, with a good deal less of popularity, they
possessed a far more natural and fixed influence. Long possession of
government; vast property; obligations of favors given and received;
connection of office; ties of blood, of alliance, of friendship (things
at that time supposed of some force); the name of Whig, dear to the
majority of the people; the zeal early begun and steadily continued to
the royal family: all these together formed a body of power in the
nation, which was criminal and devoted. The great ruling principle of
the cabal, and that which animated and harmonized all their proceedings,
how various soever they may have been, was to signify to the world that
the court would proceed upon its own proper forces only; and that the
pretence of bringing any other into its service was an affront to it,
and not a support. Therefore when the chiefs were removed, in order to
go to the root, the whole party was put under a proscription, so general
and severe, as to take their hard-earned bread from the lowest officers,
in a manner which had never been known before, even in general
revolutions. But it was thought necessary effectually to destroy all
dependencies but one; and to show an example of the firmness and rigor
with which the new system was to be supported.

Thus for the time were pulled down, in the persons of the Whig leaders
and of Mr. Pitt (in spite of the services of the one at the accession of
the royal family, and the recent services of the other in the war), the
_two only securities for the importance of the people; power arising
from popularity; and power arising from connection_. Here and there
indeed a few individuals were left standing, who gave security for their
total estrangement from the odious principles of party connection and
personal attachment; and it must be confessed that most of them have
religiously kept their faith. Such a change could not however be made
without a mighty shock to government.

To reconcile the minds of the people to all these movements, principles
correspondent to them had been preached up with great zeal. Every one
must remember that the cabal set out with the most astonishing prudery,
both moral and political. Those, who in a few months after soused over
head and ears into the deepest and dirtiest pits of corruption, cried
out violently against the indirect practices in the electing and
managing of Parliaments, which had formerly prevailed. This marvellous
abhorrence whi