prejudice to the cause of any party, I am not persuaded that he is
right, but I am ready to believe he is in earnest. I respect virtue
in all its situations, even when it is found in the unsuitable
company of weakness. I lament to see qualities, rare and valuable,
squandered away without any public utility. But when a gentleman
with great visible emoluments abandons the party in which he has
long acted, and tells you it is because he proceeds upon his own
judgment that he acts on the merits of the several measures as they
arise, and that he is obliged to follow his own conscience, and not
that of others, he gives reasons which it is impossible to
controvert, and discovers a character which it is impossible to
mistake. What shall we think of him who never differed from a
certain set of men until the moment they lost their power, and who
never agreed with them in a single instance afterwards? Would not
such a coincidence of interest and opinion be rather fortunate?
Would it not be an extraordinary cast upon the dice that a man's
connections should degenerate into faction, precisely at the
critical moment when they lose their power or he accepts a place?
When people desert their connections, the desertion is a manifest
fact, upon which a direct simple issue lies, triable by plain men.
Whether a MEASURE of Government be right or wrong is NO MATTER OF
FACT, but a mere affair of opinion, on which men may, as they do,
dispute and wrangle without end. But whether the individual thinks
the measure right or wrong is a point at still a greater distance
from the reach of all human decision. It is therefore very
convenient to politicians not to put the judgment of their conduct
on overt acts, cognisable in any ordinary court, but upon such a
matter as can be triable only in that secret tribunal, where they
are sure of being heard with favour, or where at worst the sentence
will be only private whipping.