Ch. vi. the pr'mcipal Cause of Poverty, &;c. 317 



erting themselves, as they conceive, in the service 

 of their country, and conscious, perhaps, of no . 

 ill intention tovi^ards the people, will naturally be 

 disposed, on every occasion, to demand the sus- 

 pension or abolition of these checks ; but if once 

 the convenience of ministers be put in competi- 

 tion with the liberties of the people, and we get 

 into a habit of relying on fair assurances and per- 

 sonal character, instead of examining, with the 

 most scrupulous and jealous care, the merits of 

 each particular case, there is an end of British 

 freedom. If we once admit the principle, that 

 the government must know better with regard to 

 the quantity of power which it wants, than we 

 can possibly do with our limited means of infor- 

 mation, and that, therefore, it is our duty to sur- 

 render up our private judgments, we may just as 

 well at the same time surrender up the whole of 

 our constitution. Government is a quarter in 

 which liberty is not, nor cannot be, very faithfully 

 preserved. If we are wanting to ourselves, and 

 inattentive to our great interests in this respect, 

 it is the height of folly and unreasonableness to 

 expect that government will attend to them for 

 us. Should the British constitution ultimately 

 lapse into a despotism, as has been prophesied, I 

 shall think that the country gentlemen of England 

 will have much more to answer for than the mi- 

 nisters. 



To do the country gentlemen justice, however, 

 I should readily acknowledge that in the partial 

 desertion of their posts as guardians of British 



