If the Adminiftration feem now and then, from remiffness, or from fear of making themfelves difagreeable, to fuffer any popular exceffes to go unpunished, the Cabal immediately fets up fome creature of theirs to raife a clamour against the Ministers, as having fhamefully betrayed the dignity of Government. Then they compel the Miniftry to become active in conferring rewards and honours on the perfons who have been the inftruments of their difgrace; and, after having firft vilified them with the higher orders for fuffering the laws to fleep over the licentioufnefs of the populace, they drive them (in order to make amends for their former inactivity) to some act of atrocious violence, which renders them completely abhorred by the people. They who remember the riots which attended the Middlefex Election; the opening of the prefent Parliament; and the tranfactions relative to Saint George's Fields, will not be at a loss for an application of these remarks.

That this body may be enabled to compass all the ends of its inftitution, its members are scarcely ever to aim at the high and refponfible offices of the State. They are diftributed with art and judgement through all the fecondary, but efficient, departments of office, and through the households of all the branches of the Royal Family fo as on one hand to occupy all the avenues to the Throne; and on the other to forward or fruftrate the execution of any meafure, according to their own interefts.

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with the credit and fupport which they are known to have, though for the greater part in places which are only a genteel excufe for falary, they poffefs all the influence of the highest pofts; and they dictate publicly in almost every thing, even with a parade of fuperiority. Whenever they diffent (as it often happens) from their nominal leaders, the trained part of the Senate, instinctively in the fecret, is fure to follow them; provided the leaders, fenfible of their fituation, do not of themselves recede in time from their moft declared opinions. This latter is generally the cafe. It will not be conceivable to any one who has not feen it, what pleasure is taken by the Cabal in rendering thefe heads of office thoroughly contemptible and ridiculous. And when they are become fo, they have then the beft chance for being well fupported.

The members of the Court Faction are fully indemnified for not holding places on the flippery heights of the kingdom, not only by the lead in all affairs, but also by the perfect fecurity in which they enjoy lefs confpicuous, but very advantageous fituations. Their places are, in exprefs legal tenure, or in effect, all of them for life. Whilst the first and most respectable perfons in the kingdom are toffed about like tennis balls, the sport of a blind and infolent caprice, no Minifter dares even to caft an oblique glance at the loweft of their body. If an attempt be made upon one of this corps, immediately he flies to fanctuary, and pretends to the most inviolable of all promifes. No conveniency of public

public arrangement is available to remove any one of them from the specific fituation he holds; and the flightest attempt upon one of them, by the most powerful Minifter, is a certain preliminary to his own deftruction.

Conscious of their independence, they bear themselves with a lofty air to the exterior Minifters. Like Janiffaries, they derive a kind of freedom from the very condition of their fervitude. They may act juft as they please; provided they are true to the great ruling principle of their inftitution. It is, therefore, not at all wonderful, that people fhould be fo defirous of adding themselves to that body, in which they may poffefs and reconcile fatisfactions the moft alluring, and feemingly the moft contradictory; enjoying at once all the fpirited pleasure of independence, and all the grofs lucre and fat emoluments of fervitude.

Here is a sketch, though a flight one, of the conftitution, laws, and policy, of this new Court corporation. The name by which they chufe to diftinguish themfelves, is that of King's men, or the King's friends, by an invidious exclufion of the rest of his Majefty's most loyal and affectionate fubjects. The whole fyftem, comprehending the exterior and interior Adminiftrations, is commonly called in the technical language of the Court, Double Cabinet; in French

or English, as you chufe to pronounce it.

Whether all this be a vifion of a diftracted brain, or the invention of a malicious heart, or a real Faction in the country, must be judged

by the appearances which things have worn for eight years paft. Thus far I am certain, that there is not a fingle public man, in or out of office, who has not, at fome time or other, borne teftimony to the truth of what I have now related. In particular, no perfons have been more strong in their affertions, and louder and more indecent in their complaints, than those who compofe all the exterior part of the prefent Adminiftration; in whofe time that Faction has arrived at fuch an height of power, and of boldness in the ufe of it, as may, in the end, perhaps bring about its total destruction.

It is true, that about four years ago, during the administration of the Marquis of Rockingham, an attempt was made to carry on Government without their concurrence. However, this was only a tranfient cloud; they were hid but for a moment; and their conftellation blazed out with greater brightnefs, and a far more vigorous influence, fome time after it was blown over. An attempt was at that time made (but without any idea of profcription) to break their corps, to discountenance their doctrines, to revive connexions of a different kind, to restore the principles and policy of the Whigs, to reanimate the caufe of Liberty by Minifterial countenance; and then for the first time were men feen attached in office to every principle they had maintained in oppofition. No one will doubt, that fuch men were abhorred and violently oppofed by the Court Faction, and that fuch a fyftem could have but a fhort duration.

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It may appear fomewhat affected, that in fo much difcourfe upon this extraordinary Party, I fhould fay fo little of the Earl of Bute, who is the fuppofed head of it. But this was neither owing to affectation nor inadvertence. I have carefully avoided the introduction of personal reflexions of any kind. Much the greater part of the topicks which have been used to blacken this Nobleman, are either unjuft or frivolous. At best, they have a tendency to give the refentment of this bitter calamity a wrong direction, and to turn a public grievance into a mean perfonal, or a dangerous national, quarrel. Where there is a regular scheme of operations carried on, it is the system, and not any individual perfon who acts in it, that is truly dangerous. This fyftem has not risen folely from the ambition of Lord Bute, but from the circumftances which favoured it, and from an indifference to the conftitution which had been for fome time growing among our gentry. We fhould have been tried with it, if the Earl of Bute had never exifted; and it will want neither a contriving head nor active members, when the Earl of Bute exifts no longer. It is not, therefore, to rail at Lord Bute, but firmly to embody against this Court Party and its practices, which can afford us any prospect of relief in our prefent condition.

Another motive induces me to put the perfonal confideration of Lord Bute, wholly out of the question. He communicates very little in a direct manner with the greater part of our men