of prophecy, 
 the enormities of the late French revolution ? Has 
 he not here, gentlemen, forewarned us what will be 
 the course of an English revolution ? Has he not 
 here drawn the character of party spirit and civil war, 
 begun, fomented, and continued by the aspirings of 
 bad men, to a guilty greatness, in every age and 
 under every form of government ? Mark the won- 
 
 * Hht. Lib. 4. c. 1.
 
 134 
 
 derful and horrible process. See every popular cha- 
 racter able to inflame, and none to curb fhe popular 
 fury. See the pretences, idle and numerous as the 
 stars that people heaven, for pillage, and plunder, 
 and base assassination of friends and foes ; and how 
 the revolutionary spirit draws all within its vortex, all 
 to assist in its violations that bear the marks of guilt, 
 and all that are innocent (o suffer by those violations. 
 The history of Tacitus is the history of the human 
 mind,, in every period of the world, drawn out in the 
 deformities of our common human nature, and the 
 accuracy of the relation conceded, the benefit of it is 
 incalculable. 
 
 Gentlemen, the French revolution, which has been 
 the common bane, ought now to be the common 
 security of the Christian world. Its dreadful example 
 ought so to operate in every state, as to make the 
 people bear many things from their lawful rulers 
 .sooner than risk a change ; from rulers that temper 
 mercy with justice, to bear every thing. 1 know there 
 are those among us, neither few in number nor 'de- 
 fective in influence, who do not love to hear either of 
 the French revolution or of the times of the Protec- 
 torate ; who would, if possible, exterminate the re- 
 collection of them from English bosoms, and who 
 scout every idea of comparison between the two 
 countries or the two periods. Doubtless they would 
 find their benefit in blanketing 1 up these horrors, but 
 we shall find ours in the very opposite conduct; in 
 bringing this train of congregating miseries full be- 
 fore the sight; in pressing its recollection upon our 
 hearts, and in comparing, step by step, and line by 
 line, and doctrine by doctrine, the notions entertained 
 at that period in France with those no less corrupting 
 and dreadful ones now entertained in England. This 
 will make for our good, will deliver us from evil, will 
 be perhaps the only thing that can deliver us from it. 
 A curse 'to that unhappy country, timely contem-
 
 135 
 
 plated, and prudently digested, and firmly counter- 
 acted, the French revolution may be a blessing- and 
 salvation to ours Banish it from our remembrance 1 
 O never, while we have the power of thought or the 
 love of life! Duty, polity, hope, desire, despair, 
 every good, every mournful passion of our nature 
 rises up at once, and implores us never to forget the 
 French revolution, and its first philosophical movers, 
 and its low secondary instruments, and its mischievous 
 propagators, and its miserable consequences, till we 
 are content to forget that we have " houses, and 
 lands, and flocks, and herds, and wives, and children," 
 which we have no wish to see butchered and buried,, 
 and confiscated before our eyes, and every earthly thing- 
 taken from us before we are taken from the world. 
 
 France is, indeed, the last country on the face of 
 the globe that we can afford to banish from recollec- 
 tion. France will never be an object of indifference 
 with England. All her fashions and follies we im- 
 port, all her infidelities we imbibe, all her demora- 
 lizing feelings we adopt. The licentiousness of France 
 is the licentiousness of England and of the world at 
 large ; the box of Pandora that sends forth her pol- 
 lutions and leaves only a cold and dying hope at the 
 bottom. Like "a. city set on an hill/' she "cannot 
 be hid.'* Her example is calculated to influence, 
 and does in fact influence, every nation with which 
 she comes in contact, and she is so situated as to 
 come in contact with all. What France has been, 
 we know; what she may be we have yet to learn. 
 Unblemished manners she was never celebrated for, 
 and since her revolution, those manners have, I fear, 
 become more morose and revoking without being 
 more virtuous.* They who visit her shores may, in 
 
 * Justice obliges me to add, that I have heard this opinion con- 
 tradicted by a gentleman who visited France last summer, and to 
 whose judgment, upon erery occasion, I am disposed, with all who
 
 13G 
 
 many instances, probably, be neither over loyal, nor 
 over religious. They who return from them but too 
 frequently treat loyalty and religion with contempt. 
 Gibbon, in his memoirs, remarks, that his Swiss edu- 
 cation had made him forget that he was an English- 
 man. It is well if the air of Paris do not,, by and bye, 
 produce a similar malady among its British visitors. 
 We are, morally speaking, mainly in her hands. In 
 whatever light therefore we view this regenerated 
 kingdom, it must be a mighty object with us. 
 
 1 say not that, step by step, we are at this moment 
 travelling up her dark, revolutionary line of blood. 
 Thank God ! we have no Regent Duke of Orleans 
 to coiTupt the public mind no Prime Minister Du- 
 bois to alarm the public feeling no Diderots and 
 Voltaires to unsolemnize, with any thing like an equal 
 ability, the public devotion no Court Mistresses to 
 discourage and insult the public virtue. We have 
 neither the frivolity, the dissipation, nor, though we 
 are making large strides towards it, the disgusting 
 infidelity of our Gallic neighbours. We are not yet 
 
 have the pleasure of his acquaintance, to pay the utmost deference. 
 Much, however, as I respect, he must pardon me, in tins instance, 
 for not yielding to his authority ; because iu that case I must set 
 aside, though not more valuable, yet far more large and full and. 
 numerous authority opposed against him. I must also set aside 
 much of the evidence for the increased immorality of French man- 
 ners, which is daily offering itself to us as matter of fact and ex- 
 perience, and must cast scorn upon many publications, and very 
 reputable ones, which represent these manners in, I think, nearly 
 the light in which I am compelled to view them. Besides, I am 
 not sure whether the gentleman I allude to, and his accomplished 
 lady, (who, accompanying him in his tour, has imbibed and thereby 
 strengthened his sentiments) can be admitted as proper evidence 
 iu a case of this kind. They who, in so material a degree, make 
 in every company the amiableness they insist upon : "who by con- 
 versational powers of no ordinary cast draw towards them a po- 
 lished, which by a native purity and correctness of conduct they 
 convert into a virtuous society, are not, perhaps, the best qualified 
 for forming an impartial e^imate of the prevailing character of any 
 people.
 
 137 
 
 arrived at this apex of indifference and guilt. We 
 have still, even among the least patriotic among* us, 
 some faint remains of British virtue left; some warm 
 and early recollections of what an Englishman once 
 was ; some smothered feeling of what he ought to 
 be. We can neither consent to cashier our kings 
 with Dr. Price, nor to demolish our ecclesiastical 
 establishment with Dr. Priestley,, nor to abuse a reign- 
 ing sovereign this moment and insidiously flatter him 
 the next with Mr. Belsham, nor to attaint every mea- 
 sure and every minister who is not of our persuasion 
 with Mr. Coke, nor to bind up the heads of the peo- 
 ple of England and decollate them, like the poppies 
 of Tarquin, atone blow with the ruffians that follow 
 in the train of Sir Frances Burdett and his satellites. 
 We have yet, Providence be praised, qualms of con- 
 science at the adoption of such principles and the 
 commission of such deeds. We think our kings 
 ought only to be cashiered by death. We believe 
 our ecclesiastical establishment will be no nuisance if 
 it be suffered to remain. We hold the possibility of 
 virtuous measures, even in an administration consti* 
 tuted like the present, and the prosperity of the coun- 
 try to be as well consulted by Tory counsels as by 
 Whig principles, and the power of the sword to the 
 full as safe in the hands of the Duke of Wellington 
 as in those of a Wat Tyler or a James Brandreth. 
 Still we have instruments of revolution of no mean 
 potency. We have dissent hourly increasing in 
 political importance and party rancour. We have 
 Whiggism degenerating from all its constitutional 
 chastity, and lending its little pitiful soul to every se- 
 cession from the church and every opposition to the 
 state. We have " radical reformers" calling out for 
 annual parliaments, and universal suffrage, and un- 
 bounded toleration, and the liberty of the press, and 
 eliciting the pernicious doctrine that where there is 
 no representation there ought to be no taxation, 
 
 T
 
 138 
 
 where there is no voice in the making there is no sin 
 in the breaking of the laws We have revolutionists, 
 who, spurred on by these congenial principles and by 
 their own nakedness of property, and dstitution of 
 character, and desperation of circumstances, boldly 
 demand at once the " Rights of Man," and the " Age 
 of Reason," and " Political Justice," and the down- 
 fall of a bigoted church, and the destruction of a cor- 
 rupt government. We have all these seditious sources 
 in reserve, and revolution can never surely feel her- 
 self poor, surrounded and seconded by such allies. 
 
 It is not in the compass of a confined tract like 
 this, and where a variety of matter crowds so upon us, 
 to trace, with any minuteness, the similarity of prin- 
 ciples and practice between our present reformers 
 and the French revolutionists. All I can do is to 
 rough cast my reflections; to draw a melancholy 
 outline, and leave it, gentlemen, to be filled up by 
 your own retired thoughts, before trie hand of time, 
 all covered with blood, shall do it for you. Nor shall 
 I offer this comparison as any other than an indirect 
 one. Recalling the events of the French revolution 
 and the doctrines which preceded and accompanied it, 
 you will be able to draw it yourselves, as we proceed 
 to consider certain great and leading points, the but- 
 tresses of our constitution, wherein it will be found, 
 while our adversaries widely depart from us, how 
 nearly they approach the confines of our Gallic neigh- 
 bours. It is, indeed, hardly possible for any one whe 
 at all contemplates the present disposition of men's 
 minds, to avoid falling in with an opinion of this 
 nature. We need no skill, no divination in a case of 
 this kind. We have but to look back and learn 
 what is coming. We have but to contemplate the 
 prospective through the retrospective. Our appre- 
 hensions for the future will be amply justified by our 
 recollection of the past, and our feelings and experi- 
 ence of the present. With the bead-roll of infidelity
 
 139 
 
 and democracy before us, we need not hesitate to 
 prophesy of fearful changes, nor of the quarter from 
 whence those changes may be expected to proceed. 
 
 It is true our adversaries would stifle all enquiry 
 into their conduct and opinions, and would silence all 
 comparison of them both with those advocated by 
 ourselves at present, by the regicides of England 
 in the time of Cromwell,, and by the revolutionists of 
 France. And this they do (and I know not that they 
 could have taken a shrewder method,) by affecting the 
 same regard for the established institutions of the 
 country with those sincerely attached to them, the 
 same veneration for the church, the same respect for 
 the state, and the same abhorrence of anarchy. And 
 certainly there is some difficulty in drawing the line of 
 loyalty, where all professions are alike, and where the 
 orando pro rege et regno seems to come with an 
 equal sincerity from every lip. Where hereditary 
 monarchy and the royal prerogative are supposed to 
 be equally honoured where freedom of speech and 
 the liberty of the press, and a liberal toleration are 
 cried up alike by all parties, hostile as they may be to 
 each other where so many important matters appear 
 to toe in common, it may well be woncta*ed what dis- 
 agreements should warrant such mutual recriminations 
 and asperities. Are we afraid of the spirit of.whig- 
 gism, and have we any reformers that are not Whigs? 
 Do we object to the friends and admirers of the Bri- 
 tish constitution, and are not all its friends and ad- 
 mirers? Are not my Lord Albemarle and Mr. Coke 
 for the constitution ? Are not Sir Frances Burdett 
 and Mr. Hobhouse for the constitution? Are not 
 Mr. Cobbet, and Mr. Hunt, and Mr. Gale Jones for 
 the constitution ? Nay, is not even Mr. Wooler for 
 the constitution,, and Mr. Waithman, and Mr. Ed- 
 ward Taylor, of Norwich, and Mr. Nathaniel Palmer, 
 of Yarmouth, and the whole spawn of little pitifrl 
 demagogues dispersed throughout the land are they 
 
 T 2
 
 140 
 
 not all, all for the constitution, the blessed glorious 
 constitution founded upon the invaluable principles 
 of ihe revolution of 1688? 
 
 Indeed they are these " wise and good men" that 
 have been so ungraciously traduced are all for the 
 constitution ! Tories, Whigs, Reformers, Demo- 
 crats, Dissenters, Anarchists ; all break from their 
 moorings and gather round this vessel of the state. 
 All bow to this watch word which passeth them safe- 
 ly through " evil report and good report " All use 
 this form of incantation and feel themselves secure. 
 But, gentlemen, we mustjudge of the tree by its fruit. 
 Some of this fruit, and sufficiently unpallatable, I have 
 already glanced at. Pray let us look to the criterions 
 of this generally presumed attachment, and the diffi- 
 culty may not be so great as we imagine in distin- 
 guishing, though they have the assurance to range 
 themselves under the same banners, the enemies of 
 church and state from their friends. We may safe- 
 ly, I think, contend without much fear of disproval, 
 that they who, upon every occasion, attack the mea- 
 sures of a reigning ministry ; they who are constantly 
 making their appeals to the people against the execu- 
 tive govern rtent ; they who see nothing in the ordi- 
 nances of our ecclesiastical establishment, or in the 
 conduct of its clergy to approve, nothing in the legis- 
 lative enactments of those who, for the public good, 
 " have the rule over them" to be grateful for ; they 
 who in times of trouble, and with no proof that the 
 kingdom is in danger from any undue exercise of the 
 royal prerogative, are yet for paring down prerogative 
 as low as possible ; they who, casting back reflection 
 on the current of events in the last twenty or thirty 
 years, declare that every thing which has been done 
 for the country has been done to its degradation and 
 subversion, though the security of that country hath 
 been nobly atchieved and its glory perpetually in- 
 creasing ; they who carry a party spirit to the ex-
 
 141 
 
 tinction of all order and happiness, and care not who 
 or what suffers so their own petty interests do but pre- 
 vail ; they 7 , in short, who in the plenitude of their UIH- 
 lice accuse the best defenders of the common wealth 
 as its bitterest oppressors, the best measures of admi- 
 nistration in support of the national tranquillity as the 
 fullest and deadliest violations thereof, and who pre- 
 tend that ministers are destroying every principle of 
 the constitution as established at the era of the revo- 
 lution, though no period, 1 will venture to say, can. 
 they assign when those principles were more steadily 
 adhered to, and more wisely and firmly supported?. 
 they, I contend, who thus think, thus speak, thus upon 
 all occasions act. are certainly not the men, whatever 
 may be their pretentions, who can have any real es- 
 teem for either king or constitution, church or state. 
 Believe me the true friends of the constitution are 
 never found among the stirrers up of the people; 
 ihey are never found, nndervain and frothy pretexts, 
 ihe advocates for popular clamour. They love to feel 
 themselves strong 1 as a party, but as a pure, orthodox, 
 loyal, and constitutional party, and not a great mass 
 of riot and rottenness, made up of the very off-scoui> 
 ings of the earth, and with every man a creed and 
 confession of his own, under colour of which, as the 
 times serve, he may vote loyalty a duty or a defect, 
 and advocate the doctrine of submission or of resist- 
 ance. The true friends of the constitution will re- 
 collect the grounds of that revolution which fixed the: 
 liberties of England on their present firm footing, and 
 making every part of their conduct tally therewith, 
 will forbear, for slight offences, to disturb them. For 
 slight offences they were not intended to be disturbed. 
 Let our republican Whigs and Dissenters continue to 
 boast of their attachment to the glorious principles ct? 
 the revolution of 1688, which fixed 'the illustrious 
 house of Hanover on the throne of these realms ; but 
 that revolution, gentlemen, would never have seen
 
 142 
 
 the light, nor that house ever probably been called 
 to reig-n over us, if an innate affection for monarchy 
 and an ecclesiastical establishment in the people at 
 large, aided most materially by the high church prin- 
 ciples that obtained among the clergy, had qot thrown 
 their irresistible support into the scale With the 
 democratical and dissenting spirit at that period, the 
 revolution was a mere choice of evils. King William 
 and the house of Hanover they cared little about; 
 they merely dreaded King James and the house of 
 Stewart. As the reformation did not go half far 
 enough for them, so neither did this revolution,, which, 
 however, as a cloak for deeper designs, and as a 
 ticket of admission into good company, they set up 
 with the rest as the political idol of the day. The 
 reformation, to have pleased them, should have estab- 
 lished no religion but of their own sour and Calvi- 
 nistic choice; and while it drove out Popery should 
 have given a death blow too to prelacy The revo- 
 lution should have abolished all penalties and tests ; 
 should, in fact, have subverted, instead ot having re- 
 formed our primitive constitution. But as it did not 
 think proper to go these lengths, or to clasp as deni- 
 zens to its bosom the vipers that had been long 
 sucking at its blood ; and as these dissenters, backed 
 by the whole host of the disaffected and democraticaJ, 
 are ever execrating these restraints, it is pretty evi- 
 dent what they think of "the glorious revolution 
 of 1688," notwithstanding their canonization of its 
 apostles, and their anniversary meetings and mag- 
 nificats. 
 
 Be assured, whatever these vilv advocates of the 
 " Rights of Man " may pretend, it is no narrow frith 
 that separates us and them ; no trifling dispute as to 
 whether a Whig or Tory administration shall govern, 
 whether a Wliig or Tory candidate shall be elected, 
 or whether, after election, this or that member be 
 deemed best to have fulfilled his parliamentary duties
 
 and to have answered the expectations of his consti- 
 tuents. No, gentlemen, the great line that political- 
 ly separates us at this moment is the line that separates 
 light from darkness, loyalty from sedition, the love of 
 our country from the hatred of it, its destruction from 
 its salvation. Our political differences are the differ- 
 ence between obedience and rebellion our political 
 struggle the struggle between life and death ! All that 
 makes up the moral happiness of society and the peace 
 of the realm is engaged on one side, all that tends to 
 the extinguishment of that peace and happiness on the 
 other. These high reformers then let us manfully 
 resist in every stage of their nefarious proceedings, 
 and let us hold them up to public execration wherever 
 they are daring enough to solicit public esteem. 
 
 1 will give you, gentlemen, in few words, an ab~ 
 stract of our varying opinions on certain leading 
 topics of discussion ; and judge from thence how far 
 our reforming adversaries can be said to have, justly 
 speaking, any thing in common with us, and how far 
 they are intitled to any shadow of respect from us. 
 They then, like revolutionary France, depend upon a 
 philosophical infidelity for the furtherance of their 
 views, religious and political; we abhor all philoso- 
 phical infidelity. They, like revolutionary France, 
 are advocating and employing a licentious press, which 
 bids fair to overthrow all notions of moral right or 
 wrong; we are for restraining that press within the 
 sacred bounds of honour, of reason, and of con- 
 science. They, like revolutionary France, assimilate 
 with themselves all parties hostile to the government, 
 and in one full combination make their attack upon 
 the friends of government; we deplore such assimila- 
 tions and hold most of those parties to be anarchical. 
 They, like revolutionary France, undervalue here- 
 ditary succession and the prerogatives of the crown, 
 and press forward reform upon the broad and univer- 
 sal suffrage plan, as giving to them fairer and more
 
 144 
 
 ntlurged prospects of success; we revere such SIK- 
 cession and prerogatives as much as we detest such 
 attempts at reformation. They, like revolutionary 
 France, advocate the majesty of the people and sys* 
 tematically degrade rank, and title, and family ; we, 
 despising the majesty, seek the comfort of the people 
 and uphold the distinctions of rank. Finally, they, 
 like revolutionary France, inflaming and deluding the 
 common mind, labour to introduce, as the winding up 
 of the "radical reform" system, a republican govern- 
 ment ; we, convinced that such a government must 
 be attended with the destruction of the constitution, 
 the loss of lives, and the confiscation bf property, are 
 for warding off that pest of human society, and for 
 preparing the people, with all the powers which God 
 and nature has given them, to oppose such a dread- 
 ful catastrophe. 
 
 These, gentlemen, are some of the great points on 
 which we are most compleatly at issue with our 
 various adversaries ; with those adversaries who affect 
 to venerate the same established religion, the same 
 established constitution and government, and in the 
 same degree, too, as ourselves. These are the im- 
 portant topics to which I now mean to direct your 
 attention, and I will take them, for the sake of in some 
 measure methodizing my reflections, in the order in 
 which they are here set down. 
 
 Let me beg of you then to consider, in the first 
 place, the similitude between the two countries and 
 periods tee are alluding to, in what may be termed 
 their philosophical and literary expose. France 
 had her Voltaires, her Rousseaus, her Diderots, men 
 who way-laid and assassinated virtue wherever they 
 found her. We have our Humes, our Gibbons, and 
 a whole shoal of republican and deistical writers, who 
 butcher Christianity, and " speak evil of dignities" 
 in every page of their productions. The French 
 philosophers have acted their wretched parts, and are
 
 145 
 
 gone to rest ; to such rest as those have reason to ex- 
 pect whose principles desolated the world before their 
 souls departed into darkness. Foremost among- these 
 eternal enemies of the human race, was their cele- 
 brated philosopher Voltaire, had in reverence in his 
 own country, and not without his admirers in this. In- 
 deed, with those among us who are daily clubbing 
 their mites to the infidel treasury towards the subver- 
 sion of society, and exclaiming with the monster of 
 the poet, " ruin, and spoil, and havoc are my gain/' 
 Voltaire is little less than a divinity. Such spirits are 
 cast for contamination, and they go for it to the foun- 
 tain head at once. I know of no writings equal in. 
 perniciousness to the writings of this man. God had 
 given him great abilities, and he laid them out in the 
 service of the devil. His universal learning he made 
 subservient to universal corruption. His wit was 
 employed against virtue and his talents against truth. 
 Where he found religion, and where he found the 
 semblance or abuse of it, he alike aimed his heaviest 
 blows against them. There is a deadly fascination 
 in his works. His eye is cast upon us, and we are 
 gone. Every weak mind he over turns, every vir- 
 tuous mind he disquiets, every bad mind he fixes in 
 everlasting iniquity, All who drink from these poi- 
 soned springs become corrupt, and all whom they 
 corrupt they corrupt to the very core. His poetry, 
 his romances, his history, his philosophy, are alike 
 charged with a sneering, blasphemous, lying spirit; 
 a spirit that is, at this moment, working its way over 
 the world, and " destroying the hopes of man/' and 
 binding him in the eternal sleep of death, and un- 
 solemnizing his prospect of futurity, and throwing at 
 once a thick darkness over all his comforts in this 
 world, and all his soothing, anxious expectations of 
 another and a better. The philosopher of Ferny, 
 h wever, is at length silent in bis grave ; a loathsome 
 and unhallowed spot, which spring may indeed re- 
 
 v
 
 146 
 
 turn to deck, but which no gentle spirit shall ever 
 visit. May God forgive him his violations of truth 
 and virtue ; for man, daily and hourly suffering by 
 their operation, I fear never can 1 
 
 Though I will not assert that they are cast in the* 
 same mould, yet I know not, looking to the tendency 
 and to the practical demoralizing effects of their labours, 
 that the memory of the historian of our own country, 
 or of the still more celebrated historian of the decline 
 and fall of the Roman empire, is entitled to a much 
 deeper respect than that of Voltaire. He who thinks 
 scorn of the doctrines of Christianity, what reverence 
 ran he preserve for established government founded on 
 Christianity as a basis, and allying itself to Christianity 
 as a security ; or how will he impress the duty of "ren- 
 dering unto Cagsar the things that are Caesars/' who 
 impiously witholds from God " the things that are 
 Gods." What can influence such men to obey the 
 magistrate, to support the government, or to yield up 
 any of their inordinate appetites to the public and so- 
 cial good ? He who allows of no crime in blasphe- 
 my, it is fairly to be presumed will feel no guilt in 
 treason ; but ambition, and avarice, and cruelty, and 
 bloodshed will be fair means towards their procuring 
 and enlarging of bad enjoyments in this world, who 
 believe nothing of the certainty, nor feel any thing 
 of the awfnlness of the rewards and punishments of 
 another. For all the celebrity of Hume and Gibbon, 
 a virtuous mind would shudder to be the author of the 
 works of either; works which seem destined, though 
 with perhaps a less universal spread than those of 
 Voltaire, to pollute posterity to the latest generations. 
 Their readers are numerous, and numerous in this 
 kingdom are their disciples ; men who imbibe their 
 malice against Christianity, though with none, or the 
 most contemptible portion, of their intelligence or 
 learning. Yes our host of petty philosophical free- 
 thinkers follow on the track of these their infidel
 
 U7 
 
 i 
 
 leaders, though spotted by the blood of aposdes and 
 disciples. Wherever they congregate, and the herd is 
 largely scattered, they raise their scaffolds and erect 
 their gibbets; and calling from their tombs "the 
 spirits of just men made perfect," with a refined cru- 
 elty they bind them, by their unhallowed incanta- 
 tions, to the stake of martyrdom afresh. 
 
 Indeed for many years past this nation, I am sorry 
 to observe, has been nurtured, as it were, in the very 
 cradle of faction, which may be said both to produce 
 and to be produced by infidelity. We have been se- 
 duced from our infancy to revere the principles of 
 Milton, of Sydney, of Hampden, and of Lock. Lock 
 and Milton, it is true, have rendered themselves im- 
 mortal, but not, I think, by their political writings; 
 nor have those writings, viewing them every way, 
 much perhaps redounded to the benefit of posterity. 
 Milton's principles were decidedly republican ; and as 
 for Mr. Lock's speculations, practically followed up, 
 they would, I fear, go near to bring this country into 
 a state of anarchy. The rudiments of rebellion are 
 very plainly discoverable in the political writings of 
 both these great men. They have sown, though 
 with pure intendment, an unhappy seed in their native 
 soil, and it is well if the land ever get rid of the con- 
 sequent rank vegetation. The common mind cannot 
 act upon abstract principles of virtue; thfl depraved 
 mind will not. He who imbibes Mr. Lock's prin- 
 ciples of government, had need possess Mr. Lock's 
 integrity and ability. But many have, unfortunately, 
 taken them up in this country without the slightest 
 pretensions to either. The result is apparent. They 
 are become very free thinkers, and, by the same pro- 
 cess, very foolish and pernicious thinkers. 
 
 Despotism indeed will not stand against increasing 
 light and knowledge ; it is not desirable that it should. 
 Sound knowledge will ever be found productive of 
 rational liberty, sound philosophy of rational Chris-
 
 H8 
 
 tianity ; these will go hand in hand, and, at CUM v 
 stage, will adorn, and improve,.and secure eacli other. 
 But such superficial notions as pass for current know- 
 ledge, gentlemen, in the present times; such infidel 
 and scrambling principles as are now a-days foistercd 
 upon us and dignified, forsooth, with the title of philo- 
 sophy ; such botched and half-fledged experience that 
 presumptuously fancies it sees further into the eternal 
 nature of things than all the wisdom and virtue of 
 antiquity, will certainly ruin civil liberty and turn her 
 out, like a wild beast, for the sport and madness of 
 the multitude. Indeed what are called your free 
 thinkers in both politics and religion, have always 
 been a plague to society at every period of it ; be- 
 cause, acting on the common ignorant mind, they 
 have seduced those from the paths of duty who have 
 no line of guidance but the example of their superiors. 
 Their own ability, we confess, both in France and in 
 this country, (with very few exceptions) hav-e been of 
 the lowest description ; but operating upon ignited 
 materials, the explosion has been seriously detri- 
 mental. These philosophers of the free-thinking 
 school affect a higher discernment in the political and 
 religious world of mind than their more sober cotem- 
 poraries ; and though their vile, musty arguments 
 have been refuted to very nauseousness, yet do they 
 still vomit them forth amid the gaping multitude, and 
 never daring fairly to meet their adversaries in the 
 field, or to bring their arguments to the test of demon- 
 stration, pass for discerning men only because they 
 have the art to conceal their stupidity. These were 
 the characters that fomented and forwarded the revo- 
 lution in France, and these are the characters that 
 arc now playing the same disorganizing and detest- 
 able game in England. 
 
 And what, gentlemen, arc the doctrines, what the 
 objects these philosophical free-thinkers are driving 
 dif What arc they endeavouring to teach us? From
 
 149 
 
 vvliat oppressions of church or state are they protrud- 
 ing to deliver us, or how are they consulting 1 our 
 comfort? They are teaching us, like their French pro- 
 totypes, to despise our government, and our rnlers, 
 and all that are legally put in authority over us. They 
 are delivering us from the oppression of equal laws 
 and equal liberty; from the persecution of an esta- 
 blished religion as mild, as benevolent, as regardful 
 of the conscientious feelings and opinions of its sece- 
 ding members as it is possible for any religion, invest- 
 ed with an established pre-eminence, to be. They 
 are consulting our happiness by cutting the ties that 
 bind man to his Maker; by persuading us that we 
 must "eat and drink for to-morrow we die ;" that we 
 may take our fill of pleasure and prophaneness here, 
 for that there is no hereafter to give us either pleasure 
 or pain. Yes, gentlemen, these are the doctrines of 
 many among our philosophical and political adversa- 
 ries, both in our own county and in the kingdom ; of 
 many that fancy they are giving proofs of superior 
 \visdom at the very moment when the baseness of such 
 a conduct is only to be pardoned for the almost childish 
 state of intellect they evince upon these topics. Still 
 is the vanity of the men equal to every thing but their 
 i: 'ipiety. They oppose our religious establishments, 
 because it is a proof of their philosophy. They op- 
 pose our form of government, because it is a proof of 
 their wisdom. They ridicule our duty of obedience, 
 because it evinces their independence. They calum- 
 niate our motives in supporting administration, be- 
 cause it discovers their sagacity, the notable faculty 
 they possess of diving into those secrect recesses of 
 our souls which we can often but imperfectly dive 
 into ourselves. The blasting infidelity of these free- 
 thinkers in religion, (who, by the bye, by a very natu- 
 ral kind of attainture, are generally revolutionists in 
 politics,) is a ravening passion that eatcth up human 
 virtues in the lump ; that is always at its nieui and is
 
 150 
 
 never satisfied ; that draws towards its tremendous 
 vortex the little, humble yearnings and hopes of 
 its neighbours, and whirls them from sight and re- 
 collection ; that is not content with its own sin, but 
 divides and multiplies it till it becomes a national 
 iniquity. 
 
 I would have our infidel adversaries recollect, and 
 especially the medical part of them, who, to the 
 astonishment of common sense, but too often furnish 
 recruits to this army of aliens, that to philosophize in 
 religion is generally to discredit our reason, and, 
 with it, in no small measure, our virtue. Even Apol- 
 lonius, the able opponent of Porphyry, and a man of 
 almost universal attainments, miserably failed when 
 he applied a speculating turn of mind to the creed of 
 Christianity. A truly learned physician will consider 
 and take in all the common articles of our faith at one 
 view, and will then probably feel disposed to rest in 
 the conclusion of as eound and learned a divine as the 
 church of England ever boasted, that " the system of 
 religion, both natural and revealed, considered only 
 as a system, and prior to the proof of it, is not a sub- 
 ject of ridicule, unless that of nature be so too."* 
 He will know that as anatomy hath ever been re- 
 garded as the firmest foundation of that part of medi- 
 cal science which is worth any thing, (for much of it 
 h worth nothing) so Christianity is the only unerring 
 basis of pure and sound philosophy. But, in fact, 
 tiiat which is rejected by these gentlemen, is no 
 more inexplicable than that which is received. The 
 doctrine of the Trinity is not harder of belief than the 
 transmigrations of Pythagoras. When I am told 
 '' sed Pair is, et Filii, et Spiritus sancti una cst 
 Divinitas, (equalis gloria, cotctcrna majestas" 1 
 
 * Butler's Introduction to the Analogy of Religion, natural and 
 revealed.
 
 151 
 
 can as easily conceive this as I can any of the com- 
 mon operations of nature, and much more easily than 
 that very mystical one by which plants in the spring 
 are enabled to converse together, and to determine in 
 what manner they shall shoot their branches, and 
 spread their leaves, and conjugate, and bear fruit.* 
 I wish these physicians of the non sanee mem&ria 
 school could be persuaded to renounce such vagaries 
 of an unsettled imagination. We might then hope 
 to erect a beacon for their offspring from the noso- 
 logy of their own philosophical infirmities. But alas ! 
 medical infidelity is, I fear, of too stubborn a cast, 
 too vain a texture to expect from it any such conces- 
 sions. The Esculapian tribe, tricked out in old 
 Priam's armour, must still be tampering with the 
 telum imbelle sine ictu. They must still indulge in 
 lucubrations as much at variance with their own ex- 
 perimental profession as with Christianity itself, and 
 that resemble, in the vivid language of one of their 
 hypothetical brethren, e( the beautiful followers of the 
 attitude or statue fashion, who unfortunately do not 
 stiffen into figures like the Venus de Medicis, but 
 reduce themselves to a state from which every one 
 turns away with horror, except the stealer of dead 
 bodies and the dissector."f The Scriptures will 
 however, I trust, remain inspired writings, and Christ, 
 a divine person, and the immortality of the soul a 
 
 * This discorery, unknown to former times, hath been reserved 
 far the philosophy of the nineteenth century. It behoves Mr. 
 Coke and the Norfolk agriculturists to be careful that their crops, 
 when they get into the ground, hold no rebellious conferences. 
 The extent of the mischief might be alarming, should " thistles 
 spring up instead of wheat and cockle instead of barley." I would 
 recommend this subject to the RBT. T. C. Mannings, who, I be- 
 Hefe, hath an aptitude in these matters beyond most other men, 
 and who hath already obliged the learned world with certain well- 
 known expositions of Norfolk agricultural sagacity* 
 
 t Bedtloe's Essays.
 
 solemn truth, and the Deity something more than 
 another name for nature, in spite of Brunonian si/s- 
 terns, Darwinian Physiology, the Philosophy of 
 Medicine, or the Loves of the Plants. 
 
 All infidelity hath been held, and I think with good 
 cause, to spring from ignorance and vanity ; from a 
 high conceit of our own poor faculties, and a weak 
 debasement of the excellent common sense of man- 
 kind. Indeed all smatterers in science are apt to end 
 in infidelity of some kind or other. Every nation not 
 infested with philosophers., will venerate its estab- 
 lished religion and laws. But men of this descrip 
 lion, making the Scriptures their derision, (and the 
 more their derision the more they find them in ge- 
 neral estimation) and the " Tractatus Theologico- 
 politicus," of Spinosa, their text book, are for ever 
 unsettling the common creed and the common polity 
 of the state. How far these obtrusive guides, among 
 ourselves, are Christians, I take not upon me to say, 
 nor how far they may have attained to, or proceeded 
 beyond the confines of mere deism. I suppose if we 
 give them credit for a belief in the five articles of 
 Lord Herbert, of Cherbury, it may be as much as 
 they will require, and probably more than they de- 
 serve. From whence they derive their notions of 
 deity it would indeed be difficult to tell, whether from 
 Hermes, from Zoroaster, from Pythagoras, or from 
 Plato ; so sedulous are they to hunt and grope about 
 in every place where they have no business. How- 
 ever;, let what may make up the lex el prophet K of 
 these omniscient gentry, they ought to recollect that 
 an infidel philosopher has no ground to stand upon, 
 except such as it would shame any one, except an in- 
 fidel philosopher, to take. The enemies of our fakh, 
 like those of our constitution, change merely (heir 
 node of attack, , and with old arguments repeatedly 
 Subverted, are willing to seem to rise up before us in 
 new forms. But the weapons wielded by former
 
 153 
 
 partizans of impiety and disaffection, are those alone 
 that our modern disorganizes have to bring forward. 
 Retaining the same weakness and the same wicked- 
 ness, the only change we can discover is in theirin- 
 creased confidence and want of shame. What added 
 Hobbes to the infidelity of Lord Herbert, or Blount 
 to that of Hobbes, or Collins to that of Blount ; or in 
 what respect were the opinions of the Earl of Shaftes- 
 bury increased in aught, save their deformity and 
 perniciousness, by Toland, or Tindal, or Morgan, or 
 Chubb? What new corruption of all faith and 
 morality did the writings of David Hume bring to 
 the stores already prepared for common consumption 
 by my Lord Bolingbroke? Were not the heads of 
 these hydras cut off as fast as they appeared, and 
 seard too with a flaming brand ? And yet they fol- 
 lowed on the track of each other and yet one took 
 up the tale of blasphemy where his immediate pre- 
 decessor had left it and yet their present servile imi- 
 tators are working their way among the community, 
 and straining out their new mischiefs as if these old 
 ones, and their infamous broachers, had never been ex- 
 posed to the contempt and execration of every virtuous 
 mind ! Hardened offenders these, who though ready 
 with the imperial apostate to cast their blood towards 
 heaven, and in the mingled agony of conviction and 
 despair to exclaim vicisti Galil&e, vicisti, yet packed 
 up their infidelities with them in their coffins, and 
 made no retribution for their enormities to either God 
 or man.* 
 
 * The author of the " Religio Medici," wild enough at times, 
 it must be confessed, in his speculations, but frequently imbued 
 with high and solemn thoughts, after remarking that in our study 
 of anatomy there is a mass of mysterious philosophy which reduced 
 even the very heathens to divinity, very beautifully goes on to ob- 
 serve, " I thank God I have not those strait ligaments, or narrow 
 obligations to the world, as to dote on life or "be convulst andtrem- 
 
 X
 
 Lat me intrcat these atheistical physicians for I 
 cannot aflbrd them any milder appellation seriously 
 to lay to heart the consequences of such examples as 
 they are, some of them, not ashamed to hold out to 
 
 We at the name of death. Not that I am insensible of the droad 
 and horror thereof, or by raking into the bowels of the deceased, 
 continual sight of anatomies, skeletons, or cadaverous relicks, like 
 T66pilloes, or grave-makers, I am become stupid, or have forgot the 
 apprehension of mortality ; but tlia^ marshalling all the horrors, 
 and contemplating the extremities thereof, I Jind not any thin^ 
 therein able to daunt the courage of a man, much less a well re- 
 solved Christian, And therefore am not angry at the error of our 
 first parents, or unwilling to bear a part of this common fate, and 
 like the best of them to die, that is, to cease to breathe, to take a 
 farewell of the elements, to be a kind of nothing for a moment, to 
 be within one instant of a spirit. When I take a full view and 
 circle of myself, without tin's reasonable moderator, and equal 
 piece of justice, death, I do conceive myself the miserablest person 
 extant; were there not another life that I hope for, all the vanities 
 of this world should not intreat a moment's breath from me. Could 
 the devil work my belief to imagine I could never die, 1 would not 
 outlive that very thought ; J have so abject a conceit of this com- 
 mon way of existence, this retaining to the sun and elements, I can- 
 not think this to be a man, or to live according to the dignity of 
 humanity. In expectation of a. better, I can with patience embrace 
 this life, yet in my best meditations do often defy death. I honour 
 any man that contemns it, nor can I highly love any that is afraid 
 of it. This makes me naturally love a soldier, and honour those 
 tattered and contemptible regiments, that will die at the command 
 of a Serjeant. For a Pagan there may be some motives to be in 
 love with life ; but for a Christian to be amazed at death, I see not 
 how he can escape this dilemma, that he is too sensible of this life, 
 or hopeless of the life to come," This is speaking like a philo- 
 sophical Christian. This is identifying the sound reflection that 
 " reason pursued is faith." But if we may judge from the Heligio 
 Medici of the present day, it would really seem as if to entertain 
 any sense of piety was likely to be destructive of a physician's prac- 
 tice, and that he could no longer hope to pass for a philosopher 
 who had been so indiscreet as to acknowledge himself a Christian. 
 Prejudices these sufficiently at variance with all sober calculation. 
 But what can we expect from men who study lloyle more than 
 Hippocrates, and who then, only recollect their patients when they 
 recollect their poverty ? 
 

 
 155 
 
 the world. If religion be man's sweetest consolation 
 under the miseries of life ; if the evils we patiently 
 bear in this world are mitigated by the humble and 
 pious hopes which we entertain of a better,, what 
 must we think of those who would deprive us of this 
 consolation ? Nothing can be imagined more revul- 
 sionary to all the worthiest feelings of our nature 
 than the efforts of infidelity on an unpractised and 
 innocent mind. It is bringing down the Saviour of 
 mankind from the throne of his glory, once more to 
 be crucified by the work of his own hands. To be- 
 tray the unsuspecting heart by only the common 
 modes of deception,, is crime bad enough for any 
 human being who only suspects that there is a retri- 
 bution and a world to come. But to draw us from 
 God under the pretence of leading us to happiness 
 to cut us off from the hope of mercy by persuading 
 us that there is no occasion for mercy to hinder us 
 from " working out our salvation with fear and 
 trembling ;" by representing all fear for futurity as 
 unneeded and unmanly to dispel in us the appre- 
 hensions of " death, and judgment, and heaven, and 
 hell ;" by, at once, impiously declaring that death is 
 only an eternal sleep, and, of course, judgment, 
 heaven and hell the mere dream of infants or of 
 idiots thus to seduce us from our duty thus to 
 sooth us into infidelity thus to lead us into wicked- 
 ness ^and thus, thus dreadfully, to reconcile us to our 
 guilt. O it is a depravity beyond the bounds of earthly 
 measure or retribution, and can only hope for forgive- 
 ness on that ground which these unhappy beings are 
 hourly cutting up, that most chearing and solemn of 
 all the solemn consolations of holy writ, that God 
 is love ! 
 
 Either a man believes that he is to rise from his 
 grave after death, or he does not. If he does not 
 believe this, why makes he any sacrifices to decorum, 
 to society, to the world he lives in, to the usages, 
 
 x 2
 
 156 
 
 opinions, practices of that world ? Here to day and 
 gone to-morrow, and with "the great winding sheets 
 that bury all things in oblivion" ready to be thrown 
 over him, what need he care about the world ? 
 What need he care about those he leaves behind 
 him ? Innocent children, it may be, and good ; but 
 what of that ? Like the plants in his garden they 
 are only to endure for their season. They may 
 flourish and look beautiful in the spring, but pre- 
 sently the blasts of winter will come and " their 
 place shall know them no more !" Why gives the 
 infidel physican an education to his offspring ? A 
 mind not to live, and to continue and increase its ac- 
 cessions of knowledge in another state, what matters 
 it how defective it goes out of this ? The worm 
 needs not " the porcelain clay of human kind" to riot 
 upon ; the common dust will serve its purpose. 
 Alas ! if he is only preparing his children for this 
 short-lived existence ; for time and not for eternity ; 
 for the grave and not for God, what a tissue of ab- 
 surdity is every part of his conduct. Why delight in 
 their virtues ; why grieve at their imprudence ; why 
 rejoice in their prosperities; why distress himself at 
 their misfortunes ? There can be no reason where 
 ive believe nothing, thus to hope, and to fear, and to 
 tremble at every thing. But, on the other hand, if 
 these medical apostates do think that after this feve- 
 rish state of being there may possibly come another ; 
 if they do suspect, aided only by the wholesome ex- 
 perience of their own profession, that all may not be 
 over with us when life is over, but that, some how or 
 other, the incorruptible seed is still wonderfully pre- 
 served when the corruptible body has mingled with 
 its original dust; then are they doing all in their 
 power to rob themselves and their families of the 
 benefits of this awful process for futurity. For surely 
 nothing can be at the same time more preposterous 
 and more profane, than to injure by their wretched
 
 157 
 
 opinions that God and that Saviour, that religion, 
 those doctrines, those duties, and those precepts, upon 
 a firm belief of which all good government, all civi- 
 lized society, all expectation of com fort he re, all hope 
 of happiness hereafter, altogether and entirely rest. 
 
 At what period it is that these our free-thinkers in- 
 tend to become serious, it is hardly possible to divine. 
 We can measure neither their defection from, nor their 
 return to truth and virtue, by any of the ordinary 
 standards of human judgment. In the morning of 
 life they will have nothing to do with religion, for the 
 prospect is bright before them, and vanity is in all 
 its warmth. At noon they immerse themselves in its 
 cares and ambitions, and speculate too deeply upon 
 this world to waste a single thought upon the next. 
 It is only when the shades of evening approach that 
 they can bring themselves to take the slightest, the 
 most distant view of that country "from whose bourn, 
 no traveller returns;" and when their Sun is about to 
 set, and darkness is closing in upon them, that thick 
 and heavy darkness that may even "be felt," and the 
 business, clothed in characters of fire, comes home to 
 their own bosoms, then, for the first time in their lives, 
 do these degenerous sons of science think seriously 
 about religion, and like poor wretched prisoners pant* 
 ing for release, exclaim with the astonished jailer, 
 <c what must I do to be saved ?" Alas, these daring 
 philosophers ; these self-sufficient, high spirited free- 
 thinkers, who, in the plenitude of their sagacity, 
 sneered at and rejected all creeds alike, now reduced 
 to the last pitiful wrecks of imbecility, hold up withered 
 hands to heaven, and clasp to their bosoms any creed 
 that is offered them ; so fearful do they feel it to die 
 the pestiferous fools and mad men they have lived.* 
 
 * This tribe of infidels, it seems, we are not likely soon to get 
 rid of. These medical free-thinkers and philosophers, nothing 
 flaunted by their perpetual shames, spread like a nuisance through-
 
 158 
 
 S6me of these philosophers, though far enough 
 from Christians, are, or affect to he scholars. Surely 
 then eVen their very classical attainments ought to 
 preserve them from infidelity. For those heathen 
 poets whose works we hold in so deserved an admi- 
 ration, stealing- like Apelles their Olympian Jove from 
 n higher genius, do themselves every where draw from 
 the divine oracles Trace the course of their haunted 
 streams and you will find them, Avhether passing by 
 "tower'd cities,'* or bathing the foot of lonely moun- 
 tains, or listening with Ilissus to the Grecian sage, or 
 sweetly winding through vales of Tempe and groves 
 of Arcady, velquts loca Jabulosus lambit Hydaspcs, 
 all running back with classic elegance to the same 
 sacred fount; all carrying up the imagery of a rich 
 fancy to the supernatural visitiugs of " the day spring- 
 from on high," the widely dispersed but mutilated 
 pandects of our salvation. We can open no page of 
 ancient lore, where, amid the high musings, the vivid 
 colouring, the strangely chastised voluptuousness of 
 
 ttut the land. I make no apologf for referring my readers to the 
 Kvening Mail of June 4th last, for an excellent letter " To the 
 Members of the Royal College of Surgeons," expressively on this 
 subject, I have seen no reply to it. 1 know of none indeed that 
 would not be equally indecent with and more insulting than the 
 original publication, the fetidly pernicious natnre of which, like the 
 miasmas of the plague, the first paragraph of the letter will abun- 
 dantly testify, "i presume (says the writer,) it can be no secret 
 to those members of your learned body who did not attend the UUe 
 lectures on physiology and zoology, delivered by your own profes- 
 ror of anatomy and surgery, that such lectures are now published 
 for the benefit of the world at large ; and since I believe no instance 
 ever occurred before in this professedly Christian country, 
 where infidelity, indecency, and democracy, hate been so openly 
 tnught from tile chair of a public professor, I wish to inquire 
 whether such principles are propounded w ith your concurrence ; 
 and whether it be decent, that in a nation which has not openly 
 renounced the profession of Christianity, the doctrine of man's an- 
 nihilation at death be a fit doctrine to be taught to the pupils at our 
 hospitals, and then printed and published for our common benefit."
 
 159 
 
 the heathen mind, we perceive not the "veil rent in 
 twain," and the solemnity of the scriptures to breathe 
 upon us. Though long tracts of time have rolled 
 away, and darkness is upon the face of our researches, 
 yet do we find their enchanting mythology casting 
 back its shadows into a remote antiquity, and even mix- 
 ing itself with " the years beyond the flood."' Uere it 
 is that with a most felicitous adaptation 
 
 The poet's eye, in q, fine frcn?y rolling, 
 
 Doth glance from heaven to earth, froin earth to heaven.* 
 
 and in the midst of " clouds and thick darkness/' and 
 unknowing of the invisible hand by which he is led, 
 doth impart to the scattered relics of the Christian 
 faith " a local habitation and a name." The Iliad of 
 Homer, theTheogony of Hesiod, the Plays of Euripides, 
 tjie Pollioof Virgil, the Metamorphoses of Ovjd, the 
 Odes of Horace, and the Hymns of Callimachus, are all 
 full of the divinity; do all glow with inspiration ; do all 
 confess, with no view, no intention, and so far as their 
 own consciousness is concerned, no power of confess* 
 ijig "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, to day, and for 
 ever !" The doctrines, the miracles, the rites and ce^ 
 remonies, the rewards and punishments of the book of 
 life are all shadowed out, some with a firmer, some 
 with a fainter line, in the pages of the Greek and 
 Roman literature; are all, under one elegant allusion 
 or other, in their philosophy, their history, their poetry, 
 wooing attention and inviting conviction from our very 
 cradle to our graves. And let the literary infidel re- 
 collect, if he is determined to be swayed by no other, 
 that the classical evidence for the truth of Christianity 
 will be found, on examination, to be perfect in all its 
 parts, and the heathen writings, one blaze of beauty, a 
 consecration and confirmation of the revealed records ! 
 On the subject, gentlemen, of the liberty of the 
 
 Midsummer-Night^ Dream,
 
 160 
 
 press, to which I must next solicit your attention, it 
 is proper that we should entertain right notions, and 
 be aware how much we herein too differ with our 
 political adversaries, and how little they differ from 
 the French revolutionists, who made a licentious 
 press subservient to their darkest designs. Here it is 
 that we indeed take opposite ground. Our oppo- 
 nents contend for an unlimited freedom of the press; 
 we for a freedom sufficient for the security of our 
 constitution in church and state, but subject, from 
 time to time, to such judicious restraints as contingent 
 circumstances and the welfare of society demand. 
 They are for a press with no checks from policy, 
 none from honour, none from conscience ; we for 
 one which sound policy may not disapprove, which 
 honourable minds may flourish under without asper- 
 sion, and which the purest conscience may feel to be 
 " void of offence towards God or towards man." 
 "We want not to narrow, but to purify freedom of 
 speech. We wanJt not to shake, but to settle on a 
 firmer and more dignified basis this liberty of the 
 press ; to purge it of its delinquency and to affiance 
 it with worthier feelings. We see in it, as it is now 
 exercised among us, every thing to dread. It is 
 mixing itself with our highest and with our lowest 
 concerns. Its bold contaminations spread every 
 -where, and do not only destroy private peace, but are 
 even proving injurious to the security of the state. 
 No where, no not even in governments of the highest 
 democratical cast, hath this liberty at any time ex- 
 tended so wide, or had so licentious a .permission. 
 It has not merely imparted a broader coarseness, a 
 stronger republican defilement to our national man- 
 ners, but has actually quartered our mutinous tempers 
 with the unprincipled popular spirit that hung like 
 a vulture over Rome previous to its decadency. We 
 are gathering all the declamatory baseness of that 
 unhappy period about us with none of its apology.
 
 161 
 
 In (lie tyranny, and weakness,, and total depravation 
 of their rulers, the people of Rome saw but too just 
 cause for reproach, a reproach which, increasing- in 
 bitterness as it spread through the gradations of 
 society, at length gave birth to crimes that exceeded 
 those to which it was opposed. But hi this king- 
 dom, glorious beyond all other, and beyond all other 
 unfortunate, with no resemblance to these regal 
 despots, save in their estimation who fancy deformity 
 wherever they behold monarchy, we have, alas! 
 every resemblance to their plebeian phrenzies ! 
 
 Nothing is of deadlier effect than fhe wilful mis* 
 representations of the press ; nothing of deeper cor- 
 ruption to the fealty of the subject than its prophane 
 and malicious calumnies. No topic of discussion or 
 conversation is treated of as it is. The entertainment 
 of the worst opinions and the perpetration of the worst 
 deeds go under the fairest names. To lessen the in- 
 fluence of the crown is generally the pretext for unset- 
 tling the popular mind and advancing the popular 
 principle. To reform the parliament has a meaning 
 little short of ruining the state. To moderate episco- 
 pal power is no other than to swell out sectarian pre- 
 sumption ; and to set the people free must almost 
 universally be understood as an intimation to bind 
 every rank in chains which is but one remove above 
 the people. The harm that lurks beneath these 
 specious subterfuges we have not yet learnt to calcu- 
 late. To be attached to the constitution of our coun- 
 try certainly is not blameable. To be admirers of 
 that revolution which justly drove one sovereign from 
 his throne and quietly seated another in it, is a mark of 
 our affection to all and every part of the British go- 
 vernment which that revolution sanctified; is such a 
 mark as any man bearing about with him may be 
 known for an Englishman in any quarter of the globe. 
 But under the semblance of this attachment to be 
 daily woiking its ruin; under a feigned admiration
 
 162 
 
 for its principles to be hourly disturbing all its finest 
 springs and undermining its firmest foundations, is 
 villainous. Such deceptions characters, gentlemen, 
 are abroad. They infest the land. Fix your atten- 
 tion piercingly upon them, and the glance of Uriel 
 will presently discover on some mount of Niphatos, 
 the pertubations and disfigurements of these enemies 
 of the human race. 
 
