‘Figure to yourself, Sir, the first on the list of these acquitted felons, Hardy. What were his views? What his incitements? A man of no learning, excellent in his morals, simple in his manners, and whether they were wise or foolish, highly virtuous in his intentions. Do you imagine he meant to make himself prime minister? Were these the marks of a prime minister? Had he the daring spirit, the deep plans, and the towering genius of a Cromwell? No one will affirm things so extravagant. He was a good and an active man in his endeavour to procure a parliamentary reform. This he thought, and I think, would have been the greatest of public blessings. For this he was tried, and declared NOT GUILTY. The whole country rang with the verdict, and the affections of the people were divided between joy at his deliverance and their own, and the contemplation of an innocent man, who had so long been in danger of the most dreadful and barbarous death, the merciless law decrees. Compare such a man to an “acquitted felon,” who has escaped by the means you have enumerated: a man, who so far from exciting the benevolent wishes of a whole people, keeps all who ever heard his name in a state of dread, lest he should meet them on the highway, or break into their houses by night, and murder them in their sleep. Some such action, perhaps many such, he has already committed. At last he is taken; and knowing no better mode, they hope by his death to be freed from their fears. They are disappointed: a flaw in the indictment, a misnomer, or some technical blunder is committed: he is set free, and they are again subject to his depredations, and to all their former terrors. Will you affirm, Sir, that there are any common qualities, any kindred sympathies, any moral resemblance, between such a man and Thomas Hardy?—Whatever the feelings of the people of England were before these trials, be assured they cannot now endure a repetition of such odious falsehoods. You could not be then ignorant of the public sentiment, and in your burning haste to do right, you could not be guilty of this intolerable wrong, were your imagination less heated, and your intercourse with different ranks of people more general. You may perhaps now and then hear a dissentient voice: but you usually mix with men, who, like the parrot educated on-board a man-of-war, can only repeat the same outrages, and the same insults. You hear nothing else, and nothing else can you say. Would, Sir, you would keep better company!’ The very just distinction which Mr Holcroft draws between the errors of such men as Pitt and Dundas, who were actuated almost entirely by interest and ambition, and those of men, like Burke or Windham,[15] who were actuated almost entirely by imagination, system, and reasoning, shews that the letter-writer himself was not a vulgar politician; joining in the common cry of a party. CHAPTER V