Are we to be astonished,
when, by the efforts of so much violence in conquest, and so much policy
in regulation, continued without intermission for near an hundred years,
we had reduced them to a mob, that, whenever they came to act at all,
many of them would act exactly like a mob, without temper, measure, or
foresight? Surely it might be just now a matter of temperate discussion,
whether you ought not to apply a remedy to the real cause of the evil.
If the disorder you speak of be real and considerable, you ought to
raise an aristocratic interest, that is, an interest of property and
education, amongst them,--and to strengthen, by every prudent means, the
authority and influence of men of that description. It will deserve your
best thoughts, to examine whether this can be done without giving such
persons the means of demonstrating to the rest that something more is to
be got by their temperate conduct than can be expected from the wild and
senseless projects of those who do not belong to their body, who have no
interest in their well-being, and only wish to make them the dupes of
their turbulent ambition.
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