am satisfied, would have frankly accepted and
supported the Restoration with the Charter, the Charter with the
Restoration. When men are seriously engaged in a work and feel the
weight of responsibility, they soon discover the true course, and would
willingly follow it. But, both in the right and left, the wisest and
best-disposed feared to proclaim the truth which they saw, or to adopt
it as their rule of conduct; both were under the yoke of their external
party, of its passions as of its interests, of its ignorance as of its
passions. It has been one of the sorest wounds of our age, that few men
have preserved sufficient firmness of mind and character to think
freely, and act as they think. The intellectual and moral independence
of individuals disappeared under the pressure of events and before the
heat of popular clamours and desires. Under such a general slavery of
thought and action, there are no longer just or mistaken minds, cautious
or rash spirits, officers or soldiers; all yield to the same controlling
passion, and bend before the same wind; common weakness reduces all to
one common level; hierarchy and discipline vanish; the last lead the
first; for the last press and drive onwards, being themselves impelled
by that tyranny from without, of which they have been the most blind and
ready instruments.

As a political party, the centre, in the Chambers from 1816 to 1820, was
not tainted by this evil. Sincere in its adoption of the Restoration and
the Charter, no external pressure could disturb or falsify its position.
It remained unfettered in thought and deed. It openly acknowledged its
object, and marched directly towards it; selecting, within, the leaders
most capable of conducting it there, and having no supporters without
who looked for any other issue. It was thus that, in spite of its other
deficiencies for powerful government, the centre was at that time the
fittest party to rule, the only one capable of maintaining order in the
State, while tolerating the liberty of its rivals.

But to reap the full fruits of this advantage, and to diminish at the
same time the natural defects of the centre in its mission, it was
necessary that it should adopt a fixed idea, a conviction that the
different elements of the party were indispensable to each other; and
that, to accomplish the object pursued by all with equal sincerity,
mutual concessions and sacrifices were called for, to maintain this
necessary union. When