 The disorganizing state of our press is however, T 
 should hope, at its height. Our adversaries seem to 
 measure virtue before they attack her, and then attack 
 her in such vital parts and with such instruments as 
 will best secure., at the same instant, her defilement 
 Und her destruction. Their means are suited to their 
 ends. The very language they use is scarce a whit in- 
 ferior in abomination to their calumnious sentiments. 
 We see too every thing, even of the most sacred cast, 
 clothed in a ludicrous garb; every person spoken of 
 in a ludicrous manner; every character a caricature, 
 and exhibited to the gazing ignorant eye in positions 
 and under circumstances the most debasing. This 
 corrupting misrepresentation, mixed with a broad hu- 
 mour, circulates through all the pores of the literary 
 community. It begins with our infidel and dissent- 
 ing periodical works, and ends in its last fulsome ra- 
 mifications, with the indecent trash hawked about the 
 streets of almost every city and town in the kingdom. 
 All have their cartoons of calumny ; their buffbonical 
 scenery ; their untempered ridicule of persons and 
 things. The literary world itself scarcely knows what 
 it would be at. They rummage language for the ex- 
 pression of thoughts that have never before entered the 
 human mind, and feelings that never pervaded the 
 human heart. Both the subject and the phraseology 
 must be clad in a drapery that has not seen the light. 
 A celebrated poet of the present day has led the way 
 in this crusade against the common conceptions of 
 our nature, and has been followed by a host of imita-
 
 163 
 
 tors, who are fain, like their prototype., to dispense 
 with human shapes and sentiments, and to assume a 
 preternatural port, mixed with the most piteous igno- 
 rance, the most, brutal and prophane infidelity. 
 
 The state of the press in every country will pret- 
 ty well tell us the state of the people. From what 
 they consent to countenance and read, we may pro- 
 phesy how things are like to go with them. On 
 this ground we have, I fear, many changeful and 
 alarming marks about us. In every production of the 
 press, every disorderly meeting of the people, every 
 speech delivered by demagogue orators, the demo- 
 ralizing system is the order of the day. To the word 
 principle the multitude are taught to give any or no 
 meaning, as may best comport with the designs of 
 their leaders; and they are instructed to turn this 
 loose and lax instrument in whatever direction will be 
 most valuable. The shaking of fixed virtuous feelings 
 is, as their instigators well know, the best preparation 
 of the mind for revolution ; for revolution with nei^- 
 ther the probabilty, nor even the thought of reform 
 about it. Once destroy principle, and men have no 
 reason for being virtuous, nor any obstructions to in^ 
 dulging in vice ; nothing to lead them to the distinc- 
 tion between what is criminal and what is innocent. 
 The mark which God and conscience have set uporr 
 them is washed out, though so deeply were these cha- 
 racters engraven, that one should have thought they 
 bid fair to have gone down with them to the grave. 
 The destruction of principle therefore is (he overthrow 
 of that moral order which is the life of society, andi 
 the confusing of principle which the press so studi- 
 ously and systematically aims at, the great step towards 
 its extermination. It behoves us then to settle in our 
 own, and in the minds of all about us those permanent 
 barriers of right and wrong. 
 
 Liberty is indeed a glorious possession and never 
 enough to be revered. I love to see liberty gay and 
 
 Y 2
 
 164 
 
 happy, and fearless in the midst of her iv<ppinr<;. 
 I love to see her the grace and ornament of the 
 British constitution ; the sweetner of society ; the 
 crown of our cups in the convivial hour. There is 
 no existing without liberty, there is no enjoyment ; 
 there is nothing that a generous soul would care to 
 Jive for where liberty is extinct. But then this same 
 liberty must use no preternatural excitements. She 
 must not play the wanton. She must not trick her- 
 self out in the harlotry of licentiousness, and, "flown 
 with insolence/' set aside all decorum and " pluck 
 justice by the nose" at once. There is no occasion 
 for any njobler professions of independence, any 
 fuller feelings of liberty than those which our esta- 
 blished constitution authorizes and teaches. He who 
 would take higher ground than this must take French 
 ground. But that is not liberty which defames 
 government in all its branches,, and there most de- 
 fames it where it most deserves applause that is not 
 liberty which pours contempt upon every order of 
 the state and puts the church under perpetual ban 
 and anathema that is not liberty which fills the com- 
 mon ear with dark reports, and the common mind 
 with foul disaffections, and the whole kingdom with 
 dangerous seditions and daring thoughts of revolu- 
 tion. If freedom of speech and the liberty of the 
 press are to go thus far, for a most poor and wretched 
 purpose, have our ancestors shed their blood and laid 
 out their souls for posterity ; even for the purpose of 
 encouraging every mutinous spirit to pour forth his 
 fulminations at his pleasure, and, under the mask of 
 public good, to destroy all good, whether public or 
 private. 
 
 Revolution at a distance ? How should it be at a 
 distance when this "sin lieth at the door?" Give us 
 a licentious, unrestrained press, and let us escape re- 
 volution if we can. But do we not, gentlemen, every 
 *vhcre sec this licentiousness triumphant, and every
 
 1G5 
 
 whore, where it is trumphant, followed by sedtfctioss 
 of the worst kind and slanders of the deadliest nature. 
 All that is vile it deifies. All that is good it murders. 
 All that makes for the reverence of the sovereign, the 
 security of the realm, or the obedience and happiness 
 of the subject, it stamps with disdain or reprobation ; 
 while whatever unhinges or disturbs society, what- 
 ever sets one man against another and every man 
 against the government under which he lives, it sanc- 
 tifies by a terrible ungodliness. in the reserved 
 stores of rebellion, there is no instrument of disorgani- 
 zation so effectual, so every way to be dreaded, as ait 
 uncontrolled press. It elicits, from the dark womb of 
 our nature, all our original corruptions. It arouses 
 and puts them into motion, and keeps up therewith a 
 perpetual ferment in the state. It leads on through 
 <i&rk channels to misrepresentation, to calumny, ( 
 cruelty, to death. It stabs alike in secret and in the 
 face of the sun, and the more honourable its victim, 
 the blacker its soul and the more atrocious its assassi- 
 nation. The press, in short, in its present state, is 
 becoming in this country what it was in France, aft 
 ostracism reaching to the very lowest depths of de- 
 basement, with a hardened feeling at enmity with all 
 notions of heroic vice, and that has not even the 
 nobleness of villainy to recommend it. Jt was ths 
 anti-room to the presence chamber of the guillotine jii 
 that devoted country, and God only knows what it 
 will turn out in this. One thing we feel assured of, 
 that nothing, well regulated, caji exceed it as a 
 blessing, nor, without regulation, can any thing go 
 beyond it as a curse. That is no press to boast of 
 which is released from an imprimatur by the state cf 
 public morals. A crown of laurel upon a death's 
 head is not a more glaring and terrific object. 
 
 Freedom of sentiment is in this favoured country 
 seldom disturbed, until it lead to the extirpation of all 
 erder and obedience. Our state prosecutions of a
 
 166 
 
 highly seditious populace and a licentious press have 
 terminated unfortunately. They have turned out 
 all that the friends of virtue lament, and all that its 
 enemies could wish for. Our error consisted not, 1 
 think, in the impeachment of persons and publications 
 that carried sedition and blasphemy throughout all 
 their pages and conduct, but in laying our accusations 
 too high, and thus risking their being frittered away 
 not by disaffection, but rather by (a godlike failing) 
 humanity in our juries. To deprive man of that life 
 which the Creator hath given him is, temporally 
 considered, such a punishment as surely no crime 
 can warrant but that of murder or treason of mur- 
 der and treason so evident as to come home, without 
 the shadow of suspense, to the entire conviction of 
 every bosom. Sedition is a smaller offence; it is 
 more easily proved ; it is punished with greater ac- 
 quiescence of the public mind, and usually with suf- 
 ficient effect. I am not, I confess/, among the num- 
 ber of those who would cast any reflection upon thje 
 juries through whose verdict the late state prisoners 
 were acquitted, nor even upon their decisions, still 
 more to be lamented, to which Mr. Hone owes his 
 exemption from a punishment which he so richly 
 merited.* The trial by jury is a noble privilege, and 
 
 * The extensive subscriptions set on foot for this man throughout 
 the kingdom might be well insisted upon as a proof, and HO mean 
 one, of the prevailing bail spirit of the times. These subscriptions 
 were a reward (under the pretence of aiding and remunerating 
 }\\m for the persecutions of government) for impiety and blas- 
 phemy, and for endeavouring to bring the doctrines of the esta- 
 blished church into contempt. The description of persons too in 
 yvhom this wretched spirit is discoverable is hereby plainly inti- 
 mated ; for among these subscribers \ve shall lind a very large 
 proportion of dissenters of various denominations, and of every party, 
 however designated, adverse to the measures of government and 
 to our constitution in church and state, it is needless to add, 
 thut every revolutionist (vuth the means and the spirit) will be
 
 167 
 
 we must be careful, gentlemen, how we bring- it into 
 discredit., or how we arraign its determinations even 
 ait the tribunal of our most secret thoughts. It stands 
 as a guardian angel over the subject's freedom and 
 happiness, and holds in its hands the power of life 
 and death. I will not easily believe that it slumbers 
 over its awful charge. I will still less believe that its 
 spirit is corrupted by the corrupting spirit of the 
 times. It is of human institution and of human com- 
 position, and may therefore err It has erred often, 
 God knows, and grievously.* But if ever there was 
 a moment in the life of man when his honour was at 
 (he highest, his faith at the highest, his conscience 
 and the solemnity of his own feelings of futurity at 
 the highest, that moment is, when, calling upon the 
 Almighty to witness that he will act righteously, he 
 puts his hand upon his heart and pronounces his 
 brother of the dust guilty or not guilty ! O never 
 let us suspect the integrity of this last refuge of our 
 injured country, of our injured fellow creatures, for 
 there can be no hope left us where that holy hope 
 fails us.f 
 
 found in the same rolls of infamy. If the Whig part of the county 
 of JJjforfolk and the city of Norwich did not take the lead in this 
 shameful business, they, at least, cordially joined hand in. hand 
 with the citizens of Westminster. They clubbed their proportions 
 of wit and wiliness. 
 
 * Of this, the execution of innocent persons that has, at various 
 times, taken place, is a melancholy proof. A late execution at 
 Norwich, (that oLJames Johnson) though it certainly cannot be 
 added to the number, had yet peculiar circumstances about it. At 
 the time I was inclined to attach some importance to them, more 
 probably than I ought ; nor hare I even yet entirely divested my 
 mind of the impressions then made upon it. The relation of this 
 awful event, in the Norwich Mercury of March ?8, 1818, is cor^ 
 rectly, I think, given, and deserves perusal. 
 
 + It is to be regretted that the members of our lower House 
 should frequently be so little guarded in their reflections upoit 
 public measures, knowing that all such reflections will be laid be*
 
 168 
 
 At the same time it cannot be too much regretted, 
 tliat oatlu should beprofferred arid taken in our courts 
 of justice with so little solemnity and with apparently 
 so perfect an indifference as, for the most part, they 
 are. 1 should be glad to know what security we have 
 for life, or property, or national safety, when this 
 guardian of them all is so unsanctified in its usage. 
 There hath ever been impressed on the human mind, 
 and for the last purposes of human necessity, a strong- 
 feeling of God Almighty's omniscience, a strong and 
 awful feeling. But our neglects herein have gone 
 nigh to destroy this feeling. Where falls the cen- 
 sure? Where but on our courts themselves, on our 
 magistrates, on our judges, on all that countenance, 
 all that connive at this unsolemnizing of the dread 
 appeal of man to his Maker, this destruction of the 
 subject's reliance on the jurisprudence of the country. 
 When oaths are administered to, and taken by the 
 poor and ignorant in any other than the most im- 
 pressive manner, it is treason against heaven and the 
 signal for tribulations upon earth. " Thou shall fear 
 the Lord thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by 
 his name " Yes the fear of God must be upon the 
 mind of the witness ; the terrors of God must wrap 
 themselves round his heart; the very form of God 
 must stand before him. His soul, in a situation, so 
 
 fore, and will considerably 'influence the public mind. In the 
 Debate on the Foreign Enlistment Bill, June 21st, an honorable 
 member is reported (Evening Mail) as remarking, *' thank God 
 it yet remains to be seen whether a British jury will assist the 
 government in enforcing such a law as was now attempted to be 
 enforced upon the people." Lord Castlcreagh's answer was at 
 ouce dignified and convincing. " He felt confident that a British 
 jury would not swerve from its duty. Englishmen placed in such 
 an awful situation would recollect the sacred oath they had takwa, 
 and would not be influenced by any suggestions, either from withia 
 or from without the walls of Parliament. Nothing, he wa con- 
 tiuoed, woul<J induce * British jury to forgot that sacred obligation*'*
 
 169 
 
 awfully responsible, must put on all her righteousness. 
 The judge, the court, the criminal, the applause, the 
 reprobation that may follow, all must be annihilated. 
 His business, silent and collected, is with his consci- 
 ence alone. He must ff speak the truth, the whole 
 truth, and nothing- but the truth so help him God !" 
 And thus acquitting himself, God will help him, and 
 man will praise him, and society, in all her grada- 
 tions, will " rise up and call him blessed ;" for then 
 will "an oath for confirmation be an end to strife,'* 
 and our courts of justice below become an awful 
 transcript of that great and terrible day above, when 
 "God shall judge the secrets of all hearts," and ab- 
 solve or condemn accordingly. 
 
 Another fearful resemblance, gentlemen, we havd 
 to the French revolution in the present assimilation 
 of all parties among us adverse to government, and 
 fill holding opinions at perfect contradiction with 
 those espoused by ourselves. These instruments of 
 revolt are every where growing upon our hands. It 
 is a combination of heterogeneous materials, for Whigs, 
 and Reformers, and Anarchists are brought together, 
 and on many occasions are acting together, some 
 through design, some through ignorance, some out of 
 a vain and idle love of popularity, and some from a 
 pierverse destructive party spirit. This portion of 
 my Letter you will suffer me to recommend to your 
 notice. It is mainly connected with our interest. It 
 is entirely connected with our duty ; with that part of 
 it especially which appertained! to us as freeholders. 
 
 Without going nicely into the origin and definition 
 of political titles,* which is ever a labour more curious 
 
 * On this subject I beg leave to subjoin an opinion very much, 
 to the purpose, and which I think may be considered as speaking 
 the sentiments of a large proportion of ratiotial, sober, and consti- 
 tutional politicians. " For my own part J regard the terms Whig 
 aud Tory as party distinctions which hare long become obsolete ? - 
 
 Z
 
 170 
 
 than useful, there was a time when what is called 
 Whig principles were principles that no Englishman 
 need to have been ashamed of. The Whig aristo- 
 cracy was once a valuable part of the British senate. 
 It was that part of the nation which at the period 
 of the revolution of 1688, when every wandering; 
 stream was stopped in its progress and made to wind 
 back and settle in its former channels, supported those 
 constitutional principles which were then consolidated 
 by a grave and dignified wisdom, and that establish- 
 ment and connection in church and state which was 
 presumed to be considered by all parties, whether 
 Whig or Tory, as the best pattern for future legis- 
 lators, and as the surest defence against future inno- 
 vations and aggressions. This, gentlemen, was the 
 morning sun of Whiggism, and the nation, proud of 
 their exertions and happy in their counsels, sufficient- 
 ly, and even beyond sufficiency, repaid their services 
 
 and as of n'o use whatever iu their revival by our opponents, except 
 for the purpose of gaining popularity for themselves, and of throw- 
 ing an odium on any one whose family may formerly have belonged 
 to the Tory party. If I were asked whether 1 am Whig or Tory, 
 my answer would be that I am neither. I admire the constitution 
 pf 1688; and, as it was then established, I wish to preserve it. 
 My principles, and those of my honourable relative, are to main- 
 tain the due prerogatives of the crown, and the just rights of the 
 people. Whether these are the characteristics of a Whig or of a 
 Tory I care not ; it is sufficient for me to know that they are Pitt 
 principles." See the speech of the Hon. Col. Wodehouse, on the 
 celebration of Mr. Pitt's birth-day, May 28, 1817. Norfolk 
 Chronicle, May 31. It were to be wished that these celebrations 
 should be kept up with sufficient spirit, and that all future presi- 
 dents would follow the example of Lord Bayning, who observed, 
 upon his being proposed for the chair on the next meeting, that 
 *' no trifling circumstance should deter or detain him from beiug 
 at his ppst." Situated indeed as we are, I can hardly conceive a 
 post of higher honour. I am happy to lind, from so correct autho- 
 rity, " that the majority of the respectable inhabitants of Yar- 
 mouth arc firm supporters of Mr. Pitt's principles." 
 
 See Norwich Mercury, June 5, 1819.
 
 171 
 
 by large returns of gratitude. I say beyond suffi- 
 ciency, for evermore restless in their minds, embued 
 with loose and dissentient notions, they suffered not 
 even the reign of William to pass without dipping 
 their hands in convulsionary movements. And though 
 at this period they were certainly possessed of consi- 
 derable influence, it does not appear that they used it 
 as men altogether intent on the good of their country, 
 nor that they enjoyed any very permanent degree of 
 estimation with either that monarch or with his imme- 
 diate successor. 
 
 Its popularity with the nation continued indeed 
 somewhat longer ; but no very equivocal symptoms of 
 decline soon began to show themselves. Year by 
 year it continued., with a bad blood which no altera- 
 tives were able to purify, in a sickening degenerate 
 state, dying to all noble endeavours and alive only to 
 party feud and political animosity ; till in the begin- 
 ning of the present reign it arrived at its " iron age," 
 and hating to side with either Toryism in the state or 
 orthodoxy in the church, it even ventured to coalesce 
 with democracy and dissent. So dreadfully indeed 
 did it fall into eclipse, that, sooner than enjoy the light 
 with better spirits and purer associates, it at once pre- 
 cipitated itself into the darkness of despair, and lived 
 by those means that corrode and eat away life in all 
 besides. Gentlemen, the history of the reign of 
 George III. will abundantly convince you what the 
 Whig party and Whig principles in this country have 
 been and have produced. If they have been good 
 for little for a long time past, I fear we shall not find 
 them much mending upon our hands. They are ac- 
 tive spirits and ever grumbling, and active spirits sel- 
 dom lie idle, and disaffected tempers are rarely with- 
 out their manoauvres. Where men deal in contra- 
 band wares they must navigate under false colours. 
 The Whigs work under colour of the constitution, ancl 
 the anarchists under that of reform ; and they may 
 
 z 2
 
 probably, at length, meet in that mournful point where 
 the one will see their error with no power of rectify- 
 ing- it and the other glory in their craftiness and their 
 crime. 
 
 We recollect, gentlemen, the fate of the society 
 assuming to itself the title of " the friends of the 
 people." This society, which boasted of eminent 
 names, had for its object a parliamentary reform. 
 At the time it was probably, with many of its mem- 
 bers, an honest object. But to what sad abuses did 
 it lead in the consequent formation of other societies; 
 and how little does it appear that these friends of the 
 people, pure as might have been their motives, con- 
 sulted the tranquillity and happiness of the realm in 
 countenancing the corresponding societies that were 
 springing up, under the influence of French opinions 
 and the presumed rights of men, in every part of the 
 kingdom. I wish the moderate constitutional Whigs 
 of this nation, whom I consider as a remnant of the 
 genuine stock, would learn a present lesson from past 
 experience and reflect upon the situation in which 
 they stand. Those among them who have no inordi- 
 dinate passion for popularity to gratify, no stub- 
 bornness of attachment to party to consult, no syste- 
 matic opposition to ministry (which goes very near to 
 an unprincipled opposition) to warp their feelings or 
 to seduce their judgment, have it in their power to be 
 very efficient members of community, and very noble 
 friends to their country at this time. They are, and 
 they ought so to consider themselves, in a situation of 
 peculiar solemnity. All eyes are fixed upon them ; 
 all voices cry unto them. The present is a contest, 
 positively it falls nothing short of it, between mo- 
 narchy and republicanism ; between the principles of 
 dissent, religious and political, and those of assent 
 and consent. The scales are nearly on the balance, 
 #nd it is their influence that may determine which 
 shall finally preponderate. Both the contending
 
 173 
 
 parties are watchful for the event. The friends of 
 government, the aristocracy, and the great landed 
 proprietors of the realm, with nearly, the whole body 
 of the established clergy, earnestly implore that they 
 would make common cause with them against a com- 
 mon enemy, an enemy more subtle, more treacher- 
 ous, more systematically powerful than ever yet 
 leagued against the government of England: while 1 
 the dissenters, the reformers, the revolutionists, toge- 
 ther with the whole band of infidel philosophers, 
 seditious lecturers, vile demagogues, needy specula- 
 tors, idle mechanics, and the growing mass of the 
 ignorant, the vicious, the poisoned part of our popula- 
 tion, are bribing them with " holy vows" to stand up 
 for (adopting the language in vogue) the rights of 
 their fellow creatures and the renovation of constitu- 
 tion in church and state. Some, as we shall see, have 
 attended to this frenzied call ; some modern Whigs, 
 gentlemen, of our own county, from whom we should 
 have hoped better things and a wiser and more dig- 
 nified conduct. The greater part, however, I trust 
 of our landed possessors and men of property will be 
 careful how they consent to increase, by their counte- 
 nance, this Thracian uproar, or to mix their con- 
 senting voices with these Bacchanalian orgies. 
 
 If, gentlemen, they who call themselves Whigs b? 
 really assimilating in their sentiments, and language, 
 and cast of conduct, with all the coarse and violent 
 spirits of the age, you will acknowledge that such 
 Whigs are not only no objects of our respect, but are 
 really men whom, in prudence, we can neither chuse 
 for the representatives of our counties and cities, nor 
 trust in any of our concerns, religious, moral, or poli- 
 tical. They may not be an unprincipled, but they 
 area serious and most pernicious enemy to the state; 
 a serious enemy, because they cast the weight of 
 their influence and domestic virtues into the scale of 
 those adversaries to our church and state, who are,
 
 174 
 
 for the more part, destitute of either; a pernicious 
 enemy, because without their countenance and en- 
 couragement the anarchists and revolutionists could 
 not so lead the popular mind and prevail against the 
 sober sense of the country. Let us then enquire 
 whether some resemblance between them, (I wish it 
 may not be too near a one) may not be traced in the 
 doctrines which they appear respectively to advocate, 
 and the language which they employ. It is a mere 
 desultory calendar of their mutual pretensions to the 
 public approbation that I am about to set before you, 
 but it will, 1 doubt, too well serve the melancholy 
 purpose for which I consent to stain these pages with 
 quotations of such a cast. 
 
 In the first place then Mr. Coke, of Holkham, and 
 Mr. Gale Jones, of Westminster, both assure us, the 
 one in his constitutional appeals at the Shire-hall, 
 Norwich, and the other in his inflammatory harangues 
 at Norfolk-street, in the Strand, delivered, as it should 
 seem, for the very purpose of exciting a disposition to 
 revolution, " that it was the question of taxation 
 without representation that lost us America."* A 
 natural consequence of this doctrine is that we may 
 probably soon have our unrepresented places claim- 
 ing, like their rebellious prototypes, to legislate for 
 themselves. Mr. Coke is indeed working one way 
 and Mr. Gale Jones another; but their political 
 compasses are both stretched pretty nearly to their 
 verge, are both of kindred metal, and both point to 
 the same fixed star in the North, that part of the 
 empyreum in which the bee-hive flag of liberty may 
 be expected first to be descried. Again, Mr. Coun- 
 sellor Phillips, in the style of oratory peculiar to that 
 gentleman, quiets the Irish mob in their late outrage 
 upon Mr. Grattan, by means almost as unjustifiable, 
 
 Star, July 2 5 1818.
 
 175 
 
 and language quite as abhorrent to English feel- 
 ings as that which he affects to reprehend. He 
 addresses them in behalf of cc the man of the people/' 
 standing by "the son of that glorious Charlernont" 
 whom he emphatically calls " the nobleman of the 
 people." He bids them "remember 1782 remem- 
 ber the period of the abominable union."* Is this a 
 recipe for quelling, or for raising an Irish insurrec- 
 tion ? It might do its momentary work in rescuing 
 the man of the people, but it would go a very little 
 way in securing the sceptre of the realm. 
 
 Another worthy gentleman of the Whig school, 
 disclaiming every thing for the honour of connecting 
 himself with the majesty of the people, (one of their 
 prime doctrines which I shall presently consider) 
 assures the Westminster mob, that "the title pre- 
 fixed by courtesy to his name, (the Honourable 
 Douglas Kinnaird) could not alter his connection 
 with them."f Again, {f the hearts of the people, 
 says Mr. Plunkett, were with me, and to this I owe 
 every thing."! Alderman Wood declares, that " his 
 cause was theirs, and that his whole life should be 
 spent in the cause of the people." Mr. Cleary 
 assures his hearers, that " it would be an abandon- 
 ment of the principles which they professed, and for 
 the last ten years steadily acted upon, to return as 
 their representative any but a radical reformer, de- 
 termined, like Sir Francis Burdett, to fight the peo- 
 ple's cause, on the ground of universal freedom." || 
 The speeches of Mr. Bruce go very near to assimilate 
 the feelings of the Whigs with the conduct of the 
 reformers. He first details, in glowing language, 
 the acts of what is denominated " the most corrupt and 
 profligate parliament that ever disgraced the history 
 of this country," f and the partizans of these reform- 
 
 * Star, July 4. t tbid, June 26. J Ibid, June 29. 
 
 Ibid, June 23. |j Ibid, June 24. I Ibid, June 27.
 
 176 
 
 ers follow it up by deeds as gross and brutal as such 
 language is naturally calculated to inspire. Mr. 
 Hruce " relied upon that spirit which had made West- 
 minster what it is upon that bold and liberal spirit 
 which had made England the wonder of the world."* 
 The favourite doctrine, however, of these Whig re- 
 formers and reforming revolutionists is carried to its 
 neplus ultra by Mr. Hunt, who scruples not to iden- 
 tify, at once, with the majesty of the people the majes- 
 ty of the very throne itself. " The man, says he, that 
 lives there (Carlton-house) is one of the people, and I 
 am for all the people. "f 
 
 In their doctrines as to parliamentary reform this 
 political triumvirate somewhat differ. The Whigs 
 are for triennial parliaments, the reformers for annual, 
 combined with universal suffrage, and the revolu- 
 tionists for no parliaments at all. Upon the new 
 church too to be erected when the old church is 
 down, there may, I dare say, be some dissonance of 
 sentiment, though the probability I think is, that a 
 religious house of no description would be long suf- 
 fered to contaminate the soil. Mr. Sturch, dividing 
 persons in this country into two classes, asserts that 
 "one of these classes consisted of those who con- 
 sidered the people nothing; who would have them to 
 believe that kings and priests were made to ride on 
 them, for the people had nothing to do with the laws 
 but to obey them." J The Honourable Mr. Kinnaird, 
 in a case of reading the riot act, declares " that he 
 attributed it more to the good conduct of the peo- 
 ple, than of the magistrates, that the city had not be- 
 come a scene of blood." Mr. William Smith, of 
 Norwich, in voting for Sir Samuel Rom illy and Sir 
 Francis Burdett, whose names he was happy to 
 
 * Star, June 27. f Ibid, June 17. 
 
 $ Ibid, Jun 30. ^ Ibid, July t.
 
 177 
 
 join on such an occasion/'* tells this same West- 
 minster mob, "that he could not quarrel with a man 
 who had done so much good for a little transgres- 
 sion/'* Sir Francis himself affirms (which I pre- 
 sume is no trangression at all) "I shall at all times 
 be ready zealously to co-operate with my fellow 
 citizens of Westminster, and the rest of my country- 
 men, for the purpose of checking that system of fiscal 
 spoliation and political corruption, which takes his 
 due reward from the poor, his inheritance from the 
 rich, and liberty from all/'f Further, our members 
 of parliament are considered as {e persons falsely 
 calling themselves representatives of the people/';}; 
 Our administration is denounced as pre-eminently 
 factious/}; Annual parliaments and universal suffrage 
 are advocated as " the establishment of the rights of 
 the people/' Our very courts of law are not suffered 
 to escape the rancorous misrepresentation of these 
 reformers. The poor are told that even in our 
 highest courts of law "they wanted the assistance 
 of humane, disinterested, enlightened, and able 
 friends/' || 
 
 These, gentlemen, are bold expressions, and evince, 
 I think, some similarity between the various parties 
 bandied against government. Indeed it must be 
 carefully recollected, that when men colleague with 
 improper associates it is no easy matter to shake them 
 off. If we will prop up a party whose virtues have 
 been found to decay with time by instruments that 
 never Coasted of any virtue, we know the consequence. 
 Both Banquo and his murderers must be cast into the 
 same ditch, or " Macbeth shall sleep no more." That 
 the points of relationship between our present Whigs 
 and our "Radical Reformers/' or Ultras, orRevolution- 
 ists, call them what you will, for no name we can give 
 
 * Star, June 30. i Ibid, June 22. J Ibid, June 20. 
 
 Ibid, June 29. || Ibid, June 27. 
 
 A a
 
 178 
 
 them will do any offence to their nature, are not alto- 
 gether the dream of fancy, may be further evidenced 
 from the mutual feelings they entertain for each other, 
 from the opinions which these ultras themselves have 
 of their brother \Yhigs, and from the manner in 
 which their high mightinesses, the sovereign people, 
 think and speak of them all. The " letter of Thomas 
 deary, Esq. to Henry Hunt, Esq " will pretty well 
 prove to what extent the friends of Sir Francis Bur- 
 dett, " the reformers of England/' are preparing to 
 go. That letter, gentlemen, which you will find 
 wherever you find a newspaper, I recommend to your 
 especial perusal. Mr. Coke, our worthy county re- 
 presentative, you know thinks it an honor to identify 
 himself and his cause with Mr. William Smith, our 
 no less worthy city member Mr. William Smith is 
 willing to identify himself with Sir Francis Burdett 
 Sir Francis identifies himself with Mr. Cleary Mr. 
 Cleary with the aforesaid Henry Hunt, Esq Henry 
 Hunt, Esq. with Gale Jones, Esq. and you need not, 
 I think, be told that Gale Jones, Esq. connects this 
 illustrious list of patriots with all that are to be bought 
 or sold, seduced or influenced, at the discretion of 
 every "village Hampden" throughout the kingdom. 
 Indeed nearly the whole of the enemies of goverment, 
 spring they from what " dens and caves of the earth" 
 they may, are determined, it seems, to inlist under 
 the same banners. The orbis magnus of disaffected 
 spirits all rally round the celebrated Whig Reafen, 
 woven with magic incantations that prognosticate the 
 success or failure of their varied enterprizes. 
 
 It seems indeed that the pulse of our modern Whigs 
 was so well understood by their ultra brethren, that 
 they had even thoughts of "consulting them what was 
 best to be done to afford assistance to the unfortunate 
 Derby men."* I think (says Mr. Cleary, in his afore- 
 
 * Star, June 30.
 
 179 
 
 said commendatory epistle to H. Hunt, Esq.) " I think 
 the Whigs feel some anxiety about the issue of the 
 present trials : an acquittal would afford them excel- 
 lent matter for speechifying against ministers., and 
 therefore, it is I fancy they would readily assist if an 
 application was made to them. Something of this 
 kind is partially under consideration." * Mr. Clea- 
 ry may not have been very wide of the mark ; but that 
 power which often frustrates alike the fairest schemes 
 and the foulest expectations, providentially ordained 
 that., in this instance, the necessity of Whig eloquence 
 should be superseded by the eloquence of the halter. 
 As for the mob, all are fish that come to their net. 
 They have no lines of political distinction by which to 
 determine who are Whigs, who Reformers, who Re- 
 volutionists. They look only to their language and 
 their sentiments, and the manner in which they bear 
 themselves, and if these be in unison with their wishes,, 
 the rest goes for nothing. And most completely did 
 they find them thus in unison on a late occasion, when 
 "the lion of Westminster" became "the wild boar 
 of the forest;" when every thing that could be said 
 to stir up rebellious movements was said, and when 
 those "despots who subjugate the morals of empires/' 
 and with them their might, "surrounded the hustings 
 with a ruffian mob, till the real electors were disabled 
 from proceeding to a poll, and this they had the au- 
 dacity to call freedom of election." f Yes, these 
 Whig bellowers for freedom, if you would know what 
 they mean by the word, see what they insist upon as 
 freedom where their own interest is concerned. 
 
 The ties that unite these Whigs with their reform- 
 ing and revolutionary compeers, I believe to be, in 
 the estimation of the people, a sort of holy ties, and 
 many of their leaders have even no objection that 
 
 * Star, June 30. f Ibid, July 17. 
 
 Aa 2
 
 180 
 
 they should be so considered. "The friends of Sir 
 Samuel Romilly had never proposed him in opposi- 
 to Sir Francis Burdett to connect him with Sir 
 Francis ought to be the object of the people of West- 
 minster."* Sir Samuel must therefore, had it pleased 
 Providence to have spared him, have gone to the 
 house as the political tutor of " England's hope and 
 Westminster's pride/' it being " a great object to 
 have an able arguer, a powerful detector of sophistry, 
 to assist Sir Francis Burdett in his parliamentary ex- 
 ertions"* Further, Mr. Sturch tells the West- 
 minster freeholders, in the very presence and hearing 
 of Sir Samuel, that " the men whom they had elected 
 would endeavour to procure the reform in the house 
 of commons, which had been so long wanted ; and 
 they would both, no doubt, return to them with the 
 heart-felt consciousness that they had served their 
 constituents faithfully and zealously, and that they 
 had not done their own business, but that of their 
 constituents. He knew it was their desire that the 
 names of Burdett and Romilly should be long con- 
 nected in Westminister as those of the friends of 
 freedom and humanity. "f These expressions, gen- 
 tlemen, as they are here used, you will perceive binds 
 up with better company the Burdetts, the Clearys, 
 the Gobbets, the Waithmans, and all that follow in 
 their train, and insult the authorities and infest the 
 liberties of their country. All are considered as 
 equally "friends to freedom;" all are "friends to 
 reform ;" all " champions for liberty," and all bowers 
 of the head and benders of the knee to the same 
 darling idol of their seduction, the supreme Majesty 
 of the people. 
 
 And before this mockmob majesty well have they 
 played their parts and highly have they deserved of 
 
 * Star ; June 24. + Ibid, July 6.
 
 181 
 
 them. Boiler preparations for revolution than those 
 with which they have favoured us I know not where 
 we are to find, nor fitter occasions for the exercise of 
 that spirit which is adverse to all order. Take a few 
 samples of the hardened assurance and falsehood of 
 these daring reformers. The exercise of a rigM 
 common to all they reprohate in words too plain to 
 be mistaken. "The bold and daring' effrontery which 
 had brought the minister of the crown, Lord Castle- 
 reagh, to these hustings, to support the system of 
 prostitution in the face of the people, was the proper 
 object of their disgust. Doubtless, they felt strongly 
 this insult ; they even would, he trusted, manifest an 
 unconquerable reprobation against the system of des- 
 potism which he had brought from Ireland to this 
 country. To Ireland he was now gone, and if public 
 opinion and public feeling had free expression there, 
 he would not soon return hither."* Such is their 
 denunciation of the man to whom his country is so 
 eminently indebted for her present security. Very 
 different is their language when speaking of one of 
 the greatest nuisances that ever defiled the British 
 empire. " The aged faltered his good deeds the 
 tongue of the infant lisped his praise many with 
 tears admired him all expressed that he was the 
 man, without whom they could not consider them- 
 selves represented."* There are few public charac- 
 ters that boast not of some private virtues, and Sir 
 Francis Burdett is certainly not without his ; but this 
 strain of demagogue adulation is assuredly of too high 
 a cast. Thus it is however that they " travel up" to 
 the fame of their great leaders. Can again any 
 thing be of a more incendiary complexion than the 
 following allusion to the nobleman above mentioned. 
 " When he (Mr. Cleary), who was an Irishman, 
 
 * Star, June 25.
 
 182 
 
 thought of such a man, nature, true to herself, sug- 
 gested no other sentiment than that of deep-felt ex- 
 ecration He was but a boy when the Castlereagh 
 system developed itself in his unfortunate country, 
 hut its horrors left a recollection that could never be 
 forgotten. His tortures, his half- hangings, his pitched 
 caps, the flagillated backs of his victims ; the lamen- 
 tations of widows and ruined orphans had cried to 
 heaven for retribution, and would yet be heard. 
 Indeed it would be almost, as an eloquent countryman 
 of his had justly said, an argument against the moral 
 government of an all-wise Providence, if the author 
 of such misdeeds escaped the punishment he so richly 
 merited."* Well might the response- of Oh God! 
 burst from the souls of the surrounding mob. 
 Coupling this with other dark prophetic denunciations, 
 can we be surprized if new Feltons and Bellingfields 
 should spring up in this devoted land ? Rather let 
 us wonder that any part of the empire is free from 
 them. In stirring up the people they seem not to 
 care to what desperate lengths they go. It was only 
 natural that horrid execrations should follow upon 
 the sailor's shewing his back that had, as he affirmed, 
 been mangled by the punishment inflicted on him by 
 Sir Murray Maxwell. And when long after Sir 
 Murray appeared on the hustings, it excited, we 
 are told, even "the fierce and savage feelings of 
 the croud." Clenched fists were presented at him, 
 furious language, threats of the strongest nature, and 
 yells scarcely human, so that the police had " infinite 
 difficulty in preserving him from the fury of the 
 populace, who had worked themselves up into a 
 ferocity approaching to madness."f Mere, gentle- 
 men, we see as in a mirror giving us the future in 
 the present, what even the first approaches of a 
 
 Star, June 25. + Ibid, Jiuie 23.
 
 evolution in England must lead to. In vain did 
 tylr. Ellis exclaim, " I have lived in the same ship 
 with Sir Murray Maxwell for months, and I am 
 therefore anxious to repel from my own knowledge 
 the charge of cruelty which has been preferred against 
 him. I believe there never existed a man who more 
 happily tempered the necessary strictness of naval 
 discipline with the affection of a parent."* In vain 
 towards the wretch that so brutally struck at and 
 injured him, did Captain Maxwell exercise the 
 greatest forbearance and humanity. In vain was a 
 joint protestation offered in proof of that humanity. f 
 It was not the vindication of character these dema- 
 gogues aimed at, but the confounding of character. 
 It was not the pacifying, but the incensing of the 
 mob that seemed to be their object. All bad arts for 
 that purpose were resorted to, and no symptom of 
 regret evinced but for the want of their success. 
 
 It is not necessary ; it is far from my wish to sad- 
 dle upon every indiscreet espouser of the measures of 
 reform designs of this atrocious nature. It is quite 
 enough that we see, and that our opponents them- 
 selves, under the impartial exercise of their discern- 
 ment, must acknowledge to what such measures, 
 advocated by such men, such bitter revilings of the 
 friends of good order and government, are rapidly 
 leading. If in a mere common election we are to 
 look for these examples of brutality, (and the list of 
 them might be increased almost ad libitum) what 
 must be expected in seasons of larger commotion? 
 Do you think, gentlemen, the mob would not then 
 among us, as they did in France, take as their law 
 and gospel, all that, for the narrowest vilest pur- 
 poses, these Whig and ultra orators have told them 
 of the oppressions of government, and of the hypo- 
 
 * Star, June 25. t Ibid, June 29.
 
 184 
 
 rrisy and villainy of those who,, without any purer 
 view$ than to their own emolument, support govern- 
 ment ? Do you think,, after having so repeatedly 
 listened to these inflammatory harangues and decla- 
 rations, they will with us. any more than with our 
 Gallic neighbours,, be arg'ued into reason, or soothed 
 into obedience by the alarmed and recanting feelings 
 of those who set them on ? If revolution and rebel- 
 lion do not take place in the present circumstances 
 of the times ; if the people are virtuous enough to 
 resist rising in arms against their rulers, after such 
 continued and dreadful calls upon them to rise, I 
 shall be surprized ^indeed. Disaffected ? How is it 
 possible, under the influence of all these demoralizing 
 principles, bottomed upon the si populus vult decipi 
 decipialur, and working night and day, and night and 
 day increasing in guilt and blackness,, that the whole 
 kingdom should not be disaffected ? How is it pos- 
 sible that these poor deluded creatures should escape, 
 placed by their poverties and their ignorance in the 
 very furnace of temptation ? Such deceivers as they 
 are hourly exposed to, at once plausible and unprinci- 
 pled in their means and dreadful in their views, 
 would go near to cause the very angels to rebel in 
 heaven. 
 
 Gentlemen, let us discard fanciful opinions, and 
 make a due estimate of the Whigs of the present 
 day ;* of those Whigs who, forsaking their genuine 
 
 * How far Mr. Hume's definition of Whig and Tory may do 
 for the present day, I must leave my readers to determine. " A 
 Tory, (says he, Essay 8) since the revolution, may be defined in a 
 few words, to be a lover of monarchy, tho' without abandoning 
 liberty; and a partizan of the family of Stuart. As a "Whig may 
 be defined to be a lover of liberty, tho' without renouncing monar- 
 chy; and a friend to the settlement in the prohvtant line." Of 
 one thing I am certain, that if the historian's description of his 
 Whig friends be accurate, the house of Hanover is a very un- 
 grateful house, and must compleatly hare changed sides and ffec-
 
 185 
 
 principles and the more moderate men of their own 
 party, join the horse's neck to the human head., and 
 (as they have been lately described) (f with laurels in 
 their hats and brickbats at their heels/' strengthen 
 their hostile spirit against government by a coalition 
 as disgraceful as it is unnatural. That they are not 
 altogether the pure patriots they would pass for, is 
 evident from the opinions entertained of them by both 
 friends and foes. We think them, in their high pro- 
 testations of a superior concern for the good of their 
 country, to be no other than errant counterfeits ;* and 
 even those who are in the habit of consulting, and 
 counselling, and making common cause with them, 
 find, it seems, ample room for both suspicion and 
 censure. Indeed their brethren of the trade appear 
 to be perfectly acquainted with their incongruities of 
 character. Thus Mr. Clark complains, that " the 
 Whigs had not acted so well as he could wish. 
 They, the reformers, wanted not so much a reform 
 of, as a reform in, the house of commons. The 
 Whigs would be content if they could oust their op- 
 ponents from the treasury bench/ 'f Mr. Hunt, 
 that animated Whig of the new school, has favoured 
 us with an opinion which we shall probably experi- 
 ence' to carry some degree of authority with it. " He 
 
 tions in the present day ; a circumstance not well to be accounted 
 lor, on the supposition that these Whigs are now what they were 
 at that period. 
 
 * We seem called upon, in the present day, to believe in the 
 purity of Whig principles, on much the same ground that the mer- 
 chant of Toledo was required to make confession that there was 
 not, in the universe, a more beautiful damsel than the Empress of 
 La J&lancha. " Had I once (said the valorous Knight) shewed 
 you that beauty, what wonder would it be to acknowledge so no- 
 torious a truth? the importance of the thing lies in obliging you to 
 believe it ? confess it, affirm it, swear it, and maintain it, without 
 seeing her." Don Quixote. Vol. 1, p. 40. 
 
 t Star, June 27. 
 
 Bb
 
 186 
 
 expressed his belief that Sir Francis Burdctt would 
 be returned ; and after that return, it would be the 
 business of the people to watch the conduct of ''West- 
 minster's pride and England's hope ;"* and it is well 
 if we do not feel it a duty equally binding- to watch 
 " the pride and hope" of other places beside West- 
 minister. Another of the faction, and no less ani- 
 mated, (Mr. Hobhouse,) scruples not to denominate 
 the Whigs " an impotent and arrogant party ,"f and 
 decidedly " the enemies of the people ;"f and inti- 
 mates that they were formerly branded as levellers, 
 and he thinks in some measure justly.J; That these 
 Whigs (a name which they at once usurp and dis- 
 grace) have long been a chopping and changing race 
 is certain, and equally certain is it that the whole 
 posse of our Norfolk patriotic reformers, headed by 
 their new Whig leaders, the Gog and Ma-gog of their 
 respective Guilds, (who either by tacit agreement, or 
 by dint of mere impudence, are new casting the 
 county, and will probably, as soon as the operation is 
 well over, cram my Lord Albemarle and Mr. Coke as 
 dead lumber behind the scenes), take especial care not 
 to discredit the breed. A whiggism dependant upon, 
 and headed by such supporters, is likely to turn out a 
 pretty commodity ; and though 1 will not say that 
 Mr. Coke's party, assimilating in many points with 
 the Whigs of Westminster, is even yet so fallen as, in 
 the language of Sir Francis Burdett, to " hug to its 
 bosom infamy of every description, " to " inlist all in 
 its service however base," and to " hail with welcome 
 the filth and scum of the town ;" I still really think, 
 judging from some of its acknowledged coalitions, (| 
 
 * Star, July 4. t Courier, March 1. 
 
 J Courier, Feb. 23. Ibid. Feb. 22. 
 
 |j Mr. Coke, in his political capacity, has always had a hanker- 
 ing after bad company. " Though 1 am far (says the writer of 
 an excellent letter to this gentleman, which appeared in the Nor-
 
 187 
 
 lljat it is making rapid approaches towards this last 
 bitter state of inanity and despair, a state in which 
 " the very name of Whig will become a term of re- 
 proach."* It is a fatal hour that shall see this goodly 
 county turned into a nest of republicans, and the 
 lion couchant at the feet of the hyaena. 
 
 But the wide and dangerous difference between 
 our party and the various knots of Whigs, Reformers, 
 and Revolutionists, that, like the wild inhabitants of 
 the desert, hunt their prey and afterwards growl and 
 den together, will open more and more upon us as 
 we advance. The points upon which we renounce 
 all shadow of agreement with our adversaries ; the 
 parts of the British constitution which, following on 
 the line of their French prototypes, they would forci- 
 bly tear from the body politic, and which we would 
 
 wich papers of the 31st July, 1802) from imputing to the friends 
 with whom you have generally acted any intentions to subvert the 
 government of their country, or any wish to see it exposed to the 
 dangers of a revolution, yet I will venture to assert, that those 
 friends, from some motives or other, have given their countenance 
 to men in whom that wish and those intentions were notorious. On 
 the support of these men, (whom in their hearts, as Englishmen, 
 they could not but despise) they have not disdained to found their 
 strength as a party." In the pamphlet from which I have made 
 the above extract, (Norfolk Election and Scrutiny, 1 802) Mr. 
 Coke, in his address to the gentlemen, clergy, and freeholders, ob- 
 serves, " My long acquaintance with the frank and manly charac- 
 ter of the freeholders of Norfolk, abundantly convinces me, that 
 no one class of them deserves to be mentioned in opprobrious terms. 
 For my part, I am accustomed to honour their zeal, whether the 
 direction it takes be favourable or unfavourable to myself." This 
 as a declaration is noble. But how has it been fulfilled ? Ask of 
 the " Address to the independent Freeholders" from St. James's 
 Square, May 26, 1817. This boast of honouring the zeal of his ad- 
 versaries might indeed be brought pretty well home to him, were 
 we not of opinion with Mr. Lyttleton, (Debate on Lotteries,) "that 
 the argumentum at hominem is useless, where the homo minds 
 nothing that you have to say to him." 
 * Morning Chronicle, March 4. 
 
 Bb %
 
 188 
 
 sacrecHy preserve, I shall now beg leave, gentlemen, 
 to bring before and to recommend to your considera- 
 tion. Upon the subjects of hereditary succession 
 and the royal prerogative \ve know pretty well, 
 through the medium of the public prints, their very 
 lax opinions. We advocate not any more than them- 
 selves the divine right of kings. Neither with this 
 ancient jure divino* nor even, with indefeasible, do 
 we confound hereditary right. With the former it 
 has no allowed connection. With the latter, if such 
 connection be ever presumed to exist, it is dissoluble 
 by parliament. Still that right upon which so much of 
 our peace depends, of our dignity, of our security, ex- 
 ternal and internal, of our government and religion ; 
 that hereditary right we must ever maintain to be 
 agreeable with the divine law and sanctioned by the 
 divine procedure. Passive obedience and non-resist- 
 ance, if they are doctrines that were ever seriously 
 maintained, of which there is some reason to doubt, 
 are died away. A divine right to rule must proceed 
 from a divine commission, and we know of none. 
 Yet a merciful ruler may, in some sort, be said to have 
 this divine rightin himself. Where " the throne is esta- 
 blished in righteousness," it is as firm and as sanctified 
 as the legislative power itself it is indeed absolute. 
 For none will venture to disturb an authority so tem- 
 pered and so exercised, any more than they would dis- 
 turb the authority of the Almighty. And he who 
 
 * Something, however, of this jure divino sovereignty, as it 
 appertaineth to government, seems inherent in our very nature. 
 The auspices that were consulted at the early periods of elective 
 monarchies, is, I think, a proof, is at any rate a rather strong pre-. 
 sumption of this. The will of the people was no will, unless ratified 
 by the priests and prophets. Divination served here the purposes of 
 a purer sanction ; and if it influenced not the choice, it abated, at 
 least, the rudeness and injustice of popular election. But this is a< 
 reniaik which I hazard with considerable diffidence.
 
 189 
 
 should go about to resist such a government, must be 
 weak or mad, or in the last stage of depravedness. 
 
 We have no notion of any thing like injury done us 
 by hereditary succession. On the contrary we look 
 upon it as a blessing, and of a most sacred cast, in as 
 much as it delivers us from many fears and much pos- 
 sible contingent danger. Hereditary succession is 
 the curb-stone of our constitution; is that which fits 
 and frames it for the coming tempests of the state. lit 
 leaves it to work at liberty, and to renew its strength 
 and preserve its purity amid all the defections by 
 which it is. surrounded. A hereditary successor, in 
 short, is the palladium of our national greatness and 
 of our national rights; and whatever we may think of 
 its approximation to a divine origin, we must yet 
 place it very high among the contrivances of human 
 wisdom. The elective nature of kingdoms and go- 
 vernments, at an early period, is no proof that there 
 was not consummate polity, in more advanced stages 
 of society, in resorting to hereditary succession. By 
 restraining the contentions for power and the tempta- 
 tions to violence, it was soon found that the publu 
 welfare was improved ; and as the arts of bad men 
 have increased, so has the benefits of such a fixed suc- 
 cession ; and the more numerous and high any state 
 becomes, the less can it aftbrd to dispense wilji such 
 succession. We see, therefore, in the history of our 
 own country, that though usurpations occasionally 
 occurred, they were rather submitted to than encou- 
 raged, even in the earliest periods, and, in later times, 
 were effected with greater difficulty and borne with 
 greater impatience. 
 
 Prior indeed to the conquest, it may be doubted 
 whether hereditary right was so firmly established as 
 not to have been dispensed with when any present 
 pressure rendered it needful, or when a fairer line 
 seemed to present fairer prospects. But these devia- 
 tions were rare, and the emergency would appear in
 
 190 
 
 some measure to carry its apology with it. Indeed 
 but for the ad vantages to public liberty that frequently 
 attended them, the rightful succession to the throne 
 would not, probably, in any case have been violated 
 vrith impunity ; for in many instances that might be 
 quoted, the nation would rather have foregone the 
 benefits than been exposed to the tumults of usurpa- 
 tion. Hereditary right was always recognised though 
 it could not always be enforced, nor was the throne at 
 all considered as secure that was founded on an un- 
 lawful succession, judicious as might be the govern- 
 ment of the reigning sovereign. The long and 
 Moody wars that followed upon the usurpation of the 
 bouse of Lancaster, and which nearly depopulated 
 England of her ancient nobility, is too sad a demon- 
 stration, though a proud and useful one, that heredi- 
 tary succession is contemplated as the only lawful 
 succession by the inhabitants of these realms. 
 
