Burke,
since the publication of his pamphlet, has been a thousand times charged
in the newspapers with holding despotic principles. He could not enjoy
one moment of domestic quiet, he could not perform the least particle of
public duty, if he did not altogether disregard the language of those
libels. But, however his sensibility might be affected by such abuse, it
would in _him_ have been thought a most ridiculous reason for shutting
up the mouths of Mr. Fox or Mr. Sheridan, so as to prevent their
delivering their sentiments of the French Revolution, that, forsooth,
"the newspapers had lately charged Mr. Burke with being an enemy to
liberty."
I allow that those gentlemen have privileges to which Mr. Burke has no
claim. But their friends ought to plead those privileges, and not to
assign bad reasons, on the principle of what is fair between man and
man, and thereby to put themselves on a level with those who can so
easily refute them. Let them say at once that his reputation is of no
value, and that he has no call to assert it,--but that theirs is of
infinite concern to the party and the public, and to that consideration
he ought to sacrifice all his opinions and all his feelings.
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