But it is not their illegality so much as his weakness in
threatening when he wanted strength to punish, that I condemn. If your
objection to the royal cause be founded on the distraction and
imbecility that have marked the measures by which it has been supported,
I must cease to rouse your dormant loyalty. It is not in the defenceless
tents of our Prince that we must seek for safety; we must leave him to
his fate, on the same principle that we abandon a naked child to the
attacks of a man clad in complete armour."
Dr. Beaumont now took part in the debate. "If," said he, "we look back
to the original pretences of those who set out as reformers, I think we
shall be able to form a clear decision as to the part we ourselves
should act, where the confusion they labour to excite has actually
commenced. They first unsettle our obedience by discovering what they
call the iniquity of our governors; and indeed it is not difficult for
those who look with a malignant eye on their conduct to perceive such
errors, or, if you will, vices, as an artful and censorious temper may
dress up into glaring enormities, especially if it deals in those
exaggerations which people, who give up their understandings to the
views of a party, call true representations.
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