In 1819 he wrote to his friend
Jeffrey:--
"The case that the people have is too strong to be resisted; an answer
may be made to it, which will satisfy enlightened people perhaps, but
none that the mass will be satisfied with. I am doubtful whether it is
not your duty and my duty to become moderate Reformers, to keep off
worse."
In 1820 he wrote:--"I think all wise men should begin to turn their faces
Reform-wards." In 1821 he writes about the state of parties in the House of
Commons:--
"Of all ingenious instruments of despotism, I most commend a popular
assembly where the majority are paid and hired, and a few bold and
able men, by their brave speeches, make the people believe they are
free."
And then again, with regard to religious liberty, what can be finer than
his protest against the spirit of persecution?--
"I admit there is a vast luxury in selecting a particular set of
Christians and in worrying them as a boy worries a puppy dog; it is an
amusement in which all the young English are brought up from their
earliest days. I like the idea of saying to men who use a different
hassock from me, that till they change their hassock, they shall never
be Colonels, Aldermen, or Parliament-men. While I am gratifying my
personal insolence respecting religious forms, I fondle myself into an
idea that I am religious, and that I am doing my duty in the most
exemplary (as I certainly am in the most easy) way.
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