and of the discreditable
intrigues by which succeeding administrations were raised up and cast
down. Wilkes and Junius exposed, in cutting libels, and with caustic
severity, their real or supposed continuance in a subsequent part of the
reign of George III.; Burke and Fox declaimed in a voice of thunder
against the vices of Lord North's administration; and the disasters of
that untoward period demonstrate but too clearly, that the radical vice of
parliamentary influence had almost banished talent and ability from the
public service. Every one knows that commissions in the army and navy were
bestowed on children, as the mere price of support to government; and
that, when the little hirelings of corruption were sent forth into the
public service, they were utterly ignorant, for the most part, of even the
most elementary parts of their duty. The same system continued during the
early years of the Revolutionary war: and we all know with what disastrous
effects it was then attended. But the Whig orators and patriots, with all
their acuteness and zeal, forgot to tell us one thing, which, however, it
most behoved them to have told--and that is, that it was themselves who
had formed and habituated the nation to this degrading system. They have
forgot to tell us that they had the framing of the constitution in church
and state, after the Revolution of 1688; that their power was, for above a
century, entirely paramount; and that, if the system of government had
come, during that time, to rest on corrupt influences, it was they, and
they alone, who are responsible for the practical moulding of the
constitution into such a form.

No man who knows the human heart, or has had any experience, either of
public characters in his own, or historic shades in any former age, will
suppose that the Conservative party are more inclined in their hearts to
pure and virtuous administration than their popular opponents; but,
nevertheless, there can be no question that their government, generally
speaking, is much more pure, and its effects far more beneficial. Decisive
proof of this exists in English history during the nineteenth century. It
took nearly forty years of incessant effort on the part of the Whigs to
eradicate the harvest of corruption which sprang up since 1761, from the
seeds so profusely sown by their predecessors during the seventy years
before that period; and unless they had been aided by the disasters of the
American, and the pe