nd come to a head, and for all the arrangements which factious men
could make towards an opposition to the law. At the same time they
carefully concealed from the eye of Parliament those remonstrances which
they had actually received; and which in the strongest manner indicated
the discontent of some of the colonies, and the consequences which might
be expected; they concealed them even in defiance of an order of
council, that they should be laid before Parliament. Thus, by concealing
the true state of the case, they rendered the wisdom of the nation as
improvident as their own temerity, either in preventing or guarding
against the mischief. It has indeed, from the beginning to this hour,
been the uniform policy of this set of men, in order at any hazard to
obtain a present credit, to propose whatever might be pleasing, as
attended with no difficulty; and afterwards to throw all the
disappointment of the wild expectations they had raised, upon those who
have the hard task of freeing the public from the consequences of their
pernicious projects.

Whilst the commerce and tranquillity of the whole empire were shaken in
this manner, our affairs grew still more distracted by the internal
dissensions of our ministers. Treachery and ingratitude were charged
from one side; despotism and tyranny from the other; the vertigo of the
regency bill; the awkward reception of the silk bill in the House of
Commons, and the inconsiderate and abrupt rejection of it in the House
of Lords; the strange and violent tumults which arose in consequence,
and which were rendered more serious by being charged by the ministers
upon one another; the report of a gross and brutal treatment of the
----, by a minister at the same time odious to the people; all conspired
to leave the public, at the close of the session of 1765, in as
critical and perilous a situation, as ever the nation was, or could be,
in a time when she was not immediately threatened by her neighbors.

It was at this time, and in these circumstances, that a new
administration was formed. Professing even industriously, in this public
matter, to avoid anecdotes; I say nothing of those famous
reconciliations and quarrels, which weakened the body that should have
been the natural support of this administration. I run no risk in
affirming, that, surrounded as they were with difficulties of every
species, nothing but the strongest and most uncorrupt sense of their
duty to the public could ha