and afterwards the assassin of reform. And I name these men, in hopes the reader will refer to their speeches; in order that they may see how unanswerably men of abilities speak when on the side of truth and liberty; and how much like drivellers when against them. For the same reason I may refer to the writings of Jenyns, Paley,2 and Burke,s all men of distinguished talents; when it will be seen that wit, reason, and eloquence, in a bad cause, only disgrace those who use them. Besides these, I do not recollect any writers of eminence, who have taken the field as adversaries of parliamentary reformation; for those, who have written with most plausibility, have for the most part had the sense to conceal their names. There is, indeed, a great body of anonymous writing, and some of it meriting great attention, on the side of reform.

By carefully looking over all the Wyvill Political Papers, many names might be added to the list in the Appendix, of persons whose sentiments are deserving of high respect; as there will also be found such writing as never yet did, and never can, fail finally to give triumph to the cause in which it is employed. Had this writing been employed indeed on abstruse points of faith, concerning the affairs of another world, learning and ability might have been displayed perhaps on both sides, with equal reputation to the disputants; but in the case before us, there is neither reputation to be got for valuable writing, nor credit for integrity, except on one side; for those whose arguments go to prove the English constitution a fraudulent bubble, and that mankind have no political rights; how much sooner they may for a moment be applauded by the courtly and the corrupt, will be sure to fall ere long into contempt and reprobation. It has not, my Lord, been fine writing, argument, and oratory, by which we have hitherto been "baffled," but by apostacy, treachery, chicane, and profligate voting; such exactly as we have recently witnessed, in the disgraceful proceedings for screening from justice, a minister, who, by an infamous breach

1 Answered by Internal Evidence, in 1784. 2 Answered by Letters to W Paley, M. A. &c. by T. Holt White, Esq. in 1796. Published by Johnson. 3 Of this gentleman's reasoning on the subject, specimens will ap pear in this work.

of trust, and in gross violation of law, had been privy to, and connived at, the misapplication of public money, for the purpose of private emolument.

On reviewing the past controversy on the subject of parliamentary representation, and what has hitherto been the result, we shall be obliged to admit, that the reasoning of the faction behind the throne, on which they relied for overturning, as I have said, whatever stood in the way of their designs, was not built on slight foundations: nor shall we be surprised that such a faction, when the pillage of America had escaped them, fastened with the keener rapacity on England and Indostan. But amongst our authorities in favour of the necessity of a parliamentary reformation, let us not forget the words of the great Chatham, who wished to

"

infuse a portion of new health into the constitution, to enable it to bear its infirmities ;"1 nor those of his son, in his speech on the 18th of May, 1782, when he said, "That person was not apt to indulge vague and "chimerical speculations, inconsistent with practice "and expediency. I personally know, that it was "the opinion of this person, that without recurring to first principles in this respect, and establishing a more solid and equal representation of the people, by "which the proper constitutional connection should "be revived, this nation, with the best capacities for grandeur and happiness of any on the face of the "earth, must be confounded with the mass of those "whose liberties were lost in the corruption of the people."

1 Quoted by Junius, in his letter to Wilkes.

LETTER VI.

MY LORD,

Now the man who, twenty three years ago, said all this, treacherously building on such a father's fame, and laying in a rich stock of personal popularity by thus

standing forward as the champion of our liberties, had early secured to himself the voice of the nation; but as he well knew that to be the most objectionable of all claims to the confidence of the faction behind the throne and the King's friends, and the last of all pretensions likely to secure him the reins of government, he must have possessed some other secret, whereby he rose to the summit of power, and there so long bore irresistible sway. What that secret was, no man will expect to have proclaimed, nor otherwise to discover its nature, than by a consideration of the relationship between cause and effect. He who shall duly reflect on those principles of government which sprung up near the throne at the time I have mentioned, and on their having to this day lost nothing of their influence, will not find it easy to believe that the faction behind the throne, or any of those who called themselves the King's friends, could have advised a surrender at discretion of the reins of government, together with the key of the treasury, and the patronage of the crown, into the hands of the child and champion of Parliamentary Reformation, possessing the favour of the people, and powers of eloquence to have made the Borough mongers crouch at his feet, and submissively surrender up their usurpations. And if this cannot be believed, what follows but a conviction, that there was a right understanding between the contracting powers, a regular treaty of cession, and an alliance offensive and defensive; which from thence forward was completely to identify him with them, and to bind them to one common interest, and one common line of action.

