for abandoning his friends, his mafter, and his own fortune, juft at the time, when a little perfeverance might have entirely defeated the defigns of his enemies, and established his power on the fecureft foundation. That his quitting employment at this critical time muft greatly raise the spirits of all who oppofed, and in the fame proportion deaden the hopes of all thofe who adhered to the fervice of the crown. For what fecurity, faid they, have men who engage in a party, when neither the moft decided parliamentary fuperiority, nor the most affured protection of the court, is able to hold them together? For they conceived it impoffible to keep a party long embodied without an able and a determined leader, upon whom they muft depend as a director in their actions, an arbitrator in their differences, and a support in their difficulties. That they carried on to little purpose fo ftrenuous a political warfare, if their commander quitted the field the moment they became affured of the victory. This conduct, they faid, reflected upon the wisdom of their whole fyftem, both as it was conceived, and as it was carried on.

Firft; what was the end, for which they contended? Undoubtedly that the conftitutional dignity of the crown fhould be restored; that the K. and kingdom fhould be no longer governed, or rather infulted, by a cabal; and that his majefty fhould, as the law intended, chufe and retain his own ministers, unless some legal difqualification prevented their appointment, or fome well proved delinquency furnished a reafon to remove them from his fervice. Could

this be accomplished, if the first guft of popular fury was fufficient to overturn the whole fabric of their defigns? And muft not this infpire the utmoft confidence into their adverfaries, when they fee they can drive a minifter from the fide of the fovereign who chose him, without being at the trouble even of a false accusation?

Then, as to their own condu&t, the whole muft appear, if this be the end of it, wild, rafh, and violent; almost every part of it being evidently accommodated to a permanent fyftem, and not to a temporary arrangement.

Others reasoned in a very different manner. They said, that the minifter. in question was, perhaps, the man in the world the leaft to be influenced by popular opinion, or to be intimidated with popular fury. The lead, which he took in the great and neceffary, but dangerous undertaking of making peace, fufficiently demonftrated his firmnefs in this particular When he had done that important fervice, with all its folid honour and popular odium, to his country and his master, his end was fully obtained. It was refolved that the factious party should not have even the poor pretence of objecting his private ambition as the caufe of difturbances which had been raised folely by their own. That his refignation would fhew them in their proper colours.

With regard to the friends of the government, they little knew the spirit of the fervice they were engaged in, if they feared that they could ever be given up to enemies, merely created by their faithful adherence to that fervice. In short, that noble-,

man entered into business upon the new plan, when all things were in doubt and distraction, and the difpofition of parliament very uncertain. He was not driven from it, but left it; and left it with a powerful majority in favour of government. If things fhould fail afterwards, he was not to be blamed, who left them upon a much ftronger bafis than he found them; and that, for the present, in feeking his own repofe, he did not break in upon that of the public. On the contrary, it was perhaps the only method which could open the eyes of the people, and in due time conduct them to a knowledge of their real intereft.

Whatever might have been the motives to this refignation, or the merits of it, nothing is more certain, than that the popular uneafinefs was no way diminished, because the ends of the popular leaders were by no means anfwered, by it. Whatever expectations people might have formed, none of the party in oppofition were taken in. Ld. B. had refigned, but the plan of adminiftration was not changed. The perfon who held the office of firft lord of the treafury, and the two fecretaries of ftate, were to be understood as compofing the miniftry, and to then the applications for bufinefs or favour were to be directed.

No fort of reasonable objection could, indeed, be perfonally made to those who were placed at the helm. Mr. G. who fucceeded L. B. in the treasury, was a man of integrity, of understanding, and of experience, and had for many years laboured with diligence and ability to make himself master of almost every department of public

bufinefs. Lord H. with all the ornamental qualities of a courtier, was univerfally confidered as a very able man in office, and had held many high employments with a very high degree of reputation. Lord E-r-t, the other fecretary of ftate, a man of an illuftrious family and extenfive property,

had not indeed been long in office, but stood in every respect unimpeached in his conduct. The other departments were filled in the same unexceptionable manner. National prejudices have no place here, and if you quarrel with adminiftration, it is evident that you quarrel with it, because it is made upon conftitutional principles, and is not the work of an oligarchical cabal.

All this was faid with great truth, but gave no kind of fatisfaction. Whence, faid the opposite party, is derived the power of these new minifters? Not from their overbearing weight of property in the kingdom; not from their great parliamentary intereft, or their fu perior parliamentary talents. In all thefe points, they are much exceeded by those who have been fo unworthily turned out from employment and favour. Is it from their having made themselves fp particularly agreeable at court, that, rather than be obliged to part with them, any inconvenience will be fubmitted to? Nobody was fo unacquainted with the world, as to entertain fuch a puerile imagination..

What then was the end of their appointment? This clearly, and nothing elfe; that having no folid ground of power in themselves, they might act as the paffive inftruments of that minifter, who, from confiderations of his own perfonal

perfonal fafety and quiet, without abandoning his ambitious projects, has thought proper rather to conceal his operations than to retire from action. To oppofe them is, therefore, to oppofe him. We have alfo, faid they, additional motives for our oppofition from the fraud that is endeavoured to be put upon us; and it concerns the credit of our understanding, as well as that of our fpirit, not to fuffer this fcheme of clandeftine adminiftration.

They were, probably, much miftaken in the idea they had formed of the principles which produced the late change, and the prefent miniftry. But whether the idea of the fubferviency of the miniftry to a concealed intereft was credited by all the party, as they pretended, or not, the effect was the fame; and it could not be otherwife. The two parties, quarrelling about their common object, power, had been by their feveral fituations obliged to adopt very different fyftems of politics.

