But, my lord, there is a second object of consideration still more important than this.  It is in vain for your lordship, or any other person, to persuade the sovereign against any of the measures of his government, unless you can add to this the discovery of those new sentiments you have instilled, to all such as it may concern.  It is the business of every Machiavelian minister, such as your lordship, both from nature and choice, is inclined to be, to prop the cause of despotism.  In order to this, the dignity of the sovereign is not to be committed, but exalted.  To bring forward the royal person to put a negative upon any bill in parliament, is a most inartificial mode of proceeding.  It marks too accurately the strides of power, and awakens too pointedly the attention of the multitude.  Your lordship has heard that the house of lords is the barrier between the king and the people.  There is a sense of this phrase, of which I am wonderfully fond.  The dissemination of the royal opinion will at any time create a majority in that house, to divert the odium from the person of the monarch.  Twenty-two bishops, thirteen lords of the bed-chamber, and all the rabble of household troops, will at any time compose an army.  They may not indeed cover an acre of ground, nor would I advise your lordship to distribute them into a great number of regiments.  Their countenances are not the most terrific that were ever beheld, and it might be proper to officer them with persons of more sagacity than themselves.  But under all this meekness of appearance, and innocence of understanding, believe me, my lord, they are capable of keeping at bay the commons and the people of England united in one cause, for a considerable time.  They have been too long at the beck of a minister, not to be somewhat callous in their feelings.  And they are too numerous, not to have shoulders capacious enough to bear all the obloquy, with which their conduct may be attended.

But then, my lord, as I would not recommend it to you to bring into practice the royal negative, so neither perhaps would it be advisable for the sovereign, to instruct those lords immediately attendant upon him, in person.  Kings, you are not to be informed, are to be managed and humoured by those that would win their confidence.  If your lordship could invent a sort of down, more soft and yielding than has yet been employed, it might be something.  But to point out to your master, that he must say this, and write that, that he must send for one man, and break with another, is an unpleasant and ungrateful office.  It must be your business to take the burden from his shoulders.  You must smooth the road you would have him take, and strew with flowers the path of ruin.  If he favour your schemes with a smile of approbation, if he bestow upon your proceedings the sanction of a nod, it is enough.  It is godlike fortitude, and heroic exertion.