law-makers,
the study of almanacks would by this time have become as abstruse as the
study of the law, and we should hear of a library of almanacks as we
now do of statutes; but by the simple operation of letting the obsolete
matter drop, and carrying forward that only which is proper to be
retained, all that is necessary to be known is found within the space of
a year, and laws also admit of being kept within some given period.

I shall here close this letter, so far as it respects the Addresses, the
Proclamation, and the Prosecution; and shall offer a few observations to
the Society, styling itself "The Friends of the People."

That the science of government is beginning to be better understood than
in former times, and that the age of fiction and political superstition,
and of craft and mystery, is passing away, are matters which the
experience of every day-proves to be true, as well in England as in
other countries.

As therefore it is impossible to calculate the silent progress of
opinion, and also impossible to govern a nation after it has changed
its habits of thinking, by the craft or policy that it was governed
by before, the only true method to prevent popular discontents and
commotions is, to throw, by every fair and rational argument, all the
light upon the subject that can possibly be thrown; and at the same
time, to open the means of collecting the general sense of the nation;
and this cannot, as already observed, be done by any plan so effectually
as a national convention. Here individual opinion will quiet itself by
having a centre to rest upon.

The society already mentioned, (which is made up of men of various
descriptions, but chiefly of those called Foxites,) appears to me,
either to have taken wrong grounds from want of judgment, or to have
acted with cunning reserve. It is now amusing the people with a
new phrase, namely, that of "a temperate and moderate reform," the
interpretation of which is, _a continuance of the abuses as long as
possible, If we cannot hold all let us hold some_.

Who are those that are frightened at reforms? Are the public afraid that
their taxes should be lessened too much? Are they afraid that sinecure
places and pensions should be abolished too fast? Are the poor afraid
that their condition should be rendered too comfortable? Is the worn-out
mechanic, or the aged and decayed tradesman, frightened at the prospect
of receiving ten pounds a year out of the surplus taxes