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The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Volume 11.

by Samuel Johnson · English · Gutenberg #10352 · 1,140,557 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Volume 11.

Author: Samuel Johnson


        
Release date: December 1, 2003 [eBook #10352]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. VOLUME 11. ***

THE WORKS OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D,

VOLUME THE ELEVENTH.

MDCCCXXV.




CONTENTS


Debate on an address to the king.

Debate on a motion for inquiring into the conduct of publick affairs.

Debate on a motion for indemnifying evidence relating to the conduct of
the earl of Orford.

Debate on the security and protection of trade and navigation.

Debate on an address to the king.

Debate granting pay for sixteen thousand Hanoverian troops.

Debate on the army.

Debate on spirituous liquors.




REFERENCES TO THE SPEAKERS


  Argyle, Duke of,
  Aylesford, Lord,
  Bath, Lord,
  Bathurst, Lord,
  Bedford, Duke of,
  Bladen, Mr.
  Carteret, Lord,
  Chesterfield, Lord,
  Cholmondeley, Lord,
  Cholmondeley, Col.
  Cornwall, Mr.
  Delaware, Lord,
  Fowkes, Mr.
  Fox, Mr.
  Grenville, Mr.
  Gybbon, Mr.
  Hardwicke, Lord,
  Herbert, Mr. H.A.
  Hervey, Lord,
  Islay, Lord,
  Limerick, Lord,
  Littleton, Mr.
  Lonsdale, Lord,
  Montfort, Lord,
  Mordaunt, Col.
  Newcastle, Duke of,
  Nugent, Mr.
  Orford, Earl of,
  Orford, Bishop of,
  Pelham, Mr.
  Percival, Lord,
  Phillips, Mr.
  Pitt, Mr.
  Powlett, Lord,
  Pulteney, Mr.
  Quarendon, Lord,
  Raymond, Lord,
  Sandwich, Lord,
  Sarum, Bishop of,
  St. Aubin, Sir John,
  Shippen, Mr.
  Somerset, Lord Noel,
  Speaker, the,
  Stanhope, Earl of,
  Talbot, Lord,
  Trevor, Mr.
  Tweedale, Marquis of,
  Walpole, Sir Robert,
  Walpole, Mr.
  Westmoreland, Lord,
  Winchelsea, Earl of,
  Yonge, Sir Wm.




IN PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF COMMONS, DECEMBER 8, 1741.

DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS.


The commons who attended in the house of lords, having heard his
majesty's speech to both houses, returned to their own house, where a
copy of it being this day read to them by the speaker, Mr. H.A. HERBERT
moved for an address, in words to this effect:

Sir, to address the throne on the present occasion, is a custom which,
as it is founded on reason and decency, has always been observed by the
commons of Britain; nor do I suspect this house of any intention to omit
those forms of respect to his majesty, which our ancestors always
preserved even under princes whose conduct and designs gave them no
claim to reverence or gratitude.

To continue, therefore, sir, a practice which the nature of government
itself makes necessary, and which cannot but be acknowledged to be, in a
peculiar degree, proper under a prince whose personal virtues are so
generally known, I hope for the indulgence of this house in the liberty
which I shall take of proposing an address to this effect:

That we should beg leave to congratulate his majesty, upon his safe and
happy return to these his kingdoms, and to return our sincere thanks for
his most gracious speech from the throne; and assure him at the same
time, that with hearts full of duty and gratitude, we cannot but
acknowledge his majesty's regard and attention to the honour and
interest of this nation. To observe that the great and impending dangers
that threaten Europe, under the present critical and perplexed situation
of affairs, have been represented by his majesty to his parliament, for
their advice and assistance, with such paternal concern, and such
affection to his people, such confidence in his faithful commons, and
such anxiety for the general good of Europe, as cannot fail to excite in
us a due sense of his majesty's goodness and condescension; and,
therefore, to assure his majesty in the strongest manner, that this
house will, as often as these momentous affairs shall come under our
consideration, give his majesty such advice as becomes dutiful and
faithful subjects, and such assistance and support as shall be most
conducive to the honour and true interest of his crown and kingdoms.

That we thank his majesty for his royal care in prosecuting the war with
Spain; and that in order to answer these necessary purposes, we will
grant such effectual supplies, as shall enable his majesty, not only to
be in a readiness to support his friends and allies, at such times and
in such manner as the exigency and circumstances of affairs shall
require, but to oppose and defeat any attempts that shall be made
against his majesty, his crown and kingdoms, or against those, who being
equally engaged with his majesty by the faith of treaties, or united by
common interest and common danger, shall be willing to concert such
measures as shall be found necessary and expedient for maintaining the
balance of Europe.

This address, which in my opinion, will contain both a proper answer to
his majesty's speech, and a decent declaration of our gratitude and
duty, will not, I hope, be opposed. For surely it cannot be charged with
asserting any thing that is either false or mean, with bestowing any
unnecessary panegyrick, or with maintaining any fact that is not
generally allowed.

Mr. TREVOR seconded him in the manner following:--Sir, as the necessity
of an address to his majesty cannot be disputed, the only question on
this occasion must be, whether the address now proposed be such as it
may become this house to offer in the present conjuncture of affairs.

In an address, sir, it is necessary to preserve at once the respect due
to our sovereign, and the dignity which may justly be assumed by the
representatives of the people of Britain, a people whose birthright
gives them a claim to approach their sovereign, not, indeed, without the
utmost respect, but with language, which absolute monarchs never hear
from the slaves by whom they are surrounded.

This respect and dignity appear to me to be very happily united in the
address now proposed, in which we join with our professions of duty, our
offers of advice, and assert our claim to the direction of the national
expenses by our promise to grant the necessary supplies.

As there cannot, therefore, in my opinion, sir, be any thing added to
the address now offered, and there appears to me no necessity of any
alteration or omission, I second the motion.

Lord Noel SOMERSET spoke next, to this effect:--Sir, though I am far
from intending to repress, by sophistical cavils, or trifling
objections, the zeal which the honourable gentleman who proposed the
address has shown for promoting the publick business, yet, as it is very
inconsistent with the duty of a senator to prefer civility to truth, and
to sacrifice to ceremony or complaisance the interest of his country, I
think it necessary to declare my opinion, that though the address
proposed may admit of many amendments, which I leave to other gentlemen
to make, I think the addition of one clause absolutely necessary; that
his majesty may be desired not to engage this nation in a war for the
preservation of his foreign dominions; dominions which, as they are in
themselves independent on the crown of Britain, and governed by
different laws, and a different right, have been separated by an express
clause from these kingdoms, in the act to which his majesty owes his
title to the throne.

This request, sir, is at this time particularly expedient, when the
continent is in confusion, and the territories of Hanover are endangered
by the approach of the French forces. Besides, as nothing is more fatal
than groundless expectations of assistance, it may contribute to the
safety of that people, to show them that they are to depend upon their
own strength, to call their forces together, to fortify their towns, and
guard their avenues; and that, if they sit indolent and careless, in
confidence that the power of Britain will be employed in their defence,
they will only give their enemies an easy conquest, and enslave
themselves and their posterity to a foreign power: I move, therefore,
that his majesty be petitioned in our address, not to engage these
kingdoms in a war for the preservation of his foreign dominions.

Mr. SHIPPEN rose and spoke thus:--Sir, I know not with what success I
may assert, in this senate, positions, for which I have formerly been
censured, and which few other members have hitherto maintained; but I
rise with confidence that I shall be at least acknowledged to act
consistently with myself in seconding the noble person who spoke last;
and I am convinced, that many of those who differ from me in opinion,
would gladly be able to boast of resembling me in congruity of
principles, and steadiness of conduct.

But steadiness, sir, is the effect only of integrity, and congruity the
consequence of conviction: he that speaks always what he thinks, and
endeavours by diligent inquiry to think aright before he ventures to
declare his sentiments; he that follows, in his searches, no leader but
reason, nor expects any reward from them but the advantage of
discovering truth, and the pleasure of communicating it, will not easily
change his opinion, because it will seldom be easy to show that he who
has honestly inquired after truth, has failed to attain it.

For my part, I am not ashamed nor afraid to affirm, that thirty years
have made no change in any of my political opinions; I am now grown old
in this house, but that experience which is the consequence of age, has
only confirmed the principles with which I entered it many years ago;
time has verified the predictions which I formerly uttered, and I have
seen my conjectures ripened into knowledge.

I should be, therefore, without excuse, if either terrour could
affright, or the hope of advantage allure me from the declaration of my
opinions; opinions which I was not deterred from asserting, when the
prospect of a longer life than I can now expect might have added to the
temptations of ambition, or aggravated the terrours of poverty and
disgrace; opinions for which I would willingly have suffered the
severest censures, even when I had espoused them only in compliance with
reason, without the infallible certainty of experience.

Of truth it has been always observed, sir, that every day adds to its
establishment, and that falsehoods, however specious, however supported
by power, or established by confederacies, are unable to stand before
the stroke of time. Against the inconveniencies and vexations of long
life, may be set the pleasure of discovering truth, perhaps the only
pleasure that age affords. Nor is it a slight satisfaction to a man not
utterly infatuated or depraved, to find opportunities of rectifying his
notions, and regulating his conduct by new lights.

But much greater is the happiness of that man to whom every day brings a
new proof of the reasonableness of his former determinations, and who
finds, by the most unerring test, that his life has been spent in
promotion of doctrines beneficial to mankind. This, sir, is the
happiness which I now enjoy, and for which those who never shall attain
it, must look for an equivalent in lucrative employments, honorary
titles, pompous equipages, and splendid palaces.

These, sir, are the advantages which are to be gained by a seasonable
variation of principles, and by a ready compliance with the prevailing
fashion of opinions; advantages which I, indeed, cannot envy when they
are purchased at so high a price, but of which age and observation has
too frequently shown me the unbounded influence; and to which I cannot
deny that I have always ascribed the instability of conduct, and
inconsistency of assertions, which I have discovered in many men, whose
abilities I have no reason to depreciate, and of whom I cannot but
believe they would easily distinguish truth, were not falsehood
recommended to them by the ornaments of wealth.

If there are in this new senate any men devoted to their private
interest, any who prefer the gratification of their passions to the
safety and happiness of their country, who can riot without remorse in
the plunder of their constituents, who can forget the anguish of guilt
in the noise of a feast, the pomp of a drawing-room, or the arms of a
strumpet, and think expensive wickedness and the gaieties of folly
equivalent to the fair fame of fidelity and the peace of virtue, to them
I shall speak to no purpose; for I am far from imagining any power in my
language to gain those to truth who have resigned their hearts to
avarice or ambition, or to prevail upon men to change opinions, which
they have indeed never believed, though they are hired to assert them.
There is a degree of wickedness which reproof or argument cannot
reclaim, as there is a degree of stupidity which instruction cannot
enlighten.

If my country, sir, has been so unfortunate as, once more, to commit her
interest to those who propose to themselves no advantage from their
trust, but that of selling it, I may perhaps fall, once more, under
censure for declaring my opinion, and be, once more, treated as a
criminal for asserting what they who punish me cannot deny; for
maintaining the inconsistency of Hanover maxims with the happiness of
this nation, and for preserving the caution which was so strongly
inculcated by the patriots that drew up the act of settlement, and gave
the present imperial family their title to the throne.

These men, sir, whose wisdom cannot be disputed, and whose zeal for his
majesty's family was equal to their knowledge, thought it requisite to
provide some security against the prejudices of birth and education.
They were far from imagining, that they were calling to the throne a
race of beings exalted above the frailties of humanity, or exempted by
any peculiar privileges from errour or from ignorance.

They knew that every man was habitually, if not naturally, fond of his
own nation, and that he was inclined to enrich it and defend it at the
expense of another, even, perhaps, of that to which he is indebted, for
much higher degrees of greatness, wealth and power; for every thing
which makes one state of life preferable to another; and which,
therefore, if reason could prevail over prejudice, and every action were
regulated by strict justice, might claim more regard than that corner of
the earth in which he only happened to be born.

They knew, sir, that confidence was not always returned, that we most
willingly trust those whom we have longest known, and caress those with
most fondness, whose inclinations we find by experience to correspond
with our own, without regard to particular circumstances which may
entitle others to greater regard, or higher degrees of credit, or of
kindness.

Against these prejudices, which their sagacity enabled them to foresee,
their integrity incited them to secure us, by provisions which every man
then thought equitable and wise, because no man was then hired to
espouse a contrary opinion.

To obviate the disposition which a foreign race of princes might have to
trust their original subjects, it was enacted that none of them should
be capable of any place of trust or profit in these kingdoms. And to
hinder our monarchs from transferring the revenues of Britain to
Hanover, and enriching it with the commerce of our traders, and the
labours of our husbandmen; from raising taxes to augment the splendour
of a petty court, and increasing the garrisons of their mountains by
misapplying that money which this nation should raise for its own
defence, it was provided that the emperour of Britain should never
return to his native dominions, but reside always in this kingdom,
without any other care than that of gaining the affections of his
British subjects, preserving their rights, and increasing their power.

It was imagined by that senate, that the electorate of Hanover, a
subordinate dignity, held by custom of homage to a greater power, ought
to be thought below the regard of the emperor of Britain, and that the
sovereign of a nation like this ought to remember a lower state only to
heighten his gratitude to the people by whom he was exalted. They were
far from imagining that Britain and Hanover would in time be considered
as of equal importance, and that their sovereign would divide his years
between one country and the other, and please himself with exhibiting in
Hanover the annual show of the pomp and dignity of a British emperor.

This clause, sir, however, a later senate readily repealed; upon what
motives I am not able to declare, having never heard the arguments which
prevailed upon their predecessors to enact it, confuted or invalidated;
nor have I found that the event has produced any justification of their
conduct, or that the nation has received any remarkable advantage from
the travels of our emperours.

There is another clause in that important act which yet the senate has
not adventured to repeal, by which it is provided, that this nation
shall not be engaged in war for the defence of the Hanoverian dominions;
dominions of which we can have no interest in the protection or
preservation; dominions, perhaps, of no great value, into whatever hands
chance and negligence may throw them, which their situation has made
entirely useless to a naval power; but which, though they cannot
benefit, may injure us, by diverting the attention of our sovereign, or
withholding his affections.

