[Footnote 24: It may be worthy of record, that Wedderburn became the hero of the clubs and the favorite of the Tory party. Wealth and honors were lavished upon him. He rose to the dignity of an earl and lord chancellor, and yet we do not find, in any of the annals of those days, that he is spoken of otherwise than as a shallow, unprincipled man. When his death, after a few hours' illness, was announced to the king, he scornfully said, "He has not left a worse man behind him."] The spirit of the Tories may be inferred from that of one of the most applauded and influential of their leaders. Dr. Samuel Johnson, who wrote the notorious "Taxation no Tyranny," said, "The Americans are a race of convicts. They ought to be thankful for any thing we can give them. I am willing to love all mankind except an American." Boswell in quoting one of his insane tirades writes, "His inflammable corruption, bursting into horrid fire, he breathed out threatenings and slaughter, calling them rascals, robbers, pirates, and exclaiming that he would burn and destroy them." It was a day of vicious indulgence, of dissipation in every form, when it was fashionable to be godless, and to sneer at all the restraints of the Christian religion. Volumes might be filled with accounts of the atrocities perpetrated by drunken lords at the gaming table and in midnight revel through the streets. Such men of influence and rank as Fox, Lord Derby, the Duke of Ancaster, inflamed with wine, could set the police at defiance. They were constantly engaged in orgies which would disgrace the most degraded wretches, in the vilest haunts of infamy in our cities. Instead of gambling for copper, they gambled for gold. Horace Walpole testifies that at one of the most fashionable clubs, at Almack's, they played only for rouleaux of two hundred and fifty dollars each. There were often fifty thousand dollars in specie on the gaming tables, around which these bloated inebriates were gathered. It is said that Lord Holland paid the gambling debts of his two sons to the amount of one hundred thousand dollars. The trade of the colonies had become of immense value to the mother country. It amounted to six and a half millions sterling a year. Philadelphia numbered forty thousand inhabitants. Charleston, South Carolina, had become one of the most beautiful and healthy cities in America. The harbor was crowded with shipping, the streets were lined with mansions of great architectural beauty. Gorgeous equipages were seen, almost rivaling the display in French and English capitals. But there were many Tories in Charleston, as malignant in their opposition to the popular cause in America, as any of the aristocrats to be found in London.