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bad been brought forward to evade an express law: he then could promote inquiries into lord MANSFIELD's unconftitutional proceedings on trials for libels: he could raise his voice in defence of the liberty of the prefs, and of the power of juries, maintaining that there was no part in the whole fabric of our excellent conftitution, that boasts a greater boldness, a more enlarged freedom of defign, than this pillar of truly British order. But he was no fooner made folicitor general in 1771, than all those romantic fentiments vanished; and the tongue of the boasted patriot became, as it were, a pleading bawd for every enemy to his country. The crudest schemes of tyranny and folly were now fure of his ready fupport. He could now affert, in oppofition to Mr. BURKE, that the repeal of the tea-duty would be only a proof of weakness, and would end in the furrender of all authority: he could justify the ftamp-act, that fatal error of Mr. GRENVILLE; and, as Mr. BURKE hinted, could raise up the bodies of the dead, to fuck out the virtues of the living: he could act a still more indecent part the very fame year, 1774, before the privy council, where he made a virulent attack on Dr. FRANKLIN, and did not blush at applying the character of a ZANGA, thofe features of cool and deliberate malevolence which poetic fiction only had penned for the breaft of a cruel African, to one of the greatest benefactors of mankind. It was also faid, that he was the author of the scheme, adopted by lord NORTH the year after, for starving the Americans into submission; when he acquired the ludicrous, characteristic appellation of Starvation WEDDERBURNE. Whatever truth there may be in this, his fentiments with respect to America are unequivocally manifefted in the famous denunciation, delenda eft Carthago, with which he concluded one of his fanguinary harangues. But Mr. WEDDERBURNE had ftudied well the poli

tical map of Great Britain. The public road to fame and honour appeared to him too long, too rugged, and too arduous. He found the by-ways and back-stair turnings of the court much shorter, and better fuited to his ftrength and inclination. He also kept his eye steadily fixed on the exchequer, and fuggefted to lord NORTH a fcheme for giving not only a legal, but a popular fanction to public robbery, and thereby relieving his lordship from the neceffity of devifing new taxes, or of exhausting the fertility of his genius in the invention of any other refource. A confiderable progress was made in the undertaking; but his lordship had not courage enough to carry it through: he left it to some more shameless, or more defperate plunderer. Under the fpecious pretext of improving the condition of the poor, a committee was appointed with powers to procure information of all the funds, or revenues of every kind, belonging not only to almshouses, and hospitals, but to all the endowed schools, colleges, companies, and corporations in the kingdom, and even to the proprietors of unclaimed dividends at the bank. The plan then was to get an act paffed for enabling government to feize all this property into its own hands, under a plaufible engagement to pay off the dividends whenever any claim to them should be fully established, and to allow alfo for the other purposes a certain annual revenue to be fettled upon an average of their several receipts for the last ten years. Lord NORTH, as we have just hinted, had too much timidity, or too much honefty to complete the defign; but there being reafon to prefume from what has been fince done, that the present chancellor of the exchequer, and the present lord chancellor of England, ipfe doli fabricator, are not quite fo fcrupulous, this hint is intended as a warning to all parties concerned. Lord NORTH's approval of the

project,

project, and the fteps taken in confequence, laid him under a particular obligation to Mr. WEDDER BURNE, who was advanced to the office of attorney general in the year 1778. The manner in which he next obtained the fuccefforfhip to DE GREY, as chief justice of the common pleas, and the rigour of his proceedings against the rioters in 1780, are fufficiently known. Sir FLETCHER NORTON blew up the whole infamy of the former tranfaction in the houfe of commons. There is no neceffity to make any comment on the object which the chief justice had in view, towards the clofe of the year 1792, when he took, or affected to take, alarm at the diffufion of French principles. He is now feated upon the wool-fack; and we must not scrutinize his conduct any farther. When the law was given to Moses on the top of Sinai, the people were strictly charged not to approach too near the mount, as their curious gaze might expose them to death. Let us, in like manner, keep at an awful distance from the wool-fack, nor dare to pierce through the blaze of power which furrounds that formidable feat.

