LETTER XXIII.

MY LORD,

IN pondering over a state of the nation, while those principles of government which on his Majesty's accession sprang up near the throne, are still in full force and vigour; we must not be surprized that many, even learned dignitaries of the church among the rest, have sought to recommend themselves at court, by the stupid impiety of attempting to write down the eternal principles of liberty inculcated by the immortal Locke. I had indeed thought of naming some of these gentlemen in a note; but considering how many lawyers and others had also made speeches against those principles, and the constitution, and how many also in this reign had even drawn their swords in the cause of despotism, I desisted from my intention; for were I to make out a catalogue of all, this single note would be longer than the rest of my book. And when men by hundreds say and do those things as members of parliament, which upon an inquest in a court of justice they would not say or do as jurors; nor in the transactions of private life could say or do as gentlemen; when abuse and pillage so inveterately pervade the executive offices, that ac cording to Admiral Markham, one third part of our navy millions are swallowed by peculation; when discipline is undermined by evil example, and energy broken down by corruption; when fidelity gives place to a daring misapplication of public money, and economy to an unexampled profusion which, under a system so rotten is as unavoidable as it is deplorable; while detected delinquency, gross in its form, and infamous in its nature, finds, not an indignant prosecutor, but a conscience-stricken, servile protector, in a prime minister; shall the nation look on as an indifferent specta

tor?

To advert again to the state of the nation: when we look upon our national population, our agriculture, industry, art, and science; when we take a view of our astonishing capacities for commerce; when we think of our immense army, our resistless navy, and the widespread foreign dominions, teeming with wealth, dependent upon our power, what seems wanting to prosperity, to greatness, and to glory? But when on the reverse we behold a peace expenditure beyond the rental of the whole land; when we cannot, wage war without more than doubling that expence, when we feel hanging at the neck of our industry, a mill-stone of between six and seven hundred millions of pounds sterling in weight; when we see the vulnerability of our trade and plantations to a dextrous assailant; when we contemplate a vigilant and vindictive enemy, with a population of more than sixty millions for his armies, and all the maritime means from the Baltic to the Adriatic for his navy; and recollect the drain and dispersion of our military strength to keep our dependencies safe and subject; while the military branch of our constitution, which is not only applicable to the perfect security of our own shores from even insult, but is the true basis also of an overflowing disposeable force for foreign services, is doubly betrayed; that is, so far as left dormant, criminally neglected; and so far as resorted to, criminally perverted: 1 and while at the same time the marine of France is making its convalescent excursions across the Atlantic, as a healthful exercise and to recover its strength, keeping your whole navy on the alert; and all her ports are preparing to pour at once upon you her numerous armies from a variety of points; surely, my Lord, we have cause for deep consideration! Surely we are not in a condition for alienating, by a denial of right and the grossest tyranny, a single English heart, or for relaxing, by injury and insult, a single English arm! Nor was this surely a moment for the rulers of the land to have exhibited themselves to

1 See England's Ægis: or the military energies of the empire. Published by Phillips.

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an English people as a compacted faction in battle array, against the accusers of a state delinquent; while at the same time they are emasculating, and trampling on the constitution!

But with reference to the state of the nation, as opposed to the state of France, it seems prudent that we compare the capacities and talents of the two men who respectively preside over those countries and direct their energies. Equally hypocritical, intriguing, perfidious, and unfeeling, an unprincipled ambition sways the soul of both; a Napolean and a Pitt equally pay to the cause of human freedom the homage of words, and stab it in their deeds; one, without impoverishing, has beyond example aggrandized and strengthened; the other, without aggrandizing, has beyond example impoverished and weakened his country: 1 one, grasps the widest combinations of state policy, directing with success all means to an individual end; the other, has attempted such combinations, and miserably failed: one, with all his vices and vanities, is the dread of Eu rope; the other, with all his pomp and importance, is her scorn: the one is no talker, but fills a throne with a silent energy that is felt by every cabinet and every people; the other, although an able maker of speeches, is wholly wanting in the deep energies of a statesman; and is known in other cabinets and nations, but as a subsidizing financier, and as the author of misfortunes : one is doubtless formed by nature to preside over a powerful nation whose government is despotic; the other is qualified to preside among commissioners for the af fairs of taxes, but not in the councils of the king of a free people: one has great ability as a foreign negoci ator; the talents of the other are for domestic intrigue and discord: the one possesses, even to a comparison with a Cesar or an Alexander, the qualities of a war rior; the other makes acts of parliament to turn militia men into desposeable soldiers, parish officers into re'cruiting serjeants, and sonorous speeches about such