 If at the revolution in 1688 the nation are to be 
 considered as again taking the power into their own 
 hands and setting aside hereditary succession, it was 
 because immediate hereditary succession would have 
 gone nigh to have overturned, with the established 
 religion, every ecclesiastical ar>d civil right of the sub- 
 ject. To preserve the greater blessing therefore they 
 were compelled to forego the less. But they departed 
 from the immediate line of succession as little and for 
 as short a time as possible, rejecting merely the pre- 
 sent sovereign, but recognizing his protestant descend- 
 ants, and clearly would not have departed from it at 
 all if they could have felt themselves secure in their 
 liberties by adhering to it. It was not, gentlemen, as 
 Mr. Coke assures us^ at that glorious period "practi- 
 cally demonstrated that kings were made for the peo- 
 ple and not the people for kings/'* a position that 
 
 * Norfolk Chronicle, June 27, 1818,
 
 might go near to render the succession elective ; it 
 was, on the contrary, then practically proved that the 
 crown was strictly hereditary so long as the laws of 
 the realm were obeyed by the monarch wearing that 
 crown, but even therein failing, still, in its nature, 
 strictly hereditary. Nor is ec the language which wfe 
 hear now-a-days respecting the privileges and rights 
 of legitimacy" at all " different."* Once understood, 
 this language is understood for ever, though the Whigs 
 of the new school give us pretty strong proofs that they 
 never have understood it; a school upon the Lancas- 
 trian plan, where all may think and teach what sort 
 of doctrines they please, such as breathe of any very 
 violent attachment to church or state alone excepted. 
 That the crown of England though hereditary may 
 have its succession changed by the nation, and that 
 that nation has yet, from our earliest to our latest 
 annals, so seldom comparatively and with such mani- 
 fest delicacy and caution exercised such authority, is 
 strong presumptive evidence in favor of the benefit of 
 an hereditary succession, and speaks more perhaps in 
 its behalf than if it had never been disturbed. But 
 the blessings of hereditary succession cannot be fully 
 appreciated until a nation has been exposed to the 
 curse of an elective succession, a succession which in- 
 sures no stability, produces no confidence, and confers 
 no comfort. Where the crown is elective it will be 
 found that the constitution is elective too ; that reli- 
 gion, and laws, and government, all turn round as po- 
 pular opinion blows, all become what popular opinion 
 pleases to make them. A government not hereditary 
 would be a government for a state of society very 
 different to the present. It would be a government of 
 hopes and fears, of surmises and suspicions, and the 
 mind would be kept in a constant agitation between 
 
 * Norfolk Chronicle, June 27, 18l8.
 
 192 
 
 varying; and discordant passions. The great would 
 have no comfort and the lowly no security, but all 
 would feel the inconstancy of succession as a check 
 upon their enjoyments ; as the first care to embitter 
 the beginning, and the last misery to close up the end 
 of their existence. 
 
 No less striking is the difference between us and 
 our opponents, and in which, with the history of their 
 revolution in recollection, they will be found to follow 
 the steps of their French prototypes, in the opinions 
 \re respectively entertain and advocate of the exercise 
 of the royal prerogative. Certainly we need not feel 
 any fear, but may rather plume ourselves on some 
 degree of virtue in attacking such prerogatives when 
 they exceed the limits of their lawful extension. 
 But wantonly with our self-sufficient adversaries " to 
 pare down prerogative as low as possible/' is a mad- 
 ness only to be exceeded by its folly. This preroga- 
 tive, essential to the well-being- of our limited monar- 
 chy and to the just government of the community, 
 is enough perhaps restrained by the laws and consti- 
 tution of the realm from materially infringing upon 
 the liberty of the subject.* The body of the British 
 parliament will always be tao strong for any corrupt 
 limb of it. The " declaration of rights'" may be con- 
 sidered as a fuller enforcement, a deeper recognition 
 of magna charta ; nor can any extension of the royal 
 prerogative reasonably be dreaded while the powerful 
 security of such declaration remains to us. A due 
 
 * I hare here a decisive authority on my side. Mr. Hobhouse, 
 in the late election at Westminster, observed, that " the people 
 had nothing to apprehend from the power of the crown ; the crown 
 was in possession of little power, and that little was under the re- 
 gulation of the constitution." (Courier, Feb. 23, 1819.) Taring 
 down prerogative therefore is a mere stalking horse, even in the 
 opinion of the v y men who use it, and similar declarations, as a 
 pretext.
 
 193 
 
 exercise of the prerogative has been held by our 
 ablest statesmen to be equally advantageous to the 
 whole of the body politic. But if either the sove- 
 reign overstep the bounds of constitutional restraint, 
 or the subject too largely encroach upon the royal 
 privileges, the state must suffer from these mutual 
 infringements. Of indeed so sacred a nature is the 
 royal prerogative when bounded by law, that it hath 
 been laid down as an incontrovertible principle, that, 
 in such guarded prerogative, the king is and ought to 
 be absolute. 
 
 But what, gentlemen, is it that these Whig me- 
 chanics, these state shavers and parers down of pri- 
 vilege, would wish to restrain ? They would not, I 
 think, go the length of curtailing the sovereign of 
 any of his direct prerogatives. They would not 
 surely touch his dignity or character ; or subvert the 
 ancient useful maxim that the king can do no wrong ; 
 or ascribe to him less than a political immortality. 
 As the representative of his subjects, they would not, 
 I presume, deny him the power of appointing ambas- 
 sadors, or of entering into foreign leagues and alli- 
 ances, or of making war and peace, or of preferring 
 to civil and military commands and to the principal 
 offices of the state, or of convening, proroguing, dis- 
 solving parliament and having his veto upon their 
 resolutions, or of investing with dignities such of 
 those subjects as he may deem deserving. Neither 
 would they probably dispute that part of his preroga- 
 tive which hath regard to the supreme government of 
 the established church. They would not, I should 
 think, venture to pull down any of these foundation 
 pillars of monarchy ; and as for lesser exercises which 
 grow out of them, they are barely, I conceive, suffi- 
 cient to keep that ravening republican wolf from the 
 door, who, if he were once let in, would prowl over 
 every apartment of royalty, and marking all for deso- 
 lation, would swallow up crowns and sceptres, and 
 
 c c
 
 194 
 
 every thing in the shape of kingly government that 
 came in his way. 1 am sure, if the people knew their 
 own interest, they would stop their ears against all 
 such seducing doctrines as tended needlessly to abridge 
 the powers vested in the crown. For it will be found 
 in the period of our own history, that what these 
 Whig orators call " paring down the prerogative as 
 low as possible," was no other than the reducing 
 public virtue as low as possible, and that more cor- 
 ruption and venality, more profusion, more conse- 
 quent public burden and distress have originated from 
 impolitic encroachments upon the crown, than from 
 any encroachments of the crown upon the subject. 
 Indeed the subject's best defence against the tyranny 
 of these aristocratical dictators of the Hampden school, 
 will be found, as the tide now runs, not in paring 
 down, but in supporting the just and wholesome pre- 
 rogatives of the sovereign, and even, on emergency, 
 extending the sovereign power. Where society is 
 constantly in motion, and false philosophy, and in- 
 fidelity, and a coarse and revolting spirit abound, 
 " offences will come" which no ordinary acts of the 
 legislature can guard against. Rome had occasion- 
 ally her dictator, who, to restore her authority, was 
 compelled to trample on her laws ; and England may 
 by and by find herself in a similar situation. 
 
 Curtail the royal prerogative too much, and you 
 will presently get a democratical government entire, 
 so considerable is the influence, and, for the most 
 part, so popular the proceedings of a British house of 
 commons in virtue of our free constitution. On this 
 subject Mr. Hume has observed, (an authority which 
 no Whig in politics, no infidel in religion, will regard 
 with any other than a feeling of veneration) " the 
 share of power allotted by our constitution to the 
 house of commons is so great, that it absolutely com- 
 mands all the other parts of the government. The 
 king's legislative power is plainly no proper check to
 
 195 
 
 it. For though the king has a negative in the 
 passing of laws, yet this, in fact, is esteemed of so 
 little moment, that whatever is voted by the two 
 houses, is always sure to be passed into a law, and 
 the royal assent is little better than a mere form. 
 The principal weight of the crown lies in the executive 
 power. But besides that the executive power in 
 every government is altogether subordinate to the 
 legislative ; besides this, I say, the exercise of this 
 power requires an immense expence, and the com- 
 mons have assumed to themselves the sole power of 
 disposing of public money."* It will require the 
 united strength probably of the other two branches 
 to counteract so preponderating an influence; for the 
 reason assigned in this essay by the historian will not, 
 I think, suffice alone, in so systematized and extended 
 an opposition as at present obtains. Nay, tis well if 
 this union, amid such a chain of seditions as is work- 
 ing and netting itself night and day, such a spirit of 
 factious revolt as is gone out and is wrapping the 
 land in Egyptian darkness, will prove sufficient to 
 insure our monarchical preservation. The times, I 
 suspect, are not yet over, as certain of our Norwich 
 blue and white patriots can perhaps inform us, for 
 drinking (under the rose) "confusion to king-craft 
 and priest-craft." O when will these practised delu- 
 sions, these dastardly denunciations, these deadly 
 symptoms of hostility to church and state, open the 
 eyes of those who hold such revolutionary characters 
 
 * See Hume's Essays. Essay V. of the independency of Par- 
 liament. On such a subject and with such men as we are opposed 
 to, Mr. Belsham may also be authority worth the reciting. " The 
 weight, says he, of democracy in the English constitution is such, 
 as to preclude the aristocracy from the faintest hope of success, in 
 any contest for pre-eminence which might succeed the eventual 
 reduction, or annihilation of the regal power." 
 
 History of Great Britain. Vol. 6. 159, 
 
 cc 2
 
 196 
 
 in reverence ? When will Mr. Coke's independent 
 clergy of the diocese of Norwich learn properly to 
 appreciate the company they have got among ; men 
 who flatter, and laugh at, and despise, and detest them 
 in the same breath ; who now use them for their 
 interest, (the only accompt they ever wish to turn 
 them to) and will by and bye " use them for their 
 sport." 
 
 Neither less, gentlemen, recollect are we at issue 
 with our political opponents on the subject of a Re- 
 form in the Commons' House of Parliament ; nor, so 
 far as circumstances tally, do they here too disdain the 
 track of the French revolutionists. This is the great 
 broad road on which they bring up their heavy artil- 
 lery. On this neuter-ground they erect their battering 
 rams which are destined to thunder down the govern- 
 ment of the realm. Under this covered way they at 
 their leisure make their lodgements, plan their 
 minings andsappings, and lay their trains for the de- 
 molition of all above and about them. Ill would it 
 become me ; ill would it become any man with re- 
 spectful notions of that revolution which " stablished, 
 strengthened, settled" the limited monarchy of these 
 realms, to set his face against parliamentary reform, 
 against abuses in church or state, against the liberty of 
 the press, against the rights of the people, against any 
 regulations or legislative improvements that have made 
 us the envied nation we are. It is necessary to keep 
 these prime objects in view; to ponder them in 
 silence ; to make their chastised consideration ever 
 present with us, and conducive to the perfection of the 
 government under which we live. No one is less 
 willing to abridge the reasonable exercise of those 
 rights than he who opposes such an exercise of them 
 as is not reasonable. Now surely it is not reasonable 
 that the well-being of society should depend upon 
 the mere will of a heady multitude, inflamed rather 
 than guided by weak and seditious zeal. It is not
 
 197 
 
 reasonable that where wisdom has paused in her 
 enactments,, an empty sufficiency, a daring temerity 
 should go on without pause. It is not reasonable 
 that what shall be our religion,, what our laws, what 
 our government, what our chance for national prospe- 
 rity or national security, should be left to the legisla- 
 tive sagacity,, the strange guidance and authority of 
 such fiery delegates as many of our ultra and Whig 
 adversaries notoriously are. 
 
 But to such senators as these, though mighty in 
 their seditions, poor puling creatures in their under- 
 standing, must we in good measure, I fear, consent 
 to leave them, if the popular cry for annual parlia- 
 ments and universal suffrage should .be powerful 
 enough to prevail to their adoption. Parliamentary 
 reform is a broad term. It germinates as it proceeds, 
 and takes in almost any thing you please of any 
 shape or nature.* It models to its own notions every 
 thing fortuitous, every thing flagitious. It may end 
 in annual parliaments, or rump parliaments, or no 
 parliaments at all, according as the revolutionizing 
 spirit is alive, or the universal suffrage feeling gradu- 
 
 * This incessant harping upon parliamentary reform as the 
 universal panacea, is happily ridiculed in a paper I met with the 
 other day, and which the benevolent writer seems to have pub- 
 lished with a view of exposing these impudent and unfeeling quack 
 politicians. " Sir, I am almost famished. My good friend you 
 want a reform in parliament. I have had no work for a month 
 past. You must get rid of the rotten boroughs. My wife lies in 
 of her seventh child. Annual parliaments will soon cure that. 
 My children' are destitute of clothes and food. They are not suf- 
 ficiently represented. A little supply for present food would be 
 Fool ! you'll only be as hungry to -morrow. There is little chance 
 of my poor wife recovering. All owing to the interference of peers 
 in election. A good lady has promised to send us some bread and 
 coals. Old Sarum sends two members. A very little money 
 would relieve us. All in vain, while we have such a house of 
 commons as the present. The smallest donation would be accept- 
 able. I hare given my penny to Lord C 's subscription."
 
 198 
 
 ated at the time.* Indeed I am inclined to believe 
 with Mr. Canning, in the somewhat suspicious ex- 
 
 * I here beg leave to allude to a speech delivered at Mr. Fox's 
 comnfemoration dinner at Norwich, as I find it given in a local 
 paper (the Mercury) of January 30th last, to the editor of which 
 the public are much indebted for a valuable document that might 
 otherwise have perished. After my Lord Albemarle (the chair- 
 man) and Mr. Coke had, according to custom, pretty veil primed 
 and prepared their company in honour of the day, and the former 
 of these gentlemen had remarked, that the present Whig principles 
 were misunderstood by the people, Mr. N. B. Palmer, of Yar- 
 mouth, heated with patriotism and puissance, " arose to say a few 
 words," explanatory, I presume, of these misunderstood principles. 
 " The utility (observes the orator) of meetings of this sort assem- 
 bled to celebrate such a cause, is incalculable ; they promote, in 
 the first place, political discussion, and, in the next, they hold out 
 to the great the honour of giving their assistance." Of giving their 
 assistance to what we should be glad to know ? Perhaps the 
 context may inform us. " With regard to reform (continues Mr. 
 Palmer) I go as far as many in my opinions, but others I go be- 
 yond. I say, get what we can ; let us get our fingers in, and our 
 whole hands will soon follow. Let us deluge the house with peti- 
 tions. Let us pray for triennial parliaments, and when we have 
 got them, let us try for others" Was this language for my Lord 
 Albemarle and Mr. Coke, and the respectable part of the company 
 to have heard, to have endured, to have countenanced by hearing 
 and enduring it ? Was it language for any man to have endured 
 who had the least regard for political character, and did not wish 
 to be ranked as a decided revolutionist at once ? Yet no disap- 
 probation, as it appears, was manifested towards this part of the 
 speech during its delivery ; no censure passed upon it afterwards. 
 But surely if these great supporters of the Whig interest were the 
 friends to the constitution they so vauntingly pretend to be if, as 
 my Lord Albemarle observed, " the leading feature of their prin- 
 ciples was loyalty," how could they put up with such insinuations 
 from such a man how could they suffer themselves to be insulted, 
 and the county in them, by this open expression of a feeling whicli 
 ought instantly to have been met and annihilated by one general 
 burst of indignation ? Who will give them credit for their attach- 
 ment to church or state, for their desire " to preserve the royal 
 prerogative and the just rights of the people," while they can thus 
 countenance such barefaced allusions to a species of reform which 
 must lead to the demolition of both ? If Mr. Coke and my Lord 
 Albemarle wish to continue these commemorations of Mr. Fox'
 
 199 
 
 pression of that gentleman's sentiments by Sir Francis 
 Burdett, that if, under such legislative guardians, 
 " the house of commons were reformed, the king 
 and the peers would be speedily deposed."* Our 
 representation is certainly inadequate, but I know 
 not that it is therefore injurious, nor am I altogether 
 persuaded that it is unjust. Many able men have 
 considered the present representative system to be as 
 efficacious, for all purposes of national convenience 
 and comfort,, as a more extended franchise, and the 
 cause of public liberty to be as well served by sep- 
 tennial, as it probably would be by annual parliaments. 
 Upon this subject different opinions will be enter- 
 tained by those who love to go into refined specula- 
 tions, and as society, with all her garniture, veers 
 about, may be entertained at different times even by 
 the same persons. We are constantly compelled to 
 modify the institutions of antiquity, wisely and vir- 
 tuously as they were cast in their first mouldings. 
 An original merit may be a present defect ; may, at 
 least, border upon defect. We shall not, 1 hope, dis- 
 
 birth-day, and to have them constitutionally and respectably at- 
 tended, and considered as touchstones of that " glorious Whig 
 spirit" which they profess to "hail with joy," they will, for the 
 future, be very careful how they suffer such interlopers among men 
 of their pure principles, as this Mr. N. B. Palmer ; albeit report 
 holdeth him forth as a sort of confidential counsellor of the Hoik- 
 ham and Quiddenham cabinets, and, like the celebrated Earl of 
 Warwick, the York and Lancaster King Maker, in his govern- 
 ment of Great Yarmouth supreme. I request of the freeholders 
 of the county to notice two circumstances first, that such a 
 speech was actually delivered in and before such a company 
 nem. con. and secondly, that the person so delivering it is in the 
 confidence (and I believe I may add, very highly) of Mr. Coke, 
 Mr. Anson, and other the principal supporters of the Norfolk 
 Whig party. What sort of a party that is, after such a sample of 
 its affiliated defenders, there needs no crossing of the conjurer's 
 palm to determine. 
 * Star, July 14.
 
 200 
 
 cover by experience what annual parliaments and 
 universal suffrage, in their results, would lead to. But 
 situated as we are, with all the old virtues of society 
 disappearing about us, and innovation teeming on 
 every side and renovation on none, we should not I 
 think, gentlemen, be among the number of those who 
 would feel it a duty to recommend such an experi- 
 ment. When we see what periodical confusions 
 even septennial parliaments with a limited suffrage 
 bring forth, we can be at little loss to determine how 
 a larger suffrage would operate. The witty argu- 
 ment for going back to triennial parliaments, that 
 " our representatives might thus be allowed to sin two 
 years and repent one/'* is nugatory ; for I am terri- 
 bly afraid that such hardened offenders as Mr. Coke 
 of Norfolk, whether the duration were fixed to three 
 or to seven years, would go on sinning to the end of 
 the chapter, and, even in the last struggles of political 
 dissolution, manifest no sign of repentance. 
 
 It is a pity that any gentlemen who mean well, 
 and who are only anxious for the public weal, should 
 advocate such a measure under such circumstances ; 
 should, with the popular manners all inflamed to mad- 
 ness, advocate it under any modification as to time, 
 or any limitation as to property whatever. -j* It is the 
 
 Norfolk Chronicle, June 27, 1818. 
 
 + Mr. Coke, in a late debate on the Excise Duties Bill, ex- 
 pressed his belief, that " Reform in parliament was the only true 
 remedy for most of the present grievances ;" and declared, as the 
 papers purport, that " he would go the full length of asserting that 
 this (the present house of commons I presume) was a corrupt 
 house, from which no good could be expected." (Evening Mail, 
 June 18.) Mr. Canning, on the contrary, in rising to move the 
 order of the day upon Sir Francis Burdett's motion for parliamen- 
 tary reform, June 2, 1818, has ventured very justly, 1 think, to 
 object even- to moderate reform, " because it would lead, by de- 
 grees, to the very object which was now proposed to the house. 
 Kvery intermediate step obtained would be used as a stepping- 
 stone to attain that end." (Star, June 3, 1818.) What he
 
 201 
 
 interest indeed of the people which is the great stalk- 
 ing- horse of reform with those who would willingly 
 emerge from obscurity and crime through the medium 
 of that revolution to which, they trust, such reform 
 would eventually lead. But as to the people them- 
 selves,, I see not how they could be gainers by any 
 mode of reform. They have never felt any ill effects 
 from septennial, they would never probably experi- 
 ence any good effects from annual parliaments. 
 AVithout a vote they have never been forgotten in the 
 decisions of the legislature ; with a vote they would 
 not be better remembered. Whatever may be the 
 mode of election, the elected must consult the com- 
 mon welfare ; must make that welfare the first and 
 Jast, the great and constant object of their con- 
 cern. If they and the other branches of parliament 
 did not, the king would cease to reign and the 
 constitution would cease to be ; for no government, 
 (I care not of what description) forgetting the inte- 
 
 afterwards subjoins upon this subject is too seriously valuable to 
 omit. " It was said that the house did not sufficiently represent 
 the people. If the house represented the people as it was under- 
 stood, and the will of the people was the rule of government, then 
 king and lords would be nuisances and excrescences. Let the 
 house look at the last year of the reign of Charles the First, and it 
 would find, in its own journals, resolutions taken by the long par- 
 liament, and containing a very correct exposition of the Hon. 
 Baronet's theory. They would read that it was resolved 'first, 
 that the people, under God, were the original of all just govern- 
 ment. 2dly. That the commons of England, in parliament assem- 
 bled, chosen by and representing the people, had the supreme 
 power in these kingdoms. And 3dly, ' That what had been 
 enacted or declared for law, by the commons of England in parlia- 
 ment assembled, had the force of law, and the people were bound 
 by it, although the consent of the king and the lords had not been 
 had thereto.' These resolutions had been followed by a vote, 
 declaring the house of lords no longer useful ; and soon after by 
 another, dethroning the king and taking away his life. Yet could 
 it be denied that the theory of the Hon. Baronet was contained in 
 these resolutions." 
 
 D d
 
 202 
 
 rests of the vast mass of the people, so far as those 
 interests can and ought to be consulted and secured, 
 would last, or would deserve to last, throughout the 
 fleeting change of a moon. Annual parliaments 
 therefore and universal suffrage can be insisted upon 
 by no description of men who profess to admire the 
 principles of our constitution, against which, 1 con- 
 reive, a change of this nature in our representation 
 would materially militate. Abstract reasoning upon 
 such a point would be little less than lunacy, with all 
 experience against us that man is not fitted for the 
 exercise of such a right, nor for receiving benefit 
 from such a representation. The will of the people 
 it would be difficult to determine ; the fleeting- 
 changeable temper of the people it would be impos- 
 sible to please; the judgment of the people, where it 
 could be gathered, could but seldom perhaps be ap- 
 proved. To adventure upon such a step would be 
 all hazard and folly. Before we could calculate upon 
 any benefits, we must have a world differently created, 
 and creatures to inhabit it of a far humbler and 
 holier nature. 
 
 But the Whigs are not advocates for annual par- 
 liaments. True as a body I believe they are not ; 
 as a body of their original complexion. But the 
 Whigs of the present day, the congregating assimi- 
 lating Whigs, with their net cast into a tempestuous 
 sea and gathering of every kind, are, 1 am sorry to 
 say, not averse to annual parliaments, or to any and 
 every mode of suffrage that will promote their views 
 and humble their enemies. These Whigs have no 
 objection to see their own doctrines (sufficiently ob- 
 noxious, if we may judge from our Norwich and Nor- 
 folk specimens) spun out into greater length and 
 blown up into a more energetic spirit by the " radical 
 reformers," and these reformers again are happy to 
 find their motions seconded by the whole host of 
 ultras. The present enlarged edition of Whiggism,
 
 203 
 
 hot-pressed, and new bound and gilt and lettered, 
 comes forth with a Hampden commentary on a pretty 
 broad scale; on a scale so broad that we are at a loss 
 to determine whether the regicides of the Protecto- 
 rate, or the French revolutionists, yet green in their 
 graves, are still speaking through our English dema- 
 gogues, or whether those demagogues, all foul with 
 sedition, are drawing from the stores of their own 
 sacrilegious minds. The coarse anomalous harangues 
 which we hear every day we scarcely know how to 
 class. The Whigs are for triennial parliaments, the 
 reformers for annual, the revolutionists, accounting- 
 all alike inefficient and nefarious, for none. But both 
 Whigs and Revolutionists agree in using the harshest 
 language and entertaining the hardest opinions of 
 the measures of government, and in scattering among 
 a people, made unquiet by their misrepresentations, 
 the boldest incentives to disobedience and disaffec- 
 tion. In these important and melancholy results of 
 their respective conduct, who are Whigs or who arc 
 Revolutionists, it is hardly worth while to enquire. 
 Whether Whigs or Revolutionists, their unhappy 
 country is, alas ! almost equally " without either part 
 or lot" in them. 
 
 I am not of their mind who believe that the con- 
 duct manifested towards Mr. Demagogue Hunt and 
 others of the like cast at the late Westminster elec- 
 tions, proves the general dislike, among the reforming 
 class of our population, to universal suffrage and 
 annual parliaments. It is such men as these who 
 rather bring a lucky discredit on a bad cause. 
 They have not always uppermost, as finished Machi- 
 avelians ought to have, the requisite concealments 
 and precautions. In the revolutionary enthusiasm of 
 their souls, they are apt to lose sight of the skilful 
 preparation of the public mind for public confusion. 
 They are for striking too soon, and thus too soon 
 put us on our guard by evincing what spirit they are 
 
 Dd 2
 
 204 
 
 of. Shew to the people of England a picture of revo- 
 lution in all its horrors, and they will flee the monster, 
 or drive him into the depths of the nethermost hell. 
 But gently, gradually, plausibly entice them on by 
 Whig principles, no matter where they are borrowed 
 from; Whig speeches, no matter by whom or for 
 what purpose delivered ; doctrines of general reform, 
 doctrines of " radical reform ;" a soothing amalga- 
 mation of all religious opinions; a holy union of all 
 religious denominations ; a church of England mis- 
 sionary society springing from the bowels of the 
 rankest sectarism ; a church of England evangelical 
 clergy hugging the altar (for its gifts) with one hand 
 and the tabernacle with the other; preach up to 
 them in assuasive accents that religious toleration is 
 a right withheld, civil incapacities a wrong inflicted, 
 and a liberal spirit, in all matters appertaining to 
 church and state, the spirit which Christianity en- 
 joins, and which the improved state of society and 
 that policy which ought ever to wait upon it re- 
 quires let this be the mode of approach and the 
 business is nearly as good as done. The traveller 
 threw off his cloak to the sun, though the rude wind 
 only made him wrap it the closer about him. By a 
 boisterous threatening attitude they would have fail- 
 ed; by dexterously throwing a tub to the whale they 
 succeed. 
 
 Another strange and very suspicious doctrine 
 broached by those, taking them as a body, to whom 
 we are opposed, and in which, gentlemen, I am sure, 
 as free and independent electors, we never shall agree 
 with them, is, that a representative is bound to adopt 
 the opinions, and, on all occasions, implicitly to obey 
 the will of his constituents. This is, I think, evident 
 from the Westminster proceedings, as well as from 
 certain of the speeches delivered during the last day 
 of the city of London election. Thus Mr. Cleary 
 tells us, " it would be an abandonment of the princi-
 
 205 
 
 pies which they professed, and for the last ten years 
 steadily acted upon, to return as their representative 
 any but a radical reformer, determined, like Sir 
 Francis Burdett, to fight the people's cause, on the 
 ground of universal freedom. It may be true, that 
 Sir Samuel Romilly, from the nature of his. situation, 
 in being returned for a borough, was heretofore 
 shackled. To be therefore the second member might 
 have the effect of unshackling him on the question of 
 reform."* Alderman Wood comes forward and 
 " calls upon the livery to mark every vote he gave, 
 and that would enable them to decide whether he 
 was influenced by public principle or not."* (Loud 
 applause.) Mr. Waithman declares " he should con- 
 form to the opinions of his constituents, and when 
 they found him unworthy of his seat in parliament, he 
 knew they would do their duty towards him, as they 
 had done it towards those who had been just stripped 
 of their dignities." * Mr. Wilson, more reasonable, 
 more anxious for his dignity and independence than 
 for his popular credit or interest, assures us and I 
 copy, gentlemen freeholders of Norfolk, so chastised 
 and excellent a declaration with pleasure that " his 
 duty was of the most serious description. It was not 
 only to represent the civil and commercial interests of 
 his constituents, but to support the constitution in 
 church and state, and do the best he could at all times 
 to serve his fellow-citizens, whose opinions he should, 
 upon all occasions, take the opportunity of consulting. 
 It would, he declared, afford infinite pleasure to him, 
 that there should at all times exist a coincidence of 
 opinion between him and those who sent him to par- 
 liament ; but as he was a man independent of minis- 
 ters, wanting nothing from them, and capable of no 
 servility to their will, he trusted the livery would 
 allow him to use a discretion upon questions that 
 
 * Star, June 24.
 
 206 
 
 might arise, and that credit would be given to him for 
 good intention, should his view be opposite to their 
 opinion and to the public feeling."* (Much disap- 
 probation, mingled with applause.) Here we dis- 
 cover pretty plainly the pulse of the popular mind. 
 These are your " free and independent members"- 
 these are your " guardians of the rights and liberties 
 of the people" these are your " opposers of a 
 slavish and corrupt administration." Mr. Alderman 
 Wood might well tell us, that "a most wonderful 
 change had taken place in the opinions of the peo- 
 ple ;"* for without such a change, as melancholy to 
 the full as astonishing, such a batch of city senators 
 would never have been returned to shame a British 
 house of commons. Their triumph, "the triumph of 
 truth, of justice, and of freedom?"* The triumph 
 over them rather than of them ; and very gratefully 
 as well as very prudently does Mr. Waithman add, 
 "this was a lesson to representatives, by which he 
 hoped the world would benefit. It would caution 
 them against treating the people with indignity."* 
 
 It is idle, I wish it were not worse, to contend that 
 a representative is at all times at the will of his con- 
 stituents, and that he must act and vote as they would 
 have him. A house of commons, obedient to the 
 will of a dissolute people, would be a pest-house, 
 would be constantly casting forth its tribunitial powers 
 to torment and destroy the state. A house of com- 
 mons bearing no stamp of its popular origin and ob- 
 ject, connecting itself with none of our popular feel- 
 ings, attending to none of our popular complaints, 
 would destroy at once the nature of that mixed go- 
 vernment so justly our boast, and plunge us into un- 
 controlled and aristocratical despotism. But to say 
 that between these extremes (almost equally to be 
 
 * Star, June 24.
 
 207 
 
 deprecated) there is no medium, and that if the 
 commons house of parliament be not at the beck of 
 the people we must sink into a corrupt dependence 
 upon the crown, is to contradict all reason and past 
 experience, and all that we are in the habit of daily 
 observing at present. The fact will, I think, be 
 found to be, that when the people have sent their 
 representatives to parliament they have done with 
 them, have done with the exercise of all authority 
 over them. Their own reason and judgment, their 
 own fixed principles, and a deep sense of the impor- 
 tant powers with which they are invested, must, from 
 that moment, constitute their sole guide. On all 
 great state questions of policy they must exercise 
 their unfettered opinions, without either knowing or 
 concerning themselves with the opinions of those who 
 elected them, and without considering who among 
 them they may please or displease by their decisions. 
 On any other grounds they would be mere puppets in 
 leading strings. The people make a house of com- 
 mons, and the house of commons, in return, (con- 
 jointly with the other branches of parliament) make 
 those laws which bind their creators, and by which 
 their creators have consented to be bound. For 
 whatever may be the stage or state of society, what- 
 ever the mode of government, the popular cast of 
 mind, the Jura summi Imperil must be found settled 
 and fixed somewhere. And as this power can never 
 be got rid of, but, like the principle of vegetation, 
 pervades all time and space, and depressed in one 
 spot springs up ranker in another, so, in our own 
 case, has the nation prudently determined to invest it 
 with those of whose constitutional principles they are 
 previously persuaded, and of whom they have formed 
 the best opinion for wisdom and for rectitude. 
 
 This doctrine of cashiering their representatives, 
 if they presume to have a will of their own, may 
 tally very well with the dissenting pandect of revolu-
 
 208 
 
 tion as promulgated by their arch apostle, Dr. Price, 
 but is utterly subversive of that spirit of freedom 
 which our constitution inculcates, and which, con- 
 ceding to every part of society, it certainly can never 
 mean to withhold from so essential a part of it as the 
 representatives of the people of England. What 
 was the conduct of Mr. Burke when, in his detection 
 of the causes which produced our national discontents 
 in the time of that unprincipled demagogue Wilkes, 
 he proposed his remedy for such discontents ? Did 
 he, with the Whig multifarious faction of the present 
 day, go to paring down prerogative to the last rind ? 
 Was he for plucking up rational liberty, and sober 
 religion, and all the happily set orders of society with 
 them, by the roots? Did he colleague with, and 
 bring in jacobin doctrines as a succedaneum for popu- 
 lar commotion and a preservative from anti-jacobin 
 oligarchy ? Had he recourse to the Hunts and the 
 Woolers of that period as a counter-check to the 
 Castlereaghs and the Cannings, or raked he the ken- 
 nels of democracy in every town and county of the 
 kingdom for pacifying the murmurs of the people by 
 hooting and yelling down their governors in church 
 and state ? He chalked out that fair and noble line 
 on which popular representation, in a high and 
 palmy empire like ours, ought ever to run. He 
 recommended that England should send to her com- 
 mon's house of parliament men independent in their 
 principles, aristocratical in their rank, and interested 
 in tlie pure goverment and welfare of the nation by 
 their property and possessions. These were his va- 
 luable class of middle men, equally unfettered by the 
 chains of ministry on the one hand, and by the more 
 galling manacles that bind up both soul and body of 
 a rude licentious people on the other. 
 
 Thus it was that this great man thought, and thus 
 too was it that whenever the occasion called upon 
 him he acted. On this ground the only one on
 
 209 
 
 which any representative should consent to be a re- 
 presentative did he advocate the cause of the Ro- 
 man Catholics in voting for the repeal of certain 
 pains and penalties, though entirely contrary to the 
 wishes of his constituents. But his heart was with 
 the subject ; and where his heart was, he very pro- 
 perly determined that his voice and vote should be. 
 His constituents, had they duly apppreciated the value 
 of a conduct so conscientious, should have been the 
 last persons to have censured it. It was an earnest 
 how mighty and prevalent would be such a spirit 
 when it could act with the same noble regard to its 
 integrity, in consonance with their wishes. The mind 
 of such a man was not to be fettered, and he might 
 well think scorn of surrendering the exercise of his 
 sound judgment, his deep experience, his full, lofty, 
 dignified persuasions to the wishes of his Bristol con- 
 stituents, or indeed of any constituents. He did 
 right. He did right in the opinion of even his most 
 determined adversaries. We do not said an able 
 minister of that day, far more unfortunate than cen- 
 surable in his measures " we do not stand here as 
 the deputies, but the representatives of the people. 
 We are not to refer to them before we determine. 
 We stand here as they would stand ; to use our own 
 discretion without seeking any other guidance under 
 heaven."* Noble language this, gentlemen, which 
 will find its way into the heart of every honest and 
 honourable elector ; which will more serve the cause 
 of the individual by serving the cause of the com- 
 munity; which tends to engender manly feelings, 
 and right notions, and proper expectations in all 
 parties ; and which leaving the mind in possession of 
 its native independence, leaves it to the exercise of its 
 maturest judgment, and to the promulgalion and 
 
 * Lord North's speech in debate on Parliamentary Reform, 
 May 7, 1783. 
 
 E e
 
 o 
 
 10 
 
 establishment of its clearest, soundest, most constitu- 
 tional principles. 
 
 But on no subject, gentlemen, do we more disagree 
 with our opponents than on that dreadful one which 
 goes under the imposing name of the Majesty of the 
 people ; a subject which I shall consider somewhat 
 more at large, both because it is the spur of demo- 
 cratic eloquence, and because, in its direction and 
 application, it is of most dangerous tendency. This 
 doctrine is advocated, 1 believe, directly or indi- 
 rectly, by the greater part of them. And here it 
 will be found that the example of revolutionary 
 France is no warning, but rather a " pillar of fire" 
 to those who seem desirous of treading the same dark 
 road. This delusion of the Majesty of the people 
 they only, in times so distorted as the present, can 
 bring themselves to adopt who have either minds 
 incapable of discerning between good and evil, or 
 who conceal other designs than they think proper to 
 avow. We know what the people soberly speaking- 
 are ; what they are and were intended to be in every 
 nation as well as in our own. They are every where, 
 going back to the aboriginal state of society, the 
 source of power. All authority springs from, is in- 
 vested in, rests with them. But this authority they 
 surrender for their own good, for their own preserva- 
 tion. For that good and preservation they consent 
 to be bound by good and wholesome laws, and while 
 they act in conformity with those laws, which derive 
 their influence from their accordance with revelation 
 and reason, they may be considered as little less than 
 supreme in their will and invincible in their strength. 
 To the Majesty of the people so nurtured and grow- 
 ing up in virtue and stature, monarchy, and aristo- 
 cracy, and all the various gradations of social life, 
 mixt and moulded into one body, are prepared to 
 bow, and the voice of the people thus consecrated by 
 a willing, dignified obedience to the laws of the stnte.
 
 211 
 
 and to those who, in virtue of such laws, " have the 
 rule over them," we may perhaps consider as, in 
 some measure, assimilated with, and, beneficently 
 awful, partaking of the voice of God. 
 
 But conceding thus far, here I conceive every 
 prudent man ought to stop ; here, truth and con- 
 science forbidding any farther agreement, he ought 
 to shake hands with the wild opposers of government, 
 and on this point bid them a long and lasting fare- 
 well. We can never allow our unprincipled dema- 
 gogues to go out, like scavengers, into " the lanes 
 and streets of the city" and pick up the lowest and 
 vilest of our population, and, after poisoning their 
 minds against religion and government and all the 
 authorities of the state, to represent them as the peo- 
 ple, and their rash ungovernable movements as the 
 will of the people, and their seditious spirits rising up 
 againt every form of an established monarchy and an 
 established church, as the Majesty of the people. 
 We can never consent that every thing done against 
 the judgment of such men and their seducers by the 
 executive government, should be held out as done 
 against the will and contrary to the interests of the 
 people. We too well recollect the use which the 
 French regicides invariably made of this line of ar- 
 gument, who affected to consider our declaration of 
 war against them (with those from other quarters) as 
 the declaration of the government not of the people of 
 England, of the creatures of the court, the placemen 
 and pensioners of corruption, not of the honest and 
 independent mass of the country. No it is because 
 we respect the people that we abominate these worth- 
 less representatives of them. It is because we love 
 the people that we nauseate these wretched dregs of 
 our population. It is because we would see the peo- 
 ple obedient, and loyal, and happy, and happy in 
 consequence of their obedience, that we deprecate 
 the disaffected proceedings of these mob usurpers 
 
 EC 2
 
 212 
 
 upon their rights, and that we would give up at once 
 to the execration they deserve those who, under fair 
 pretences, are daily corrupting the common mind for 
 the purposes of plundering the common wealth ; 
 men who, worthless for the most part and for the 
 most part needy, are seeking a goodlier inheritance 
 and a softer bed where they may indulge, and riot and 
 enrich themselves. It is, in short, because we look 
 up to the people as the genuine guardians of our 
 constitution in church and state, as our pride in 
 national prosperity and our protection in national 
 adversity, that we from our hearts abhor and detest 
 all who would seduce them from the paths of duty, 
 persuaded as we are that, contemplating them as the 
 vast body of the British empire, they are a satisfied, a 
 comfortable, a grateful body ; are satisfied that the 
 government of the realm has been gloriously exer- 
 cised at a period when nothing was before us but 
 glory or death ; are comfortable when they calmly 
 compare what is their situation, with what, under 
 results less favourable, it might have been ; are 
 grateful when they read the calamities of other 
 nations and look to the continued tranquillity of their 
 own ; when they see, which I am sure they do with 
 an awful joy, their houses and lands, their flocks and 
 herds, their wives and children about them, untouched, 
 untainted, unviolated, and in every respect as God 
 and nature left them. 
 
 We beg, therefore, that when our adversaries talk 
 i'dly and insolently of the British constitution, or the 
 British government, or affairs in church or state, 
 they would have the goodness to speak in their own 
 name only and not in that of the people of England. 
 Where 
 
 . Men may construe things, after their fashion, 
 Cleau from the purpose of the things themselves,* 
 
 * Shakespear.
 
 213 
 
 some guide becomes necessary to conduct us through 
 the maze of imposing error. The Sybil's bough must 
 preserve us innoxious amid those dreary regions 
 where deformity is painted in the colours of heaven, 
 and all virtue maliciously cast into shade. The popu- 
 lar ear has been strangely gained and the popular 
 mind abused by a set of half atheistical, half dissent- 
 ing, and almost entirely disaffected spirits, who, under 
 the mask of philosophy and free-thinking, stalk about 
 the kingdom, and wherever they go open a mart for 
 the sale of their commodities, and puff themselves off 
 for the only statesmen and literati that England has 
 to boast of. But let no one think that these are 
 really the leaders of the public taste, the organs of 
 the public voice, the constitutional pillars that sup- 
 port the weight of a precarious and tottering empire. 
 No they are the mere excrescencies of a great and 
 powerful nation, the reptiles that trail their slime 
 over the polished orders of society, and defame and 
 disfigure every beautiful proportion in the works of 
 God and man. What such men say and do, they say 
 and do for themselves alone. They must not open 
 the encyclopaedia of their pernicious arts and sciences, 
 and declare them to be the guides and lights of the 
 people of England. The people of England scorn to 
 plead guilty to so foul a reproach upon their national 
 honour. They will not suffer such a misrepresenta- 
 tion of their feelings, such a distortion of their views. 
 They hold no such doctrines as are affected to be 
 imputed to them. The people of England know 
 nothing, and desire to know nothing, of such ad- 
 dresses to the throne as our Whig adversaries would 
 fain prepare for them. They acknowledge no par- 
 ticipation in feelings that seem more alive to remon- 
 strance than to reason, to licentiousness than to 
 loyalty. They cannot mould their honest natures to 
 the liberal politics of the times, nor adopt a boasted 
 benevolence, a deadly deification of principles which
 
 214 
 
 their soul shudders at, when they recollect to what 
 nefarious purposes it hath served in other countries, 
 and may, in all likelihood, be intended by and bye to 
 serve in this. They can only contemplate it as a 
 sample of that morbid anatomy of the human mind 
 which the present revolutionizing age, saturated with 
 liberty and false philosophy, has produced. 
 
 Our constitution gives no countenance to this doc- 
 trine of the Majesty of the people in its naked dress, 
 though many are found desirous of tracing it back to 
 such an origin. It gave none to it before the revo- 
 lution of 1688, none at that period, none since. The 
 Whig representative for Norfolk indeed assures us, 
 " that kings were made for the people and not the 
 people for kings ;" and Mr. Coke's Whig friend and 
 adviser confirms this declaration by insulting the 
 public feeling with the toast of " the sovereignty of 
 the people," and by afterwards explaining to them 
 how the people are the sovereigns.* But though 
 this demonstration from our Norwich delegate comes 
 with sufficient plausibility and a tolerable share of 
 assurance, it does not entirely settle the point. An 
 additional authority is therefore adduced from a 
 higher quarter " to satisfy the curiosity" of an anony- 
 mous correspondent, and to "enable him to attach a 
 precise idea"-^ to this celebrated sentiment. Now 
 according to Mr. Hall, (Apology for the Freedom of 
 the Press) " the doctrine of Locke and his followers 
 is founded on the natural equality of mankind/'f 
 from whence it is argued, that " as the natural equa- 
 lity of one generation is the same with that of another, 
 the people have always the same right to new model 
 their government and set aside their rulers/'f This 
 
 * See Mr. Edward Tajlor's letter in the Norwich Mercury of 
 J-Vbiuary 20, 1819. 
 
 f See a letter signed C. R. in the Norwich Mercury of Feb- 
 ruary 27th.
 
 215 
 
 is plain speaking, and I wonder not that with such 
 a latitude from so justly admired a writer, Mr. Ed- 
 ward Taylor should adventure upon such a toast. 
 However we shall yet call this sovereignty into doubt 
 at the present day, even upon their own principles. 
 Mr. Hall goes on to assert, that the existing authori- 
 ties in a state, " till they are set aside by the unequi- 
 vocal voice of the people, are a law to every member 
 of the community."* Nay, he declares that "to 
 resist them is rebellion, and for any particular set of 
 men to attempt their subversion by force is a heinous 
 crime, as they represent and embody the collective 
 majesty of the state/ 5 * On this principle we are 
 willing to rest the matter, and on this (their own) 
 principle I will venture to say that our Whig orators, 
 our Norwich democrats, our radical reformers and 
 anarchists, must stand self condemned, inasmuch as 
 what they are pleased to term " the people," and the 
 /' unequivocal voice of the people," and the " autho- 
 rity," and the " will," and the " sovereignty of the 
 people," is notoriously the voice, the will, the power, 
 and the Majesty of the very refuse and dregs of our 
 population. We consent to yield up reason, justice, 
 virtue, every thing to their claims, if, looking to what 
 they call the people in every quarter of the kingdom, 
 the word can, with any equity and fair acceptation, 
 take any other meaning than that here attached to it. 
 Mr. Hall concludes, " with the enemies of freedom 
 it is a usual artifice to represent the sovereignty of 
 the people as a licence to anarchy and disorder." 
 Truly without artifice, and without any thing inimical 
 to freedom, we may say, that with such a latitude of 
 interpretation, such a licence to deception, such a 
 bold, shameless, prostituted definition of the people 
 as at present takes place, with few exceptions, among 
 
 * See a letter signed C. R. in the Norwich Mercury of Feb- 
 ruary 27th.
 
 216 
 
 the opponents of government,, the sovereignty of the 
 people is but another expression for the signal of 
 revolution ; the sovereignty of the people is, in plain 
 language, neither more nor less than the deposition 
 of our established constitution in church and state, 
 whenever such people take it into their heads to 
 fancy, or their demagogue leaders can succeed in 
 seducing them to believe such deposition necessary. 
 Yes, there is indeed " a precise idea attached to the 
 sovereignty of the people !" and woe be to the house 
 of Hanover, if, upon the right of such people to 
 "cashier their governors for misconduct," as these 
 Whig members and dissenting politicians would 
 palm upon us for the decayed, battered, graceless 
 representatives of that truly venerable bodv, " rests 
 the claim of the present family to the crown"* of the 
 united kingdoms. "It is possible (says this republi- 
 can toastmaster in the paroxisms of his patriotism) 
 that I may live to see the principles of Locke, and 
 Sydney., and Hoadly, and Fox become unfashion- 
 able."* It is so but I think it is much more pos- 
 sible that he and his radical reformers, with such 
 spirits as they are daily gathering round them, may 
 live to see those principles perverted by a practice as 
 opposite to their original design as light to darkness 
 it is much more possible that they may, by their 
 deleterious mixtures, so poison these speculative 
 founts, that whoever hereafter draws from them 
 shall feel a rottenness in his bones and the democra- 
 tical gangrene spreading and seizing upon his soul- 
 it is much more possible that the harangues of a 
 Whig county member, a Norwich delegate, a Yar- 
 mouth patriot, a Westminster demagogue,, may breathe 
 such a contagion on the writings of these eminent 
 men as actually to cause them to stink in the nostrils 
 of posterity. If such advocates for popular sove- 
 
 * See Mr. Edward Taylor's aforesaid letter.
 
 217 
 
 reign ty cannot demonstratively prove that what they 
 here, and upon all occasions, term the people, is, not 
 any local and distorted and maddened part of them, 
 but bona fide the great and awful mass of every 
 rank and degree of the people of the British empire, 
 stand they not convicted on their own principles,, and 
 by their own evidence and confession of as high a 
 degree of disaffection to their king and country, as, 
 short of actual treason, can well settle itself upon an 
 English soul ? 
 
 Of this doctrine, at once plausible and pernicious, 
 no man can think highly who thinks monarchy of any 
 description worth the preserving. It is a doctrine 
 which every man of sense would avoid promulgating, 
 and which every landed proprietor should tremble to 
 countenance in times so perturb id, and under notions 
 and feelings so perverted as the present. Do not let 
 us, gentlemen, be misled by these mischievous decla- 
 rations. Sacredly let us perform our duty by the 
 people ; earnestly let us watch over their interest ; 
 daily and nightly let us contrive to increase their 
 comfort and their respectability in the scale of society ; 
 but never, never let us be induced by cruel and 
 absurd sacrifices to inflate them beyond the sphere of 
 their original destination. The disturbers of the 
 public peace, those assassins of every virtue, public 
 and private, tell their sovereign that the people (that 
 is, the people sucking in sedition from their tutoring) 
 are the security of the throne ; that to their will he 
 owes his crown, and that when they breathe their 
 displeasure, thrones and crowns and sceptres are like 
 dust in the balance. The revolutionists of France 
 preached up the very same doctrine;. an easy and 
 lenient Prince believed them, and the torrent soon 
 rolled in blood over his devoted head. The people 
 are indeed the security of every throne ; but it is the 
 people uncontaminated by such revolting doctrines as 
 these. It is the people loyal, obedient, contented, 
 
 F f
 
 happy. It is the people in the cradle of their inno- 
 cence, reposing their wills and affections on the wis- 
 dom of their rulers, and not stretched out in their 
 coffins, dark, black with crime, with features settled 
 and stiffened into guilt, and with the threat of pollu- 
 tion still curling and flickering upon their lips. 
 Such a people are at once our pest and terror; fierce 
 and fiery even in death, and carrying in their very 
 countenance living the gigantic iniquities that lie 
 brooding in their hearts. The people are, and we 
 trust will continue, the sheet anchor of the state ; but 
 it is not the writings of such men as Cobbett and 
 Wooler, or the philippics of such senators as Burdett 
 and Brougham, or the Whig dinner speeches of my 
 Lord Albemarle and Mr. Coke, or the mouthing 
 anniversary exercises, the noisy troublesome disaflfec- 
 tions of the little trumpery tonguesters, the scamps 
 and pads of democracy that, (half invited, half for- 
 bidden) appear in their train, and mess at their table, 
 which will either make or preserve them so. For 
 the people of England to remain the pride of Eng- 
 land, it is such preparatory instructors in national 
 anarchy that we must teach them to hold in their 
 contempt. In virtue of such a sovereignty of the 
 people as these gentry are for setting up, the crown 
 of the realm would not be worth half a dozen years 
 purchase ; and even under the shelter of the mildest 
 explanation of this celebrated term, I know not that 
 there would be much difference between George III. 
 of England and Louis XVIII. of France. Now 
 Louis the XVIII. was an usurper. 
 
 The people, gentlemen, are in a good measure 
 what their superiors please to make them, the statua- 
 ries that must hew them out of their block of marble. 
 They are the children of imitation,* and will go 
 
 * Of this disposition of the human mind to imitation, Plutarch, 
 in his life of Caesar, gives us, uot indeed an uncommon, but a rery
 
 219 
 
 down to their graves with such marks of praise or 
 infamy as we chuse to impress upon them. There is 
 indeed occasionally a coarse and bitter scorn about 
 them, sufficiently grating and sufficiently derogatory. 
 But it is a signature of our common uncultivated 
 nature,, and we must be neither too harsh against it, 
 nor too sensibly affected with it. In the early periods 
 of the Roman republic, the tone of popular feeling 
 was set high. What their great and illustrious 
 leaders were, they were. Their temperance, their 
 justice, their magnanimity, their patriotism and glory, 
 were all copied into and silently commixed with the 
 popular character. In the Imperial state this high 
 tone of virtue was exchanged for a base and venal 
 spirit of flattery. Greatness was paid court to. Il- 
 lustrious villainy was as certain of such adulation as 
 the people had to bestow as illustrious virtue. 
 Wherever the tyrant was, there were they with their 
 prostitutions ; there, with the patrician degeneracy 
 graven on their souls, did they bow to Caesar ruling 
 with equity and to Caesar wallowing in debauchery. 
 The idols they deified one moment they demonized 
 the next, and that general, whom their voices clothed 
 with the sovereign purple to day, their vengeance 
 doomed to the rags of Belisarius to-morrow. We 
 blame them not. The monsters we have begotten 
 we must endure. But let us remember, or we shall 
 be wanting injustice, that, in a majority of cases, the 
 virtue of the people is their own, while their crimes 
 must be shared with those from whom they receive 
 their counsels. 
 
 strong and convincing proof. " Such moreover (says he) was the 
 affection of his soldiers and their attachment to his person, that 
 they who, under other commanders, were nothing above the com- 
 mon rate of men, became invincible where Caesar's glory was con- 
 cerned, and met the most dreadful dangers with a courage that 
 nothing could resist." 
 
