Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 2).djvu/81

Rh they do not appear to have been very delicate in the choice of them.

"To induce a belief that men in their senses would act a part so directly contrary to their interests (whether by interests are understood those of the public upon which they professed to act, or those selfish and various interests which their adversaries, judging from themselves, impute to them), should require better evidence than any which corruption, operating upon the worst men in the worst times, has yet been able to procure. Such however seems to have been the credulity, or rather the infatuation of the times, that these suggestions without any evidence at all, and in contradiction to the strongest evidence arising from the nature of the case, have been so far adopted as to throw some degree of discredit upon means and measures, certainly intended for the prevention of such evils in future, and for the restoration and preservation of the Constitution, and by which, if by any, that important object may be attained. So successful have been the instruments employed to this wicked purpose, as sufficiently to account for their having been so employed; and perhaps to warrant any suggestion, that those who so industriously impute those outrages to others are themselves the authors or the abettors of them, and were tempted to be so, by the hope of imposing upon ignorant men an idea, that all Associations must be of the same description, although distinguished by their members and by their objects, and having nothing in common but the name. With this view, it has been assumed that the members of what has been called the 'Protestant Associations' were those who burned houses, opened jails, &c., in this metropolis, and the argument is supposed to be complete when it is added, that some of the most respectable men in the kingdom, who in Yorkshire and elsewhere have associated in common defence against common danger, are likewise Associators. But if there were any colour, which it is believed there is not, to represent that enormities like those which have been practised were among the objects of the Protestant Association, it is hoped there