He entered this Society then with a firm determination to use every endeavour to prevent violence and acrimony, to communicate the truth he knew, or imagined he knew, and to stimulate others to do the same. Accordingly, while he remained a member of it, he never interfered with the framing of a single resolution: when questions were put, he sometimes voted; and sometimes spoke to declare his opinion, but was much oftener silent; either because he thought them frivolous, or such a mixture of right and wrong, as to leave him undecided. He little imagined that it would be possible to accuse their insignificant proceedings as treasonable: much less that he should be selected as one of the most wicked of the conspirators. The apprehensions of ministry had been first publicly announced in the proclamation of the 21st of May, 1792: and the coercive measures on which they had determined, immediately appeared in parliamentary addresses, and the measures of the magistrates and municipal officers, throughout the kingdom. Associations were formed, and the danger of the constitution, from the wicked attempts of republicans and levellers, became the cry of what was called the aristocratic party. So active were these self-declared friends of government, and so loud in their asseverations of approaching ruin, the destruction of property, insurrection, and anarchy, that quiet people began to partake of the fears of these agitators; and ministry, by more proclamations, asserted that insurrections did actually exist, which the militia was called out to quell, when not a hand or foot was stirring on any such pretences within the confines of Great-Britain. Men even of respectable characters and honest intentions now thought it an heroical act of duty, to watch the conduct of their intimate friends, excite them to utter violent or seditious expressions, and afterwards to turn informers against the intemperance they had provoked. To avoid giving any opinion was impossible. Language the most outrageous, was employed to make those who were in the least suspected declare their creed; and if it were not entirely accommodating, the peaceable citizen, after being entrapped, was insulted, and turned, or frequently kicked, out of tap-rooms, coffee-houses, and public places. The impotence of the obnoxious party was every where demonstrated; yet the outcry of alarm increased. Church-and-king-mobs were proved, in courts of justice, to have been encouraged by the very men whose office it was to keep the peace: while no insurrection, or shade of insurrection, appeared on the part of the people, wishing for reform. In the same spirit, printers and booksellers all over the kingdom were hunted out for prosecution; and the tempest of insurrection and anarchy was so confidently affirmed to be rising and raging, that the House of Commons voted the suspension of the Habeas Corpus bill, on the ground that dangerous and treasonable conspiracies did actually exist.