sively fixed on
those melancholy facts, as if they were the only fruits of a triumph,
to which we Britons owe, that we are a fearless, undishonoured, and
rapidly improving people, and the nations of the Continent owe their
very existence as self-governed communities?

The Party of Opposition, or what remains of it, has much to repent of;
many humiliating reflections must pass through the minds of those who
compose it, and they must learn the hard lesson to be thankful for them
as a discipline indispensible to their amendment. Thus only can they
furnish a sufficient nucleus for the formation of a new Body; nor can
there be any hope of such Body being adequate to its appropriate
service, and of its possessing that portion of good opinion which shall
entitle it to the respect of its antagonists, unless it live and act,
for a length of time, under a distinct conception of the kind and degree
of hostility to the executive government, which is fairly warrantable.
The Party must cease indiscriminately to court the discontented, and to
league itself with Men who are athirst for innovation, to a point which
leaves it doubtful, whether an Opposition, that is willing to co-operate
with such Agitators, loves as it ought to do, and becomingly venerates,
the happy and glorious Constitution, in Church and State, which we have
inherited from our Ancestors.

Till not a doubt can be left that this indispensible change has been
effected, Freeholders of Westmoreland! you will remain--but to _exhort_
is not my present business--I was retracing the history of the influence
of one Family, and have shewn that much of it depends upon that steady
support given by them to government, during a long and arduous struggle,
and upon the general course of their public conduct, which has secured
your approbation and won for them your confidence. Let us now candidly
ask what practical evil has arisen from this preponderance. Is it not
obvious, that it is justified by the causes that have produced it? As
far as it concerns the general well-being of the Kingdom, it would be
easy to shew, that if the democratic activities of the great Towns and
of the manufacturing Districts, were not counteracted by the sedentary
power of large estates, continued from generation to generation in
particular families, it would be scarcely possible that the Laws and
Constitution of the Country could sustain the shocks which they would be
subject to. And as to our own County,