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which they did not fuffer, or to folicit for redrefs which they do not want. The petition has been, in fome places, rejected; and perhaps in all but one, figned only by the meanest and groffeft of the people.

Since this expedient now invented or revived to diftrefs the government, and equally practicable at all times by all who fhall be excluded from power and from profit, has produced fo little effect, let us confider the oppofition as no longer formidable. The great engine has recoiled upon them. They thought that the terms they fent were terms of weight, which would have amazed all and fumbled many; but the confternation is now over, and their foes ftand upright, as before.

With great propriety and dignity the king has, in his fpeech, neglected or forgotten them. He might eafily know, that what was presented as the sense of the people, is the sense only of the profligate and diffolute; and that whatever parliament fhould be convened, the fame petitioners would be ready, for the fame reafon, to request its diffolution.

As we once had a rebellion of the clowns, we have now an oppofition of the pedlars. The quiet of the nation has been for years disturbed by a faction, against which all factions ought to confpire; for its original principle is the defire of levelling; it is only animated under the name of zeal, by the natural malignity of the mean against the great.

When in the confufion which the English invafions produced in France, the villains, imagining that they had found the golden hour of emancipation, took arms in their hands, the knights of both nations confidered

the

the cause as common, and, fufpending the general hoftility, united to chaftife them.

The whole conduct of this despicable faction is dif tinguished by plebeian groffness, and favage indecency. To mifrepresent the actions and the principles of their enemies is common to all parties; but the infolence of invective, and brutality of reproach, which have lately prevailed, are peculiar to this.

An infallible characteristick of meannefs is cruelty. This is the only faction that has fhouted at the condemnation of a criminal, and that, when his innocence procured his pardon, has clamoured for his blood.

All other parties, however enraged at each other, have agreed to treat the throne with decency; but these low-born railers have attacked not only the authority, but the character of their fovereign, and have endeavoured, furely without effect, to alienate the affections of the people from the only king, who, for almost a century, has much appeared to defire, or much endeavoured to deferve them. They have infulted him with rudeness and with menaces, which were never excited by the gloomy fullennefs of William, even when half the nation denied him their allegiance; nor by the dangerous bigotry of James, unlefs when he was finally driven from his palace; and with which fcarcely the open hoftilities of rebellion ventured to vilify the unhappy Charles, even in the remarks on the cabinet of Nafeby.

It is furely not unreasonable to hope that the nation will confult its dignity, if not its fafety, and disdain to be protected or enflaved by the declaimers or the plotters of a city-tavern. Had Rome fallen by

the

the Catilinarian confpiracy, fhe might have confoled her fate by the greatnefs of her destroyers; but what would have alleviated the difgrace of England, had her government been changed by Tiler or by Ket?

One part of the nation has never before contended with the other, but for fome weighty and apparent intereft. If the means were violent, the end was great. The civil war was fought for what each army called and believed the best religion, and the best government. The struggle in the reign of Anne, was to exclude or restore an exile king. We are now difputing, with almoft equal animofity, whether Middlefex shall be represented or not by a criminal from a jail.

The only comfort left in fuch degeneracy is that a lower ftate can be no longer poffible.

In this contemptuous cenfure, I mean not to include every fingle man. In all lead, fays the chemist, there is filver; and in all copper there is gold. But mingled maffes are justly denominated by the greater quantity, and when the precious particles are not worth extraction, a faction and a pig must be melted down together to the forms and offices that chance allots them.

Fiunt urceoli, pulves, fartago, patellæ.

A few weeks will now show whether the government can be shaken by empty noise, and whether the faction which depends upon its influence, has not deceived alike the Publick and itfelf. That it should have continued till now, is fufficiently fhameful. None can indeed wonder that it has been fupported by the fectaries, the natural fomenters of fedition, and con

federates

federates of the rabble, of whose religion little now remains but hatred of establishments, and who are angry to find feparation now only tolerated, which was once rewarded; but every honest man must lament, that it has been regarded with frigid neutrality by the tories, who, being long accustomed to fignalize their principles by oppofition to the court, do not yet confider that they have at last a king who knows not the name of party, and who wishes to be the common father of all his people.

As a man inebriated only by vapours, foon recovers in the open air; a nation discontented to madness, without any adequate caufe, will return to its wits and its allegiance when a little paufe has cooled it to reflection. Nothing, therefore, is neceffary, at this alarming crifis, but to confider the alarm as falfe. To make conceffions, is to encourage encroachment. Let the court despise the faction, and the disappointed people will foon deride it.

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THOUGHTS

ON THE

LATE TRANSACTIONS

RESPECTING

FALKLAND's ISLANDS.

[1771.]

TO proportion the eagerness of conteft to its importance feems too hard a tafk for human wifdom. The pride of wit has kept ages bufy in the difcuffion of useless queftions, and the pride of power has deftroyed armies to gain or to keep unprofitable poffeffions.

Not many years have paffed fince the cruelties of war were filling the world with terror and with forrow; rage was at last appeased, or ftrength exhausted, and to the haraffed nations peace was reftored, with its pleasures and its benefits. Of this ftate all felt the happiness, and all implored the continuance; but what continuance of happiness can be expected, when the whole fyftem of European empire can be in danger of a new concuffion, by a contention for a few fpots of earth, which, in the deferts of the ocean, had almost escaped human notice, and which, if they had not happened to make a fea-mark, had perhaps never had a name?

Fortune

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