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have raised above controul? Will their services then obtain from the gratitude of their rulers, those securities for their constitutional liberty, of which they are now so unmindful? Or may they not rather expect from ministers this answer to their feeble monstrances—You have made enemies of the people, and you must now be slaves to us?
It would assuredly be wife in us all to carry our thoughts beyond the difficulties of the present anxious moment; to take into our view the future prospects of this country, and endeavour to see how they may be affected by the events which are passing and approaching.
Should the strong measures to which government have resorted fail of success; should they by the irritation they cause, promote rather than counteract the secret plans of the disaffected; and should these, acquiring daily fresh numbers and confidence, at length dare in open combat the strength of government and succeed in subverting it, there is but little occasion to point to the consequences which would probably follow. Few of us seem blind to the effects of democratic fury; when maddened with opposition, it has burst thro' every restraint. Life, property, law, morality, would be swept before it; and the next age, perhaps, might see some fair edifice of liberty erected, but it would rise cut of the smoking ruins of the present.