Whether this clause, sir, has not sometimes been eluded, whether the six
thousand Hessians, which we once supported, were of use to any of the
British dominions, and whether a double number of the same nation, now
paid with our money for the defence of the queen of Hungary, have not
been stationed only where they might defend Hanover, without the least
advantage to our confederates; whether the nation has not been condemned
to double expenses in the support of this alliance, by raising, for the
queen's service, troops, which were only employed in the protection of
Hanover, and then in succouring her with pecuniary supplies, it is,
perhaps, at present unnecessary, though, I hope, not yet too late, to
inquire.

It is at present unnecessary, because the clause which is proposed
cannot be denied to be equally proper, whether the act of settlement has
been hitherto observed or violated; for the violation of it ought to
engage us in some measures that may secure us for the future from the
like injury; and the observation of it is a manifest proof how much it
is approved by all parties, since, in so many deviations from this
settlement, and an inconstancy of conduct of which an example is
scarcely to be found, this law has been esteemed sacred, the bulwark of
our rights, and the boundary which the sovereign power has not dared to
overleap.

As his majesty, sir, has, in a very solemn manner, called upon us for
our advice and assistance, what can be more proper than to lay before
him our opinion on this important question? War is, next to slavery, one
of the greatest calamities; and an unnecessary war, therefore, the
greatest error of government, an error which cannot be too cautiously
obviated, or too speedily reformed.

If we consider, sir, the present state of the continent, there is
nothing more probable than that the subjects of the elector of Hanover
may solicit the assistance of the emperor of Britain, and, therefore, it
is necessary to inform them, that their solicitations will be vain. If
we inquire into the suspicions of our fellow-subjects, we shall find
them generally disturbed with fears that they shall be sacrificed to the
security of foreign dominions, and, therefore, it is necessary to recall
their affection to his majesty where it is impaired, and confirm their
confidence where it has been hitherto preserved, by showing, in the most
publick manner, how vainly they have been disquieted, and how grossly
they have been mistaken.

It is certainly our duty, sir, to give such advice as may most truly
inform his majesty of the sentiments of his people, and most effectually
establish in the people an adherence to his majesty; as it is certain
that no advice will be seconded by greater numbers than that which is
proposed, nor can his majesty, by any act of goodness, so much endear
his government, as by a ready promise to this nation of an exemption
from any war in defence of Hanover.

I hope, sir, it will not be objected, that by such request a suspicion
will be insinuated of designs detrimental to the British nation, and
repugnant to the conditions on which his majesty ascended the throne,
because an objection of equal force may rise against any advice whatever
that shall be offered by the senate.

It may be always urged, sir, that to recommend any measures, is to
suppose that they would not have been suggested to his majesty by his
own wisdom, and, by consequence, that he is defective either in
knowledge or in goodness, that he either mistakes or neglects the
interest of his people.

Thus, sir, may the most laudable conduct be charged with sedition, and
the most awful regard be accused of disrespect, by forced consequences,
and exaggerated language; thus may senates become useless, lest they
should appear to be wiser than their sovereign, and the sovereign be
condemned to act only by the information of servile ministers, because
no publick advice can safely be given him.

That kings must act upon the information of others, that they can see
little with their own eyes through the mists which flattery is
continually employed in raising before them, and that they are,
therefore, most happy who have, by the constitution of the country which
they govern, an opportunity of knowing the opinions of their people
without disguise, has yet never been denied by any who do not separate
the interest of the king from that of the people, and leave mankind no
political distinction but that of tyrants and slaves.

This, sir, is the happiness of the emperour of Britain beyond other
monarchs, an advantage by which he may be always enabled to contemplate
the happy and flourishing state of his subjects, and to receive the
blessings and acclamations of millions, that owe to his care their
wealth and their security.

Of this advantage he cannot be deprived, but by the cowardice or the
treachery of those men who are delegated by the people, as the guardians
of their liberties; and surely it requires no uncommon penetration to
discover, that no act of treason can be equal in malignity to that
perfidy which deprives the king of the affections of his subjects, by
concealing from him their sentiments and petitions. He that makes his
monarch hated, must, undoubtedly, make him unhappy; and he that destroys
his happiness, might more innocently take away his life.

To exempt myself, therefore, from such guilt, to discharge the trust
conferred on me by my country, and to perform the duty which I owe to my
king, I stand up to second this motion.

Mr. GYBBON spoke next, to the following purpose:--Sir, as it is not easy
to remember all the parts of an address by only once hearing it, and
hearing it in a form different from that in which it is to be presented,
I think it necessary to a more accurate consideration of it, that it
should be read distinctly to the house. We may otherwise waste our time
in debates, to which only our own forgetfulness gives occasion; we may
raise objections without reason, and propose amendments where there is
no defect. [The address was accordingly read, and Mr. GYBBON proceeded.]

Having now heard the address, I find by experience the propriety of my
proposal; having remarked a clause, which, in my opinion, is necessary
to be amended, and which I had not observed when it was repeated before.

It is well known, that the speeches from the throne, though pronounced
by the king, are always considered as the compositions of the ministry,
upon whom any false assertions would be charged, as the informers and
counsellors of the crown.

It is well known, likewise, that whenever this house returns thanks to
the king for any measures that have been pursued, those measures are
supposed to be approved by them; and that approbation may be pleaded by
the minister in his defence, whenever he shall be required to answer for
the event of his counsels.

It is, therefore, in my opinion, extremely unreasonable to propose, that
_thanks should be returned to his majesty for his royal care in
prosecuting the war against Spain_; for what has been the consequence of
that care, for which our thanks are to be, with so much solemnity,
returned, but defeats, disgrace, and losses, the ruin of our merchants,
the imprisonment of our sailors, idle shows of armaments, and useless
expenses?

What are the events which are to be recorded in an impartial account of
this war; a war provoked by so long a train of insults and injuries, and
carried on with so apparent an inequality of forces? Have we destroyed
the fleets of our enemies, fired their towns, and laid their fortresses
in ruins? Have we conquered their colonies, and plundered their cities,
and reduced them to a necessity of receding from their unjust claims,
and repaying the plunder of our merchants? Are their ambassadors now
soliciting peace at the court of Britain, or applying to the
neighbouring princes to moderate the resentment of their victorious
enemies?

I am afraid that the effects of our preparations, however formidable,
are very different; they have only raised discontent among our
countrymen, and contempt among our enemies. We have shown that we are
strong indeed, but that our force is made ineffectual by our cowardice;
that when we threaten most loudly, we perform nothing; that we draw our
swords but to brandish them, and only wait an opportunity to sheath them
in such a manner, as not plainly to confess that we dare not strike.

If we consider, therefore, what effect our thanks for conduct like this
must naturally produce, it will appear that they can only encourage our
enemies, and dispirit our fellow-subjects. It will be imagined that the
Spaniards are a powerful nation, which it was the highest degree of
temerity to attack; a nation by whom it is honour sufficient not to be
overcome, and from whom we cannot be defended without the most vigilant
caution, and the most extensive knowledge both of politicks and war.

It will readily be perceived by the proud Spaniards, that it is only
necessary to prosecute their views a little longer, to intimidate us
with new demands, and amuse us with new preparations; and that we, who
are always satisfied with our success, shall soon be weary of a war from
which it is plain that we never expected any advantage, and therefore
shall, in a short time, willingly receive such terms as our conquerors
will grant us.

It is always to be remembered, how much all human affairs depend upon
opinion, how often reputation supplies the want of real power, by making
those afraid who cannot be hurt, and by producing confidence where there
is no superiority. The opinion of which the senate ought to endeavour
the promotion, is confidence in their steadiness, honesty, and wisdom.
Confidence which will not be much advanced by an address of thanks for
the conduct of the war against Spain.

How justly may it be asked, when this address is spread over the world,
what were the views with which the senate of Britain petitioned their
sovereign to declare war against Spain?

If their design was, as they then asserted, to procure security for the
commerce of America, and reparation for the injuries which their
merchants had received, by what fluctuation of counsels, by what
prevalence of new opinions, have they now abandoned it? For that they
have no longer the same intentions, that they now no more either propose
security, or demand recompense, is evident; since though they have
obtained neither, yet are they thankful for the conduct of the war.

To what can this apparent instability be imputed, but to the want either
of wisdom to balance their own power with that of their enemies, and
discern the true interest of their country, or to a mean compliance with
the clamours of the people, to whom they durst not refuse the appearance
of a war, though they had no expectation of honour or success?

But in far other terms, sir, will the Spaniards speak of the address
which is now proposed. "Behold, say our boasting enemies, the spirit and
wisdom of that assembly, whose counsels hold the continent in suspense,
and whose determinations change the fate of kingdoms; whose vote
transfers sovereignty, covers the ocean with fleets, prescribes the
operation of distant wars, and fixes the balance of the world. Behold
them amused with idle preparations, levying money for mockeries of war,
and returning thanks for the pleasure of the show. Behold them looking
with wonderful tranquillity on the loss of a great number of their
ships, which have been seized upon their own coasts by our privateers,
and congratulating themselves and their monarch that any have been
preserved. How great would have been the exultation, and how loud the
applauses, had they succeeded in any of their designs; had they
obstructed the departure of our fleets, or hindered our descent upon the
dominions of the queen of Hungary; had they confined our privateers in
our harbours, defeated any of our troops, or overrun any of our
colonies! In what terms would they have expressed their gratitude for
victory, who are thus thankful for disappointments and disgrace?"

Such, sir, must be the remarks of our enemies upon an address like that
which is now proposed; remarks which we and our allies must be condemned
to hear, without attempting a reply. For what can be urged to extenuate
the ridicule of returning thanks where we ought either to express
resentment, offer consolations, and propose the means of better success,
or cover our grief and shame with perpetual silence?

When it shall be told in foreign nations, that the senate of Britain had
returned thanks for the escape of the Spaniards from Ferrol, their
uninterrupted expedition to Italy, the embarrassment of their own trade,
the captivity of their sailors, and the destruction of their troops,
what can they conclude, but that the senate of Britain is a collection
of madmen, whom madmen have deputed to transact the publick affairs? And
what must be the influence of such a people, and such a senate, will be
easily conceived.

If I have given way, sir, in these observations, to any wanton
hyperbole, or exaggerated assertions, they will, I hope, be pardoned by
those who shall reflect upon the real absurdity of the proposal, which I
am endeavouring to show in its true state, and by all who shall
consider, that to return thanks for the management of the war, is to
return thanks for the carnage of Carthagena, for the ruin of our
merchants, for the loss of our reputation, and for the exaltation of the
family of Bourbon.

I hope no man will be so unjust, or can be so ignorant, as to insinuate
or believe, that I impute any part of our miscarriages to the personal
conduct of his majesty, or that I think his majesty's concern for the
prosperity of his people unworthy of the warmest and sincerest
gratitude. If the address were confined to the inspection of our
sovereign alone, I should be very far from censuring or ridiculing it;
for his majesty has not the event of war in his power, nor can confer
upon his ministers or generals that knowledge which they have neglected
to acquire, or that capacity which nature has denied them. He may
perform more than we have a right to expect, and yet be unsuccessful; he
may deserve the utmost gratitude, even when, by the misconduct of his
servants, the nation is distressed.

But, sir, in drawing up an address, we should remember that we are
declaring our sentiments not only to his majesty, but to all Europe; to
our allies, our enemies, and our posterity; that this address will be
understood, like all others; that thanks offered in this manner, by
custom, signify approbation; and that, therefore, we must at present
repress our gratitude, because it can only bring into contempt our
sovereign and ourselves.

Sir Robert WALPOLE spoke next, to this effect:--Sir, I am very far from
thinking that the war against Spain has been so unsuccessful as some
gentlemen have represented it; that the losses which we have suffered
have been more frequent than we had reason to expect from the situation
of our enemies, and the course of our trade; or our defeats, such as the
common chance of war does not often produce, even when the inequality of
the contending powers is incontestable, and the ultimate event as near
to certainty, as the nature of human affairs ever can admit.

Nor am I convinced, sir, even though it should be allowed that no
exaggeration had been made of our miscarriages, that the impropriety of
an address of thanks to his majesty for his regal care in the management
of the war, is gross or flagrant. For if it be allowed that his majesty
may be innocent of all the misconduct that has produced our defeats,
that he may have formed schemes wisely, which were unskilfully
prosecuted; that even valour and knowledge concurring, will not always
obtain success; and that, therefore, some losses may be suffered, and
some defeats received, though not only his majesty gave the wisest
direction, but his officers executed them with the utmost diligence and
fidelity; how will it appear from our ill success, that our sovereign
does not deserve our gratitude? And if it shall appear to us that our
thanks are merited, who shall restrain us from offering them in the most
publick and solemn manner?

For my part, I think no consideration worthy of regard in competition
with truth and justice, and, therefore, shall never forbear any
expression of duty to my sovereign, for fear of the ridicule of our
secret, or the reproaches of our publick enemies.

With regard to the address under our consideration, if it be allowed
either that we have not been unsuccessful in any opprobrious degree, or
that ill success does not necessarily imply any defect in the conduct of
his majesty, or debar us from the right of acknowledging his goodness
and his wisdom, I think, sir, no objection can be made to the form of
expression now proposed, in which all sounding and pompous language, all
declamatory exaggeration, and studied figures of speech, all appearance
of exultation, and all the farce of rhetorick are carefully avoided, and
nothing inserted that may disgust the most delicate, or raise scruples
in the most sincere.

Yet, sir, that we may not waste our time upon trivial disputes, when the
nation expects relief from our counsels, that we may not suspend the
prosecution of the war by complaints of past defeats, or retard that
assistance and advice which our sovereign demands, by inquiring whether
it may be more proper to thank, or to counsel him, I am willing, for the
sake of unanimity, that this clause should be omitted; and hope that no
other part of the address can give any opportunity for criticism, or for
objections.

Sir, it is no wonder that the right honourable gentleman willingly
consents to the omission of this clause, which could be inserted for no
other purpose than that he might sacrifice it to the resentment which it
must naturally produce, and by an appearance of modesty and compliance,
pass easily through the first day and obviate any severe inquiries that
might be designed.

He is too well acquainted with the opinion of many whom the nation has
chosen to represent them, and with the universal clamours of the people,
too accurately informed of the state of our enemies, and too conscious
how much his secret machinations have hindered our success, to expect or
hope that we should meet here to return thanks for the management of the
war; of a war in which nothing has been attempted by his direction that
was likely to succeed, and in which no advantage has been gained, but by
acting without orders, and against his hopes.

