Here it was that I parted, in feeling, from the Whigs, and to a certain degree united with their adversaries, who were free from the delusion (such I must ever regard it) of Mr.Fox and his party, that a safe and honourable peace was practicable with the French nation, and that an ambitious conqueror like Buonaparte could be softened down into a commercial rival.
In a determination, therefore, to aim at the overthrow of that inordinate ambition by war, I sided with the ministry, not from general approbation of their conduct, but as men who thought right on this essential point.

How deeply this question interested me will be plain to any one who will take the trouble of reading my political sonnets, and the tract occasioned by the 'Convention of Cintra,' in which are sufficient evidences of my dissatisfaction with the mode of conducting the war, and a prophetic display of the course which it would take if carried on upon the principles of justice, and with due respect for the feelings of the oppressed nations.
This is enough for foreign politics, as influencing my attachments.
There are three great domestic questions, viz.

the liberty of the press, parliamentary reform, and Roman Catholic concession, which, if I briefly advert to, no more need be said at present.
A free discussion of public measures through the press I deem the _only_ safeguard of liberty: without it I have neither confidence in kings, parliaments, judges, or divines: they have all in their turn betrayed their country.

But the press, so potent for good, is scarcely less so for evil; and unfortunately they who are misled and abused by its means are the persons whom it can least benefit.

It is the fatal characteristic of their disease to reject all remedies coming from the quarter that has caused or aggravated the malady.