triots, as not to forget we are gentlemen. To cultivate friendships, and to incur enmities. To have both ftrong, but both felected: in the one, to be placable; in the other immoveable. To model our principles to our duties and our fituation. To be fully perfuaded, that all virtue which is impracticable is fpurious; and rather to run the risk of falling into faults in a courfe which leads us to act with effect and energy, than to loiter out our days without blame, and without ufe. Publick life is a fituation of power and energy; he trefpaffes against his duty who fleeps upon his watch, as well as he that goes over to the enemy.

There is, however, a time for all things. It is not every conjuncture which calls with equal force upon the activity of honeft men; but critical exigencies now and then arife; and I am miftaken, if this be not one of them. Men will fee the neceffity of honeft combination; but they may fee it when it is too late. They may embody, when it will be ruinous to themfelves, and of no advantage to the country; when, for want of fuch a timely union as may enable them to oppofe in favour of the laws, with the laws on their fide, they may, at length, find themfelves under the neceffity of confpiring, inftead of confulting. The law, for which they stand, may become a weapon in the hands of its bittereft enemies; and they will be caft, at length, into that miferable alternative, between

Ꮓ Ꮪ

tween slavery and civil confufion, which no good man can look upon without horrour; an alternative in which it is impoffible he fhould take either part, with a confcience perfectly at repofe. To keep that fituation of guilt and remorfe at the utmost distance, is therefore, our first obligation. Early activity may prevent late and fruitlefs violence. As yet we work in the light. The fcheme of the enemies of publick tranquillity has difarranged, it has not deftroyed us.

If the reader believes that there really exists such a faction as I have defcribed; a faction ruling by the private inclinations of a court, against the general fenfe of the people; and that this faction, whilft it purfues a fcheme for undermining all the foundations of our freedom, weakens (for the prefent at least) all the powers of executory government, rendering us abroad contemptible, and at home distracted; he will believe also, that nothing but a firm combination of publick men against this body, and that, too, fupported by the hearty concurrence of the people at large, can poffibly get the better of it. The people will fee the neceffity of reftoring publick men to an attention to the publick opinion, and of reftoring the conftitution to its original principles. Above all, they will endeavour to keep the house of commons from affuming a character which does not belong to it. They will endeavour to keep that houfe, for its existence,

existence, for its powers, and its privileges, as independent of every other, and as dependent upon themselves, as poffible. This fervitude is to a houfe of commons (like obedience to the divine. law) "perfect freedom." For if they once quit this natural, rational, and liberal obedience, having deferted the only proper foundation of their power, they must seek a support in an abject and unnatural dependence fomewhere else. When, through the medium of this juft connexion with their constituents the genuine dignity of the houfe of commons is restored, it will begin to think of cafting from it, with fcorn, as badges of fervility, all the falfe ornaments of illegal power, with which it has been, for fome time, difgraced. It will begin to think of its old office of CONTROUL. It will not fuffer, that laft of evils, to predominate in the country; men without popular confidence, publick opinion, natural connexion, or mutual trust, invested with all the powers of

government. When they have learned this leffon themselves, they will be willing and able to teach the court, that it is the true intereft of the prince to have but one administration; and that one compofed of those who recommend themfelves to their fovereign through the opinion of their country, and not by their obfequiousness to a favourite. Such men will ferve their fovereign with affection and fidelity; because his choice of them, upon fuch principles,

Z 4

principles, is a compliment to their virtue. They will be able to ferve him effectually; because they will add the weight of the country to the force of the executory power. They will be able to ferve their king with dignity; because they will never abuse his name to the gratification of their private fpleen or avarice. This, with allowances for human frailty, may probably be the general character of a ministry, which thinks itself accountable to the houfe of commons; when the house of commons thinks itself accountable to its conftituents. If other ideas fhould prevail, things muft remain in their prefent confufion; until they are hurried into all the rage of civil violence; or until they fink into the dead repofe of defpotifm.

MR.