University of Virginia Library

PREFACE.

Some years ago, I lifted my pen against a certain Ministry, who had just declared that they united in themselves “All the talent, weight, and consideration of the country.” Very soon afterwards, I chaunted their departing requiem. Accustomed to those chicaning arts, which are acquired by a long course of Opposition, they had presented a paper for the royal signature, quite different from the commands, and diametrically opposite to the known sentiments of the King, in the humble hope that His Majesty would sign it without perusal. His Majesty, however, was aware that attornies sometimes foist a false deed upon an honest man, and thus make him sign away a whole estate; he, therefore, read the paper, discovered the forgery, and dismissed the perpetrators.

After this disgrace, they remained, for some years, quite stupified; until at length, the murder of a minister inspired them with new hopes and expectations. They had formerly tried to swindle their King, and they now boasted that they would bully their Prince. They thought all sure; they dictated terms, ran wild through the streets, met, smirked, winked, shook hands, made out a complete list of ministry, and were sent about their business.

Ever since that period, they have cherished an inveterate hatred against royalty. All that men could do to render the Regent odious, they have done; from the British lordling, who oratorized on ormolu, to the Scotch commoner, who hinted at decapitation. If they could not prove his infringement upon the laws, they could, at least, assert his deviation from good taste; and when Magna Charta failed them, they had recourse to a cupola and a dragon. Then, his uniform was unconstitutional, and he gave a ball and supper; and he had gold fishes, and he had a fashionable coat, and he had personal

friends, and he had ministers who were not the ministers that ought to be the ministers; and he had an opposition who were not the opposition that ought to be the opposition; and, therefore, this opposition held cabals, and brought out a newspaper, and hired libellers, and spies, and hissers, and hooters, and demireps, and perjurers; and insinuated what they dared not assert, and asserted what they could not prove, and proved what was nothing to the purpose; and could not get into place after all!

This plot had not even the merit of originality. It was borrowed from the French Regicides. Poissardism against the Capets gave rise to Billinsgate against the Brunswicks.

In fact, there was always, and is still, an alarming coincidence of sentiment between the regicides and the Foxites. Radical reform became the common cry of both. Corresponding societies united both in fraternal amity. We may trace the fondness of both for another French Revolution, in the remonstrance against our

protection of Louis from insurrections, and in the late attempt at Grenoble. Fraternal amity, too, is still observable in the kind interference for aliens.

Even the best of the Foxites could never see the true cause and object of the war. They merely considered it as a very serious dispute about treaties and territories—as a most important affair of posts. But never could they be persuaded to believe that it was a contest of anarchy against order, of infidelity against religion, and of innovating theory against established truth. They had not the least idea that opinion, education, social duty, and domestic happiness, were depending upon the result. If they had any such idea, they were traitors.

Mr. Pitt owed, and his successors still owe, their political ascendancy to their early and undeviating conviction of the real nature of the struggle. It is quite impossible that the party now in power, could, for so many years, have retained their situations, if public opinion had

not supported them throughout. A parliament which forsook them on a question, where a few millions only were concerned, would hardly have countenanced them in the expenditure of hundreds of millions, had it conceived that the war was either unnecessary or misconducted; or had it felt a greater confidence in any other set of men. I am sure I do not intend to represent either Mr. Pitt or his successors as faultless. I merely mean to shew, that the nation approved of them, because their general principles, and general conduct, appeared praiseworthy. A peace dictated in the capital of our deadly foe, is some set-off against the interference of a few horsemen at a levee.

I protest, I had no notion of intruding upon the Talents again, till their late attempts determined me. Foreseeing that peace would annihilate several very turbulent questions, and leave ministers in undisturbed repose, they have made one last and desperate effort to persuade the nation, that its temporary distresses (the result of a long war) are inherent and perpetual.

Though the clouds have dispersed, and the winds are silent, they point, with a savage joy, at the unsubsided waves. It is their mean, and unmanly, and unstatesman-like deportment; it is—for I may carp upon this point, since even a pavillion undergoes their atticism;—it is their want of taste in scurrility which has moved me. Neither can I permit their initiated accomplices to go unbranded. These new men are almost as troublesome as the old. Some of them, indeed, promised better things, till bad company corrupted them; so, having preferred the poisoned shirt of Nessus to the skin of the Nemæan lion, they must suffer for their choice. But though they may feel the torture of Hercules, they shall not commit his devastation.