Wesley Corpus

And whom can he trust better? Suppose then it was true, (which is more than any man can prove,) that he did consult her on all occasions, and particularly when he was in trouble and perplexity, who can blame him for so doing? “Well, be this as it may, who can help blaming him for giving so many pensions?” This is a thing which I do not understand, and can therefore neither praise nor blame. Some indeed, I think, are well bestowed on men eminent in their several professions. All, I believe, are well designed, particularly those given to men who are removed from public employments. Yet, I fear, some of these are ill bestowed on those who not only fly in the face of their benefactor, but avail themselves of his favours to wound the deeper. “For were he not in the wrong, these would never turn against him!” What pity they should enjoy them another day, after such foul and flagrant ingratitude I This fault (if it were really such) would argue too great easiness of temper. But this is quite the reverse of what is commonly objected,--inflexible stubbornness. “Nay, what else could occasion the settled disregard of so many petitions and remonstrances, signed by so many thousand hands, and declaring the sense of the nation?” The sense of the nation / Who can imagine this that knows the manner wherein nine in ten, I might say ninety-nine in an hundred, of those petitions are procured ? A Lord or Squire (sometimes two or more) goes, or sends his steward, round the town where his seat is, with a paper, which he tells the homest men is for the good of their King and country. He desires each to set his name or mark to this. And who has the hardiness to gainsay; especially if my Lord keeps open house? Mean time, the contents of it they know nothing about. I was not long since at a town in Kent, when one of these petitions was carrying about. I asked one and another, “Have you signed the petition?” and found none that had refused it. And yet not one single person to whom I spoke had either read it, or heard it read.