That I do not charge him, sir, without reason, or invent accusations
only to obstruct his measures, or to gratify my own resentment; that I
do not eagerly catch flying calumnies, prolong the date of casual
reproaches, encourage the malignity of the envious, or adopt the
suspicions of the melancholy; that I do not impose upon myself by a warm
imagination, and endeavour to communicate to others impressions which I
have only received myself from prejudice and malignity, will be proved
from the review of his conduct since the beginning of our dispute with
Spain, in which it will be found that he has been guilty, not of single
errours, but of deliberate treachery; that he has always cooperated with
our enemies, and sacrificed to his private interest the happiness and
the honour of the British nation.

How long our merchants were plundered, our sailors enslaved, and our
colonies intimidated without resentment; how long the Spaniards usurped
the dominion of the seas, searched our ships at pleasure, confiscated
the cargoes without control, and tortured our fellow-subjects with
impunity, cannot but be remembered. Not only every gentleman in this
house, but every man in the nation, however indolent, ignorant, or
obscure, can tell what barbarities were exercised, what ravages were
committed, what complaints were made, and how they were received. It is
universally known that this gentleman, and those whom he has seduced by
pensions and employments, treated the lamentations of ruined families,
and the outcries of tortured Britons, as the clamours of sedition, and
the murmurs of malignity suborned to inflame the people, and embarrass
the government.

It is known, sir, that our losses were at one time ridiculed as below
the consideration of the legislature, and the distress of the most
useful and honest part of mankind was made the subject of merriment and
laughter; the awkward wit of all the hirelings of the town was exerted
to divert the attention of the publick, and all their art was employed
to introduce other subjects into conversation, or to still the
complaints which they heard with a timely jest.

But their wit was not more successful on this, than on other occasions;
their imaginations were soon exhausted, and they found, as at other
times, that they must have recourse to new expedients. The first
artifice of shallow courtiers is to elude with promises those complaints
which they cannot confute, a practice that requires no understanding or
knowledge, and therefore has been generally followed by the
administration. This artifice they quickly made use of, when they found
that neither the merchants nor the nation were to be silenced by an
affectation of negligence, or the sallies of mirth; that it was no
longer safe to jest upon the miseries of their countrymen, the
destruction of our trade, and the violation of our rights, they
condescended, therefore, to some appearances of compassion, and promised
to exert all their influence to procure redress and security.

That they might not appear, sir, to have made this promise only to free
themselves from present importunity, they set negotiations on foot,
despatched memorials, remonstrances, propositions, and computations, and
with an air of gravity and importance, assembled at proper times to
peruse the intelligence which they received, and to concert new
instructions for their ministers.

While this farce was acted, sir, innumerable artifices were made use of
to reconcile the nation to suspense and delay. Sometimes the distance of
the Spanish dominions in America retarded the decision of our claims.
Sometimes the dilatory disposition of the Spaniards, and the established
methods of their courts, made it impossible to procure a more speedy
determination. Sometimes orders were despatched to America in favour of
our trade, and sometimes those orders were neglected by the captains of
the Spanish ships, and the governours of their provinces; and when it
was inquired why those captains and governours were not punished or
recalled, we were treated with contempt, for not knowing what had been
so lately told us of the dilatory proceedings of the Spanish courts.

In the mean time our merchants were plundered, and our sailors thrown
into dungeons; our flag was insulted, and our navigation restrained, by
men acting under the commission of the king of Spain; we perceived no
effect of our negotiations but the expense, and our enemies not only
insisted on their former claims, but prosecuted them with the utmost
rigour, insolence, and cruelty.

It must, indeed, sir, be urged in favour of our minister, that he did
not refuse any act of submission, or omit any method of supplication by
which he might hope to soften the Spaniards; he solicited their favour
at their own court, he sent commissaries into their country, he assisted
them in taking possession of dominions, to which neither we nor they
have proved a right; and he employed the navies of Britain to transport
into Italy the prince on whom the new-erected kingdom was to be
conferred.

Well might he expect that the Spaniards would be softened by so much
kindness and forbearance, and that gratitude would at length induce them
to spare those whom no injuries or contempt had been able to alienate
from them, and to allow those a free course through the seas of America,
to whom they had been indebted for an uninterrupted passage to the
possession of a kingdom.

He might likewise urge, sir, that when he was obliged to make war upon
them, he was so tender of their interest, that the British admiral was
sent out with orders rather to destroy his own fleet than the galleons,
which, in appearance, he was sent to take, and to perish by the
inclemency of the climate, rather than enter the Spanish ports, terrify
their colonies, or plunder their towns.

But to little purpose, sir, did our minister implore the compassion of
the Spaniards, and represent the benefits by which we might claim it;
for his compliance was by the subtle Spaniards attributed, not to
kindness, but to fear; and it was therefore determined to reduce him to
absolute slavery, by the same practices which had already sunk him to so
abject a state.

They therefore treated our remonstrances with contempt, continued their
insolence and their oppressions, and while our agent was cringing at
their court with fresh instructions in his hand, while he was hurrying
with busy looks from one grandee to another, and, perhaps, dismissed
without an audience one day, and sent back in the midst of his harangue
on another, the guardships of the Spaniards continued their havock, our
merchants were ruined, and our sailors tortured.

At length, sir, the nation was too much inflamed to be any longer amused
with idle negotiations, or trifling expedients; the streets echoed with
the clamours of the populace, and this house was crowded with petitions
from the merchants. The honourable person, with all his art, found
himself unable any longer to elude a determination of this affair. Those
whom he had hitherto persuaded that he had failed merely for want of
abilities, began now to suspect that he had no desire of better success;
and those who had hitherto cheerfully merited their pensions by an
unshaken adherence to all his measures, who had extolled his wisdom and
his integrity with all the confidence of security, began now to be
shaken by the universality of the censures which the open support of
perfidy brought upon them. They were afraid any longer to assert what
they neither believed themselves, nor could persuade others to admit.
The most indolent were alarmed, the most obstinate convinced, and the
most profligate ashamed.

What could now be done, sir, to gain a few months, to secure a short
interval of quiet, in which his agents might be employed to disseminate
some new falsehood, bribe to his party some new vindicators, or lull the
people with the opiate of another expedient, with an account of
concessions from the court of Spain, or a congress to compute the
losses, and adjust the claims of our merchants?

Something was necessarily to be attempted, and orders were therefore
despatched by our minister, to his slave at the court of Spain, to
procure some stipulations that might have at least the appearance of a
step towards the conclusion of the debate. His agent obeyed him with his
usual alacrity and address, and in time sent him, for the satisfaction
of the British people, the celebrated convention.

The convention, sir, has been so lately discussed, is so particularly
remembered, and so universally condemned, that it would be an
unjustifiable prodigality of time to expatiate upon it. There were but
few in the last senate, and I hope there are none in this, who did not
see the meanness of suffering incontestable claims to be disputed by
commissaries, the injustice of the demand which was made upon the
South-sea company, and the contemptuous insolence of amusing us with the
shadow of a stipulation, which was to vanish into nothing, unless we
purchased a ratification of it, by paying what we did not owe.

The convention, therefore, sir, was so far from pacifying, that it only
exasperated the nation, and took from our minister the power of acting
any longer openly in favour of the Spaniards; of whom it must be
confessed, that their wisdom was overpowered by their pride, and that,
for the sake of showing to all the powers of Europe the dependence in
which they held the court of Britain, they took from their friends the
power of serving them any longer, and made it unsafe for them to pay
that submission to which they were inclined.

The Spaniards did not sufficiently distinguish between the nation and
the ministry of Britain, nor suspected that their interests,
inclinations, and opinions were directly opposite; and that those who
were caressed, feared, and reverenced by the ministry, were by the
people hated, despised, and ridiculed.

By enslaving our ministry, they weakly imagined that they had conquered
our nation; nor, perhaps, sir, would they quickly have discovered their
mistake, had they used their victory with greater moderation,
condescended to govern their new province with less rigour, and sent us
laws in any other form than that of the convention.

But the security which success excites, produced in them the same
effects as it has often done in others, and destroyed, in some degree,
the advantages of the conquest by which it was inspired. The last proof
of their contempt of our sovereign and our nation, was too flagrant to
be palliated, and too publick not to be resented. The cries of the
nation were redoubled, the solicitations of the merchants renewed, the
absurdity of our past conduct exposed, the meanness of our forbearance
reproached, and the necessity of more vigorous measures evidently
proved.

The friends of Spain discovered, sir, at length, that war was
necessarily to be proclaimed, and that it would be no longer their
interest to act in open opposition to justice and reason, to the policy
of all ages, and remonstrances of the whole nation.

The minister, therefore, after long delays, after having run round the
circle of all his artifices, and endeavouring to intimidate the nation
by false representations of the power of our enemies, and the danger of
an invasion from them, at length suffered war to be proclaimed, though
not till he had taken all precautions that might disappoint us of
success.

He knew that the state of the Spanish dominions exposed them in a
particular manner to sudden incursions by small parties, and that in
former wars against them, our chief advantage had been gained by the
boldness and subtilty of private adventurers, who by hovering over their
coasts in small vessels, without raising the alarms which the sight of a
royal navy necessarily produces, had discovered opportunities of landing
unexpectedly, and entering their towns by surprise, of plundering their
wealthy ships, or enriching themselves by ransoms and compositions; he
knew what inconsiderable bodies of men, incited by private advantage,
selected with care for particular expeditions, instructed by secret
intelligence, and concealed by the smallness of their numbers, had found
means to march up into the country, through ways which would never have
been attempted by regular forces, and have brought upon the Spaniards
more terrour and distress than could have been produced by a powerful
army, however carefully disciplined or however skilfuly commanded.

It was, therefore, sir, his first care to secure his darling Spaniards
from the pernicious designs of private adventurers; he knew not but some
of Elizabeth's heroes might unfortunately revive, and terrify, with an
unexpected invasion, the remotest corners of the Spanish colonies, or
appear before their ports with his nimble sloops, and bid defiance to
their navies and their garrisons. When, therefore, a bill was introduced
into this house, by which encouragement was given to the subjects of
this kingdom to fit out privateers, and by which those who should
conquer any of the colonies of the Spaniards, were confirmed in the
possession of them for ever, it cannot be forgotten with what zeal he
opposed, and with what steadiness he rejected it, though it is not
possible to assign any disadvantage which could have been produced by
passing it, and the utmost that could be urged against it was, that it
was unnecessary and useless.

Having thus discouraged that method of war which was most to be dreaded
by our enemies, and left them little to fear but from national forces
and publick preparations, his next care was to secure them from any
destructive blow, by giving them time to equip their fleets, collect
their forces, repair their fortifications, garrison their towns, and
regulate their trade; for this purpose he delayed, as long as it was
possible, the despatch of our navies, embarrassed our levies of sailors
by the violence of impresses; violence, which proper encouragement and
regulations might have made unnecessary; and suffered the privateers of
the enemy to plunder our merchants without control, under pretence that
ships of war could not be stationed, nor convoys provided for their
protection.

At length several fleets were fitted out, Vernon was sent to America,
and Haddock into the Mediterranean, with what coqsequences it is well
known; nor should I mention them at this time, had I not been awakened
to the remembrance of them by a proposal of thanks for the conduct of
the war.

The behaviour of the two admirals was very different; though it has not
yet appeared but that their orders were the same. Vernon with six ships
destroyed those fortifications, before which Hosier formerly perished,
in obedience to the commands of our ministry. How this success was
received by the minister and his adherents, how much they were offended
at the exultations of the populace, how evidently they appeared to
consider it as a breach of their scheme, and a deviation from their
directions, the whole nation can relate.

Nor is it to be forgotten, sir, how invidiously the minister himself
endeavoured to extenuate the honour of that action, by attempting to
procure in the address, which was on that occasion presented to his
majesty, a suppression of the number of the ships with which he
performed it.

In the mean time, sir, the nation expected accounts of the same kind
from the Mediterranean, where Haddock was stationed with a very
considerable force; but instead of relations of ports bombarded, and
towns plundered, of navies destroyed, and villages laid in ashes, we
were daily informed of the losses of our merchants, whose ships were
taken almost within sight of our squadrons.

We had, indeed, once the satisfaction of hearing that the fleet of Spain
was confined in the port of Cadiz, unprovided with provisions, and it
was rashly reported that means would either be found of destroying them
in the harbour, or that they would be shut up in that unfruitful part of
the country, till they should be obliged to disband their crews.

We, therefore, sir, bore with patience the daily havock of our trade, in
expectation of the entire destruction of the royal navy of Spain, which
would reduce them to despair of resistance, and compel them to implore
peace. But while we were flattering ourselves with those pleasing
dreams, we were wakened on a sudden with an astonishing account that the
Spaniards had left Cadiz, and, without any interruption from the
Britons, were taking in provisions at Ferrol.

This disappointment of our expectations did, indeed, discourage us, but
not deprive us of hope; we knew that the most politick are sometimes
deceived, and that the most vigilant may sometimes relax their
attention; we did not expect in our commanders any exemption from human
errours, and required only that they should endeavour to repair their
failures, and correct their mistakes; and, therefore, waited without
clamour, in expectation that what was omitted at Cadiz would be
performed at Ferrol.

But no sooner, sir, had the Spaniards stored their fleet, than we were
surprised with a revolution of affairs yet more wonderful. Haddock,
instead of remaining before Ferrol, was drawn off by some chimerical
alarm to protect Minorca, and the Spaniards in the mean time sailed away
to America, in conjunction with the French squadron that had been for
some time ready for the voyage.

If we consider the absurdity of this conduct, it cannot but be imagined
that our minister must send Haddock false intelligence and treacherous
directions, on purpose that the Spanish fleet might escape without
interruption. For how can it be conceived that the Spaniards could have
formed any real design of besieging port Mahon? Was it probable that
they would have sent an army, in defenceless transports, into the jaws
of the British fleet? and it was well known that they had no ships of
war to protect them. It was not very agreeable to common policy to land
an army upon an island, an island wholly destitute of provisions for
their support, while an hostile navy was in possession of the sea, by
which the fortress which their troops were destined to besiege might be
daily supplied with necessaries, and the garrison augmented with new
forces, while their army would be itself besieged in a barren island,
without provisions, without recruits, without hope of succour, or
possibility of success.

But such was the solicitude of our admiral for the preservation of
Minorca, that he abandoned his station, and suffered the Spaniards to
join their confederates of France, and prosecute their voyage to America
without hinderance or pursuit.

