164] 
their interests were sacrificed to the 
ambitious views of their superiors. 
This declaration called up Mr. 
Pitt, who inveighed with uncom- 
mon warmth against the designs of 
the society. This was not a time, 
he said, for moving questions that 
involved the peace and safety of the 
nation, and endangered the consti- 
tution of the kingdom. He was 
no enemy to a reform obtained 
peaceably by ageneral concurrence ; 
but he thought the present time 
highly improper, and decidedly ini- 
micaltosuch an attempt. He had, 
it was true, at the conclusion of the 
American war, thought a reform 
immediately necessary to quiet the 
clamours and confusion that had 
arisen from the dread of an ap- 
proaching bankruptcy, and to 
aunite both Parliament and people 
in the most cordial endeavours to 
prevent so dreadful an evil. But 
Aowever he might have been once 
inclined to promote schemes of re- 
form, experience had taught him 
the danger of altering the establish- 
ed forms of government. The cir- 
cumstances of this country were 
not such as to require so violent a 
_remedy:—those who demanded 
reform were not all of the same 
mind: many, doubtless, aimed no 
further than a reformation of real 
abuses ; but others there were who 
harboured the darkest designs. It 
was not reform; it was the entire 
subversion of the constitution it- 
self which they had in view; they 
were inveterate foes to monarchy, 
and intended to destroy it, and to 
substitute in its place a republican 
government. Such intentions he 
would oppose through every danger 
that might attend him, and would 
abandon all hope of the reforms he 
once had in view, sooner than sub- 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 
17y2. 
mit to such a one as was now pro- 
posed. 
Mr. Fox professed, in answer to 
Mr. Pitt, to have long been con- 
vinced that the interest of the na+ 
tion required a reform of Parlia- 
ment. The frequent opposition of 
sentiments between the people and 
their representatives, proved that 
the nation was not fairly represent- 
ed; otherwise there would seldom, 
if ever, exist such extreme vari- 
ances between them. The society 
entitled the Friends of the People, 
consisted of as respectable indivi- 
duals as any that supported the mi- 
nistry. ‘True, there were among 
the former some violent republi- 
cans;,but there were among the 
ministerialists, what was still worse, 
decided adherents to . arbitrary 
power. These were the true au- 
thors of innovations, as they termed 
them; as if the constitution of this 
country were not erected upon per- 
petual changes of bad for good, and 
of good for better. But improve- 
ments were not to be confounded 
with innovations; the meaning of 
which word was always odious, 
and conveyed an idea of alterations 
for the worse. 
The discourse pronounced by 
Mr. Burke on this occasion, was 
full of warmth and vehemence. 
He reprobated in the severest Jan- 
guage the project entertained by 
the reformers, whom he compared 
to quacks, who offered preventive 
remedies when no disease was ap- 
prehended. He warned the Friends 
of the People to beware of reforms 
of which, when began, none could 
tell the issue. The kingdom, he 
said, was full of factious people, 
who, deluded by visionary specula- 
tions, longed to realize them at any 
cost; and would readily plunge the 
nation 
