PART III.] MORRIS BIRKBECK, ESQ. 591 



1046. I am happy to tell you, that Ellenbo- 

 roug/t and Gibbs have retired! Ill health is 

 the pretence. I never yet knew ill health in 

 duce such fellows to loosen their grasp of the 

 public purse. But, be it so : then I feel plea 

 sure on that account. To all the other pangs 

 of body and mind let them add that of know 

 ing, that William Cobbett, whom they thought 

 they had put down for ever, if not killed, lives 

 to rejoice at their pains and their death, to 

 trample on their graves, and to hand down 

 their names for the just judgment of posterity. 

 What! are these feelings wrong? Are they 

 sinful? What defence have we, then, against 

 tyranny ? If the oppressor be not to experience 

 the resentment of the oppressed, let us at once 

 acknowledge the divine right of tyranny; for, 

 what has tyranny else to fear? Who has it to 

 fear, but those whom it has injured? It is the 

 aggregate of individual injury that makes up 

 national injury : it is the aggregate of individual 

 resentment that makes up national resentment. 

 National resentment is absolutely necessary to 

 the producing of redress for oppression ; and, 

 therefore, to say that individual resentment is 

 wrong, is to say, that there ought to be no re 

 dress for oppression : it is, in short, to pass a 

 sentence of never-ending slavery on all man 

 kind. Some Local Militia men ; young fellows 