1 Strength and weakness are relative terms: in respect of France, every one must see how much by Mr. Pitt's war, France has been strengthened, and England weakened.

things; but as for the nature of war he knows nothing about it, and as for the conduct of war, he leaves that to lawyer Dundass, to a war secretary, or a secretary at war, who sends his disposeable soldiers to be captured, or to be slain, or ingloriously to perish, by thousands and tens of thousands, in such expeditions as those to Holland, Quiberon, and St. Domingo; and who pur chase misfortune and disgrace, with those millions he has wrung from wearied industry.

But if in real war he may not vie with the Corsican, in the warfare of domestic faction he is second to none. After suffering defeat at the hands of reformers, in two hard fought battles, and, from the cause of contest, defeat with moral infamy, no leader but himself would again have faced a victorious enemy; but, true to his wicked trust, and in a cause congenial with the temper of his soul, this chosen leader of the faction behind the throne, and the faction of the boroughs, shewed himself worthy of the choosers, worthy of the cause, for whom and for which he fought. Although forced in his intrenchments, and twice routed, twice he rallied and returned to the charge, while his too careless conquerors thought him subdued, snatching up, and waving high, the black banner of corruption, and crying to his myrmidons victory, or fatal reform,' with a victory he closed the parliamentary campaign: nor was he content with a victory without spoil: on the Isle of Man he proudly erected his trophy. Bat will the nation suffer to its reproach, this trophy to stand? Does it mean for the last time and for ever to bow its neck, and pass under the rotten borough yoke? Is it content to be led in triumph at the chariot wheels of a captain of Coterelli, 1 who ought himself to be led to the bar of national justice, as an impeached culprit?

As a Middlesex freeholder, I ask these questions of the Duke of Bedford! I ask them of the Dukes of

1 "The Coterelli, or banditti, who wandered over Europe, and offered their swords to the highest bidder, introduced the idea that war might be considered as a trade." Stewart's View of Society in Europe, p. 128.

Norfolk, of Devon, of Northumberland! I ask them of Lord Dundas, and of every other freeholder who called, or who attended, our last county meeting! And as a native of England, I ask the same questions of every Englishman who is not content to read, that his country ONCE bred men who were renovators of a decayed constitution, and restorers of perishing liberties; and who desires to shew, that the race is not extinct! Has the political empiric, who has so abundantly poured out calamity and dishonour on the nation and its government, some Circean enchantment, to strike us dumb, and to bereave us of our reason? Has the juggler some all-quieting opiate, to tame us into the passiveness of cattle? Has he indeed some potent drug to transform us into a "swinish multitude," to lie groveling in our sty, or to be driven, or to be sold, or butchered, for the profit of the base factions he serves?

When the cause of freedom requires, there is, my Lord, a Runnimead in every county. Let Englishmen, then, shake off their indolence, and thither repair! Let them tell the factions, they are not yet deprived of reason; they are not yet become their cattle, or their swine; But, dropping all metaphor, if we would not be conscious of basely deserting the duty we owe our country, of giving a national sanction to the most wicked usurpation of our legislative rights, and tamely submitting to the most profligate abuse of power that ever insulted our feelings, we shall not be capable of suffering a whole autumn to pass away, without exercising our constitutional rights of assembling, addressing, petitioning, and remonstrating, for a substantial reform in our representation, and for a complete change of ministers. The Ishmael of our unhappy land has too long had his hand against every man's liberty, and against every man's property: it is time that every man's hand was against his continuance in power. For changing a ministry while the enemy was at the gate, he himself has set us the example. A change from bad to worse certainly wanted apology; but now to change from bad to better, affords a prospect of changing from danger to security, from war to peace, from ruin to prosperity; but at all events it must be a change from " a disgraced ministry," to one of fair reputation.