al in the larger part carries the force
of the whole. Without this, no government, certainly not our
government, is capable of a great war. None of the ancient, regular
governments have wherewithal to fight abroad with a foreign foe, and at
home to overcome repining, reluctance, and chicane. It must be some
portentous thing, like Regicide France, that can exhibit such a prodigy.
Yet even she, the mother of monsters, more prolific than the country of
old called _ferax monstrorum_, shows symptoms of being almost effete
already; and she will be so, unless the fallow of a peace comes to
recruit her fertility. But whatever may be represented concerning the
meanness of the popular spirit, I, for one, do not think so desperately
of the British nation. Our minds, as I said, are light, but they are not
depraved. We are dreadfully open to delusion and to dejection; but we
are capable of being animated and undeceived.

It cannot be concealed: we are a divided people. But in divisions, where
a part is to be taken, we are to make a muster of our strength. I have
often endeavored to compute and to class those who, in any political
view, are to be called the people. Without doing something of this sort,
we must proceed absurdly. We should not be much wiser, if we pretended
to very great accuracy in our estimate; but I think, in the calculation
I have made, the error cannot be very material. In England and Scotland,
I compute that those of adult age, not declining in life, of tolerable
leisure for such discussions, and of some means of information, more or
less, and who are above menial dependence, (or what virtually is such,)
may amount to about four hundred thousand. There is such a thing as a
natural representative of the people. This body is that representative;
and on this body, more than on the legal constituent, the artificial
representative depends. This is the British public; and it is a public
very numerous. The rest, when feeble, are the objects of
protection,--when strong, the means of force. They who affect to
consider that part of us in any other light insult while they cajole us;
they do not want us for counsellors in deliberation, but to list us as
soldiers for battle.

Of these four hundred thousand political citizens, I look upon one
fifth, or about eighty thousand, to be pure Jacobins, utterly incapable
of amendment, objects of eternal vigilance, and, when they break out, of
legal constraint. On these, no reason, no