MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 209 



instead of checking, them. There ought to be no 

 libels, but falsehoods. Can any man say, in the 

 face of the world, that truth ought not to prevail ? 

 It is owing to inquisitorial checks and restraints, 

 that two of the most important concerns to man- 

 kind, Religion and Politics, on which their 

 happiness, and everything of importance to them, 

 so much depends, is by the community, as a 

 whole, so imperfectly understood, and so blindly 

 acted upon at this day. It is only by seeing the 

 conduct of public men in a clear light, that a just 

 judgment can be formed of them and their 

 measures, and of their fitness or unfitness to con- 

 duct the important concerns entrusted to their 

 control. It may, indeed, be feared that, if tried 

 in the balance, they will be found very light. 

 Wise and honest councils must be resorted to and 

 adopted before Religion, Morality, and Politics, 

 Arts and Sciences, and a better knowledge of this 

 world of wonders, can be developed and appre- 

 ciated. Till then no amendment need be expected ; 

 religion will not be freed from superstition and 

 bigotry, nor political institutions purged from 

 venality and corruption, and conducted by honesty 

 and good sense. Those who have fixed them- 

 selves, like a disease, upon the body politic should 

 have warning to depart. 



In glancing back upon the transactions of the 

 world, as they have recently passed in review 

 before us, how can it afford any matter of wonder 

 that the advocates of liberty should have enter- 

 tained fears for its safety, and have wished, as a 

 check, the re-establishment of the British constitu- 

 tion in its purity. There was, indeed, little hope of 



this being acted upon, when foreign despots were 



2 B 



