so that we should only make them worse by meddling with them—­but that these men are conspiring in a darker, a more dangerous, a more treasonable, or a more dishonourable manner, than has ever been clone before.  I must explain this business to you, Wilton, and my views upon it.  Politicians have adopted as a maxim that a plot discovered and frustrated always strengthens the hands of the existing government; but this maxim is far too general, and consequently often proves false and dangerous in application.  The conditions under which the discovery and frustration of a plot do really strengthen the hands of government are peculiar.  There must be circumstances attending upon the whole transaction which, when the plot is exposed, either destroy the means of future conspiracies formed upon the same basis, remove for ever the objects of the conspirators, or cause a great change in public feeling, in regard to their views and motives.  If the discovery be so general, the frustration so complete, and the punishment so severe, as to raise the power and authority of the government in the eyes of the people, to awaken a wholesome fear in the disaffected, and to encourage and elevate the well disposed and the friends of the state, a very great object is certainly gained; and that which was intended to ruin a government or overthrow a dynasty, serves but to root it more firmly than before.  There is another case, also, which is very applicable at the present moment.  If there be something in the nature and designs of the conspiracy, so odious in its means, its character, and its objects, as to enlist against the conspirators sensations of horror, indignation, and contempt, one gains from public feeling very much more by its discovery and exposure, than even by the power of fear over the disaffected, and the elevation of triumph on the part of the well disposed.  But in other circumstances, either when partial discoveries are made, when the success is not of the most absolute, general, and distinct kind, when the objects of the conspirators excite many sympathies, the errors they commit admit of easy palliation, the means they employ are noble, generous, and chivalrous, and the fate they undergo is likely to produce commiseration, the detection and crushing of them only tends to multiply and strengthen similar endeavours.  With such conspiracies as these, no wise minister will ever meddle, if he can help it; the more quiet the means he can adopt to frustrate them, the better; the less he exposes them and brings them into light, the greater will be his success; for they are like the Lernwan serpent, whose heads multiplied as they were smitten off; and it is far more easy to smother them privately than to smite them in public.  This is the view I myself take of the matter; this is the view the King takes of it; and you may have remarked that there has been no attempt made for many years to investigate or punish plots here and there, although we have bad the proofs