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 BURKE 247 he conceives, having a greater interest in the welfare of the country, will be more likely to promote it, than either the people themselves on the one hand, or the minions of a court on the other. This, in the opinion of Dr. Bissett, may be regarded as a land-mark of Burke's own doctrines respecting the British government; and from this he con- ceives himself qualified to prove, that the sentiments avowed by him at this time, were those which he continued act upon during the whole of his life. We, however, can- not implicitly subscribe to this doctrine; the design of the pamphlet in question is evidently to procure the re-esta- blishment of the Rockingham party in power, and, viewed in that light, it is a most ingenious party performance. Asa general system of government it might perhaps be reckoned amongst the most visionary theories on that subject which have ever appeared; an aristocracy so formed, would quickly degenerate into an oligarchy, (indeed, in its best and most perfect form, it would be litttle else than a masked oligarchy,) and the consequenees to the public welfare would be more deleterious and destructive than even the pure and unmixed power, either of a monarchy, or a to denocracv. On the resignation of the Duke of Grafton in 1770, and the promotion of Lord North to a high and efficient situation in the cabinet, Burke uniformly opposed the measures brought forward by that minister, particularly those which affected the dispute with America. The dis- contents and disturbances excited by the laws, enforced by the late administration, were too evident not to be per- ceived, and too extensive not to be dreaded; yet the preci- pitation with which those Tneasures had been enacted, left no medium for the minister to pursue. To remove at once the causes of discontent by repealing the obnoxious acts, was to acknowledge the incapacity of the British government to enforee obedience to them and, on the other hand, to continue them, and to compel their execu- tion, was to plunge the nation into an expensive and