After the Conservative triumph of 1841 he
wrote:--"The country is in a state of political transition, and the shabby
are preparing their consciences and opinions for a tack."
But, though he was so keen and so consistent a champion of civil and
religious freedom, he was a sworn foe to anarchy and licence. Like most
people who had seen the later stages of the French Revolution, he had a
holy horror of mob-law and mob-justice. "If I am to be a slave," he said,
"I would rather be the slave of a king than of a rabble"; but he vehemently
objected to being the slave of either. He likened Democracy and Despotism
to the "two tubes of a double-barrelled pistol," which menaced the life of
the State. "The democrats are as much to be kept at bay with the left hand
as the Tories are with the right." "A thousand years," he wrote in 1838,
"have scarce sufficed to make our blessed England what it is: an hour may
lay it in the dust."
After the riots at Bristol in 1831, consequent on the rejection of the
Reform Bill, he strenuously demanded stern punishment for the rioters. He
wrote to the Prime Minister:--
"Pray do not be good-natured about Bristol. I must have ten people
hanged, and twenty transported, and thirty imprisoned; it is
absolutely necessary to give the multitude a severe blow, for their
conduct at Bristol has been most atrocious.
Pages:
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264