Fox himself,
and, apparently at least, contented whoever wished to go farthest in
that reduction, is Mr. Burke to allow that it would be right for us to
proceed to indefinite lengths upon that subject? that it would therefore
be justifiable in a people owing allegiance to a monarchy, and
professing to maintain it, not to _reduce_, but wholly to _take away
all_ prerogative and _all_ influence whatsoever? Must his having made,
in virtue of a plan of economical regulation, a reduction of the
influence of the crown compel him to allow that it would be right in the
French or in us to bring a king to so abject a state as in function not
to be so respectable as an under-sheriff, but in person not to differ
from the condition of a mere prisoner? One would think that such a thing
as a medium had never been heard of in the moral world.
This mode of arguing from your having done _any_ thing in a certain line
to the necessity of doing _every_ thing has political consequences of
other moment than those of a logical fallacy. If no man can propose any
diminution or modification of an invidious or dangerous power or
influence in government, without entitling friends turned into
adversaries to argue him into the destruction of all prerogative, and to
a spoliation of the whole patronage of royalty, I do not know what can
more effectually deter persons of sober minds from engaging in any
reform, nor how the worst enemies to the liberty of the subject could
contrive any method more fit to bring all correctives on the power of
the crown into suspicion and disrepute.
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