In America they remained for some time masters of the sea, and confined
Vernon to the ports; but want of provisions obliging the French to
return, no invasion of our colonies was attempted, nor any of those
destructive measures pursued which we had reason to fear, and of which
our minister, notwithstanding his wonderful sagacity, could not have
foretold that they would have been defeated by an unexpected scarcity of
victuals.

The Spaniards, however, gained, by this expedient, time to repair their
fortifications, strengthen their garrisons, and dispose their forces in
the most advantageous manner; and therefore, though they were not
enabled to attack our dominions, had at least an opportunity of securing
their own.

At length, sir, lest it should be indisputably evident that our minister
was in confederacy with the Spaniards, it was determined, that their
American territories should be invaded; but care was taken to disappoint
the success of the expedition by employing new-raised troops, and
officers without experience, and to make it burdensome to the nation by
a double number of officers, of which no use could be discovered, but
that of increasing the influence, and multiplying the dependants of the
ministry.

It was not thought sufficient, sir, to favour the designs of the
Spaniards by the delay which the levy of new troops necessarily
produced, and to encourage them by the probability of an easy resistance
against raw forces; nor was the nation, in the opinion of the minister,
punished for its rebellion against him with adequate severity, by being
condemned to support a double number of troops. Some other methods were
to be used for embarrassing our preparations and protracting the war.

The troops, therefore, sir, being, by the accident of a hard winter,
more speedily raised than it was reasonable to expect, were detained in
this island for several months, upon trivial pretences; and were at
length suffered to embark at a time when it was well known that they
would have much more formidable enemies than the Spaniards to encounter;
when the unhealthy season of the American climate must necessarily
destroy them by thousands; when the air itself was poison, and to be
wounded certainly death.

These were the hardships to which part of our fellow-subjects have been
exposed by the tyranny of the minister; hardships which caution could
not obviate, nor bravery surmount; they were sent to combat with nature,
to encounter with the blasts of disease, and to make war against the
elements. They were sent to feed the vultures of America, and to gratify
the Spaniards with an easy conquest.

In the passage the general died, and the command devolved upon a man who
had never seen an enemy, and was, therefore, only a speculative
warriour; an accident, which, as it was not unlikely to happen, would
have been provided against by any minister who wished for success. The
melancholy event of this expedition I need not mention, it was such as
might be reasonably expected; when our troops were sent out without
discipline, without commanders, into a country where even the dews are
fatal, against enemies informed of their approach, secured by
fortifications, inured to the climate, well provided, and skilfully
commanded.

In the mean time, sir, it is not to be forgotten what depredations were
made upon our trading vessels, with what insolence ships of very little
force approached our coasts, and seized our merchants in sight of our
fortifications; it is not to be forgotten that the conduct of some of
those who owed their revenues and power to the minister, gave yet
stronger proofs of a combination.

It is not to be forgotten with what effrontery the losses of our
merchants were ridiculed, with what contemptuous triumph of revenge they
were charged with the guilt of this fatal war, and how publickly they
were condemned to suffer for their folly.

For this reason, sir, they were either denied the security of convoys,
or forsaken in the most dangerous parts of the sea, by those to whose
protection they were, in appearance, committed. For this reason, they
were either hindered from engaging in their voyage by the loss of those
men who were detained unactive in the ships of war, or deprived of their
crews upon the high seas, or suffered to proceed only to become a prey
to the Spaniards.

But it was not, sir, a sufficient gratification of our implacable
minister, that the merchants were distressed for alarming the nation; it
was thought, likewise, necessary to punish the people for believing too
easily the reports of the merchants, and to warn them for ever against
daring to imagine themselves able to discern their own interest, or to
prescribe other measures to the ministers, than they should be
themselves inclined to pursue; our minister was resolved to show them,
by a master-stroke, that it was in his power to disappoint their
desires, by seeming to comply, and to destroy their commerce and their
happiness, by the very means by which they hoped to secure them.

For this purpose, sir, did this great man summon all his politicks
together, and call to council all his confidants and all his dependants;
and it was, at length, after mature deliberation, determined, by their
united wisdom, to put more ships into commission, to aggravate the
terrours of the impress by new violence and severity, to draw the
sailors by the promise of large rewards from the service of the
merchants, to collect a mighty fleet, and to despatch it on a _secret
expedition_.

A secret expedition, sir, is a new term of ministerial art, a term which
may have been, perhaps, formerly made use of by soldiers, for a design
to be executed without giving the enemy an opportunity of providing for
their defence; but is now used for a design with which the enemy is
better acquainted than those to whom the execution of it is committed. A
secret expedition is now an expedition of which every one knows the
design, but those at whose expense it is undertaken. It is a kind of
naval review, which excels those of the park in magnificence and
expense, but is equally useless, and equally ridiculous.

Upon these secret expeditions, however, were fixed for a long time the
expectations of the people; they saw all the appearances of preparation
for real war; they were informed, that the workmen in the docks were
retained by uncommon wages to do double duty; they saw the most specious
encouragement offered to the sailors; they saw naval stores accumulated
with the utmost industry, heard of nothing but the proof of new cannon,
and new contracts for provision; and how much reason soever they had to
question the sincerity of the great man who had so long engrossed the
management of all affairs, they did not imagine that he was yet so
abandoned to levy forces only to exhaust their money, and equip fleets
only to expose them to ridicule.

When, therefore, sir, after the usual delays, the papers had informed
the people that the great fleet was sailed, they no longer doubted that
the Spaniards were to be reduced to our own terms; they expected to be
told, in a few days, of the destruction of fleets, the demolition of
castles, and the plunder of cities; and everyone envied the fortune of
those who, by being admitted into their formidable fleet, were entitled
to the treasures of such wealthy enemies.

When they had for some time indulged these expectations, an account was
brought, that the fleet was returned without the least action, or the
least attempt, and that new provisions were to be taken in, that they
might set out upon another _secret expedition_.

But, sir, this wonder-working term had now lost its efficacy, and it was
discovered, that _secret expeditions_, like all other _secret services_,
were only expedients to drain the money of the people, and to conceal
the ignorance or villany of the minister.

Such has been the conduct for which we are desired to return thanks in
an humble and dutiful address, such are the transactions which we are to
recommend to the approbation of our constituents, and such the triumphs
upon which we must congratulate our sovereign.

For my part, sir, I cannot but think that silence is a censure too
gentle of that wickedness which no language can exaggerate, and for
which, as it has, perhaps, no example, human kind have not yet provided
a name. Murder, parricide, and treason, are modest appellations when
referred to that conduct by which a king is betrayed, and a nation
ruined, under pretence of promoting its interest, by a man trusted with
the administration of publick affairs.

Let us, therefore, sir, if it be thought not proper to lay before his
majesty the sentiments of his people in their full extent, at least not
endeavour to conceal them from him; let us, at least, address him in
such a manner as may give him some occasion to inquire into the late
transactions, which have for many years been such, that to inquire into
them is to condemn them.

Sir Robert WALPOLE rose again, and spoke to this effect:--Sir, though I
am far from being either confounded or intimidated by this atrocious
charge; though I am confident, that all the measures which have been so
clamorously censured, will admit of a very easy vindication, and that
whenever they are explained they will be approved; yet as an accusation
so complicated cannot be confuted without a long recapitulation of past
events, and a deduction of many particular circumstances, some of which
may require evidence, and some a very minute and prolix explication, I
cannot think this a proper day for engaging in the controversy, because
it is my interest that it may be accurately discussed.

At present, sir, I shall content myself with bare assertions, like those
of him by whom I am accused, and hope they will not be heard with less
attention, or received with less belief. For surely it was never denied
to any man to defend himself with the same weapons with which he is
attacked.

I shall, therefore, sir, make no scruple to assert, that the treasure of
the publick has been employed with the utmost frugality, to promote the
purposes for which it was granted; that our foreign affairs have been
transacted with the utmost fidelity, in pursuance of long consultations;
and shall venture to add, that our success has not been such as ought to
produce any suspicion of negligence or treachery.

That our design against Carthagena was defeated, cannot be denied; but
what war has been one continued series of success? In the late war with
France, of which the conduct has been so lavishly celebrated, did no
designs miscarry? If we conquered at Ramillies, were we not in our turn
beaten at Almanza? If we destroyed the French ships, was it not always
with some loss of our own? And since the sufferings of our merchants
have been mentioned with so much acrimony, do not the lists of the ships
taken in that war, prove that the depredations of privateers cannot be
entirely prevented?

The disappointment, sir, of the publick expectation by the return of the
fleets, has been charged upon the administration, as a crime too
enormous to be mentioned without horrour and detestation. That the
ministry have not the elements in their power, that they do not
prescribe the course of the wind, is a sufficient proof of their
negligence and weakness: with as much justice is it charged upon them,
that the expectations of the populace, which they did not raise, and to
which, perhaps, the conquest of a kingdom had not been equal, failed of
being gratified.

I am very far from hoping or desiring that the house should be satisfied
with a defence like this; I know, by observing the practice of the
opponents of the ministry, what fallacy may be concealed in general
assertions, and am so far from wishing to evade a more exact inquiry,
that if the gentleman who has thus publickly and confidently accused the
ministry, will name a day for examining the state of the nation, I will
second his motion.

[The address was at length agreed to, without a division.]

Mr. PULTENEY then moved, that the state of the nation should be
considered six weeks hence; sir Robert WALPOLE seconded the motion, and
it was unanimously agreed, that this house will, on the 21st of next
month, resolve itself into a committee of the whole house, to consider
of the state of the nation. But when that day came, sir Robert WALPOLE
having been able to defeat a motion which was to refer some papers to a
secret committee, the consideration of the state of the nation was put
off for a fortnight; but on the eve of that day, both houses adjourned
for fourteen days, during which, sir Robert WALPOLE resigned his
employments of first lord of the treasury, and chancellor and under
treasurer of his majesty's exchequer; and was created a peer, by the
title of lord WALPOLE, and earl of ORFORD.




HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 9, 1741-2.

ON A MOTION FOR INQUIRING INTO THE CONDUCT OF AFFAIRS AT HOME AND
ABROAD, DURING THE LAST TWENTY YEARS.


Lord LIMERICK rose, and spoke in the following manner:--Sir, as I am
about to offer to the house a motion of the highest importance to the
honour and happiness of our country, to the preservation of our
privileges, and the continuance of our constitution, I make no doubt of
a candid attention from this assembly, and hope for such a determination
as shall be the result not of external influence, but of real
conviction.

I cannot but congratulate myself and all lovers of their country, that
we are arrived at a time, in which such hopes may be rationally
indulged, that we shall soon see the triumph of liberty, and the
renovation of senatorial freedom. It is not without the highest
satisfaction, that I find my life protracted to that happy day, in which
the yoke of dependence has been shaken off, and the shackles of
oppression have been broken; in which truth and justice have once more
raised up their heads, and obtained that regard which had so long been
paid to splendid wickedness and successful rapine.

The time is now past, in which it was meritorious to harden the heart
against pity, and the forehead against shame; to plunder the people by
needless taxes, and insult them by displaying their spoils before their
eyes, in luxurious riot, and boundless magnificence; when the certain
method of obtaining what the greatest part, even of good men, cannot but
sometimes wish to acquire, interest, affluence, and honour, was an
implicit resignation to authority, a desertion of all principles,
defiance of all censure, and an open declaration against any other
motives of action, than the sole pleasure of an arbitrary minister.

It is now, sir, no longer considered as an instance of disaffection to
the government, to represent the miseries and declare the opinions of
the people; to propose their interest as the great basis of government,
the general end of society, and the parent of law. It is now no longer
criminal to affirm, that they have a right to complain when they are, in
their own opinion, injured, and to be heard when they complain. It may
now be with safety asserted, that those who swell with the pride of
office, and glitter with the magnificence of a court, however they may
display their affluence, or boast their titles; with whatever contempt
they may have learned of late to look upon their fellow-subjects, who
have no possessions but what they have obtained by their industry, nor
any honours but what are voluntarily paid to their understanding and
their virtue; with whatever authority they may dictate to their
dependants, or whatever reverence they may exact from a long
subordination of hirelings, are, amidst all their pomp and influence,
only the servants of the people, intrusted by them with the
administration of their affairs, and accountable to them for the abuse
of trust.

That trusts of the highest importance have been long abused, that the
servants of the people, having long thought themselves out of the reach
of justice, and above examination, have very ill discharged the offices
in which they have been engaged, that the publick advantage has been
wholly disregarded, that treaties have been concluded without any regard
to the interest of Britain, and that our foreign and domestick affairs
have been managed with equal ignorance, negligence, or wickedness, the
present state of Europe, and the calamities of this country, will
sufficiently inform us.

If we survey the condition of foreign nations, we shall find, that the
power and dominions of the family of Bourbon, a family which has never
had any other designs than the extirpation of true religion, and the
universal slavery of mankind, have been daily increased. We shall find
that they have increased by the declension of the house of Austria,
which treaties and our interest engage us to support.

But had their acquisitions been made only by the force of arms, had they
grown stronger only by victories, and more wealthy only by plunder, our
ministers might, with some appearance of reason, have imputed their
success to accident, and informed us, that we gained, in the mean time,
a sufficient counterbalance to those advantages, by an uninterrupted
commerce, and by the felicity of peace; peace, which, in every nation,
has been found to produce affluence, and of which the wisest men have
thought that it could scarcely be too dearly purchased.

But peace has, in this nation, by the wonderful artifices of our
ministers, been the parent of poverty and misery; we have been so far
from finding our commerce extended by it, that we have enjoyed it only
by a contemptible patience of the most open depredations, by a long
connivance at piracy, and by a continued submission to insults, which no
other nation would have borne.

We have been so far from seeing any part of our taxes remitted, that we
have been loaded with more rigorous exactions to support the expenses of
peace, than were found necessary to defray the charges of a war against
those, whose opulence and power had incited them to aspire to the
dominion of the world.

How these taxes have been employed, and why our trade has been
neglected, why our allies have been betrayed, and why the ancient
enemies of our country have been suffered to grow powerful by our
connivances, it is now time to examine; and therefore I move, that a
committee be appointed to inquire into the conduct of affairs at home
and abroad during the last twenty years.

