In the ancient principles and conduct of the club, so far at least
as they were declared, I see nothing to which I could take
exception. I think it very probable that for some purpose new
members may have entered among them, and that some truly Christian
politicians, who love to dispense benefits but are careful to
conceal the hand which distributes the dole, may have made them the
instruments of their pious designs. Whatever I may have reason to
suspect concerning private management, I shall speak of nothing as
of a certainty but what is public.
For one, I should be sorry to be thought, directly or
indirectly, concerned in their proceedings. I certainly take my full
share, along with the rest of the world, in my individual and
private capacity, in speculating on what has been done or is doing
on the public stage in any place ancient or modern; in the republic of
Rome or the republic of Paris; but having no general apostolical
mission, being a citizen of a particular state and being bound up,
in a considerable degree, by its public will, I should think it at
least improper and irregular for me to open a formal public
correspondence with the actual government of a foreign nation, without
the express authority of the government under which I live.
I should be still more unwilling to enter into that correspondence
under anything like an equivocal description, which to many,
unacquainted with our usages, might make the address, in which I
joined, appear as the act of persons in some sort of corporate
capacity acknowledged by the laws of this kingdom and authorized to
speak the sense of some part of it.
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