The improved antidote, supposed to be more active in expelling poison, than a late invention, by the Rev. Sir Harcourt Lees, Bart. in which the Catholics are vindicated from his abuse, and their claims for unrestricted emancipation, consideredPhilodemus
Religion
The improved antidote, supposed to be more active in expelling poison, than a late invention, by the Rev. Sir Harcourt Lees, Bart. in which the Catholics are vindicated from his abuse, and their claims for unrestricted emancipation, considered
The Revd. Author thus expresses himself: “to the superintending care of
an energetic, firm, and most popular administration, I with confident
security resign the civil and constitutional difference of my country;
the established government in state, may in such hands be saved from
destruction;” we must beg leave in this particular, to dissent from his
prescription (of which we deem this an ingredient, since he recommends
it by the authority of his own example) as, however energetic, firm,
popular, and even strenuously devoted to public liberty the present
ministers may be, they are but men, of course liable to error and
assailable by the temptations of power and interest we would, on the
contrary, recommend a jealous vigilance with respect to every measure
of every administration;—the immediate interests of a minister may be
distinct from those of the people, he may therefore, in some instances
be induced to sacrifice all considerations for the public good, to the
prevailing motives of avarice and ambition:—and here we will repeat our
dissent from a Right Honorable Gentleman, should he have asserted (which
however, we gather only from a News-paper report) that the people have no
right to enter into discussions concerning civil Polity in general, or
the immediate measures of government; his legal experience we presume,
will inform him that a Trustee is accountable for the proper management
of his trust;—both the executive and legislative bodies are trustees of
the people, to whom they are responsible, for the due discharge of the
sacred trust reposed in them; the more they enquire into the effects
resulting from the measures of every administration, the more competent
will they become in appreciating the merits of their respective trustees,
and the more clearly will they discern the propriety of conferring upon,
or withholding from them their farther confidence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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