t had excited a spirit of enquiry,
and was rapidly spreading, they stepped forward to profit by the
opportunity, and Mr. Fox _then_ called it a Libel. In saying this, he
libelled himself. Politicians of this cast, such, I mean, as those who
trim between parties, and lye by for events, are to be found in every
country, and it never yet happened that they did not do more harm
than good. They embarrass business, fritter it to nothing, perplex the
people, and the event to themselves generally is, that they go just
far enough to make enemies of the few, without going far enough to make
friends of the many.

Whoever will read the declarations of this Society, of the 25th of April
and 5th of May, will find a studied reserve upon all the points that are
real abuses. They speak not once of the extravagance of Government, of
the abominable list of unnecessary and sinecure places and pensions, of
the enormity of the Civil List, of the excess of taxes, nor of any one
matter that substantially affects the nation; and from some conversation
that has passed in that Society, it does not appear to me that it is
any part of their plan to carry this class of reforms into practice. No
Opposition Party ever did, when it gained possession.

In making these free observations, I mean not to enter into contention
with this Society; their incivility towards me is what I should expect
from place-hunting reformers. They are welcome, however, to the ground
they have advanced upon, and I wish that every individual among them may
act in the same upright, uninfluenced, and public spirited manner that I
have done. Whatever reforms may be obtained, and by whatever means,
they will be for the benefit of others and not of me. I have no other
interest in the cause than the interest of my heart. The part I have
acted has been wholly that of a volunteer, unconnected with party; and
when I quit, it shall be as honourably as I began.

I consider the reform of Parliament, by an application to Parliament, as
proposed by the Society, to be a worn-out hackneyed subject, about which
the nation is tired, and the parties are deceiving each other. It is not
a subject that is cognizable before Parliament, because no Government
has a right to alter itself, either in whole or in part. The right,
and the exercise of that right, appertains to the nation only, and the
proper means is by a national convention, elected for the purpose, by
all the people. By this, the will o