On the other hand, the advantage taken of the discontent which at that
time prevailed in Parliament and in the nation, to give to an individual
an influence directly against the government of his country, in a
foreign court, has made a highway into England for the intrigues of
foreign courts in our affairs. This is a sore evil,--an evil from which,
before this time, England was more free than any other nation. Nothing
can preserve us from that evil--which connects cabinet factions abroad
with popular factions here--but the keeping sacred the crown as the only
channel of communication with every other nation.
This proceeding of Mr. Fox has given a strong countenance and an
encouraging example to the doctrines and practices of the Revolution and
Constitutional Societies, and of other mischievous societies of that
description, who, without any legal authority, and even without any
corporate capacity, are in the habit of proposing, and, to the best of
their power, of forming, leagues and alliances with France.
This proceeding, which ought to be reprobated on all the general
principles of government, is in a more narrow view of things not less
reprehensible. It tends to the prejudice of the whole of the Duke of
Portland's late party, by discrediting the principles upon which they
supported Mr. Fox in the Russian business, as if they of that party also
had proceeded in their Parliamentary opposition on the same mischievous
principles which actuated Mr.
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