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THE

DEFENCES

OF

THE WHIG S;

A NEW EDITION,

WITH

A PREFACE.

BY

THOMAS, LORD ERSKINE.

LONDON:

VOL. XV.

Pam.

NO. XXX.

T

PREFACE.

A "REPLY" to the "Defences of the Whigs," now published together, has some time ago made its appearance, under the specious title of " A DEFENCE OF THE PEOPLE," as if there had been a word in either of them by which their rights or liberties were invaded.

The very few remarks I have to offer upon this publication I have chosen, therefore, to make as a Preface to this new Edition, that whoever collects from it the nature and character of the complaints against me, may, by comparing them with what I have written, be more clearly convinced of their injustice, and that public men may take warning to avoid all political communication with those, who with seeming gratitude acknowledge services to the country, and reward them with the bitterest reproach.

To vindicate this salutary caution, I feel myself at liberty to reprint the exordium of this singular work, since it relates wholly to myself; setting me upon a pinnacle of merit and reputation, which I never had the vanity to look up to; as if the most manifestly erroneous statements could possibly remove me from wherever I ought to stand in the opinions and feelings of the people.

"It was on the 9th of November, 1794," says this author in the very outset of his work, "that I harnessed myself to the carriage of the Honorable Thomas Erskine, when that distinguished barrister was drawn through the streets of the metropolis, amidst the blessings and the tears of a people whom he had saved from the gripe of oppression. Your Lordship does not praise yourself half enough for the exploits of those days.-It

is but a poor description of them to say, that you saved your brother-reformers from being hanged.' The English, then, had but one hope left. Their parliament, instead of protecting them, lent aid to the tyrants that conspired their destruction. Nothing remained but to frighten or corrupt the tribunal which held the sword over those whom their mock representatives had delivered bound hand and foot to the bloody servants of the crown. A complaisant jury would have completed the work of a treacherous parliament. It was not the existence of HARDY which was at stake. If you had often before fought for victory in this cause, you then contended for the life of our British liberNo time, no, nor your Lordship's subsequent conduct, shall obliterate your share in the glorious struggle that gave a breathing-time to the last defenders of their country. The congratulations belonged to the rescued prisoner, but the praise was all your own ;-you were the saviour of the innocent, the restorer of liberty, the champion of law, of justice, and of truth, Dazzled by your eloquence-animated by your courage-sympathising with your success-your fellow-countrymen sunk under their admiration, their gratitude, and their joy; and bowed down before the idol of their hearts."

A writer ought to be perfectly sure of his ground, who prefaces a libel with such enthusiastic praise, since, as in his own avowed opinion I once deserved so exalted a station and character, he is surely bound to establish very serious offences, to justify the sentence immediately following it, in which he addresses me thus:

"My Lord, you should have died when you descended from the triumph of that memorable day. The timely end, which is the sole protection against the reverses of fortune, would have preserved you from that more lamentable change, which could have been occasioned only by yourself. Had your life closed with the procession, you would have gone down to posterity pure and entire. it is, your admirers have nothing left for it, but to separate your early career from your present state, and to look at the record of your former exploits as belonging rather to history than to you."

As

It is true he mitigates this harsh denunciation by adding, that I have companions in this fallen state; and, in the course of his work, he selects them from amongst the most able and virtuous public men.-SO FAR I AM HIS DEBTOR.

It becomes nevertheless material, both as it regards the reputation of this writer, and my own, to examine what I have done, or omitted to do, since the period when he pronounces that I ought to have died: as I willingly concede it to be far better a

man should die, who has deserved well of his country, than to forfeit by his misconduct its affection and respect.

The author then proceeds to establish the justice of his sentence of death against me by long and labored censures of the Whigs from the Revolution downwards; but, as this Preface is not published to support what I have written concerning them, which I shall leave for ever to the public judgment, I may safely dispose oF THE WHOLE OF IT by only stating, that on the 9th of November, 1794, this writer well knew I had long been a member of the House of Commons; personally attached to Mr. Fox, and supporting the Whig party: he must have known also, that I had approved of the junction with Lord North, which he reprobates, and had supported the Administration formed under it; yet, with this full knowledge of me, he still was harnessed to my carriage, and tells me, even at this hour, that I might THEN "have gone down to posterity PURE AND ENTIRE. Up to this period therefore I am safe, which greatly narrows my

remarks.

From the vehement abuse which still goes on through the whole pamphlet against the conduct of those with whom I have so long acted in Parliament, it is not easy to comprehend, how the desertion of such politicians, which he yet seems eager to impute to me, could at all lessen my reputation, or be any infidelity to the cause of the people; but, knowing that a firm and faithful adherence, not only to political principles, but personally to those with whom they have been maintained, is a great feature in the character of an English gentleman, he en deavours to defame me in that respect; and it is matter of extreme astonishment, that any man should be so rash as to print and publish such a charge without even pretending to have a single fact to support it, since, instead of even assuming one, he, in his forty-third page, after disjointing the Opposition by his own unfounded separation of some of its most eminent members, only from occasional differences of opinion, which must always exist amongst honest men, puts this strange question to me personally: "And you, my Lord, permit me to ask whether ANY PARTY has counted upon your Lordship for these last years?" To which I readily and confidently answer, in the face of the whole world, YES,-THAT PARTY with which I began my public life, with which I have uniformly acted, and against which I never have given a single vote in either House of Par liament, since the Author was harnessed to my carriage. In voting for the continuance of the war, just before its conclusion by the battle of Waterloo (my reasons for which are expressed in the following pages), it is notorious that the Opposition were

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