They were particularly attached to the
patronage, which is usually annexed to their high situations. They did
not come into power by the voice of the people. They were not summoned
to assume the administration by a vote of the house of commons. They
were introduced into the cabinet by an inglorious and guilty compromise
of sir Robert Walpole; a compromise, that shunned the light; a
compromise, that reflected indelible disgrace upon every individual
concerned in it. We will suppose them ever so much in the right in the
instance before us. For certainly, the same responsibility, that ought
to remove a minister from the helm, when he is become obnoxious to his
countrymen, equally makes it improper, that he should be originally
appointed by the fancy or capricious partiality of the sovereign. But
were they over so much in the right, it will yet remain true, that they
took a poor and ungenerous advantage of the personal distresses of their
master, which men of a large heart, and of sterling genius, could never
have persuaded themselves to take.
Such were the ministers, whom it appears that king George the second
would have had no objection to strip of their employments. I will tell
you who it was, that he was willing to have substituted in their place.
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