You have still an honourable part to act. The affections of your
subjects may still be recovered. But before you subdue their hearts you
must gain a noble victory over your own. Discard those little, personal
resentments which have too long directed your public conduct. Pardon
this man the remainder of his punishment; and, if resentment still
prevails, make it what it should have been long since--an act, not of
mercy, but of contempt. He will soon fall back into his natural
station, a silent senator, and hardly supporting the weekly eloquence
of a newspaper. The gentle breath of peace would leave him on the
surface, neglected and unremoved. It is only the tempest that lifts him
from his place.
Without consulting your minister, call together your whole council. Let
it appear to the public that you can determine and act for yourself.
Come forward to your people. Lay aside the wretched formalities of a
king, and speak to your subjects with the spirit of a man and in the
language of a gentleman. Tell them you have been fatally deceived. The
acknowledgment will be no disgrace, but rather an honour, to your
understanding. Tell them you are determined to remove every cause of
complaint against your government, that you will give your confidence
to no man who does not possess the confidence of your subjects, and
leave it to themselves to determine, by their conduct at a future
election, whether or no it be in reality the general sense of the
nation that their rights have been arbitrarily invaded by the present
House of Commons, and the constitution betrayed. They will then do
justice to their representatives and to themselves.
These sentiments, Sir, and the style they are conveyed in, may be
offensive, perhaps, because they are new to you. Accustomed to the
language of courtiers, you measure their affections by the vehemence of
their expressions, and when they only praise you indifferently, you
admire their sincerity. But this is not a time to trifle with your
fortune. They deceive you, Sir, who tell you that you have many
friends, whose affections are founded upon a principle of personal
attachment. The first foundation of friendship is not the power of
conferring benefits, but the equality with which they are received and
may be returned. The fortune which made you a king forbade you to have
a friend. It is a law of nature which cannot be violated with impunity.
The mistaken prince who looks for friendship will find a favourite, and
in that favourite the ruin of his affairs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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