arents of all their consequence. Superficial
observers consider such persons as the cause of the public uneasiness,
when, in truth, they are nothing more than the effect of it. Good men
look upon this distracted scene with sorrow and indignation. Their hands
are tied behind them. They are despoiled of all the power which might
enable them to reconcile the strength of government with the rights of
the people. They stand in a most distressing alternative. But in the
election among evils they hope better things from temporary confusion,
than from established servitude. In the mean time, the voice of law is
not to be heard. Fierce licentiousness begets violent restraints. The
military arm is the sole reliance; and then, call your constitution what
you please, it is the sword that governs. The civil power, like every
other that calls in the aid of an ally stronger than itself, perishes by
the assistance it receives. But the contrivers of this scheme of
government will not trust solely to the military power; because they are
cunning men. Their restless and crooked spirit drives them to rake in
the dirt of every kind of expedient. Unable to rule the multitude, they
endeavor to raise divisions amongst them. One mob is hired to destroy
another; a procedure which at once encourages the boldness of the
populace, and justly increases their discontent. Men become pensioners
of state on account of their abilities in the array of riot, and the
discipline of confusion. Government is put under the disgraceful
necessity of protecting from the severity of the laws that very
licentiousness, which the laws had been before violated to repress.
Everything partakes of the original disorder. Anarchy predominates
without freedom, and servitude without submission or subordination.
These are the consequences inevitable to our public peace, from the
scheme of rendering the executory government at once odious and feeble;
of freeing administration from the constitutional and salutary control
of Parliament, and inventing for it a _new control_, unknown to the
constitution, an _interior cabinet_; which brings the whole body of
government into confusion and contempt.

After having stated, as shortly as I am able, the effects of this system
on our foreign affairs, on the policy of our government with regard to
our dependencies, and on the interior economy of the commonwealth;
there remains only, in this part of my design, to say something of the
grand pr