He certainly ought to understand the
British Constitution better than I do. He has studied it in the
fundamental part. For one election I have seen, he has been concerned in
twenty. Nobody is less of a visionary theorist; nobody has drawn his
speculations more from practice. No peer has condescended to superintend
with more vigilance the declining franchises of the poor commons. "With
thrice great Hermes he has outwatched the Bear." Often have his candles
been burned to the snuff, and glimmered and stunk in the sockets, whilst
he grew pale at his constitutional studies; long, sleepless nights has
he wasted, long, laborious, shiftless journeys has he made, and great
sums has he expended, in order to secure the purity, the independence,
and the sobriety of elections, and to give a check, if possible, to the
ruinous charges that go nearly to the destruction of the right of
election itself.
Amidst these his labors, his Grace will be pleased to forgive me, if my
zeal, less enlightened, to be sure, than his by midnight lamps and
studies, has presumed to talk too favorably of this Constitution, and
even to say something sounding like approbation of that body which has
the honor to reckon his Grace at the head of it, Those who dislike this
partiality, or, if his Grace pleases, this flattery of mine, have a
comfort at hand. I may be refuted and brought to shame by the most
convincing of all refutations, a practical refutation.
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