, as you choose to
pronounce it.

Whether all this be a vision of a distracted brain, or the invention of
a malicious heart, or a real faction in the country, must be judged by
the appearances which things have worn for eight years past. Thus far I
am certain, that there is not a single public man, in or out of office,
who has not, at some time or other, borne testimony to the truth of what
I have now related. In particular, no persons have been more strong in
their assertions, and louder and more indecent in their complaints, than
those who compose all the exterior part of the present administration;
in whose time that faction has arrived at such an height of power, and
of boldness in the use of it, as may, in the end, perhaps bring about
its total destruction.

It is true, that about four years ago, during the administration of the
Marquis of Rockingham, an attempt was made to carry on government
without their concurrence. However, this was only a transient cloud;
they were hid but for a moment; and their constellation blazed out with
greater brightness, and a far more vigorous influence, some time after
it was blown over. An attempt was at that time made (but without any
idea of proscription) to break their corps, to discountenance their
doctrines, to revive connections of a different kind, to restore the
principles and policy of the Whigs, to reanimate the cause of liberty by
ministerial countenance; and then for the first time were men seen
attached in office to every principle they had maintained in opposition.
No one will doubt, that such men were abhorred and violently opposed by
the court faction, and that such a system could have but a short
duration.

It may appear somewhat affected, that in so much discourse upon this
extraordinary party, I should say so little of the Earl of Bute, who is
the supposed head of it. But this was neither owing to affectation nor
inadvertence. I have carefully avoided the introduction of personal
reflections of any kind. Much the greater part of the topics which have
been used to blacken this nobleman are either unjust or frivolous. At
best, they have a tendency to give the resentment of this bitter
calamity a wrong direction, and to turn a public grievance into a mean,
personal, or a dangerous national quarrel. Where there is a regular
scheme of operations carried on, it is the system, and not any
individual person who acts in it, that is truly dangerous. This system
has not