the infatuation of prosperity, and the pride of triumph, I should not
have heard the motion which has been now made without, astonishment.

It has been long the business or the amusement of the gentlemen, who,
having for some time conferred upon themselves the venerable titles of
patriots, advocates for the people, and defenders of the constitution,
have at length persuaded part of the nation to dignify them with the
same appellation, to display in the most pathetick language, and
aggravate with the most hyperbolical exaggerations, the wantonness with
which the late ministry exercised their power, the exorbitance of their
demands, and the violence of their measures. They have indulged their
imaginations, which have always been sufficiently fruitful in satire and
invective, by representing them as men in whom all regard to decency or
reputation was extinguished, men who no longer submitted to wear the
mask of hypocrisy, or thought the esteem of mankind worth their care;
who had ceased to profess any regard to the welfare of their country, or
any desire of advancing the publick happiness; and who no longer desired
any other effects of their power, than the security of themselves and
the conquest of their opponents.

Such, sir, has been the character of the ministry, which, by the
incessant endeavours of these disinterested patriots, has been carried
to the remotest corners of the empire, and disseminated through all the
degrees of the people. Every man, whom they could enlist among their
pupils, whom they could persuade to see with their eyes, rather than his
own, and who was not so stubborn as to require proofs of their
assertions, and reasons of their conduct; every man who, having no
sentiments of his own, hoped to become important by echoing those of his
instructors, was taught to think and to say, that the court was filled
with open corruption; that the greatest and the wisest men of the