Page:Thoughts on civil liberty, on licentiousness and faction.djvu/168

 whole Kingdom. And the People of the Villages being easy of Belief, because not suspecting the abandoned Profligacy of these Town-Defamers, are apt to receive every insinuated personal Slander, as a Truth. These Calumnies being seldom contradicted by the injured Party, take Root in the Minds of the less knowing. Hence Doubts arise; Surmises and Dislikes are spread; Facts, though void of all Foundation, are alledged and persisted in; the more credulous Part are misled: Thus an honest People are divided; and not only a Province or a Village, but even an House often set at Variance within itself.

These Contentions sometimes arise to a Degree which is ridiculous: And have formerly been so described without Exception, by the Tools of Faction. Notwithstanding This, every Friend of Liberty ought to grieve, if a free, an honest, and a sensible should ever desist (were it