1819 Apr. 19

To Erskine

Lett 5 Whig fallacies

5 Matchless Constitution!

No theory!

Tumults of the people to which (says his Lordship) mere Republicks are so liable." Mere Republicks? what Republicks?

No other Republic does his Lordship know of, expect those he used to read of when he was at School: These Republics were liable to tumults, and thence he concludes that so must all other Republics

How much longer will his Lordship and those who chant[?] or at least speak with his Lordship how much longer will they continue ignorant of that which the meanest /most ignorant/ of my fellow citizens to Westminster Electors is so well informed of, to wit that in the only Republics which any man ever wishes to see in any particular copied or imitated, there are no tumults? But among Whigs there exists a covenant - and to this purpose Lordship is a Whig man to look into a Newspaper without shutting their eyes and ears against the passage, wherever a passage comes in which any mention is made of the American United States.

It is since this speech was made, that in[?] the purse[?] of the Prince Regent in the course of what I suppose his Lordship would not refuse to call a tumult, the Monarch was hit by a potatoe: one of those potatoes which according to the discovery made by a willing Magistrate, speak for themselves which, for the affording as some say the better pretence for some of those further encroachments of the Crown of /against attack the steady mind of/ his Lordship has so effectually secured itself, a glass of the coach was broken by somebody that was with it. Now by what potatoes, speaking or not speaking, was any President of the United States ever hit or aimed at? Guarded /protected/ against potatoes, the Monarch has not thereby been always protected against hootings or hissings. By what hootings or hissings has the car of any President of the United States, now for these

forty

forty years that those States have been States been ever assaulted?