Of a person who differed from him in poli tics, he faid, "In private life he is a very honeft gentleman; but I will not allow him to be fo in public life. People may be honest, though they are doing wrong that is between their Maker and them. But we, who are fuffering by their pernicious conduct, are to destroy them. We are fure that ******** acts from interest. We know what his genuine principles were.They who allow their paffions to confound the diftinctions between right and wrong are criminal. They may be convinced; but they have not come honestly by their conviction."

Talking of the accufation against a gentleman for fuppofed delinquencies in India, Johnfon faid, "What foundation there is for accufation I know not; but they will not get at him. Where bad actions are committed at fo great a distance, a delinquent can obscure the evidence till the fcent becomes cold; there is a cloud between, which cannot be penetrated ;therefore all distant power is bad. I am clear that the best plan for the government of India is a defpotic governor; for if he be a good man, it is evidently the best government; and fuppofing him to be a bad man, it is better to have one plunderer than many. A governor whose power is checked lets others plunder, that he himself may be allowed to plunder; but if defpotic,

defpotic, he fees that the more he lets others plunder, the lefs there will be for himself, fo he reftrains them; and though he himself plunders, the country is a gainer, compared with being plundered by numbers."

Of the diftinctions of Tory and Whig, he faid, "A wife Tory and a wife Whig,' I believe, will agree. Their principles are the fame, though their modes of thinking are different. A high Tory makes Government unintelligible; it is loft in the clouds. A violent Whig makes it impracticable; he is for allowing fo much liberty to every man, that there is not power enough to govern any man. The prejudice of the Tory is for cftablifement; the prejudice of the Whig is for innovation. A Tory docs not wish to give more real power to Government, but that Government fhould have more reverence. Then they differ as to the Church. The Tory is not for giving more legal power to the Clergy, but wifhes they should have a confiderable influence, founded on the opinion of mankind; the Whig is for limiting and watching them with a narrow jealousy."

At a time when fears of an invafion were circulated, Mr. Spottiswoode obferved, that Mr. Frafer the engineer, who had lately come from Dunkirk, faid, that the French had the fame fears of us. "It is thus (faid Johnson) that mutual

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mutual cowardice keeps us in peace. Were one half of mankind brave, and one half cowards, the brave would be always beating the cowards. Were all brave, they would lead a very uneafy life; all would be continually fighting but being all cowards, we go on very well."

Lord Graham commended Dr. Drummond at Naples, as a man of extraordinary talents ;and added, that he had a great love of liberty. JOHNSON." He is young, my Lord (looking to his Lordship with an arch smile); all boys love liberty, till experience convinces them that they are not fo fit to govern themselves as they imagined. We are all agreed as to our own liberty; we would have as much of it as we can get; but we are not agreed as to the liberty of others; for in proportion as we take, others must lofe. I believe we hardly with that the mob fhould have liberty to govern us. When that was the cafe fome time ago, no man was at liberty not to have candles in his windows."RAMSAY. "The result is, that order is better than confufion."-7. "The result is, that order cannot be had but by subordination."

On another occafion, petitions being mened, he faid, "This petitioning is a new mode of diftreffing government, and a mighty easy one. I will undertake to get petitions either againft

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againft quarter guineas or half guineas, with the help of a little hot wine. There must be no yielding to encourage this. The object is not important enough. We are not to blow up half a dozen palaces, because one cottage is burning."

He had great compaffion for the miferies and diftreffes of the Irish nation, particularly the Papifts; and severely reprobated the debilitating policy of the British government, which, he faid, was the moft deteftable mode of perfecution. To a gentleman, who hinted that fuch policy might be neceffary to fupport the authority of the English government, he replied by saying, "Let the authority of the English government perish, rather than be maintained by iniquity. Better would it be to restrain the turbulence of the natives by the authority of the fword, and to make them amenable to law and juftice by an effectual and vigorous police, than to grind them to powder by all manner of difabilities and incapacities. Better (faid he) to hang or drown people at once, than by an unrelenting perfecution to beggar and ftarve them."

"The notion of liberty, he observed, amuses the people of England, and helps to keep off the tædium vita. When a butcher tells you that his heart bleeds for his country, he has, in fact, no uneasy feeling."

He

He faid, he was glad Lord George Gordon had escaped, rather than that a precedent fhould be established for hanging a man for conftructive treafon; which he confidered would be a dangerous engine of arbitrary power.

rants.

He would not admit the importance of the queftion concerning the legality of general war"Such a power (he observed) must be vested in every government, to answer particular cafes of neceffity; and there can be no just complaint but when it is abused, for which thofe who administer government must be answerable. It is a matter of fuch indifference, a matter about which the people care fo very little, that were a man to be fent over Britain, to offer them an exception from it for an halfpenny a piecc, very few would purchase it." This perhaps was a specimen of that laxity of talking which he has often been heard fairly to acknowledge.

He faid, "The duration of Parliament, whether for seven years or the life of the King, appears to me fo immaterial, that I would not give half a crown to turn the fcale one way or the other. The babeas corpus is the fingle advantage which our government has over that of other countries.'

Speaking of the national debt, he said, it was an idle dream to fuppofe that the country could

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