arisen solely from the ambition of Lord Bute, but from the
circumstances which favored it, and from an indifference to the
constitution which had been for some time growing among our gentry. We
should have been tried with it, if the Earl of Bute had never existed;
and it will want neither a contriving head nor active members, when the
Earl of Bute exists no longer. It is not, therefore, to rail at Lord
Bute, but firmly to embody against this court party and its practices,
which can afford us any prospect of relief in our present condition.

Another motive induces me to put the personal consideration of Lord Bute
wholly out of the question. He communicates very little in a direct
manner with the greater part of our men of business. This has never been
his custom. It is enough for him that he surrounds them with his
creatures. Several imagine, therefore, that they have a very good excuse
for doing all the work of this faction, when they have no personal
connection with Lord Bute. But whoever becomes a party to an
administration, composed of insulated individuals, without faith
plighted, tie, or common principle; an administration constitutionally
impotent, because supported by no party in the nation; he who
contributes to destroy the connections of men and their trust in one
another, or in any sort to throw the dependence of public counsels upon
private will and favor, possibly may have nothing to do with the Earl of
Bute. It matters little whether he be the friend or the enemy of that
particular person. But let him be who or what he will, he abets a
faction that is driving hard to the ruin of his country. He is sapping
the foundation of its liberty, disturbing the sources of its domestic
tranquillity, weakening its government over its dependencies, degrading
it from all its importance in the system of Europe.

It is this unnatural infusion of a _system of favoritism_ into a
government which in a great part of its constitution is popular, that
has raised the present ferment in the nation. The people, without
entering deeply into its principles, could plainly perceive its effects,
in much violence, in a great spirit of innovation, and a general
disorder in all the functions of government. I keep my eye solely on
this system; if I speak of those measures which have arisen from it, it
will be so far only as they illustrate the general scheme. This is the
fountain of all those bitter waters of which, through an hundred
diff