May 2, 1775
“True quacks”, “headless beings”, “tools to do [the King’s] dirty work” — all of these were terms that someone used to describe the high officials of the British government (and the same person said that it was “like man like master”, meaning that King George III was just as bad as they were):
When the Parliament met, I was in hopes the manly Address of the General Congress [that is, a petition from the Continental Congress] to the King, and that to the people of England, would have opened their eyes, and have led them to apply a remedy suitable to the disease; but instead of that, what have they done? Like true quacks, they deal in inflammatories, and attempt to heal by exasperating the evil they should cure…. Never, sure, were Ministers [that is, the top officials in the British government] more infatuated than those headless beings who manage the affairs of England…. Don Quixote like, they are obstinately bent on fighting wind-mills; and no wonder if they get broken heads in the encounter. Were they alone to smart, it were no great matter; but the mischief is, that I fear they will draw down irreparable evils upon both Englands. Lord North is only a tool to do the dirty work of his more dirty superiours; and the precious Parliament are, in their place, the tools to do his dirty work in return, for the pay he gives them.
Politics can be nasty, and I certainly won’t disagree that today’s American politics are very much so; but nastiness in politics didn’t start yesterday; it’s been around for ages, as shown by this letter.
The writer of this letter, who I think was probably either an Englishman or an American, was in Holland at the time, writing to the Reverend William Gordon of Roxbury, Massachusetts (who later wrote a history of the Revolutionary War).
Source
“Extract of a Letter from Holland, of May 2, 1775, to the Rev. Mr. William Gordon, of Roxbury.” American Archives, ed. Peter Force, Series 4, Volume 2, 462-3.