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[1] YOU have very justly made Impartiality the First Qualification of your TRUE BRITON; and I promise myself, you will secure your Title to that Part of your Character.

[2] TO call that Liberty to Day, which we call'd Liberty some Time ago; to esteem that to be Persecution against one, which we should esteem to be Persecution against another; to impute the same Effects to the same Causes; to call the same Things the same Things; though this may seem but a Low and Ordinary Degree of Understanding and Honesty, is yet that Greatness of Mind, that Impartiality of Judgment which very few People arrive at.

[3] NOTHING is more common, than for a Party of Men, in a small

Course of Time, to forget themselves, and act contrary to those very Principles which made them a Party. Parties will generally have so much of Madness, Violence, and Contradiction in their Conduct, as happens to be in the Private Temper of their Leaders. And are seldom any longer true to the Principles and Reasons of their Party, than those at the Head of them, prove to be moderate, equitable and undesigning Men.

[4] AS Absolute Monarchy, in the Hands of a Wise and Virtuous Prince, may make a Nation for his Time, more Happy than any Legal Government; so the Cause of Liberty, when committed to the Hands of Violence, Avarice and Revenge, may more inslave a People, and destroy a Nation, than the heaviest Strokes of Monarchical Power. [5] The True Briton is, therefore, to look to the Preservation of the Peinciples [sic] of his Party, and not to the Men who make a Bluster[6] in it; for it will often happen, that he must lose his Party, if he will follow those whom Fortune has placed at the Head of it. An Evil Minister may have so acted, that he can be no longer safe, than whilst he is in Power: He may have more to fear, than an Evil Monarch, and to be

forced upon more desperate Methods to secure himself from an abused, injured People.

[5] THE True Briton is therefore to stick to[7] the Reasons and Principles of his Party. He is to follow the Old Patrons of his Cause; to adhere to Equity, Liberty, and Moderation; and to reckon none to be of his Party, who, on any Pretence whatsoever, swerve from them. The Good of Party, is, In supporting Principles; The Evil of Party, In following Persons.

[6] WHEN I give this Advice, I can only be supposed to speak to the Tories; for the Whigs have been so Happy in their Governors, that they cannot follow them too blindly. Their Conduct, at least since His Majesty's Accession to the Throne, has been but One continued Act of Uniformity; One perpetual Endeavour to strengthen and finish the Glorious Fabrick of Liberty.

[7] IN a Late Reign, Power was some Time in Other Hands; Liberty, for a while, hung down its Head; Property grew precarious, and Magna Charta as little valued as the Original Contract; Corruption increased; Bribery was established; Religion declined; and the Church was ashamed to see herself committed to the Care of an Illiterate, Weak, Worldly, Prostitute Clergy.

[8] THOSE Days brought forth the Occasional and Schism Bills; which are such violent Attempts upon the Liberty of the Subject, as at once made the Kingdom but a Den of Slaves. The Peace with France had proved Great-Britain's Funeral, had not His Majesty's Accession to the Throne, committed the Administration to the True Patrons of Liberty. These little Intervals of Tory Persecution and Slavery, have always created more Work for the better Party. [8]

[9] BUT their Happy Continuance in Power since the Late Reign, and Freedom from any Fear of ever losing it, has made them able to compleat every Part of the Scheme of Liberty, and carry some Blessings of the Revolution higher than even the most Sanguine amongst us could expect.

[10] THE Tories, when in Power, shewed themselves mere Bunglers: They knew nothing of Money Matters; Their Exchequer was Low; They feared Expences; State Officers were in Arear of their Salaries; and the Lord Treasurer came out of his Office, as Poor as he entered upon it. But now! Money is so Plentiful; the Exchequer is so Rich; that the Government has lately remitted above Seven Millions of Money to a Single Company. It is Happy for the Gentlemen in the Administration, that such a Sum of Money, so generously given, has also so much Justice to support the Gift. Or otherwise, since the Breach of Trust [9] is now made liable to be punished by Forfeiture

of Estate, as appears by the South-Sea Directors Bill; the Nation, to whom that Money was due, might, some time or other, inquire after it. But the great Justice, the Extraordinary Charity, and the Wise Ends of giving the Nation's Money to the South-Sea Company, are so plain and obvious an Instance of National Care, that those who are chiefly intitled to the Merit of it, may safely repose themselves upon the Nation's Favour.

[11] WHEN Her Late Majesty was so Unhappy as to employ the Tories, the Church of England began to make broad her Philactery, and to talk of Independency [10] of the State; and Bishops were chosen to support such Claims. His Majesty's Happy Reign has filled that Reverend Bench with such Primitive, Learned and Apostolical Men, as even gain the Esteem and Favour of all the Sworn Enemies to Episcopacy.

[12] THE Bishop of Rochester (as mere a Slave to Church Principles as Arch-Bishop Laud was) has had the Voices of Nineteen out of Twenty Bishops to Banish him the Kingdom. And to their Eternal Honour be it said, That neither the Sacredness of the Episcopal Character; nor the Extraordinariness of the Case; nor the Unusual Method of the Proceeding; nor their Concern for a Brother; nor their Affection for the Church; nor the Example of above Forty Temporal Lords, could abate their Christian Zeal for the Banishment of so Great and Eminent a Brother. The History of JOSEPH is a very entertaining Story.[11]

[13] IT is endless to enumerate the various Circumstances of our present Happiness. The Number of Good Laws which have been lately made, as they must mightily Endear the Present Ministers to all Lovers of Liberty, so they reflect the highest Reproach upon those Days, when Power was in other Hands.

[14] YOU have made Just Observations upon several Laws. I wonder

how the South-Sea Directors Bill, by which they forfeit their Estates, escap'd your Observation. It is a Statute of as much Importance as that against Plunket, and as worthy the Thoughts of the True Briton.

[15] THE several Bills against the Bishop of Rochester, Mr. Kelly, and Plunket, cannot be said to be form'd upon the Directors Bill, because the Bishop, Mr. Kelly, and Plunket, were allow'd to speak for Themselves, nor by their Council. These Gentlemen had also their Crimes specify'd; so that by Defences and Speeches, they have been able to let the World see the Nature of their Guilt, and the Strength of the Evidence against them. But the Directors had no Specification of their Crimes; nor was their Guilt fix'd to any Particulars; so that the World is left to judge of their Guilt only by the Nature of their Punishment.

[16] NOW, altho' these Moderate, Gentle, Merciful Acts, cannot be said to be copy'd from the Directors Bill, because the Directors Bill has several severe Circumstances which these Bills have not; yet if, in any future Time, an Ill Ministry should procure a corrupt Parliament, to make People to forfeit their Estates for General Charges, without Trying them, without Hearing them; might not such Unmerciful Proceedings plead some Colour of Justice from the Bill against the late Directors?

[17] GO on, SIR, to instruct and Reform a Corrupt Age; and teach Britons to be Good Men and True.