Page:An address to the thinking independent part of the community.djvu/7

( 7 ) be thought expedient in a country calling itself free; it would still be unfair to represent them as the causes of those evils, which certainly existed, and had risen to a very alarming height, before they were recurred to. But when these concessions have been made to administration, will no ground for deserved reproach be discernible in their conduct? Will there not, on the contrary, be still enough imputable to them, to raise disgust in the minds of the most moderate? Enough to justify loud complaint, and every legal, peaceable exertion on the part of the people?

Scarce had the recognition of national independence been conceded to the firm demand of an armed nation, when it became obvious that the people gained little by their victory, so long as their sentiments, owing to the defective state of representation in the House of Commons, possessed hardly any weight in the legislature. They had compelled British power to renounce the open exercise of its assumed dominion; but the fame power, returning in a disgusted and evasive form. Aided into all the departments of government, and secretly influencing all its operations, left to the people nothing but the proud name of independence. This influence, the influence of the English minister, was supported by means, no less often five and unconstitutional, than the influence itself; by the most open and widespread cor-ruption