before. Besides, after so plain and formidable a conviction, that mild and moderate methods meet with no other reception or return, than to serve as opportunities to the insatiable malice of an enemy; power will awake to vindicate itself, and disarm its opposers, at least of all offensive weapons.
Consider, if you please, how hard beset the present ministry has been on every side: by the impossibility of carrying on the war any longer, without taking the most desperate courses; or of recovering Spain from the house of Bourbon, although we could continue it many years longer: by the clamours of a faction against any peace without that condition, which the most knowing among themselves allowed to be impracticable; by the secret cabals of foreign ministers, who endeavoured to inflame our people, and spirited up a sinking faction to blast our endeavours for peace, with those popular reproaches of France and the pretender; not to mention the danger they have been in, from private insinuations, of such a nature as it was almost impossible to fence against. These clouds now begin to blow over, and those who are at the helm, will have leisure to look about them, and complete what yet remains to be done.
That confederate body, which now makes up the adverse party, consists of a union so monstrous and unnatural, that in a little time it must of necessity fall to pieces. The dissenters, with reason, think themselves betrayed and sold by their brethren. What they have been told, that the present bill against occasional conformity was to prevent a greater evil, is an excuse too gross to pass; and if any other pro-
