what I have now said, I do not much fear to be contradicted. It was
not with a view to such as are attached to any of these parties, that I
have taken up the pen. Those who come under this description, are almost
universally the advocates of monarchy, and think that they have nothing
to regret, but that power and police are not established upon a more
uncontrolable footing among us. To such persons I do not address myself.
I know of nothing that the friends of lord Rockingham have to offer that
can be of any weight with them; and, for my own part, I should blush to
say a word, that should tend to conciliate their approbation to a
system, in which my heart was interested. The men I wish chiefly to have
in view, are those that are personally attached to the earl of
Shelburne; such as stand aloof from all parties, and are inclined to
have but an indifferent opinion of any; and such as have adhered to the
connexion I have undertaken to defend, but whose approbation has been
somewhat cooled by their late conduct. The two last in particular, I
consider as least under the power of prejudice, and most free to the
influence of rational conviction.

The friends of freedom have, I believe, in no instance hesitated, but
between the Rockingham connexion, and the earl of Shelburne. It is these
two then that it remains for me to examine. Lord Shelburne had the
misfortune of coming very early upon the public stage. At that time he
connected himself with the earl of Bute, and entered with warmth into
the opposition to Mr. secretary Pitt. In this system of conduct,
however, he did not long persist; he speedily broke with the favourite,
and soon after joined the celebrated hero, that had lately been the
object of his attack. By this person he was introduced to a considerable
post in administration. In office, he is chiefly remembered by the very
decisive stile of authority and censure he employed, in a public letter,
relative to the resistance that was made to the act of 1767, for
imposing certain duties in America. From his resignation with lord
Chatham, he uniformly and strenuously opposed the measures that were
adopted for crushing that resistance. He persevered, with much apparent
constancy, in one line of conduct for near ten years, and this is
certainly the most plausible period of his story. He first called forth
the suspicions of generous and liberal men in every rank of society, by
his resolute opposition to the American independ