letters. The Duke of Portland is the only one I recollect to have his name come before the publick.
"In 1756 the loss of Fort Oswego, of Minorca, together with Byng's defeat, the desperate state of the East Indies, and perhaps more than all, the irresolution and incapacity of those nearest the King, viz. the Duke of Newcastle and his friends, had bred a general panick, which was inflamed by two out of three of the factions then existing.[1]
"Previous, however, to my giving any further account of myself or of such things as may have come within my knowledge, I shall give some account of the condition of politics about the time I entered publick life.
"It is necessary, however, to make one fundamental observation. It is common to attribute the happiness and comfort which this country enjoyed from the period of the Revolution till the commencement of the present reign, to the excellence of our constitution, to the Whigs, and to a variety of other causes, whereas I conceive the true cause to have been the existence of a Pretender with a very just right to the Throne upon all Tory and monarchical principles and all old prejudices, but without sufficient capacity to disturb the reigning family, or to accommodate himself to the new principles which have been making a slow but certain progress ever since the discovery of the press. Cardinal Wolsey, upon the first discovery of printing, told the clergy to be on their guard, for if they did not destroy the press the press would destroy them. The consequence was that, during the period alluded to, there was a King and no King, instead of all that fine theory which Montesquieu[2] and all the admirers of the English constitution suppose, and all the theory of action and reaction. The Hanover family never imagined they would continue, and as their only chance threw themselves into the arms of the old Whigs, abjuring the rights and the manners of Royalty, in other
- ↑ The factions referred to are those of the Newcastle Whigs; the Duke of Cumberland's friends represented by Mr. Fox in the ministry; and the Leicester House party, which had relations with Mr. Pitt. See below, p. 42.
- ↑ Esprit des Lois, xi. ch. vi.
