Every individual
peer for himself may show that I was ridiculously wrong; the whole body
of those noble persons may refute me for the whole corps. If they
please, they are more powerful advocates against themselves than a
thousand scribblers like me can be in their favor. If I were even
possessed of those powers which his Grace, in order to heighten my
offence, is pleased to attribute to me, there would be little
difference. The eloquence of Mr. Erskine might save Mr. ***** from the
gallows, but no eloquence could save Mr. Jackson from the effects of his
own potion.
In that unfortunate book of mine, which is put in the _Index
Expurgatorius_ of the modern Whigs, I might have spoken too favorably
not only of those who wear coronets, but of those who wear crowns.
Kings, however, have not only long arms, but strong ones too. A great
Northern potentate, for instance, is able in one moment, and with one
bold stroke of his diplomatic pen, to efface all the volumes which I
could write in a century, or which the most laborious publicists of
Germany ever carried to the fair of Leipsic, as an apology for monarchs
and monarchy. Whilst I, or any other poor, puny, private sophist, was
defending the Declaration of Pilnitz, his Majesty might refute me by the
Treaty of Basle. Such a monarch may destroy one republic because it had
a king at its head, and he may balance this extraordinary act by
founding another republic that has cut off the head of its king.
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