populous opulent towns in the kingdom; and in fhort, contrary to the almoft univerfal voice of the free and independent part of his Majesty's loyal and patriotic fubjects: certainly this dernier, imbecile effort of a distracted miniftry, is a fronger infiance and conviction of their ignorance, weaknefs, and fhallow policy, than all the arbitrary measures or abfurd blunders they have hitherto been guilty of; and at the fame time may be confidered as the most fcandalous infult to Majefty, as well as the groffeft affront to a generous difcerning people. 1 With refpect to Sir John Glyn, Bart. who reprefents that borough in parliament, or Sir Roger Moftyn, Bart. who reprefents that county, we do not find that they know any thing of this minifterial tool Sir Richard Perrot, or in any respect promoted fuch a petition. Both the worthy gentlemen I have juft mentioned are not only poffeffed of confiderable independent fortunes in that county, but are diftinguished for integrity and upright conduct, both in their public as well as private capacities: fo that it is highly improbable they fhould ever become fubfervient to a corrupt defperate miniftry, who have alienated that affection which once bordered upon adoration from a brave people to their Sovereign, and whofe measures now receive their only fupport from fuch as live upon the spoils of the public, and receive the wages of corruption. However bafe and unworthy, an infignificant number of indigent, illiberal, venal fouls may have acted, by proftituting their names for a prefent trifling advantage, to promote the designs of a profligate arbitrary minifter, ftill, it is to be hoped, that inconderable, degenerate, rotten borough, (which will be always remembered with infamy) will never be of fufficient weight and influence, fo as to infect the reft of those brave people, whofe ancestors have made fo many noble ftruggles for ages in fupport of their liberty, which they efleemed of more value than life itfelf. Let them reflect it is a facred pledge delivered to them by those whofe memories they fhould know and revere, and which their pollerity have a right to demand, fhould be handed down to them inviolate, free from the leaft diminution or encroachment, I am your's, &c. SIR, Dulce et decorum eft pro patria mori. DETECTOR. HOR. HE extraordinary nature of a plan for reftraining the liberty Tof the press, lately delivered by a great man of the law to a greater, has called my attention to examine it paragraph by paragraph. As I have been for a few days indifpofed by a violent head-ach, I have not feen any public prints before this day. My natural, and I hope, my honeft zeal and jealoufy for the great rights rights of mankind, prior to any law or lawyers, and the cause and ground of both, have engaged me to lay hold of the first oppor tunity of expoling the futility of the arguments, and the danger of the def.gn fupported by them. The compofition is no better than a vague declamation at fchool, cloathed with fome elegance of diction indeed, and varnished over with a fallacious plaufibility, and an artful fophiftry. Soon learned at the bar, but feldom forgot. Like other habits, it flicks to the mind through life. I have faid, fays the author, and fo have many others faid and unfaid too, "that he can never die too foon, who lays down his life in fupport and vindication of the policy, the government, and the conftitution of his country." What is it worth, an honeft, a good man's life, to be laid down for any, or every policy, for the tyrannical governments and conftitutions of the eat, at Conftantinople, Lilbon, Paris, or any fuch glorious policies, governments, and conftitutions? It would claim more praife and glory, to rifque one's life to overthrow fuch a fyftem of complicated tyranny, which rules with an iron rod over the minds and bodies of millions; and yet, this is called the policy, the government, and the conftitution of this country, the venerable ftructure of civil and religious defpotifm, invented by a few knaves, and fubmitted to by myriads of fools, or rather unhappy flaves. "I have faid that my temper and the colour of my life." Thefe words carry a challenge, a defiance to all the world, to question the colour of your life; is it all white without spot or blemish? For evidence of this, your well-known behaviour at the univerfity, your affociation with religious clubs of the most notorious deifts-the pious friends of the church, and one part of the policy and conftitution of your country, may be pleaded to all the world, rifum tencatis amici? From what part you have acquired that fuit of armour, is best known to yourfelf: whether from the school of ftoical apathy, or from any wiser fect of philofophers, or from the electric tribe, taking the