is
undertaking we have against us. We have the weight of King, Lords, and
Commons in the other scale; we have against us, within a trifle, the
whole body of the law; we oppose the more considerable part of the
landed and mercantile interests; we contend, in a manner, against the
whole Church; we set our faces against great armies flushed with
victory, and navies who have tasted of civil spoil, and have a strong
appetite for more; our strength, whatever it is, must depend, for a good
part of its effect, upon events not very probable. In such a situation,
such a step requires not only great magnanimity, but unwearied activity
and perseverance, with a good deal, too, of dexterity and management, to
improve every accident in our favor.

The delivery of this paper may have very important consequences. It is
true that the court may pass it over in silence, with a real or affected
contempt. But this I do not think so likely. If they do take notice of
it, the mildest course will be such an address from Parliament as the
House of Commons made to the king on the London Remonstrance in the year
1769. This address will be followed by addresses of a similar tendency,
from all parts of the kingdom, in order to overpower you with what they
will endeavor to pass as the united voice and sense of the nation. But
if they intend to proceed further, and to take steps of a more decisive
nature, you are then to consider, not what they may legally and justly
do, but what a Parliament omnipotent in power, influenced with party
rage and personal resentment, operating under the implicit military
obedience of court discipline, is capable of. Though they have made some
successful experiments on juries, they will hardly trust enough to them
to order a prosecution for a supposed libel. They may proceed in two
ways: either by an _impeachment_, in which the Tories may retort on the
Whigs (but with better success, though in a worse cause) the
proceedings in the case of Sacheverell, or they may, without this form,
proceed, as against the Bishop of Rochester, by a bill of pains and
penalties more or less grievous. The similarity of the cases, or the
justice, is (as I said) out of the question. The mode of proceeding has
several very ancient and very recent precedents. None of these methods
is impossible. The court may select three or four of the most
distinguished among you for the victims; and therefore nothing is more
remote from the tendency of the pro