13. Mr. Fox's whole conduct, on this occasion, was without example. The
very morning after these violent declamations in the House of Commons
against the association, (that is, on Tuesday, the 18th,) he went
himself to a meeting of St. George's parish, and there signed an
association of the nature and tendency of those he had the night before
so vehemently condemned; and several of his particular and most intimate
friends, inhabitants of that parish, attended and signed along with him.
14. Immediately after this extraordinary step, and in order perfectly to
defeat the ends of that association against Jacobin publications,
(which, contrary to his opinions, he had promoted and signed,) a
mischievous society was formed under his auspices, called _The Friends
of the Liberty of the Press_. Their title groundlessly insinuated that
the freedom of the press had lately suffered, or was now threatened
with, some violation. This society was only, in reality, another
modification of the society calling itself _The Friends of the People_,
which in the preceding summer had caused so much uneasiness in the Duke
of Portland's mind, and in the minds of several of his friends. This new
society was composed of many, if not most, of the members of the club of
the Friends of the People, with the addition of a vast multitude of
others (such as Mr. Horne Tooke) of the worst and most seditious
dispositions that could be found in the whole kingdom.
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