In glancing back upon the transactions of the world, as they have recently passed in review before us, how can it afford any matter of wonder that the advocates of liberty should have entertained fears for its safety, and have wished, as a check, the re-establishment of the British constitution in its purity. There was, indeed, little hope of this being acted upon, when foreign despots were leagued to enslave their peoples; and our own government, supported by a demi-oligarchy, was so deeply connected with them. Loan after loan was wrung from the British people under various pretexts, but in reality to support despotism under the disguise of legitimacy. Granted, that an honest House of Commons might have supported legitimacy, they should have openly expressed disapprobation at the lost liberties of nations of enslaved people. Protests of this kind, however, did not fit with the notions of the representatives of boroughmongers, who composed the majority of the honourable House, and who had long been used to treat the people and their petitions with unblushing neglect or contempt.
In this state of things, politics ran high; an unpleasant ferment soured the minds of a great majority of the people; and it cannot be wondered that they were, with difficulty, kept within bounds. Those who had been used to batten on the wages of corruption became excessively alarmed, and, under the pretence of preserving the constitution, resorted to a system of espionage, and of gaols and bastilles, and left no stone unturned to throw odium upon their opponents, the advocates of liberty, who were branded with the nicknames of Jacobins, Levellers, Radicals, &c., &c. The pen of literature was prostituted to overshade the actions of good men, and to gloss-over the enormities of the base. The energies of many members of both Houses of Parliament were unavailing against this compact confederacy of undeserving placemen and pensioners, who were bound together by fellow feelings of self-interest, in which all ideas of public trust were lost in private considerations. They had sinned themselves out of all shame. This phalanx have kept their ground, and will do so till, it is to be feared, violence from an enraged people breaks them up, or, perhaps, till the growing opinions against such a crooked order of conducting the affairs of this great nation becomes quite apparent to an immense majority, whose frowns may have the power of bringing the agents of government to pause upon the brink of the precipice on which they stand, and to provide in time, by wise and honest measures, to avert the coming storm. It is appalling to think of matters of this import being brought to extremities, especially when the whole might so easily be settled without any convulsion at all. The king (whose interests are the same as the people’s), if freed from the advice of evil counsellors, and from the unfitting trammels by which they have him bound, might insist upon having the constitution restored to its purity. This would at once settle the business, and would cause him to be adored by his whole people, and his name to be revered, by the enlightened in every civilised country, to the latest posterity.