 Ff 2
 
 220 
 
 Considered as one great collective body, they must 
 of necessity be the prime objects of legislation, and 
 their happiness the rule and crown of legislation. 
 As all our comforts flow from, so all our gratitude is 
 due to them. In their righteous obedience we live, 
 we move, we have our very political being. All we 
 can do for the people, for their well being in this 
 world, for the furtherance of their hopes and expec- 
 tations in the next, will evermore fall short of what 
 we ought, of what we desire to do for them. We 
 care nothing indeed about their Majesty, but much 
 about their morals and comfort; and knowing that 
 " righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach 
 to any people," we bend our endeavours to eradicate 
 that sin, and, by every practicable means in our 
 power, to inforce that righteousness. This is what 
 private benevolence hath long been attempting in 
 their favour, what the legislature of the empire hath 
 sanctified by its countenance, and what we hope the 
 Almighty in his mercy will ultimately vouchsafe a 
 blessing to. But all this, as our ungenerous adversa- 
 ries and theirs well know, can only be effected by 
 such means as are at compleat contradiction with 
 their deceptions levelling notions ; all this can only 
 be accomplished by every artful machination of theirs 
 being first defeated. 
 
 For despotism indeed we are no advocates; for 
 despotism either in mind, or power, or mere outward 
 goods. It is hardly born with in any stage or 
 state of society. We feel fully, decidedly, that, in a 
 world like the present, we cannot be equal. But we 
 feel as fully (it is a sentiment which I have long 
 entertained and which I hope I shall never relinquish) 
 that it is not agreeable to our nature, nor to the 
 designs of Providence, nor even to the wisdom of 
 man's legislation, that, under any form of govern- 
 ment, in all the important concerns of "mind, body, 
 and estate/' we should be wretchedly and pitiably
 
 unequal. Early states resisted this evulsion of all 
 common consanguinity, this radical extirpation of the 
 brotherhood of flesh and blood. " God created man 
 in his own image/' and who would wish or dare 
 entirely to efface it ? Greece, to avoid despotism and 
 those reductions of soul it draws after it, suffered not 
 her kings to go beyond such limits of rule as were 
 deemed needful ; and as for Rome, so alive was she 
 to every gross violation of the laws and feelings of 
 natural affection, that to stave off such a calamity she 
 dissolved her own mighty strength, and buried Ple- 
 beians and Patricians, Kings, Consuls, and Emperors, 
 in one common grave. 
 
 But as to liberty and equality in their wild and 
 naked state, and as they are now advocated among 
 us, we discard their very idea. They are words of 
 horrible import not fit for an English ear, and should 
 be cast into the furnace of the French revolution with 
 all the dreadful forms of destruction to which they 
 gave rise. The doctrine is a perfect solecism in the 
 world of morals and of mind, and totally incompatible 
 with such a state of probation as creatures constituted 
 like ourselves require. It is a disorganizing doctrine, 
 opposed to reason, to nature, to the course of every 
 thing we see around us, and to the designs of Provi- 
 dence. That ee the poor shall never cease from out 
 the land," we look upon as a wise and merciful pro- 
 vision ; as a provision against want, against overflow- 
 ing crime, against rank indulgence, against the har- 
 dening of natural affection; a provision that gives us 
 our best feelings upon earth, and furnishes us with 
 our surest passport for heaven. The approach of 
 the levelling system upon the confines of civilized and 
 well ordered society is the arrival of Satan at the gate 
 of Paradise, and we shall do well to keep a sharp eye 
 upon the insinuating demon. For let that doctrine 
 once come to mix itself with our notions of common 
 equity, which the prevailing temper of the times gives
 
 222 
 
 room to apprehend it may, and we must soon look for 
 ranker thoughts and bolder doings, men being ever 
 apter to suffer vain desires to inflame into disaffection 
 when they are taught to believe, that as " God hath 
 made of one blood all nations of men to dwell upon 
 the face of the earth," so government ought to reduce 
 all ranks to one common scale, and to shower down 
 the riches, titles, honours, and overflowings of the 
 state equally upon all.* 
 
 These wild and airy dreams fasten upon man and 
 wrap the soul for a time in elysium. But it is neces- 
 sary that the mind be roused out of this cruel trance 
 before it awake to disappointment and misery. The 
 only equality we can admit of in this sublunary scene, 
 where bad ambitions are with such difficulty kept in 
 check, (and it is no small one) is that which courtesy 
 confers in a state of polished society, where wealth 
 cannot so entrench herself in the multitude of her 
 possessions as to form her isolated circle and forbid 
 learning or virtue to enter it. The pride of power 
 will, in such a case, be met by the pride of mind, and, 
 in the scale of sober opinion, not unfrequently be 
 even outweighed by it. This courtesy hath ever 
 obtained and ever must. It is the nurse of generous 
 feeling, the cement of every thing excellent and 
 elegant. It draws merit from obscurity, sooths the 
 useful vanities and encourages the retiring diffidence 
 
 * Hardly any thing is ill-intentioned perhaps in its origin, nor 
 those thoughts evil which engender whatever hath the public good 
 solely as its object. Even the levelling system, in Cromwell's age, 
 seems to have been devised with certain iutendments of righteous- 
 ness. It went upon the broad foundation, not wanting in plausi- 
 bleness, that all men were born equal, and with equal powers and 
 aptitude* to serve God in church and state, and that therefore no 
 man should be cast off from that opportunity by any obscurity of 
 condition, any peculiarity of opinion, civil or religious ; and that 
 justice would not fairly be dispensed between man and man which 
 did not take this into account, and act upon it.
 
 of our nature. A holy spell it is that links together 
 kindred souls and inclinations in every discordant 
 walk of life, modelling society to a softer figure, a 
 higher bearing, a larger and more liberal emulation, 
 and, finally, crowning the charmed work, by ranging 
 under one and the same banner the wise, the great 
 and the good, the mighty upon earth with that high 
 intelligence which God hath imparted to favoured 
 minds in every age and nation. Without such cour- 
 tesy, which pride is sometimes perhaps half tempted 
 to dispense with, but which virtue never will and 
 policy never dare, all would be the confusion of con- 
 flicting passions, the deadly hostility of preponderating 
 powers between each, other. But this drapery, light 
 and beautiful, and which costs us nothing, covers up 
 all the jealousies, and envy ings, and heart-burnings 
 among the children of men, and reduces the anomaly 
 of our common nature to something like a level with 
 our common happiness. With this exception, we 
 allow of no equality to be imposed upon us but by 
 the hand of death. When man " returns to his dust 
 and all his earthly thoughts perish/' then, and not 
 before, do we acknowledge the necessary, the digni- 
 fied, the merciful distinctions of rank to perish too. 
 
 Let the people in time look to the scope and ten- 
 dency of such deceptions notions, and let them not 
 believe that the men who preach up to them these 
 fascinating doctrines of their omnipotence, their so- 
 vereignty, their liberty and equality, are the men who 
 either wish them well, or who would further, in the 
 slightest degree, their promotion in the scale of 
 society. Our Whigs and Reformers are playing a 
 very dangerous game, and suffering the Revolu- 
 tionists to stand by and hold stakes. They are making 
 the people every thing which the people ought not to 
 be, and ought not to wish to be. They are swelling 
 them out with high notions of their own importance, 
 and thus giving to the state a democratical cast of
 
 824 
 
 character, though they know that democratical man- 
 ners have ever been insufferable, and democratical 
 conduct detestable. The mass of the people are in 
 the infancy of knowledge, ever the most dangerous 
 period of mental attainment. They cannot think, 
 nor speak, nor act for themselves, as wisdom and 
 virtue would incline them. Let them grow up to 
 sounder reason, to larger experience, to better con- 
 sideration ; let instruction rear and harden their in- 
 consistencies into judgment, before they assume the 
 fasces of their power, and learn to be good subjects 
 e'er they usurp upon the rule of the state. Surely 
 they will at length open their eyes and see what their 
 vile seducers are about. The fact is, and they ought 
 to know it, that the people are every thing while they 
 join the disaffected ranks against Government, and 
 nothing when they stand up for Government. They 
 are the people in the former case ; they are the mere 
 rabble in the latter. Whatever may be a man's situ- 
 ation in life, he is uniformly treated with or denied 
 respect, as he promotes or retards the ends these 
 reformers have in view, and the majesty of the people 
 goes down no longer than they can be subdued to 
 their purposes. The moment they resist the efforts 
 made to trepan them; the moment they evince the 
 least appearance of a return to better thoughts and a 
 firmer allegiance, nothing is so vile and abominable as 
 the people. Then it is that these impudent dema- 
 gogues cry up the majesty of intellect and cry down 
 the majesty of the people, representing them, what- 
 ever honours they may have before awarded, as fit 
 only to live upon husks and clad themselves with 
 sacking, and to be punished for their stupidity by the 
 loss of every comfort. The demagogue's people is, 
 therefore, generally the scum of our population ; the 
 vast body of the people of England, truly majestic, 
 his execration and his scorn. 
 
 Great complainers against Government are usually,
 
 225 
 
 gentlemen, at heart great subverters of government, 
 and so, when the fair occasion has offered, have they 
 turned out. All revolutions in a state are visitings 
 upon the people, and generally visitings of a most 
 afflictive nature ; and all, with hardly any exception, 
 are revolutions of craft and injustice. Where hinged 
 the denunciations of Marius, of Sylla, of Cataline, of 
 Caesar, against the alledged tyrannies of the Roman 
 senate ? Where but, as the event testified, in their 
 own seditious spirit and inordinate ambition, which 
 they were determined upon gratifying by the sacrifice 
 of every living virtue that stood in their way. With 
 this view, they drew the people to them, as our Whig 
 and reforming leaders do now. They artfully dark- 
 ened every prospect upon which they. wished the eye 
 of the people to rest, and inflamed every accusation 
 against the state that they hoped their vengeance 
 might be induced to take up. They made them be- 
 lieve as (participating fully in the injury, though not 
 in the crime of such a procedure,) our Albemarles, 
 our Cokes, and our Burdetts, with their satellites, orb 
 within orb, glaring and shedding around a malign 
 influence, do at present, that their rulers were forging 
 chains for them, and oppressing them in every quar- 
 ter, and meditating their distress in every measure, 
 and sinking the nation into a state of vassalage and 
 imbecility. They then further undrew the curtain, 
 and shewed the magnificent contrast. They held out 
 to them glorious prospects, and lands " flowing with 
 milk and honey," and seasons of ecstatic enjoyment, 
 when persecution should cease and tyranny be cast ta 
 the ground, and, spurning under foot every injustice, 
 and wrenchingasunder every galling manacle, thepeo- 
 ple should awake from the sleep of death and appear 
 in all their majesty. Alas ! alas ! the chains, the oppres- 
 sions, the persecutions, the tyrannies, were all to come, 
 and all to come from the very hands that were to set 
 them free and make them happy ! But of the pro-
 
 226 
 
 glorious prospects, their eyes were closed long 
 before even the shadow of them was to be seen ! A 
 night of treason and of darkness, with one bloody pro- 
 scription after another, were all the prospects they 
 were ever indulged with. The loss of their friends, 
 the loss of their families, the ravage of their little 
 property amid the general wreck and desolation, were 
 the only comforts they were ever destined to experi- 
 ence, the only returns for the bad assistance they had 
 given to these bold and bad men. O let us take his- 
 tory as Providence hath awfully handed it down to 
 us ; let us look upon it as the hand-writing on the 
 wall, that told of an empire to depart like a vision of 
 the night ; and not for ever let us be deluded by the 
 professions of hollow-hearted men, nor for ever suffer 
 the Caesars and the Syllas of the human race to seduce 
 the poor and ignorant, to poison the public principle, 
 and to lay waste, with a boundless callous effrontery, 
 much of the virtue and all of the happiness of those 
 around them ! 
 
 Again, to bring the matter nearer home, (and too 
 near, circumstanced as we are, it can never be 
 brought to us,) is the picture in vain held before our 
 eyes of the state of England, after the republican and 
 sectarian reformers (for they were one, one in heart 
 and soul, and so I fear they continue,) had overthrown 
 the established monarchy and brought their Sovereign 
 to the block ? I will give it you in the words of an 
 historian certainly not too warmly affected to the 
 hierarchy, nor averse to palliate any enormities com- 
 mitted against it as far as he could ; and pray, gentle- 
 men, consider every bearing of it upon the parties 
 and politics of the present day, that are so rapidly 
 rolling back upon us these dangerous and disgusting 
 times. "The confusions which overspread England 
 after the murder of Charles I. proceeded as well from 
 the spirit of refinement and innovation which agi- 
 tated the ruling party, as from the dissolution of all
 
 227 
 
 V 
 
 that authority, both civil and ecclesiastical, by which 
 the nation had ever been accustomed to be governed. 
 Every man had framed the model of a republic, and 
 however new it was, or fantastical, he was eager in 
 recommending it to his fellow citizens, or even im- 
 posing it by force upon them. Every man had 
 adjusted a system of religion, which, being derived 
 from no traditional authority, was peculiar to himself, 
 and being founded on supposed inspiration, not on 
 any principles of human reason, had no means, be- 
 sides cant and low rhetoric, by which it could recom- 
 mend itself to others. The levellers insisted on an 
 equal distribution of power and property,, and dis- 
 claimed all dependence and subordination. The 
 millenarians, or fifth-monarchy-men, required that 
 government itself should be abolished, and all human 
 powers be laid in the dust, in order to pave the way 
 for the dominion of Christ, whose second coming they 
 suddenly expected. The Antinomians even insisted 
 that the obligations of morality and natural law were 
 suspended, and that the elect, guided by an internal 
 principle more perfect and divine, were superior to 
 the beggarly elements of justice and humanity. A 
 considerable party declaimed against tithes and hire- 
 ling priesthood, and were resolved that the magistrate 
 should not support, by power or revenue, aiiy eccle- 
 siastical establishment. Another party inveighed 
 against the law and its professors, and on pretence of 
 rendering more simple the distribution of justice, 
 were desirous of abolishing the whole system of En- 
 glish jurisprudence/ which seemed interwoven with 
 monarchical government. Even those among the 
 republicans who adopted not such extravagancies, 
 were so intoxicated with their saintly character, that 
 they supposed themselves possessed of peculiar privi- 
 leges ; and all professions, oaths, laws, and engage- 
 ments, had in a great measure lost their influence 
 over them. The bands of society were every where
 
 228 
 
 loosened, and the irregular passions of men were en- 
 couraged by speculative principles, still more unsocial 
 and irregular." * 
 
 And those reformers of every varied description, 
 from the Whig to the Anarchist, who are now "split- 
 ting the ears of the groundlings" with freedom of 
 sentiment, and religious toleration, and criminal re- 
 forms, and abuses of charities, and who are repre- 
 senting all restrictions upon the liberty of the subject, 
 and all attempts to prosecute for seditions nearly as 
 black as treason, as infringements of the constitution, 
 and declaring that the suspension of the habeas corpus 
 is uncalled for, and the usual laws sufficient for the 
 punishment of every offence, though by some strange 
 means or other every offence goes on increasing; do 
 they recollect what was the conduct of their brother 
 reformers and patriots of the protectorate, who, like 
 themselves, had been deafening all around them with 
 the same frantic and popular cries ? Let them look 
 to the original from whence their own pictures may 
 hereafter chance to be copied and engraved for the 
 good of posterity. " The parliament (for so Mr. 
 Hume apologizes for calling them,) judged it ne- 
 cessary to enlarge the laws of high treason beyond 
 those narrow bounds within which they had been 
 confined during the monarchy. They even com- 
 prehended verbal offences, nay intentions, though 
 they had never appeared in any overt act against the 
 state. To affirm the present government to be an 
 usurpation, to assert that the parliament or council of 
 state were tyrannical or illegal, to endeavour subvert- 
 ing their authority, or stirring up sedition against 
 them; these offences were declared to be high trea- 
 son. The power of imprisonment, of which the peti- 
 tion of right had bereaved the King, it was now found 
 necessary to restore to the council of state ; and all 
 
 * Hume's History of England. 8?o. Edit. Vol.. 7, p.-155.
 
 the jails in England were filled with men whom the 
 jealousies and tears of the ruling party had represent- 
 ed as dangerous. The taxes, continued by the new 
 government, and which, being unusual, were esteem- 
 ed heavy, increased the general ill-will under which 
 it laboured. Besides the customs and excise, ninety 
 thousand pounds a-month were levied on land for the 
 subsistence of the army. The sequestrations and 
 compositions of the royalists, the sale of the crown 
 lands, and of the dean and chapter lands, though they 
 yielded great sums, were not sufficient to support the 
 vast expences, and, as was suspected, the great depre- 
 dations of the parliament and their creatures/'* 
 
 Be it further considered that these criers up of 
 the Majesty of the people never evinced the least 
 sincerity in heart towards either them, or the very 
 parties to whom they professed to be attached. It 
 may well go for a common proverb that there is no 
 friendship among the wicked ; nor friendship, nor 
 faith ! We cannot forget, it is not possible, it is not 
 right we should, that the spirit of fanaticism which, 
 in the reign of Charles I. had supported the parlia- 
 ment before the murder of the King, did afterwards 
 oppose, and disturb, and actually endeavour to de- 
 stroy it ; that the Puritan pulpits, then vehemently in 
 their favour, presently became thorns in their sides ; 
 that the army practised against their officers the 
 lessons of craft, of violence, and of insubordination 
 they had been taught ; that Cromwell himself, when 
 made protector through the influence of his major- 
 generals, hesitated not to sacrifice them when an 
 extension of his ambition made him desirous of a 
 crown ; and, such was the foul and faithless nature 
 of their proceedings, that the very demagogues against 
 royalty, delighting but in wrong and robbery, and 
 
 * Hume's History of England. 8vo. Edit. Vol.7, p. 167.
 
 making the public misery their private traffic, became 
 shortly after the demagogues against the republic. 
 
 And those very wretches who, by their combined 
 delinquencies, had overthrown church and state, and 
 erected themselves on their ruins, see them in power 
 actually practising all the oppressions they had so 
 loudly declaimed against while out of power. See 
 them dispensing with trial by jury, and erecting high 
 courts of justice, filled by their own creatures, and 
 putting men to death by those very court martials 
 which they had instantly before, in the life time of 
 Charles I. declared illegal, and had compelled the 
 King to abolish. What a dismal record does this 
 period present to us of depravity and hypocrisy 
 played off, through every winding of their corrupt 
 hearts, against depravity and hypocrisy. The Pres- 
 byterians first raised the popular odium and rebellion 
 against church and state, and overthrew both. The 
 independents, practising that fraud and dissimilation 
 against them which they had manifested against their 
 Sovereign, seduced the army on their side, and over- 
 threw the Presbyterians ; while the army, guided by 
 the intrigues of Cromwell and other daring charac- 
 ters, succeeded in dethroning the independents. But 
 where, all this time, was the Majesty of the people, 
 the ladder by which each in turn ascended to the 
 bight of that bad eminence ? The people neither 
 were, nor was it by these regicide incendiaries in- 
 tended that they should be the better, in any respect, 
 for these revolutions upon revolutions, these retri- 
 butive returnings of the " ingredients of the poisoned 
 chalice" to each others lips. There indeed was the 
 Monarch murdered, and the crown cast to the ground, 
 and the sanctuary in ruins, and the government, 
 broken to pieces ; and there were the insurgent 
 leaders exalted on their republican thrones, and the 
 sectarian sages seated on the deserted episcopal 
 benches ; but as for the poor deluded instruments of
 
 their enormity,, they were left exactly in the same 
 low, wretched,, and unpitied condition that these re- 
 volutionary miscreants found them in; and while the 
 ring- leaders of rebellion clothed themselves in purple 
 and rioted on the spoils of their villainy, the Majesty 
 of the people was reduced to a truss of straw and a 
 morsel of bread ! 
 
 I would intreat our gentlemen of rank and family 
 throughout the kingdom to take heed how they en- 
 courage the notion, now every where so prevalent, 
 of bowing the head and bending 1 the knee to this fleet- 
 ing popular idol. It is dangerous for them to talk of 
 the Majesty of the people, or in any way to counte- 
 nance a set of idle silly men who,, for the sake of lift- 
 ing themselves into notice, preach and praise, and 
 toast this sovereignty wherever they can scrub up an 
 audience that will listen to them. It can never be- 
 come those of large landed possessions to be constant- 
 ly forcing upon the common mind such false images 
 of its greatness, when it is recollected with what heady 
 confidence their " imagined rights" are generally as- 
 serted, and how soon the line of liberty is lost when 
 the reins are given to these low political speculators, 
 who see nothing, and who will see nothing but the 
 ideal forms of happiness that solicit their admiration 
 while they deceive their hopes. It is indeed easy 
 herein to imitate the conduct of our Gallic prototypes, 
 to call the people to our standard, to submit to them 
 our judgments, to sacrifice to them our rank, and to 
 level our characters and concerns to their scant con- 
 ceptions. It is, I say, easy to do this, and we have men 
 of large possessions and exalted situations among us 
 who seem disposed to do it. But let them be cautious. 
 Let them not part with their dignity too hastily or too 
 liberally. Let them table down and have constantly 
 in view the folly and the fate of certain of the French 
 nobility. Let them remember that popular love is 
 not gained, nor private ambitions gratified by such
 
 unbecoming sacrifices. History, experience, every 
 thing is against a speculation thus preposterous It 
 is the voluptuary's suggestion when the midnight 
 revel has crazed his understanding. 
 
 Come, let us all take hands, 
 
 Till that the conquering wine has steeped our sense 
 In soft and delicate Lethe.* 
 
 There is a deep responsibility at present on every 
 man of property, and character, and influence, among 
 us to judge prudently and to act becomingly. The 
 people are not to be deified ; they cannot bear it. 
 They are not to be despised : they do not deserve it, 
 and ought not to bear it. " Quod spiratis, quod 
 vocem mittitis, quod formas hominum hahetis, in- 
 dignantur"-\ A contempt carried thus far is carried 
 indeed beyond all bounds of patience ; but we must 
 have better authority for it than the word of a Roman 
 tribune. In the opposite extreme, however, now lies 
 
 * Anthony and Cleopatra. 
 
 + This can only be looked upon as one of those common, but 
 sufficiently reprehensible arts by which these tribunes were ever 
 more discrediting the patricians. The Abbe de Mably, in quoting 
 this passage from the historian, (Observations on the Romans), 
 expresses, and very justly, some doubt of the fact. " If (says he) 
 we may credit what Livy makes the Tribune Canulcius say, the 
 patricians thought it strange that nature had given the same organs 
 to the populace as to themselves." Cicero's opinion, quoted by 
 Montesquieu, (Spirit of Laws. Vol 1. book v. chap. 11.) of the 
 utility of the Roman tribunes, is not, I think, entitled to much 
 respect. He conceived the establishing of the tribunes to be the 
 security of the common wealth. " In fact (says he.) the violence 
 of a headless people is more terrible. A chief or head is sensible 
 that the affair depends upon himself, and therefore he thinks ; but 
 the people, in their impetuosity, are ignoiant of the danger into 
 which they hurry themselves." (Lib. III. de Leg.) But who does 
 not see that the violence of the people would rarejy get to a head, 
 were they not spurred on by the slanderous and seditious decla- 
 mations of these pestes reipublkce^ these perpetual movers of the 
 popular mind, against not only the indiscretions but the very vir- 
 tues of their rulers.
 
 our danger. Shew me the leader of a popular party 
 not well affected to the state, who, for wily purposes, 
 is sounding and playing- upon the credulity of the peo- 
 ple, and exalting- their privileges, and depreciating- the 
 prerogatives of his sovereign, a large and overgrown 
 aristocratic despot, who, with influence to draw many 
 to his purposes, renders all who are so drawn refrac- 
 tory and disobedient; shew me such a man, whether 
 in (he city of Westminster or in the county of Nor- 
 folk, and I will say that a feudal baron of the ele- 
 venth century, with his tyrannies all wild about him 
 and his defiances thrown in the very teeth of his 
 Sovereign Lord the King, is less injurious to the tran- 
 quillity and welfare of his country than he. 
 
 A warm opponent of the measures of administra- 
 tion, alluding- to the spirit of reform so prevalent 
 among us at present, remarks, that "neither he nor 
 his friends wanted to make any alarming reforms ; 
 they did not war with the mansion or the palace ; they 
 wanted no anarchy, no spoliation. For how was it 
 to be supposed that the noble representative of the 
 house of Russell, with all its vast property and titles 
 titles which were receiving fresh strength from the 
 claims he was daily making in public gratitude; that 
 the honourable member for Norfolk, the greatest 
 agriculturist in the nation; that Mr. Kicardo, the first 
 political economist of his age; that Mr. Brougham, 
 the very first lawyer of this century ; that the worthy 
 Baronet (Sir F. Burdett), who had such an immense 
 stake in the country ; and that the relative of that 
 great Commander in Egypt, should wish for anarchy 
 or any sanguinary struggles in this country ?"* I 
 allow the reasonableness of these interrogatory re- 
 marks. It is not possible. We must excuse all such 
 eminent characters from any wish to bring about a 
 
 * Speech of Sir Robert Wilson on celebrating the South-war !c 
 triumph. Norwich Courier, June 26, 1819, 
 
 H it
 
 revolution in this country. Neither the Duke of 
 Bedford, nor my Lord Albemarle, nor that worthy 
 Baronet, Sir Francis Burdett, nor the first political 
 economist, nor (risum teneatis) the very first lawyer 
 of his age, can seriously entertain a design of so pre- 
 posterous and heinous a nature. But acquitting them 
 on this ground, how severely on the very same ground 
 must their conduct be condemned; a conduct so en- 
 tirely at variance with their bounden duty to them- 
 selves and to the community. If every nobleman, 
 every commoner of large landed possessions, every 
 man of rank and consequence among us, were to 
 speak, and to act, and to propagate their notions 
 throughout their respective counties and neighbour- 
 hoods, in the foolish inconsiderate manner which 
 some of these gentlemen do, I have no hesitation in 
 saying and many will herein, I think, join with me- 
 that it would hardly be possible to avoid revolution. 
 With the fires of democracy kindling all around us, 
 and " casting their livid flames, pale and dreadful," 
 upon every established institution, every palace and 
 cottage of the realm, even men without more pro- 
 perty than from hand to mouth, must hesitate to coun- 
 tenance, in such a crisis, such alarming symptoms. 
 Even the common general desire to preserve the 
 peace of the country in which he lives, would lead a 
 man (not a citizen of America in his feelings) thus 
 far. What then must we think of men of fortune 
 and family, and of the first authority amongst us, 
 being found among the abettors of this dangerous 
 spirit of the times ? To act thus, and to love their 
 country and their kindred, and to respect themselves, 
 seems to be totally irreconcileable. They must have 
 either great seditions or great weaknesses brooding 
 about them, and we can acquit them of the one only 
 on the alternative of branding them in the face of open 
 day with the other. Vain idolists ! and despicable as 
 vain, and destructive as despicable, to look so admir-
 
 ingly into the stream, and imagine their powers of mind 
 capacious enough to controul " the madness of the 
 multitude/' in the very hottest and maddest moments 
 of their career ! Ambitition, well regulated, may 
 indeed have nothing in it strikingly objectionable. 
 But when, as in the instance of a late celebrated 
 Whig prelate, the vehementissima glorice cupido 
 tempts a man to undertakings which are quite beyond 
 his grasp, and to which, by his own acknowledgment, 
 he is entirely incompetent, such an ambition is only cal- 
 culated to expose him to disgrace and derision."* 
 
 When men of rank, whether discontented or ambi- 
 tious, thus league with and countenance the majesty 
 of the people against the government of the state, we 
 had need be upon our guard. For he who either 
 basely or indiscreetly rnaketh the multitude a tool to 
 his own private views, draweth them off, ever given to 
 unsteadiness, from their bounden allegiance, and con- 
 verteth that strength to the dissevering, which in duty 
 ought to be, and in fact untampered with, probably 
 would be exerted to the fixing and binding up of the 
 community. These motions, whether arising from 
 vanity, from weakness, from a dissatisfied or a sedi- 
 tious spirit, should be met, gentlemen, on our part 
 with becoming abhorrence and the check applied in 
 time. What can our Whig patriots be thinking of 
 by such courtly plebeian conduct ? Do they expect 
 the eagle to take off their hats as they approach the 
 city gates, or has the lambent flame played round their 
 heads as omens of their future exaltation ? Let them 
 rest assured that all great men who court the people 
 shall find their punishment in the people; that the 
 democratic spirit soon becomes abandoned, and, to 
 heighten the disaster, abandoned in vain ; that every 
 usurpation upon power, every violation of principle 
 
 * Memoirs of Bishop Watson. Vol. 1. p. 46, 
 nh 2
 
 236 
 
 must leave them poor and haggard ; and that at last 
 the golden prize, for which they have so worked, and 
 planned, and bowed and prostituted themselves, shall 
 be carried olfby some of those worthless demagogues, 
 who, bred like insects from the mud of Nile, are con- 
 stantly swarming about their steps, watching their 
 motions, and taking every advantage of their weak- 
 ness, their folly, their imprudence, and their pride. 
 No popularity arising from dishonourable motives and 
 used for suspicious purposes can end in any thing 
 short of disgrace and ruin. He who ingratiates him- 
 self with the people for other than the common good, 
 and from which the good of those who have the rule 
 over us is inseparable, had need look to his steps and 
 gather about him all that is commendable ; for hardly 
 any domestic virtues will extenuate his crime, or soften 
 his reproach, or even sometimes secure his preserva- 
 tion, who dares to inlist the popular voice and arm on 
 the side of insubordination. 
 
 And what, gentlemen, let us finally enquire, what 
 is the object of this so general and destructive appeal 
 to the Majesty of the people ? What is the point 
 which our adversaries, as a compacted body, wish to 
 cany by such appeal ? Truly nothing less than that 
 point already carried to their hands by the French 
 and English regicides, a republican upon the ruins 
 of a monarchical government ! Here end their 
 labours and their hopes. To this dangerous verge 
 will our Whigs and Reformers and Anarchists travel 
 together, and here will the former probably see reason 
 to separate from the latter, but not before the latter 
 j;ee greater reason to discard and denounce the for- 
 mer. Yes, for the furtherance and establishment as 
 it would seem of a republican form of government, 
 or of such a slate of things as must of necessity draw 
 such a government after it, have all parties adverse to 
 the administration of the realm, and forgetful of minor 
 differences, as they effect to consider them, among
 
 237 
 
 each other, entered into an unholy league. On this 
 head, the crown of their bad wishes, we are, I trust, 
 most comp'eatly at issue with them ; as compleatly so 
 as they are herein in unison with revolutionary France. 
 A little consideration will shew us that we are not at 
 issue with them in vain. 
 
 On the gross scale, we think a republican govern- 
 ment a thing to be dreaded ; they think it a thing to 
 be desired. We think that no sacrifices are too great 
 to stave off the demon of democracy; they think no 
 sacrifices too precious to introduce and establish it. 
 There is great danger in republican principles, not 
 only because of their evil tendency, but because they 
 are calculated to make their way into the common 
 mind, not easily reducing its feelings to the test of a 
 cold experience, by the nourishment of vain and 
 imposing expectations. Serious people indeed may 
 and will reprobate such principles, because they feel 
 their insufficiency ; because they know their nature ; 
 because they recognize, in the page of history, their 
 unhinging tendencies; and because they are aware 
 of their total inadequacy to the production and pro- 
 motion of human happiness through such gradual, 
 calculating, sober means, as are alone competent to 
 such production. Still the republican fervour goes 
 progressively forward, imprisoning and dazzling 
 weak understandings, and silently sapping the whole 
 frame of monarchical government ; and working 
 night and day upon the various passions, and follies, 
 and crimes of men, it can hardly be supposed to 
 work without effect. The stablest of governments 
 must in time feel the influence of these warping prin- 
 ciples, and the dissenting doctrines so perseveringly 
 taught, aided by Whig eloquence both in and out of 
 the house of commons, must bind up in one almost 
 indestructible form, both all that is evil thought, and 
 said, and done against existing institutions in a free 
 state. It cannot be well otherwise, where men con-
 
 238 
 
 sider and consult their own desires with a perfect 
 disregard of the expence of obtaining them. If every 
 caterer for power is to court the people by the sacri- 
 fice of some part or principle of the constitution, 
 what shall we by and bye have left ? If every can- 
 didate for popular favour is to compliment away the 
 prerogatives of royalty and the precedencies of rank ; 
 if this and that obscure demagogue is to deliver his 
 lessons of sedition and blasphemy as freely and as 
 forcibly as he pleases, we may soon look to the cor- 
 ruption of all the lower, and to the fettering of all 
 the higher orders of the state. 
 
 Well might the poet advise, speaking of the na- 
 ture of democratical governments, to " flee from petty 
 tyrants to the throne." There are no greater Ba- 
 shaws on the face of the earth than, the sure growth 
 of such a rank soil, ambitious men of property. They 
 hold all they possess in trust for their desires, and, by 
 means open to hardly any other description of human 
 beings, can satisfy those desires to the full, exorbitant 
 as they shew themselves. " Their eyes swell with 
 fatness, and they do even what they lust." The most 
 despotic monarch equals them not in despotism. The 
 most unfeeling is no match for them in cruelty. The 
 most relentless can never come up to their seared 
 consciences and total unacquaintance with remorse. 
 Wealth and power are their domestic laws, their off- 
 spring, their idols. Nothing see they in nature, in 
 reason, in revelation, if it be not written in letters 
 charactering them forth as the mighty upon earth. 
 Nor God, nor Providence, nor futurity, nor immor- 
 tality, care they for, if this dirty dingy spot, with 
 gratifications suited to their low aspirings, could but 
 be their " rest for ever." The states of Greece, to 
 rid themselves of these plagues, were glad to come 
 under the protection of a single master. Rome be- 
 came not again monarchical, with all her prejudices, 
 at the expulsion of the Tarquins, until she was fairly
 
 239 
 
 worn out and sick of republicanism ; until ,she felt 
 even the tyrannies of the Caesars a relief from the 
 injustice, the seditions, the cold-hearted cruelties of 
 her democracy. And England, at the restoration, 
 (well might they term it the happy restoration,) told 
 us what she thought of the canting piety, the long- 
 drawn hypocritical visages, the total intolerance, the 
 consummate assurance, the coarse and fierce and 
 blasphemous rule of the Protectorate. Of this crazed 
 period, galling equally to our remembrance by its 
 miseries and its shames, it is impossible to speak in 
 terms of adequate indignation. We must stretch 
 our conceptions, and fancy what it was. 
 
 The people are, I know, many of them ripe for de- 
 mocracy ; for though too poor perhaps to be ambi- 
 tious, they are yet easily misled, and with every 
 voucher from experience to guard them against it. 
 Democracy is a desolation throughout. In what re- 
 publican state have the people, any more than their 
 haughty lords, ever been happy ? In none positively 
 in no one state of that description, ancient or modern, 
 have they known what secure enjoyment and domestic 
 comfort were. Ever at the beck of one tyrant or 
 other, their lives have been a perpetual jeopardy. 
 Neither in Holland, nor in Venice, in their best days, 
 had the people for many generations past much con- 
 cern. The power in all cases gets into the hands of 
 a few, and those few (if they cut not each others throats 
 in the mean while, as is commonly the case) so ma- 
 nage matters as to retain it in few hands, without ever 
 suffering the people to taste of the sweets, or even 
 of the bare common advantages of it. The feu- 
 dal barons of England were, I think, men in a 
 good measure of this description, and kept their vas- 
 sals in a state of impotent subjection, thus proving 
 how nearly allied is all despotism in human nature, 
 whatever be the form of government under which it 
 may range itself, or the designation by which it rules.
 
 To the sovereign power, be it remembered, and not 
 to any men or measures formed upon our present 
 Whig school, which would only have more spread 
 and settled the evil, the people were chiefly indebted 
 for a refuge from these haughty pests. 
 
 But though a republican government be adapted 
 neither to the wishes nor to the wants of men, neither 
 to the great nor to the lowly, neither to those who 
 have nor to those who have not possessions, and is 
 totally irreconcilable with virtuous habits and modest 
 merit in every rank of life, yet suffer me, gentlemen, 
 to tell you to whom and to what it is adapted. It is 
 adapted, and most intimately, to aspiring men of 
 property and to men of aspiring and unprincipled 
 minds without property; to bold and infidel specu- 
 lators upon morals and monarchy, who fancy they can 
 better get forward by the overthrow than by the sup- 
 port of an established order of things. They in par- 
 ticular who are infidels in religion (as, judging them 
 by any received formulary of devotion, many of our 
 modern sectaries and hih reformers are) make daring 
 
 j J O 
 
 and dangerous politicians under every species of 
 government. For acknowledging mere convenience, 
 and sometimes even mere fancy as the foundation for 
 any form of it, they will readily attempt to change 
 that form when the supposed convenience no longer 
 exists, or when some greater advantages to themselves 
 may await the alteration. 8uch characters are cut 
 out for revolution, and are usually every where the 
 leading springs of it. They do not indeed boast of 
 any peculiar depth of discernment, but they have 
 better qualities for the work of demagogueship about 
 them They are presuming, fearless, shameless ; 
 accomplisliments far before either ability or integrity. 
 Men cannot, in fact, though it seems a hard thing to 
 say, be too wicked under republican governments. 
 The game which they are there called upon to play, 
 i. a game of craft against craft, of injustice against
 
 241 
 
 injustice, of enormity against enormity ; a partnership 
 in villainies, where no one will accuse a brother of 
 the firm so long- as an opposing firm remain. Re- 
 publican government is a government of corruption 
 throughout, whose spirit is embraced by and whose 
 archives are accessible only to kindred minds. The 
 great leaders that compose it, evermore of a thorough- 
 paced infidel complexion, must have panders to their 
 iniquity, flatterers of their vanity, feeders of their 
 lusts, companions in their follies, abettors of their 
 crimes, absolvers of their past offences, and encou- 
 ragers in their future ones. They can, in fact, under 
 such a government only live by continued and in- 
 creasing pollutions, beginning at the fountain head, 
 and driving on and spreading over every part of 
 their body politic. These aspiring demagogues of 
 democracy must render the custos of their consci- 
 ence a sinecure. They must have no moral sense, 
 no principles of integrity, no notions of honour, no 
 feelings of shame, no yearnings of humanity, no 
 shudderings at the worm that never dies, no hope or 
 fear, in short, of either death, or judgment, or hea- 
 ven, or hell. They must be too wise to believe, too 
 hardened to care aijout such " tales told by an idiot." 
 They must, despising God or Devil, carry this world 
 before them ; and, if their clay rot not in annihilation, 
 settle matters in the next as well as they can. 
 
 Gentlemen, let us countenance the generation of 
 sectarian and republican sentiments among us, (for 
 like soul and body they are linked together) and we 
 shall cherish the viper that will sting us into mad- 
 ness. The breed of demagogues undergoes no alter- 
 ation, nor is affected by time, place, or circumstance. 
 The Grecian, the Roman, the French, the English, 
 will be found all of the same wretched cast; all 
 affecting a love for liberty, for the people, for their 
 country, and spurning them underfoot the moment 
 they obtain their wishes. If these men were not 
 
 i i
 
 242 
 
 among the basest, they would be among the most 
 contemptible of the human race. But they have 
 that about them sufficiently capable of keeping every 
 state in alarm. Incendiaries are always dreadful. 
 These contaminators of the public mind,, these dis- 
 turbers of the public peace, never pause for the 
 recordations of common sense. Slaves, miserable 
 slaves to the worst passions of our nature, they sweep 
 on resolved to leave to succeeding- generations no 
 chance for excelling them in folly or flagitiousness. 
 They ask no leave to play the idiot, or to assume the 
 hypocrite. They at once divest themselves of the 
 restraints of decorum, and take up with the refuse of 
 all that wisdom and virtue are willing to cast behind 
 them. Distorted in their views and defiled in their 
 motives, they seem made to shew us human nature 
 under its last stage of abasement. There is, after 
 certain plungings in guilt, a desperation attendant on 
 their conduct, which nor earth, nor heaven, can arrest 
 the progress of. They are without check, without 
 terror. The very grave shall open before them and 
 not deter them from their criminal meditations. 
 They might shrink back with an evanescent horror, 
 but the firm and settled purpose of their souls would 
 still remain. Ancient republics have produced ex- 
 amples of this awful cast, and modern ones have 
 lived, and basked, and gloried in them. Wherever 
 such characters, all dreaded as they must be, are 
 suffered to unconsecrate the public morals and to 
 inflame the public mind, Germanicus shall never 
 want his Piso, nor celebrity its slow, dark, certain 
 path to death. 
 
 Let us be careful then, gentlemen, how we permit, 
 how we directly or indirectly countenance the increase 
 of republican notions in this free and favoured coun- 
 try ; a country made and continued free by our hither- 
 to wise rejection of them. The fall of every state 
 may be predicted that allows the popular part of its
 
 243 
 
 constitution to usurp upon the monarchical, and the 
 popular voice to overcome the reason of things, and 
 to set itself in opposition to whatever is established for 
 the common good.* A politic government should 
 suffer no man to dip his hands in disaffection. 
 Boldness, nurtured in infamy, knows not restraint, 
 when it hath once fleshed itself with crime. Pro- 
 gression in guilt is a mark of man's originally corrupt 
 nature. The hardening of the mind is an awful pro- 
 cess, but it is sometimes a speedy one. It increases 
 with the number the depth of its offences, and where 
 it casts off fear, and where it casts off shame, there is 
 no stop till it arrive at a consummation of its iniquities 
 by a total despair of ever returning or wishing to 
 return to righteousness. If, indeed, we could keep 
 republican principles and governments to their true 
 point of greatness; if we could take them in their 
 ages of glory and there fix them in an everlasting rest, 
 few would perhaps be equal to them, none would be 
 so admired. Where men seek public good through 
 the medium of virtue; where they consecrate this 
 good before their altars and on their tombs ; where 
 the Spartan mother can meet her departed sons with- 
 out shedding a tear; where Pedarctus, missing his 
 election, can rejoice that there are three hundred 
 more fit to counsel the state than himself; where 
 
 * What a picture does the Athenian republic present to us in 
 her acme of extravagance after the battle of Mantinea. Then it 
 was that " any adventurer in politics, who had ready elocution, 
 could interfere in every department of government ;" that " rati- 
 fication by the people was required for every measure of adminis- 
 tration ;" that " the most delicate foreign interests were discussed 
 before the people at large;" that " the contending orators abused 
 foreign powers and one another with equal grossness ;" that " pro- 
 positions rejected in the morning were often ratified before night, 
 and condemned again at the next meeting of the assembly ;" and 
 that " as soon as a treaty was concluded, it was the business of the 
 opposing orators to persuade the people that they had been deceived 
 and misled." Mitford's History of Greece. Vol. 4. 232, &c. 
 
 ii 2
 
 244 
 
 Cynaegyrus can manifest the devotedness of his soul 
 by suffering that soul to ebb out and loose itself in 
 immortality by little and little; \vhereThemistocles 
 can take his poison to avoid arming him against his 
 country ; where Dion, expelling the tyrants, can bury 
 in his bosom the ingratitudes of Syracuse ; where 
 Mutius can feel his patriotism without feeling his 
 pain; where Regulus can return to his torture but 
 cannot part with an atom of his honor, and Decius, 
 for the safety of Rome, is content upon Rome, and 
 upon all the world just opening in beauty before him 
 to close his eye for ever where feelings of this god- 
 like description burst upon us, we rejoice in our com- 
 mon human nature ; we confess the soul of man to 
 be naturally fitted for grandeur, and while we adore 
 the spirit of such pure republicanism, we sigh to think 
 how soon its purity must vanish ! For glory obtained 
 leads weak minds to repose; leads strong minds to 
 high and sinful ambitions ; leads crafty minds to in- 
 crease of power through every sacrifice of integrity ; 
 and alas ! where heroic deeds end, as this same Greece 
 and Rome can too mournfully testify, heroic villainies 
 have too often began. Pausanias in vain covered 
 himself with laurels in the field of Plataea ; Lysander 
 in vain demolished the walls of the Pyraeus and laid 
 the power of Athens in the dust; the consular ho- 
 nours of Spurius Cassius could not save him from the 
 fatality of his intrigues, and even the valour of Man- 
 lius, when, with dark aspirings, he exalted the people 
 and defamed the Patricians, did not, alas! secure the 
 scene of his virtues from becoming the avenger of his 
 crimes, and the grave that sadly buried up all recol- 
 lection of his past glorious services! 
 
 It would be easy, gentlemen, to increase these 
 points of resemblance between our present reformers 
 and the late French revolutionists. In almost every 
 step indeed that is taken, the one will be found tread- 
 ing on, or very nearly on, the path of the other. The
 
 245 
 
 i 
 
 French revolutionists and the English reformers will 
 be discovered both using the same high and dauntless 
 language both making their strongest attacks upon 
 the most sacred parts of the monarchical edifice 
 both systematically denouncing all that think not and 
 act not with them both systematically degrading the 
 church and the clergy, with a view of bringing about 
 the confiscation of ecclesiastical as the precursor of 
 that of lay property both affecting to consider the 
 present times as peculiarly favourable to the extension 
 of freedom and liberty both pretending to admire 
 the form and constitution of their respective govern- 
 ments, the better by such fair guises to insure their 
 destruction both making their rebellious movements 
 under as lenient a Sovereign and as mild an adminis- 
 tration of the laws as ever obtained and both,, in the 
 midst of their reproaches against their enemies, con- 
 stantly denouncing and anathematizing their friends. 
 It would be easy, I repeat, to insist upon these addi- 
 tional points of resemblance, and to draw out the 
 scheme of revolution in this country as it was reduced 
 to practice in that. For we know who it was that 
 gained upon the popular mind in France, and we see 
 who it is that is gaining upon it among ourselves. 
 We are aware that their National Assembly consist- 
 ed, for the more part, of pettifogging unprincipled 
 lawyers, ignorant professors of physic, and the very 
 lowest order of the French clergy. These were their 
 efficient and convenient instruments, and, in the event 
 of revolution, would probably fora like reason be ours 
 too. The same unabashed insolence would obtrude 
 itself into every department ; the same dregs of the 
 learned professions would occupy every post of emi- 
 nence ; and the same subtle selection would be made 
 of men who have heads to contrive and hearts to ex- 
 ecute ; who feel nothing as injustice that accords with 
 policy, nor acknowledge any thing as crime that in- 
 sures success ; who have lack enough of conscience
 
 246 
 
 for every perfidy, and remorse of conscience for 
 none. 
 
 All these, however, we must leave as subjects of 
 individual meditation. The compass of a Letter will 
 not permit any more extended notice of their political 
 societies, their philosophical dejunes, their diatrihes 
 of revolutionary eloquence, or the varied cetiology of 
 their intended future procedure. For the same rea- 
 son I must be constrained to pass by the still nearer, 
 and equally fatal points of resemblance between the 
 transactions that took place in the reign of Charles I. 
 and by which the destruction of both church and 
 state was sealed, and those that, under different godly 
 shapes and with considerable stage effect, but in the 
 same totally ungodly spirit, are running riot upon 
 society in the present reign. Enough may, however, 
 in the foregoing points of comparison, already have 
 been insisted upon to put us on our guard against 
 " the nature and tendency of the present spirit of the 
 times," and against any encouragement of that level- 
 ling, liberalizing system which is tearing up the 
 land-marks of the constitution, and beating in all the 
 gradations and distinctions of rank to which man, in 
 his civilized state, is indebted for his happiness. 
 Contemplate I beseech you, gentlemen, the picture I 
 have drawn. The features are, I confess, rudely 
 sketched, but the closelier you view them the more 
 they may grow upon recollection, and the more con- 
 vince you that, whoever among us wishes to turn 
 every market-place in England into the Campus Mar- 
 tius of Rome, and to fill the kingdom with seditions 
 and tumults, need only, like our Westminster and 
 Norfolk county leaders, to sanction republican dema- 
 gogues and leave the doctrines they disseminate to 
 do their work. 
 
 If then to sum up my reflections upon ihis second 
 head of my Letter if you believe with me that the 
 prevailing spirit of the times is such as I have repre-
 
 sented it ; if you think that this spirit in a good mea- 
 sure originated with, and is now supported by those 
 who, under the idlest pretexts, have seceded, and dai- 
 ly are seceding from our establishment, seconded by 
 various descriptions of its members who, though re- 
 maining in it, have yet never been friendly to it; if you 
 feel disposed to acknowledge, that sufficient points of 
 resemblance have, in these pages, been adduced to ren- 
 der it probable that our reformers may at this moment, 
 in their doctrines and practices, be following on the 
 line of the late French revolution ; if you are persuad- 
 ed with me, that there is but too much consonance in 
 the sentiments and feelings of the various parties in 
 this country bandied against government, whatever 
 be the denomination they may rank under, or the 
 leaders they may attach them to; and if, finally, you 
 are convinced (as for the safety of the nation and of 
 your own landed possessions I will humbly presume 
 to hope you are) that the points in dispute between 
 them and us are neither few in number, nor small in 
 consequence, but that, on all the great and leading 
 articles of political faith, we differ from them as much, 
 and they from their revolutionary French prototypes 
 as little as is conceivable if freeholders of NORFOLK. 
 ^^freeholders of ENGLAND, (for I address myself to 
 all) such be your genuine feelings, such your fixed 
 opinions, such your solemn convictions, what remains 
 but that under so awful an emergency you draw out 
 your strong line of duty, and at all future elections 
 reject as your representatives in parliament every 
 man, be his private claims what they may, who, under 
 any pretence whatever, can bring himself to advocate 
 principles of this alarming nature, and make choice 
 of those only whose sentiments upon the large and 
 vital questions of state go with your own, and whose 
 hearts are fixed, where you must wish to see them 
 
 fixed, UPON THE PROUD AND ANCIENT INSTITUTIONS OF 
 THE COUNTRY ; THE CONSTITUTED AND TRULY VENERA-
 
 248 
 
 BLB AUTHORITIES OF THE REALM BOTH IN CHURCH AND 
 STATE. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, to come to the final division 
 of my subject, and assuredly the most important, 
 permit me to set before you what 1 conceive this 
 line oj duty to ourselves, to our children, and to our 
 counliy imperatively to demand at our hands, in 
 such an alarming and unprecedented crisis of 
 affairs. It requires of us then, in the first place, 
 very seriously to believe that the nation is, at this 
 moment, not simply in danger, but in peculiar and 
 imminent danger. It, in the next place, requires us 
 to act upon this belief, by instantly discarding all 
 minor differences and standing up, as one man, for 
 our venerable establishments in church and state. 
 And, lastly, it demands of us to call upon government 
 to come forward, and, in an emergency so awful, 
 honestly and without fear to do its duty by the people, 
 by that grand concentrated mass, rank above rank, 
 of the inhabitants of the British empire, which may 
 legally, and proudly, and securely be termed the 
 Majesty of the people. 
 
 Let it not^be said that in disclosing the pollutions 
 of the age and warning others against them, we open 
 a wider field of censure than is needed, and use a 
 fuller severity than either the evil deserves, or than a 
 staid wholesome policy would perhaps recommend. 
 Alas ! the policy hitherto hath, 1 fear, been all on the 
 other side of the question. In the midst of a state of 
 most riotous insubordination it hath abetted by not 
 punishing the departures from obedience, and its 
 " tender mercies" towards the offenders have, as is 
 commonly the case, heavily dropt down on society in 
 the shape of " cruelties." There is no pleasure in 
 speaking evil of men or things. Not willingly, be- 
 lieve me, do we wound ; not officiously do we con- 
 demn ; not without a deep and holy concern do we 
 consent to expose any set of men, or any disorganizing
 
 249 
 
 doctrines. But where the necessity is pressing, and 
 a kingdom represented as tottering to its fall, we must 
 do our duty, though, to do it effectually, involve us in 
 as much of suffering as we make others suffer. 
 Whatever may be the result of such a conduct on our 
 part, the obligation of it seems imperative. 
 