Sir John ST. AUBIN then spoke as follows:--Sir, I rise up to second this
motion; and, as the noble lord has opened it in so full and proper a
manner, and as I do not doubt but that other gentlemen are ready to
support it, more practised in speaking, of greater abilities and
authority than myself, I am the less anxious about the injury it may
receive from the part I bear in it. I think the proposition is so
evident, that it wants no enforcement; it comes to you from the voice of
the nation, which, thank God, has at last found admittance within these
walls.

Innocence is of so delicate a nature, that it cannot bear suspicion, and
therefore will desire inquiry; because it will always be justified by
it. Guilt, from its own consciousness, will use subterfuges, and fly to
concealment; and the more righteous and authoritative the inquiry, the
more it will be avoided; because the greater will be the dread of
punishment.

In private life, I am contented with men's virtues only, without seeking
for opportunities of blame. In a publick character, when national
grievances cry aloud for inquiry and justice, it is our duty to pursue
all the footsteps of guilt; and the loud, the pathetick appeal of my
constituents, is more forcibly persuasive than any motive of private
tenderness. This appeal is not the clamour of faction, artfully raised
to disturb the operation of government, violent for a while, and soon to
be appeased. It is the complaint of long and patient sufferings, a
complaint not to be silenced; and which all endeavours to suppress it,
would only make more importunate and clamorous. It is the solemn appeal
of the whole people, of the united body of our constituents, in this
time of national calamity, earnestly beseeching you, in a legal
parliamentary way, to redress their grievances, to revive your ancient
right of inquiry, to explore the most remote and hidden sources of
iniquity, to detect the bold authors of their distress, that they may be
made examples of national justice.

It is to you they appeal, the true, the genuine representatives of the
people. Not like former parliaments, an instrument of state, the
property of a minister, purchased by the missionaries of corruption, who
have been dispersed through the kingdom, and furnished with the publick
money to invade all natural interest, by poisoning the morals of the
people. Upon this rotten foundation has been erected a towering fabrick
of corruption: a most dangerous conspiracy has been carried on against
the very essence of our constitution, a formidable system of ministerial
power has been formed, fallaciously assuming, under constitutional
appearances, the name of legal government.

In this system we have seen the several offices of administration meanly
resolving themselves under the direction and control of one man: while
this scheme was pursued, the nation has been ingloriously patient of
foreign indignities; our trade has been most shamefully neglected, or
basely betrayed; a war with an impotent enemy, most amply provided for,
unsuccessfully carried on; the faith of treaties broke; our natural
allies deserted, and weakened even by that power, which we now dread for
want of their assistance.

It is not the bare removal from office that will satisfy the nation,
especially if such removal is dignified with the highest marks of royal
favour. This only gives mankind a reasonable fear that his majesty has
rather condescended to the importunities, than adopted the opinion of
his people. It is, indeed, a most gracious condescension, a very high
instance of his majesty's just intentions to remove any of his servants
upon national suspicion; but it will give his majesty a most
unfavourable opinion of his people, if he is not satisfied that this
suspicion was just. It is the unfortunate situation of arbitrary kings,
that they know the sentiments of their people only from whisperers in
their closet. Our monarchy has securer establishments. Our sovereign is
always sure of knowing the true sense of his people, because he may see
it through the proper, the constitutional medium: but then this medium
must be pure, it must transmit every object in its real form and its
natural colours. This is all that is now contended for. You are called
to the exercise of your just right of inquiry, that his majesty may see
what reason there is for this general inquietude.

This motion is of a general nature; whom it may more particularly
affect, I shall not determine. But there is a great person, lately at
the head of the administration, who stands foremost, the principal
object of national suspicion. He surely will not decline this inquiry,
it is his own proposition; he has frequently, in the name of the whole
administration, thrown down his gauntlet here; has desired your
inquiries, and has rested his fate on your justice. The nation accepts
the challenge, they join issue with him, they are now desirous to bring
this great cause in judgment before you.

It must be imputed to the long intermission of this right of inquiry,
that the people have now this cause of complaint; had the administration
of this great person been submitted to the constitutional controls, had
his conduct undergone strict and frequent inquiries, he had parts and
abilities to have done great honour and service to this country. But the
will, uncontrouled, for ever must and will produce security and
wantonness; nor can moderation and despotick power subsist long
together.

In vain do we admire the outlines of our constitution, in vain do we
boast of those wise and salutary restraints, which our ancestors, at the
expense of their blood and treasure, have wisely imposed upon monarchy
itself, if it is to be a constitution in theory only, if this evasive
doctrine is to be admitted, that a fellow-subject of our own, perhaps of
the lowest rank among us, may be delegated by the crown to exercise the
administration of government, with absolute, uncontroulable dominion
over us; which must be the case, if ministerial conduct is not liable to
parliamentary inquiries.

If I did not think this motion agreeable to the rules and proceedings of
the senate; if I thought it was meant to introduce any procedure which
was not strictly consonant to the laws and constitution of my country, I
do most solemnly protest I would be against, it. But as I apprehend it
to arise from the nature and spirit of our constitution, as it will
defend the innocent, and can be detrimental only to the guilty, I do
most heartily second the motion.

The hon. Henry PELHAM opposed the motion to the following effect:--Sir,
if it was not daily to be observed, how much the minds of the wisest and
most moderate men are elated with success, and how often those, who have
been able to surmount the strongest obstacles with unwearied diligence,
and to preserve their fortitude unshaken amidst hourly disappointments,
have been betrayed by slight advantages into indecent exultations,
unreasonable confidence, and chimerical hopes; had I not long remarked
the infatuation of prosperity, and the pride of triumph, I should not
have heard the motion which has been now made without, astonishment.

It has been long the business or the amusement of the gentlemen, who,
having for some time conferred upon themselves the venerable titles of
patriots, advocates for the people, and defenders of the constitution,
have at length persuaded part of the nation to dignify them with the
same appellation, to display in the most pathetick language, and
aggravate with the most hyperbolical exaggerations, the wantonness with
which the late ministry exercised their power, the exorbitance of their
demands, and the violence of their measures. They have indulged their
imaginations, which have always been sufficiently fruitful in satire and
invective, by representing them as men in whom all regard to decency or
reputation was extinguished, men who no longer submitted to wear the
mask of hypocrisy, or thought the esteem of mankind worth their care;
who had ceased to profess any regard to the welfare of their country, or
any desire of advancing the publick happiness; and who no longer desired
any other effects of their power, than the security of themselves and
the conquest of their opponents.

Such, sir, has been the character of the ministry, which, by the
incessant endeavours of these disinterested patriots, has been carried
to the remotest corners of the empire, and disseminated through all the
degrees of the people. Every man, whom they could enlist among their
pupils, whom they could persuade to see with their eyes, rather than his
own, and who was not so stubborn as to require proofs of their
assertions, and reasons of their conduct; every man who, having no
sentiments of his own, hoped to become important by echoing those of his
instructors, was taught to think and to say, that the court was filled
with open corruption; that the greatest and the wisest men of the
kingdom set themselves publickly to sale, and held an open traffick for
votes and places; that whoever engaged in the party of the minister,
declared himself ready to support his cause against truth, and reason,
and conviction, and was no longer under the restraint of shame or
virtue.

These assertions, hardy as they were, they endeavoured to support by
instances of measures, which they described as having no other tendency,
than to advance the court to absolute authority, to enslave the nation,
or to betray it: and more happily would they have propagated their
system, and much sooner would they have obtained a general declaration
of the people in their favour, had they been able to have produced a
motion like this.

Should the influence of these men increase, should they grow secure in
the possession of their power, by any new methods of deluding the
people, what wonderful expedients, what unheard-of methods of government
may not be expected from them? What degrees of violence may they not be
supposed to practise, who have flushed their new authority by a motion
which was never projected since the first existence of our government,
or offered by the most arbitrary minister in all the confidence of an
established majority.

It may, perhaps, be imagined by many of those who are unacquainted with
senatorial affairs, as many of the members of this house may without any
reproach be supposed to be, that I have made use of those arts against
the patriots which they have so long practised against the court; that I
have exaggerated the enormity of the motion by unjust comparisons, or
rhetorical flights; and that there will be neither danger nor
inconvenience in complying with it to any but those who have betrayed
their trust, or neglected their duty.

I doubt not, but many of those with whom this motion has been concerted,
have approved it without seeing all its consequences; and have been
betrayed into that approbation by a laudable zeal for their country, and
an honest indignation against corruption and treachery, by a virtuous
desire of detecting wickedness, and of securing our constitution from
any future dangers or attacks.

For the sake, therefore, of these gentlemen, whom I cannot but suppose
willing to follow the dictates of their own consciences, and to act upon
just motives, I shall endeavour to lay open the nature of this
extraordinary motion, and doubt not but that when they find it, as it
will unquestionably appear, unreasonable in itself, and dangerous to
posterity, they will change their opinion for the same reasons as they
embraced it, and prefer the happiness of their country to the prosperity
of their party.

Against an inquiry into the conduct of all foreign and domestick affairs
for _twenty_ years past, it is no weak argument that it is without
precedent; that neither the zeal of patriotism, nor the rage of faction,
ever produced such a motion in any former age. It cannot be doubted by
those who have read our histories, that formerly our country has
produced men equally desirous of detecting wickedness, and securing
liberty, with those who are now congratulating their constituents on the
success of their labours; and that faction has swelled in former times
to a height, at which it may reasonably be hoped it will never arrive
again, is too evident to be controverted.

What then can we suppose was the reason, that neither indignation, nor
integrity, nor resentment, ever before directed a motion like this? Was
it not, because it neither will serve the purposes of honesty, nor
wickedness; that it would have defeated the designs of good, and
betrayed those of bad men; that it would have given patriotism an
appearance of faction, rather than have vested faction with the disguise
of patriotism.

It cannot be supposed, that the sagacity of these gentlemen, however
great, has enabled them to discover a method of proceeding which escaped
the penetration of our ancestors, so long celebrated for the strength of
their understanding, and the extent of their knowledge. For it is
evident, that without any uncommon effort of the intellectual faculties,
he that proposes an inquiry for a year past, might have made the same
proposal with regard to a longer time; and it is therefore probable,
that the limitation of the term is the effect of his knowledge, rather
than of his ignorance.

And, indeed, the absurdity of an universal inquiry for twenty years past
is such, that no man, whose station has given him opportunities of being
acquainted with publick business, could have proposed it, had he not
been misled by the vehemence of resentment, or biassed by the secret
operation of some motives different from publick good; for it is no less
than a proposal for an attempt impossible to be executed, and of which
the execution, if it could be effected would be detrimental to the
publick.

Were our nation, sir, like some of the inland kingdoms of the continent,
or the barbarous empire of Japan, without commerce, without alliances,
without taxes, and without competition with other nations; did we depend
only on the product of our own soil to support us, and the strength of
our own arms to defend us, without any intercourse with distant empire,
or any solicitude about foreign affairs, were the same measures
uniformly pursued, the government supported by the same revenues, and
administered with the same views, it might not be impracticable to
examine the conduct of affairs, both foreign and domestick, for twenty
years; because every year would afford only a transcript of the accounts
of the last.

But how different is the state of Britain, a nation whose traffick is
extended over the earth, whose revenues are every year different, or
differently applied, which is daily engaging in new treaties of
alliance, or forming new regulations of trade with almost every nation,
however distant, which has undertaken the arduous and intricate
employments of superintending the interests of all foreign empires, and
maintaining the equipoise of the French powers, which receives
ambassadors from all the neighbouring princes, and extends its regard to
the limits of the world.

In such a nation, every year produces negotiations of peace, or
preparations for war, new schemes and different measures, by which
expenses are sometimes increased, and sometimes retrenched. In such a
nation, every thing is in a state of perpetual vicissitude; because its
measures are seldom the effects of choice, but of necessity, arising
from the change of conduct in other powers.

Nor is the multiplicity and intricacy of our domestick affairs less
remarkable or particular. It is too well known that our debts are great,
and our taxes numerous; that our funds, appropriated to particular
purposes, are at some times deficient, and at others redundant; and that
therefore the money arising from the same imposts, is differently
applied in different years. To assert that this fluctuation produces
intricacy, may be imagined a censure of those to whose care our accounts
are committed; but surely it must be owned, that our accounts are made
necessarily less uniform and regular, and such as must require a longer
time for a complete examination.

Whoever shall set his foot in our offices, and observe the number of
papers with which the transactions of the last twenty years have filled
them, will not need any arguments against this motion. When he sees the
number of writings which such an inquiry will make necessary to be
perused, compared, and extracted, the accounts which must be examined
and opposed to others, the intelligence from foreign courts which must
be considered, and the estimates of domestick expenses which must be
discussed; he will own, that whoever is doomed to the task of this
inquiry, would be happy in exchanging his condition with that of the
miners of America; and that the most resolute industry, however excited
by ambition, or animated by patriotism, must sink under the weight of
endless labour.

If it be considered how many are employed in the publick offices, it
must be confessed, either that the national treasure is squandered in
salaries upon men who have no employment, or that twenty years may be
reasonably supposed to produce more papers than a committee can examine;
and, indeed, if the committee of inquiry be not more numerous than has
ever been appointed, it may be asserted, without exaggeration, that the
inquiry into our affairs for twenty years past, will not be accurately
performed in less than twenty years to come; in which time those whose
conduct is now supposed to have given the chief occasion to this motion,
may be expected to be removed for ever from the malice of calumny, and
the rage of persecution.

But if it should be imagined by those who, having never been engaged in
publick affairs, cannot properly judge of their intricacy and extent,
that such an inquiry is in reality so far from being impossible, that it
is only the work of a few months, and that the labour of it will be
amply recompensed by the discoveries which it will produce, let them but
so long suspend the gratification of their curiosity, as to consider the
nature of that demand by which they are about to satisfy it. A demand,
by which nothing less is required than that all the secrets of our
government should be made publick.

It is known in general to every man, whose employment or amusement it
has been to consider the state of the French kingdoms, that the last
twenty years have been a time not of war, but of negotiations; a period
crowned with projects, and machinations often more dangerous than
violence and invasions; and that these projects have been counteracted
by opposite schemes, that treaties have been defeated by treaties, and
one alliance overbalanced by another.

Such a train of transactions, in which almost every court of France has
been engaged, must have given occasion to many private conferences, and
secret negotiations; many designs must have been discovered by informers
who gave their intelligence at the hazard of their lives, and been
defeated, sometimes by secret stipulations, and sometimes by a judicious
distribution of money to those who presided in senates or councils.

