86 APPENDIX TO 
No. 52, Frith-street, London, 
Sir, May 24, 1792. 
WE beg leave to acknowledge 
the receipt of your letter of the 
14th instant, and toreturn you our 
thanks for a confidence which we 
trust our future conduct will merit 
from our country, 
We have received sincere plea- 
sure, not only from the firm and 
virtuous tone in which you have 
spoken your principies, but from 
the wise and teiaperate manner in 
which you have limited their appli- 
cation to practice. We rejoice that 
“* our sentiments, our motives, and 
‘our plans of reform, are perfectly 
‘in unison with your ideas,” be- 
cause we believe that a conduct in 
the great body of the people corres- 
ponding tosuch “sentiments,” will 
equally confound the two opposite 
classes of enemies to the public 
weal, that it will defeat the hopes of 
those who would dupe the people 
into tumult, and that it will silence 
the slanders of those advocates of 
corruption who have laboured to 
render the cause of Liberty odious 
and terrible to all good citizens, by 
confounding it with principles of 
anarchy, and by loading it with the 
obloquy of provoking civil commo- 
tion, and of endangering the destruc- 
tion of a constitution, justly re- 
nowned for the freedom and hap- 
piness which it has so long bestowed. 
—You are pleased to say that ‘you 
** look up to the Friends of the Peo- 
‘* ple as your leaders and directors 
‘in this great business.”? Autho- 
rized as we feel ourselves by this 
proffered guidance, and by that har- 
mony of sentiment which, from the 
tenor of your letter, we must sup- 
pose to exist between you and our- 
selves, permit us to lay before you 
some ideas which are dictated by 
zeal for our common cause, The 
cause of liberty can never be endan- 
gered by the assault of its enemies, 
but may sometimes be exposed by 
the indiscretion of its friends. Its 
principles are founded onimpregna- 
bie reason, and its enemiesare there- 
fore too dexterous direetly to attack 
them. Itis not against the reason- 
ings of the champions of corruption 
(for they have produced none) but 
itis against their craft and their 
misrepresentation, that we have 
found it necessary to defend our- 
selves by the wariness ofour language 
andourconduct. A similar wariness, 
as far as the authority of our opini- 
on can extend, we must counsel all 
societies associated on similar prin- 
ciples for the accomplishment of the 
same object, to observe. Accused 
as they are, in common with our- 
selves, of neditating one object and 
holding forth anether; of seducing 
the people by a measure so specious 
and salutary as parliamentary re- 
form, into other measures of despe- 
rate tendency and undefinable ex- 
tent, we canonly advise them tofol- 
low our example in honestly and so- 
lemnly declaring, that ‘“‘ they make 
‘<the preservation of the constituti- 
‘on, onits true principles, the foun- 
‘‘ dation of all their proceedings,’? 
and the measure of all their reform. 
Language thus explicit, will effec- 
tually combat misrepresentations, to 
which, perhaps, ardent indiscretion 
may have sometimes furnished pre- 
texts. An early declaration of these 
opinions, which we sincerely believe 
you to entertain, will conciliate 
many to the cause of reform, who 
are now held in honest neutrality by 
their fears. The Friends of Order, 
after such a declaration, justified 
by consistent conduct, will be no 
longer driven to seek refuge from 
anarchy in the bosom of corruption, 
The 