 I would be unwilling to go to extremes in any 
 censure. I know the tendency, the danger of it. 
 We are naturally carried forward to a too large praise 
 of our own opinions, and of those who,, on general 
 or great occasions, think and act with us, and a too 
 unsparing censure of persons and principles opposed 
 to us. Where the passions are awake the judgment 
 is sometimes inclined to repose, and feelings that are 
 too warm may discredit both the understanding and 
 the heart. Were it possible to know who are and 
 who are not honestly defending a virtuous, or even a 
 doubtful cause, few of the former description, what- 
 ever might be their speculative errors, would fall 
 within the line of an improvident censure. A differ- 
 ence of sentiment in religion or politics must not cut 
 men off from mutual intercourse, especially under so 
 free a government as our own. Nothing can justify 
 a harshness of this sort,. but the belief, and on good 
 grounds, that such sentiments are entertained in an 
 evil spirit, are connected with evil views, are intended 
 in an evil hour to be acted upon, or at any rate are 
 promulgated in a manner or at a time that must ren- 
 der them pernicious. The sober, serious, tranquil 
 opponents of existing institutions, whether in or out 
 of the pale of the establishment, we can bear no enmity 
 against. Enmity? We can give them the right 
 hand of fellowship and rejoice to give it. We can 
 tolerate their opinions, their prejudices, their partial 
 conceptions, their fond assumptions, their erroneous 
 deductions. We are all alike the frail children of 
 mortality, gathering up our forms and images of things 
 as we can. Evidence works upon the human mind 
 
 k&
 
 250 
 
 with an infinitely varied force. It. differs in its 
 strength, its clearness, its effect, in the manner every 
 way in which it takes the understanding and models 
 the opinion. We cannot all bring the same capaci- 
 ties, though we may have all the like aptitudes, to the 
 acquirement of knowledge. We must therefore look 
 upon speculative error with a lenient eye. Where 
 the heart is good and the intentions are set properly, 
 we can afford it. We can leave such opponents to 
 their reflection as the best security of their virtue and 
 of the public peace. It will convince them that such 
 modes t virus as they entertain and advocate are 
 treated with contempt by the great body of their 
 reforming brethren, and that they had better desist 
 from even the appearance of opposition to an esta- 
 blished government till they see how far that govern- 
 ment, aided by the counsels and support of those who 
 wish her well, is able to maintain berself against those 
 who have no wish but for her overthrow. 
 
 Lenity however, gentlemen, must not be permitted 
 to draw too largely upon justice. The manner of 
 every writing and defence will depend, in a great 
 measure, on the kind of adversaries we have to deal 
 with, on the mode of attack which they themselves 
 chuse to adopt, on the language which they use, the 
 arts which they employ, the objects they have in 
 view, and, in short, on the age in which we live, the 
 manners and principles incident thereto, and the 
 circumstances altogether in which we find ourselves 
 placed. Where, in the vindication of an established 
 order of things, we have to oppose us to good and 
 humble minds, we will be most diffident and appre- 
 hensive, and humble ourselves ; but where we have 
 to enter into the very flames of contention, and to 
 dispute every inch of ground with seared consciences 
 and hearts that know neither guilt nor penitence, 
 with reformers who arc already dividing their country 
 into revolutionary departments, and bible society
 
 251 
 
 Jesuits who dispose of their piety as the Dominican 
 sold his indulgences., and infidels who in the name of 
 the Deity are daily employed in doubting 1 his existence 
 and debasing his worship where we have adversaries 
 of this desperate stamp to combat with, we neither 
 ask nor give quarter ; we draw the sword and throw 
 the scabbard into the sea. 
 
 The first duty then, gentlemen, which we owe- to 
 our country in the present emergency, is to persuade 
 ourselves, and evermore to have that persuasion be- 
 fore us, that this country is in very serious and im- 
 minent danger. Nothing will be done effectually, 
 and commensurate with the peril on our part, if 
 it be not done in conformity with this feeling. All 
 will be weak, irrelevant, and without soul that is at- 
 tempted on any ground, opinion, or apprehension short 
 of this It is the great art and object of our adver- 
 saries, who so well know what our real situation is, 
 and so little wish that we should know it ourselves, 
 to make us believe that we are in no danger. It is, I 
 say, their great art and object ; for, this obtained, 
 they bridge the chaos, and at once pave and smooth 
 the rough ways to their revolutionizing purposes. 
 Thus they tell us, (for they have no shame about 
 them if the want of it will do them service) that our 
 habeas corpus act has been unnecessarily suspended ; 
 that our meetings for petitioning have been unjusti- 
 fiably thwarted ; that our magistrates have been armed 
 with an unconstitutional and uncalled for authority ; 
 that licentious publications have been prosecuted with 
 an inordinate seventy ; that all trash of this nature 
 will run itself out and die of its own insignificancy ; 
 that surely we are not alarmed at a contemptible 
 rabble of insane reformers; that our laws are not so 
 poor as to be unable of themselves to restrain such 
 impotent adversaries; nor our government so reduced 
 as to fear such impotent endeavours ; nor our esta- 
 blished church so weak as to be troubled at a set of
 
 252 
 
 enthusiasts, whose folly it ought rather to pity, and 
 whose force it ought rather to despise. What, say 
 they, affect to tremble with a large military force in 
 time of profound peace ? Affect alarm when the 
 royal prerogative was never at a greater height ? 
 When the majorities in both houses of parliament 
 were never so impressively decisive ? When the 
 continental powers, bound up in a holy alliance, were 
 never so little mischievous or so overflowingly ami- 
 cably disposed ? What, in the midst of such pleni- 
 tude of political security, affect to suspect that secu- 
 rity, and to be alarmed at a disaffection which is mere- 
 ly the effervescence of the public mind against minis- 
 ters, and has nothing at all to do with either king, or 
 constitution, or church, or state ?* 
 
 Thus it is that, in the common cant of sedition, 
 these men talk. But waving for a while the incon- 
 sistency of this mode of ridiculing us out of our fears, 
 let us go a Jittle further into the matter. That the 
 country really is in danger may be evidenced, perhaps, 
 from what has been already insisted upon, viz. from 
 the origin of the present bad spirit ; from the preva- 
 lence of dissent ; from the tendency, in a large part of 
 our population, to republicanism ; from the union of 
 all parties against our establishment in church and 
 state, and from the opinions, decidedly anarchical, 
 entertained and avowed by these parties. And if to 
 these we add other circumstances that will meet our 
 view as we proceed, such as the great increase of 
 crime, the violence of factions, the number and zeal 
 of low instruments among us, the apparent change in 
 
 * In this paragraph I have condensed the substance, as nearly 
 as I am able, of the various arguments brought against our appre- 
 hensions of danger, by the various descriptions of adversaries to 
 whom we are opposed. As far as our own county is concerned in 
 this line of argument, f beg leave to refer my readers to the elo- 
 quent harangues more particularly of tlio Earl of Albcmaiie and 
 Mr. Coke.
 
 253 
 
 our national manners, the general spread throughout 
 the country of fanaticism, the systematized opposition 
 every where prevalent, the various seditious move- 
 ments in our own country, accompanied by a sort of 
 undefined general expectance and dread of something 
 to happen, together with the movements, equally se- 
 ditious and revolutionary, in almost every part of Eu- 
 rope, we shall have, I fear, without taking other 
 causes into consideration which I wish it were in my 
 power to omit, but too abundant and melancholy 
 proof that we never, as an empire, were in greater 
 danger than at present, never so much needed a fore- 
 sight, measured to our peril, and a spirit answerable 
 to our foresight. 
 
 Gentlemen, it will not be possible in the compass of 
 the remaining part of this letter, to take these sub- 
 jects, connected all of them with our present line of 
 duty, into consideration, and to treat them in the full 
 manner they deserve. I can merely shadow them 
 out, and, thus imperfectly depicted, bequeath them lo 
 your reflection. Wherever we turn our eyes, we see 
 a mighty mass of disaffection combined against the 
 government of the realm. It is not opposition, it is 
 not the spirit of party ; but it is rank and desperate 
 faction that pervades the land. There was, I think, 
 no time when such faction was not, or was without 
 danger, though certainly there may have been many 
 periods, in both the history of mankind and in our 
 history, when that danger was less apparent and 
 alarming, and less every way intitled to attention. 
 But since the reformation ; since the invention of the 
 art of printing ; since, in consequence thereof, the 
 spread of sounder and better principles, of larger and 
 fuller knowledge, accompanied alas ! by a spread still 
 more extensive of principles subversive of every no- 
 tion of revealed, and almost indeed of natural religion, 
 and of a knowledge that has only tended to the cor- 
 ruption of society, by implanting idle and pernicious
 
 254 
 
 notions, of the origin and nature of government into 
 the common mind, the danger lias been expanding 
 itself in every quarter, and is at length become, be- 
 yond all former comparison, pressing and frightful. 
 
 Never quiet long together, nor ever using precisely 
 the same means, there is now a constant workingof sedi- 
 tion among us. It puts on no particular form, but as- 
 sumes all forms; itgoes out & effects its purposes where 
 it can, when it can, and as it can. But, be the mode 
 what it may, the people are the great object of seduc- 
 tion. To turn them from obedience to their rulers 
 in church and state, is what is systematically aimed 
 at. All the politics of our adversaries are at variance 
 with the settled laws and constitution of the land. 
 All their religion springs from opposition to the reli- 
 gion of the land, defiling the very fountain head of 
 Christianity by insidious infidel translations of the 
 bible, and by a depreciation and studied contempt of 
 our received translation. Add to this, that many, I 
 may say most of the public journals and papers, and 
 periodical records, are on the side of insubordination. 
 I care not how poor some of these may be, if they cir- 
 culate, if they go their regular rounds and do their 
 constant work. They will never return void so long 
 as they accomplish what they design, the disaffecting 
 and fanaticizing of their readers. And we have un- 
 fortunately (as to our devotional acquirements) got to 
 that point of general superficial information, that the 
 poorest arguments are, with many, of the same vali- 
 dity with the strongest, and the writings of the errant- 
 est enthusiasts as well thought of, and, i fear, as fre- 
 quently read as those of a Tillotson, a Butler, a Paley, 
 or a Marsh. It is indeed the holy guises of this de- 
 scription of our adversaries that undo us. While they 
 work under the form of bible societies, gospel socie- 
 ties, societies for the con version of the Jews, teaching, 
 ]> reaching, propagating societies, they work under: 
 dlicicnl forms. They take a part in every thing, and
 
 255 
 
 in every thing out machiavel us. They do us more 
 harm because they do it under the semblance of second- 
 ing, of helping, of uniting with us for good. They 
 let the spiritual pomp of their proceedings appear, 
 and thus conceal the temporal ends of them. Their 
 piety, all richly caparisoned, they give to the public ; 
 their policy they keep to themselves.* 
 
 I am sure I know not where we are to look for 
 proofs of a revolutionary spirit if we cannot find them 
 under the sources already adverted to. There is a 
 full, perfect, open democracy, travelling throughout 
 the land, and every where stirring the tumultuous 
 wills and affections of our population. Yet they tell 
 us we are in no fear, that there is nothing to be 
 alarmed at, nothing to move the public indignation 
 against ; that ail is going on well, and that it is our 
 own guilt that makes us cowards ; the consciousness 
 of our oppressions that sets us upon fancying a dis- 
 position to revolt where no disposition shews itself. 
 But how, gentlemen, I beseech you, how do our 
 adversaries make these their lulling asseverations 
 good ? With what opiate do they rock us to rest 
 amid the paroxisms of our apprehension? How do 
 they exorcise these crude conceptions of a distempered 
 brain and bring us back to reason ? How ? why to 
 be sure by their stubborn proofs of the orderly spirit 
 
 * Of the " British and Foreign Bible Society," were it not in 
 danger of being considered as out of season in a Letter of this 
 kind, I could say much. Since the very effectual attacks upon it 
 by Bishop Marsh, it is become, I am willing to hope, shorn of 
 much of its established dignity. It, however, still retains a large 
 influence, and I think in no inconsiderable degree administers to 
 the prevailing spirit of the times. With such advocates as Dean 
 Milner I wonder not at its continued celebrity ; but I do wonder 
 that a mind so discerning as his should not yet have found reason 
 for an alteration of sentiment. To yield up our opinions is not 
 pleasant, but where they are untenable it is an act of duty, and 
 will become, in the sober estimate of our fellow creatures, an act 
 of virtue.
 
 256 
 
 which prevails among them. Hearken to their im- 
 pressive language. They tell us that " if a reform 
 does not immediately take place, a revolution must ;" 
 that " those who have no votes in the election of 
 members ought to pay no taxes;" that " if the people 
 had the spirit they ought to have, they would refuse 
 and resist the collection of supplies imposed upon 
 them by parliament ;" that " those who planned and 
 executed the late war ought to come to the gallows ;" 
 that "a close union among the reformers was neces- 
 sary, and that, avoiding minor differences, they should 
 push for the accomplishment of the main point;" 
 that " each should fancy himself the centre of his own 
 circle ;" that " it was to be regretted Wat Tyler had 
 been so treacherously slain by the Mayor of Lon- 
 don ;" that "all nature was in motion, and that it was 
 nonsense to declaim against a revolution." 31 They 
 further assure us, that " the iniquities practised in 
 our courts were not to be met with there (in America.) 
 Here there was no justice to be had under any cir- 
 cumstances in which the government was concerned. 
 Formerly, juries were packed ; but until lately this 
 packing was not openly avowed. But now, even the 
 judges on the bench attempted to justify it"f that 
 certain individuals " would never have been so treated, 
 (by government) had 4t not been intended that their 
 graves should prevent them from ever telling the tale 
 of their woes"J; that "Lord Sidmouth had been 
 
 * See the various speeches of our Westminster reformers, from 
 whence these extracts are taken, and those delivered at the Crown 
 and Anchor dinner on the chairing of Sir Francis Burdett, July 
 13, 1818. 
 
 + See Lord Cochrane's speech at the Crown and Anchor tavern, 
 for the purpose of opening a subscription for the individuals im- 
 prisoned during the late suspension act. Star, Feb. 3d, 1818. 
 
 J See Mr. Wooler's speech upon the same occasion. I tliiuk 
 the speeches here delivered calculated to prove that the freedom of 
 -the press is in full vigour among us ? and that nothing short of an
 
 257 
 
 guilty of high treason, by intercepting the petitions 
 of the people, and stopping up the legal channel of 
 communication between the Prince Regent and the 
 subject"* that for the promotion of reform <c means 
 should be taken for establishing a regular communi- 
 cation from one extremity of the kingdom to the 
 other"f that " the principles which seated the 
 House of Brunswick on the British throne, were those 
 first and best principles, that, as all civil institutions 
 are for the benefit of the governed, not of the 
 governor, so when the governor has ceased to fulfil 
 his duty to the people, the duty of obedience on their 
 part ceases also'"^ that (very natural deductions, 
 it must be confessed, from such premises) " when a 
 government was guilty of destroying or diminishing 
 the happiness of the people, such government acted 
 in direct opposition to the will of heaven, and rebel- 
 lion against it was an imperative duty" that " Mr. 
 Cobbet should be invited to return to take his place 
 at the head of the people"|| that " they had peti- 
 tioned in vain for their just rights, and that nothing 
 
 almost continued suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act can keep 
 the country within any chance of escape from revolution. A more 
 disgusting instance of foul-mouthed liberty never exhibited itself 
 than in these ' c simple and eloquent appeals," as the chairman, at 
 the conclusion of the business, very modestly termed them. 
 
 * Meeting at Stockport. Evening Mail, July 5, 1819. 
 
 h Meeting at Ashton-under-Line. Ibid, June 21. 
 
 ^ These are the revolutionary sentiments which the Editor of 
 the Norwich Courier, of June 6, 1818, is not afraid to entertain 
 and circulate in the present state of the country. May I be suf- 
 fered to ask, are the great Whig leaders of the county of Norfolk 
 prepared to countenance this doctrine or not ? If they dare not 
 adventure thus far, how can we look on the Norwich Courier, (as 
 from the respectable authority already alluded to we are assured 
 we may) as their accredited paper, the genuine expositor of their 
 faith and feelings ? If they dare thus far adventure 
 
 Meeting at Stockport. Evening Mail,J uly 5. 
 
 |] Ibid. Evening Mail, July 7. 
 
 L 1
 
 but physical force and the strong arm of the people 
 would do"* that the people he urged " to apply the 
 four-sheaved block of liberty, equality, annual parlia- 
 ments, and universal suffrage, that would tear the 
 vast fabric of tyranny and superstitution from its 
 base, though the strain would be tremendous"f 
 that " the example of the Irish rebellion be held out 
 to the people/';[ and that " a national convention 
 should be formed, modelled from that of France ; 
 that the whole country should proceed with petitions 
 to London ; that the delegates should not wait for 
 the tedious forms of the house of commons, but go 
 directly to the speaker's chair, and insist on their 
 demands being granted ; if they were not attended 
 to, the convention was then to act, and the exist- 
 ing government be destroyed"^ And Sir Charles 
 Wolseley, an honourable baronet of an ancient house 
 in Staffordshire, and the Stockport chairman for the 
 
 * Meeting at Stockport. Evening Mail, July 7. 
 
 + Ibid. Evening Mail, July 5. 
 
 Meeting on Hunslet Moor, June 14. The number of the 
 persons present, we are informed, was about ten thousand, and all 
 of the labouring classes, and the subjects discussed zeholly political. 
 Joseph Johnson, Esq. of Manchester, gives a hint too which meet- 
 ings of this kind will not be backward to work upon. He remarks, 
 " how singular it is that the labouring classes should be in such 
 extreme distress in a country abounding with every improvement, 
 both in agriculture and manufacture?, which the present state of 
 science could furnish; and speaks with detestation of the measures 
 adopted to prevent the importation of corn a measure calculated 
 merely to serve the landed proprietors, while rents and taxes are 
 increased and the labourers' wages reduced." "What is this cal- 
 culated for short of inviting an Agrarian law, and of setting that 
 useful body of men against their employers. See Evening Mail, 
 June 21. 
 
 The delivery of these sentiments appears from the evidence on 
 the trial of Bagguley, Drummond, and Johnston, at Chester, 
 when these mob orators harangued about five thousand people at 
 Sandy Brow, near Stockport. See the Norwich Mercury of 
 April 24, 1819.
 
 . . 
 
 259 
 
 day, consecrates all these pacific propositions intended 
 to allay the alarms of the good people of England, 
 by swearing 1 to be " faithful to the cause, so long as 
 his heart's blood should flow from his heart,"* ob- 
 serving, in conclusion, " that his political career 
 commenced in France: that he was one of those who 
 mounted the ramparts of the bastile at the com- 
 mencement of the revolution in that country; and if 
 he did that for France, he should never shrink from 
 attacking the bastiles of his own country."* 
 
 This, gentlemen, you will allow does not look much 
 like a demonstration of the chastised and quiet spirit 
 of the times. The specimens here laid before you 
 are not selected. They are taken as they came in my 
 way ; parts picked up here and there as they hap- 
 pened to fall from the great mass of sedition. The 
 matter and the manner of these self-constituted rege- 
 nerators are equally alarming. Their meetings, con- 
 vened under constitutional covers, are almost invari- 
 ably converted into a sort of revolutionary conven- 
 tions. Trm reformers of Stockport issue out their 
 circulars to the population in their vicinity, for the 
 purpose of firming a national union. The "com- 
 mittee of two hundred" send forth their concordats 
 for pretty nearly the same purpose; and as "public 
 integrity and talent are the great objects of their 
 solicitude at this important crisis," HENRY HUNT, ESQ. 
 is therefore "invited to the chair."* supported by Mr. 
 Cobbett, Mr. Gale Jones, Mr. Wooler, Dr. Watson, 
 Mr. A. Thistlewood, Mr. Johnstone, of Manchester, 
 Mr. Taylor, of Norwich,-]- &c. &c. This, and more 
 
 * Evening Mail, July 5. v 
 
 f What Mr. Taylor is this ? We have so many of the name 
 that we never know which horse to clap the saddle on. By the 
 bye since the printing of my note at page 80, I have been informed 
 that Mr. Taylor, of Wymondham, is, after all, no other than our 
 celebrated delegate, Mr. Edward Tavlor, of Norwich. I am glad 
 
 Ll
 
 260 
 
 of a like stamp and tendency, transacting in every 
 part of the kingdom, and all upon a similar principle 
 of association, and with views and feelings nearly simi- 
 lar though more kept in, must surely open every man's 
 eyes to the danger of our situation. If what has been 
 here adduced (and the daily papers are perpetually 
 pouring forth fresh accumulations) does not amount 
 to sedition, to sedition of the highest and blackest 
 cast; if it does not even venture, in some of its dark 
 shadowings out, to the very "erge of treason, I know 
 not where we are to look for such high crimes and mis- 
 demeanors against the state.* Even allowing that 
 
 of it. It is some comfort not to find two of precisely the same cast 
 of soul in the same county. When the scrowl was produced for 
 performers " through all Athens," in the " interlude before the 
 Duke and Duchess on their wedding-day at night," they were ob- 
 liged to set down Nick Bottom the weaver, for Pyramus, and 
 Francis Flute the bellows-mender, forThisby; while the Lion's 
 part, which was done ex-tempore, " for it was nothing but roar- 
 ing," fell to Snug the joiner. This was thought, for the device of 
 it, pretty well in those times. But our blue and white conjurers, 
 a deputation probably from the " Swan Inn senate," beat them 
 hollow. For here they send you forth a man with two souls as it 
 were, animating the same body, and by an admirable legerdemain 
 contrivance, capable of doing the w r ork of Bottom and Flute and 
 Snug, and the whole " propertied and rehearsing" tribe of them 
 put together. Thus Punch plays the Devil at Bartlemy fair one 
 day and Doctor Faustus the next ; and thus go we to Norwich, 
 or go we to Wymondham, or take we a peep at the National Con- 
 vention assembled for affairs of state in Smithfield, there is your 
 orator, president, delegate, nominee, still before you, and the 
 quod petis hie est staring every hot and thirsty reformer full in the 
 face as usual. 
 
 * This Smithfield meeting has been held, and thanks to the 
 efficient regulations of government, and not to the temperance of 
 these reformers, nothing of harm has resulted from it. But I put 
 it to every man's solemn conscience, whatever be his politics, whe- 
 ther associations of this kind, so conducted, so principled, so rami- 
 fying themselves through the empire, and so gathering upon us in 
 every quarter, and every where in a systematic form, can be con- 
 templated without alarm. Let us consider too how many they
 
 these proceedings merely marked an innovating spirit,, 
 still it is of a very alarming figure, and we need not, 
 gentlemen, be told that to live in an age of innova- 
 tion is to live in a most perilous age. For innova- 
 tion is a bold and working power; a brainless ardour, 
 scorning to look behind and incapable of seeing be- 
 fore it ; caring nothing for antiquity, nothing for pos- 
 terity, but intrenching itself in its own sufficiencies, 
 and making light of that slow and solemn experience 
 of years, by which alone man, full of error and easily 
 imposed upon, is justified in legislating for the public 
 good. But where the spirit to overturn, without the 
 care to preserve, or the wisdom, on a better founda- 
 
 implicate in their feelings, in their views, in their prospects of 
 success ; how many that waver and look on, and bear and balance 
 themselves between chances, and are ready, with greater caution 
 but with not much greater virtue, to countenance or discountenance, 
 to join with or desert them according to the contingencies of their 
 fate. I would refer my readers to the conduct of the celebrated 
 member of parliament, Mr. Alderman Waithman, upon this occa- 
 sion ; a man of a full reforming soul, but of a mean and contemp- 
 tible mind ; a man with whom, in the event of the approach of 
 real convulsionary movements, his country would hardly, I think, 
 dare to trust the protection of the meanest part of the public pos- 
 sessions. Well might the Lord Mayor represent the conduct of 
 this guardian of the peace of the capital " to have been most out- 
 rageous ;" well might he add, and thousands will herein praise him 
 for his spirit and join with him in his judgment, that if Mr. Alder- 
 man Waithman " had been guilty of such conduct in public, he 
 would most undoubtedly have had him taken into custody." And 
 yet this Alderman Waithman is, forsooth, a Whig, (of as vile a 
 description as the term will admit of) a lover of the constitution, a 
 lover of his country, and one that desires to preserve the tranquil- 
 lity of the realm ; to preserve that tranquillity which he and his 
 party, well seconded by Mr. Coke and my Lord Albemarle, are 
 every day, and in every part of the empire, by the influence of their 
 insane and wretched opinions, copied and hawked about by every 
 inflammatory meeting throughout the kingdom, disturbing and de- 
 stroying. The proceedings at the court of common-council, Guild- 
 hall, are well worth attention. See a very well detailed relation 
 of them in the Evening Mail, July 23 to July 26.
 
 262 
 
 tion, to establish prevails, it must needs be an evil and 
 fearful age. Tacitus, with his usual profoundness, 
 has sonic M here. 1 (hink, remarked, that they who con- 
 sult about revolting; have already revolted lie is 
 right. Our very entertainment of had viows, our 
 very forming; of had purposes, is an intimation that 
 the execution of such purposes is intended to follow. 
 The moment we depart from integrity all the avenues 
 of (he heart lie open to defilement. 
 
 One great object with our adversaries is to get the 
 population of the country on their side ; and, with a 
 view to this, they are endeavouring to change the 
 national manners and habits of thinking, and in some, 
 1 fear, a serious degree are effecting it. Indeed all 
 despicable factions in a state have a natural tendency 
 to this point. For they stick not at unhinging old 
 foundations and trampling upon every thing sacred. 
 It is the temper of the public mind, not sufficiently 
 formed and principled, and therefore often turned 
 about by slight and varying winds, which the unquiet 
 spirits of a state make their attack upon, knowing 
 that, once unsettled, it will rest no where, but go on 
 from change to change until new manners and habits 
 drive out the old. The swarming sectaries about us 
 see our condition and make (heir profit of it. And so 
 sedulously do they work in this so well prepared field, 
 that they have converted much of our generous soil 
 into what they call their holy lands, lands that will 
 soon, as to vital Christianity, resemble those intermin- 
 able wastes that, \\e are told, formerly bounded in, 
 with a cruel pride, certain of the German slates. 
 " Civilatihus maxima lavs est quam latissimas cir- 
 curii se vastatisjinihus solUudines habere."* Look 
 to Wales, look to Er.ghmd, lock to every part of the 
 British empire, at home and abroad, and you will see 
 
 * Caesar de Bell. Gall. Lib. 6. c. 22.
 
 263 
 
 our indefatigable dissenting adversaries spreading 
 about their pious fervours, and debauching all the 
 staid religious notions of society, and implanting in 
 their room the manners and prophaneness of Crom- 
 well's age, together with thnt invincible self conceit 
 for which there is no cure and against which there is 
 no security. The vanity which these sectaries so 
 foster is the fruitful parentof half our national crimes. 
 Men are taught in their bedlam schools of dissent to 
 judge in all religious matters for themselves, and these 
 instructions they extend to judging for others too. 
 They make creeds for their own and creeds for the 
 common use, and their right to examine, which they 
 do with a most coarse and fearless familiarity, "the 
 secret thino-s that belong unto the Lord our God," 
 
 O ~ 
 
 they second by a like fearless examination of the 
 secrets of human government, not hesitating to con- 
 demn, in their hot and hasty and assured views, regu- 
 lations of the most wholesome and laws of the most 
 virtuous cast.* And 1 will leave it with even their 
 consideration who do not trouble themselves to deli- 
 berate much upon any subjects, whether when con- 
 tempt of government is once rooted in the ignorant 
 mind, defiance of and disobedience to government 
 will be far behind. Nothing can extort respect from 
 those who are thus cherished in an idle vanity and a 
 blind opinion of their own sufficiency. This is the 
 
 * Sir William Temple, in his " Observations upon the Nether- 
 lands," has a remark which fully acquaints us with h,is opinion as 
 to the tendencies of a change in the religious feelings of the great 
 body of a nation. " Whosoever designs the change of religion in a 
 country, or government, by any other means than that of a general 
 conversion of the people, or the greatest part of them, designs all 
 the mischiefs to a nation that use to usher in or attend the two 
 greatest distempers of the state, civil war, or tyranny; which are, 
 violence, oppression, cruelty, rapine, intemperance, injustice, and, 
 in short, the miserable effusion of human blood, and the confusion 
 of all laws, orders, and virtues among men." P. 1 90.
 
 264 
 
 secret charm by which the dissenters are daily effect- 
 ing their conversions, thickening their ranks, magni- 
 fying their claims, and triumphing over the esta- 
 blished laws and religion., and manners and habits of 
 the people.* 
 
 Whoever will trouble himself to take a view of 
 society as it spreads itself out hot and burning about 
 him; whoever will have the courage to look our 
 present danger full in the face, will find this to be, 
 in a large measure, the source of it. A general con- 
 version of the people to the principles of dissent ; a 
 
 * Hear -what a celebrated man of their party and principles 
 thought (for though so delivered I take them as his sentiments) of 
 this change in public opinion, which with such potency moves and 
 governs all human affairs, in his time. " Now there has been a 
 very sudden and a very sensible change in the opinions of men 
 within these last fifty years by the progress of learning and of 
 liberty. Most people, in this island, have divested themselves of 
 all superstitious reverence to names and authority : the clergy have 
 much lost their credit : their pretensions and doctrines have been, 
 ridiculed ; and even religion can scarce support itself in the world. 
 The mere name of king commands little respect; and to talk of a 
 king as GOD'S vicegerent on earth, or to give him any of those 
 magnificent titles which formerly dazzled mankind, would but ex- 
 cite laughter in every one. Though the crown, by means of its 
 large revenue, may maintain its authority in times of tranquillity, 
 upon private interest and influence ; yet as the least shock or con- 
 vulsion must break all these interests to pieces, the kingly power 
 being no longer supported by the settled principles and opinions of 
 men, will immediately dissolve. Had men been in the same dis- 
 position at the revolution as they are at present, monarchy would 
 have run a great risque of being entirely lost in this island." 
 (Essays. Vol. 1. p. 47.) Had Mr. Hume lived in the present 
 period, he would have found this picture, then only growing into a 
 visible form and dimension, to have attained nearly its full stature. 
 And if monarchy, with such opinions, would have run the risk of 
 being set aside at the revolution, what is its fate likely to be now, 
 when these opinions are all settling and fixing deep in the minds 
 of the dissenting part (every day increasing) of our population, all 
 systematized, and all ready to do their work upon the first regular 
 approach of convulsion in the state ? Surely this circumstance is 
 worth our serious consideration.
 
 265 
 
 general consequent alteration of their native princi- 
 ples, manners, and attachments, is the grand aim of 
 the dissenting interest at this moment. They are 
 striving to get numbers on their side ; numbers to 
 adopt their sentiments ; numbers to follow up their 
 views; numbers to only seem to do this, or to rest 
 merely in neutrality ; and when these are gained, 
 (and every where we have proofs of their industry, 
 and, in many places, of their success,) the struggle 
 will be over; for then they will be the people of 
 England, and, in conformity with their own doc- 
 trines, the making of the established church, of the 
 established government, the established laws, usages 
 and administrations of the realm, will all be in their 
 hands. The Sovereignty of the people we are con- 
 tent, like idiots, to flourish about and toast at present. 
 They will then take care to let us know what the 
 Sovereignty of the people means. 
 
 Be assured, gentlemen, our situation is bad, bad 
 every way. We are folding our arms and reposing 
 upon the liberality of our adversaries when we should 
 be arming us against their treachery. We have long 
 enough rested in conjectures, in fond hopes, in 
 favourable expectations, in a generous translation of 
 the views of our dissenting; and democratical brethren. 
 
 
 
 The time is past for any more of this wretched 
 trifling. What have we to do with conjectures about 
 the future, when we see all that is present going 
 wrong ? Can we weakly waste time in prophesying 
 the return of clearer skies and fairer weather when 
 the clouds ride heavy and every thing is in commo- 
 tion about us? Indeed I would not willingly over- 
 charge the picture of our present condition, but we 
 had better see it in the full and frightful form it is 
 putting on than close our eyes and understandings, 
 and fancy that there is nothing to be alarmed at. 
 Wherever we turn we see an established religion, 
 with no fault of its own, falling into decay. Much of 
 
 M m
 
 266 
 
 the form and little of the spirit of Christianity about 
 us. No security that " to-morrow will be as this 
 day," dull, and doubtful, and gloomy as it is. Go- 
 vernment changing its measures as to the church ; 
 legislating one session in her favour and the next 
 delivering her bound into the hands of the enemy. 
 The nobility and gentry looking on with a passive 
 indifference, and either, like Gallic, " caring for none 
 of these things," or not sufficiently resenting, or in 
 some instances even inconsiderately aiding those hos- 
 tile machinations through which, under pious or con- 
 stitutional forms, her downfall is to be effected ; 
 while a large portion of our landed proprietors, ever 
 craving and never satisfied, are pouring out their 
 contumelies upon the establishment, and by the slan- 
 der of her ministers, paving the Way, as they hope, 
 to the diminution of her revenues. In the mean 
 while, poisoned by a thousand arts and misrepresen- 
 tations, little or no attachment towards their spiritual 
 pastors is, in many parts, discernible in the body of 
 their parishioners, but sectaries, permitted by the 
 legislature to roam at pleasure through the land, are 
 arming and crazing the common mind against us, 
 and indisposing our congregations to benefit from 
 our labours by frantic declamations, or deep and 
 subtle reproaches. To fill up the measure of our 
 misfortunes, the clergy themselves thanks to the 
 treachery of our evangelical Judases are a divided 
 body, with no dependence on each other for mutual 
 support or strenuous exertion ; but while the enemy 
 are wasting them without, like the wretched inhabi- 
 tants of Jerusalem, they are dying within of the 
 unhappy wounds they inflict upon each other. 
 
 Will you say that you see nothing of all this in 
 the present posture of our affairs, ecclesiastical and 
 civil ; that it is merely the distempered dream of a 
 careful overcharged mind ; the terrific figures in the 
 evening clouds which this moment appal the eye,
 
 267 
 
 and which the wrack dislimns for ever in the next ? 
 Be it so and who said not thus in the days of the 
 protectorate? And who thought not thus in the 
 taxation of our American colonies? And who rea- 
 soned not thus in the late Irish rebellions ? And 
 who sagaciously divined not thus previously to the 
 breaking out of the French revolution ? Who, in 
 short, in most of the dreadful changes that have 
 taken place on the face of the earth, who treated not 
 the idea of such changes with contempt, till the 
 gigantic figures were fairly before him in their whole 
 horrible dimensions, and crowns, and sceptres, and 
 mitres, all cast and buried in the same ocean of 
 blood ? 
 
 Think not, gentlemen, we are in no danger be- 
 cause we see not its symptoms in every thing about 
 us, and because dismay appears not on every counte- 
 nance. He who recollects how little public, or pri- 
 vate calamity has, at any time, been suffered to 
 intrude upon public or private enjoyment, or even 
 upon a common national lightness of manners, will 
 not be forward to make an almost universal face of 
 unconcern any argument against reasonable and great 
 cause of alarm. " The report (says the historian*) 
 of our defeat in Germany filled the city, yet afflicted 
 it in no degree. Of our armies slaughtered, of the 
 winter encampments of the legions taken and pos- 
 sessed by the enemy, of the revolt of all the nations 
 of Gaul, people discoursed as matter of news only, 
 not as calamities." In virtuous periods policy might 
 occasionally have advised this indifference, as it did 
 probably in the instance of the public games suffering 
 no suspension at Sparta on the news of the battle of 
 Leuctra ; but in ages of matured profligacy, where a 
 devotedness to dissipation has corrupted all ranks and 
 
 * Tacitus, History, Book 4. 
 M m 2
 
 268 
 
 confounded all principles, nothing in the shape of 
 alarm or danger is suffered to disturb their guilty 
 revellings. Philip may invade Athens, but their 
 theatres must continue open and the revenues of a 
 province be paid for the exhibition of a play ; he 
 may threat their lives or their liberties, but they will 
 have their pleasures in spite of him. Tarentum will 
 indulge in her baths and her feastings, her garlands 
 and her wine, though the enemy is thundering at her 
 gates. A full blown rank luxuriousness will listen to 
 no commutation with its appetites. Its couch must 
 be spread amid gardens of paradise, while all the 
 softness of Arabia breathes around, and music and 
 dance and song, and the high wrought symphonies of 
 nature, must still rule this hour, though fortune, por- 
 tentous in her changes, dash the cup of intoxication 
 from their lips the next ; nor ever shall they arouse 
 from their effeminate slumbers till the hand of death, 
 cold and clammy, freezes up their souls in the very 
 lap of their voluptuousness. O who would thus 
 scatter roses over the ghastly remains of the field of 
 Bedriacum ! Who would thus, in the bowers of 
 Aricinum, amid indulgence and sloth, learn the first 
 tidings that our ecclesiastical constitution is departed 
 from us, and our monarchical government at an end ; 
 that democracy is installed in all the honors of so- 
 vereignty, and sectarism seated on the smoking ruins 
 of the church. 
 
 But we are assailed, it may be urged, by low and 
 mean instruments. I know it; and we can hardly be 
 assailed by worse. Low instruments are never to be 
 despised. Low instruments are at the head of all 
 public commotions. All remarkable revolutions have 
 been executed by low instruments, seconded by a 
 rightly prepared and seasoned population. For they 
 are the first to give bold advice and to begin daring 
 iniquities. And their example will have a mighty 
 influence in such perilous situations, where all judg-
 
 269 
 
 ments are almost equally snatched at and equally 
 sanctified ; not what is most consonant with reason, 
 but what is most assuredly delivered, and most moveth 
 the common mind to the common desire, being of 
 the more especial prevailment. Lord Bacon, with 
 his usual sagacity, hath sufficiently, I think, accounted 
 for this. "There is inhuman nature (he remarks) 
 generally more of the fool, than of the wise ; and 
 therefore those faculties, by which the foolish part of 
 men's minds is taken, are most potent. Wonderful 
 like is the case of boldness in civil business : what 
 first ? boldness ; what second and third ? boldness. 
 And yet boldness is a child of ignorance and base- 
 ness, far inferior to other parts. But nevertheless it 
 doth fascinate, and bind hand and foot, those that are 
 either shallow in judgment, or weak in courage, 
 which are the greatest part ; yea, and prevaileth with 
 wise men at weak times ; therefore we see it hath 
 done wonders in popular states."* It is surprising 
 what these contemptible adversaries, as we are dis- 
 posed to consider them, have done on the great 
 theatre of life, and are capable of doing. With no 
 learning, no religion, no patriotism, no feelings of 
 their own but of the most vulgar description, yet do 
 they possess an unlimited influence over the feelings 
 of others. Tell me not that their understanding's are 
 
 O 
 
 poor, their opinions weak, their schemes wild, their 
 language untutored, their eloquence coarse and dis- 
 gusting. What does all this signify so long as they 
 can carry the popular voice and will with them, the 
 popular heart and affections? Believe me, while 
 they can manage this, they will suffer from the impu- 
 tation of neither folly nor madness. That they are 
 a scandal to any honest cause we know, but we know 
 too that to the cause they espouse, and have under- 
 taken to support, they are no scandal. 
 
 * Essay XII. Of boldness.
 
 270 
 
 We do not fairly appreciate their powers, their 
 weight in the scale of nations, when manners and 
 morals have become all corrupted. Little base in- 
 struments outdo our fears in the calculation of politic 
 consequences. Little circumstances exalt, destroy, 
 root out the very memorials of long enduring magni- 
 ficence. The common contingencies of society alter 
 every thing about us. In arts, in arms, in sciences, 
 base means exalt and degrade, and contemptible 
 causes, running together, gather up important effects. 
 When Paracelsus lead the way to the ridicule of the 
 ancient physicians, fleeting and preposterous as was 
 his own hypothesis, he yet poisoned the source of all 
 valuable and correct practice for a long period after- 
 wards. When Peter the hermit, in a fanatical 
 moment preached the crusades, he threw the whole 
 Christian world into confusion, and scattered blood 
 and civilization in every region. When Theudas 
 persuaded his countrymen, the Galileans, that they 
 were the elect of God, and ought not therefore to 
 submit to any ordinance of man, though he and his 
 followers were almost instantly annihilated, yet the 
 impression on the enthusiasm of the common mind 
 remained, and in its eventual tendency involved both 
 Jerusalem and her temple in destruction. If disdain 
 of the instrument were a sufficient apology for disdain 
 of the danger, there are few revolutions, political 
 or ecclesistical, that might not safely have been 
 laughed to scorn. But when the most deplorable 
 examples are before us of the greatest changes pro- 
 duced by the lowest means, we cannot surely behold 
 unappalled the perpetual, and, what is more to be 
 dreaded, the systematic working of such means among 
 us at present. 
 
 I should be glad to know the use of years and ex- 
 perience if they do not lead us to wisdom. Has the 
 page, "rich with the spoils of time," been unfolded in 
 vain ? All history calls out to us, with crowded column
 
 271 
 
 upon column, to beware of these low instruments of 
 rebellion. Greece, and Rome, and every empire that 
 has existed, felt, in turn, that they never could be safe 
 under such base influence.* In our own nation, as 
 you are well aware, the strength of these obscure po- 
 pular demagogues has been frequently and severely 
 witnessed. Recollectwe not an example of one of these 
 dreadful scourges to society at an early period of our 
 history; how the most shocking acts of violence were 
 committed under the guidance and sanction of Long- 
 beard the lawyer, and that not less than fifty thousand 
 miscreants, who at that time infested the capital, fol- 
 lowed in his train of pillage and assassination ? And 
 how potent was the authority of this demagogue 
 orator of the people, and how highly he was thought 
 of, is evident from the gibbet on which he was ex- 
 ecuted, and the very ground on which it was erected, 
 being taken away and preserved by his deluded fol- 
 lowers as sacred relics! Neither can we forget that 
 it was a few bad men of this description that brought 
 about all the horrors of the reign of Charles I. a few 
 popular republican and fanatic characters (not much 
 unlike those who are corrupting, and courting, and 
 toasting the Sovereignty of the people at present) that 
 harrowed up the public soul, and rested not from their 
 
 * Plutarch, in his Life of Caesar, speaking of the remissness 
 manifested at Rome as to the popularity of that extraordinary man, 
 justly remarks, that " when it was grown to such a height that it 
 was scarce possible to demolish it, and had a plain tendency to the 
 ruin of the constitution, they found out, when it was too late, that 
 no beginnings of things, however small, are to be neglected, be- 
 cause continuance makes them great; and the very contempt they 
 are held in gives them opportunity to gain that strength which 
 cannot be resisted." I wish we could be persuaded to make a 
 wise use of this reflection, and not suffer so many encroachments 
 upon our established laws and constitution, under the notion that 
 the deviation itself, or the authors of it, are too contemptible to 
 create alarm.
 
 272 
 
 sacrilegious labours until " the land was desolate" and 
 "the sanctuary in ruins." Shall we, gentlemen, by 
 our indifference, our incredulity, our ill-timed con- 
 tempt of these despicable instruments of revolution, 
 suffer modern Longbeards to rise up among us, and 
 brave us upon every public occasion with their inso- 
 lent speeches, and take the hearts of our people and 
 turn them to bitterness and gall against their rulers r- 
 Shall we countenance the whole brood of dissent and 
 disaffection, and nurse them up by our supineness for 
 a second miserable overthrow of monarchical and 
 episcopal government? We have no intention of do- 
 ing this but be assured we cannot avoid doing it, if 
 we consent silently to gaze upon those scenes passing 
 before us, which the sun sickens at the very sight of. 
 
 How indeed to characterize such a heterogeneous 
 phalanx of opposition as now every where prevails 
 against government, I know not. It is no opposition 
 that can be bound up and described under one name, 
 or one nature. It is a mixture of all colours and all 
 casts; working by all known and all unknown me- 
 chanisms ; combining with every thing that is ridi- 
 culous and dirty in expedient, every thing that is dark 
 in intention and dreadful in operation. This army of 
 aliens fight under no general They are led on by 
 existing circumstances, and will desert their ranks the 
 moment they can secure their spoil. If they can 
 overturn the constitution and make a comedy of it, 
 can ruin the state and laugh at us, they will; but if 
 we are not to be wheedled and fooled out of our pos- 
 sessions, they will prepare as deep a tragedy for us as 
 ever Goth or Vandal did in the sack of ancient em- 
 pire. Or tragedy or comedy, they will carry their 
 point, if the public feeling will permit them. 
 
 As the world grows older it grows wiser, and in 
 part it grows baser too. We might almost be justi- 
 fied in the Pythagorean superstition, that our offences, 
 like our souls, suffer a sort of transmigration, and that
 
 2 
 
 what we attack under one form in the present age is 
 only the ghost of crime that had its body of existence 
 centuries back, and that has never effectually been 
 laid from that time to this, A perpetual flame seems 
 to be kept up more sacredly than the very Vestal fires 
 of all the crafts and seductions and villainies of man's 
 nature, by which society in every stage, and govern- 
 ment in every form, and the world in every period, 
 have been made to tremble and to suffer. As con- 
 nected in some measure with this opinion, I have 
 always considered both the rise and fall of seditions 
 and heresies in a state as materials laid up for its 
 future destruction. The heresy comes, and it goes, 
 and we think no more of it. But be assured, gentle- 
 men, nothing is lost ; nothing runs to waste of all 
 these collections of sedition from age to age. One 
 generation after another works them into form, and 
 gives them more durable consistencies. Their first 
 originaters and fomenters are indeed gone, but they 
 have left these relics of their souls behind them, to 
 contaminate the peace of the world which they can no 
 longer disturb. What did Rome lose of her seditions 
 from the moment she abolished her kingly power and 
 created her consuls? Where did her tribunes stop in 
 their exactions upon the Patrician authority ? When 
 did they ever part with aught which they had gained 
 by their popular clamours ? Was there among them 
 any instance of an age uninjured by former periods of 
 sedition, and beginning in a native purity afresh? 
 Did not these seditions roll on from father to son, 
 constantly congregating and enlarging as they pro- 
 ceeded, and thus one age become the tutor in disaf- 
 fection to another ? Did not the Gracchi follow upon 
 the track that the Dominatio Plebis had marked out, 
 and were not their warm hasty steps pursued by 
 abler, artfuller, more determined and abandoned de- 
 magogues, who, working upon minds so previously and 
 so abundantly prepared, added to their lesser -crimes 
 
 N n
 
 274 
 
 far greater daring*, and finished the reformation by 
 the subjugation of the common wealth and the pro- 
 scription of all that stood, or was even suspected to 
 stand in the way of their ambition? And who will 
 say, (unless God has given to man since these periods 
 of infamy a new nature) who will say that our former 
 seditions are not at the root of our present ; that the 
 ashes of Cromwell's age are not glowing in our own; 
 that the rancour of dissent in that gloomy period is not 
 brief in this, and that the French revolution is not 
 throughout Europe ready to start to a second life, and 
 to begin its horrors and confiscations afresh ? 
 
 Of demoralizing principles, religious or political, in 
 all their stages, there is, I think, hardly any oblitera- 
 tion, especially if the taint has been early received or 
 in bad times. Will any one assert that the effects of 
 Pain's writings, which were with so much difficulty 
 suppressed, are even yet faded from men's minds, and 
 have ceased to contaminate society ; that the tendency 
 of Wi Ike's seditious conduct and speeches, or of the 
 elegant inflammatory letters of Junius, are no longer 
 injurious ; or that the writers who so dreadfully un- 
 hinged the obedience of the subject in those days, 
 have not thereby assisted, and very mainly, in unset- 
 tling the peace and corrupting the principles of pos- 
 terity ? Will any man seriously declare that the bold 
 and coarse publications from the press, that then 
 swarmed over the country, have had their hour, and 
 have all disappeared and died with their incendiary 
 authors ; or that the effect of the writings, as bold 
 and as coarse, and to the full as licentious, of the 
 demagogues of our day, the Cobbets, the Woolers, 
 and a long list of inferior artists, will exist no longer 
 than the popularity of these men is in existence ? 
 Alas ! the process does not expire with the popularity. 
 They have poured the poison into the veins, and it 
 will flow through the blood of unborn generations. 
 It will riot in the constitution till the whole body
 
 275 
 
 politic shall become a mere lazar house from which 
 every healthy mind will be compelled to flee with 
 loathing. Well may we pronounce a woe unto such 
 men that nourish in their hearts such offences; for 
 the seditious and mutinous spirit thus taught to frail 
 suffering humanity is but too frequently a companion 
 on their bed of death, and carried with them to their 
 desolate and despairing 1 graves ! 
 
 And if our political offences thus go on from age 
 to age without dying as to their effects, so I conceive 
 do our heretical errors also. Will it be said that some 
 laxity in our religious notions, some confusion in our 
 religious doctrines, some difference in our religious 
 creeds and formularies is unavoidable; that heresies 
 ever have and ever, must prevail in the Christian 
 world, but that in the, meanwhile the word of the Lord 
 endureth ? True the exorcisms of Magus, the in- 
 cantations of Menander, the impieties of ISaturninus, 
 the darker prophaneness of Basilides, the horrid prac- 
 tices of the Nicolaitans, together with the proud pre- 
 tensions of the Gnostics, are all passed away, while 
 the scriptures of the everlasting Jehovah remain. 
 But be it recollected, that they remain a proof at once 
 of the wickedness of man and of the mercy of God; 
 that while sects appear and disappear; creeds spring- 
 up and vanish, ancient defilements melt into modern 
 blasphemies, and the absurdities of one age give place 
 to the profanations of another, Christianity all the 
 time lies bleeding; and that if these fleeting violations 
 are perpetually crossing its disc, the " Sun of righte- 
 ousness" must of necessity be obscured, and pure, 
 vital, practical religion forgotten; that religion which 
 alone can " bind the unruly wills and affections of sin- 
 ful men," and make society tolerable while we are 
 constrained to remain in it. What but the heresies 
 of Christianity have obstructed the progress of Chris- 
 tianity ? What but our controversial has murdered 
 our practical divinity ; and where are the advantages 
 
 N n %
 
 276 
 
 to compensate for this evident, perpetual, and perpe- 
 tually increasing disadvantage? But if seditions and 
 heresies never die, and how should they when they 
 spawn from age to age with added filth and rankness, 
 they must always be in operation, and always minister 
 to the danger of a nation in distorted and troublesome 
 times. 
 
 Look, gentlemen, as a further demonstration of this 
 danger, look to the present situation of other kingdoms 
 in Europe as well as of our own, and you will see 
 what a melancholy fellowship and resemblance sub- 
 sists between us. There is every where abroad some- 
 thing like a general, undefined expectation of fearful 
 changes. It is indeed a half- confessed, smothered 
 feeling: a feelin- which the mind is unwilling to en 
 
 O 7 ~ O 
 
 tertain, and would be glad to get rid of if it knew how. 
 We dread to cope with, and are therefore unwilling to 
 look upon, or to believe in the coming storm. Yet 
 the "signs of the times" are too evident to be misun- 
 derstood, and too prophetic of our peril to be slighted. 
 The sky is changing, and the air is changing, and the 
 stars are dimly seen in the heavens. 
 
 Vox quoque per lucos vulgoexaudita silentes, 
 Ingens. 
 
 There is altogether a dead colouring of the crea- 
 tion closing in and thickening about us; a deep and 
 awful gloom which conceals we know not what of por- 
 tentous appearances that the eye would gladly turn 
 from, though the fancy were only to feign them. Our 
 worst men are high in hope. Our best men are cast 
 down with fears. Our wisest men, out of heart and 
 drooping in their counsels, are coasting on the edge 
 of despondency. In the mean while, with an almost 
 total uncontrol, the flood gates of licentiousness are 
 thrown wide open, and from a thousand bights the 
 torrent pours headlong, foaming, thundering, tearing 
 up all in its course from one state, one kingdom, one 
 end of the earth even unto the ether.
 
