ABSTRACT
WHENEVER from the increasing and arbitrary influence of the Crown, or the powerful designs of faction, it has become necessary for the people to unite in the bond of public principle and public virtue, the enemies of social order and free participation of the natural rights of Englishmen, have invariably endeavoured to fix some term of reproach on the independant part of mankind. But as in every instance where the people have had to contend with power for the restitution of their liberties, they have been invariably successful, so the appellation fixed upon them by their oppressors, and meant to stigmatize and degrade, has always become the most honourable distinction, and the best recommendation to the true friends of liberty and their country. The bloated citizen, or, as the great Lord Chatham emphatically styled them—Muckworms, revelling in all the luxuries of life, and participating in all the interested feelings of avarice and party, is dreadfully alarmed at the word radical; to him, though its etymology, derivation, or true meaning is in as much obscurity as the most difficult problem in Euclid, yet he has learned it implies enquiry and reform, an equal participation in the natural and constituted rights of mankind, and this feeling is quite sufficient to alarm him, and to call forth all the anathemas he can utter against the patriot band, who, if successful, must destroy his splendid visions of interest and avaricious power. The Radicals would lay the axe to the trunk of corruption, whose branches are monopoly, ministerial, tyranny, and despotism; they would form a Parliament calculated to convene an assembly of the wisest, the most virtuous, and the least ambitious men, devoted entirely to guard the liberties of the people. Is not this sufficient to render them the most obnoxious creatures upon earth to these mammoths of wealth and power? Would not the realization of Reform destroy the gulden harvest of their hopes?—Place, pension, sinecure, contract, job, would all in chaos fall, and in the mighty ruin bury the supporters of the hateful pile. The ambitious minister starts from his couch at the bare mention of the name of radical; a crowd of frightful objects press upon his jaundiced mind; his darling schemes of wad ambition, and resistless power of subjugation and alienated right, are all decoyed; and fear and pale remorse seizes possession of his tyrant soul. Lake the wintry blast, it comes upon the wily courtier or titled pensioner; they wrap their cloaks of office round them, shrug up their shoulders, and with thrilling horror at the thought of Radicalism and Reform, dread the approaching storm: — when merit, virtue, and true patriotism shall burst asunder the chains of infamy, of slavery, and power!