The friends of lord B. and of the miniftry, which fucceeded, were for preferving to the crown the full exercife of a right, of which none difputed the validity, that of appointing its own fervants. Those of the oppofition did not deny this power in the crown, but they contended that the spirit of the conftitution required, that the crown fhould be directed in the exercife of this public duty by public motives, and not by private liking and friendship. That great talents, great and eminent fervices to the nation, confidence amongst the nobility, and influence amongst the landed and mercantile interefts, were the directions, which the

crown ought to obferve in the exercife of its right in nominating officers of ftate. The obfervation of this rule would, and they were fif opinion, nothing elfe could, in any degree, counterbalance that immenfe power, which the crown has acquired by the gift of fuch an infinite number of profitable places. Nothing but the very popular ufe of the prerogative can be fufficient to reconcile the nation to the extent of it; and they will be highly diffatisfied, whenever they fee their affairs in the hands of any fet of men (though appointed according to the ftricteft letter of the law) in whom they have not an entire confidence. When they fee adminiftration fettled with an attention to this, popular confidence, and with a condefcenfion to public opinion, they have a fecurity in which they can acquiefce, that no attempts will be made againft the conftitution. Minifters too, when they find that they are recommended to the royal favour, and, as it were, prefented to their places, by the efteem of the people, will be ftudious to acquire, and anxious to preserve it. That these are the principles of whigs, and upon them the government has been conducted honourably for the crown, and advantageously for the people, ever fince the revolution; and things can never be at repose, until they fettle again upon the fame bafis,

'Whether thefe ideas, on which feveral acted, and which fome freely avowed, be confiftent with the prefervation of any degree of monarchical authority in the commonwealth, the reader is left to judge. It is, indeed, not altogether eafy to determine whether the limitations

on

on the executive power ought or ought not to be extended further, by any other fort of popular controul, than the laws themfelves have carried them; for as, on one hand, a conftitution may be loft, whilft all its forms are preserved; on the other, it seems repugnant to the genius of every ftable government to conduct itself by any other principles, than those which clear law has established, or to direct its actions by fo uncertain, variable, and capricious a ftandard, as that of popular opinion.

What has been now faid, we think fufficient to afford the reader a very tolerable general idea of the principles, real or pretended, of the feveral parties which have for fome time unhappily divided the nation, and of thofe topics, which have been agitated with fo much heat and violence fince the conclufion of the peace.

The public papers have given accounts (in what manner authenticated does not appear) of a very extraordinary negotiation, which commenced immediately on the death of lord Egre27th of Auguft. mont, in order to bring

about, if poffible, a coalition between the leaders of the contending parties. This negotiation continued but for a very fhort time, and is faid to have broken off in as extraordinary a manner as it began. It has yet had no fort of vifible effect; but as the difpofitions, which gave rife to it, muft one time or another produce fomething confiderable, we referve the narration of this affair, until the public can acquire a more exact knowledge of the facts, and a more correct notion of the plan of politics which produced

them, and until we have before our eyes the confequences which have arifen from them. Our business is not fpeculation, but narrative. We muft, however, remark, that this negotiation feems to have discovered to the world, what fome people before ftrongly fufpected, that the fubfifting adminiftration did, from the beginning, by no means act under the influence, and, perhaps, not altogether in concurrence with the opinion of the great minifter, whofe refignation had raised them to the direction of affairs. They appear indeed to ftand upon quite another bottom. What that bottom is, we are not furnished with the proper materials to determine; neither, perhaps, is it confiftent with the character of our undertaking to attempt any enquiry of this nature. At that time the fyftem of the miniftry was no way changed. On the contrary, its ftrength feemed to be confiderably increafed by the acquifition of the D. of B. one of the most powerful men in England, from his property and the firmness of his character, who accepted the place of prefident of the council, which had been fome time kept vacant. Lord Sandwich took the feals as one of the fecretaries of ftate. And lord E. who was removed in the late change from the poft-office to the admiralty, was a man of public fpirit to enthufiafm; and was univerfally acknowledged one of the best informed of the whole body of the nobility.

There appear to be at prefent three parties ftruggling for fuperiority in the state; those who fupport the adminiftration, as it is now conftituted; those who wish the return of the E. of B. to the

lead

lead in public bufinefs; and thofe who ftill adhere to that fyftem, which directed every thing during the latter part of the late reign.

These parties feem, for the prefent, to be fo equally balanced, that each of them has force enough to distress, without being able to deftroy any one of the others, or to drive them into any terms of extreme fubmiffion. But the union of any two of them would, undoubtedly, be fufficient to overturn the third; and it is probable, that from fome fuch com

HA

AVING given fome account of our domeftic politics, to compleat the plan of this work, it will be neceffary to lay before the reader a fhort ftate of foreign tranfactions, and of the condition and defigns of the powers on the continent, so far as they seem difpofed to fhew any degree of activity. We fhall, by this method, be better enabled to judge of public events, as they fhall fucceffively arife.

Auguftus III. king of Poland, and elector of Saxony, on the conclufion of the peace of Hubertsbourg, returned to his hereditary dominions, from whence he had been exiled for fix years. Unfortunately for him, he had engaged in defigns too vaft for his power or his capacity; and had entered into that kind of alliance,

in which the weak parts are always moft injuriously treated in time of war, and leaft indemnified upon a peace. Flying from his country, and leaving his palace and his family in the poffeffion of his enemies, he had retired to Poland, where his authority, by the conftitution not very highly respected, was by his misfortunes rendered ftill more contemptible; and he there endured a continual feries of croffes and contradictions. He had the misfortune to find, that the king of Pruffia, who had feized by force of arms upon one part of his dominions, was by influence and policy far fuperior to him in, and had, in a manner, acquired the government of, the other. His queen confort died in a fort of captivity, overcome with the alarms, the vexations, and the