SIR OLIVER. Aye — I know — there are a set of malicious prating prudent Gossips both male and Female, who murder characters to kill time, and will ro… - Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Trounce. Come, silence your drum — there is no valour stirring to-day. I thought St. Patrick would have given us a recruit or two to- day. Sol. Mark, serjeant! Enter two COUNTRYMEN. Trounce. Oh! these are the lads I was looking for; they have the look of gentlemen. — An’t you single, my lads? 1 Coun. Yes, an please you, I be quite single: my relations be all dead, thank heavens, more or less. I have but one poor mother left in the world, and she’s an helpless woman.

I will not say that there have been no instances of sedition; but I will affirm even that the evidence of these appears in so questionable a shape as ought to excite your suspicion. It is supported by a system of spies and informers, a system which has been carried to a greater extent under the present administration, than in any former period of the history of the country. ... [T]he government which avails itself of such support does not exist for the happiness of the people. It is a system which is calculated to engender suspicion, and to beget hostility; it not only destroys all confidence between man and man, but between the governors and the governed; where it does not find sedition, it creates it.

My hair has been in training some time.