Be this, however as it may, the writer was early informed and on high authority, that on Mr. Pitt's stating how he was circumstanced in respect to his own conduct, and how he stood pledged to the people, for a reformation of parliament, he was graciously answered that that matter was left in his hands, to be disposed of as he should think fit. Thus forms at least were preserved, no obstacles arose, the treaty was soon brought to a conclusion, the treasury with its boroughs and all its other dependencies were regularly ceded, and possession was taken. Now, my Lord, as effects must have

correspondent causes, if we turn our eyes to the prosecutions, or rather persecutions of unparalleled severity, of those virtuous reformers Muir,1 Palmer, Winterbottom, and others, and to the other ten thousand events which must croud upon our recollection, as marking the character of of Mr. Pitt, from the time he thought popularity no longer useful to him, it will be extremely difficult for us to doubt, as to the nature of the conditions which made the secret articles of the treaty between the faction behind the throne, and that minister. Can we indeed avoid suspecting that through a vulgar iust of mere delegated power, to be held on such degrading conditions, and for such pernicious purposes, as to exclude all the grand and virtuous parts of ambition, he had sold himself to the faction behind the throne and their allies the faction of the Boroughs.

?

Have we any other possible key to the idolatry that has ever been paid him by all the harpies of plunder and the children of corruption? to his immense majorities while in the career of oppression? to his daring to dispose of millions without the knowledge of parliament to his declaring that THE CROWN HAD A RIGHT TO LAND IN ENGLAND FOREIGN MERCENARY ARMIES AT HIS DISCRETION? to his influence where personally feared and hated? to his facility of abdication and resumption of power? to his borough-monger peerages to his contempt for all acts of parliament for specifically appropriating the money granted for the various public services? to his rancour as an apostate? to his state prosecutions in 1794 ? to his green bags fulf of universal suffrage, and his secret committees of bo rough proprietors and patrons, their deputies and allies for defending the rotten-borough system, and a long et cetera and again, to a Rotten Borough war2 which, for its political wickedness and state madness, can no otherwise be accounted for? and finally to his heading in the face of his disgusted country, the com

1 Mr. Muir, in comparison of whom, as a political and constitutional character, his persecutors were fiends of darkness, although a gentleman bred to the bar, was prior to transportation to Botany Bay, confined amongst the lowest and most profligate felons, in one of the Ballast Hulks on the Thames !!!

2 Sce reasons for so calling it in The Constitutional Defence of England, internal and external. p. 99.

bined factions, in their attempts at screening corruption and infamy?

But because this minister only bribes others with public money, in the shape of official salaries, and has not been known personally to rob the treasury to fill his own pockets, we are told he is not personally corrupt!!! because while hundreds of government bills are dishonoured for want of cash to pay them, he only "accommodates" change-alley members of parliament, with a secret loan of forty thousand pounds of public money without interest, he is not personally corrupt !!! because he himself has been biassed, not with money, but with power, he is not personally corrupt !!! although he is the manager and upholder of a system, by which the nation is robbed of its representation, a robbery, which provides the means whereby it may be robbed of its property to any extent, he is not personally corrupt!!! and notwithstanding he, in that parliamentary court, wherein the cases of liberty and property are chiefly decided, is the regular packer of juries for the crown against the people, by putting upon the jury an immense number of the crown's servants, and keeping in constant pay a very large proportion of the jury, he forsooth is not personally corrupt!!! He, in short, who as a minister lives, and moves, and has his very being, in a system which for its corruption, may set at defiance the whole world for such another example, is not, we are told, personally corrupt !!!

"It is," says Mr. Burke, "by bribing, not so often "by being bribed, that wicked politicians bring ruin "on mankind. Avarice is a rival to the pursuits of

many. It finds a multitude of checks, and many opposers, in every walk of life. But the objects of "ambition are for the few; and every person who aims "at indirect profit, and therefore wants other protec"tion than innocence and law, instead of its rival, be"comes its instrument. There is a natural allegiance "and fealty due to this domineering paramount evil, "from all the vassal vices, which acknowledge its su"periority, and readily militate under its banners; and

I See a future page, in which will be shewn the mode of packing parliamentary jurics.