purchase secret
service at so dear a rate, let it appear that we really obtain what we
pay for, though the means by which it is obtained are kept impenetrably
secret. Wherever the usefulness of the intelligence is not discoverable,
it is surely just to inquire, whether our money is not demanded for
other purposes, whether we are not in reality hiring with our own money
armies to enslave, or senators to betray us; or enriching an avaricious
minister, while we imagine ourselves contributing to the publick
security?

Colonel CHOLMONDELEY replied to the following effect:--Sir, it has been
in all foregoing ages the custom for men to speak of the government with
reverence, even when they opposed its measures, or projected its
dissolution; nor has it been thought, in any time before our own, decent
or senatorial, to give way to satire or invective, or indulge a petulant
imagination, to endeavour to level all orders by contemptuous
reflections, or to court the populace, by echoing their language, or
adopting their sentiments.

This method of gaining the reputation of patriotism, has been unknown
till the present age, and reserved for the present leaders of the
people, who will have the honour to stand recorded as the original
authors of anarchy, the great subverters of order, and the first men who
dared to pronounce, that all the secrets of government ought to be made
publick.

It has been hitherto understood in all nations, that those who were
intrusted with authority, had likewise a claim to respect and
confidence; that they were chosen for the superiority of their
abilities, or the reputation of their virtue; and that, therefore, it
was reasonable to consign to their management, the direction of such
affairs as by their own nature require secrecy.

But this ancient doctrine, by which subordination has been so long
preserved, is now to be set aside for new principles, which may flatter
the pride, and incite the passions of the people; we are now to be told,
that affairs are only kept secret, because they will not bear
examination; that men conceal not those transactions in which they have
succeeded, but those in which they have failed; that they are only
inclined to hide their follies or their crimes, and that to examine
their conduct in the most open manner, is only to secure the interest of
the publick.

Thus has the nation been taught to expect, that the counsels of the
cabinet should be dispersed in the publick pap