420 LETTER TO 



esteemed altogether so ; that, on the contrary, 

 the liberties of expression in which I have 

 sometimes indulged may appear to your Lord- 

 ship, if indeed you should ever bestow a mo- 

 ment's thought upon the subject, as not a little 

 reprehensible. 



The plainness and freedom of speech, my 

 Lord, which so remarkably distinguish English- 

 men, have always seemed to me, not only to 

 be essentially connected with the existence of 

 their thrice happy and unparalleled form of go- 

 vernment, but even to give rise, in great mea- 

 sure, to some of their characteristic virtues; 

 among others, to their humanity. I mean not 

 the humanity which is dictated by policy, or 

 that which originates in a morbid sensibility in- 

 capable of bearing the sight of distress ; but 

 the humanity which is so firmly ingrafted upon 

 the wild stock of our populace, that the greatest 

 storms cannot tear it away; the humanity which 

 withholds our mobs, in their most guilty ex- 

 cesses, and while maddened by strong liquors, 

 from the spilling of blood. Hatred and re- 

 venge spring up in concealment, and must be 

 nourished by long and painful meditation upon 

 injuries received, before they can attain any 

 vigour. But Englishmen, by loudly and fear- 

 lessly declaring their wrongs as soon as they 