Every man must immediately be convinced, that by the inquiry now
proposed, all these secrets will be brought to light; that one prince
will be informed of the treachery of his servants, and another see his
own cowardice or venality exposed to the world. It is plain, that the
channels of intelligence will be for ever stopped, and that no prince
will enter into private treaties with a monarch who is denied by the
constitution of his empire, the privilege of concealing his own
measures. It is evident, that our enemies may hereafter plot our ruin in
full security, and that our allies will no longer treat us with
confidence.

Since, therefore, the inquiry now demanded is impossible, the motion
ought to be rejected, as it can have no other tendency than to expose
the senate and the nation to ridicule; and since, if it could be
performed, it would produce consequences fatal to our government, as it
would expose our most secret measures to our enemies, and weaken the
confidence of our allies. I hope every man who regards either his own
reputation, or that of the senate, or professes any solicitude for the
publick good, will oppose the motion.

Lord QUARENDON spoke to this effect:--Sir, I am always inclined to
suspect a man who endeavours rather to terrify than persuade.
Exaggerations and hyperboles are seldom made use of by him who has any
real arguments to produce. The reasonableness of this motion (of which I
was convinced when I first heard it, and of which, I believe, no man can
doubt who is not afraid of the inquiry proposed by it) is now, in my
opinion, evinced by, the weak opposition which has been made by the
honourable gentleman, to whose abilities I cannot deny this attestation,
that the cause which he cannot defend, has very little to hope from any
other advocate.

And surely he cannot, even by those who, whenever he speaks, stand
prepared to applaud him, be thought to have produced any formidable
argument against the inquiry, who has advanced little more than that it
is impossible to be performed.

Impossibility is a formidable sound to ignorance and cowardice; but
experience has often discovered, that it is only a sound uttered by
those who have nothing else to say; and courage readily surmounts those
obstacles that sink the lazy and timorous into despair.

That there are, indeed, impossibilities in nature, cannot be denied.
There may be schemes formed which no wise man will attempt to execute,
because he will know that they cannot succeed; but, surely, the
examination of arithmetical deductions, or the consideration of treaties
and conferences, cannot be admitted into the number of impossible
designs; unless, as it may sometimes happen, the treaties and
calculations are unintelligible.

The only difficulty that can arise, must be produced by the confusion
and perplexity of our publick transactions, the inconsistency of our
treaties, and the fallaciousness of our estimates; but I hope no man
will urge these as arguments against the motion. An inquiry ought to be
promoted, that confusion may be reduced to order, and that the
distribution of the publick money may be regulated. If the examination
be difficult, it ought to be speedily performed, because those
difficulties are daily increasing; if it be impossible, it ought to be
attempted, that those methods of forming calculations may be changed,
which make them impossible to be examined.

Mr. FOWKES replied in the manner following:--Sir, to treat with contempt
those arguments which cannot readily be answered, is the common practice
of disputants; but as it is contrary to that candour and ingenuity which
is inseparable from zeal for justice and love of truth, it always raises
a suspicion of private views, and of designs, which, however they may be
concealed by specious appearances, and vehement professions of integrity
and sincerity, tend in reality to the promotion of some secret interest,
or the gratification of some darling passion. It is reasonable to
imagine, that he, who in the examination of publick questions, calls in
the assistance of artifice and sophistry, is actuated rather by the rage
of persecution, than the ardour of patriotism; that he is pursuing an
enemy, rather than detecting a criminal; and that he declaims against
the abuse of power in another, only that he may more easily obtain it
himself.

In senatorial debates, I have often known this method of easy
confutation practised, sometimes with more success, and sometimes with
less. I have often known ridicule of use, when reason has been baffled,
and seen those affect to despise their opponents, who have been able to
produce nothing against them but artful allusions to past debates,
satirical insinuations of dependence, or hardy assertions unsupported by
proofs. By these arts I have known the young and unexperienced kept in
suspense; I have seen the cautious and diffident taught to doubt of the
plainest truths; and the bold and sanguine persuaded to join in the cry,
and hunt down reason, after the example of their leaders.

But a bolder attempt to disarm argument of its force, and to perplex the
understanding, has not often been made, than this which I am now
endeavouring to oppose. A motion has been made and seconded for an
inquiry, to which it is objected, not that it is illegal, not that it is
inconvenient, not that it is unnecessary, but that it is _impossible_.
An objection more formidable cannot, in my opinion, easily be made; nor
can it be imagined that those men would think any other worthy of an
attentive examination, who can pass over this as below their regard; yet
even this has produced no answer, but contemptuous raillery, and violent
exclamation.

What arguments these gentlemen require, it is not easy to conjecture; or
how those who disapprove their measures, may with any hope of success
dispute against them. Those impetuous spirits that break so easily
through the bars of impossibility, will scarcely suffer their career to
be stopped by any other restraint; and it may be reasonably feared, that
arguments from justice, or law, or policy, will have little force upon
these daring minds, who in the transports of their newly acquired
victory, trample impossibility under their feet, and imagine that to
those who have vanquished the ministry, every thing is practicable.

That this inquiry would be the work of years; that it will employ
greater numbers than were ever deputed by this house on such an occasion
before; that it would deprive the nation of the counsels of the wisest
and most experienced members of this house, (for such only ought to be
chosen,) at a time when all Europe is in arms, when our allies are
threatened not only with subjection, but annihilation; when the French
are reviving their ancient schemes, and projecting the conquest of the
continent; and that it will, therefore, interrupt our attention to more
important affairs, and disable us from rescuing our confederates, is
incontestably evident; nor can the wisest or the most experienced
determine how far its consequences may extend, or inform us, whether it
may not expose our commerce to be destroyed by the Spaniards, and the
liberties of all the nations round us to be infringed by the French;
whether it may not terminate in the loss of our independence, and the
destruction of our religion.

Such are the effects which may be expected from an attempt to make the
inquiry proposed; effects, to which no proportionate advantages can be
expected from it, since it has been already shown, that it can never be
completed; and to which, though the indefatigable industry of curiosity
or malice should at length break through all obstacles, and lay all the
transactions of twenty years open to the world, no discoveries would be
equivalent.

That any real discoveries of misconduct would be made, that the interest
of our country would be found ever to have been lazily neglected, or
treacherously betrayed, that any of our rights have been either yielded
by cowardice, or sold by avarice, or that our enemies have gained any
advantage over us by the connivance or ignorance of our ministers, I am
indeed very far from believing; but as I am now endeavouring to convince
those of the impropriety of this motion, who have long declared
themselves of a different opinion, it may not be improper to ask, what
advantage they propose by detecting errours of twenty years, which are
now irretrievable; of inquiring into fraudulent practices, of which the
authors and the agents are now probably in their graves; and exposing
measures, of which all the inconveniencies have been already felt, and
which have now ceased to affect us.

If it be wise to neglect our present interest for the sake of inquiring
into past miscarriages, and the inquiry now proposed be in itself
possible, I have no objections to the present motion; but as I think the
confused state of Europe demands our utmost attention, and the
prosecution of the war against Spain is in itself of far more importance
than the examination of all past transactions, I cannot but think, that
the duty which I owe to my country requires that I should declare myself
unwilling to concur in any proposal, that may unnecessarily divert our
thoughts or distract our councils.

Lord PERCIVAL then rose and spoke to the following purpose:--Sir, to
discourage good designs by representations of the danger of attempting,
and the difficulty of executing them, has been, at all times, the
practice of those whose interest has been threatened by them. A pirate
never fails to intimidate his pursuers by exaggerating the number and
resolution of his crew, the strength of his vessels, and the security of
his retreats. A cheat discourages a prosecution by dwelling upon his
knowledge of all the arts and subterfuges of the law, the steadiness of
his witnesses, and the experience of his agents.

To raise false terrours by artful appearances is part of the art of war,
nor can the general be denied praise, who by an artful disposition of a
small body, discourages those enemies from attacking him by whom he
would certainly be overcome; but then, surely the appearance ought to be
such as may reasonably be expected to deceive; for a stratagem too gross
only produces contempt and confidence, and adds the vexation of being
ridiculous to the calamity of being defeated.

Whether this will be the fate of the advocates for the ministry, I am
not able to determine; but surely they have forgot the resolution with
which their enemies bore up for many years against their superiority,
and the conduct by which at last they defeated the united influence of
power and money; if they hope to discourage them from an attack, by
representing the bulk and strength of their paper fortifications. They
have lost all memory of the excise and the convention, who can believe
their eloquence sufficiently powerful to evince, that the inquiry now
proposed ought to be numbered among impossibilities.

Whoever, sir, is acquainted with their methods of negotiation, will,
indeed, easily believe the papers sufficiently numerous, and the task of
examining them such as no man would willingly undertake; for it does not
appear for what end the immense sums which late senates have granted,
were expended, except for the payment of secretaries, and ministers, and
couriers. But whatever care has been employed to perplex every
transaction with useless circumstances, and to crowd every office with
needless papers, it will be long before they convince us, that it is
impossible to examine them. They may, doubtless, be in time perused,
though, perhaps, they can never be understood.

The utmost inconvenience, sir, that can be feared, is the necessity of
engaging a greater number of hands than on former occasions; and it will
be no disagreeable method to the publick, if we employ some of the
clerks which have been retained only for the sake of gratifying the
leaders of boroughs, or advancing the distant relations of the defenders
of the ministry, in unravelling those proceedings which they have been
hitherto hired only to embarrass, and in detecting some of those abuses
to which the will of their masters has made them instrumental; that they
may at last deserve, in some degree, the salaries which they have
enjoyed, may requite the publick for their part of its spoils, by
contributing to the punishment of the principal plunderers, and leave
their offices, of which I hope the number will be quickly diminished,
with the satisfaction of having deserved at last the thanks of their
country.

By this expedient, sir, the inquiry will be made at least possible, and
I hope, though it should still remain difficult, those who have so long
struggled for the preservation of their country, and who have at last
seen their labours rewarded with success, will not be discouraged from
pursuing it.

The necessity of such an inquiry will grow every day more urgent;
because wicked men will be hardened in confidence of impunity, and the
difficulty, such as it is, will be increased by every delay; for what
now makes an inquiry difficult, or in the style of these mighty
politicians impossible, but the length of time that has elapsed since
the last exertion of this right of the senate, and the multitude of
transactions which are necessarily to be examined?

What is this year an irksome and tedious task, will in another year
require still more patience and labour; and though I cannot believe that
it will ever become impossible, it will undoubtedly in time be
sufficient to weary the most active industry, and to discourage the most
ardent zeal.

The chief argument, therefore, that has been hitherto employed to
discourage us from an inquiry, ought rather, in my opinion, to incite us
to it. We ought to remember, that while the enemies of our country are
fortifying themselves behind an endless multiplicity of negotiations and
accounts, every day adds new strength to their intrenchments, and that
we ought to force them while they are yet unable to resist or escape us.

Sir William YONGE then spoke to the following effect:--Sir, however I
may be convinced in my own opinion of the impracticability of the
inquiry now proposed, whatever confidence I may repose in the extensive
knowledge and long experience of those, by whom it has been openly
pronounced not only difficult but impossible, I think there are
arguments against the motion, which though, perhaps, not stronger in
themselves, (for what objection can be stronger than impossibility,)
ought at least more powerfully to incite us to oppose it.

Of the impossibility of executing this inquiry, those who have proposed
it well deserve to be convinced, not by arguments but experience; they
deserve not to be diverted by persuasions from engaging in a task, which
they have voluntarily determined to undergo; a task, which neither
honour, nor virtue, nor necessity has imposed upon them, and to which it
may justly be suspected, that they would not have submitted upon any
other motives, than those by which their conduct has hitherto been
generally directed, ambition and resentment.

Men who, upon such principles, condemn themselves to labours which they
cannot support, surely deserve to perish in the execution of their own
projects, to be overwhelmed by the burdens which they have laid upon
themselves, and to suffer the disgrace which always attends the
undertakers of impossibilities; and from which the powers of raillery
and ridicule, which they have so successfully displayed on this
occasion, will not be sufficient to defend them.

They have, indeed, sir, with great copiousness of language, and great
fertility of imagination, shown the weakness of supposing this inquiry
impossible; they have proposed a method of performing it, which they
hope will at once confute and irritate their opponents; but all their
raillery and all their arguments have in reality been thrown away upon
an attempt to confute what never was advanced. They have first mistaken
the assertion which they oppose, and then exposed its absurdity; they
have introduced a bugbear, and then attempted to signalize their courage
and their abilities, by showing that it cannot fright them.

The honourable gentleman, sir, who first mentioned to you the
impossibility of this inquiry, spoke only according to the common
acceptation of words, and was far from intending to imply natural and
philosophical impossibility. He was far from intending to insinuate,
that to examine any series of transactions, or peruse any number of
papers, implied an absurdity, or contrariety to the established order of
nature; he did not intend to rank this design with those of building in
the air, or pumping out the ocean; he intended only to assert a moral or
popular impossibility, to show that the scheme was not practicable but
by greater numbers than could be conveniently employed upon it, or in a
longer space of time than it was rational to assign to it; as we say it
is impossible to raise groves upon rocks, or build cities in deserts; by
which we mean only to imply, that there is no proportion between the
importance of the effect, and the force of the causes which must operate
to produce it; that the toil will be great, and the advantage little.

In this sense, sir, and nothing but malice or perverseness could have
discovered any other, the motion may be truly said to be impossible; but
its impossibility ought to be rather the care of those who make, than of
those that oppose it; and, therefore, I shall lay before the house other
reasons, which, unless they can be answered, will determine me to vote
against it.

It cannot be doubted, but the papers which must on this occasion be
examined, contain a great number of private transactions, which the
interest of the nation, and the honour of our sovereign require to be
concealed. The system of policy which the French have, within the last
century, introduced into the world, has made negotiation more necessary
than in any preceding time. What was formerly performed by fleets and
armies, by invasions, sieges, and battles, has been of late accomplished
by more silent methods. Empires have been enlarged without bloodshed,
and nations reduced to distress without the ravages of hostile armies,
by the diminution of their commerce, and the alienation of their allies.

For this reason, sir, it has been necessary frequently to engage in
private treaties, to obviate designs sometimes justly, and at other
times, perhaps, unreasonably suspected. It has been proper to act upon
remote suppositions, and to conclude alliances which were only to be
publickly owned, in consequence of measures taken by some other powers,
which measures were sometimes laid aside, and the treaty, therefore, was
without effect. In some of these provisionary contracts, it is easy to
conceive, that designs were formed not to the advantage of some powers,
whom yet we do not treat as enemies, which were only to be made publick
by the execution of them: in others, perhaps, some concessions were made
to us, in consideration of the assistance that we promised, by which the
weakness of our allies may be discovered, and which we cannot disclose
without making their enemies more insolent, and increasing that danger
from which they apply to us for security and protection.

