Mr. Horace WALPOLE then spoke to the following purpose:--Sir, though I
have long considered the mercenary scribblers of disaffection as the
disgrace of the kingdom and the pest of society, yet I was never so
fully sensible of their pernicious influence.
I have hitherto imagined, that the weekly journalists and the
occasional pamphleteers were the oracles only of the lowest of the
people; and that all those whom their birth or fortune has exalted
above the crowd, and introduced to a more extensive conversation, had
considered them as wretches compelled to write by want, and obliged,
therefore, to write what will most engage attention, by flattering the
envy or the malignity of mankind; and who, therefore, propagate
falsehoods themselves, not because they believe them, and disseminate
faction, not because they are of any party, but because they are
either obliged to gratify those that employ them, or to amuse the
publick with novelties, or disturb it with alarms, that their works
may not pass unregarded, and their labour be spent in vain.
This is my opinion of the party writers, and this I imagined the
opinion of the rest of mankind, who had the same opportunities of
information with myself: nor should I readily have believed, that any
of their performances could have produced greater effects than those
of inflaming the lowest classes of the people, and inciting drunkards
to insult their superiours, had I not perceived, that the honourable
gentleman who spoke last, owed his opinions of the partiality shown to
the dominions of Hanover, to a late treatise which has, on occasion of
this contract, been very industriously dispersed among the people.
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