belt out of every one, I leave it to you to declare, and wish for the benefit of many, who want fuch a convenient fait, that you will discover the fecret, and not from envy keep the whole advantage to you and family. "The arrows of fedition never hurt a truly honeft man, nor does the mendax infamia of the vulgar, rob a good man of his fleep, or his peace of mind." But a perfon of a fufpected character, a trimmer, a mere Proteus in opinion, may be open to the arrows, not of fedition, but of every honeft man's words in the three kingdoms. "The fame principles which have fupported me in maintaining &c." Thefe were not your first principles furely; but, perhaps your favourite Tully taught you to temporize, and put off principles as easily as you could put off your coat; yet fome may believe what Horace fays to be true at the bottom: Quo femel eft imbuta recens, fervabit odorem You You are right in fhuddering for the abandoned licentioufnefs of the times; I fhudder too, though I think with an honeft Scotch divine, of great merit as a writer, that the root of this evil doth not arife from the little, but the great vulgar. If what he fays be true, the times are licentious to a witness; if it be falfe, he is a libeller of the first magnitude, and we have yet laws and judges to punish fuch offenders. If he drew his opinion from the knowledge of the Scottish nobility and gentry only; perhaps it is no true picture of the English: but, if he means, that both have no more fenfe of religion than the good people at the Cape; then I will venture to affirm, that it is not the giddy mob that has occafioned this abandoned licentioufnefs, but the great mob in high life: Hoc fonte derivata clades, In populum patriamque fluxit. Let us hear no more of the vices of the poor and mean, while we have fuch barefaced and numerous adulteries, whoredoms, drunkenness, luxury, gaming, and perfect contempt of God in his moral government, among New-market ftatefmen, and Arthur's noble gamblers. "Surely the fecurity of our property, &c."-very truly fpoken; nor is every thing we hold dear and valuable, to depend upon the caprice of prime ministers, or a pt of placemen from every department of government; nor are the people, amounting to ten millions, to fee their lands and goods mortgaged year after year, deeper and deeper, in compliance with corrupt and ignorant adminiftrators of the commonwealth from the days of the revolution to this hour; the trustees and guardians of the wealth of the nation, being become its maffers and venders of the whole property, to a debt of 140 millions; fo that we are beggars in the eyes of our neighbours, and to this hour afraid, as Sir William Draper's letters declare, to demand the Manilla ranfom from the Frenchified court of Spain. Pudet hæc opprobria dici! "The torrent of fedition acquires ftrength, &c."-The torrent of minifterial defpotifm increases by not being opposed; and a minifter of state, had proper examples been made of offenders, might have been as little feared or regarded as the sheriff of a county is at this day. This planner fuppofes that all evil is to be dreaded from the mere mob; but he must be mistaken; no nation was ever hurt by its commonality till they had bore all that could well be borne. It is the increase of power that is to be guarded and watched as the greatest enemy to public peace and equal legislation; for power defires to be a lawgiver per fe and per fe. Why is he fo tender of the fuppofed martyr? did he not * 286. See Doctor Ofwald's appeal to common fenfe, &c. page think think him a martyr? fome think him fo too in another fenfe, a martyr for the iniquities of his minifters; whom had he given up to the injured nation, as he ought to have done, there had been no occafion to have difputed the title of his martyrdom. The people of this kingdom are wifer now; and will be always contented with a few heads at Temple-Bar from fuch who have rebelled against their king, and which is still as facred and anointed, against the country, of which the King is the guardian, and the moft injured in every corrupt fervant of the public. "The voice of fedition bellowed, &c." The voices of prime minifters, in their turn, have bellowed in the ears of the fenate, with the arrogance of Turkish Bafhaws, your regiment to one, your place to a fecond, your penfion to a third, and fo on, shall be taken away, if you dare fuppofe me not infallible in my meafures. A giddy mob has once in a century bellowed for a few hours, and retired without damage: but rulers at fecond hand by office, but at first by infolence and encroachment, have done fuch mifchief in that fect of judgment by their bareful influence, that many years will not wipe out. On the other hand, neither magiftrates, juries, nor