They
are a sort of people who affect to proceed as if they thought that men
may deceive without fraud, rob without injustice, and overturn
everything without violence. They are men who would usurp the government
of their country with decency and moderation. In fact, they are nothing
more or better than men engaged in desperate designs with feeble minds.
They are not honest; they are only ineffectual and unsystematic in their
iniquity. They are persons who want not the dispositions, but the energy
and vigor, that is necessary for great evil machinations. They find that
in such designs they fall at best into a secondary rank, and others take
the place and lead in usurpation which they are not qualified to obtain
or to hold. They envy to their companions the natural fruit of their
crimes; they join to run them down with the hue and cry of mankind,
which pursues their common offences; and then hope to mount into their
places on the credit of the sobriety with which they show themselves
disposed to carry on what may seem most plausible in the mischievous
projects they pursue in common.
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