It cannot be concealed:  we are a divided people.  But in divisions, where a part is to be taken, we are to make a muster of our strength.  I have often endeavored to compute and to class those who, in any political view, are to be called the people.  Without doing something of this sort, we must proceed absurdly.  We should not be much wiser, if we pretended to very great accuracy in our estimate; but I think, in the calculation I have made, the error cannot be very material.  In England and Scotland, I compute that those of adult age, not declining in life, of tolerable leisure for such discussions, and of some means of information, more or less, and who are above menial dependence, (or what virtually is such,) may amount to about four hundred thousand.  There is such a thing as a natural representative of the people.  This body is that representative; and on this body, more than on the legal constituent, the artificial representative depends.  This is the British public; and it is a public very numerous.  The rest, when feeble, are the objects of protection,—­when strong, the means of force.  They who affect to consider that part of us in any other light insult while they cajole us; they do not want us for counsellors in deliberation, but to list us as soldiers for battle.

Of these four hundred thousand political citizens, I look upon one fifth, or about eighty thousand, to be pure Jacobins, utterly incapable of amendment, objects of eternal vigilance, and, when they break out, of legal constraint.  On these, no reason, no argument, no example, no venerable authority, can have the slightest influence.  They desire a change; and they will have it, if they can.  If they cannot have it by English cabal, they will make no sort of scruple of having it by the cabal of France, into which already they are virtually incorporated.  It is only their assured and confident expectation of the advantages of French fraternity, and the approaching blessings of Regicide intercourse, that skins over their mischievous dispositions with a momentary quiet.

This minority is great and formidable.  I do not know whether, if I aimed at the total overthrow of a kingdom, I should wish to be incumbered with a larger body of partisans.  They are more easily disciplined and directed than if the number were greater.  These, by their spirit of intrigue, and by their restless agitating activity, are of a force far superior to their numbers, and, if times grew the least critical, have the means of debauching or intimidating many of those who are now sound, as well as of adding to their force large bodies of the more passive part of the nation.  This minority is numerous enough to make a mighty cry for peace, or for war, or for any object they are led vehemently to desire.  By passing from place to place with a velocity incredible, and diversifying their character and description, they are capable of mimicking the general voice.  We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.