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the Ministry, and the ftill greater which was made and avowed in its conftitution. As to individuals, other methods were employed with them; in order fo thoroughly to disunite every party, and even every family, that no concert, order, or effect, might appear in any future oppofition. And in this manner an Adminiftration without connexion with the people, or with one another, was first put in poffeffion of Government. What good confequences followed from it, we have all feen; whether with regard to virtue, public or private; to the eafe and happiness of the Sovereign; or to the real strength of GoBut as fo much stress was then laid on the neceffity of this new project, it will not be amifs to take a view of the effects of this Royal fervitude and vile durance, which was fo deplored in the reign of the late Monarch, and was fo carefully to be avoided in the reign of his Succeffor. The effects were thefe.

vernment.

In times full of doubt and danger to his perfon and family, George the Second maintained the dignity of his Crown connected with the liberty of his people, not only unimpaired, but improved, for the space of thirty-three years. He overcame a dangerous rebellion, abetted by foreign force, and raging in the heart of his kingdoms; and thereby deftroyed the feeds of all future rebellion that could arife upon the fame principle. He carried the glory, the power, the commerce of England, to an height unknown even to this renowned nation in the times of its greatest profperity; and he left his

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fucceffion refting on the true and only true foundations of all national and all regal greatnefs;. affection at home, reputation abroad, truft in allies, terror in rival nations. The most ardent lover of his country cannot wish for Great Britain an happier fate than to continue as fhe was then left. A people emulous as we are in affection to our present Sovereign, know not how to form a prayer to Heaven for a greater bleffing upon his virtues, or an higher state of felicity and glory, than that he should live, and should reign, and, when Providence ordains it, fhould die, exactly like his illuftrious Predeceffor.

A great Prince may be obliged (though fuch a thing cannot happen very often) to facrifice his private inclination to his public interest. A wife Prince will not think that fuch a restraint implies a condition of fervility; and truly, if fuch was the condition of the last reign, and the effects were alfo fuch as we have defcribed, we ought, no lefs for the fake of the Sovereign whom we love, than for our own, to hear arguments convincing indeed, before we depart from the maxims of that reign, or fly in the face of this great body of ftrong and recent experience.

One of the principal topicks which was then, and has been fince, much employed by that political * fchool, is an affected terror of the growth of an aristocratic power, prejudicial to

* See the Political Writings of the late Dr. Brown, and many others.

the

the rights of the Crown, and the balance of the conftitution. Any new powers exercifed in the House of Lords, or in the House of Commons, or by the Crown, ought certainly to excite the vigilant and anxious jealoufy of a free people. Even a new and unprecedented courfe of action in the whole Legiflature, without great and evident reason, may be a subject of just uneafinefs. I will not affirm, that there may not have lately appeared in the House of Lords a difpofition to fome attempts derogatory to the legal rights of the fubject. If any fuch have really appeared, they have arifen, not from a power properly ariftocratic, but from the fame influence which is charged with having excited attempts of a fimilar nature in the Houfe of Commons; which House, if it should have been betrayed into an unfortunate quarrel with its constituents, and involved in a charge of the very fame nature, could have neither power nor inclination to repel fuch attempts in others. Those attempts in the Houfe of Lords can no more be called aristocratic proceedings, than the proceedings with regard to the county of Middlefex in the Houfe of Commons can with any fenfé be called democratical.

It is true, that the Peers have a great influence in the kingdom, and in every part of the public concerns. While they are men of property, it is impoffible to prevent it, except by fuch means as must prevent all property from its natural operation; an event not eafily to be compaffed, while property is power; nor by any means to be

wished,

wifhed, while the leaft notion exifts of the method by which the spirit of liberty acts, and of the means by which it is preferved. If any particular Peers, by their uniform, upright, conftitutional conduct, by their public and their private virtues, have acquired an influence in the country, the people, on whose favour that influence depends, and from whom it arose, will never be duped into an opinion, that such greatnefs in a Peer is the defpotifm of an aristocracy, when they know and feel it to be the effect and pledge of their own importance.

I am no friend to aristocracy, in the sense at least in which that word is usually understood. If it were not a bad habit to moot cafes on the supposed ruin of the conftitution, I should be free to declare, that if it must perish, I would rather by far fee it refolved into any other form, than loft in that auftere and infolent domination.

But, whatever my dislikes may be, my fears are not upon that quarter. The queftion, on the influence of a Court, and of a Peerage, is not, which of the two dangers is the most eligible, but which is the most imminent. He is but a poor obferver, who has not feen, that the generality of Peers, far from fupporting themelves in a state of independent greatnefs, are but too apt to fall into an oblivion of their proper dignity, and to run headlong into an abject fervitude. Would to God it were true, that the fault of our Peers were too much spirit! It is worthy of fome obfervation, that these gentlemen, fo jealous of ariftocracy, make no

complaints

complaints of the power of those Peers (neither few nor inconfiderable) who are always in the train of a Court, and whose whole weight must be confidered as a portion of the fettled influence of the Crown. This is all safe and right; but if fome Peers (I am very forry they are not as many as they ought to be) fet themselves, in the great concern of Peers and Commons, against a back-ftairs influence and clandeftine government, then the alarm begins; then the conftitution is in danger of being forced into an ariftocracy.

I reft a little the longer on this Court topick, because it was much infifted upon at the time of the great change, and has been fince frequently revived by many of the agents of that party: for, whilft they are terrifying the great and opulent with the horrors of mob-government, they are by other managers attempting (though hitherto with little fuccefs) to alarm the people with a phantom of tyranny in the Nobles. All this is done upon their favourite principle of difunion, of sowing jealoufies amongst the different orders of the State, and of disjointing the natural strength of the kingdom; that it may be rendered incapable of refifting the finifter defigns of wicked men, who have engroffed the Royal power.

Thus much of the topicks chosen by the Courtiers to recommend their fyftem; it will be neceffary to open a little more at large the nature of that party which was formed for its fupport. Without this, the whole would have

been

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