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¬loudest supporters; and the minister of that day, a most able statesman, though in that matter undoubtedly mistaken, and in private life one of the most agreeable and amiable of mankind, was attacked without measure or mercy. — He manfully stood his ground ; and, I am persuaded, with a clear conscience main- tained the policy and justice of his administra- tion; but the most zealous of his adherents now seeing the clearest reasons for condemning him, though none whatever existed which had not been as manifest from the outset, and many more finding it impossible from business to be in their places to defend him, though they had nothing at all to do, he was compelled to re- tire; and in a few weeks afterwards a man would have been probably mobbed in the streets, or perhaps imprisoned as a lunatic, if he had been rash enough to assert that the whole na- tion had been otherwise than mad, and without a lucid interval for fourteen years together." ¬" And pray, Sir/' I said, " has this system E 4 con- ¬