 277 
 
 These prophesies there will, I fear, be no occasion 
 to wait long for the completion of, in whole or in part. 
 Partially indeed they are rapidly hastening upon us 
 already. Even, gentlemen, in a superficial, general 
 point of view, I do not think our present condition 
 very much unlike that of France immediately pre- 
 cedent to her revolution. We are at this moment, 
 I need not say, not a fallen empire. We are not even 
 descending from the giddy glorious hight that has 
 ranked us among the first of nations. We have no 
 assured symptoms of decline about us ; none that the 
 common gaze can discover, from either the extensive, 
 ness of our dominions,, the progressive increase of our 
 commerce and our crimes, our deleterious luxury, or 
 even our immense expenditure. Outwardly our figure 
 is still imposing, still commanding. We preserve to 
 the eye of foreign states our invincible courage, our 
 generous deportment, our staid, and pondered and 
 unfluctuating counsels. In our external relations we 
 fear nothing. We have nothing to fear. All are our 
 friends, and no power of Europe has a thought of 
 interrupting our peace. There is indeed envy abroad, 
 but admiration is abroad also. Gratitude is abroad, 
 and nations will not soon forget the arm that, under 
 Providence, has rescued and brought them out of 
 darkness into a "marvellous light." The executive, 
 it must be confessed, is invested with large powers, 
 but there is a modest exertion of them. The laws of 
 the realm (whatever may be, in some instances, their 
 impolicy) are by no means strictly enforced. We 
 have a mild sovereign, a mild administration, an im- 
 partial, humane, conciliating, conceding government 
 throughout. 
 
 Now this, so far as dissimilar objects will admit of 
 comparison, was, 1 think, at the period I allude to, 
 very much the situation of France. Recal her proud 
 circumstances previously to her revolution, and I feel 
 assured, gentlemen, that you will herein in good
 
 279 
 
 measure agree with me. What monarchy more ex- 
 ternally powerful, more externally splendid, more 
 seemingly calculated to bid defiance to the philoso- 
 phical atheism, the religious indifference and infidelity, 
 the democratical principles, the dark, murderous 
 machinations by which, suffocated in blood, she \um 
 so soon to be tumbled from her airy bights? What 
 foreign enemies had she at that period to contend 
 with ; what foreign jealousies ; what foreign sources 
 of uneasiness or alarm ? Did not she stand in the 
 most commanding attitude, even almost to her giving 
 the law to Europe ? She cast her eye in every quar- 
 ter, and in every quarter there was submission and 
 peace. Her population was extensive, her commerce 
 flourishing, her manufactures not decaying, nor was 
 even her weallh mean. She looked upon the fair 
 form and face of her dominions, and felt her greatness 
 and ruled her subjects with lenity. Alas! how poorly 
 do the largest capacities judge ;* how late behold 
 the vengeance suspended but by a single hair! It 
 was at home that the danger menaced this " Great 
 Babylon;" at home that the ruin lurked. It was 
 
 * "Though all kinds of government be improved in modern times, 
 yet monarchical government seems to have made the greatest ad- 
 vances towards perfection. It may now be affirmed of civilized 
 monarchies, what was formerly said in praise of republics alone, 
 that they arc a government oj lazes, not of men. They are found 
 susceptible of order, method, and constancy, to a surprizing d< 
 Property is there secure, industry encouraged, the arts llouirsh, 
 and the prince lives secure among his subjects like a father among 
 his children." Hume's Kssays. Vol. 1. p. 103. When the infidel 
 historian thus expressed himself, how little did he apprehend that, 
 to the disgrace of his sagacity, fifty jears would not elap-e before 
 the mildest monarch that ever sat on the throne of Fiance would 
 be cast to the ground, and the dynasty of the Bourboi.s prri.-h ! 
 In fact, at the time Hume made this remark, he was himself 
 among the number of those that were preparing the public mind for 
 this dreadful catastrophe. Almost every page in the writings of 
 this celebrated author is a page of deep and fixed corruption.
 
 279 
 
 from her own bowels that she was preparing her own 
 poison ; from her own dissolute,, debauched, perfidious 
 philosophically infidel children that her unextin- 
 guishable destruction was to ensue! All her con- 
 summation of misery was to spring from her own 
 loins ! To the common gaze her foundations were 
 strong. Ages had passed away and there was no 
 shaking of her walls or buttresses; none that her 
 rule of despotism could not awe, or the lenity of its 
 exercise assuage. But still, the worm had got to the 
 heart. The work of revolution was stealing on and 
 giving no note of preparation. They heard it not 
 rolling in terror through their provinces and cities, 
 and alarming the public tranquillity, and arousing the 
 public consternation with its prophetic yells. It was 
 buried in silence. It was chained down to its burning 
 Jake, till the fiend was ready to "rear from off the 
 pool his mighty stature/' and, joined on signal by 
 every reprobate rebellious spirit, to upsend " a shout 
 that tore hell's concave." Then began the confusion. 
 Then commenced the confiscation. Then, as in the 
 fields of Ilion, mortals and immortals were discovered 
 mixing in the carnage. Then were seen the spirits 
 of Voltaire, Rosseau, Helvetius, bursting their cear- 
 ments, and, covered with the ashes of their earthly 
 crimes, leading on their votaries with "garments 
 rolled in blood" through frenzy, through despair, 
 through blasphemy that taught them to " curse God 
 and die/' to every enormity that our lost human 
 nature is capable of, and that she afterwards shudders 
 and shrinks within herself to think that she should be 
 capable of. Here " the last state" of no man was 
 " worse than the first ;" for all became alike red with 
 slaughter, hardened in guilt, and lost to penitence ! 
 
 This mighty ocean of crime, and lam sure no one 
 can be surprized at it, has not yet subsided. The 
 polluted streams have not found their way back to 
 that dark world of waters from whence they issued.
 
 280 
 
 ' 
 
 Look, gentlemen, to what is even now passing in that 
 unhappy and far from enviable empire. Are not the 
 <c ultras" there as loud in their denunciation of the 
 present order of things as the democrats are here ? 
 Is not their administration weak, unconfirmed, con- 
 stantly abused, and their King constantly threatened ? 
 Is he not, mild and generous as he has shewn himself, 
 still treated by the great body of the disaffected among 
 them (shamefully countenanced by their Whig ap- 
 plauders among ourselves) as an usurper, and is not 
 the virulence of their censure commensurate with 
 the treason of their opinion ? Where do we find in 
 Prance any thing like a chastised obedience to their 
 lawful sovereign ; and were an aspiring mind to 
 spring up among them, would not all who are thus 
 constrained in their submission instantly flock to his 
 standard ? The agitations at Nisrnes a little time 
 back tell us their revolutionary spirit is not dead. 
 The annihilation of shame in the opposers of the 
 French government is a fearful mark of the same 
 spirit. The debate in the French chamber of depu- 
 ties on the petitions for recalling the whole body of 
 exiles, without distinction of classes, traitors, regicides 
 and all, plainly evince the perturbed feelings that yet 
 distract that unfortunate country, and give us little 
 hope of rest from national convulsions, so far as the 
 authority and example of France, still bent on change, 
 may have power to continue them. 
 
 Nor are the other states of Europe much more 
 quiet. In Spain, so far as things are suffered to 
 transpire, it is a scene of discordance throughout. In 
 Prussia and the Netherlands the people are looking 
 for more freedom than their sovereigns think it safe or 
 politic to allow them. In Germany almost every cir- 
 cle is learning a lesson of rebellion from the book of 
 revolution. In Italy, the hot-bed of intrigue, their 
 states are by no means settled down in their several 
 dependencies to a permanent contentment. In Swe-
 
 281 
 
 den, with a prince sprung from the germ of revolu- 
 tion, it is unlikely that discordancies should not by 
 and bye come upon them ; and even in our own 
 American possessions we see that Canada is not en- 
 tirely untouched by the prevailing epidemic of the 
 times, nor, if America can assist directly or indirectly 
 in the process of disaffection, may she be long before 
 she is instigated to find or to fancy a cause for separat- 
 ing herself, with a like treacherous ingratitude, from 
 her parent country. 
 
 And when to this universal disposition to political 
 change in every country we add the progressive 
 attendant movements of a religious cast; when we 
 consider that various denominations of sectaries are 
 overrunning the Christian world, and are in every 
 nation, as well as in England, separating large masses 
 of the people from their established formularies, and 
 fanaticizing as fast as they separate them, we shall 
 have but too secure a foundation for every alarm 
 under which Jhe monarchical kingdoms of Europe are 
 at present labouring. Where do we find a disturbed 
 state of affairs abroad, any more than at home, where 
 a fanatical population is not at the root of it ? What 
 part of the Continent is free from this scourge? and 
 wherever the principles of dissent are suffered to flow 
 loose upon society, we can defend neither an esta- 
 blished church nor an established throne against their 
 prevailment. For every thing they will root up that 
 stands in their way, as all antiquated institutions do; 
 and, alas ! will root up, under the opinion of " doing 
 God service." Look to the Calvinists, to the Soci- 
 nians, to the various tribes of Methodists, that hang 
 like a cloud of locusts over every Protestant kingdom ; 
 look to and probe their doctrines, all bottomed upon 
 some peculiar pervading fanaticism, and see if they 
 do not go to the eradicating of obedience and the 
 subversion of government, not only by deracinating 
 every kind of belief which Christianity hath taught us 
 
 o o
 
 282 
 
 to hold in reverence, but every law, and usage, and 
 source of common authority and mutual regard, which 
 such belief implies and creates. What the ultras of 
 France, the sectaries of England, the fanatics of Ger- 
 many, or the carbonari of Italy may intend, or may 
 be able eventually to accomplish, we know not ; but 
 certainly, with all the ties of religion frittered, and 
 deranged, and hanging like shreds about them, and 
 the very bible appealed to as an apology for their 
 blasphemies, they are well prepared for rebellion, 
 poison, assassination, or any other crime they may 
 fetch out of their creeds that may best comport with 
 existing views or circumstances. " The death blow 
 of Augustus de Kotzebue, in the name of virtue," 
 seals, in every part of Europe, the fate of as many 
 and as illustrious victims as fanaticism may be pleased 
 to judge necessary for the renovation of an enslaved 
 world ; seals their fate, and sanctifies the deed when 
 it is done !* 
 
 * Though we hardly know what is and what is not accurate 
 information, yet having only the public prints to direct us, we 
 must select as well as we can. The following article of foreign 
 intelligence from the French papers, dated Carlsruhe, July 14, 
 (Evening Mail, July 23,) is important, if correct, and is much 
 more likely to be correct than not. " It appears daily more and 
 more evident from the proceedings instituted at Manheim against 
 the assassin of M. Kotzebue, that what the friends of good princi- 
 ples and the country have dreaded is but too true, and that Sandt 
 has had accomplices. M. de Flohen Horel, who has the direction 
 of this procedure, has, as we are assured from good authority, dis- 
 covered the traces of a conspiracy which extends through all Ger- 
 many, and probably even farther. The principles of this conspiracy 
 are equally revolutionary in religion and in politics. It aims at 
 amalgamating all the different faiths in Germany into one religion, 
 which shall recognize no other authority than the bible, and no 
 duty or moral principle but what is the result of self-conviction. 
 The chief political end of this conspiracy is the unity of Germany ; 
 to effect which all the existing governments are to be overturned, 
 and a general assembly convoked in the centre of Germany, under 
 the name of a Senate, which shall elect a Prince for the whole
 
 283 
 
 It is this fanatic notion of independence, mixt with 
 and binding up every sort of political delinquency, 
 that is in all governments so dangerous. Wherever 
 it prevails, a nation must be liable to constant and 
 great convulsions. It either produces or facilitates 
 the derangement of all established order. Drawn 
 out into, and making a part of the principles of edu- 
 cation (and rarely is it neglected to be so employed), 
 it produces stern, determined, fiery characters, putting 
 their heart into every act, whether reason or virtue 
 calleth for it or no. It is this spirit that worked to 
 the ruin of many states in the history of modern times, 
 and that is working in Europe now ; this spirit that, 
 in conjunction with infidelity, overthrew France be- 
 fore, and unaided by infidelity, and by its own sole 
 contaminating power, destroyed England in the time 
 of the commonwealth. Yes ever since the reforma- 
 tion a convulsionary movement hath been abroad. 
 It is natural. When the established religion of a 
 state, reformed from its pristine gross, impurities, is 
 suffered to be unhinged by every secession from it, 
 what less can be expected ? Every such secession 
 
 German nation." I have always thought that the " British and 
 Foreign Bible Society'" (almost entirely under the guidance of 
 political dissenters, whatever may be the plausible appearance of 
 regulations to the contrary) had other ends in view than the mere 
 dispersion of the scriptures. I, for my own part, believe that 
 they have much to answer for, for the fanaticism, and I need not 
 add the disaffection they have long been the means of spreading 
 abroad on the Continent, as well as in their own country. It will 
 by and bye be seen what this great Babel, with all its pernicious 
 auxiliary societies, are really driving at. They are increasing, not 
 in pure religious influence, for they never possessed any, but in 
 political revolutionary influence wherever they are suflered to 
 establish themselves. To Bishop Marsh, Archdeacon Daubeny, 
 Mr. Norris, and other able advocates against them, the established 
 government and religion owe more obligations than they will ever 
 be able to pay. To Dr. Maltby, " willing to wound and yet 
 afraid to strike," they, in this respect, owe no obligations at all. 
 
 oo 2
 
 281 
 
 weakens, throws doubt upon, debases it. Where this 
 is the case, it is hardly possible, our natural corrup- 
 tions considered and our acquired taints, to keep a 
 nation from perpetual change, and there is no change 
 not decidedly for the better, but, judging from the 
 common course of experience, \vill be manifestly 
 much for the worse. 
 
 Be assured, gentlemen, revolution is asleep in no 
 one nation upon the Continent, though her stores arc 
 perhaps preparing upon a more systematized scale in 
 our own country. What can we think of the state of 
 public opinion amongus,when even Sir Francis Burdett 
 is denounced by the more thorough-paced reformers as 
 deserting the cause of the friends of liberty, and 
 when every public meeting to alleviate the distress is 
 only used as a handle to inflame the passions of the 
 people? Well might our puissant orators, on certain 
 late local occasions, in congratulating the electors 
 upon their success, well might they feel themselves 
 secure in declaring that their principles would " hurl 
 a Castlereagh and a Canning from their seats/'* and 
 "their victory in Norwich, and those of their friends 
 in other places, would make Dovvning-streettremble/'f 
 
 * Norwich Mercury, Oct. 31, 1818. 
 
 + See this gentleman's addresses to the populace during (lie 
 late elections, as detailed in the Norwich Mercury and Norfolk 
 Chronicle. MY. Edward Taylor, who is a Goliath of Oath, in 
 Norwich, would, I think, become dwarfish in his dimensions any 
 where else. Such Pockthorpe orators are formidable characters 
 only when the times are formidable. It is, if I mistake not, one 
 of the maxims of Machiavel, " that a disaffected citizen can do no 
 material harm but in a disaffected city." Take these men and 
 place them under a quiet, loyal state of the public mind, and see 
 how speedily they would sink into a deplorable neglect and con- 
 tempt. If Mr. Taylor means well (and I will not positively say, 
 much as appearances are against them, that he or his worthy col- 
 league mean otherwise), he takes a most unhappy method of 
 evincing his love to his country; for we scruple not to book him 
 with Mr. Coke, (and, politically, we can hardly give him a worse
 
 285 
 
 Yes and Mr. Edward Taylor, and his corn-patriot 
 of Yarmouth, in the pride of their prophetic powers, 
 might have added, though, by the bye, while making 
 these mighty threats, I wonder they were not a little 
 startled at their own insignificancy, that it was such 
 blue and white principles and proceedings as these; 
 such mischievous, contriving demagogues as them- 
 selves, bating that Gallic blackness of heart which I 
 hope, nurtured in an English soil, they are yet free 
 from ; such instigators of the public feeling, upon 
 every occasion, against the public authority, that in 
 the French revolution made the Bastile to tremble, 
 and that seconded that tremendous blow by making 
 the clergy to tremble at their altars, and the king to 
 tremble on his throne, and the great men to tremble 
 in their palaces, and the poor to tremble in their cot- 
 tages, and that at length compleated the work of 
 devastation, by crowding into one common charnel, 
 kings, princes, nobles, clergy, and (to finish this 
 " dance of death") by giving up to proscription the 
 very wretches through whose assistance all this black 
 catalogue of nameless, reckless crime was effected. 
 Make Downing-street tremble indeed ! Let such mob 
 orators condense their plans and plots of reform, and 
 we shall presently find the English constitution, like 
 the French monarchy, a clay-cold corpse, cast into 
 the common sewers. Nor parliaments septennial, 
 triennial, or annual, shall we want; nor suffrage par- 
 tial or universal. Give the democratic spirit line, 
 and it will save you the trouble of reform in either 
 church or state. You will have but one want, a pas- 
 sage to Canada or the wilds of Siberia, with what 
 put of your families you can preserve from the corn- 
 
 companion), who upon all occasions seems to delight in inflaming 
 those minds he ought rather to soften, in perturbid seasons, to a 
 peaceful, patient acquiescence.
 
 286 
 
 mon wreck. Your fortunes they will take care of 
 for you before you set sail.* 
 
 But perhaps in consonance with the opinion of 
 those who fancy we are in no danger, it may be 
 thought better to wait awhile and see what course 
 the disaffected spirit will take, how it may be disposed 
 to concoct its venom, in what form of terror it may 
 chuse to come forth, embody itself, and meet us. 
 This is not, gentlemen, the language of reason, nor is 
 it the suggestion of patriotism. It is the juggling 
 art of the very men who have implicated themselves, 
 soul and body, in this conspiracy against the liberties 
 and happiness of their country. What is this but to 
 gain time for the operation of their principles among 
 poor and ignorant minds who are the first to be 
 caught by the seducement, and are willing to fancy 
 that the eternal designs of Providence can be over- 
 ruled in their favour, and the doom of the Deity 
 obliterated by the fiat of the demagogue. When 
 Pain published his " Rights of Man," what was an 
 almost immediate consequence of it in this kingdom ? 
 An unbounded increase of debating societies and 
 clubs under various denominations, and an increase as 
 unbounded in the boldness and badness of their 
 political feelings. When he afterwards sent forth 
 his "Age of Reason," to what propensities did it 
 give birth ? How did it operate upon the religion, 
 
 * It were to be wished that our great "\Vhig leader of the county 
 would consult his reputation, by separating himself from certain of 
 his democratic friends, who, I understand, before they w< re dis- 
 covered hugging and paying their addresses to the same popular 
 idol, were among the number of his open enemies ; men that (tam- 
 per up his vanity, and eat and drink and live upon his weakness, 
 lie would do well, as a talisman against their designs, to bear in 
 memory the paradoxical instructions of the Delphic oracle : "Look 
 into yourself, discover yourself, keep close to yourself, call hade 
 your mind and will, that elsewhere consume themselves, into your- 
 self. Men betray you, men steal you from yourself."
 
 287 
 
 manners, morals of society ? It became the signal 
 of recusancy, civil and ecclesiastical. Tt crowned a 
 total fearlessness towards man with a total defiance 
 of God. It set every one free to follow his own 
 inventions, to execute his iniquities upon as large and 
 frightful a scale as he could here, with the consola- 
 tion of covering up all enormity by certain annihila- 
 tion hereafter. 
 
 Now will our adversaries say, that in these in- 
 stances, and many more of a similar nature that could 
 be adduced, government had no right to interfere ; 
 that they had no right to arraign the designs, or to 
 prosecute the principles of such publications, or the 
 actions that might eventually flow from the spirit with 
 which they were imbibed ? Will they say that our 
 rulers should rather have rested on their counsels 
 until these designs were more apparent, more tangible 
 by the overt act ; until these incendiaries had put on 
 the red cap, and planted the tree of liberty, and in- 
 troduced the guillotine, and by the operation of that 
 single instrument superseded the necessity of judge, 
 or jury, or constitution, or laws? Recollect, gentle- 
 men, how hard it was to persuade the public voice 
 that there was any danger, in the year 1793, in the 
 associations in this kingdom (a consequence of Pain's 
 principles) of reformers and levellers. Even the 
 great talents of Mr. Fox were employed in ridiculing 
 all ideas of apprehension, and I can remember that I 
 was myself, then at an early untried period, borne 
 away by the flame of his eloquence and the apparent 
 cogency of his arguments, and was but slowly able to 
 recover myself and entirely to shake off the seduce- 
 ment. But is any one now prepared to say, calmly 
 looking back upon the state of affairs as they have 
 rolled on from that time to the present, that if a 
 general counter-association had not been formed in 
 this kingdom for the support of regulated liberty and
 
 288 
 
 property, cither property or liberty would have been 
 of long continuance ? 
 
 If then such be the current and tide of popular 
 disaffection in this kingdom and In the world at 
 large if sedition is working every way among us, 
 and dissent, a first mainspring, is every way and 
 every where increasing it, let us confess the existence 
 of a danger which we can by no incredulity elude, 
 and of a danger mighty, and magnifying and extend- 
 ing itself in all directions. Every man indeed natu- 
 rally gives into the opinion that his own town, or 
 city, or county ; the people among whom he lives, 
 and whom he best knows, and whose daily and hourly 
 machinations he witnesses, are, when adverse to the 
 state, the most adverse. The supposition, gentle- 
 men, is, I repeat, natural. It is what the unpractised 
 mind will feel disposed to entertain, and will merci- 
 fully hope that it entertaineth justly. Still it is an 
 erroneous supposition, and proves nothing more, I 
 fear, in the present instance, than that all places 
 where dissent and democracy abound are nearly bad 
 alike. The railers against government at Norwich, 
 are, (that we may come as near home as possible) 
 believe me, neither deeper nor louder than those of 
 the same disaffected cast elsewhere, though seeing 
 and hearing and knowing more of them, we suspect 
 them to be so. As the fire of Ida that announced 
 the fall of Ilium, blazing through the still and solemn 
 night, threw its gleams successively on the sacred top 
 of Athos, on the waves of the Hellespont, on the head 
 of Macetas, on the straits of Euripus, on the guarded 
 declivities of Mesapius, on Cithceron, Gorgopis, 
 CEgiplanctus, Prone ; till crowning, finally, the hights 
 of Arachne, it looked down on the royal state of Argos 
 and entered the very palace of the unfortunate mo- 
 narch * so rolls the seditious spirit on from county 
 
 * (Eschylus. Agamemnon.
 
 289 
 
 to county, from city to city, from house to house, 
 throughout England ; from one colony to another, 
 one kingdom to another, one continent to another, 
 until the whole civilized world is becoming a con- 
 tinuous scene of disloyalty, and fc all nations, people, 
 and languages," are enlightened and alarmed by the 
 glaring flame. 
 
 In this state of affairs, gentlemen, foreign and 
 domestic, and I feel convinced that it is not exagge- 
 rated, but that every newspaper and every day's 
 experience will but too mournfully bear me out in it, 
 what are we to do ? How are we to demean our- 
 selves? Are we to sit still and let this disaffected 
 spirit operate in the heart of society at its leisure ? 
 Are we to hear all this inflammatory language against 
 a government which the great body of our people 
 hold to be excellent, and not endeavour to rebut it ? 
 Are we to suffer the decent, serious part of the inha- 
 bitants of this country to be so deluded, the mass of 
 its ordinary population so poisoned, the common 
 mind, rash but not disloyal, so wrought up to despair 
 and frenzy, and not speak of such traitors to the 
 peace and honour and happiness of their country in 
 the terms they deserve ? What, shall they dare to 
 attack all the constituted authorities of the realm, and 
 pour forth, in whatever coarse and hardened terms 
 they please, their denunciations of church and state, 
 and shall we timidly submit to it, and in dastardly 
 apprehensions for our own little domestic security 
 forget the lofty duties we owe to the best country and 
 the best constitution at this day in the civilized 
 world? I know of no law that either God, or con- 
 science, or human legislature has promulgated, to let 
 one man's tongue go lo^e and to restrain anothers. 
 If our adversaries be not afraid of uttering their 
 defamations, why should we be alarmed at publishing 
 our vindications of government? If they lack not 
 virulence in a bad cause, why should we lack honesty 
 
 pp
 
 290 
 
 and firmness in a good one ? Is all the freedom of 
 speech and liberty of sentiment on their side and 
 none of it on ours? Must Satan vaunt aloud his 
 revolting and blasphemous threats and suffer no 
 rebuke from the fidelity of Abdiel ? Are these mis- 
 creants to run up and down and pour fire into the 
 yet green and smarting; wounds of their country, and 
 no one attempt to mollify and bind them up ? Are 
 they, infuriated, to " cry havoc and let slip the dogs 
 of war/' and shall we stand foolishly gazing upon 
 their villa nies, or disgracefully trembling at their 
 threats, or, against all experience, credulously be- 
 lieving that things will take a better turn ; against 
 all hope, fancying that these deeply implicated de- 
 magogues will see their error and repent them of 
 their crimes ? AVhat then, I repeat, shall we do ? 
 What can we, what ought we to desire to do but to 
 touch the solemn chord of our duty at once, and 
 discarding all minor differences, all differences that 
 go not to the actually separating the political soul 
 from the body, with one heart and one voice, in 
 every town, city, county, in the realm, raise the 
 proud standard of the British constitution, and with a 
 resolution that shall appal the whole host of its 
 infidel and abandoned adversaries, rally round our 
 venerable establishment in church and state. Here 
 let us fix our foot. Here let us stand in an attitude 
 that shall tell the world we have nothing to hope but 
 from our own spirited and united exertions, nothing 
 to fear but from a want of that union and spirit. 
 On this altar let us sacrifice our dissentions, and con- 
 secrate our holy vows, our gratitude, our love. Many 
 and forcible are the reasons for such a line of con- 
 duct; many and forcible the claims which our 
 beloved country thus threatened, thus oppressed, de- 
 luded, contaminated, has upon us. 
 
 There is indeed ever much apology for warm feel- 
 ings in favour of an established government, but often
 
 291 
 
 very little for such feelings against it. Men in the 
 former case are bold, because they hope their cause 
 is good, and because tiiey know that few changes not 
 deliberately undertaken are for the better. In the 
 latter case, all that ought to be ventured upon is a 
 chastised opposition, inasmuch as that government 
 which they are denouncing as the bane may prove the 
 salvation of the country, and, loaded with present 
 reprobation, may intitle itself to the praise of those 
 who come after us. There is something in an esta- 
 blished order of things that invests it with solemnity. 
 That which hath been long approved, it is fair to 
 presume, hath something about it deserving of ap- 
 proval. That which our ancestors formed by their 
 wisdom, and which their posterity have preserved by 
 their valour ; that which, as ages have come and gone, 
 has been constantly receiving some accessions of 
 strength in one reign, some softenings of discretion in 
 another, some firmlier defined principles in a third ; 
 that which hath grown up with us from our cradles, 
 and which our reason hath demonstrated to be equit- 
 able and our experience hath found to be useful, 
 will not readily suffer the touch of rash and raw 
 legislators. We willingly change little in a form of 
 government which we have found productive of pros- 
 perity ; in a government sanctified by past genera- 
 tions, nothing. No empire is so glorious but years 
 render it more so. It has passed a severe but honour- 
 able ordeal, and ought not to be exposed to common- 
 place accusations and an ignorant reproach, 
 
 It is so desirable to live under an established order 
 of things; to be secure in our possessions and our 
 reasonable calculations upon such comforts of life as 
 attach to virtuous conduct in our respective stations, 
 that 1 do not wonder at the slowness of every nation 
 to disturb a present order of things. The sentiments 
 given by the historian to Marceilus, though proceed- 
 ing from an ill man, are yet founded in a solid jnclg- 
 
 r 3
 
 ment. " 8e meminisse temporum, quibus natus sit, 
 quam civilatis formam paires tevique instituerint : 
 ulteriora mirari, prce sentia scqui . bonos Jtnpcra- 
 tores voto expelcre, quales cumquc tolerare."* 1 low 
 often have usurpations been acquiesced in on the 
 ground of the impolicy of unsettling; the general tran- 
 quility, the pricing regrets at shedding one torrent of 
 blood after another, and all merely to gratify the 
 worst passions of the worst part of our species. A 
 deference to established custom and usuage we defend 
 upon a like principle, and so naturally do we hold 
 every thing venerable that is consecrated by years 
 that sooner than overturn their authority we occa- 
 sionally disclaim even decided improvements upon 
 them. The laws of all nations breathe of obedience 
 to " the powers that be." Their happiness demands 
 it. The cry for liberty, on the contrary, and reform, 
 is generally a cry for confusion ; a dangerous pro- 
 pensity in virtuous minds; in minds not virtuous a 
 destructive one. All usurpations have not ended in 
 internal disquiet. Almost all revolutions have, because 
 almost all of them have sprung from ambitious and 
 not from patriotic motives. 
 
 When Rome fell by the irruptions of the northern 
 hordes, those wild powers came free to her carnage, 
 and remained free when she was no more. With all 
 their fierceness, and natural rights, and proud inde- 
 pendence about them, they settled in the various 
 provinces of that unhappy empire, and wherever 
 they grounded their foot fixt the stamp of their own 
 laws and constitution. Nor, though sufficiently bar- 
 barous, were these laws without gleams of virtue, and 
 such capacities of improvement carried they about 
 them as to have become the rude transcript of Euro- 
 pean governments in their present civilized form. As 
 
 * Tacitus
 
 293 
 
 far, and as nearly as we can gather at this distance of 
 time, their institutions were of a mixt monarchical 
 complexion. All had their powers, aristocratical, 
 popular, and ecclesias(ical. All had their leaders, in 
 whom a sort of sovereign authority was vested, and 
 apparently hereditarily vested, though not so inti- 
 mately as not upon occasion to be transferred to 
 other lines and other persons nowise related. With 
 his wants, his passions, his propensities about him, the 
 dignity of his nature and the feelings of his mind, 
 they clearly saw that man was not cut out to endure 
 either a purely despotic, or a purely popular govern- 
 ment. But time that dreadfully changes all that 
 mortality has any thing to do with, soon broke in upon 
 the manners of these rude conquerors; for, palled 
 with the fruits of victory, and steeping and stupifying 
 their rough spirits in effeminacy, they perceived their 
 souls dead to the call of glory, and too late discovered 
 that freedom, ashamed of their supineness and dis- 
 gusted with their degeneracy, had departed to other 
 climes, and bestowed her blessings upon other people. 
 From this bed of rough liberty much of our own 
 liberty hath probably arisen, and a large part of its 
 original virtue must necessarily be left us so long as 
 we continue a nation of any figure. As time rolls 
 back the tide of history, I hardly know where we can 
 stop for the founts of this great blessing; not pro- 
 bably before the Saxon aera. Whether we should 
 be justified in any remoter pursuit of it, I dare not 
 say, nor can I tell what spirit it was that, working 
 upon those rough materials, solidly compacted from 
 age to age, successively dictated the legislative enact- 
 ments of Alfred, the laws of Edward the Confessor, 
 the confirmation of those laws at the Conquest, the 
 njagna charta of John, the various recognitions and 
 concessions, voluntary or extorted, throughout the 
 Norman and Plantagenet lines, and the high and 
 solemn deification of all these several extensions of
 
 294 
 
 public freedom, by, in particular, our bill of rights 
 and our act of settlement at, as we justly term it, the 
 glorious epoch of the revolution of 1688. I repeat, 
 gentlemen, I know not what spirit hath dictated all 
 this; but it has given to Englishmen that proud 
 pre-eminence in the security of their lives, their 
 liberty, and their property, which no other nation on 
 the face of the earth can or ever did boast of. Time 
 may indeed have changed some of its directions, and 
 circumstances havediminished some of its intendments; 
 but the features that mark it out for what it is 
 remain, the lines run on and throw its beauties into 
 a softer mould, without impairing its steadiness. 
 While reigning in the hearts of the people, such a 
 constitution will buffet with the elements and feel the 
 blasts of the desert pass harmless over it. 
 Our eyrie buildtth in the cedar's top, 
 And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun.* 
 But then Englishmen must shew themselves worthy 
 of this blessing. They must shew that they are made 
 great and honourable, and full of a proper spirit and 
 dignity by these great and honourable distinctions. 
 They must prove that while they largely partake, 
 they understand the nature of this noble gift ; that it 
 is good so long as they are good ; that it secures their 
 lives so long as those lives are spent virtuously ; that 
 it preserves their liberties so long as those liberties 
 flow in a manly regulated channel; that it insures 
 their property so long as it is capable of being insured 
 by the peaceable administration of just and equal laws. 
 But the moment the heart and soul of the people of 
 England become changed, all their charters, and rights, 
 and recognitions, sink into a dead letter. From the 
 English blood and spirit the constitution of England 
 arose, and that blood, debased by sectarism and de- 
 
 * Shakespear's Richard III.
 
 295 
 
 mocracy, it gathers up its fame of days, and, working 
 its own shroud, indignantly buries itself from the in- 
 sult of such pollution. 
 
 It is miserable to see such a constitution threatened 
 by such people. Really, gentlemen, the trim and 
 cast of many of our modern reformers,, and their 
 mental preparation for the great works they are con- 
 templating is ridiculous in the extreme. Some fitness 
 it would be supposed there should be in every person 
 who affects to be called to pass his judgment upon 
 the established laws, the decorous institutions and 
 usages of his country. What, do we soberly and 
 gradually admit improvements in our arts and sciences, 
 our agriculture, our trades, our manufactures, our 
 little domestic arrangements, and ponder " frequent 
 and full" before we dare venture to consider and 
 introduce them as improvements, and shall the mighty 
 foundations of our polity and piety be uncovered at 
 once to every unholy eye ; be disjointed piecemeal, 
 and examined and pronounced as refuse by every 
 bungling workman that has not so much as been 
 taught the name of his reforming tools ? Shall we 
 believe such artists, deficient in every thing but 
 self sufficiency, competent to the task of searching 
 into the arcana of government, civil and religious, 
 and of determining intuitively in those matters which 
 a wise and solemn antiquity took age after age in 
 building up and strengthening, till they made our 
 monarchy what it is, and, for more permanent secu- 
 rity, and fuller glory, and faithfuller attachment, 
 connected it, and felt ennobled by the alliance, with 
 our venerable and truly apostolic ecclesiastical esta- 
 blishment ? Yet is such, (posterity will hardly be 
 brought to credit it) precisely the state of popular 
 
 reform in this kingdom at the present moment. 
 
 
 Consummate impudence and ignorance, and a stupid 
 
 desperation make up the stock in trade of these 
 itinerant state jugglers, these renovators of a consti-
 
 296 
 
 tution of which they discern neither the origin nor 
 end, nor know nor care how it was born, or by what 
 means it may die, provided it does but die soon 
 enough, and they can follow its funeral. 
 
 Our established church, gentlemen, is a part, a 
 prime part of our established monarchy ; is such a 
 part, that its union with the state is the preservation, 
 as its disseverance therefrom would go near to be the 
 destruction of the empire. I think history, both 
 civil and ecclesiastical, will bear us out in this opinion. 
 Our personal experience will do the same, and our 
 reason will come in aid of our experience. It is 
 incumbent upon us, it is a duty we owe to our 
 families and our country to remember, that all the 
 great doctrines of our constitution are parts of our 
 religion ; that our laws are cradled in Christianity ; 
 that the mercy of the throne is an emanation from 
 the mercy that is from above ; that our very spirit of 
 freedom is less deducible from the form of our go- 
 vernment than from the records of our salvation. 
 The word of God, of which we hold the church to be 
 the best interpreter, properly understood, fully digest- 
 ed, and righteously put in operation, has imparted 
 from age to age to our constitution, strong by its civil 
 and stronger by its religious tendencies, that intimate 
 adaptation of itself to the general good, that acknovf- 
 ledgment of the rules of equity which ought to obtain 
 between man and man, and that solemn feeling that 
 we are all " of one blood," all the passing travellers 
 of a day, all journeying the same thorny road, and all 
 bound to the same mournful rest, that hath intitled it 
 to this pre-eminence of estimation. We cannot there- 
 fore, so much as in thought, separate the church from 
 the state ; nor do I see how, with any respect for the 
 one, men should be so lost as they seem to be to all 
 respect for the other. They would not be so if they 
 considered that, united as the hierarchy is with the 
 government, every attack upon the church of Eng-
 
 297 
 
 land is an attack upon every man's landed possessions 
 in England. We know what our beloved country 
 has been with an established religion. Dare we a 
 second time venture the experiment what it will be 
 without one ? 
 
 Let us, gentlemen,, before we consent to counte- 
 nance the vile attacks that are every day making 
 upon the church ; before we consent to shake hands 
 and part with this guardian of our constitution, this 
 maker of our manners, this nurse of those generous 
 sentiments that have rendered us dear to all nations ; 
 before our liberal notions and generalizing frenzy 
 have quite dethroned reason, let us avoid, with cer- 
 tain of its lukewarm and many of its treacherous 
 members, the error of looking upon that noble foun- 
 dation as only a larger sect, or even as merely the 
 established religion of the land, and united in conse- 
 quence by certain political ties to the state. It does 
 indeed possess these advantages, but it deserves to 
 possess them. It lays claim to this exclusive patron- 
 age of government, because, as its orthodox ministers 
 and members conscientiously believe, it is .the depo- 
 sitory of the religion of Jesus Christ; because, as a 
 church, it is built upon his word, and derives its 
 influence from his authority ; because its doctrines 
 are apostolical, its discipline apostolical, its govern- 
 ment by bishops apostolical; because every part of 
 its polity not deducible from revelation is in unison 
 with reason,, and every part of its practice answerable 
 to its polity. And by virtue of this its more perfect 
 assimilation with pure Christianity than any other 
 description of the Protestant reformed religion can 
 boast of, and not for its alliance with the state, doth 
 it now subsist and is supported bv the people at large 
 as the established religion of the realm, under the 
 style and title of the Church of England, and endowed 
 with all those peculiar privileges, advantages, and 
 revenues, which, by law, appertain thereunto, 
 
 q
 
 Our church is not intolerant ; it is not narrow in its 
 notions ; it is not bigoted. Its basis of communion 
 is laid as broad as is consistent with the credit and 
 preservation of those doctrines on which it rests, and 
 by which it is secured itself, and in its turn serves as 
 their best security, and of that political constitution 
 with which, for purposes of no common utility, it hath 
 been deemed prudent to connect her. We do well to 
 tolerate dissentaneous religious opinions, and we do 
 still better by a regular establishment to gather up 
 those opinions into a bond of unity. The scriptures 
 are indeed the same holy word of God, though JDona- 
 tus, and Arius, and Pelagius, and Nestorius, have each 
 their own unhappy separate interpretations thereof; 
 and though these, branched out and new modelled 
 into a variety of theological forms, and putting on 
 fresh garments, and getting them new names, still 
 continue to divide the Christian world into sects with- 
 out number and heresies without end. But if by a 
 liturgy at once in conformity with revelation and 
 reason we can preclude this everlasting transubsfan- 
 tiation of creeds, and fix the mind, (ever wavering 
 and unsteady when left to form its faith at its pleasure) 
 in a belief more accordant wllh the doctrines of the 
 earlier and purer ages of the church, such an esta- 
 blished form of Christianity will deserve the protec- 
 tion of every regular government, and the cordial 
 support of all who are wise enough to understand 
 their own, or virtuous enough to consult the public 
 interest by wishing well to such government. 
 
 The dissenters indeed, with their usual disposition 
 to slander and bring into disrepute every thing con- 
 nected with the establishment, have accused the church 
 of England of symbolizing with the church of Rome. 
 If we will believe these adversaries of our faith, all is 
 with us upon a popish scale, all veering round to a 
 popish cast and character. Our doctrines, our liturgy, 
 our rites, ceremonies., vestments, even the very heart
 
 and soul of the establishment,, our episcopal form of 
 church government ; all it seems are borrowed from 
 the Roman catholic polity, are founded on the 
 Roman catholic love of power, and will finally merge 
 into the Roman catholic faith. But surely we may 
 be permitted the exercise of our reason in the selec- 
 tion of our devotion. What, is it unlawful to believe 
 in the solemn articles of the Christian faith because 
 the Papists happen to entertain those articles as well 
 as ourselves ? Do the doctrines of our common 
 religion lose any of their sanctity or efficacy because 
 they are the doctrines of the church of Rome as well 
 as of the church of England ? Because we will have 
 nothing to do with the abuses, are we to give up the 
 excellencies of papistical divinity ? We may be 
 allowed, I trust, to cleave to these, though we reject 
 their propitiatory sacrifices, their transubstantiation, 
 their purgatories, their veneration of saints and relics 
 and images as idle and prophane inventions. No 
 law, human or divine, can forbid us to go with the 
 church of Rome, or with any other church, so far as 
 we judge her to go with the revealed will of God. 
 Secession from her communion, and the reflection is 
 pleasing, hath not bred in us any undue animosity. 
 We have never denied to her, fallen as she is, the 
 character of a Christian church, nor refused to adopt 
 such parts of her ritual and such articles of her faith 
 as are clearly derivable from authentic scriptural / 
 sources, or as administer to the decorums of public 
 worship; only departing from her where she runs 
 wide of apostolical usage, and even then, (we will 
 fe g' or y i" our infirmity" if it be one) separating with 
 the charitable hope that we may one day provi- 
 dentially meet again. The church of England, to 
 borrow a remark delivered in language as beautiful 
 as the opinion, is, I think, correct, and the feeling 
 affectionate " the church of England did not imagine 
 that all her obligations to our forefathers were can-
 
 300 
 
 celled, because their children had degenerated ; be- 
 cause we broke through the restraints of childhood 
 when we came to be men, she did not imagine that 
 we had dissolved all obligations, or spurned all autho- 
 rity Our reformers treated not their parent church 
 so rudely ; they lamented her errors, but deserted not 
 all her footsteps ; amid the ravages of time, they 
 pencilled with a sigh the still remaining lines of 
 faded beauty ; they deplored her dotage, but remem- 
 bered her primeval reason; they renounced her 
 frailties, but they adored her virtues ; they put away 
 what in her offerings was objectionable, but they 
 clung affectionately and tenderly to her altars ; they 
 trimmed their tapers afresh, but it was from that 
 lamp which still burnt amid the tombs of their 
 ancestors."* 
 
 The dissenters have further accused us, in their 
 zeal for the success of their great society which is to 
 " fill the earth with the knowledge of the Lord/' of 
 neglecting, and of even opposing the circulation of 
 the scriptures. We will not condescend to be alarmed 
 at imputations which we do not deserve, though for 
 the sake of others we may advert to what, ourselves 
 alone concerned, we should despise. If these Bible 
 societies with their heart and soul formed out of 
 dissent, and with only their bare bones covered and 
 skinned over by the church if these societies be the 
 work of good men and for a good purpose, heaven 
 forbid that any human being should dare to attempt 
 their overthrow. No all Christians would, in such 
 a case, afford them the most cordial support. It 
 would indeed be " to fight against God" to impede 
 the circulation of his revealed word; of that word 
 
 * See " the true Spirit of the Church of England considered, in 
 a Charge to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of Norwich," by the 
 Rev. H. Bathurst, L. L. B. delivered at his primary visitation, in 
 May, 1815. p. 15.
 
 which, if we properly lay to heart, will make us 
 happy hereafter by making us patient, and sub- 
 missive, and happy here. We cannot live without 
 the bible ; we cannot die without it. We can nei- 
 ther run the race, nor reach the goal, nor obtain the 
 prize without it. It must be found wherever our 
 vices are found ; wherever are found our virtues. It 
 must be deposited beneath every man's pillow on his 
 bed of death, and must constitute his consolation 
 when he has no consolation besides. When I con- 
 sider the changes and chances of this mortal life, and 
 the awful scenes that await us beyond the grave ; 
 when I ask with the astonished prophet, " Lord, can 
 these dry bones live?" darkness is upon the face of 
 my inquiry until revelation springs forth and lets in 
 the day. Despise the bible ? Impede the circula- 
 tion of it ? No, believe me, we are far enough from 
 pleading guilty to such a wretched indictment. We 
 rejoice in its circulation. We revere every page of 
 the inspired volume. We open it with meekness ; 
 we read it with comfort ; we close it in humble and 
 pious hope. But we will never consent to stain the 
 solemnity of its mysteries by useless and idle dis- 
 quisitions. VVe will never presume to touch these 
 hallowed inspirations with unholy hands. We will 
 never dare to unveil the awful covering which thte 
 Almighty in his mercy hath placed before them. 
 That part of the divine code thus sacredly handed 
 down to us we wish to preserve sacred. We con- 
 sider it as the " prophetic book which was sealed," 
 and which " neither elders, nor powers, nor angels, 
 nor archangels" durst open. 
 
 Nor, though weak and interested men will be 
 constantly carping at them, have the Established 
 Clergy less claim upon public approval than the 
 established church. Their constitutional principles, 
 taking them as a body, have been marked at all 
 periods by a strict adherence to that limited form of
 
 monarchy which providentially obtains in this empire, 
 and hy a decided opposition to every movement that 
 has for its ohject the exaltation of the democratic, 
 and the degradation of the aristocratical branches of 
 government. And if the state affords them her favour 
 and protection, it is not done with any view of 
 tempting them to her will, where that will runs 
 counter to the interest of the realm, but of binding to 
 her reasonable service the firmest advocates of regular 
 government and the ablest defenders of pure and 
 reformed Christianity. To the exercise of an un- 
 lawful prerogative, or the promotion of unconsti- 
 tutional measures, the clergy are, I think I may say, 
 uniformly adverse. Their patriotic feelings are as 
 warm, their discernment as perfect, and their prin- 
 ciples of honour as high and unsullied as those of 
 any other description of men. They do neither 
 corrupt, nor are they corrupted by the state. The 
 state is, in fact, and she is sensible of it, upheld and 
 cherished in her integrity by the zeal, and knowledge, 
 and wise moderation of the church. All long esta- 
 blished and long extended rule dependeth upon the 
 proper influence of the church and its clergy. No 
 legislature, neglecting the religious part of its polity, 
 can make any part of it well hold and bind together. 
 Try the experiment under what forms of government 
 you please, and it will uniformly fail. For subjects 
 to learn a temporal obedience to their rulers, those 
 rulers must set their hearts to a spiritual obedience. 
 They must give the church that honour in the eye of 
 man, which, " Jesus Christ himself heing the chief 
 corner stone," it ever hath had and ever will in the 
 eye of God. They must give it this honour to give 
 honour and a perpetuity of existence to themselves ; 
 to make their subjects honourable, and virtuous, and 
 happy. 
 
 Be assured, gentlemen, the neglect of the esta- 
 blished church at this juncture is the neglect of the
 
 303 
 
 established government, nor can any be friends to 
 that government, nor of course to their enjoyments 
 and possessions under it, who are enemies, or even 
 lukewarm to that church. The present spread of 
 dissent is alarming ; alarming, because it is most 
 unprincipled and most unreasonable. I say most 
 unreasonable ; for what is there in dissent, as it is now 
 managed and methodised, to attract towards it one 
 convert of virtue or of learning ? Consider, I beseech 
 you, a few of the respective claims of the Church and 
 of the Conventicle. If ec an evil heart of unbelief" 
 did not suggest and increase the religious indifference 
 of many of our seceders, they could be at no loss to 
 determine between pretensions so opposite and claims 
 so inadequate. Sound in her faith, which she deduces 
 from the purest sources of revelation ; tolerant in her 
 practice flowing mildly and naturally from such a 
 faith ; with no undue confidence in her own claims 
 upon public protection, no vexatious hostility towards 
 those who dissent from her ; proud indeed, as it 
 becomes her to be, of a liturgy alike solemn and 
 rational, pious and decorous, but far from bitter 
 against the formularies cast in a very different mould; 
 anxious for uniformity of worship, because persuaded 
 that such uniformity hath ever been the parent of 
 sound Christianity, and the security of both public 
 and private virtue, yet nothing adverse to the meek 
 and humble spirit of dissent which seeks God and 
 futurity through other, and in their opinion who 
 modestly adopt them, more appropriate mediums ; 
 firm in the conviction of her own apostolic purity, 
 but indulgent still to those who conscientiously find, 
 or who even only weakly fancy cause to separate 
 from her; less anxious to innovate upon an esta- 
 blished ritual than to preserve a venerable antiquity, 
 evermore the precursor of reverence and the nurse of 
 holy thoughts and holy things; looking with an 
 earnest hope upon her own "strong foundations/'
 
 and with pity on the sectarian edifices that are per- 
 petually springing up and decaying around her ; 
 much indeed reviled by the " cunning craftiness" of 
 deceivers for a narrow bigotry which she never 
 favoured, and a persecuting spirit which she never 
 felt, but in every act and deed open to the face of the 
 sun, where the tenor of her conduct was fairly 
 weighed against the slights and slanders of her 
 adversaries, by far " more sinned against than sin- 
 ning." This is the Established Church. 
 
 With little soundness in her faith, and no tolerance 
 in her conduct ; with creeds of a thousand com- 
 plexions and commentaries to fit them to ten thousand 
 tastes ; with treachery ever active against the welfare 
 of the establishment, and hypocrisy ever ready to 
 conceal and cover up her treachery; constantly 
 innovating upon her doctrines, her ritual, her polity, 
 so that what is scripture to day frequently becomes 
 heresy to-morrow, and decorum this moment a de- 
 plorable foolery the next ; gathering within her 
 fanatic circle all as many as she can find, both bad 
 and good, (and often the worse the better) and less 
 careful after their seduction to " bring them up in the 
 fear and nurture of the Lord" than to teach them to 
 " speak evil of dignities," and to revile that com- 
 munion they have so ungratefully deserted; always 
 bickering and jangling and disturbing her own re- 
 ligious peace, except when she calls off these domestic 
 calumnies to unite them in one full tide of desecration 
 against the common enemy ; bold in her assumptions 
 and blasphemous in her opinions, representing the 
 Saviour of the world as a mere son of David with no 
 claim to be considered as the son of God ; the atone- 
 ment as an idle notion ; the doctrine of the trinity, 
 on which the whole massy frame of Christianity is 
 built, as an inexplicable and absurd riddle ; baptism 
 as forbidden, the Lord's supper as abused, the rites 
 of the church as popish, the doctrines of the church
 
 305 
 
 as unscriptural, the articles of the church as Calvi- 
 nistic, the liturgy of the church as borrowed from the 
 mass book of Rome, the ministers of the church (a 
 few of their own weak and crazed stamp excepted) as 
 "dumb dogs, lying 1 down, loving to slumber;" and 
 all without distinction who are not of their fold, whcr 
 handle not the sword of the spirit in their coarse, 
 familiar, disgusting way, as ' <f walking in a vain sha- 
 dow and disquieting themselves in vain." This is 
 the Conventicle. 
 
 And are there who prefer this strumpet to that fair 
 and soberly matron by whom they have been bred up 
 in a communion as pure, as rational, as conciliating, 
 as ever marked a Christian church ? Are there who 
 fix their election on this abortion of piety, and turn 
 from that calm and chastised devotion which gives us 
 back in a contented mind the sacrifice that we 
 offered in a humble and contrite spirit? , O desolate 
 and debauched taste ! to apostatize from so goodly a 
 rank and mix with " fugitives and vagabonds;" tQ 
 depart from the " oracle of God" and hold consulta^ 
 lion with "the witch of Endor." 
 
 Have you eyes? 
 
 Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed 
 And bat(en on this moor?* 
 
 Put them to the test of an impartial sober comparison 
 in all their points ; in their learning, tjieir knowledge, 
 their taste, their piety, their accordance with all 
 moral, all wise principles of polity, all fair, full, liberal 
 legislation; and while the virtues of the conventicle 
 are reduced to a mere caput mortuum, the church of 
 England, tried seven times in the fire, shall come out 
 every time more perfect and more purified. 
 
