; but now a court faction had sprung up called "the king's
friends," a double cabinet, acting as irresponsible wire-pullers behind
the scenes. These men deriving, like Janissaries, a kind of freedom from
the very condition of their servitude, were sitting in secondary, but
efficient, departments of office and in the household of the royal
family, so as to occupy the avenues to the throne and to forward or
frustrate the execution of any measure according to their own interests;
they endeavored to separate the crown from the administration, and to
divide the latter within itself. To this cabal it was owing that British
policy was brought into derision in those foreign countries which, a
while ago, trembled at the power of England's arms. Above all, they
tried to pervert the principles of Parliament by raising divisions among
the people, by influencing the elections, by separating representatives
from their constituents, and by undermining the control of the
legislature over the executive. They maintained that all political
connections were in their nature factious; but free commonwealths were
ever made by parties, _i.e._, bodies of men united for promoting by
their joint endeavors the national interest upon great leading
principles in which they were agreed; government by parties was the very
soul of representative institutions; it had raised England to her
present power and protected the liberty of the people; while the cant,
"measures not men," had always been the pretext for getting loose from
every honorable engagement.

Burke finds the remedy in restoring the Constitution to its original
principles; all patriots must form a firm combination against the cabal;
a just connection between representatives and constituents must be
re-established; Parliament ought not to meddle with the privileges of
the executive, but exercise real control upon the acting powers of the
state, and if necessary, not be afraid to resort to impeachment, "that
great guardian of the purity of the Constitution;" finally, if all means
fail, there must be an interposition of the body of the people
itself--"an unpleasant remedy but legal, when it is evident that nothing
else can hold the Constitution to its true principles."

He at the same time displayed a prominent activity in Parliament, where
soon all internal questions gave way to the great contest with America.
In 1771 he had accepted the place of an agent for New York, had become
intimately