By the conversation of some friends, it seemed as if they were willing to fall in with this design, because it promised to emancipate them from the servitude of irksome business, and to afford them an opportunity of retiring to ease and tranquillity.  If that be their object in the secession and addresses proposed, there surely never were means worse chosen to gain their end; and if this be any part of the project, it were a thousand times better it were never undertaken.  The measure is not only unusual, and as such critical, but it is in its own nature strong and vehement in a high degree.  The propriety, therefore, of adopting it depends entirely upon the spirit with which it is supported and followed.  To pursue violent measures with languor and irresolution is not very consistent in speculation, and not more reputable or safe in practice.  If your Lordship’s friends do not go to this business with their whole hearts, if they do not feel themselves uneasy without it, if they do not undertake it with a certain degree of zeal, and even with warmth and indignation, it had better be removed wholly out of our thoughts.  A measure of less strength, and more in the beaten circle of affairs, if supported with spirit and industry, would be on all accounts infinitely more eligible.  We have to consider what it is that in this undertaking we have against us.  We have the weight of King, Lords, and Commons in the other scale; we have against us, within a trifle, the whole body of the law; we oppose the more considerable part of the landed and mercantile interests; we contend, in a manner, against the whole Church; we set our faces against great armies flushed with victory, and navies who have tasted of civil spoil, and have a strong appetite for more; our strength, whatever it is, must depend, for a good part of its effect, upon events not very probable.  In such a situation, such a step requires not only great magnanimity, but unwearied activity and perseverance, with a good deal, too, of dexterity and management, to improve every accident in our favor.

The delivery of this paper may have very important consequences.  It is true that the court may pass it over in silence, with a real or affected contempt.  But this I do not think so likely.  If they do take notice of it, the mildest course will be such an address from Parliament as the House of Commons made to the king on the London Remonstrance in the year 1769.  This address will be followed by addresses of a similar tendency, from all parts of the kingdom, in order to overpower you with what they will endeavor to pass as the united voice and sense of the nation.  But if they intend to proceed further, and to take steps of a more decisive nature, you are then to consider, not what they may legally and justly do, but what a Parliament omnipotent in power, influenced with party rage and personal resentment, operating under the implicit military obedience of court discipline, is capable of.  Though they have made some successful experiments