 Still, however, the church and the administration 
 are the two scape goats that are usually driven into 
 
 * Shakespear's Hamlet. 
 R r
 
 306 
 
 the wilderness, laden with the sins of our monarchical 
 government. The present Ministry has been bur- 
 thened with a terrible weight of them ; and yet, sepa- 
 rating the censure from the malice, much less of 
 blame will be found to attach to them than the com- 
 mon voice probably is led to apprehend. It is rarely, 
 gentlemen, that the merits of government in any 
 nation, and especially in our own, are brought to an 
 equitable decision. What we see is often adverse to 
 an existing administration. What we hear is from 
 objectionable quarters. What we feel are the taxes 
 of government, frequently bearing hard upon our 
 slender means. What people talk about are the 
 expences of government. What petty politicians 
 declaim upon are the abuses of government. What 
 demagogues and Whig orators at their county elec- 
 tion meetings and anniversary commemorations 
 flourish and vaunt upon, are the alledged delin- 
 quencies of government, so that plain sober people 
 who cannot, or who do not examine for themselves, 
 are in danger of being seduced to entertain hard 
 thoughts of their rulers. But we do not see the 
 difficulties which this same government that we so 
 unmercifully traduce has to encounter; the slanders 
 it has to out-live and out-credit; the blessings it 
 silently, regularly, and without ostentation, diffuses 
 amid the various classes of the community, and the 
 praises that are, in return, as silently and as unob- 
 trusively heaped upon them by those who " study to 
 be quiet," and who hold it as the best proof of their 
 prosperity and their patriotism to " fear God and to 
 honour the King." These lowly plaudits occupy 
 the back ground, and can only be heard when idle 
 ignorant censure ceases from its obstreperous cla- 
 mours. Yet are they the plaudits that constitute the 
 strength of an administration. Our reformers see 
 but the faults floating on the surface of our national 
 politics, and which they exaggerate twenty fold ; but
 
 307 
 
 these humble and earnest friends who constitute, I 
 am willing to hope, a large portion of the British 
 empire, behold in the measures of government many 
 deep and solid virtues which the artful machinations, 
 or the envious spirits of our opponents, will never 
 suffer them to acknowledge. 
 
 O 
 
 Surely the Whig gentlemen of landed possessions 
 in this kingdom do wrons: to countenance the violent 
 
 O FJ 
 
 aspersions every where heaped upon administration 
 by base and designing minds. They ought to be 
 quite certain that such bold opinions as they circulate, 
 such hard judgments as they form, such determined 
 conduct as they many of them evince against the 
 measures of government, they will be able to answer 
 for in their cooler moments, and when a better state 
 of society shall frown upon those motives and move- 
 ments which its present perturbed condition is but too 
 prone to consecrate. I know not what they can 
 think by thus shaking the public opinion as to the 
 character and views of their rulers. They must be 
 aware that public opinion constitutes in every king- 
 dom the basis of public government, and that where 
 there is a general feeling of disrepect towards those 
 who have the direction of affairs, all rule must be 
 rendered precarious. What a game of idiotism are 
 they playing To further their own petty views, 
 which, if carried, would neither benefit themselves 
 nor add an atom to the comfort of any soul about 
 them, they are destroying all that binds up our 
 national grandeur and happiness. They are taking 
 from the established antiquity and respect of govern- 
 ment that which they can never return. They are 
 cutting up the ground on which they build their 
 palaces, and enjoy they possessions, and indulge in 
 their luxuries, and fatten away the day, and revel 
 away the night ; and while lolling amid the security 
 which our free constitution unworthy as they are, 
 affords them, like " filthy dreamers" they waste their 
 
 RT 2
 
 308 
 
 hours of wantonness in " despising dominion and 
 speaking evil of dignities." 
 
 1 would beg of these unthinking adversaries of our 
 peace, and especially of our keener-sighted democra- 
 tical reformers, sucking all of them from the loath- 
 some dugs of the same monster, to consider seriously 
 how much must be laid waste within, before every 
 thing is agreed upon to be sacrificed without. They 
 must be obliged to go great lengths with their own 
 minds e'er they can bring themselves to the work of 
 overthrowing an existing administration or an exist- 
 ing government. They must turn their back on all 
 arguments of reason, must dispense with all notions 
 of rectitude, must obliterate all feelings of reproach. 
 They must be compelled to represent that as loath- 
 some which they know to be beautiful; that as inju- 
 rious which they experience to be beneficial ; that as 
 deserving of destruction which they are conscious, at 
 the very moment, is a most dear and merited object 
 of veneration. All their bad passions must be loosen- 
 ed from their holdings ; all their ambitions must be 
 blackening into offence before they can call up a 
 resolution commensurate with the deed, or a baseness 
 mighty enough for the overthrow of such a govern- 
 ment as that under which they behold their fellow 
 creatures to live so happily, and that has existed so 
 long, with such sufficiencies of worthiness. 
 
 There can be no wish in any honest mind to screen 
 minds that are not honest. The Administration of a 
 great Empire must ever be an important object. It is 
 the pro iempore sovereign power of the state. The 
 limited monarchy of England, with its appendages 
 of place, pensions, honours, and preferments, is no 
 government to gaze at with a vacant countenance 
 and a dull sluggish indifference. It is not intended 
 that the king should rei-n over a silent unresisting 
 people, or the ministry act as they think proper. It 
 is still less intended that the people should strip off the
 
 309 
 
 regal habiliments and take the sceptre in their own 
 hands, or that the administration should be addressed 
 and petitioned out of office, with the threat, as insolent 
 as I trust it will prove inefficient, that if the monarch 
 listen not to the prayer of his loyal Whig subjects, 
 thirsting for place and purification, revolution, or 
 something very like it, shall compel him to it. What- 
 ever we deem it necessary to do, let us do it, gentle- 
 men, calmly, constitutionally, decorously. If the pre- 
 rogatives of the crown be of too enormous a growth, 
 let them be gradually pruned (as they have grovvn 
 up) with a fair and gentle hand. If the rights of 
 the people be in any instance invaded, let a firm 
 dignified exposure of such invasion precede any at- 
 tempt at a more tumultuous proceeding. If the 
 ministry in their measures have decidedly run coun- 
 ter to the welfare of the country, let the voice of the 
 country be heard, through their representatives, in a 
 strong but respectful manner, and let decreasing 
 majorities in parliament tell that ministry that they 
 cannot continue their rule unless they change their 
 conduct. But let us not childishly threaten to pare 
 down prerogative as low as possible, and advocate 
 the rights of the people at the peril of their rebellion ; 
 let us not vainly hope to awe by our fulmihations 
 whom we are incapable and impotent in moving by 
 our reasons; let us not address the throne in lan- 
 guage as coarse as it is unconstitutional, and as 
 revolting as it is coarse, for the removal of ministers 
 who have legislated without wisdom in the opinion 
 only of the weak, and acted without virtue in the 
 estimation only of the vicious. For goodness sake, 
 let us refrain from playing the combined characters 
 of folly and knavery to such a deplorable extent as 
 this. 
 
 Certainly it is necessary that a Sovereign should 
 be surrounded by just and able advisers. But a 
 large portion of the nation think that our sovereign is
 
 thus surrounded at present, and they might probably 
 cease to think so if his present ministers were re- 
 moved and a modern Whig administration called in 
 to supply their place. The people of England as a 
 body, as a cool, collected, loyal body, can feel no 
 great respect for many of these present Whig oppo- 
 sition members in the house of commons. There is 
 much of a democratic innovating spirit in their cast 
 of character. Their hearts are not set right towards 
 the established institutions of their country. There 
 is somewhat of the rudeness of invective of an Ame- 
 rican congress in the line of their procedure. 
 Neither are certain among them anxious to weed out 
 any of their former offensiveness though they scruple 
 not to wear the Whig livery. The Woods and the 
 Waithmans are now what they have ever been, nor 
 do the Cokes or the Broughams part with an atom of 
 their pride or presumption. The system of badgering 
 is a favourite one with these descendants of Wilkes 
 and Liberty, and where they cannot reason they can 
 sometimes cough or sneer down their opponents. 
 They have excellent properties about them for a 
 rump parliament whenever an Oliver the protector 
 shall make his appearance. Well might Mr. Spencer 
 Perceval (the worthy offspring, I trust, of an ho- 
 noured and lamented parent;) well might he in a 
 late debate advert to "their unqualified unremitting 
 harassing of the government;" to the "pompous 
 manner in which they exhibited themselves, after 
 coming down to the house fat from the pastures of 
 popularity," and to that " constant boasting which 
 they made of their own power and strength."* 
 
 With all their boasting, however, the present op- 
 position have not been able to do much. Look, 
 gentlemen, to the debate on the state of the nation, 
 
 * Debate on Windsor Establishment, March 16.
 
 311 
 
 of the 18th of May last. Look to Mr. Tierney's 
 statements upon that occasion, and see how all his 
 unqualified abuse of ministers and their measures 
 ended. See how a triumphant majority confirmed 
 his declaration, that " the mind of man could not 
 conceive an administration more dead to all the feel- 
 ings by which persons in high stations were ordi- 
 narily governed : governed by no principle, and at- 
 tached to no system, but that of vigorously main- 
 taining themselves in their places, they cut such a 
 figure in the eye of the world, that instead of being 
 objects of admiration and envy, they sunk into objects 
 of compassion and contempt."* If I wanted a most 
 powerful argument in favour of the present adminis- 
 tration, I would go for it, not to their friends, not to 
 their dependents, not to the great body of the coun- 
 try who have long known their value and the difficulty 
 of their situation in times so every way perilous as 
 the present, but to their uniform and inveterate 
 enemies, and even to the very leader of opposition 
 himself. " He," says Mr.Tierney, "who voted against 
 the present motion confessed by that vote his perfect 
 confidence in the wisdom, vigour, and enterprise of 
 ministers, his unqualified approbation of their mea- 
 sures, and his opinion that their career ought not to 
 be interrupted."* The gallery was cleared and a 
 division took place. Ayes 178. Noes 357. Ma- 
 jority for ministers 179!! for those ministers who 
 " had pursued only what was base in principle and 
 injurious in practice/'* and obtained too in a house 
 of commons, to which, as Mr. Tierney confessed, 
 " had been returned a larger proportion of men con- 
 nected with no party than he had ever before remem- 
 bered "* Surely this "trial of strength/' as it was 
 universally considered, proves in its result how high 
 
 Evening Mail, May 17 to 19, 1819.
 
 ministers stand at this time with the nation at large,* 
 and how poor and pitiful a figure their Whig oppo- 
 nents present in both talent and estimation. 
 
 If we would believe these men, we could consider 
 our present administration in no other light than as 
 the scourge and the nuisance of their country; as 
 idiots who have already nearly ruined it, and who, if 
 suffered to continue longer in office, will entirely 
 erase it from the list of nations. I will make no 
 answer to these accusations. I will offer no apology 
 for the measures of ministry. I will only, gentlemen, 
 beg leave to remark, and I am sure you and every 
 freeholder in the kingdom must have remarked it top, 
 that whatever were their faults, they have preserved 
 us a secure nation; whatever their follies, they have 
 exhibited us a wise nation ; whatever their contracted 
 notions, they have immortalized us as a liberal, just, 
 and glorious nation. With every weakness about them, 
 they have made us respected ; with every villainy, 
 they have taught us to respect others. Admit them 
 to have been (as our opponents represent them) a vile 
 administration, and never did an administration of 
 such a character conduce more to public virtue ; never 
 was a set of men whose sole object was to enslave 
 and oppress the people, and to destroy the state, 
 
 * I cannot think this striking majority to be, as some imagine 
 it, rather an argument for the want of all faith in opposition, than 
 for any peculiar respect for administration; though even if the 
 matter rested here, there would he gall and bitterness enough laid 
 op for the Whig jqnto. But many circumstances, I think, go to 
 prove that the present ministers do, several of them, rest in the 
 hearts of the country as well as in the esteem of the regent. It is 
 common to talk of their incapacity; but of what administration 
 hate people not so talked ? And were the Whigs to come into 
 office to-morrow, I question whether even they, with all their 
 stupendous powers and all their invincible integrity, would steer 
 entirely clear of that charge, and probably of another or two, not 
 exactly of the same moral import, attached to the end of it.
 
 T > 
 
 13 
 
 so miserably out in their calculation ; for the ways 
 and means they preposterously took to accomplish it 
 have actually driven slavery and oppression into dark- 
 ness, and placed that state in dignity, in firmness, in 
 consistency, in reputation, from one end of Europe 
 to the other, higher and holier than it ever stood 
 before. With all their alledged crimes, their Country 
 has nothing- to condemn them for. With all their 
 alledged baseness, they have reflected no portion of 
 it upon her. They found her, from the errors of her 
 Whig administration, low, drooping, despised; and 
 let them depart from the guidance of her counsels as 
 soon as they may, they will leave her full of years, 
 full of honour, the hope, the admiration, and the 
 refuge of the whole earth. 
 
 Yes thus it is that they Will leave her. But thus 
 it is that she will not long continue, if the people, 
 doing their duty by rallying, one and all, under the 
 standard of government, government should neglect 
 in so solemn an emergency to do its duty by the' 
 people. No man should lightly impeach the coun- 
 sels of a nation. No man, with the state of society 
 before him, should unadvisedly bring any part of the 
 wisdom or virtue of the legislature into suspicion'. 
 Yet where the necessity seems pressing, where the 
 error seems open, where the injury is daily and hourly 
 felt, and felt through every gradation of life, to be 
 silent is to be unjust towards those who rule and 
 unfeeling towards those who obey. Bear with me 
 then, gentlemen, if for a moment I seem to enter the 
 ranks of the adversary, while 1 hazard a reflection or 
 two on the duties which I conceive properly to be- 
 long to our own government at this perilous crisis. 
 1 may offend in the remarks which such a subject 
 may call forth. I shall be sorry to do so; but a 
 larger sorrow would be mine if, in the pursuit of 
 truth and good, I were to be lost and mean enough 
 to omit it. 
 
 s s
 
 314 
 
 The task of government, in a nation like our own, 
 is at all times an arduous one, but it is particularly so 
 at present. We live in a period where we have to 
 contend with the rugged passions of man's nature ; 
 with the vile arts that have given to those passions a 
 most crooked tendency, a fatal bias towards every 
 innovation, religious and political, that goes the 
 length of disorganizing at once both spiritual and 
 temporal obedience. I hold not with those I trust 
 I never shall who consider our present ministers as 
 men of neither wisdom nor courage ; as " drivellers 
 \vho craul and crouch beneath the lashings they re- 
 ceive ;" as men who " owe the retention of their 
 places to the weakness of their opponents," and who 
 are content to "prop an empire as it totters to the 
 brink of ruin."* I have much respect for the 
 ability which dictated these sentiments., but none for 
 the sentiments themselves, or for the spirit in which 
 they are delivered. 1 consider our present adminis- 
 tration as an efficient one. But 1 will not conceal 
 that though I do not believe them to be wanting in 
 firmness, yet resolution is delayed till it ceases to be 
 serviceable; till our adversaries have got the vantage 
 ground and cannot be driven from it ; till expectation 
 is weary and enthusiasm is cold ; till that which might 
 have been done ceases to be attempted ; till the pride 
 that would have preserved us from indignity is lost 
 amid the hesitations of policy and the prophecies of 
 despair. 
 
 Government does not lose itself for want of wisdom 
 or of rectitude, but it is daily suffering, and the 
 country with it, through an unpardonable lenity and 
 a disposition to rest in inefficient regulations for the 
 public good, unmindful that that which represses not 
 increaseth danger. Where we oppose with feeble- 
 
 * See the postscript of the Norwich Mercury of Feb. 27, 1819.
 
 315 
 
 ness we turn our arms against ourselves. To work 
 profitably we must work powerfully. Half measures 
 against others are very decisive measures against 
 ourselves. The present is a time when either go- 
 vernment must do every thing or nothing. Against 
 the numerous and daring adversaries of the state they 
 must collect all the force of the state. One strong 
 nerve must run through the whole body of their 
 proceedings ; one soul must inform all their motions. 
 They must put every part of their duty into a compleat 
 requisition, and their spirit must coalesce with their 
 genius. All their attitudes of opposition must be 
 attitudes of a settled defiance. The line of fear 
 roust be no where visible, must no where mix itself 
 with the strong lines of hope and fortitude, and a 
 greatness of soul superior to reverses of fortune 
 where fortune wins the field from rectitude. Against 
 terrible assaults nothing less than terrible efforts will 
 avail The strength of Hercules must be visible in 
 the contortions of Antceus. 
 
 There is another species of resolution in which 
 government is, 1 fear, defective ; they are too mild 
 and conceding towards those who themselves make 
 no concessions. Democracy and dissent should not, 
 be favoured with the shadow of a concession in a 
 state of things like the present. Concession, whe- 
 ther political or religious, is the bane of nations 
 where reason raises her voice against it. Among 
 the Romans we behold the regal power abolished 
 after it had continued two hundred and fifty years. 
 This was succeeded by a republican form of govern- 
 ment and the election of consuls. Then to repress 
 an unsteady people were created their dictators. 
 After that, to humour the public voice, followed their 
 tribunes. Then came their decemviri, then their 
 military tribunes, then their consuls again, to which 
 were added their censors. All these changes and 
 concessions, made at the will or through the tumul- 
 
 ss 2
 
 .'JIG 
 
 tuary proceedings of the people, served but to stave oft 
 larger and larger demands attended with commensu- 
 rate calamities, until at length kings once more took 
 their turn to reign, and favours were asked and 
 favours granted which ended, as with base minds 
 might have been foreseen, in every thing but the 
 sovereign power itself being conceded, and that they 
 at length fairly ventured to seize upon by force. 
 
 If reform be wanted among ourselves, and I be- 
 lieve, to a certain degree, no sober person makes a 
 doubt of it, government should take the business into 
 their own hands and generously do at once what all 
 are conscientiously persuaded ought to be done. 
 They would thus avoid much danger and reap much 
 glory. They would found prudent reform, not on 
 the ebullitions of enthusiasm which years do pre- 
 sently dash and change, but on wholesome experi- 
 ence. Above all they would avoid the impolicy of 
 suffering any really needful and valuable improve- 
 ments to come from the arts and machinations of 
 their professed adversaries. That honour they should 
 reserve for themselves, for their shield of adamant, 
 and not encourage the Broughams and Burdetts at 
 once to disgrace and ruin the cause of all virtuous 
 regulation. What plan of public beneficence will 
 ever thrive which their sickening support has pol- 
 luted ? From their satellites and followers what 
 species of reform could we expect ? What is it that 
 the country could consent to employ such low and 
 dangerous tools for ? Certainly for no purposes of 
 solid glory. They know nothing of its nature. 
 Their politics, like their souls, are base and gro- 
 velling. They look back upon history as they would 
 look back on one of their own pitiful manoeuvres, 
 recollecting all the chicanery but none of the utility 
 of the record. They see not the field which war- 
 riors, patriots, legislators, have trod ; doing honour 
 to their country and gathering renown unto them-
 
 317 
 
 selves. They merely spell out their means to play 
 the game in their narrow nauseous way. Seldom 
 indeed do their speculations lay hold on integrity at 
 all, and, when they do, they scarcely know what to 
 make of her. They let her slip through their fingers 
 again as quietly as they can, and get upon their old 
 beaten road where the images are perfectly in recol- 
 lection, and where craft, and low cunning, and a 
 disgusting assurance meet, and solicit and obtain 
 their benevolent attention at every step. These pre- 
 sumptious reformers are for revelling in untried 
 situations; but if government consult its own dignity 
 and the credit and safety of the country, they will 
 clip the wings of all such forward ambitions. For 
 to reform is not to rage and tear away all before it. 
 It is to go on cooly, to examine accurately, to reflect 
 sedately, to graduate zeal to a just temperament with 
 knowledge, and to behold the work when it is finished 
 and be able to pronounce it good. 
 
 Every government is responsible for the morals of 
 the community over which it holds its rule. Govern- 
 ment is the former of men's minds and the rectifier of 
 their judgments; the great pervading power that, if 
 it do not find the people virtuous, must make them 
 so. Every legislative act, considered in its effect, is 
 an article of their creed and a precept for their con- 
 duct. An existing administration has evermore the 
 instruction of the people, and therefore the welfare of 
 the state in its keeping. Can any thing be more 
 base, more short sighted, more every way impolitic 
 and destructive than to found the wealth of a nation 
 upon the demoralization of its people? Shew me a 
 government that is reprehensible in this respect, and 
 whatever impressive forms it may wear, whatever 
 may be the extent of its commerce, the perfection of 
 its manufactures, the progress of its agriculture, its 
 arts, sciences, and learning, the decadency of such an
 
 318 
 
 empire, unless all history and human nature itself be 
 a forgery, can be at no great distance. A nation 
 laying itself out for immortality and true greatness, 
 must be constantly shaking off her corruptions and 
 fresh plunging her soul into glory. She must behold 
 her lasting grandeur in her virtue, her imperishable 
 magnificence in her moral order, her full and final 
 prosperity in her empire over the incitements, se- 
 ducements, and varied temptations of the mind. To 
 found national prosperity on the corruption of na- 
 tional manners ; to steal the revenues of the state 
 from her strength and sinews, is to erect the temple 
 of her fame over the charnel house of death. 
 
 I would, gentlemen, that we could honestly lay our 
 hands upon our hearts and absolve our own excellent 
 government of all offence in this dreadful respect. 
 We cannot. We shall find in her defect, manifest 
 defect, in some instances overwhelming defect. We 
 are willing to advocate the cause of established go- 
 vernment. We are willing to defend those by whom 
 that government is administered. We know and 
 feel that no nation can possess a solid rule, the 
 pledge of its happiness, without many allowances to 
 its rulers. It is a mighty mass of mind they have to 
 bring in subjection to the common weal, and diffi- 
 cult and distressing enough we can readily believe is 
 the process. Still we cannot overlook outrageous 
 discrepancies where so much of evil is connected 
 with them, though, as far as our own kingdom is 
 concerned, we shall certainly not be justified in 
 charging the sins of government upon any particular 
 description of its reigning administrations ; for whe- 
 ther the court. or country, the Whig or Tory party 
 happen to be in power, the principle must, 1 fear, 
 remain much the same; the line of policy must run 
 on, and if the state is to be preserved in its greatness, 
 that greatness must flow from the adoption of the
 
 SIR 
 
 same, or nearly the same improvident system. The 
 public safety must in too many instances be rooted 
 in the deterioration of the public morals. 
 
 And this system obtains, and is obliged to be acted 
 upon, at a period when its fatal consequences are 
 hemming us in on every side, and making it difficult 
 and almost impossible for legislature to keep pace 
 with poverty and crime. There is such a body of 
 close-compacted, close-linked, ramified disaffection 
 and iniquity now combined against government, as 
 was never before witnessed ; such a poisoned abuse 
 of the press as bids fair to leave rebellion at the very 
 threshold of every man's door. Our best writers have 
 proved to us the demoralizing nature of dissent, the 
 spread of Jacobinical, of infidel, (foolishly called philo- 
 sophical) of atheistical principles. They have shewn 
 us how far our domestic depredations go, and every 
 Old Bailey calendar gives us the increasing number 
 and youth of our offenders, and the increasing heinous- 
 ness of crime. Our condemnations are many, our 
 acquittals more ; and those who are acquitted are 
 generally brought up again for further and deeper; 
 offence. Our prisons groan with malefactors. They 
 are ejected to-day and filled again tp morrow we go 
 on accusing, transporting, dooming to death ; and 
 they go on sinning, and society goes on suffering. 
 In vain does our legislature endeavour to run parallel 
 with the iniquity. Hardly any enactment that over- 
 throws depredation in one quarter but is neutralized 
 by some unfortunate codicil that affords it entrance 
 in another. So wretched is the state of society, and 
 so perfect the craft, and so desperate the resolution of 
 base and depraved minds. 
 
 There is in human nature, and every government 
 ought to bear it in mind, a propensity when cast 
 down in wretchedness to sink into despair; when 
 overwhelmed with crime to be reckless of all crime. 
 Our own feelings will tell us this. Every common oc-
 
 3 10 
 
 currence will convince us of it. It seems as if man 
 was working- on a dreadful scale of nuslerv, but \ve 
 know that the -work is constantly performing; that 
 robberies are committed at the very place of execu- 
 tion, and that pillage and plunder are largelier in- 
 dulged in at fires and at wrecks. Wherever distress- 
 and tribulation are going forward, there shall we 
 often find the boldest guilt, the most heinous wicked- 
 ness. This is surely a call upon legislation not only 
 to stop vice at its commencement, but to cut off the 
 temptations to it : to suffer nothing to remain that 
 shall have the remotest tendency to take the soul in her 
 unguarded moments and turn her from the paths of 
 rectitude. I have indeed often thought that the 
 general execration attendant upon remorseless depra- 
 vities ought to be held of sufficient potency to deter 
 men from engaging in them. It will I hope go some, 
 perhaps a considerable, but it will not go all the way. 
 On this principle it was, gentlemen, if you recollect, 
 that the popular vengeance, in the case of Caligula, 
 ceased not with his death, but was carried forward 
 to the assassination of his wife Cesonia, and extended 
 itself, by I know not what spirit of horribly virtuous 
 revenge, to his only child, though an infant and full of 
 innocence in her cradle. Nay so compleat was the 
 darkness of their retaliation, that by a decree of the 
 senate the very coin was melted down, that no memo- 
 rial might be left to posterity of the existence of such 
 a reproach to our common nature. 
 
 I will not stop to inquire particularly how far the 
 neglects of Government may tend to render the mind 
 thus desperate, or may be implicated in the miseries 
 that crime is every where spreading about the land. 
 I will content myself with the general observation, 
 (it grieves me to make it) that death is in the process 
 of some of our present legislative regulations ; death, 
 temporal and eternal. A synod convened for the 
 express purpose of corrupting a great nation could, I
 
 think, hardly do it more effectually. The language 1 
 of these regulations, honestly construed according 1 to 
 their spirit, would run nearly thus We have given 
 you an established religion ; we have nobly endowed ; 
 we have allied it with the state ; but we have suf- 
 fered the adversary to enter, and to unchristian the 
 Christian creed and unsolemnize the Christian mys- 
 teries, and plant his dagger in the heart of the church 
 whenever he feels so disposed -We have indulged 
 you with state lotteries in the expectation that they 
 may tempt poverty to crime, and villainy to imposi- 
 tion, and all from the great public paths of sobriety 
 and industry. We have erected for you, through 
 every part of our dominions, inns, and taverns, anil 
 ale-houses, and night cellars, that they may draw to 
 them all that have money to spend from the support 
 of their families, and health to spare for indulgence 
 in intemperance ; that old and young may huddle 
 and blaspheme together, and sin and death set on the 
 same chair, and the riot and rebellion of the day be 
 crowned by the revels and depredations of the niglit. 
 We have tolerated, for your improvement in national 
 morals, every kind of stage representation that cart 
 impair delicacy or corrupt innocence. We have 
 licenced, indirectly indeed, but yet full enough for 
 the purpose, cockings, boxing matches, gambling, and 
 every pursuit and amusement that has a tendency to 
 brutalize the feelings and to sink man in the scale of 
 
 O 
 
 his creation. We have given to magistrates a power 
 to regulate the abuses of the Lord's day, but we havei 
 taken especial care to deter them from ever making 
 any material use of it. We have instituted our com- 
 mon law for all who feel themselves injured to have 
 recourse to; but we have made that law, originally 
 undeformed, so frightful that no one shall dare ap- 
 proach it, and its practitioners so numerous, so un- 
 principled, so expert in their chicaneries, so h?avy 
 in their charges, and so competent to stop or pursue 
 
 Tt
 
 proceedings at their pleasure, that, sooner than fall 
 into the hands of such defenders, men shall suhmit 
 to every indignity and put up with every loss. We 
 have, finally, permitted you to listen to our par- 
 liamentary debates, but for fear you should run away 
 with any crude ideas of the wisdom of the legislature, 
 we have loaded them with an unusual asperity, have 
 reviled each other, and all the orders and institutions 
 of the state with as full a soul as if they were none of 
 them worth preserving, and so delivered, have in- 
 dulged the public with seeing them printed and dis- 
 persed over every quarter of the empire, to be read, 
 and digested, and acted upon by those who are 
 stirring up the people against their rulers, and really 
 seeking the ruin of that government which we have 
 thus prepared them to despise and encouraged them 
 to destroy. 
 
 I would all this were a mere scenic representation 
 and with no ground whatever for the wild assumptions. 
 But alas ! we have these, and, were it pleasant to in- 
 sist upon them, many more I fear of these " infectious 
 visitings." 1 am always sorry to find any immoral 
 species of finance defended. It puts patience to the 
 test, and cuts up all apology for it at once. Mr. Can- 
 ning, in his vindication of lotteries,* seems to go on 
 the ground that, in the present general dearth of 
 subjects for taxation, no adequate substitutes are to be 
 found. Mr. Vansittart in his reply to Mr. Lyttleton 
 on that occasion is poor and inconsistent, so incon- 
 sistent as nearly to bring the flush of shame on the 
 cheek of virtue. Mr. Wodehouse, in the spirit be- 
 coming a county member, and with a consistency 
 fully answerable to his former declaration, and which 
 must, I am sure, endear him almost equally to his con- 
 stituents and to his opponents, remarked, " that after 
 
 * Evening Mail, May 3 to 5,
 
 323 
 
 all he had heard, and anxious as he \va* to support 
 the finances of the country, he could not give his 
 vote in favour of a tax which ad;led to the revenue 
 only in proportion as it spread immorality and crime 
 amongst the people. Amongst the lower orders, the 
 spirit of gambling sometimes led to robbery, and in 
 some cases to suicide It destroyed the only source of a 
 poor man's character and happiness. In the present 
 situation of the country, he was ready to support the 
 continuance and imposition of any taxes which, with- 
 out corrupting morals, might be necessary to enable 
 the government to meet the difficulties with which it 
 had to contend."* 1 do most cordially join issue with 
 him in this opinion, and I further believe with Mr. 
 Plunkett, that " of all the duties incumbent on a 
 government, there was none more sacred or pre emi- 
 nent than to act as the guardian of public morality."* 
 My Lord Castlereagh indeed, to the surprize, I fear, 
 and regret of many of his firmest admirers, calls all 
 this " the refinements of a false and sublimated 
 morality.' * No indeed, my Lord, it is neither false 
 nor sublimated. It is a morality of very long stand- 
 ing; IIHS passed the ordeal of ages, and has received 
 the sanction of wisdom and virtue in every one of 
 them. There is nothing refined or sublimated about 
 it. It is common morality, useful morality, the 
 morality of the learned and of the unlearned, of the 
 prince and of the peasant It is that large, holy, 
 awful morality, by which in the eternal rolls of 
 Providence it is decreed that "kings shall reign" and 
 empires flourish, and without which, that the ablest 
 statesman shall legislate, and the acutest diplomacy 
 be exerted for their preservation in vain. 
 
 Among the reforms which government will find it 
 necessary to make, not to public clamour but to ge- 
 
 Evening Mail, May 3 to 5, 1819. 
 TtH
 
 324 
 
 neral sober opinion, are, I think, the following. 
 They mnst restrict in some reasonable measure, for 
 though 1 allow the experiment to be a delicate one, 
 the salvation of the country depends upon it, the 
 liberty of the press. They must firmly cease, here 
 no delicacy is required, from an unbounded tolera- 
 tion of the dissenters.* They must protect the esta- 
 blished church in the reception of her revenues, 
 and, if they would preserve the peace of both church 
 and state, must make some, and very efficient altera- 
 tions in the tithe system f They must reform the 
 
 * If it be necessary to preserve our establishment in church and 
 state, the corporation and test acts must be necessary. I think 
 there is, at present, more danger from the large and floating masses 
 of dissent in this kingdom than from the Roman Catholics ; and 
 every argument urged against the emancipation (to take their own 
 term) of the latter, may with equal force be alledged against that 
 of the former. Besides, to exempt one from its wholesome re- 
 straints would b,e to exempt both. If dissent favour republicanism 
 it ought to be restrained. If it would unmodel our church, and 
 disjoin it from the state, and, acting upon its own principles, it 
 must make a point of conscience of doing this, these restraints must 
 be continued. \Vhen we recollect what dissent has done, we shall 
 not be forward to unmuzzle the remorseless monster to see what 
 it will do. 
 
 + A profession of good will to the church is soon made, and, to 
 say truth, some of our adversaries are lavish enough in making it. 
 But we can trust no profession where the practice runs counter to 
 it. I believe the clergy, take the kingdom throughout, to be even 
 at present in the reception of not more than one half of the value 
 of the fair, yearly produce of their tithes. I think this would be 
 found to amount almost to a demonstration. And yet, how is this 
 moiety of their possessions paid ? How indeed ! Nothing would 
 be of more service to both the clergy and the state than to divide 
 many of our large farms into small ones. We should get a better 
 composition, and government would not hear one half of the 
 agricultural complaints that at present stun the nation. Uniformly 
 it is the great farmer that opens his mouth widest, and sends forth 
 Jiis fulminations against church and state with most frequency and 
 fury. The little farmer is generally contented if he can make 
 things hold tolerably together ; and bad seasons and low prices 
 he carefully remedies by increased patience, and increased industry
 
 325 
 
 practice of the law, and not suffer the vilest part of 
 the profession at once to ruin its credit and to run 
 away with its profits. If this be not done and 
 speedily, we shall need a fresh statue of mortmain to 
 protect the landed possessions of the realm from falling 
 into hands that will clutch them too close, and bind 
 them too fast ever to permit a hope of obtaining them 
 back again.* They must put down at least one 
 half of the public houses in the land, those sinks of 
 idleness and immorality which corrupt society with 
 a more fatal certainty than our laws, and religion, and 
 national schools united, will ever be able to reform f 
 
 and frugality. The great farmer, whenever he fails to heap his 
 table with luxuries from the overflowing of his fields, turns sulky 
 upon society, and conning over his Holkham catechism, curses 
 churches and parsons, and tithes and taxes, and all the fooleries, 
 and stupidities, and iniquities of a Tory administration. Yet are 
 these too often the unfeeling masters that scoop the marrow out of 
 a poor man's bones, and then leave him, stiff and dry, to totter to 
 the grave, with his miserable parish allowance, as quick as he can. 
 
 * The profession of the law is not nice in its ways and means. 
 These gentlemen are pawnbrokers upon a new and magnificent 
 scale, lending out their moneys (how gotten we stop not to inquire) 
 upon houses and lands, and goods and chattels, and whatever they 
 can turn to a sweeping per centage, come it from whence it will. 
 They are the general receivers of pledges which the native hand is 
 too weak any longer to withhold ; the common reservoirs into 
 which every broken cistern and the defalcations are numerous 
 pours its waters. I believe the practice of the law, both in town 
 and country, at this moment to cry aloud for reform, with a much 
 stronger and juster voice, than either the royal prerogative, the 
 established church, parliamentary representation, or the corruption 
 of the rotten boroughs. To these censures I must be understood 
 to make many exceptions; many in my own private knowledge; 
 but none that will invalidate my opinion of the profession as a con- 
 triving, artful, practising body. 
 
 f The difficulty the clergy labour under in regulating the public 
 houses in their respective parishes, and the little countenance they 
 receive herein from the magistrates, cannot but have an ill effect 
 on the morals of society. The laws are there infringed every hour 
 of the day, nothing detected, every thing over looked. The swill 
 from these troughs is poured into the national treasury, the brewer
 
 326 
 
 They must abolish every species of immoral finance, 
 whatever may be the defalcation as to revenue ; and 
 by one general tax levied with an a\vful impartiality 
 on all sorts of property, and on a scale that shall 
 bespeak at once the justice, and the policy, mid 
 therefore the efficiency of the measure, dissolve the 
 union of fraud and iniquity which has long reigned 
 in the collection of a variety of discordant imposts for 
 the support of the state. Such a property tax will he 
 a relief from many vexations ; will be more simplified 
 and certain in its operation ; will be at least equally 
 productive with those now had recourse to, and will 
 be felt as a blessing and relief by ail who wish well to 
 government, or to the due ordering and 'prosperity of 
 their own domestic affairs * 
 
 To those who ask, why in a season of so much 
 danger urge such bold and dangerous experiments, I 
 reply ; because it is necessary to urge them ; because 
 a great empire cannot be preserved at any time, or 
 for any duration of time, without its legislature 
 acting upon such a broad and honest scale ; because 
 these are regulations which not an ungovernable 
 multitude, not a set of desperate demagogues, not 
 mere lenders of themselves to party views for the 
 purposes of party ambitions deem essential, but 
 
 pursed out with the profits of his beer barrels, and nobody seemi 
 to care how the concern is carried on, so long as these libations 
 flow for the good of the state, and the regular returns continue to 
 be made. Here be your incentives to public virtue ! Spend your 
 money, poison your health, destroy your morals, and save the 
 empire ! 
 
 * I mention not the poor's rates ; a great, a wise, a generous 
 fund probably in its origin, but now $o abused, every way so abused, 
 as to become one large instrument of the corruption instead of the 
 salvation of the poor. Other reforms, however, must precede, f 
 think, any material improvement in this mode of maintenance, 
 though long to continue it on its present system must absolutely 
 reduce government to- despair, and the nation too.
 
 32? 
 
 which the great, the injured, the majestic body of the 
 people of England, attached to the church of Eng- 
 land, feel to be their security from danger in an hour 
 when danger is assuming all disguises and menacing 
 them in all attitudes ; because in these concessions 
 every man will see his duty towards government 
 recompenced by the paternal regards of govern- 
 ment; because they are concessions that lead to no 
 fanciful, no pernicious rights ; are demanded only 
 for good, with the view of being turned only to good ; 
 and because if such reforms as God and nature, and 
 the quiet and security of the realm, and the omissions 
 of past times, and the necessities, the vices, the vir- 
 tues of the present, and the fair expectancies of 
 posterity all unite in imploring are much longer with- 
 held, every description of subjects may form one 
 coalition of complaint, and rights, and duties, and 
 allegiance be sacrificed on this mournful altar of their 
 wrongs, in spite of the best wishes and the fullest 
 endeavours to preserve them 
 
 The duty of government also as to national educa- 
 tion at this eventful period is a most important one. 
 Of the necessity of such education we cannot doubt. 
 Of its utility, with a superintending Providence to 
 watch over its course, we will not. Man is cast upon 
 the field of this world to fit him for something better. 
 It is a field for the subduction of every vice and the ex- 
 ercise of every virtue, and he hath a nature susceptible 
 of such exercise. Life may be made any thing of, 
 and man may be made any thing of. This is his 
 preparatory school, his sole solitary probation for 
 heaven. He comes to it for a poor winter's day and 
 then returns to his home; often overcharged with 
 misery, often overwhelmed with guilt. That God 
 intended man to be poor, and " in the sweat of his 
 face to eat his bread/* I know ; but I do not know 
 that he intended him to be desolate. I am not cer- 
 tain that he was sent here by a good and gracious
 
 328 
 
 Providence, to descend into his grave with mind, body, 
 and estate all equally forlorn and defenceless. That 
 such hath hitherto been, in a good measure, his con- 
 dition is no reason why that condition should not be 
 amended. We owe too much to the poor to suffer 
 them to remain the pitiable objects they have been. 
 We owe it to ourselves, to society, to our common 
 human nature, to better their mental capacities. If ex- 
 perience, as I am glad to find some think,* proves that 
 
 * The seventh report of the general committee of the Norfolk 
 and Norwich Society for the Education of the Poor in the princi- 
 ples of the Established Church, lately printed, observes, " there 
 is nothing that evinces the utility of communicating instruction to 
 the lower orders of society more than the tendency it manifestly 
 has to the prevention and diminution of crime. The following 
 comparative statement of the number of commitments to prison, in 
 the different parts of the British empire, drawn up from the official 
 returns lately presented to parliament, sufficiently prove the fact, 
 that where the poor are the most ignorant, there they are the most 
 criminal; and that in proportion as light and knowledge spread, 
 crime less abounds. With regard to England in particular, it ap- 
 pears from this document^ that the great manufacturing county of 
 York, the county of Northumberland, which contains the large 
 town of Newcastle, the counties of Durham, Cumberland, and 
 Westmoreland, in all of which the people are in general well edu- 
 cated, contain infinitely fewer Climes^ on an average of their 
 population, than the inland counties af Bedford, Berks, Bucking- 
 ham, Cambridge, and Hertford, where there are no large towns, 
 and the people are less instructed." This is gratifying I wish the 
 future condition of society may, in every part of the kingdom, bear 
 out and confirm this opinion. The comparative statement alluded 
 to gives us the commitments, in proportion to the whole population 
 in Yorkshire, Northumberland, Cumberland, and Cornwall, op- 
 posed to those in Somersetshire, Hants, Devon, Kent, Sussex, and 
 Suffolk. In the former case they are found to be, upon the average, 
 as 1 to upwards of 3800 ; in the latter, as 1 to about 1 800. I 
 think I recollect the Guardian, in Addison's time, expressing a 
 somewhat similar benevolent opinion respecting the future good 
 Affects of the multiplication of charity schools and schools for edu- 
 cation. He prophecied that we should probably have a new race 
 of beings in a very few years. They are slow in " bursting the 
 shell and springing to life." We have seen nothing of them yet* 
 llowrver speculative reasoning must not stand against fact
 
 329 
 
 the very smallest degree of education diminishes 
 crime, it may fairly be presumed that a somewhat 
 larger, sounder portion of it will be attended with 
 results still more beneficial. 
 
 Much is to be forgiven in all cases to virtuous 
 intention, and men must be pardoned every aberration 
 from presumed, and even perhaps from acknowledged 
 policy, which is made for the sake of a supposed 
 attainableness in virtue Whether our national edu- 
 cation will eventually make a new race of being's of 
 us, and bring to a greater perfection the present 
 confused state of society, we must not enquire, nor 
 can any due experience yet inform us. There is 
 much, I think, both to hope and to fear. Much to 
 hope, if Government will fairly doits part and 
 perform the whole of its duty in this awful under- 
 taking; much to fear if the business be confined to a 
 litOe kw smattering instruction, mechanically afford- 
 ed and coldly countenanced, and unaided in its opera- 
 tion by any care on the part of our legislature to 
 remove out of the sphere of that operation " all things 
 that offend," and that may minister to iniquity. As 
 general instruction advances general temptation must 
 be decreased, or the progression of the opening facul- 
 ties will be only a progression from a limited to a 
 larger field of pernicious operation. The arts of 
 reading and writing may be made subservient to good, 
 or to very viie purposes. It is the application of every 
 sort of knowledge that determines its utility. 
 
 I have never yet met With any arguments to con- 
 vince me that a virtuous education is not much 
 before a learned one. How far this opinion is gene- 
 ral I am unable to say. Judging from the present 
 practical mode of education, and the relaxation of 
 discipline, I fear it is not. Relaxation of discipline 
 is, in every instance, relaxation of morals, from the 
 petty village school to the royally endowed seminary. 
 Humility in the instruction of our youth seems to be 
 
 v u
 
 almost systematically discouraged, and what is termed 
 a manly character is to be formed, which usually 
 divests the mind of tenderness and imparts to it a 
 most disgusting and unmanly conduct. This origi- 
 nal defect is rarely got over, and in process of years 
 the suffering comes home to all parties; for whatever 
 be the value we attach to this manly spirit, we pur- 
 chase it too dearly where the price is paid down in 
 solid manly virtue. The elegant Athenians, all life 
 and soul, left old age to find a seat where it could ; 
 the ruder Lacedemonians fixed the venerable charac- 
 ter in their own. 1 should be glad to know how 
 government is to be conducted where the mind is 
 attempted to be formed without early impressions of 
 humility; how society is to be maintained if men 
 spurn at such acquiescence and restraint as experience 
 has proved essential to its well being. The effect of 
 a good education will be seen in the degree of 
 obedience daily and hourly elicited by the current 
 duties of our station ; but we may rest assured that 
 the result of a bad one will be soon felt both in and 
 beyond the domestic circle. Where there is an end 
 of authority, there is an end of security. To with- 
 draw submission from our parents falls very little 
 short of withdrawing allegiance from our Sovereign, 
 and nothing short of dispensing with veneration 
 altogether towards our rulers. 
 
 I am afraid our modern system of education, gen- 
 tlemen, upon the liberal principle plan will not do us 
 much good, will indeed rather be converted into an 
 instrument of disaffection. Its aim is to put old 
 heads upon young shoulders without waiting for the 
 operation of years; to take nothing upon trust, 
 nothing upon authority ; to pay a blind implicit 
 deference to neither " tutors, governors, pastors, or 
 masters." Before any thing is done every thing is 
 to be canvassed ; before any thing is believed every 
 thing is to be doubted. Not a religious article oi
 
 331 
 
 any kind must be received without an imprimatur 
 from the philosophy of reason. The tendency of 
 such a system is manifest ; disobedience, disobedience 
 in all its branches for the present, and for the future 
 a race of upstarts, bastard slips from the tree of 
 knowledge, of ungovernable temper and most pro- 
 phane manners. Such a notable process will be far 
 enough from generating a Newton or a Locke, a 
 Bacon or a Boyle, but will very plentifully furnish us 
 with Spinosas in our religious, and with Cromwells 
 and Bradshaws in our political concerns. Their 
 mode of instruction will not have made them reli- 
 gious, but ridiculers of religion ; will not have set- 
 tled their Christian creed or their moral practice, 
 but will have taught them to despise every creed, 
 and to renounce and invalidate every precept flow- 
 ing from it; will have furnished them with just such 
 a stock of knowledge as has prepared the mind for 
 the reception of all that vanity recommends, and all 
 that wisdom disdains and reproves. 
 
 Little, upon such principles, can be done for a 
 monarchical government, though much may be done 
 against it. Without inculcations of submission, and 
 deeply fixing the distinctions of rank and the appro- 
 priate duties of station in the young mind, education 
 must become a doubtful good. Neither can youth 
 be taught, nor men be governed, if such inculcations 
 be dispensed with. We want that mental discipline, 
 (let us not, gentlemen, be ashamed but proud of the 
 confession) which shall implant right affections 
 towards an established government and an established 
 religion. Nothing short of this, nothing in any 
 material respect failing herein, will turn our national 
 education into a national blessing. All our con- 
 templative powers will be powers of mischief if they 
 be not thrown into this venerable channel. Directed 
 into any other course they will spread over the land, 
 not to the fructification, but to the hardening and 
 
 uu 2
 
 sterile curse of the soil. The mind of man, once 
 
 escaped from its dark prison, is of no neutral nature. 
 
 It goes oh increasing- in its capacities of knowledge, 
 
 in its extension of ideas, in its application of those 
 
 ideas to all and every thing about it. The world will 
 
 throw around it her disguises and allurements, and, if 
 
 it judge and rhuse not with prudence, it will chuse 
 
 perniciously for both itself and society Where a 
 
 country is impoverished, is thinly planted, is deficient 
 
 in power, in civilization, in luxury, education may be 
 
 neglected with less danger, and may with more 
 
 indifference be left to make its approaches as it will. 
 
 But in an empire full in every respect ; at the very 
 
 acme of every improvement and almost of every 
 
 indulgence ; in an empire like our own great and 
 
 numerous, and increasing in its population and its 
 
 powers, both the neglect of education and the wrong 
 
 conduct of it,* or the feeble half-formed endeavours 
 
 for its promotion will he decisive of its fatality. To 
 
 suffer the strength of a nation to enlarge itself 
 
 without, at the same time enlarging that mental 
 
 discipline by which alone it can be restrained in its 
 
 growing rudeness, is to deliver the country over to a 
 
 most assured destruction.* 
 
 * With respect to this wrong conduct, nothing can be more 
 pernicious than to let those have the least concern with it, politi- 
 cally, who have no conpern at all about it in their hearts. How 
 far Mr. Brougham is a fit person to intrust with the management 
 of any reform of vital importance to the state, the " Reports of the 
 late select committee appointed to inquire into the Education of 
 the Poor," the " Betters " to that gentleman by Dr. Ireland and 
 Mr. Clarke, and the " Vindiciae AVykehamicae," of the Rev. W. 
 L. Bowles, will inform us. I know not by what motives Mr. 
 Brougham was solicited to be guilty, in the exercise of his strangely 
 appointed dignity, of rudenesses which certainly no motives worthy 
 of entering a good mind can excuse, or even extenuate. For his con- 
 duct towards Dr. Wood, the present Master of St. John's College, 
 Cambiidge, his superior, I apprehend, in every respect, he must be 
 left to blush in secret and to repent at his leisure. The Univer-
 
 333 
 
 In this world one thing; is constantly hinging 1 and 
 turning- upon another; one great change constantly 
 begetting the necessity for another. We are now 
 arrived at that awful verge of polity where We dare 
 no longer go on without a national education, and we 
 shall soon find that such an education will endure no 
 trace or shadow of immoral finance. O there is such 
 a deep dreadful inconsistency between them, that it is 
 as if we would compel God and the devil to league and 
 walk hand in hand together, the one to purify, the 
 other to defile the soul as soon as it is purified. But 
 I must desist from the subject. It is a "deep world 
 of darkness" that I dare not adventure upon. The 
 vail must be rent asunder by bolder hands, for it con- 
 ceals, I assure you, forms of no ordinary horror. Of 
 one thing we must all feel convinced, that no mode 
 of public instruction will stave offsuch public tempta- 
 tions to crime as are, at present, thrown full in the 
 paths of both the ignorant and the informed mind. 
 I go but a little,, a very little way, when I assert, that, 
 
 sity, than this, boasts not a higher or more excellent character. 
 Through a long academical life, devoted to the interests of the 
 society over which he no^ , the same encourager of lowly merit he 
 ever was, so happily presides, he has made friends of all with whom 
 he has been thrown into connection ; and of those thus given to 
 him (it is a great thing to say of any man) " has he lost none." I 
 recollect that the virtuous Archbishop Cranmer was once suffered 
 .to wait with grooms and lackeys at the door of his insulting ene- 
 mies. With much the same painful feelings will it be remembered, 
 that the Master of St. John's was cited and interrogated at the 
 bar of impudence by the chairman of the Education Committee, 
 Henry Brougham, Esq. M. P. F. R. S. Dr. Wood, with a felicity 
 apportioned to his claims upon general esteem, has gone through 
 life with, I believe, no shadow of insult from any honourable mind. 
 tie can afford therefore to forgive this act of disgusting coarseness 
 from, probably, the only man in the kingdom capable of committing 
 it, and, alas! miserable enough to commit it only to his own re- 
 proach. To a tutor so deserving of every grateful recollection from 
 his pupils, I owe, and pay with gratitude, this poor inadequate 
 tribute. Many of his kindnesses are now long removed, but none 
 jof them are obliterated.
 
 334 
 
 with an immoral system of finance, every mode of 
 instruction will become a whet nurse to the gallows. 
 On a subject, gentlemen, of this vital importance in a 
 large and free state, let us speak to government in a 
 language that shall be both heard and attended to. 
 Here it is that our opposition to the measures of 
 administration will be patriotism, and patriotism of the 
 highest cast ; will be virtue, and virtue of the most 
 awful form. Here it is that men of all parties who 
 have honest views ought firmly to unite, and press 
 upon ministers the immediate rescinding of regula- 
 tions, no matter in what esteem they may be held, so 
 entirely at war with the best feelings of our nature 
 and the best interests of the country. The constitu- 
 tion of the realm will bear us out in such a procedure ; 
 the religion of the realm will be grateful to us for it; 
 and if there be any narrow law of policy that presumes 
 to forbid it, let a stronger law interfere, the law of 
 God and of conscience, and put every petty financial 
 motive to the blush. This conduct shall call down 
 upon us the blessings of thousands ; shall indeed give 
 us the hearts of the country, which by us shall be 
 disposed of, in return, to an administration virtuous 
 enough to make this sacrifice to the peace, the com- 
 fort, the security of all, and wise enough to make it 
 before it be too late. 
 
