University of Virginia Library

Letter 14
19 April 1769
NLS: MS 25295, ff. 146-147

I am honoured with yours of the 14^ inst. and am much obliged to you for your kind enquiries concerning my health. I thank God it is now become tolerable again.

The times are truly become miserable; not from any danger of the Public, but from the dishonour brought upon it by these mock Patriots, without parts or virtue, the Apes of those fierce Fanatics who had both, and misused them under Charles the first, to overturn a constitution which they pretended to reform. They had a foundation to work upon, real grievances; These, only fictitious. Had Charles the first the advantages of George the third, of 30000 veteran troops; and a House of Commons become odious and contemptible

to the People, he had ended the quarrel at a blow; and, instead of demanding the 5 Members, he had demanded the 500; and not left it to C[r]omwell to padlock up their Door. What obligations have we then to our excellent King who saves us from our selves, and shuts fast that Door of destruction of which he only has the Key. For as to the mad cry of the mob for a Republic, it is like that of the fifth monarchy ∧men∧, of old, for the Millenium. A Republic demands a virtuous People. But ours have neither virtue nor Religion: and so, have chosen for their head two or three [of] the most diabolic wretches upon Earth.—In a discourse written some years ago, in which I gave a history of the rise and progress of the present state of Religion amongst us occasioned by the intrigues of our Politicians, I said they would now soon have an opportunity of experiencing the truth of their favorite maxim, that Government might be easily carried on without Religion. But why do I give your Lordship the pain of saying so much on this odious subject; and with equal pain to my selfe? I know not, unless it be, that complaining in our distresses seems a kind of reliefe to them.

But it is time to come to a more agre[e]able subject. Your Lordship does wisely to withdraw your mind from this scene of horrors, on the elegant and usefull attention to that important part of History, the Ecclesiastical. I shall devour the tract you mention (as I do every thing of yours) with exquisite pleasure: but shall be extremely concerned if the melancholy hours you mention, be not those we all pass, for the Public, but rather those of a domestic kind, in the loss of some, deservedly most dear to you—But this is the appen age of Humanity, which we are all doomed to partake of.