With the Earl of Bute they had no personal connection; no correspondence of councils.  They neither courted him nor persecuted him.  They practised no corruption; nor were they even suspected of it.  They sold no offices.  They obtained no reversions or pensions, either coming in or going out, for them selves, their families, or their dependents.

In the prosecution of their measures they were traversed by an opposition of a new and singular character; an opposition of placemen and pensioners.  They were supported by the confidence of the nation.  And having held their offices under many difficulties and discouragements, they left them at the express command, as they had accepted them at the earnest request, of their royal master.

These are plain facts; of a clear and public nature; neither extended by elaborate reasoning, nor heightened by the coloring of eloquence.  They are the services of a single year.

The removal of that administration from power is not to them premature; since they were in office long enough to accomplish many plans of public utility; and, by their perseverance and resolution, rendered the way smooth and easy to their successors; having left their king and their country in a much better condition than they found them.  By the temper they manifest, they seem to have now no other wish than that their successors may do the public as real and as faithful service as they have done.

OBSERVATIONS

ON A LATE PUBLICATION,

INTITULED

“THE PRESENT STATE OF THE NATION.”

   “O Tite, si quid ego adjuvero curamve levasso,
    Quae nunc te coquit, et versat sub pectore fixa,
    Ecquid erit pretii?”

ENN. ap.  CIC.

1769.

Party divisions, whether on the whole operating for good or evil, are things inseparable from free government.  This is a truth which, I believe, admits little dispute, having been established by the uniform experience of all ages.  The part a good citizen ought to take in these divisions has been a matter of much deeper controversy.  But God forbid that any controversy relating to our essential morals should admit of no decision.  It appears to me, that this question, like most of the others which regard our duties in life, is to be determined by our station in it.  Private men may be wholly neutral, and entirely innocent:  but they who are legally invested with public trust, or stand on the high ground of rank and dignity, which is trust implied, can hardly in any case remain indifferent, without the certainty of sinking into insignificance; and thereby in effect deserting that post in which, with the fullest authority, and for the wisest purposes, the laws and institutions of their country have fixed them.  However, if it be the office of those who are thus circumstanced, to take a decided part, it is no less their duty that it should be a sober one.  It ought to be circumscribed by the same laws of decorum, and balanced by the same temper, which bound and regulate all the virtues.  In a word, we ought to act in party with all the moderation which does not absolutely enervate that vigor, and quench that fervency of spirit, without which the best wishes for the public good must evaporate in empty speculation.