Perhaps the ministry now in possession, because they are in possession, may despise such trifles as this; and it is not to be denied, that acting as they do upon a national interest, they may seem to stand in less need of such supports, or may safely fling them down as no longer necessary.

But if the leaders of the other party had proceeded by this maxim, their power would have been none at all, or of very short duration: and had not some active pens fallen in to improve the good dispositions of the people, upon the late change, and continued since to overthrow the falsehood, plentifully, and sometimes not unplausibly, scattered by the adversaries, I am very much in doubt, whether those at the helm would now have reason to be pleased with their success.

A particular person may, with more safety, despise the opinion of the vulgar, because it does a wise man no real harm or good, but the administration a great deal; and whatever side has the sole management of the pen, will soon find hands enough to write down their enemies as low as they please.

If the people had no other idea of those whom Her Majesty trusts in her greatest affairs, than what is conveyed by the passions of such as would compass sea and land for their destruction, what could they expect, but to be torn in pieces by the rage of the multitude?
How necessary therefore was it, that the world should, from time to time, be undeceived by true representations of persons and facts, which have kept the kingdom steady to its interest, against all the attacks of a cunning and virulent faction.
However, the mischiefs of the press were too exorbitant to be cured, by such a remedy as a tax upon the smaller papers; and a Bill for a much more effectual regulation of it was brought into the House of Commons, but so late in the session, that there was no time to pass it: for there hath hitherto always appeared, an unwillingness to cramp overmuch the liberty of the press, whether from the inconveniencies apprehended from doing too much, or too little; or whether the benefit proposed by each party to themselves, from the service of their writers, towards recovering or preserving of power, be thought to outweigh the disadvantages.

However it came about, this affair was put off from one week to another, and the Bill not brought into the House till the eighth of June.