asked; yet he never attempted seriously to put a stop to the
association, or to disavow it, or to control, check, or modify it in any
way whatsoever. If he had pleased, without difficulty, he might have
suppressed it in its beginning. However, he did not only not suppress it
in its beginning, but encouraged it in every part of its progress, at
that particular time when Jacobin clubs (under the very same or similar
titles) were making such dreadful havoc in a country not thirty miles
from the coast of England, and when every motive of moral prudence
called for the discouragement of societies formed for the increase of
popular pretensions to power and direction.

3. When the proceedings of this society of the Friends of the People, as
well as others acting in the same spirit, had caused a very serious
alarm in the mind of the Duke of Portland, and of many good patriots,
he publicly, in the House of Commons, treated their apprehensions and
conduct with the greatest asperity and ridicule. He condemned and
vilified, in the most insulting and outrageous terms, the proclamation
issued by government on that occasion,--though he well knew that it had
passed through the Duke of Portland's hands, that it had received his
fullest approbation, and that it was the result of an actual interview
between that noble Duke and Mr. Pitt. During the discussion of its
merits in the House of Commons, Mr. Fox countenanced and justified the
chief promoters of that association; and he received, in return, a
public assurance from them of an inviolable adherence to him singly and
personally. On account of this proceeding, a very great number (I
presume to say not the least grave and wise part) of the Duke of
Portland's friends in Parliament, and many out of Parliament who are of
the same description, have become separated from that time to this from
Mr. Fox's particular cabal,--very few of which cabal are, or ever have,
so much as pretended to be attached to the Duke of Portland, or to pay