your friends, and acknowledged by your enemies? We were taught to expect, that you would not leave the ruin of this country to be completed by other hands, but were determined either to gain a decisive victory over the constitution, or to perish bravely at least behind the last dike of the prerogative. You knew the danger, and might have been provided for it. You took sufficient time to prepare for a meeting with your parliament, to confirm the mercenary fidelity of your dependents, and to suggest to your Sovereign a language suited to his dignity at least, if not to his benevolence and wisdom. Yet, while the whole kingdom was agitated with anxious expectation upon one great point, you meanly evaded the question, and, instead of the explicit firmness and decision of a King , gave us nothing but the misery of a ruined[1] grazier, and the whining piety of a Methodist. We had reason to expect, that notice would have been taken of the petitions which the king had received from the English nation; and although I can conceive some personal motives for not yielding to them, I can find none, in common prudence
- ↑ There was something wonderfully pathetic in the mention of the horned cattle.
