I confess, my notions are widely different; and I never was less sorry for any action of my life.  I like the bill the better on account of the events of all kinds that followed it.  It relieved the real sufferers; it strengthened the state; and, by the disorders that ensued, we had clear evidence that there lurked a temper somewhere which ought not to be fostered by the laws.  No ill consequences whatever could be attributed to the act itself.  We knew beforehand, or we were poorly instructed, that toleration is odious to the intolerant, freedom to oppressors, property to robbers, and all kinds and degrees of prosperity to the envious.  We knew that all these kinds of men would gladly gratify their evil dispositions under the sanction of law and religion, if they could:  if they could not, yet, to make way to their objects, they would do their utmost to subvert all religion and all law.  This we certainly knew.  But, knowing this, is there any reason, because thieves break in and steal, and thus bring detriment to you, and draw ruin on themselves, that I am to be sorry that you are in possession of shops, and of warehouses, and of wholesome laws to protect them?  Are you to build no houses, because desperate men may pull them down upon their own heads?  Or, if a malignant wretch will cut his own throat, because he sees you give alms to the necessitous and deserving, shall his destruction be attributed to your charity, and not to his own deplorable madness?  If we repent of our good actions, what, I pray you, is left for our faults and follies?  It is not the beneficence of the laws, it is the unnatural temper which beneficence can fret and sour, that is to be lamented.  It is this temper which, by all rational means, ought to be sweetened and corrected.  If froward men should refuse this cure, can they vitiate anything but themselves?  Does evil so react upon good, as not only to retard its motion, but to change its nature?  If it can so operate, then good men will always be in the power of the bad,—­and virtue, by a dreadful reverse of order, must lie under perpetual subjection and bondage to vice.

As to the opinion of the people, which some think, in such cases, is to be implicitly obeyed,—­near two years’ tranquillity, which follows the act, and its instant imitation in Ireland, proved abundantly that the late horrible spirit was in a great measure the effect of insidious art, and perverse industry, and gross misrepresentation.  But suppose that the dislike had been much more deliberate and much more general than I am persuaded it was,—­when we know that the opinions of even the greatest multitudes are the standard of rectitude, I shall think myself obliged to make those opinions the masters of my conscience.  But if it may be doubted whether Omnipotence itself is competent to alter the essential constitution of right and wrong, sure I am that such things as they and I are possessed of no such power.  No man carries further than I do the policy of making