50. Even if this hope of a possible control did exist, yet the declared
opinions, and the uniform line of conduct conformable to those opinions,
pursued by Mr. Fox, must become a matter of serious alarm, if he should
obtain a power either at court or in Parliament or in the nation at
large, and for this plain reason: he must be the most active and
efficient member in any administration of which he shall form a part.
That a man, or set of men, are guided by such not dubious, but delivered
and avowed principles and maxims of policy, as to need a watch and check
on them in the exercise of the highest power, ought, in my opinion, to
make every man, who is not of the same principles and guided by the
same maxims, a little cautious how he makes himself one of the
traverses of a ladder to help such a man, or such a set of men, to climb
up to the highest authority. A minister of this country is to be
controlled by the House of Commons. He is to be trusted, not
_controlled_, by his colleagues in office: if he were to be controlled,
government, which ought to be the source of order, would itself become a
scene of anarchy. Besides, Mr. Fox is a man of an aspiring and
commanding mind, made rather to control than to be controlled, and he
never will be nor can be in any administration in which he will be
guided by any of those whom I have been accustomed to confide in. It is
absurd to think that he would or could. If his own opinions do not
control him, nothing can.
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