in showing that the old barracks were in general badly
situated, and not adapted for cavalry. Buildings for the use of 5,400
horsemen were now erected; and on the whole question he asserted that
the men would live more cheaply, and would contract less vicious habits
than when lodged in inns. Above all, they would be removed from the
sedition-mongers, who now plied them with doctrines destructive alike of
loyalty and military discipline. Windham then quoted a phrase from
Moliere's "Medecin malgre lui": "If I cannot make him dumb, I will make
you deaf."[281] The inference was that the inability of the Cabinet to
silence malcontents involved the expenditure of L1,400,000 partly in
order to stop the ears of the soldiery.

Lord Bacon, in his pregnant aphorisms upon sedition, does not venture on
a definition of that indefinable term. Where, indeed, shall one draw the
line between justifiable discontent and the inciting of men to lawless
and violent acts? We shall notice presently the claim of a Scottish
judge that an agitator may have good and upright intentions, and yet, if
his words and acts lead to general discontent, he is guilty of sedition
and perhaps of high treason. At the other extreme of thought stands the
born malcontent. He is generally an idealist, having a keen sense of the
miseries of mankind and very imperfect notions as to the difficulty of
peacefully and permanently ending them. In times of political excitement
the statesman has to deal with large bands of zealots nerved by these
irreconcilable principles. It was the misfortune of Pitt that he sought
to hold together a nation rent asunder by the doctrines of Burke and
Paine. Compromise was out of the question; and yet a British statesman
cannot govern unless the majority of the people is ready for compromise.
His position becomes untenable if, while upholding the throne, he
infuriates all friends of progress; if, when he seeks to remove abuses,
he is dubbed a traitor to King, Church, and Constitution. And yet, to
abandon his post because of these difficulties is not only cowardly, but
also an act of disloyalty alike to King and people.

As the political thermometer rose towards fever point through the years
1792-3, Government kept closer watch upon the political Societies; but
for a long time Pitt took no action against them. It seems probable
that, if they had confined themselves to their professed programme (that
of the Westminster Reformers of 1780) he w