Without denying to these gentlemen the respect and
consideration which it is allowed justly belongs to them, we see no
reason why they should not as well be obliged to defer something to our
opinions as that we should be bound blindly and servilely to follow
those of Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Grey, Mr. Courtenay, Mr. Lambton,
Mr. Whitbread, Mr. Taylor, and others. We are members of Parliament and
their equals. We never consider ourselves as their followers. These
gentlemen (some of them hardly born when some of us came into
Parliament) have thought proper to treat us as deserters,--as if we had
been listed into their phalanx like soldiers, and had sworn to live and
die in their French principles. This insolent claim of superiority on
their part, and of a sort of vassalage to them on that of other members,
is what no liberal mind will submit to bear.
49. The society of the Liberty of the Press, the Whig Club, and the
Society for Constitutional Information, and (I believe) the Friends of
the People, as well as some clubs in Scotland, have, indeed, declared,
"that their confidence in and attachment to Mr. Fox has lately been
confirmed, strengthened, and increased by the calumnies" (as they are
called) "against him." It is true, Mr. Fox and his friends have those
testimonies in their favor, against certain old friends of the Duke of
Portland. Yet, on a full, serious, and, I think, dispassionate
consideration of the whole of what Mr.
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