1819 Aug. 28

Defence ag t Ed. Review

Beginning

6

The holders of those offices to which the greatest share of power is attached, are stiled Members of Administration, and in the aggregate are called the Ministry: and that all punishment in case of abuse of the powers of office may be plainly impossible, are holders likewise of seats.

Those who without being holders of offices are holders of seats, being of course desirous of Offices coalesce naturally into a party, called in the aggregate the Opposition, and from a name which had been given to the Opposition in former days, the Whigs.

In proportion to the number of seats which they can command they are thus sharers in possession of all that mass of power to which no immediate profit is attached, and in expectancy even of that to which all immediate profit is attached They are thus at all time part and parcel of those by whom the power of government is exercised partakers of that power and at the same time of that sinister interest by which by means of the power a constant sacrifice is made to their own interest of the interest of the subject many over whom the power is exercised.

Being descended some of them, from some of those of whom under Charles the 2 d the Opposition was composed, and who had a principal share in the Revolution by which his immediate successor was dethroned, they commonly as a means of /for a ground of/ obtaining popular favour, make profession of a congeniality of opinions and affections with those of their ancestors.

In interest and consequently in affection they are little if any thing less decidedly hostile to the subject many than their most successful adversaries, the Administration, called by a correspondent allusion, the Tories. But so unfortunate and embarrassing is their situation, in the course of the perpetual attack which they are perpetually making on their Tories, in the hope of causing them to be removed from their offices, and themselves placed in their stead, they have no means of operation but such as consist in the exposure of misrule with its sinister profits: and thus, while supporting the interests of the subject many, who are alike the objects of contempt and in so far as they […?], of aversion to both parties, they have no means of endeavouring to serve their own interest in one shape but by disserving them in another.