At the end of the last year, while the dissensions in the tutorhood had been carried so high, an anonymous Memorial,[221] pretended to have been signed by several Noblemen and Gentlemen of the first rank and fortune, had been sent to five or six particular persons: it ran in these words:
A Memorial, &c.
The Memorialists represent,
That the education of a Prince of Wales is an object of the utmost importance to the whole nation.
That it ought always to be entrusted to Noblemen of the most unblemished honour, and to Prelates of the most disinterested virtue, of the most accomplished learning, and of the most unsuspected principles, with regard to government both in Church and State.
That the misfortunes, which this nation formerly suffered or escaped under King Charles the First, King Charles the Second, and King James the Second, were owing to the bad education of those Princes, who were early initiated in maxims of arbitrary power.
That, for a Faction to engross the education of a Prince of Wales to themselves, excluding men of probity, property, and wholesome learning, is unwarrantable, dangerous, and illegal.
That, to place men about a Prince of Wales, whose principles are suspected, and whose belief in the mysteries of our Holy Faith is doubtful, has the most mischievous tendency, and ought justly to alarm the friends of their country, and of the Protestant Succession.
That, for Ministers to support low men, who were originally improper for the high trust to which they were advanced, after complaints made of dark, suspicious, and unwarrantable means made use of by such men in their plan of education; and to protect and countenance such men in their insolent and unheard of behaviour to their superiors, is a foundation for suspecting the worst designs in such Ministers, and ought to make all good men apprehensive of the ambition of those Ministers.
That, it being notorious that books inculcating the worst maxims of government, and defending the most avowed tyrannies, have been put into the hands of the Prince of Wales, it cannot but affect the Memorialists with the most melancholy apprehensions, when they find that the men who had the honesty and resolution to complain of such astonishing methods of instruction are driven away from Court, and that the men who have dared to teach such doctrines are continued in trust and favour.