e
different species of despotism, the most intolerable. He has talked in a
very particular stile of his fears of reducing the regal power to a
shadow, of his desire that the extension of prerogative should keep pace
with the confirmation of popular rights, and his resolution, that, if it
were in his power to prevent it, a king of England should never be
brought to a level with a king of Mahrattas. The true sons of freedom
will not certainly be very apprehensive upon this score, and will leave
it to the numbers that will ever remain the adherents of monarchical
power, to guard the barriers of the throne. In opposition, his
declarations in favour of parliamentary reform seemed indeed very
decisive. In administration, he was particularly careful to explain away
these declarations, and to assure the people that he would never employ
any influence in support of the measure, but would only countenance it
so far as it appeared to be the sense of parliament. In other words,
that he would remain neutral, or at most only honour the subject with an
eloquent harangue, and interest himself no further respecting it.

But let us proceed from his language to his conduct in office. Almost
every salutary measure of administration, from the resignation of lord
North downward, was brought about during the union of the noble earl
with the Rockingham connexion. What inference are we to draw from
this?--That administration, as auspicious as it was transitory, has
never been charged with more than one error. They were thought too
liberal in the distribution of two or three sinecures and pensions. To
whom were they distributed? Uniformly, exclusively, to the friends of
lord Shelburne. Lord Shelburne proposed them to his august colleague,
and the marquis, whose faults, if he had any, were an excess of
mildness, and an unsuspecting simplicity, perhaps too readily complied.
But let it be remembered, that not one of his friends accepted, or to
not one of his friends were these emoluments extended. But, if the noble
marquis were sparing in the distribution of pensions, the deficiency was
abundantly supplied by his successor. While the interests of the people
were neglected and forgotten, the attention of the premier was in a
considerable degree engrossed by the petty arrangements of office. For
one man a certain department of business was marked out; the place had
been previously filled by another. Here the first person was at all
events to be promo