to my own unworthiness, in a general communion of depravity with all about me. That this ill-natured doctrine should be preached by the miffionaries of a court I do not wonder. It anfwers their purpose. But that it fhould be heard among those who pretend to be ftrong affertors of liberty, is not only furprising, but hardly natural. This moral levelling is a fervile principle. It leads to practical paffive obedience far better, than all the doctrines, which, the pliant accommodation of theology to power, has ever produced. It cuts up by the roots, not only all idea of forcible refiftance, but even of civil oppofition. It difpofes men to an abject fubmiffion, not by opinion, which may be fhaken by argument or altered by paffion, but by the ftrong ties of publick and private intereft, For if all men who act in a publick fituation are equally felfifh, corrupt, and venal, what reafon can be given for defiring any fort of change, which besides the evils which must attend all changes, can be productive of no poffible advantage? The active men in the ftate are true famples of the mafs. If they are univerfally depraved, the commonwealth itself is not found. We may amuse ourselves with talking as much as we please of the virtue of middle or humble life; that is, we may place our confidence in the virtue of thofe who have never been tried. But if the perfons who are continually emerging out of that fphere, be no better better than those whom birth has placed above it, what hopes are there in the remainder of the body, which is to furnish the perpetual fucceffion of the ftate? All who have ever written on government, are unanimous, that among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exift. And indeed how is it poffible? when thofe who are to make the laws, to guard, to enforce, or to obey them, are by a tacit confederacy of manners, indifpofed to the spirit of all generous and noble inftitutions. I am aware that the age is not what we all with But I am fure, that the only means of checking its precipitate degeneracy, is heartily to concur with whatever is the beft in our time; and to have some more correct ftandard of judging what that best is, than the tranfient and uncertain favour of a court. If once we are able to find, and can prevail on ourselves to ftrengthen an union of fuch men, whatever accidentally becomes indifpofed to ill exercised power, even by the ordinary operation of human paffions, muft join with that fociety, and cannot long be joined, without in fome degree affimilating to it. Virtue will catch as well as vice by contact; and the publick ftock of honeft manly principle will daily accumulate. We are not too nicely to fcrutinize motives as long as action is irreproachable. It is enough, (and for a worthy man perhaps too much) to deal out its infamy to convicted guilt and declared apoftacy. This, gentlemen, has been from the beginning the rule of my conduct; and I mean to continue it, as long as fuch a body as I have described, can by any poffibility be kept together; for I fhould think it the moft dreadful of all offences, not only towards the present generation but to all the fu ture, if I were to do any thing which could make the minutest breach in this great confervatory of free principles. Those who perhaps have the fame intentions, but are feparated by fome little political animofities, will I hope difcern at laft, how little conducive it is to any rational purpose, to lower its reputation. For my part, gentlemen, from much experience, from no little thinking, and from comparing a great variety of things, I am thoroughly perfuaded, that the laft hopes of pre ferving the spirit of the English constitution, or of re-uniting the diffipated members of the English race upon a common plan of tranquillity and li berty, does entirely depend on their firm and laft ing union; and above all on their keeping them. felves from that defpair, which is fo very apt to fall on those, whom a violence of character and a mixture of ambitious views, do not fupport through a long, painful and unsuccessful struggle.. There never, gentlemen, was a period in which the ftedfaftnefs of fame men has been put to fo fore a trial. It is not very difficult for well-formed minds to abandon their intereft; but the fepa ration ration of fame and virtue is an harfh divorce. Liberty is in danger of being made unpopular to Englishmen. Contending for an imaginary power, we begin to acquire the fpirit of domination, and to lose the relish of honeft equality. The principles of our forefathers become fufpected to us, because we see them animating the present oppofition of our children, The faults which grow out of the luxuriance of freedom, appear much more shocking to us, than the bafe vices which are generated from the ranknefs of fervitude. Accordingly the leaft resistance to power appears more inexcufable in our eyes than the greatest abuses of authority. All dread of a standing military force is looked upon as a fuperftitious panick. All shame of calling in foreigners and favages in a civil contest is worn off. We grow indifferent to the confequences inevitable to ourselves from the plan of ruling half the empire by a mercenary fword. We are taught. to believe that a defire of domineering over our countrymen is love to our country; that those who hate civil war abet rebellion, and that the amiable and conciliatory virtues of lenity, mode ration, and tenderness to the privileges of those who depend on this kingdom are a fort of treafon to the state. It is impoffible that we should remain long in a fituation, which breeds fuch notions and difpofi tions, tions, without fome great alteration in the national character. Those ingenuous and feeling minds who are so fortified against all other things, and fo unarmed to whatever approaches in the fhape of difgrace, finding these principles, which they confidered as fure means of honour, to be grown into disrepute, will retire difheartened and difgusted. Thofe of a more robust make, the bold, able, ambitious men, who pay fome of their court to power through the people, and fubftitute the voice of tranfient opinion in the place of true glory, will give into the general mode; and those fuperior understandings which ought to correct vulgar prejudice, will confirm and aggravate its errors. Many things have been long operating towards a gradual change in our principles. But this Ame, rican war has done more in a very few years than all the other caufes could have effected in a cen, tury. It is therefore not on its own separate account, but because of its attendant circum. stances, that I confider its continuance, or its end, ing in any way but that of an honourable and liberal accommodation, as the greatest evils which can befal us. For that reafon I have troubled you with this long letter. For that reason I entreat you again and again, neither to be perfuaded, fhamed, or frighted out of the principles that have hitherto led fo many of you to abhor the war, |