The same policy of turning the good qualities of
Englishmen to their own destruction, which made Mr. Pitt omnipotent,
continues his power to those who resemble him only in his vices;
advantage is taken of the loyalty of Englishmen to make them meanly
submissive; their piety is turned into persecution, their courage into
useless and obstinate contention; they are plundered because they are
ready to pay, and soothed into asinine stupidity because they are full
of virtuous patience. If England must perish at last, so let it be;
that event is in the hands of God; we must dry up our tears and
submit. But, that England should perish swindling and stealing; that
it should perish waging war against lazar-houses and hospitals; that
it should perish persecuting with monastic bigotry; that it should
calmly give itself up to be ruined by the flashy arrogance of one man,
and the narrow fanaticism of another; these events are within the
power of human beings, and I did not think that the magnanimity of
Englishmen would ever stoop to such degradations."
So ends this vivid argument on behalf of political justice and social
equality. Lord Grenville saw the resemblance to Swift, and Lord Holland
kindly reminded the anonymous satirist that "the only author to whom he
could be compared in English, lost a bishopric for his wittiest
performance.
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