Be this as it may, I am persuaded that the Morning Post proved a far
more useful ally to the Government in its most important objects,
in consequence of its being generally considered as moderately anti-
ministerial, than if it had been the avowed eulogist of Mr. Pitt. The
few, whose curiosity or fancy should lead them to turn over the journals
of that date, may find a small proof of this in the frequent charges
made by the Morning Chronicle, that such and such essays or leading
paragraphs had been sent from the Treasury. The rapid and unusual
increase in the sale of the Morning Post is a sufficient pledge, that
genuine impartiality with a respectable portion of literary talent
will secure the success of a newspaper without the aid of party
or ministerial patronage. But by impartiality I mean an honest and
enlightened adherence to a code of intelligible principles previously
announced, and faithfully referred to in support of every judgment
on men and events; not indiscriminate abuse, not the indulgence of an
editor’s own malignant passions, and still less, if that be possible,
a determination to make money by flattering the envy and cupidity, the
vindictive restlessness and self-conceit of the half-witted vulgar; a
determination almost fiendish, but which, I have been informed, has
been boastfully avowed by one man, the most notorious of these
mob-sycophants! From the commencement of the Addington administration to
the present day, whatever I have written in THE MORNING POST, or (after
that paper was transferred to other proprietors) in THE COURIER, has
been in defence or furtherance of the measures of Government.
Things of this nature scarce survive that night
That gives them birth; they perish in the sight;
Cast by so far from after-life, that there
Can scarcely aught be said, but that they were!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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