The fallacioufnefs of this note of patriotifm is particularly apparent, when the clamour continues after the evil is paft. They who are ftill filling our ears with Mr. Wilkes, and the Freeholders of Middlefex, lament a grievance that is now at an end. Mr. Wilkes may be chofen, if any will choose him, and the precedent of his exclufion makes not any honest, or any decent man, think himself in danger.

It may be doubted whether the name of a Patriot can be fairly given as the reward of fecret fatiré, or open outrage. To fill the news-papers with fly hints of corruption and intrigue, to circulate the Middlefex Journal and London Pacquet, may indeed be zeal; but it may likewise be interest and malice. To offer a petition, not expected to be granted; to infult a king with a rude remonstrance, only because there is no punishment for legal infolence, is not courage, for there is no danger; nor patriotifm, for it tends to the fubverfion of order, and lets wickedness loose upon the land, by deftroying the reverence due to fovereign authority.

It is the quality of Patriotism to be jealous and watchful, to obferve all fecret machinations, and to fee publick dangers at a diftance. The true Lover of his country is ready to communicate his fears and to found the alarm, whenever he perceives the approach of mifchief. But he founds no alarm, when there is no enemy: he never terrifies his countrymen till he is terrified himself. The patriotifm therefore may be justly doubted of him, who profeffes to be disturbed by incredibilities; who tells, that the laft peace was obtained by bribing the Princefs of Wales; that the King is grafping

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grafping at arbitrary power; and that because the French in the new conquefts enjoy their own laws, there is a design at court of abolishing in England the trial by juries.

Still lefs does the true Patriot circulate opinions. which he knows to be falfe. No man, who loves his country, fills the nation with clamorous complaints, that the proteftant religion is in danger, because popery is established in the extenfive province of Quebec, a falfehood fo open and fhameless, that it can need no confutation among thofe who know. that of which it is almoft impoffible for the most unenlightened zealot to be ignorant.

That Quebec is on the other fide of the Atlantick, at too great a diftance to do much good or harm to the European world:

That the inhabitants, being French, were always papists, who are certainly more dangerous as enemies, than as fubjects:

That though the province be wide, the people are few, probably not so many as may be found in one of the larger English counties:

That perfecution is not more virtuous in a protestant than a papift; and that while we blame Lewis the Fourteenth, for his dragoons and his gallies, we ought, when power comes into our hands, to use it with greater equity:

That when Canada with its inhabitants was yielded, the free enjoyment of their religion was ftipulated; a condition, of which King William, who was no propagator of popery, gave an example nearer home, at the furrender of Limerick :

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That in an age, where every mouth is liberty of confcience, it is equitable to fhew fome regard to the confcience of a papist, who may be fuppofed, like other men, to think himself safest in his own religion; and that thofe at leaft, who enjoy a toleration, ought not to deny it to our new fubjects.

If liberty of confcience be a natural right, we have no power to withhold it; if it be an indulgence, it may be allowed to papists, while it is not

denied to other fects.

A Patriot is neceffarily and invariably a lover of the people. But even this mark may fometimes deceive us.

The people is a very heterogeneous and confufed mafs of the wealthy and the poor, the wife and the foolish, the good and the bad. Before we confer on a man, who careffes the people, the title of Patriot, we must examine to what part of the people he directs his notice. It is proverbially faid, that he who diffembles his own character, may be known by that of his companions. If the candidate of Patriotifm endeavours to infufe right' opinions into the higher ranks, and by their influence to regulate the lower; if he conforts chiefly with the wife, the temperate, the regular, and the virtuous, his love of the people may be rational and honeft. But if his firft or principal application be to the indigent, who are always inflammable; to the weak, who are naturally fufpicious; to the ignorant, who are easily misled; and to the profligate, who have no hope but from mifchief and confufion; let his love of the people be no longer G 3 boafted.

boasted. No man can reasonably be thought a lover of his country, for roafting an ox, or burning a boot, or attending the meeting at Mile-End, or registering his name in the Lumber-Troop. He may, among the drunkards be a hearty fellow, and among fober handicraftfimen, a free-spoken gentleman; but he must have fome better diftinction be. fore he is a Patriot.

A Patriot is always ready to countenance the juft claims, and animate the reasonable hopes of the people; he reminds them frequently of their rights, and ftimulates them to refent encroachments, and to multiply fecurities.

But all this may be done in appearance, without real patriotism. He that raifés falfe hopes to ferve a prefent purpose, only makes a way for disappointment and difcontent. He who promifes to endeavour, what he knows his endeavours unable to effect, means only to delude his followers by an empty clamour of ineffectual zeal.

A true Patriot is no lavish promifer: he undertakes not to fhorten parliaments; to repeal laws; or to change the mode of reprefentation, tranfmitted by our ancestors: he knows that futurity is not in his power, and that all times are not alike favourable to change.

Much less does he make a vague and indefinite promife of obeying the mandates of his conftituents. He knows the prejudices of faction, and the inconftancy of the multitude. He would firft inquire, how the opinion of his conftituents fhall be taken. Popular inftructions are commonly the work, not of the wife and steady, but the violent and rafh; meetings

meetings held for directing reprefentatives are feldom attended but by the idle and the diffolute; and he is not without fufpicion, that of his conftituents, as of other numbers of men, the smaller part may often be the wifer.

He confiders himself as deputed to promote the publick good, and to preserve his conftituents, with the rest of his countrymen, not only from being hurt by others, but from hurting themselves.

The common marks of Patriotifm having been examined, and fhewn to be fuch as artifice may counterfeit, or folly mifapply, it cannot be improper to confider, whether there are not fome characteristical modes of fpeaking or acting, which may prove a man to be NOT A PATRIOT.

In this inquiry, perhaps clearer evidence may be discovered, and firmer perfuafion attained; for it is commonly easier to know what is wrong than what is right; to find what we should avoid, than what we should purfue.

As war is one of the heaviest of national evils, a calamity, in which every fpecies of mifery is involved; as it fets the general fafety to hazard, fufpends commerce, and defolates the country; as it expofes great numbers to hardships, dangers, captivity, and death; no man, who defires the publick prosperity, will inflame general refentment by aggravating minute injuries, or enforcing difputable rights of little importance.

It may therefore be fafely pronounced, that those men are no Patriots, who when the national honour was vindicated in the fight of Europe, and the Spaniards

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