the people they were bound to protect, and, perhaps in obedience to
"orders that have come from secretaries of state"--These orders truly
were to be treated with as profound veneration, without the least
enquiry into their nature and tendency, as ever a poor deluded
Catholic reverenc'd the decree of Holy Father at Rome.--While such a
disposition prevailed, O how orderly were the people, how submissive
to government! But when once a statute or the constitution was
pleaded, which it was as dangerous for the people to look into, as it
would be for an Italian, after the example of the noble Bereans, to
search the scriptures, the secretary of state was to be informed that
the people were become rebellious; as they said of St. Paul for
preaching doctrines opposite to the humour of the Jewish Masters, that
he "turned the world upside down"--The whole ministerial cabal was
summoned; opinions were called for and taken--and however ludicrous,
to say the best of them, those opinions were, if the people did not
swallow them down as law & reason, they were told, that the freedom
they used with the characters of great men forsooth "would bring
dishonor upon them" and standing armies were sent to convince them of
the reasonableness of these opinions--I confess that "too great a
respect cannot be paid to the honorable part of the profession of the
law," but when state-lawyers, attorneys and sollicitors general, &
persons advanced to the highest stations in the courts of law,
prostitute the honor of the profession, become tools of ministers, and
employ their talents for explaining away, if possible the Rights of a
kingdom, they are then the proper objects of the odium and indignation
of the public.--A very judicious author has observed that "our
maladies and dangers have originated chiefly in the errors and
misconduct of ministers; who from defect of ability or fidelity, or
both, were unequal to the wants of a kingdom: A great genius, infinite
knowledge and infinite care, says he, are requisite to form a prime