opinion, should be tended and cultivated with the greatest care. For its

proper growth they would have sacrificed the very existence of England, and they forgot, in their passion of horticulture, that even "fair freedom's tree" would have small chance of flourishing when the pikes and nightof the rebels had done their

work.

And what was this freedom for which they pleaded so eloquently? Freedom to live at ease, without interfering with one's neighbours? That was already the privilege of every Briton. It was merely the freedom to extol anarchy and advocate rebellion, the freedom, claimed by idle and garrulous persons, to preach doctrines which they did not understand, but which they surmised might injure the State and embarrass the Government. In truth,

had not Pitt met an unusual situation with unaccustomed measures, he would not have deserved the confidence of

the people. No Minister was ever more anxious for the common good, no Minister ever worked harder to relieve the inevitable pressure of scarcity and taxation. But he would not permit his well-laid plans to be upset by the vain dupes of half-educated lecturers, or by the criminal folly of those sanguine persons who helped to serve the cause of our enemies by sowing the seeds of sedition in the army and the fleet.

And Pitt, while he imposed reticence upon others, refrained himself from all legislation which might interfere with or perplex the conduct of the war. Though, as has been said, he was once a friend of reform, he knew that after the Revolution it was inopportune and ill-meant.

When, in 1792, Grey brought it, before Parliament, Pitt opposed it with all his energy. Grey, of course, had no other motive than to embarrass the Government, and to find an opportunity of expressing his sympathy with France. So that, though it was a measure of which the Minister had approved, his denunciation of it at that moment was amply justified. It was not a time to make hazardous experiments in slavish obedience to the French Convention. The fraud of the petitions presented by Grey was too gross and palpable to deceive any one, and Grey himself proved, by his connection with others outside the House, that he was aiming not at an extended franchise but at the subversion of the Government. "I would rather forego for ever the advantages of reform," said Pitt, "than risk for a moment the existence of

the British Constitution." And then he ridiculed the pretensions of the sentimentalists who "talked of an abstracted right of equal representation." So far from there being one abstracted right, "there are," said he, "as many different rights as the causes which occur to diversify the modes of government."

Time has fought on the side of Pitt. More than a century has passed and our mode of government has not yet found annual parliaments and universal suffrage imperative necessities. Thus the Minister met agitation both in and out of Parliament with a firm front; he did not hesitate to punish treason in speech or in act; he protected the judges in upholding the ancient laws of the land, and he gave them new laws to administer. But he did not oppress the honest, single