HOW TO MAKE A SECRETARY OF STATE.
Take a man in a violent passion, or a man that never has been in one; but the first is the best. Let him be concerned in making an ignominious peace, the articles of which he could not comprehend, and cannot explain. Let him speak loud, and yet never be heard; and to be the kind of man for a SECRETARY OF STATE when nobody else will accept it.
HOW TO MAKE A PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL.
Take a man who all his life loved office, merely for its emolument; and when measures which he had approved were eventually unfortunate, let him be notorious for relinquishing his share of the responsibility of them; and be stigmatized, for political courage in the period of prosperity, and for cowardice when there exists but the appearance of danger.
HOW TO MAKE A CHANCELLOR.
Take a man of great abilities, with a heart as black as his countenance. Let him possess a rough inflexibility, without the least tincture of generosity or affection, and be as manly as oaths and ill manners can make him. He should be a man who will act politically with all parties, hating and deriding every one of the individuals which compose them.
HOW TO MAKE A MASTER OF THE ORDNANCE.
Take a man of a busy, meddling, turn of mind, with just as much parts as will make him troublesome, but never respectable. Let him be so perfectly callous to a sense of personal honour, and to the distinction of public fame, as to be marked for the valour of insulting where it cannot be revenged[1]; and, if a case should arise, where he attempts to injure reputation, because it is dignified and absent, he should possess discretion enough to apologise and to recant, if it is afterwards dictated to him to do so, notwithstanding any previously-declared resolutions to the contrary. Such a man will be found to be the most fit for servitude in times of disgrace and degradation.
HOW TO MAKE A TREASURER OF THE NAVY.
Take a man, composed of most of the ingredients necessary to enable him to attack and defend the very same principles in politics, or any party or parties concerned in them, at all times, and upon all occasions. Mix with these ingredients a very large quantity of the root of interest, so that the juice of it may be always sweet and uppermost. Let him be one who avows a pride in being so necessary an instrument for every political measure, as to be able to extort those honours and emoluments from the weakness of a government, which he had been deliberately refused, at a time when it would have been honourable to have obtained them.