If to this representation of the nature of the papers, with which our
offices have been filled by the negotiations of the last twenty years,
any thing were necessary to be added, it may be farther alleged, that it
has long been the practice of every nation on this side of the globe, to
procure private intelligence of the designs and expectations of the
neighbouring powers, to penetrate into the councils of princes and the
closets of ministers, to discover the instructions of ambassadours, and
the orders of generals, to learn the intention of fleets before they are
equipped, and of armies before they are levied, and to provide not only
against immediate and visible hostilities, but to obviate remote and
probable dangers.

It need not be declared in this assembly, that this cannot always be
done without employing men who abuse the confidence reposed in them, a
practice on which I shall not at this time trouble the house with my
opinion, nor interrupt the present debate, by any attempt to justify or
condemn it. This, I think, may be very reasonably alleged; that whether
the employment of such persons be defensible by the reciprocal practice
of nations, or not, it becomes at least those that corrupt them and pay
them for their treachery, not to expose them to vengeance, to torture,
or to ruin; not to betray those crimes which they have hired them to
commit, or give them up to punishment, to which they have made
themselves liable only by their instigation, and for their advantage.

That private compacts between nations and sovereigns ought to be kept
inviolably secret, cannot be doubted by any man who considers, that
secrecy is one of the conditions of those treaties, without which they
had not been concluded; and, therefore, that to discover them is to
violate them, to break down the securities of human society, to destroy
mutual trust, and introduce into the world universal confusion. For
nothing less can be produced by a disregard of those ties which link
nations in confederacies, and produce confidence and security, and which
enable the weak, by union, to resist the attacks of powerful ambition.

How much it would injure the honour of our sovereign to be charged with
the dissolution of concord, and the subversion of the general bulwarks
of publick faith, it is superfluous to explain. To know the condition to
which a compliance with this motion would reduce the British nation, we
need only turn our eyes downwards upon the hourly scenes of common life;
we need only attend to the occurrences which crowd perpetually upon our
view, and consider the calamitous state of that man, of whom it is
generally known that he cannot be trusted, and that secrets communicated
to him are in reality scattered among mankind.

Every one knows that such a man can expect none of the advantages or
pleasures of friendship, that he cannot transact affairs with others
upon terms of equality, that he must purchase the favours of those that
are more powerful than himself, and frighten those into compliance with
his designs who have any thing to fear from him; that he must give
uncommon security for the performance of his covenants, that he can have
no influence but that of money, which will probably become every day
less, that his success will multiply his enemies, and that in
misfortunes he will be without refuge.

The condition of nations collectively considered is not different from
that of private men, their prosperity is produced by the same conduct,
and their calamities drawn upon them by the same errours, negligences,
or crimes; and therefore, since he that betrays secrets in private life,
indisputably forfeits his claim to trust, and since he that can be no
longer trusted is on the brink of ruin, I cannot but conclude that, as
by this motion all the secrets of our government must be inevitably
betrayed, my duty to his majesty, my love of my country, and my
obligations to discharge with fidelity the trust which my constituents
have conferred upon me, oblige me to oppose it.

Mr. LITTLETON then rose, and spoke to this effect:--Sir, it always
portends well to those who dispute on the side of truth and reason, when
their opponents appear not wholly to be hardened against the force of
argument, when they seem desirous to gain the victory, not by
superiority of numbers but of reason, and attempt rather to convince,
than to terrify or bribe. For though men are not in quest of truth
themselves, nor desirous to point it out to others; yet, while they are
obliged to speak with an appearance of sincerity, they must necessarily
afford the unprejudiced and attentive an opportunity of discovering the
right. While they think themselves under a necessity of reasoning, they
cannot but show the force of a just argument, by the unsuccessfulness of
their endeavours to confute it, and the propriety of an useful and
salutary motion, by the slight objections which they raise against it.
They cannot but find themselves sometimes forced to discover what they
can never be expected to acknowledge, the weakness of their own reasons,
by deserting them when they are pressed with contrary assertions, and
seeking a subterfuge in new arguments equally inconclusive and
contemptible. They show the superiority of their opponents, like other
troops, by retreating before them, and forming one fortification behind
another, in hopes of wearying those whom they cannot hope to repulse.

Of this conduct we have had already an instance in the present debate; a
debate managed with such vigour, order, and resolution, as sufficiently
shows the advantage of regular discipline long continued, and proves,
that troops may retain their skill and spirit, even when they are
deprived of that leader, to whose instructions and example they were
indebted for them. When first this motion was offered, it seems to have
been their chief hope to divert us from it by outcries of impossibility,
by representing it as the demand of men unacquainted with the state of
our offices, or the multiplicity of transactions, in which the
indefatigable industry of our ministers has been employed; and they have
therefore endeavoured to persuade us, that they are only discouraging us
from an insuperable labour, and advising us to desist from measures
which we cannot live to accomplish.

But when they found, sir, that their exaggerations produced merriment
instead of terrour, that their opponents were determined to try their
strength against impossibility, that they were resolved to launch out
into this boundless ocean of inquiry; an ocean of which they have been
boldly told, that it has neither shore nor bottom, and that whoever
ventures into it must be tost about for life; when they discovered that
this was not able to shake our resolution, or move us to any other
disposition, they thought it proper to explain away their assertion of
impossibility, by making a kind of distinction between things
impossible, and things which cannot be performed; and finding it
necessary to enlarge their plea, they have now asserted, that this
inquiry is both impossible and inexpedient.

Its impossibility, sir, has been already sufficiently discussed, and
shown to mean only a difficulty which the unskilfulness of our ministers
has produced; for transactions can only produce difficulties to the
inquirer, when they are confused; and confusion can only be the effect
of ignorance or neglect.

Artifice is, indeed, one more source of perplexity: it is the interest
of that man whose cause is bad to speak unintelligibly in the defence of
it, and of him whose actions cannot bear to be examined, to hide them in
disorder, to engage his pursuers in a labyrinth, that they may not trace
his steps and discover his retreat; and what intricacies may be produced
by fraud cooperating with subtilty, it is not possible to tell.

I do not, however, believe, that all the art of wickedness can elude the
inquiries of a British senate, quickened by zeal for the publick
happiness. The sagacity of our predecessors has often detected crimes
concealed with more policy than can be ascribed to those whose conduct
is now to be examined, and dragged the authors of national calamities to
punishment from their darkest retreats. The expediency, therefore, of
this motion, is now to be considered, and surely it will not require
long reflection to prove that it is proper, when the nation is oppressed
with calamities, to inquire by what misconduct they were brought upon
it; when immense sums have been raised by the most oppressive methods of
exaction, to ask why they were demanded, and how they were expended;
when penal laws have been partially executed, to examine by what
authority they were suspended, and by what they were enforced; and when
the senate has for twenty years implicitly obeyed the direction of one
man, when it has been known throughout the nation, before any question
was proposed, how it would be decided, to search out the motive of that
regular compliance, and to examine whether the minister was reverenced
for his wisdom and virtue, or feared for his power, or courted for the
publick money; whether he owed his prevalence to the confidence or
corruption of his followers?

It cannot surely be thought inexpedient, to inquire into the reasons for
which our merchants were for many years suffered to be plundered, or for
which a war, solicited by the general voice of the whole nation, was
delayed; into the reasons for which our fleets were fitted out only to
coast upon the ocean, and connive at the departure of squadrons and the
transportation of armies, to suffer our allies to be invaded, and our
traders ruined and enslaved.

It is, in my opinion, convenient to examine with the utmost rigour, why
time was granted to our enemies to fortify themselves against us, while
a standing army preyed upon our people? Why forces unacquainted with the
use of arms were sent against them, under the command of leaders equally
ignorant? And why we have suffered their privateers in the mean time to
rove at large over the ocean, and insult us upon our own coasts? Why we
did not rescue our sailors from captivity, when opportunities of
exchange were in our power? And why we robbed our merchants of their
crews by rigorous impresses, without employing them either to guard our
trade, or subdue our enemies?

If the senate is not to be suffered to inquire into affairs like these,
it is no longer any security to the people, that they have the right of
electing representatives; and unless they may carry their inquiries back
as far as they shall think it necessary, the most acute sagacity may be
easily eluded; causes may be very remote from their consequences, the
original motives of a long train of wicked measures may lie hid in some
private transaction of former years, and those advantages which our
enemies have been of late suffered to obtain, were perhaps sold them at
some forgotten congress by some secret article.

Such are, probably, the private transactions which the honourable
gentleman is so much afraid of exposing to the light; transactions in
which the interest of this nation has been meanly yielded up by
cowardice, or sold by treachery; in which Britain has been considered as
a province subordinate to some other country, or in which the minister
has enriched himself by the sacrifice of the publick rights.

It has been, indeed, alleged with some degree of candour, that many of
our treaties were provisions against invasions which perhaps were never
intended, and calculated to defeat measures which only our own cowardice
disposed us to fear. That such treaties have, indeed, been made, Hanover
is a sufficient witness; but however frequently they may occur, they may
surely be discovered with very little disadvantage to the nation; they
will prove only the weakness of those that made them, who were at one
time intimidated by chimerical terrours, and at another, lulled into
confidence by airy security.

The concessions from foreign powers, which have been likewise mentioned,
ought surely not to be produced as arguments against the motion; for
what could more excite the curiosity of the nation, if, indeed, this
motion were in reality produced by malevolence or resentment; if none
were expected to concur in it but those who envied the abilities, or had
felt the power of the late minister, it might be, perhaps, defeated by
such insinuations; for nothing could more certainly regain his
reputation, or exalt him to more absolute authority, than proofs that he
had obtained for us any concessions from foreign powers.

If any advantageous terms have been granted us, he must be confessed to
have so far discharged his trust to his allies, that he has kept them
with the utmost caution from the knowledge of the people, who have
heard, during all his administration, of nothing but subsidies,
submission, and compliances paid to almost every prince on the continent
who has had the confidence to demand them; and if by this inquiry any
discovery to the disadvantage of our allies should be struck out, he may
with great sincerity allege, that it was made without his consent.

Another objection to this inquiry is, that the spies which are retained
in foreign courts may be detected by it, that the canals of our
intelligence will be for ever stopped, and that we shall henceforth have
no knowledge of the designs of foreign powers, but what may be honestly
attained by penetration and experience. Spies are, indeed, a generation
for whose security I have not much regard, but for whom I am on this
occasion less solicitous, as I believe very few of them will be affected
by this motion.

The conduct of our ministers has never discovered such an acquaintance
with the designs of neighbouring princes, as could be suspected to be
obtained by any uncommon methods, or they have very little improved the
opportunities which early information put into their power; for they
have always been baffled and deceived. Either they have employed no
spies, or their spies have been directed to elude them by false
intelligence, or true intelligence has been of no use; and if any of
these assertions be true, the publick will not suffer by the motion.

It was justly observed, by the honourable gentleman, that a parallel may
be properly drawn between a nation and a private man, and, by
consequence, between a trading nation and a trader. Let us, therefore,
consider what must be the state of that trader who shall never inspect
or state his accounts, who shall suffer his servants to traffick in the
dark with his stock, and on his credit, and who shall permit them to
transact bargains in his name, without inquiring whether they are
advantageous, or whether they are performed.

Every man immediately marks out a trader thus infatuated, as on the
brink of bankruptcy and ruin; every one will easily foresee, that his
servants will take advantage of his credulity, and proceed hourly to
grosser frauds; that they will grow rich by betraying his interest, that
they will neglect his affairs to promote their own, that they will
plunder him till he has nothing left, and seek then for employment among
those to whom they have recommended themselves by selling their trust.
His neighbours, who easily foresee his approaching misery, retire from
him by degrees, disunite their business from his, and leave him to fall,
without involving others in his ruin.

Such must be the fate of a trader whom idleness, or a blind confidence
in the integrity of others, hinders from attending to his own affairs,
unless he rouses from his slumber, and recovers from his infatuation.
And what is to be done by the man who, having for more than twenty years
neglected so necessary an employment, finds, what must necessarily be
found in much less time, his accounts perplexed, his credit depressed,
and his affairs disordered? What remains, but that he suffer that
disorder to proceed no farther, that he resolutely examine all the
transactions which he has hitherto overlooked, that he repair those
errours which are yet retrievable, and reduce his trade into method;
that he doom those servants, by whom he has been robbed or deceived, to
the punishment which they deserve, and recover from them that wealth
which they have accumulated by rapacity and fraud.

By this method only can the credit of the trader or the nation be
repaired, and this is the method which the motion recommends; a motion
with which, therefore, every man may be expected to comply, who desires
that his country should once more recover its influence and power, who
wishes to see Britain again courted and feared, and her monarch
considered as the arbiter of the world, the protector of the true
religion, and the defender of the liberties of mankind.

Mr. PHILLIPS spoke in substance as follows:--Sir, I am so far from
believing that there is danger of exposing the spies of the government
to the resentment of foreign princes, by complying with this motion,
that I suspect the opposition to be produced chiefly from a
consciousness, that no spies will be discovered to have been employed,
and that the secret service for which such large sums have been
required, will appear to have been rather for the service of domestick
than of foreign traitors, and to have been performed rather in this
house than in foreign courts.

Secret service has been long a term of great use to the ministers of
this nation; a term of art to which such uncommon efficacy has been
hitherto annexed, that the people have been influenced by it to pay
taxes, without expecting to be informed how they were applied, having
been content with being told, when they inquired after their properties,
that they were exhausted and dissipated in secret service.

Secret service I conceive to have originally implied transactions, of
which the agents were secret, though the effects were visible. When
MARLBOROUGH defeated the French, when he counteracted all their
stratagems, obviated all their designs, and deceived all their
expectations, he charged the nation with large sums for secret service,
which were, indeed, cheerfully allowed, because the importance and
reality of the service were apparent from its effects. But what
advantages can our ministers boast of having obtained in twenty years by
the means of their intelligence? Or by whom have they, within that
period, not been deceived by false appearances? When we purchase secret
service at so dear a rate, let it appear that we really obtain what we
pay for, though the means by which it is obtained are kept impenetrably
secret. Wherever the usefulness of the intelligence is not discoverable,
it is surely just to inquire, whether our money is not demanded for
other purposes, whether we are not in reality hiring with our own money
armies to enslave, or senators to betray us; or enriching an avaricious
minister, while we imagine ourselves contributing to the publick
security?