administrators of justice will ever be contemptible in this or any kingdom, while perfonal integrity adorns thofe characters. The bulk of mankind in general are more apt to entertain too high than too low an opinion of fuch civil offi cers. But it is not authority that will fupport itself at this time merely by its name, becaufe adminiftration, always fufpected by a wife and free people, has been bufy in profecuting and its power will ever be judged capable of influencing judgment. In other caufes where have the laws, or the executors of this part, been infulted, affronted, outraged? "The proceedings by attachments are far from anfwering the necefity of thetimes." Ground of bitter complaint indeed! attachments, the glory of our Star-chamber juftice in the reigns of the two firft Stuarts, are not fufficient to fupprefs attacks upon government. What charm is there in the word government, that is thus introduced? doth it mean that it cannot prevent the actions and meafures of minifters of ftate from being nicely examined and inquired into? Is not all history this very conduct? It would be an honour for our prefent excellent Sovereign, to difclaim any advantage by fuch an infamous mode of trial, invented firft by the canon-law, the tyranny of pricfts, refpecting fuppofed herefies, and introduced afterwards into political points by ftate-craft. His Holiness at Rome has never been able to fupprefs Pafquin, an impudent libeller as ever traduced church or flate. A grievous thing it is, that one By had firft the courage and the glory of difputing the right of this English inquifition;" for whatever prefcription it may plead, it is contrary to Magna Charta, and any ftatute law, and if it were not, it is fo odious to compel a man to be his own accufer, that there is only one barbarity Vol. VI. greater P greater, to compel him to be his own executioner; and every true friend of that liberty which is founded on generous and equal laws, will rejoice, that he reaps advantage from the affection of his countrymen, to confole himself under that hard confinement he undergoes by their buying his publications. He complains too, that the perfon whofe mouth you endeavour to stop with your hands, generally cries out fo much the louder. Well, who would not do the fame? The argument from this point is, that the prefs ftands in need of more powerful reftraints. Can this projector invent one, that will not extinguish all freedom, by deftroying licentioufnefs? No, it is not in his power; and his own plan might recommend the author to the good graces of the Pope, to be appointed of that holy office, that marks in an index expurgationis all bad books againft the holy mother church, and the holy father ftate. I will join in his exclamation; "If we haveany regaid forthe most facred characters; for the due adminiftration of justice; for the character of the nation; for the prefervation of the conftitution, we should strengthen the laws which are now in force, by the additional buttress of new ones." True, and let to thefe laws be added others to fupprefs and punish corruption and venality; to exterminate placemen from parliament; to abolish infignificant boroughs, the poifon of the ftate; to reduce the army; to annihilate the national debt; to curtail the falaries of men, who from being worth nothing on their admiffion to office, can go out at the end of fourteen years, enriched with half a million or more. : These are greater evils than the licentioufnefs of the prefs: remove thefe difgraces of our national understanding, and probity and the prefs will have little to tell the world but while thefe evils remain, make not mountains of mole-hills. His affection to his matter I fhall not queftion: his piety to his country is yet more undoubted: his regard for the dignity of magiflracy, and the welfare of the conftitution, are ftill most of all beyond difpute. I fhall obferve a few things upon the part refpecting the prefs: "If there were no publishers, there would be no writers:" Who publishes Pafquinades at Rome? From what quarter came the farcafms and lampoons on the great minifters, and King's mistresses at Paris? Every street in London will be full of written publications, whenever fuch reftrictions are put on the prefs. Let me add, that all readers should be punished, which he forgot: as to the Imprimatur, he mentions, From a perfon invefted with authority. If this be the cafe; farewel Bacon, Harrington, Milton, Locke, Sidney; farewell ye venerable names, friends of mankind, foes to civil and religious tyrannies; your works would foon be food for worms; and other writers, fuch as Filmer, Parker, Sacheverell! with the prelates and priests of James's, and Charles's reigns, the tribe of paffive-obedience doctors, would come |