the public exigency? On the contrary, am I not daily increasing your emoluments and your numbers in proportion as the country becomes unable to provide for you? Do I require of you, my latest and most zealous proselytes— of you who have come over to me for the special purpose of supporting the war—a war, on the success of which you solemnly protest that the salvation of Britain, and of civil society itself, depends-do I require of you, that you should make a temporary sacrifice, in the cause of human nature, of the greater part of your private incomes? No, gentlemen; I scorn to take advantage of the eagerness of your zeal; and to prove that I think the sincerity of your attachment to me needs no such test, I will make your interest co-operate with your principle: I will quarter many of you on the public supply, instead of calling on you to contribute to it; and, while their whole thoughts are absorbed in patriotic apprehensions for their country, I will dexterously force upon others the favorite objects of the vanity or ambition of their lives.'

"Good God, sir, that he should have thought it prudent to have forced this contrast upon our attention; that he should triumphantly remind us of everything that shame should have withheld, and caution would have buried in oblivion! Will those who stood forth with a parade of disinterested patriotism, and

vaunted of the sacrifices they have made, and the exposed situation they had chosen, in order the better to oppose the friends of Brissot in England-will they thank the noble lord for reminding us how soon these lofty professions dwindled into little jobbing pursuits for followers and dependents, as unfit to fill the offices procured for them, as the offices themselves were unfit to be created? Will the train of newly-titled alarmists, of supernumerary negotiators, of pensioned paymasters, agents and commissaries, thank him for remarking to us how profitable their panic has been to themselves, and how expensive to the country? What a contrast, indeed, do we exhibit! What! in such an hour as this, at a moment pregnant with the national fate, when, pressing as the exigency may be, the hard task of squeezing the money from the pockets of an impoverished people, from the toil, the drudgery of the shivering poor, must make the most practised collector's heart ache while he tears it from them-can it be that people of high rank, and professing high principles, that they or their families should seek to thrive on the spoils of misery, and fatten on the meals wrested from industrious poverty? Can it be that this should be the case with the very persons who state the unprecedented peril of the country as the sole cause of their being found in the ministerial ranks? The Constitution is in danger, religion is in danger, the very exist

ence of the nation itself is endangered; all personal and party considerations ought to vanish; the war must be supported by every possible exertion, and by every possible sacrifice; the people must not murmur at their burdens-it is for their salvation, their all is at stake. The time is come when all honest and disinterested men should rally round the throne as round a standard; for what? ye honest and disinterested men, to receive, for your own private emolument, a portion of those very taxes wrung from the people, on the pretence of saving them from the poverty and distress which you say the enemy would inflict, but which you take care no enemy shall be able to aggravate. Oh! shame! shame! is this a time for selfish intrigues, and the little dirty traffic for lucre and emolument? Does it suit the honor of a gentleman to ask at such a moment? Does it become the honesty of a Minister to grant? Is it intended to confirm the pernicious doctrine, so industriously propagated by many, that all public men are impostors, and that every politician has his price? Or even where there is no principle in the bosom, why does not prudence hint to the mercenary and the vain to abstain a while at least, and wait the fitting of the times? Improvident impatience! Nay, even from those who seem to have no direct object of office or profit, what is the language which their actions speak? The throne is in

danger! 'We will support the throne, but let us share the smiles of royalty.' The order of nobility is in danger! 'I will fight for nobility,' says the viscount, ‘but my zeal would be much greater if I were made an earl.' 'Rouse all the marquis within me,' exclaims the earl, and the peerage never turned forth a more undaunted champion in its cause than I shall prove.' 'Stain my green riband blue,' cries out the illustrious knight, ‘and the fountain of honor will have a fast and faithful servant.' What are the people to think of our sincerity? What credit are they to give to our professions? Is this system to be persevered in? Is there nothing that whispers to that right honorable gentleman that the crisis is too big, that the times are too gigantic, to be ruled by the little hackneyed and everyday means of ordinary corruption?"

ON THE ENGLISH PEOPLE.

(This extract on the character of the people of England, at that time, seems of peculiar interest. It appears both candid and just.)

"Never was there," he said, "any country in which there was so much absence of public principle, and at the same time so many instances of private worth. Never was there so much charity and humanity toward the poor and the distressed; any act of cruelty or oppression never failed to excite a sentiment of general indignation against its authors. It was a circumstance peculiarly strange, that though luxury had arrived at such a pitch, it had so little effect in depraving the hearts and destroying the morals of people in private life; and almost every day produced some fresh example of generous feelings and noble exertions of benevolence. Yet, amidst these phenomena of private virtue, it was to be remarked that there was an almost total want of public spirit, and a most deplorable contempt of public principle. * When Great Britain falls, the case will not be with her as with Rome

*

*

*