done of late, I'll never trouble myself more with his
matters. I say nothing. I think only. I could have directed some things better.
I don't think there has been a sufficient number of advisers: he should advise
with every person willing to give him advice, and then we should have things
done in anotherguess manner.«
    »I wish,« cried I, »that such intruding advisers were fixed in the pillory.
It should be the duty of honest men to assist the weaker side of our
constitution, that sacred power that has for some years been every day
declining, and losing its due share of influence in the state. But these
ignorants still continue the cry of liberty, and if they have any weight basely
throw it into the subsiding scale.«
    »How,« cried one of the ladies, »do I live to see one so base, so sordid, as
to be an enemy to liberty, and a defender of tyrants? Liberty, that sacred gift
of heaven, that glorious privilege of Britons!«
    »Can it be possible,« cried our entertainer, »that there should be any found
at present advocates for slavery? Any who are for meanly giving up the
privileges of Britons? Can any, Sir, be so abject?«
    »No, Sir,« replied I, »I am for liberty, that attribute of Gods! Glorious
liberty! that theme of modern declamation. I would have all men kings. I would
be a king myself. We have all naturally an equal right to the throne: we are all
originally equal. This is my opinion, and was once the opinion of a set of
honest men who were called Levellers. They tried to erect themselves into a
community, where all should be equally free. But, alas! it would never answer;
for there were some among them stronger, and some more cunning than others, and
these became masters of the rest; for as sure as your groom rides your horses,
because he is a cunninger animal than they, so surely will the animal that is
cunninger or stronger than he, sit upon his shoulders in turn. Since then it is
entailed upon humanity to submit, and some are born to command, and others to
obey, the question is, as there must be tyrants, whether it is better to have
them in the same house with us, or in the same village, or still farther off, in
the metropolis. Now, Sir, for my own part, as I naturally hate the face of a
tyrant,