I am afraid that we came to Court in the same dispositions as all
parties have done; that the principal spring of our actions was to
have the government of the state in our hands; that our principal
views were the conservation of this power, great employments to
ourselves, and great opportunities of rewarding those who had helped
to raise us, and of hurting those who stood in opposition to us. It
is, however, true that with these considerations of private and
party interest there were others intermingled which had for their
object the public good of the nation--at least what we took to be
such.

We looked on the political principles which had generally prevailed
in our government from the Revolution in 1688 to be destructive of
our true interest, to have mingled us too much in the affairs of the
Continent, to tend to the impoverishing our people, and to the
loosening the bands of our constitution in Church and State. We
supposed the Tory party to be the bulk of the landed interest, and
to have no contrary influence blended into its composition. We
supposed the Whigs to be the remains of a party formed against the
ill designs of the Court under King Charles II., nursed up into
strength and applied to contrary uses by King William III., and yet
still so weak as to lean for support on the Presbyterians and the
other sectaries, on the Bank and the other corporations, on the
Dutch and the other Allies. From hence we judged it to follow that
they had been forced, and must continue so, to render the national
interest subservient to the interest of those who lent them an
additional strength, without which they could never be the prevalent
party. The view, therefore, of those amongst us who thought in this
manner was to improve the Queen's favour, to break the body of the
Whigs, to render their supports useless to them, and to fill the