e military arm is the sole
reliance; and then, call your constitution what you please, it is the
sword that governs. The civil power, like every other that calls in the
aid of an ally stronger than itself, perishes by the assistance it
receives. But the contrivers of this scheme of Government will not trust
solely to the military power, because they are cunning men. Their
restless and crooked spirit drives them to rake in the dirt of every kind
of expedient. Unable to rule the multitude, they endeavour to raise
divisions amongst them. One mob is hired to destroy another; a procedure
which at once encourages the boldness of the populace, and justly
increases their discontent. Men become pensioners of state on account of
their abilities in the array of riot, and the discipline of confusion.
Government is put under the disgraceful necessity of protecting from the
severity of the laws that very licentiousness, which the laws had been
before violated to repress. Everything partakes of the original
disorder. Anarchy predominates without freedom, and servitude without
submission or subordination. These are the consequences inevitable to
our public peace, from the scheme of rendering the executory Government
at once odious and feeble; of freeing Administration from the
constitutional and salutary control of Parliament, and inventing for it a
new control, unknown to the constitution, an _interior_ Cabinet; which
brings the whole body of Government into confusion and contempt.

* * * * *

After having stated, as shortly as I am able, the effects of this system
on our foreign affairs, on the policy of our Government with regard to
our dependencies, and on the interior economy of the Commonwealth; there
remains only, in this part of my design, to say something of the grand
principle which first recommended this system at Court. The pretence was
to prevent the King from being enslaved by a faction, and made a prisoner
in his closet. This scheme might have been expected to answer at least
its own end, and to indemnify the King, in his personal capacity, for all
the confusion into which it has thrown his Government. But has it in
reality answered this purpose? I am sure, if it had, every affectionate
subject would have one motive for enduring with patience all the evils
which attend it.

In order to come at the truth in this matter, it may not be amiss to
consider it somewhat in detail. I speak here of the King, and no