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that no men could act in concert, who did not act with confidence; and that no men could act with confidence, who were not bound together by common opinions, common affections, and common interefts.

These wife men, for fuch I muft call Lord Sunderland, Lord Godolphin, Lord Sommers, and Lord Marlborough, were too well principled in these maxims upon which the whole fabrick of public ftrength is built, to be blown off their ground by the breath of every childish talker. They were not afraid that they should be called an ambitious Junto; or that their refolution to ftand or fall together should, by placemen, be interpreted into a fcuffle for places.

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Party is a body of men united, for promoting by their joint endeavours the national intereft, upon fome particular principle in which they are all agreed. For my part, I find it impoffible to conceive, that any one believes in his own politicks, or thinks them to be of any weight, who refuses to adopt the means of having them reduced into practice. It is the business of the fpeculative philofopher to mark the proper ends of Government. It is the bufinefs of the politician, who is the philofopher in action, to find out proper means towards thofe ends, and to employ them with effect. Therefore every honourable connexion will avow it is their first pose, to purfue every juft method to put the men who hold their opinions into fuch a condition as may enable them to carry their common plans into execution, with all the power and authority

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of the State. As this power is attached to certain fituations, it is their duty to contend for these fituations. Without a profcription of others, they are bound to give to their own party the preference in all things; and by no means, for private confiderations, to accept any offers of power in which the whole body is not included; nor to fuffer themselves to be led, or to be controuled, or to be over-balanced, in office or in council, by those who contradict the very fundamental principles on which their party is formed, and even those upon which every fair connexion muft ftand. Such a generous contention for power, on fuch manly and honourable maxims, will eafily be diftinguifhed from the mean and interested struggle for place and emolument. The very ftile of fuch perfons will ferve to difcriminate them from thofe numberless impoftors, who have deluded the ignorant with profeffions incompatible with human practice, and have afterwards incenfed them by practices below the level of vulgar rectitude.

It is an advantage to all narrow wisdom and narrow morals, that their maxims have a plausible air; and, on a curfory view, appear equal to firft principles. They are light and portable. They are as current as copper coin; and about as valuable. They ferve equally the firft capacities and the lowest; and they are, at least, as useful to the worst men as the best. Of this ftamp is the cant of Not men, but measures; a fort of charm, by which many people get loofe from every nourable engagement. When I fee a man acting

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this defultory and disconnected part, with as much detriment to his own fortune as prejudice to the cause of any party, I am not perfuaded that he is right; but I am ready to believe he is in earnest. I refpect virtue in all its fituations; even when it is found in the unfuitable company of weakness. I lament to fee qualities, rare and valuable, fquandered away without any public utility. But when a gentleman with great vifible emoluments abandons the party in which he has long acted, and tells you, it is because he proceeds upon his own judgement; that he acts on the merits of the feveral measures as they arife; and that he is obliged to follow his own confcience, and not that of others; he gives reafons which it is impoffible to controvert, and discovers a character which it is impoffible to mistake. What fhall we think of him who never differed from a certain fet of men until the moment they loft their power, and who never agreed with them in a fingle instance afterwards? Would not fuch a coincidence of interest and opinion be rather fortunate? Would it not be an extraordinary caft upon the dice, that a man's connexions fhould degenerate into faction, precisely at the critical moment when they lose their power, or he accepts a place? When people defert their connexions, the desertion is a manifeft fact, upon which a direct fimple iffue lies, triable by plain men, Whether a measure of Government be right or wrong, matter of fact, but a mere affair of opinion, on which men may, as they do, difpute and

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wrangle without end. But whether the individual thinks the measure right or wrong, is a point at ftill a greater diftance from the reach of all human decifion. It is therefore very convenient to politicians, not to put the judgement of their conduct on overt-acts, cognizable in any ordinary court, but upon fuch matter as can be triable only in that fecret tribunal, where they are fure of being heard with favour, or where at worst the fentence will be only private whipping.

I believe the reader would wish to find no substance in a doctrine which has a tendency to destroy all teft of character as deduced from conduct. He will therefore excufe my adding. fomething more, towards the further clearing up a point, which the great convenience of obscu rity to dishonesty has been able to cover with fome degree of darkness and doubt.

In order to throw an odium on political connexion, these politicians fuppofe it a neceffary incident to it, that you are blindly to follow the opinions of your party, when in direct oppofition to your own clear ideas; a degree of fervitude that no worthy man could bear the thought of fubmitting to; and fuch as, I believe, no connexions (except fome Court Factions) ever could be fo fenfelessly tyrannical as to impose. Men thinking freely, will, in particular inftances, think differently. But ftill, as the greater part of the measures which arife in the courfe of public business are related to, or dependent on, fome great leading general principles in GovernΙ

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ment, a man must be peculiarly unfortunate in the choice of his political company if he does not agree with them at least nine times in ten. If he does not concur in thefe general principles upon which the party is founded, and which neceffarily draw on a concurrence in their application, he ought from the beginning to have chofen fome other, more conformable to his opinions. When the queftion is in its nature doubtful, or not very material, the modefty which becomes an individual, and (in fpite of our Court moralifts) that partiality which becomes a well-chofen friendship, will frequently bring on an acquiefcence in the general fentiment. Thus, the difagreement will naturally be rare; it will be only enough to indulge freedom, without violating concord, or disturbing arrangement. And this is all that ever was required for a character of the greatest uniformity and steadiness in connexion. How men can proceed without any connexion at all, is to me utterly incomprehenfible. Of what fort of materials muft that man be made, how muft he be tempered and put together, who can fit whole years in Parliament, with five hundred and fifty of his fellow citizens, amidst the storm of fuch tempeftuous paffions, in the harp conflict of fo many wits, and tempers, and characters, in the agitation of fuch mighty questions, in the difcuffion of fuch vaft and ponderous, interefts, without feeing any one fort of men, whofe character, conduct, or difpofition, would lead him to affociate himfelf with them, to aid

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