and independent of its Jacobin form of government) which had hitherto
been held fundamental in this country, and which he had himself held
more strongly than any man in Parliament. He at that time studiously
separated himself from those to whose sentiments he used to profess no
small regard, although those sentiments were publicly declared. I had
then no concern in the party, having been, for some time, with all
outrage, excluded from it; but, on general principles, I must say that a
person who assumes to be leader of a party composed of freemen and of
gentlemen ought to pay some degree of deference to their feelings, and
even to their prejudices. He ought to have some degree of management for
their credit and influence in their country. He showed so very little of
this delicacy, that he compared the alarm raised in the minds of the
Duke of Portland's party, (which was his own,) an alarm in which they
sympathized with the greater part of the nation, to the panic produced
by the pretended Popish plot in the reign of Charles the
Second,--describing it to be, as that was, a contrivance of knaves, and
believed only by well-meaning dupes and madmen.

12. The Monday following (the 17th of December) he pursued the same
conduct. The means used in England to coöperate with the Jacobin army in
politics agreed with their modes of proceeding: I allude to the
mischievous writings circulated with much industry and success, as well
as the seditious clubs, which at that time added not a little to the
alarm taken by observing and well-informed men. The writings and the
clubs were two evils which marched together. Mr. Fox discovered the
greatest possible disposition to favor and countenance the one as well
as the other of these two grand instruments of the French system. He
would hardly consider any political writing whatsoever as a libel, or as
a fit object of prosecution. At a time in which the press has been the
grand instrument of the subversion of order, of morals, of religion,