3.  When the proceedings of this society of the Friends of the People, as well as others acting in the same spirit, had caused a very serious alarm in the mind of the Duke of Portland, and of many good patriots, he publicly, in the House of Commons, treated their apprehensions and conduct with the greatest asperity and ridicule.  He condemned and vilified, in the most insulting and outrageous terms, the proclamation issued by government on that occasion,—­though he well knew that it had passed through the Duke of Portland’s hands, that it had received his fullest approbation, and that it was the result of an actual interview between that noble Duke and Mr. Pitt.  During the discussion of its merits in the House of Commons, Mr. Fox countenanced and justified the chief promoters of that association; and he received, in return, a public assurance from them of an inviolable adherence to him singly and personally.  On account of this proceeding, a very great number (I presume to say not the least grave and wise part) of the Duke of Portland’s friends in Parliament, and many out of Parliament who are of the same description, have become separated from that time to this from Mr. Fox’s particular cabal,—­very few of which cabal are, or ever have, so much as pretended to be attached to the Duke of Portland, or to pay any respect to him or his opinions.

4.  At the beginning of this session, when the sober part of the nation was a second time generally and justly alarmed at the progress of the French arms on the Continent, and at the spreading of their horrid principles and cabals in England, Mr. Fox did not (as had been usual in cases of far less moment) call together any meeting of the Duke of Portland’s friends in the House of Commons, for the purpose of taking their opinion on the conduct to be pursued in Parliament at that critical juncture.  He concerted his measures (if with any persons at all) with the friends of Lord Lansdowne, and those calling themselves Friends of the People, and others not in the smallest degree attached to the Duke of Portland; by which conduct he wilfully gave up (in my opinion) all pretensions to be considered as of that party, and much more to be considered as the leader and mouth of it in the House of Commons.  This could not give much encouragement to those who had been separated from Mr. Fox, on account of his conduct on the first proclamation, to rejoin that party.

5.  Not having consulted any of the Duke of Portland’s party in the House of Commons,—­and not having consulted them, because he had reason to know that the course he had resolved to pursue would be highly disagreeable to them,—­he represented the alarm, which was a second time given and taken, in still more invidious colors than those in which he painted the alarms of the former year.  He described those alarms in this manner, although the cause of them was then grown far less equivocal and far more urgent.  He even went so far as to treat