Horne Tooke said that his friends might, if they pleased, go as far as
Slough,--he should go no farther than Hounslow; but that was no reason why
he should not keep them company so far as their roads were the same. The
answer is easy. Suppose you know, or suspect, that a man is about to commit
a robbery at Slough, though you do not mean to be his accomplice, have you
a moral right to walk arm in arm with him to Hounslow, and, by thus giving
him your countenance, prevent his being taken up? The history of all the
world tells us, that immoral means will ever intercept good ends.
* * * * *
Enlist the interests of stern morality and religious enthusiasm in the
cause of political liberty, as in the time of the old Puritans, and it will
be irresistible; but the Jacobins played the whole game of religion, and
morals, and domestic happiness into the hands of the aristocrats. Thank
God! that they did so. England was saved from civil war by their enormous,
their providential, blundering.
* * * * *
Can a politician, a statesman, slight the feelings and the convictions of
the whole matronage of his country? The women are as influential upon such
national interests as the men.
* * * * *
Horne Tooke was always making a butt of Mr. Godwin; who, nevertheless, had
that in him which Tooke could never have understood. I saw a good deal of
Tooke at one time: he left upon me the impression of his being a keen, iron
man.
_May_ 9. 1830.