THE submission of a free people to the executive authority of government is no more than a compliance with laws which they themselves have enacted. While the national honour is firmly maintained abroad, and while justice is impartially administered at home, the obedience of the subject will be voluntary, cheerful, and I might almost say unlimited. A generous nation is grateful even for the preservation of its rights, and willingly extends the respect due to the office

of a good prince into an affection for his person. Loyalty, in the heart and understanding of an Englishman, is a rational attachment to the guardian of the laws. Prejudices and passion have sometimes carried it to a criminal length; and, whatever foreigners may imagine, we know that Englishmen have erred as much in a mistaken zeal for particular persons and families, as they ever did in defence of what they thought most dear and interesting to themselves.

cause.

It naturally fills us with resentment to see such a temper insulted and abused. In reading the history of a free people, whose rights have been invaded, we are interested in their Our own feelings tell us how long they ought to have submitted, and at what moment it would have been treachery to themselves not to have resisted. How much warmer will be our resentment if experience should bring the fatal example home to ourselves!

The situation of this country is alarm

ing enough to rouse the attention of every man who pretends to a concern for the public welfare. Appearances justify suspicion; and, when the safety of a nation is at stake, suspicion is a just ground of inquiry. Let us enter into it with candour and decency. Respect is due to the station of ministers; and, if a resolution must at last be taken, there is none so likely to be supported with firmness as that which has been adopted with moderation.

The ruin or prosperity of a state depends so much upon the administration of its government, that, to be acquainted with the merit of a ministry, we need only observe the condition of the people. If we see them obedient to the laws, prosperous in their industry, united at home, and respected abroad, we may reasonably presume that their affairs are conducted by men of experience, abilities, and virtue. If, on the contrary, we see an universal spirit of distrust and dissatisfaction, a rapid decay of trade, dissensions in all parts of the empire, and a total loss of

eyes

respect in the
of foreign powers, we may
pronounce, without hesitation, that the go-
vernment of that country is weak, distracted,
and corrupt. The multitude, in all coun-
tries, are patient to a certain point. Ill usage
may rouse their indignation, and hurry them
into excesses, but the original fault is in go-
vernment. Perhaps there never was an in-
stance of a change, in the circumstances and
temper of a whole nation, so sudden and
extraordinary as that which the misconduct
of ministers has, within these few years, pro-
duced in Great Britain. When our gracious
sovereign ascended the throne, we were a
flourishing and a contented people. If the
personal virtues of a king could have insured
the happiness of his subjects, the scene could
not have altered so entirely as it has done.
The idea of uniting all parties, of trying all
characters, and distributing the offices of state
by rotation, was gracious and benevolent to
an extreme, though it has not yet produced
the many salutary effects which were intend-
ed by it. To say nothing of the wisdom of
such a plan, it undoubtedly arose from an

unbounded goodness of heart, in which folly had no share. It was not a capricious partiality to new faces; it was not a natural turn for low intrigue; nor was it the treacherous amusement of double and triple negotiations. No, sir, it arose from a continued anxiety, in the purest of all possible hearts, for the general welfare. Unfortunately for us, the event has not been answerable to the design. After a rapid succession of changes, we are reduced to that state which hardly any change can mend. Yet there is no extremity of distress which, of itself, ought to reduce a great nation to despair. It is not the disorder, but the physician; it is not a casual concurrence of calamitous circumstances, it is the pernicious hand of government, which alone can make a whole people desperate.

Without much political sagacity, or any extraordinary depth of observation, we need only mark how the principal departments of the state are bestowed, and look no farther for the true cause of every mischief that befals us.