The National Register.
London, England, 1808-04-11 00:00:00

APRIL 11.

their experiment a class of people highly respectable and worths
of the greatest consideration, but unfortunately little able to
judge ter themselves on great questions of political expediency.d
The people at large in this country, as well as those few en
value's, who compose what are called the higher ranks of so-
ciety, are very much disposed to mistake flattery for friendship.
and to believe every impostor• who, from folly or for profit..
perpetually tells them how far their treatment falls short ie
their desert. That there are abuses, even in the British Con-
stitution, we do not pretend to deny : but that the great mass of
the people in this kingdom are endowed with as many privilege
as are consistent with their good, and protected bet he free exer-
cise of those privileges too, is a general position, that in our
opinion admits but little reserve. The only persons, on whom
the laws, or the mode of executing the laws, can be said to fat:
heavily, are the middling class of society. The poor have been
generally considered with respect, by our governors, as well a,
by the framers of the Constitution : for our own parts, standia
unconnected with any particular party, we feel the necessite
acid the justice of consulting the benefit of the multitude,
but we do not see the propriety of tickling their pre
jutlices. Their prejudices will be some day tickled into
madness : and if there be any reason to complain of
a constitution framed by the wise and good, and coneluctec
usually by the rich and great, what must our lamentations be,
when an uninformed and rapacious .nultitude shall have con-
stituted another code, and placed the executive power in the
hands of its needy and ignorant demagogues ? Surely, when
madness is periodically preached, and honesty misled by am-
bitious vulearity, it is not going too far to say that the Libert,
of the Preis is abused, and that principles are foisted upon the
people which may corrupt them into revolutionary restlessness.
The common people are desired to think for themselves; but
wily do they allow bockheads or flatterers to think for them
Ana if they do think to any purpose, fur themselves, they will
conclude, that to exercise their franchises, to enjby. the liberty
of their words and of their persons, and to reap with -security
the fruits of their industry, must be sudicient for them, as free
men and men of sense. It is no imputation upon their under-
standings to say that they are generally incapable of forming a
just estimate of political propriety : for the incapability does
not arise from their want of good. sensee but from their want of
.t•aliicient information on such abstruse subjects. The plainest
man in this kingdom knows that lie served a seven years ap-
prenticeship to his business with a tailor, a shoemaker, or
whatever other artisan or tradesman he may have been placed
its ; and surely, if he allows himself to reflect for a moment,
he cannot suppose the affairs of a nation are more easily under-
stood than the proportions of a coat or a pair of boots. Yet
he has served no apprenticeship in politics, he has never been
engaged iu its practice, and, generally speaking, a e may add,
he has never read any of those authors who explain the prin-
ciples of government, and supply the science of theory to those
professed politicians who have never had opportunities of
learning by practice. All that a plain man usually knows, is
w hat he has acquired from the newspapers; and his on n sense,
eVOII though it be naturally of the strongest description, can
Leer enable him to form accurate estimates from the statements
of a Newspaper. For the newspaper writers themselves, for
tee most part know very little wore tar the science on ss hich they
treat, than their readers do. These writers are chiefly at-
tached to some set of men, to some party, who have taught them
to entertain particular prejudici!s, or bribed them to distribute
particular prejudices through the country ; so that notwith-
standing the imposing; air which they assume, they are in fact
nothing better than blind and ignorant men, who collect the
Hews of the day, who gather the opinions of their chattering
aaociates in taverns and debating societies; and Who then
square their own reasoning, mat to their principles, for they are
too stupid to have auy, but to their party, because thus they
'say sell their paper.
An unprejudiced person may indeed form some sort of judg-
ment upon public Weirs, if be reads several opposite papers,
and seeks carefully for that truth which eenerall-, lies in the
midst, at an equal distance from every one of them : but the
lower class of the people in this country, to ys boat these obser-
vations most particularly apply, seldom see mere than one
paper, and that paper is temall • a Sunday Intelligences. Let
ask their own reason, and then declare, whether they
think y
that the Sunday paper they see and believe, for
though all vary, " each believes his on n," can be the infallible
oracle they are accustomed to suppose it. Does it follow, that
because their Editor talks largely, his thoughts .are eulaxged ?
Is it likely that a set of scribbler, who cannot write Lug lisp or