As Mr. BURKE, in the above debate was immediately attacked by a former friend and affociate, so it is remarkable that his ablest supporter on the fame cccafion had lately been a very spirited adversary. This was Mr. Fox, who a few weeks before had come over to the standard of oppofition, and who began to exert in every debate such matchless powers of eloquence, as convinced lord NORTH, though too late, of the very bad policy, not to call it the inconfiderate folly of having difmiffed fo formidable a champion from his feat on the treasury bench, with circumstances, it was faid, of rudeness and indignity. A fameness of ideas, of paffions, of intereft,---a supposed congeniality of foul and fentiment, united the two orators in the clofeft bonds of in

timacy and co-operation. The language of SHAKESPEARE alone could describe the apparent cordiality of their friendship--

"Their double bofoms feem'd to wear one heart

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But, "O world! thy flippery turns !"---this friendship, which, on the part of Fox, was pure, generous, difinterested, did not take root in the jealous, the selfish bosom of BURKE. He was the child of art, not of nature: his virtues were counterfeits; and, on the first powerful temptation to betray, the charm was diffolved; the mafk fell off; and the gall-bag of deceit burst forth into "bitterest enmity." Towards the close of our narrative a circumftantial account will be given of this unparalleled instance of depravity and baseness.

At the diffolution of parliament on the last day of September 1774, Mr. BURKE, who had hitherto represented Wendover, went down to Malton, one of the Yorkshire boroughs under the influence of the marquis of RocKINGHAM, at whose defire he was chofen without hefitation. But, in the mean time, a very refpectable party of diffenters, merchants, and freemen of Bristol, who highly approved of his late exertions in favor both of civil and religious liberty, put him in nomination for their city; and fome of them fet off exprefs for London, and thence for Malton, to requeft his concurrence. They arrived at the latter place juft after his election; but their offer was fo flattering, that, with the confent of his new conftituents, he immediately repaired to Briftol. Three candidates had already started, lord CLARE, one of the late reprefentatives, who declined on the fecond day of the poll; Mr. BRICKDALE, his lordship's colleague, but not quite

fo

fo unpopular, or so obnoxious; and Mr. CRUGER, an American merchant, who from intereft and principle was averse to any rupture between the colonies and the mother country. Mr. BURKE appeared on the huftings in the afternoon of the fixth day's poll, and addrefied the electors in a concise, pertinent, and very infinuating fpeech. He expressed his high opinion of the great trust they had to confer, a modeft diffidence in his own abilities, yet a readiness to give up his fears to their wishes. He candidly avowed his fentiments on the subject of the unhappy contest with America: he declared himself a zealous advocate for rational liberty; and took care also to captivate his hearers by telling them that commerce was the other great fource of the national profperity and dignity, and that it had ever been a very particular and a very favorite object of his study, in its principles and in its details. This fpeech was received with great applaufe; and Mr. BURKE took care to ftrengthen the favorable impreffion by a still more eloquent addrefs at the conclufion of the poll, when Mr. CRUGER and he were declared by the fheriffs to be duly elected.

But though Mr. BURKE appeared fo fincere in his panegyrics on trade, and so ambitious, as he pretended, to derive authority and fupport from the representation of a great commercial city, yet no man had in his heart fo deeply rooted a contempt for the character and profeffion of a merchant. He had imbibed all the abfurd prejudices of the old Romans with refpect to trade: the words merchant and thief always appeared to him nearly fynonimous; and he never could separate the idea of commerce from that of exclufion, monopoly, and avarice. "Do not talk to me," said he once in the house of commons, of the liberality and patriotism of a merchant: his God is his gold ;---his country his invoice ;---his desk his altar;---his ledger his bible;---his

church

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