 If, further, the preservation of a state be the object 
 which it ought to be, every governmt should not only 
 adapt its legislative regulations, in some reasonable 
 degree, to the spirit of the present times and the 
 pature and improvement of the people, but should 
 carefully consult the rich and valuable pages of times 
 past. They who would secure a living monarchy 
 must ponder over the ashes of the dead. They must 
 mark their periods and causes of commencement and 
 decline ; how they attained to, and how they lost their 
 greatness. The preservation of kingdoms is a stand- 
 ing miracle. Their decadency and fall are often no
 
 333 
 
 j 
 
 less miraculous. The great empires of antiquity are 
 a fine exemplification of the solemn assurance of 
 scripture, that "doubtless there is a God that judg- 
 eth the earth/' Look to the Assyrian, the Persian, the 
 Grecian, the Roman name. See them in their poor be- 
 ginnings, their wonderful growth, their universal sway, 
 their final decline and dissolution. They spring 
 from darkness; they desolate, they rule the world; 
 they depart into darkness. They do the work and 
 will of the Most High, and^ having done it, they 
 are gone. They perish not indeed all in the same 
 way ; but when become corrupt and with no hope of 
 amendment or revivification, they all do perish. In 
 the midst of general calamity, or general triumph; 
 while the funeral is going forth of the feast is crowned 
 with the sparkling bowl, there is the same hand still 
 working behind the curtain, and "confounding the 
 wisdom of the wise," and uncovering, and rocking to 
 and fro the massy pillars of their dominion, and pre- 
 paring the strength of their " chariots and of their 
 horses," their arts, and arms, and magnificence for the 
 oblivion that awaits them. In the hightof her gran- 
 deur, in the midnight hour of her revelry, the Assy- 
 rian empire passed away. A mysterious power was 
 upon her, and all was as a dark and frightful dream ; 
 this moment she was, and the next as if she had never 
 been ! The battle of Arbela tore away the Persian 
 diadem, neither overcome as yet by luxury nor crime. 
 The sun of the Grecian monarchy arose, and, in 
 almost the same instant, went down in blood. Rome, 
 gigantic still in her decay, fell not at once. A bound- 
 less empire of countless tributaries and faithless, yet 
 was she not easily rent from her deep foundations. 
 The Goths, the Huns, the Vandals, the Heruli, all 
 strike at her vitals and prepare her for her funeral.* 
 
 * I offer no apology for giving to my readers the following re- 
 marks from a very judicious author. They are curious, and per-
 
 336 
 
 When we enquire who thus delivered over the A-\ - 
 rian to the Persian, the Persian to the Greek, the 
 Greek to the Roman power, and who scattered the 
 bones and ruins of this last princely realm over the 
 world, and from her ashes raised up new empires to 
 
 haps sufficiently probable ; and while they set Gotl's general pro- 
 vidence over the affairs of this lower world in the preservation and 
 destruction of empires in a just light, they do not, I think, ill 
 account for the subject of his speculation. " I have sometimes 
 thought, how it should have come to pass, that the infinite swarm 
 of that vast northern hive, which so often shook the world like a 
 great tempest, arid overflowed like a torrent ; changing names, and 
 customs, and government, and language, and the very face of 
 nature, wherever they seated themselves ; which, upon record of 
 story, under the name of Gauls, pierced into Greece and Italy, 
 sacking Rome, and besieging the capital in Camillus his time : 
 under that of the Cimbers, marcht through France to the very 
 confines of Italy, defended by Marius ; under that of Huns or 
 Lombards, Visigoths, Goths, and Vandals, conquered the whole 
 forces of the Roman empire, sackt Rome thrice in a small comj>.i->> 
 of years ; seated their kingdoms in Spain and Africk, as well as 
 Lombardy ; and under that of Danes or Normans, possest them- 
 selves of England, a great part of France, and even of Naples and 
 Sicily: how (I say) these nations, which seemed to spawn in every 
 age, and at some intervals of time discharged their own native 
 countreys of so vast numbers, and with snch terror to the world, 
 should about seven or eight hundred years ago leave off the use of 
 these furious expeditions, as if on a sudden they should have grown 
 barren, or tame, or better contented with their own ill climates. 
 But I suppose we owe this benefit wholly to the growth and pro- 
 gress of Christianity in the north; by which, early and uiid^tin- 
 guisht copulation, or multitude of wives, were either restrained or 
 abrogated ; by the same means learning and civility got footing 
 among them in some degree, and enclosed certain circuits of those 
 vast regions, by the distinctions and bounds of kingdoms, princi- 
 palities, or commonalties. Men began to leave their wilder lives, 
 spent without other cares or pleasures than of food, or of lust ; and 
 betook themselves to the ease and entertainment of societies : with 
 order and labour, riches began and trade followed : and these made 
 way for luxury, and that for many diseases or ill habits of body, 
 which, unknown to the former and simpler ages, began to shorten 
 and weaken both life and procreation." 
 
 Sir William Temple's Observations upon the United 
 Provinces of the Netherlands.
 
 337 
 
 glory and to crime, we have our solution at hand. 
 " The lord hath prepared his seat in heaven, and his 
 kingdom ruleth overall." They had checked iniquity 
 in others, and were become iniquitous themselves. 
 Their destiny was sealed, and their destruction follow* 
 ed of course. 
 
 We have now, gentlemen, in retrospect, the scenery 
 of upwards of four thousand years. All the great 
 empires of antiquity have passed in review before us; 
 their laws and usages, their abstinences and in- 
 dulgencies. We have seen how they flourished and 
 how they fell ; how they got up their hearts, and 
 what silently knawed, and consumed, and eat them 
 away ; what administered to their reputation and 
 strength, and how that strength was withered and that 
 reputation perished. And now we see the rule of 
 their universal dominion over, and the offspring of 
 their fame, some adopting, some rejecting their laws ; 
 some governing in their departed despotism, and 
 some nourishing in their departed glory. Let us 
 look at these awful vestiges of desolation, and take up 
 our instruction from their misfortunes. The Assy- 
 rian grandeur must not be ours if we wish to remain 
 a frugal, temperate, great nation. We must reject 
 the Persian pride if we are desirous of uniting other 
 kingdoms under a bond of affection tons. We must 
 avoid those intestine tumults of the Grecian states 
 that merged their republics into monarchy, if we 
 would not deliver ourselves over a prey to some potent 
 neighbour; and we must detest the levelling princi- 
 ples of tribunitial Rome and the ferocious spirit of 
 her populace, as we hope to continue the subjects of 
 a free state and of a limited monarchy; of that mo- 
 narchy which congregates around her all the virtues, 
 and casts behind her all the infamies of these ancient 
 governments. Nor must we be too grasping and 
 covetous after empire, but rather covet to rule well 
 what we have. The Macedonian, though he wielded 
 
 x x
 
 338 
 
 a mighty, wielded an empty sceptre; for none of his 
 descendants were suffered to retain any possessions 
 in that world he had conquered, or to draw the thread 
 of their existence to the common length. Scarcely 
 had he buried in a poor and narrow grave all the 
 large ambitions of his soul, e'er a quenchless treason 
 swept away his race and name, and the treachery 
 which thus hurried them to an early rest presently 
 made its own dark tomb, and laid ilself down by the 
 side of those it had bereft of light and life. So 
 changeable a thing is fortune; so sad a pursuit is 
 ambition, and so transitory the magnificence which 
 men covet and the very kingdoms over which they 
 rule. 
 
 What ages may produce we cannot tell. What 
 they have produced we know. When we recollect 
 that a time was when this kingdom was not ; when 
 only Greece marked the civilized existence of Europe, 
 and the deserts of Africa gave light to the world, we 
 can believe that a time will be when the British 
 empire, and the French monarchy, and the kingdoms 
 of the continent shall decay as fast as they have risen, 
 and other nations more simple, more temperate in 
 their habits, more severe in their morals, shall tread 
 us underfoot; and that from the remnants of our 
 present political world shall be gathered up another 
 world to go through the same successive stages of 
 refinement and debasement, and then to follow us 
 down to the dust. What was Greece when the 
 Asiatic courts were high in splendour; when the 
 Babylonian, the Persian, the Mede, were stretching 
 their rule of glory over the dark dominions of the 
 earth? What was Rome when Greece was in the 
 splendour of her fame, or England when Home was 
 blasting and blazing in her meridian? What, till of 
 late have been Russia and America while England 
 was fixed in her greatness ? Or what were any of 
 these kingdoms when Egypt, hoary in years and in
 
 science, was trimming her lamp and sending forth 
 her light to every quarter of (he globe? The de- 
 cadency of empire is gradual, but certain ; gradual, 
 because it takes time to become great, and, after so 
 becoming, to decline ; certain, because conquest in- 
 troduces luxury, and luxury effeminacy, and be- 
 cause the images of death multiply as the inlets to 
 ambition and to vice are multiplied. We cannot be 
 great without being virtuous, and alas ! almost the 
 moment we are great, we cease to be virtuous ; and 
 then is seen the destroying angel in the clouds of 
 heaven, and our fame and our infamy pass alike into 
 oblivion. 
 
 Politically we cannot scorn the page of history, 
 nor turn us from the decadency of states and em- 
 pires Morally we can as little disregard these 
 epitomes of human greatness ; they subdue our wild 
 thirstings after fame, and throw us back upon useful 
 and wise recollections. As a part of mere studious 
 research, the subject connects itself with our fondest 
 sources of literary enjoyment. We behold Babylon 
 faded into a compleat forgetfulness, and Athens 
 hardly redeeming herself from the lapse of ages. 
 We see Rome yet lingering in departed majesty, and 
 filling the earth with her vestiges of magnificence as 
 she once filled it with her renown. I envy the 
 traveller who visits this consecrated spot ; lonely, 
 silent, bringing back the dead images of ancient 
 years, and touching a chord that still vibrates, after 
 the sound is vanished, to all that passion sanctifies 
 and all that patriotism adores. It is beautiful to talk 
 with past times and to live past ages over rgain ; to 
 call before us the awful forms gone down to the dust; 
 to seem to hear their voices, to imbue us with their 
 sentiments, and to feel the soul chastised into virtue 
 by such reflections as such situations are calculated to 
 inspire. It delighteth the mind with I know not 
 what sort of charmed melancholy, to sit arnid the still
 
 340 
 
 MHI^^ ,i--_i. ,__i_ 
 
 i i . . i f . - 
 
 nuns and contemplate the decays of nature, and of 
 the \vorld \vhich we inhabit, nnd of ail that gave 
 colouring, and spirit, nnd magnificence to that world ; 
 to ponder over the vast and chssic mausoleum dimly 
 spread around us ; to see liow greatness has shrouded 
 from morlal recollection ; how co'd arn!)ition lies ; 
 how glory hath shrunk and hid itself in the chamhers 
 of death ; how poor, and forsaken, and joyless the 
 scene that once maddened the earth with its triumphs, 
 and how one long night of silence is thrown over 
 Imperial Rome, where, mixt with herPhydian sculp- 
 tures and the ruins of her grandeur, in that rest of 
 ages so awful to reflect upon, " man lieth down and 
 riseth not till the heavens he no more." Her palaces, 
 her porticos, her temples, glatues, triumphal arches, 
 green with years and venerahle in their decay, are all 
 mouldering through their lines of beauty, and sink- 
 ing, like their parent state, into forgetfulness and 
 dust. 
 
 O ! how envy would die in us, could we cast back 
 reflection on the objects of it as we do on the gran- 
 deur of departed empires ! To see the glories of 
 the human mind this moment, and its desolations the 
 next! To behold it laying itself out for a narrow 
 and uncertain fame, and content to bear the evil 
 judgments of the present time for the cold and chear- 
 Jess hope that slander will sleep with it in the grave, 
 and that posterity will do it an ampler justice ! The 
 genius of man is, alas ! the seal of his suffering. All 
 his rich stores of intellect are often but stores of un- 
 easiness to himself. How short, how miserably short 
 too, are his executions of his conceptions. Could he 
 give the images that fill the mind in his happy mo- 
 ments ; could he arrest the hot and burning thought 
 as, like lightning, it rushes through his soul, and 
 draws after it that wondrous train of association which 
 brings back the scenery, the feelings, the regrets, the 
 transports of early life, and sits before him, in their
 
 341 
 
 sweet and youthful colouring, all that time had nearly 
 staled and worn out of remembrance ; man might 
 hope to leave behind him fond and durable records. 
 But, a fallen, every way a fallen creature, he is only 
 destined to catch a glimpse of the irradiations of ge- 
 nius. When he has housed the produce, instead of 
 a rich harvest he finds that he has merely arrested 
 the poor meager gleanings of a finished conception ; 
 of that conception which age shall presently denudate, 
 should the chances of mortality be permitted to spare! 
 For time, gentlemen, ns we know and feel, and I 
 hope shall have virtue enough to let it influence our 
 conduct, both religious and political; time is wearing 
 out in us all the few and short powers that Provi- 
 dence hath thought fit to invest us with here, and 
 only a pale colourless line will presently be left to tell 
 us what and how rich our sensations once were. 
 These are the consequences of declining life, and we 
 have no refuge from them. We cannot bid the years 
 roll back, and restring our nerves, and recruit our 
 strength, and renew our spirits. We cannot, God 
 be praised, subject them to the task of going through 
 the same jaded circle of voluptuousness, of folly, and 
 of madness. Of that which is formed with the most 
 wonder, the decay is usually the most rapid. An 
 invisible hand touches us, and we instantly feel a de- 
 solation spread through all our powers of mind. Our 
 memory fails, our judgment fails, our ambitions lie 
 down hopeless, heartless, disappointed! Our very 
 affections droop and suffer estrangement! We feel 
 as if all about us was strangely beginning to be cast 
 into a new and awful mould; all undergoing aliena- 
 tion of one sort or other, until at length there is no- 
 thing left us but the ashes of our second childhood ! 
 This is the last pitiable state of humanity, and, crea- 
 tures of an hour, let us repose in the Divine goodness, 
 and forbear to sigh over it. For so dreadful in our 
 apprehensions, what is it in itself? The return of
 
 342 
 
 man, by a way he knoweth not, to his native inno- 
 cence; the gently ebbing back of all his tumultuous 
 passions into their first quiet bed; the preparation of 
 a guilty repenting soul for those happier mansions in 
 his "Father's house," whither he is hasting, and 
 where, without this new nature awfully vouchsafed 
 him, he might despair of being received. Grieve at 
 that second childhood to which we see our beloved 
 friends and relatives reduced ? No, believe me ; we 
 know our Christian duties and our Christian consola- 
 tions better. We bless the hand thus mercifully 
 soothing and closing up the wounds which the world 
 had made in their virtuous dispositions, their warm 
 affections ; we hail the decay that enables them to 
 cast off" their earthly pollutions, and that sweetly lays 
 them down in their quiet bed, with every uneasy 
 thought after this sublunary state obliterated before 
 they are called from it ! 
 
 I am now, gentlemen, drawing to a conclusion. 
 T have taken my time in committing this Letter to 
 the press. 1 am not sorry for it. It has afforded 
 me the opportunity of better reviewing and recon- 
 sidering the whole, and of contemplating the general 
 face of affairs, and how men and things are going on 
 around me. All I continue to see and hear and read, 
 beget in my mind the persuasion that I have not 
 erroneously described, or unduly estimated the danger 
 of the present crisis ; that 1 have not presented a 
 fake and glaring view of the unhinged state of 
 society among us, nor of the causes which have con- 
 tributed to it. The pourtrait 1 have exhibited is not 
 one which a warm imagination may sketch of the 
 British empire, according to the force of present 
 seducements or present panics; it is not given as a 
 thing which you may contemplate or turn away from ; 
 which you may view as the exaggeration of party, or 
 the prophecies of presumption ; as something that 
 solicits notice from its sombre drapery, but that,
 
 343 
 
 brought to the test of a sober experience, would fade 
 into the tame colouring of ordinary occurrence. No 
 the scene is but too truly drawn from nature as it 
 lies in its own hot and reaking deformity before our 
 eyes. Nor think that you see the whole of the dismal 
 pourtraiture. I have merely unrolled a part of the 
 dark canvass. I have set before you "nothing like 
 the image and horror of it." 
 
 The pith and marrow however of the business, I 
 think, comes to this Either in the present crisis of 
 affairs, we are, or we are riot in danger of a revolution 
 in this kingdom. Put the case, gentlemen, that we 
 are in no danger of such an event, and that the fore- 
 going picture is but the fandom sketch of fancy ; how 
 in such case stands the line of conduct pursued by our 
 Whig adversaries and their more respectable follow- 
 ers? They are, by their continued appeals to the 
 passions of the people, making them out of love with 
 a government, that, whatever may be its defects, yet 
 possesses a large portion of general esteem. They 
 are agitating and unsettling a mighty mass of strength 
 that, for the security of all parties, ought to lie dor- 
 mant. They are teaching sober, honest, orderly sub- 
 jects to think scorn of every thing that is intended, 
 and of much that is effected for their good. They 
 are clogging the legislature, in its most as well as in 
 its least wholesome regulations, with impediments 
 which cannot but have an ill effect on the administra- 
 tion of government. Instead of gratefully enjoying 
 themselves in their abundance, and silently noticing 
 and carefully and gradually remedying the abuses of 
 the state, and the unavoidable miseries of poverty, 
 they are setting all afloat on the large sea of reform, 
 and risking the happiness (to take them on their own 
 ground) of a quiet and well affected empire, without a 
 chance of making any thing better by such a mode of 
 procedure than they find it. No mighty good, there- 
 fore, are they effecting, even should the prospect of a 
 revolution be doubtful and distant.
 
 344 
 
 But, allowing that there is a probability of such a 
 dreadful event, and a very great probability too, in 
 what light can we then behold the conduct of our 
 Whig reformers and revilers; our Albemarles, our 
 Cokes, our Broughams, our Burdetts, and all that with 
 vast landed possessions, or high talent, are advocat- 
 ing the bold notions of the present day ? VVhy-r with 
 intentions, far enough, I trust, removed from any thing 
 beyond tumbling their opponents headlong out of 
 power, they will have been drawing the line for re- 
 volution to proceed in, and giving to these evil spirits 
 their best apologies for evil. They will have been 
 turning many from an established government who 
 would have engaged heart and soul in its support. 
 They will have been furnishing every miscreant 
 throughout the kingdom with his materials for rebel- 
 lion, and giving to every seditious meeting, from Ber- 
 wick to the Land's End, the sanction of their counte- 
 nance, the weight of their authority, the credit of 
 supporting their opinions. They will have been in- 
 structing every demagogue in the art of decrying es- 
 tablished usages, and of undermining established irvsti- 
 stitutions ; and it is neither cure nor consolation to us 
 to add, that, thus edging the sword for the day of 
 slaughter, they will have been preparing for the con- 
 fiscation of their own property, which that govern- 
 ment they will have thus helped to overthrow has 
 hitherto guarded and protected them in, and held as 
 sacred as her existence. Which of these opposite 
 opinions the country may take up and eventually rest 
 in, there is no saying, though certainly many intelli- 
 gent persons do deem a revolution not unlikely.* 
 
 * Of this opinion is Mr. Justice Marshall, as will be seen by 
 the following extract from his charge to the grand jury of Chester ^ 
 at the late assizes. " The true origin of much the greatest part of 
 the increase of crime may, I think, be traced to the machinations 
 of a certain description of persons actuated, some by a most daring
 
 345 
 
 I will not positively declare that Mr. Coke of Nor- 
 folk is among this number, hut, if he he, how deep 
 the reproach that; under such an awful conviction, 
 must rest on his past and present conduct. All ex- 
 tenuations of such conduct liberally allowed for, still 
 how deep the reproach! 
 
 There is, gentlemen, I repeat, but one way of 
 saving the country in the nature and tendency of the 
 present spirit of the times, and that is by unanimity. 
 We must lay aside private feuds, private wrongs, pri- 
 vate interests, and forget every good that is not con- 
 nected with the salvation of the empire. Must we go 
 to Pagan heroes and philosophers to teach us ouf 
 Christian duties? " Sed cum omnia rations ani- 
 moque fustraris, omnium societatum nulla est gra~ 
 vior, nulla carior, quam ea, quae cum rep. est 
 unicuique nostrum : cari sunt parentes, cari liheri, 
 propinqui, familiar es : sed ornnes omnium, caritates 
 patria una complexa est . pro qua quis bonus dubitet 
 mortem oppetere, si ei sit pro/uturus ? Quo est de- 
 testabiiior istorum immanitas, qui lacerarunt omni 
 scelere patriam, et in ea funditus delenda occu- 
 pati et sunt, et fuerunt "* And how nobly ful- 
 filled they those duties, and how studiously avoided 
 those villanies, distant as they were, in these their 
 pure ages of patriotism, from the very dawnings of 
 Christianity. Amid the Persian banquets why retained 
 Themistocles the Grecian spirit? On what principle 
 avenged Brutus the violation of Lucrece, or com* 
 manded the Roman father the execution of a vic- 
 torious and beloved son ? Where died the revenge* 
 
 ambition, others by the hope of plunder, others by different motives 
 equally criminal ; but all of them manifestly aiming at revolution, 
 and the subversion of the constitution of their country." Judge 
 Best too, 1 think, entertains sentiments not very dissimilar to these. 
 And declarations of a lik > nature have occasionally been made la 
 both Houses of Parliament. 
 
 * Cicero. De Officiis, Lib. 117. 
 
 vy
 
 346 
 
 ful spirit of Camillus? Where paused the incite- 
 ments toglorv in (lie hronsl of Fabius ? In their re- 
 gard, tlieir deep, their perpetual anxiety for their 
 country. The moment that solemn chord of the 
 heart \vas touched. " their love, and their hatred, 
 and their envy," all perished ! 
 
 Life had no charms nor any terror fate 
 
 When Home and i^lory called. 
 
 These noble minds, in the hour of peril, forgot every 
 thing; hut the salvation of their country, and, in their 
 estimation, that country was worthy of having every 
 thing forgot for it. And is not, I beseech you, gen- 
 tlemen, our country worthy of the like sacrifice, of 
 the like immolation of all the narrow base passions of 
 our nature? Actors in the scenes that have lately 
 astonished and appalled mankind, we must remove us 
 from the spot before we can judge of the prospect. 
 We must shake off all present prejudices and carry 
 us forward in the annals of time, and fancy ourselves 
 living in our posterity three or four centuries hence. 
 From this advanced period and position, let us look 
 back, as from some awful eminence, on the age in 
 which we live, and the events that will have then 
 ceased to "crowd on our aching sight." With the 
 selfish interests and vain ambitions obliterated that 
 now forbid an impartial judgment of men and things, 
 what see we ? We see a nation, powerful among the 
 kingdoms of the earth, exposed with them to a com- 
 mon danger and expecting to share a common fate. 
 We see her, suffering nojealousies to shake her faith 
 or to palsy her strength, arming for battle, and stand- 
 ing up with an undaunted mien for the general free- 
 dom and existence. We see her leading forth the 
 flower of her warriors, and fighting her way to the 
 decaying thrones around her, and binding up their 
 wounds, and chearing their spirits, and imparting 
 fresh vigour to their counsels and fresh courage to 
 their hearts. We see her animating their despond-
 
 347 
 
 ing ranks, and exhorting, urging, commanding, mix- 
 ing the heroism of her soul wi ; h theirs and compelling 
 them on to glory. We see this invincible nation on 
 the shores of Ahouker, of Copenhagen, of the Texei, 
 of the Nile, pouring her thunders on the blaspheming 
 adversary, and at Trafalgar, a name at once dear to 
 our fame and painful to our remembrance, trium- 
 phantly taking into her hands the very destiny of the 
 ocean. We see her, clothed in fire, passing over 
 kingdoms and ruling over emergencies, and alike pre- 
 sent in every quarter; in the plains of Portugal ; in 
 the provinces of Spain ; in the passes of the Alps ; in 
 the heart of France. Where the brunt of the battle 
 was, (here was she. Where the thunders of the war 
 were heard, the chearings of England were heard 
 too. No soul talked of fear while she was nigh ; 
 none of flight. Her arm was strong and her eye was 
 awful. She counselled for all ; she felt for all ; she 
 fought, and conquered, and poured forth her best 
 and dearest blood for all. And on the field of Water- 
 loo, meeting the concentrated genius and power of 
 the disturber of mankind, she immortalized her 
 career of glory, by reducing him to the last curses of 
 despair, and O God ! thine arm was here sealing in 
 his destruction the security of the civilized world ! 
 
 It is matter of astonishment how any man can be 
 found dead enough to generous feeling to dare to lift 
 up unholy hands against such a country as this. Con- 
 sider, gentlemen, with me this dear and generous 
 England that they are so desirous to visit with reform 
 and to blast with revolution. See her external port; 
 what an air of majesty marks it; not of yesterday's 
 growth, but venerable in wisdom andgathering respect 
 from " length of days." See how her palaces adorn 
 the land; what a soil and clime she boast; how her 
 " valleys stand thick with corn, and Irfugh and sing." 
 Look at the understanding, the industry, the skill of 
 her husbandmen, as exemplified in the garden of our 
 
 v-y 2
 
 348 
 
 Eastern shore. Look at her cities, each one a diadem 
 of former days; her villages and hamlets, with "the 
 voice of joy and health" yet in their dwelling's; her 
 commerce spreading- over and embracing the world ; 
 her manufactures moving conjointly with her com- 
 merce, and hitherto defy ing cotnpetion; her charities 
 pouring their rich stores through a thousand channels 
 both at home and abroad ; her sons, the theme of 
 of praise, and deserving to be so, for in every trans- 
 action, left to their unstained feelings, the English 
 statesman, soldier, scholar, merchant, are alike frank 
 and manly; her daughters, at once the admiration of 
 foreign empires and the pride and ornament of their 
 own, stealing somewhat perhaps of the last polish of 
 their manners from a neighbouring slate, but still 
 sacredly preserving the primitive delicacy of their 
 minds; still building the English female character on 
 its original dignified foundation, a native innocence 
 and virtue.* All come from the same school ; all 
 
 * There are few instances, and it speaks much in our praise, of 
 a forgetfulness of gallantry in the English nation, and especially 
 towards their own fair countrywomen. An example of this kind, 
 however, lately occurred in, L am sorry to observe, our own neigh- 
 bourhood, where, upon some public occasion, the chairman, I am 
 informed, gave as a toast, and in a very marked manner, " Mrs. 
 
 and \l\e-Whig Ladies of the county of Norfolk." Here is 
 
 a sufficient want of politeness and no great overplus of policy. But 
 it is as yet, I hope, an insulated act of disrespect ; and should the 
 party venture to enter it on their books as a precedent, the Paphian 
 deity, incensed at the insult, would obliterate it with scorn. The 
 dominion of the sex must be considered as supreme. Where 
 female delicacy is seen, party is submissive ; where female virtue 
 presides, party is awed. Where woman puts on her robe of innor 
 cence and beauty, she has the world at her feet, and annihilates all 
 petty, political distinctions in a moment. " Mrs. - - and the 
 Whig Ladies of the county of Norfolk !" Blush ingrate, whdever 
 thou art, blush for having thus attempted to sully the stream from 
 whence man draws r.ll that sweetens the cup of life, that hushes up 
 its cares, and makes the blessed sun grateful to him ! But the 
 Tory Luilies will have their revenge ; for as Brutus was appalled 
 by the spirit of Caesar in the field of Philippi, so may Mr. Coke
 
 349 
 
 are imbued with the same generous, just, religious 
 feelings, impressed on them from infancy by one com- 
 mon nursing mother, part spiritual, part temporal, 
 but in the majestic formation of national character 
 strictly and sacredly indivisible, the Established Con- 
 stitution in Church and State ! O who would not wish 
 for such a beautiful and beloved country, to carry with 
 him to his grave the feelings of the expiring Antores? 
 
 cael unique 
 
 Aspicit, et dulces moricns rominiscitur Ar<jos.* 
 When I bring before my view her departed legisla- 
 tors and heroes, the kings, counsellors, warriors she 
 has produced ; the noble deeds she hath atchieved ; 
 how her glory hath spread itself over the known 
 world, and her mercy followed on the tract of her 
 glory when I consider these great things she has 
 done, these great men she hath bred, these noble ad- 
 vantages she possesses, this grand and goodly appear- 
 ance she puts on, and that in every distant age and 
 clime, spurning a narrow sordid interest, she hath 
 laid herself out for posterity, and scorning death and 
 danger, has compelled the nations of the earth at once 
 to tremble and adore how unbearable is it to think 
 that her life and dignity should be attempted by such 
 low, groveling, vulgar instruments as, instigated by 
 those of better condition, our disaffected cities and 
 counties are daily pouring forth ; that the restorer of 
 peace and happiness to countless multitudes, return- 
 ing, like the ill-fated Argive, from her fields of re- 
 nown, should receive the poignard of the assassin 
 from the objects of her affection, from those whom 
 she had saved by her valour, and, had their miserable 
 souls permitted, would have consecrated for ever in 
 the recollections of posterity. 
 
 Look, gentlemen, as you would preserve yourselves 
 
 have to encounter the frowns of his fair adversaries when contend- 
 ing for life and death on the Castle-hill at Norwich. 
 * JEneld, Lib, X.
 
 350 
 
 and your families, look to France, butchered and 
 bleeding France, and with her limbs stil! quivering 
 and convulsed, and take rare of England. 1 ask not 
 what we shall think of revolution at its acme, but how 
 we shall feel when the scene only just begins to open 
 upon us ; when there is no more deference to autho- 
 rity, no more respect to age, no more tenderness to 
 infancy, no more gallantry to sex; when all the dis- 
 tinctions which policy, which generosity, which a 
 noble manly British spirit had created is fading away ; 
 when wealth is but pointed at for its plunder; when 
 birth is but noticed to insult it; when domestic ties 
 are acknowledged only to prove how easily they may 
 be cancelled when that which gave life, and dignity, 
 and delicacy to all is taken from all, and a savageness 
 of manners, a rude insolent defiance of courtesy fills up 
 every vacancy which the succession of our virtues has 
 made ? Yet this is nothing but the mere husk of the 
 business, the first rough coating of the mind for re- 
 volution. The work of revolution itself will be per- 
 formed on a higher scale. For this destiny you will 
 behold the hordes of miscreants, without any thing 
 human about them but the human shape, who, like 
 the army of Anthonius, when you point to Cremona 
 and offer it as their spoil, will lend their souls to ini- 
 quity in a thousand different ways, and perish under a 
 thousand different forms for the possession of so in- 
 ticing a treasure. Sense of injustice, bickerings of 
 conscience, touch of remorse they will have none. 
 All will be seared up with a red hot iron, and every 
 unheard of cruelty they will put down in their list of 
 mere common casualties. Their balance will be 
 suspended in the slaughter house, and they will have 
 their pound of flesh without baiting a single drop of 
 blood. In vain, to meet such hot and maddening 
 Alexanders, will J add as go forth in his pontifical 
 robes. The sacred vails of our temples shall be sus- 
 pended from our habitations in vain ! We shall be
 
 351 
 
 able neither to implore nor to "look their rage 
 away." As to where and with whom this dreadful 
 tragedy will end, that is a matter not worth a moment's 
 notice. What signifies it to eyes that will soon be 
 closed and hearts that will soon be cold ; on whose 
 heads the storm of revolution will eventually beat with 
 the most fury, or how soon they may themselves be 
 stretched on the rack, that, by their weak or wicked 
 conduct, have brought these doctrines upon others. 
 When Socrates has drank off the poisoned chalice, 
 who will bestow a thought on the fate of Melitus ? 
 The furies that, are ready to burst forth be assured 
 will care nothing about either employers or opposers. 
 They will prepare a common sepulchre and hurry 
 into it, " no reckoning made," both the dignity and 
 the wretchedness of the realm. They will yoke 
 youth with decrepitude and beauty with deformity, 
 and drive all alike before them to the "waste domi- 
 nions of the dead," where one shroud shall be thrown 
 over their multitudinous victims, and one dark dismal 
 oblivion await their dissolution. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, forgiving the desultory 
 nature, look well to the spirit and tendency of the 
 foregoing reflections. Strip them of every extrane- 
 ous covering. Take away from them all acrimony 
 which is not deserved. Give no credence to repre- 
 sentations which the " signs of the times" do not 
 support. Repose no confidence in assertions which 
 the existing state of things among us does not war- 
 rant. Look upon nothing in this Letter as said that, 
 to your thinking, is not said in truth and righteous- 
 ness, and with sufficient degress of probability to 
 sanction and second it. For it cannot be any wish 
 of him who would willingly act, so far as human 
 infirmity will permit, a principled part, to desire that 
 to go for truth which is without its sacred stamp, or 
 to hope that aught should influence the mind which 
 is built upon wrong notions, or false principles, or
 
 partial, prejudiced, hasty views, or that is not honestly 
 born out by the events accumulating- upon us. 
 Baring then these reflections to their very pith and 
 marrow, like jurymen on a trial of life and death, 
 lay your hands upon your hearts and honestly give 
 your verdict. If the state of this kingdom, political, 
 moral, and religious, be not as I have represented it ; 
 if the spirit of the times be neither tending to de- 
 mocracy, nor, with such a tendency, would be injuri- 
 ous to our limited monarchy; if the dissenting* 
 interest be not daily increasing in influence and 
 enmity, and daily operating upon, and adding to the 
 large mass of national disaffections ;* if a chain of 
 disorganization be not forming link by link, and 
 running through the heart of the kingdom, and 
 binding up every doctrine dissonant to the quiet and 
 welfare of the realm ; if freedom of speech and the 
 liberty of the press may remain in their present 
 licentious state, and neither public peace, nor private 
 comfort, nor the morals of the community be at all 
 affected by it ; if a sagacious eye can discern no 
 similarity between the present state of England and 
 that which brought about the destruction of France, 
 or even if a revolution should come to pass in this 
 country, do not contemplate it in all that horror with 
 which warm and alarmed feelings may be apt to 
 depict it; if you have large estates and care not how 
 soon they are confiscated; comfortable fire sides and 
 are heedless how long they may continue so ; do- 
 mestic relations dear to your hearts, but are in* 
 
 * I am not unwilling that these reflections should be judged of 
 by this criterion alone. If the dissenting interest be not at the 
 root of the present unsettled state of the kingdom, I have neither 
 a hope nor a wish that the least regard should be paid to any thing 
 I have advanced ; for assuredly almost all my positions are built 
 upon that ground. The dissenting spirit and the dissenting mecha- 
 nism are every where equally visible. They have long done theif 
 religious, they are now doing their political work.
 
 353 
 
 different as to how soon or how suddenly they may 
 be dissolved ; if your nerves are of so steely a texture 
 that you can look with apathy on all that makes good 
 men "exceedingly fear and tremble" if these, gen- 
 tlemen., be the expression of your feelings, the deci- 
 sions of your judgment, the fixt and settled determi- 
 nation of your souls, your course is before you 
 lend your spirit to the times; cry out, with the dis- 
 senters, upon the persecutions of the church; discard 
 all who treat democracy with contempt, and, hailing 
 with rapture the success of the " radical reformers," 
 pin your faith upon their sleeves, and enthrone them, 
 in your hearts, and give them power to become your 
 arbiters of life and death. 
 
 But if, on the other hand, after fairly weighing and 
 maturely digesting every circumstance here insisted 
 upon, and comparing therewith every occurrence 
 now passing before your eyes and in the face of open 
 day, you are inclined to repose in the representations 
 thus imperfectly set before you if you believe that 
 revolution, nurtured in democracy and dissent, may 
 actually be drawing near to us if you have quiet 
 comfortable homes and desire to retain them, and 
 faithful wives and innocent children and wish to pre- 
 serve them, and landed possessions which you are irt 
 no hurry to have forced from you by ruffian violence, 
 and little independent properties, the fruits of your 
 honest industry, and are anxious to keep them for 
 your own support in the decline of life, and for the 
 sustenance of your families when you are taken away 
 if you have any regard for those ancestors, yet liv- 
 ing in your remembrance and dear to your affections, 
 who preserved their duty to their king and country, 
 under every temptation to forget both ; Who clung to 
 and venerated the established church, and from that 
 church received their sweetest earthly consolation, and, 
 now that they are removed, may, through the' same 
 sacred instrumentality, be destined to partake of a 
 
 z z
 
 354 
 
 consolation still more sacred and lasting if, in short, 
 you respect the good old religion of your fathers, and 
 disdain that dreadful pious hypocrisy which is en- 
 tering into "kings' palaces/' and lording it over an 
 insulted realm ; bow down all your little envyings of 
 heart, and shew a noble spirit of combined wisdom 
 and patriotism, and throughout the kingdom support 
 those men., and those only, whose souls burn with the 
 same holy fire as your own, and who are anxious to 
 advocate firmly, fearlessly, perpetually, the same holy 
 principles ; those principles which have made and 
 have preserved us a great and enduring people ; those 
 principles which must for ever attach the freeholders 
 of Norfolk to the HOUSE OF KIMBERLEY, and disjoin 
 them from the HOUSE OF HOLKHAM ; from that house 
 and all its branches mens agitat molem which are 
 labouring night and day to consign such principles 
 to ruin. You cannot patronize representatives of this 
 cast and be consistent. You cannot patronize them 
 and be safe. Their offences, in times like these, ad- 
 mit of no apology, no extenuation, no erasure. "The 
 sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron." 
 
 And in this patriotic, this noble determination to 
 rail)' round an insulted and threatened monarchy, 
 think not, gentlemen, that we shall stand alone. 
 Our adversaries, indeed, surprize us by their dexterity 
 and deter us by a sort of resolute impudence;* for 
 
 * From the second number of the Anti-Jacobin, a periodical 
 work published at Norwich, and which I am sorry to find is not 
 more regularly continued, it will be seen how this dexterity and 
 resolute impudence work in that city. " In 1814 a petition was 
 prepared against the corn bill; and as this bill was very unpopular 
 in the city, there would have been no difficulty in obtaining, in a 
 fair way, a sufficient number of real signatures to answer all honest 
 purposes. But this would not satisfy the party who took the lead 
 who seldom apply to parliament without attempting to deceive 
 it, and who never appeal to the people without inflaming their 
 minds against their governors. In the latter of these patriotic
 
 355 
 
 they represent all as yielded that is yet in hand ; all as 
 done that is yet to do ; every matter as settled that they 
 wish to see settled ; every soul as already subdued 
 and corrupted that they are dying with anxiety to 
 corrupt. But give no credence to, be not cast down 
 by their exaggerations, nor believe that they are carry- 
 ing the nation before them because they are congre- 
 gating their ranks, (and a most alarming phalanx they 
 certainly present) with all the bad spirits of the 
 nation. There is a large body of loyalty yet in the 
 land ; a great mass of our population, awful by its 
 virtue and mighty in its strength, that has never yet 
 been fairly roused. They are not boisterous, they are 
 
 attempts, they made in the present instance rather an unlucky 
 mistake, for the blow aimed at ministers fell plump upon the head 
 of poor 'Squire Coke. Forgery and deception, however, flourished 
 without controul, and the party were determined to out-do them- 
 selves. The management of the business was put into proper 
 hands and who so proper to take charge of the enormous roll as 
 the secretary to the White Swan forgery ? Mr. Smith received it 
 from this guileless delegate, and presented it to the House as the 
 petition of the inhabitants of Norwich only, and as containing the 
 incredible number of more than 12,000 signatures. Had the 
 Honourable Member been as quick sighted to the forgeries of his 
 friends as he is to the supposed flaws of his enemies, he would at 
 once have seen that he was presenting to the House falsehoods by 
 the gross, calculated and intended to deceive it. He could. not but 
 know that the whole of the male population of the city amounted 
 only to between 15 and 16,000. Had he thrown out of that num. 
 ber, children and others under age, with those who could not 
 write, he would have found upon the principles of statistical calcu- 
 lation, that there were not 5000 male adults in the city who could 
 sign their names, and that consequently, had the city been unani- 
 mous, more than 7000 must have been either forgeries or decep- 
 tuous signatures. But without going into the niceties of calculation, 
 
 or calling upon Mr. S 's profound wisdom to assist us, the 
 
 commonest understanding in the city will clearly see that there 
 must have been several thousand of these forged or fraudulent 
 signatures." How does Mr. Smith exonerate himself from this 
 charge ? If the business be here correctly represented (and there 
 may not perhaps be much doubt of it), it is a very serious charge. 
 
 z z 2
 
 356 
 
 not forward. They are not seen filling our County 
 courts, our City meetings, our Crown and Anchor an- 
 niversaries, our Jacobin assemblages in every quarter 
 for reform in church and state. They are quietly 
 reposing at home. They are industriously earning 
 their bread and living gratefully upon it. They are 
 walking through life in the cool retired vale, wishing 
 to live in peace, and to be permitted to enjoy such 
 happiness as a good religion and a good government 
 have long afforded them. These men will not lightly 
 be moved by the seditious movements around them. 
 They will not believe that that state is out of order 
 where so many of its subjects have been doing well, 
 and where more might have done so but for their own 
 unsettled tempers, and extravagant habits, and inordi- 
 nate desires. These are the body of reserve which 
 our country will call out in the hour of her danger. 
 These, composed of and comprehending various low- 
 lier degrees, will array them in the strength of their 
 obedience, and will shew our adversaries what the 
 British laws, and government and religion really are ; 
 what are their potency, their virtue, their intimate ac- 
 cordance with the happiness, their capacity of engag- 
 ing, in return, the gratitude of the subject. 
 
 \n this assemblage too we shall find the nobility, 
 gentry, and clergy of the land ; all who have here- 
 ditary dignities and estates, honours, revenues, or 
 lives to lose ; all who are capable of entering into the 
 feelings, and of adopting the beautiful and correct 
 sentiments of the orator ; ' magnum est enim eadem 
 habere monumenta majorum, iisdem uti sacris, 
 sepulchra habere communia,"* Here also, had it 
 pleased Prov idence to have spared him to our prayers, 
 here we should have found a beloved and revered 
 MONARCH, at once venerable in his years, in his vir- 
 
 * Tull. Cic. De Officiius. Lib. I. 17.
 
 357 
 
 tues, and in his sufferings. His has been a long 
 reign ; a reign of mildness and justice towards his 
 people,, and of tolerance to every sect of dissenters, 
 but accompanied withal, (and we thank God for it 
 as we would for the salvation of the state) by a firm., 
 dignified, and most wise support of the ecclesiastical 
 establishment. The principles that fixed him on the 
 throne of these realms (whatever our ungracious ad- 
 versaries may dare to insinuate) have never been 
 infringed, never violated. These principles the So- 
 vereign remembered when his Whig ministers forgot, 
 and sacredly abided by when his Whig cabinet was 
 rash enough to advise him to act in contradiction to. 
 But he ruled in equity, and held the balance with a 
 righteous hand. He has nothing to reproach him- 
 self for ; for " meekly hath he born his faculties/' and 
 clear hath he proved him in his "great office." 
 While the exercise of power was vouchsafed him, he 
 left no regret with any description of his subjects for 
 having exercised it improperly. He did his duty by 
 his people, and looked up to heaven for his reward. 
 But now, in an hour of peril, the Empire is bereft of 
 its mightiest, its holiest support. The voice is no 
 longer heard that would have cheered our patriotic 
 endeavours; the will is no longer free that would 
 have rewarded our patriotic services ! Alike insensi- 
 ble to pity or to praise, the love of his people that 
 would have followed on his steps, and clung round 
 his declining years, and softened and supported the 
 decays of nature, is permitted neither to approach his 
 understanding, nor to affect his heart ; for the dark- 
 ness of the soul is fallen upon him, and although he 
 " see not the grave," yet, alas ! are " all his thoughts 
 perished." 
 
 And another loss, gentlemen, in our present emer- 
 gency, we sustain ; another, and looking into futurity, 
 a perhaps still deeper loss. The fair hope we had 
 of a regular succession to the crown of these realms,
 
 358 
 
 in a line which public opinion had sanctified, and was 
 anxiously looking forward to, is broken. We had 
 drawn around our late excellent young PRINCESS a 
 national circle of righteousness and peace. We had 
 pictured her restraining by prudent regulations a 
 wild, ungovernable, imprudent age, and firmly and 
 fearlessly administering the laws, under temptations 
 and " fiery trials," almost to dispense with them alto- 
 gether. We hailed in her the expectation of tender 
 solicitude for the subject, blended with a proper sense 
 of the dignity that ought to attach to the sovereign ; 
 of a perfect recollection that she was to rule over a 
 free people, who would neither be trifled nor tyran- 
 nized with, but with a recollection as perfect that it 
 would constitute no part of her high and holy duty to 
 be intimidated, or governed by a licentious people. 
 But, alas ! that line which we fondly hoped would 
 have run on for ages, the good, the beautiful, the 
 virtuous line, hath been dissevered never to be united 
 more. We have now, I fear, to look forward to 
 unnumbered reigns, and to probable changes in the 
 administration of a government whose strength de- 
 pends on its consistency, and whose safety will be best 
 promoted by as little change as possible. These 
 hopes however are vanished, and others with them. 
 One of the strongest checks upon the dissipated spirit 
 of the times is gone. They who know the benefit of 
 virtuous example in exalted stations will appreciate 
 such a loss as we have sustained at such a portentous 
 season, and will not wonder that the " overflowings of 
 ungodliness" should " make us afraid." She was 
 indeed the " rose and expectance of the state," and a 
 grace and glory to her sex amid a large licentiousness 
 of manners at home, and a corruption of morals in a 
 neighbouring nation that has destroyed, with the 
 decorums, the comforts of life, and almost annihilated 
 the very notion of a moral sense. But majesty, and 
 authority, and empire were spread before her in vain ;
 
 359 
 
 in vain had life disposed of its most enchanting 
 imagery in her paths, and connubial love, and parental 
 affection, and friendship, faithful and delicate, sealed 
 her earthly happiness.- All is over ! 
 
 Let us remember then, gentlemen, and, in propor- 
 tion as these losses weigh upon us, remember with a 
 deeper regard the solemn pact that associates us with 
 the defence of the constitution, civil and ecclesiastical, 
 of the realm. We are the friends of that constitu- 
 tion, not because we happen to have it, and having it, 
 are willing to preserve it ; but because it hath lived, 
 and grown up with us, and it would be death to part 
 with it; because it unites in itself all that is most 
 sound and correct in its religious, and all that is most 
 equal and merciful in its political relations ; because in 
 its spirit it is capable of making us a great, and in its 
 wisdom of rendering us a virtuous nation ; because, 
 under its protection, every man has been able to set 
 beneath " his own vine and his own fig tree," and to 
 enjoy the honest fruits of his industry, and with " no 
 man to make him afraid;" because in its legislative 
 operations it draws one vast and equal circle around 
 every description of subjects, and there concentres 
 the wants, the wishes, the reasonable desires of all ; 
 because contemplating it, finally, in all its provisions 
 for the general happiness and security, our ancestors 
 revered it from their earliest infancy, and left it in 
 charge to us their posterity to continue to revere it 
 when they were dead and gone. Here then let us take 
 our station and remain immoveable. Born, bred up, 
 educated in the principles of our excellent constitution 
 in church and state, let us suffer nothing short of what 
 eradicates life to eradicate them. At the awful verge 
 alone where we leave all terrestrial concerns let us bid 
 them farewell. But while we live in British land., 
 while we breathe in British air, while the soul has 
 power to feel the dignity and to appreciate the value 
 of such principles, that soul will remain all over 
 
 /
 
 360 
 
 English, and attached firmly, affectionately attach- 
 ed to our ESTABLISHED MONARCHY, our ESTABLISHED 
 CHURCH, our ESTABLISHED LAWS and CONSTITUTION ; 
 convinced that they, and they alone, are capable of 
 insuring the fullest dignity to the crown, the largest 
 security to the realm, and (the key stone of their 
 authority, the sacred pledge of our support) the most 
 perfect and permanent happiness to the people. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, we separate, each of us as 
 existence is wearing away, to our separate reflections. 
 The period is approaching with the greater part of 
 us when every man, who has been at all conversant 
 with public affairs, must examine and must judge for 
 himself; when not that which has gained for him the 
 world's approbation ; not that which, in moments of 
 weakness or vanity, may have even delighted his own 
 heart, but that which his retired thoughts, called home 
 to their proper meditation, approve, shall be a com- 
 fort to him. There are seasons of political as well as 
 of moral repentance. The range of our ambitious 
 views will narrow and darken as the world closes in 
 and darkens upon us, when the mind shall return to 
 its forgotten feelings of sobriety, and gather up its 
 happiness where it first found its virtue. No man, 
 at the close of life, will regret that he was not among 
 the number of those who excited popular clamour, 
 under the pretence or delusion of increasing popular 
 happiness. No man will repent as years steal upon 
 him, that those years were not dedicated to the ser- 
 vice of a party spirit against that government which 
 protected, and that church which instructed him and 
 his household. When the decays of nature operate 
 on his mind, and he is casting the world, with its sub- 
 tle politic contrivances behind him, he will see the 
 littleness of all that he hath been contending for, and 
 for how poor and lost a purpose he hath " put ran- 
 cours in the vessel of his peace." He will see that 
 though the age, and its follies and vices may not have 

 
 361 
 
 changed, yet that years, and coldness, and declining 1 
 health and spirits, and deeper awfuller reflection will 
 have changed him ; will have made him feel and con- 
 fess, that, in the transcript of an enduring reputation, 
 next to those who " fear God," are they who, in a 
 dutiful submission to rulers that are " not a terror to 
 good works but to the evil," truly " honour the King," 
 and who evidence that honour by supporting both 
 the established government, and those who, by the 
 wish of the people no less than by the voice of the so- 
 vereign, are called to its administration. It will be 
 no grief to him to remember, when the staid and 
 serious hour shall come in which all that hath cleaved 
 to him that is not his proper self must be shaken off, 
 all that hath taken mainly from his peace and added 
 nothing to his virtue must be calendared no longer in 
 his affections, that to the rule of the sovereign, to the 
 security of the realm, to the quiet and comfort and 
 prosperity of the community, he sacrificed, many of 
 his partial views and much of his inordinate desires 
 views that, at even less dangerous periods, he ought 
 not perhaps to have entertained, and desires which 
 at any period he would better probably have consult- 
 ed his happiness to have obliterated. He will confess 
 that an established order of things is evermore the 
 best order, and a sober acquiescence therein the 
 largest and highest wisdom. 
 
 In bidding you, Freeholders of the county of Nor- 
 folk, a last farewell, for on this ground, taking here 
 my leave of Mr. Coke and of all County matters, we 
 shall never meet more, permit me to observe that I 
 am very anxious as to what judgment you may form 
 of the foregoing opinions and sentiments, but far less 
 solicitous as to what you may be disposed to think of 
 the writer. He is passing through the vale of this 
 world too much, 1 fear, like many of his cotempora- 
 ries ; reflecting on the years that are past with mingled 
 feelings of penitence and reproach, and hardly know- 
 
 3A
 
 362 
 
 ing whether it be desirable, so " tied and bound" as 
 \ve are with ' ' the chain of our sins/' to look forward 
 to those which may yet be in reserve. What friends 
 or foes may think of his lowly endeavours he must not 
 ufler himself to consider, or how his reputation may 
 be affected by these political disquisitions. It is not 
 in a hot and feverish sphere of action like this, that 
 any man is in a condition to say how far he may have 
 deserved praise, or how intimately he ought to feel 
 condemnation. We cannot rely upon our fame. We 
 dare not rely upon our virtue. Much of that fame is 
 often undeserved ; much of that virtue is terribly 
 mixtand chequered. Seldom do our best friends ap- 
 prove of every part of our labours ; seldom, alas ! do 
 they equally gain upon our own approbation. The 
 best we can do in any cause is but small, and is often 
 made less by our inconsistencies ; our occasional ap- 
 proximation to the crimes which we condemn, our 
 frequent secession from the virtues which we recom- 
 mend. All I can say ; all that, in reviewing this let- 
 ter, I dare to say is, that I have exonerated my con- 
 science; I have performed my duty ; I have done the 
 best I can for the cause I support. I have done it 
 in a good spirit, and, as I hope, for the furtherance of 
 good. But though to purpose virtue be in the power 
 of us all, tfee success of such endeavours rests with 
 another power. There every man must leave the 
 righteous intents of the heart ; and there, so far as 
 they are righteous, with such hopes as the mind may 
 humbly and awfully entertain, do I leave mine. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 Burks and Kinncbrook, 
 Printers, Norwich,
 
 LIST OP ERRATA. 
 
 Page 16, line 7, for strongly read strangely. 
 
 26 35, for about them read about him, 
 28 4, for corollary read corollary. 
 54 24, for Meonidas read Mteonides. 
 
 60 8, for kingdom read kingdoms. 
 
 61 i 13, for serpent read serpents. 
 67 19, for partizens read partisans. 
 
 75 13, (of note) for blinding read blending. 
 
 86 19, for Westmorland read We5<mmsfer. 
 
 121 . 4, for subborn read stubborn. 
 
 3$, for proceeds read proceedings. 
 35, for assures read assure. 
 11, for disolate read desolate. 
 31, for definition read definition. 
 
 182 17, for Bellingfields read Bellinghams. 
 
 236 38, for e/Fecf read o/fart. 
 
 238 27, for domestic laws read domestic lares. 
 347 35, for foa&t read ioasfc.
 
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