Pitt has
not hitherto had, nor will perhaps for a few days have, many prizes to
hold out in the lottery of war, to tempt the lower part of our
character. He can only maintain it by an appeal to the higher; and to
those in whom that higher part is the most predominant he must look the
most for his support. Whilst he holds out no inducements to the wise nor
bribes to the avaricious, he may be forced by a vulgar cry into a peace
ten times more ruinous than the most disastrous war. The weaker he is in
the fund of motives which apply to our avarice, to our laziness, and to
our lassitude, if he means to carry the war to any end at all, the
stronger he ought to be in his addresses to our magnanimity and to our
reason.
In stating that Walpole was driven by a popular clamor into a measure
not to be justified, I do not mean wholly to excuse his conduct. My time
of observation did not exactly coincide with that event, but I read much
of the controversies then carried on. Several years after the contests
of parties had ceased, the people were amused, and in a degree warmed
with them. The events of that era seemed then of magnitude, which the
revolutions of our time have reduced to parochial importance; and the
debates which then shook the nation now appear of no higher moment than
a discussion in a vestry. When I was very young, a general fashion told
me I was to admire some of the writings against that minister; a little
more maturity taught me as much to despise them.
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