Colonel CHOLMONDELEY replied to the following effect:--Sir, it has been
in all foregoing ages the custom for men to speak of the government with
reverence, even when they opposed its measures, or projected its
dissolution; nor has it been thought, in any time before our own, decent
or senatorial, to give way to satire or invective, or indulge a petulant
imagination, to endeavour to level all orders by contemptuous
reflections, or to court the populace, by echoing their language, or
adopting their sentiments.

This method of gaining the reputation of patriotism, has been unknown
till the present age, and reserved for the present leaders of the
people, who will have the honour to stand recorded as the original
authors of anarchy, the great subverters of order, and the first men who
dared to pronounce, that all the secrets of government ought to be made
publick.

It has been hitherto understood in all nations, that those who were
intrusted with authority, had likewise a claim to respect and
confidence; that they were chosen for the superiority of their
abilities, or the reputation of their virtue; and that, therefore, it
was reasonable to consign to their management, the direction of such
affairs as by their own nature require secrecy.

But this ancient doctrine, by which subordination has been so long
preserved, is now to be set aside for new principles, which may flatter
the pride, and incite the passions of the people; we are now to be told,
that affairs are only kept secret, because they will not bear
examination; that men conceal not those transactions in which they have
succeeded, but those in which they have failed; that they are only
inclined to hide their follies or their crimes, and that to examine
their conduct in the most open manner, is only to secure the interest of
the publick.

Thus has the nation been taught to expect, that the counsels of the
cabinet should be dispersed in the publick papers; that their governours
should declare the motives of their measures, and discover the demands
of our allies, and the scheme of our policy; and that the people should
be consulted upon every emergence, and enjoy the right of instructing
not only their own representatives, but the ministers of the crown.

In this debate, the mention of secret treaties has been received with
contempt and ridicule; the ministers have been upbraided with chimerical
fears, and unnecessary provisions against attacks which never were
designed; they have been alleged to have no other interest in view than
their own, when they endeavour to mislead inquirers, and to have in
reality nothing to keep from publick view but their own ignorance or
wickedness.

It cannot surely be seriously asserted by men of knowledge and
experience, that there are no designs formed by wise governments, of
which the success depends upon secrecy; nor can it be asserted, that the
inquiry now proposed will betray nothing from which our enemies may
receive advantage.

If we should suppose, that all our schemes are either fully
accomplished, or irretrievably defeated, it will not even then be
prudent to discover them, since they will enable our enemies to form
conjectures of the future from the past, and to obviate, hereafter, the
same designs, when it shall be thought necessary to resume them.

But, in reality, nothing is more irrational than to suppose this a safer
time than any other for such general discoveries; for why should it be
imagined, that our engagements are not still depending, and our treaties
yet in force? And what can be more dishonourable or imprudent, than to
destroy at once the whole scheme of foreign policy, to dissolve our
alliances, and destroy the effects of such long and such expensive
negotiations, without first examining whether they will be beneficial or
detrimental to us?

Nor is it only with respect to foreign affairs that secrecy is
necessary; there are, undoubtedly, many domestick transactions which it
is not proper to communicate to the whole nation. There is still a
faction among us, which openly desires the subversion of our present
establishment; a faction, indeed, not powerful, and which grows, I hope,
every day weaker, but which is favoured, or at least imagines itself
favoured, by those who have so long distinguished themselves by opposing
the measures of the government. Against these men, whose hopes are
revived by every commotion, who studiously heighten every subject of
discontent, and add their outcries to every clamour, it is not doubted
but measures are formed, by which their designs are discovered, and
their measures broken; nor can it be supposed, that this is done without
the assistance of some who are received with confidence amongst them,
and who probably pass for the most zealous of their party.

Many other domestick occasions of expense might be mentioned; of expense
which operates in private, and produces benefits which are only not
acknowledged, because they are not known, but which could no longer be
applied to the same useful purposes, if the channels through which it
passes were laid open. I cannot, therefore, forbear to offer my opinion,
that this motion, by which all the secrets of our government will be
discovered, will tend to the confusion of the present system of Europe,
to the absolute ruin of our interest in foreign courts, and to the
embarrassment of our domestick affairs. I cannot, therefore, conceive
how any advantages can be expected by the most eager persecutors of the
late ministry, which can, even in their opinion, deserve to be purchased
at so dear a rate.

Mr. PITT then spoke to the following purpose:--Sir, I know not by what
fatality the adversaries of the motion are impelled to assist their
adversaries, and contribute to their own overthrow, by suggesting,
whenever they attempt to oppose it, new arguments against themselves.

It has been long observed, that when men are drawing near to
destruction, they are apparently deprived of their understanding, and
contribute by their own folly to those calamities with which they are
threatened, but which might, by a different conduct, be sometimes
delayed. This has surely now happened to the veteran advocates for an
absolute and unaccountable ministry, who have discovered on this
occasion, by the weakness of their resistance, that their abilities are
declining; and I cannot but hope, that the omen will be fulfilled, and
that their infatuation will be quickly followed by their ruin.

To touch in this debate on our domestick affairs, to mention the
distribution of the publick money, and to discover their fears, lest the
ways in which it has been disbursed, should by this inquiry be
discovered; to recall to the minds of their opponents the immense sums
which have been annually demanded, and of which no account has been yet
given, is surely the lowest degree of weakness and imprudence.

I am so far from being convinced that any danger can arise from this
inquiry, that I believe the nation can only be injured by a long neglect
of such examinations; and that a minister is easily formidable, when he
has exempted himself by a kind of prescription from exposing his
accounts, and has long had an opportunity of employing the publick money
in multiplying his dependants, enriching his hirelings, enslaving
boroughs, and corrupting senates.

That those have been, in reality, the purposes for which the taxes of
many years have been squandered, is sufficiently apparent without an
inquiry. We have wasted sums with which the French, in pursuance of
their new scheme of increasing their influence, would have been able to
purchase the submission of half the nations of the earth, and with which
the monarchs of Europe might have been held dependant on a nod; these
they have wasted only to sink our country into disgrace, to heighten the
spirit of impotent enemies, to destroy our commerce, and distress our
colonies. We have patiently suffered, during a peace of twenty years,
those taxes to be extorted from us, by which a war might have been
supported against the most powerful nation, and have seen them ingulfed
in the boundless expenses of the government, without being able to
discover any other effect from them than the establishment of
ministerial tyranny.

There has, indeed, been among the followers of the court a regular
subordination, and exact obedience; nor has any man been found hardy
enough to reject the dictates of the grand vizier. Every man who has
received his pay, has with great cheerfulness complied with his
commands; and every man who has held any post or office under the crown,
has evidently considered himself as enlisted by the minister.

But the visible influence of places, however destructive to the
constitution, is not the chief motive of an inquiry; an inquiry implies
something secret, and is intended to discover the private methods of
extending dependence, and propagating corruption; the methods by which
the people have been influenced to choose those men for representatives
whose principles they detest, and whose conduct they condemn; and by
which those whom their country has chosen for the guardians of its
liberties, have been induced to support, in this house, measures, which
in every other place they have made no scruple to censure.

When we shall examine the distribution of the publick treasure, when we
shall inquire by what conduct we have been debarred from the honours of
war, and at the same time deprived of the blessings of peace, to what
causes it is to be imputed, that our debts have continued during the
long-continued tranquillity of Europe, nearly in the state to which they
were raised by fighting, at our own expense, the general quarrel of
mankind; and why the sinking fund, a kind of inviolable deposit
appropriated to the payment of our creditors, and the mitigation of our
taxes, has been from year to year diverted to very different uses; we
shall find that our treasure has been exhausted, not to humble foreign
enemies, or obviate domestick insurrections; not to support our allies,
or suppress our factions; but for ends which no man, who feels the love
of his country yet unextinguished, can name without horrour, the
purchase of alliances, and the hire of votes, the corruption of the
people, and the exaltation of France.

Such are the discoveries which I am not afraid to declare that I expect
from the inquiry, and therefore, I cannot but think it necessary. If
those to whom the administration of affairs has been for twenty years
committed, have betrayed their trust, if they have invaded the publick
rights with the publick treasure, and made use of the dignities which
their country has conferred upon them, only to enslave it, who will not
confess, that they ought to be delivered up to speedy justice? That they
ought to be set as landmarks to posterity, to warn those who shall
hereafter launch out on the ocean of affluence and power, not to be too
confident of a prosperous gale, but to remember, that there are rocks on
which whoever rushes must inevitably perish? If they are innocent, and
far be it from me to declare them guilty without examination, whom will
this inquiry injure? Or what effects will it produce, but that which
every man appears to desire, the reestablishment of the publick
tranquillity, a firm confidence in the justice and wisdom of the
government, and a general reconciliation of the people to the ministers.

Colonel MORDAUNT spoke then, in substance as follows:--Sir,
notwithstanding the zeal with which the honourable gentleman has urged
the necessity of this inquiry, a zeal of which, I think, it may at least
be said, that it is too vehement and acrimonious to be the mere result
of publick spirit, unmixed with interest or resentment; he has yet been
so far unsuccessful in his reasoning, that he has not produced in me any
conviction, or weakened any of the impressions which the arguments of
those whom he opposes had made upon me.

He has contented himself with recapitulating some of the benefits which
may be hoped for from the inquiry; he has represented in the strongest
terms, the supposed misconduct of the ministry; he has aggravated all
the appearances of wickedness or negligence, and then has inferred the
usefulness of a general inquiry for the punishment of past offences, and
the prevention of the like practices in future times.

That he has discovered great qualifications for invective, and that his
declamation was well calculated to inflame those who have already
determined their opinion, and who are, therefore, only restrained from
such measures as are now recommended by natural caution and sedateness,
I do not deny; but, surely he does not expect to gain proselytes by
assertions without proof, or to produce any alteration of sentiments,
without attempting to answer the arguments which have been offered
against his opinion.

It has been urged with great appearance of reason, that an inquiry, such
as is now proposed, with whatever prospects of vengeance, of justice, or
of advantage, it may flatter us at a distance, will be in reality
detrimental to the publick; because it will discover all the secrets of
our government, lay all our negotiations open to the world, will show
what powers we most fear, or most trust, and furnish our enemies with
means of defeating all our schemes, and counteracting all our measures.

This appears to me, sir, the chief argument against the motion, an
argument of which the force cannot but be discovered by those whose
interest it is to confute it, and of which, therefore, by appearing to
neglect it, they seem to confess that it is unanswerable; and therefore,
since I cannot find the motion justified otherwise than by loud
declarations of its propriety, and violent invectives against the
ministry, I hope that I shall escape at least the censure of the calm
and impartial, though I venture to declare, that I cannot approve it;
and with regard to the clamorous and the turbulent, I have long learned
to despise their menaces, because I have hitherto found them only the
boasts of impotence.

Mr. CORNWALL made answer to the following purport:--Sir, if to obtain
the important approbation of the gentleman that spoke last, it be
necessary only to answer the argument on which he has insisted, and
nothing be necessary to produce an inquiry but his approbation, I shall
not despair that this debate may be concluded according to the wishes of
the nation, that secret wickedness may be detected, and that our
posterity may be secured from any invasion of their liberty, by examples
of the vengeance of an injured people.

[The house divided.--The yeas went forth.--For the question, 242;
against it, 244: so that it passed in the negative, by a majority of
two.]




HOUSE OF LORDS, MAY 20, 1742.

Debate On A Motion For Indemnifying Evidence Relating To The Conduct Of
The Earl Of ORFORD.


The following debate having been produced by an occasion very uncommon
and important, it is necessary to give an account of such transactions
as may contribute to illustrate it.

The prime minister being driven out of the house of commons, by the
prevalence of those who, from their opposition to the measures of the
court, were termed the country party, it was proposed that a committee
should be appointed, "to inquire into the conduct of publick affairs, at
home and abroad, during the last twenty years;" but the motion was
rejected.

It was afterwards moved, "that a committee should be appointed to
inquire into the conduct of Robert, earl of ORFORD, during the last ten
years in which he was first commissioner of the treasury, and chancellor
and under treasurer of the exchequer," which was carried by 252 to 245.

A committee of one-and-twenty being chosen by ballot, and entering upon
the inquiry, called before them Mr. Gibbon, who declared himself agent
to J. Botteler, and said, that Botteler, being a candidate for Wendover,
and finding that no success was to be expected without five hundred
pounds, sent a friend to N. Paxton, with a letter, and that he saw him
return with a great number of papers, in which he said were bills for
five hundred pounds.

Botteler and his friend being examined, confirmed the testimony of
Gibbon; and Botteler added, that he sent to Paxton as an officer of the
treasury, acquainted with those who had the disposal of money; that his
claim to the favour which he asked arose from a disappointment in a
former election; that he never gave for the money any security or
acknowledgment, nor considered himself indebted for it to Paxton or any
other person.

Paxton being then examined, refused to return any answer to the question
of the committee, because the answer might tend to accuse himself. Which
reason was alleged by others for a like refusal.

The committee finding their inquiries eluded, by this plea for secrecy,
which the laws of Britain allow to be valid, reported to the commons the
obstacles that they met with; for the removal of which a bill was
brought in like that of indemnity; which, having passed the commons,
produced, in the house of lords, a debate, in which the greatest men of
each party exerted the utmost force of their reason and eloquence.

The bill being read a second time, and a motion made for its being
referred to a committee.

Lord CARTERET spoke to this effect:--My lords, as the question now
before us is of the highest importance both to the present age and to
posterity, as it may direct the proceedings of the courts of justice,
prescribe the course of publick inquiries, and, by consequence, affect
the property or life of every lord in this assembly; I hope it will be
debated amongst us without the acrimony which arises from the prejudice
of party, or the violence which is produced by the desire of victory,
and that the controversy will be animated by no other passion than zeal
for justice, and love of truth.

For my part, my lords, I have reason to believe, that many professions
of my sincerity will not be necessary on this occasion, because I shall
not be easily suspected of any partiality in favour of the noble lord to
whom this bill immediately relates. It is well known to your lordships
how freely I have censured his conduct, and how invariably I have
opposed those measures by which the nation has been so far exasperated,
that the bill, now under our consideration, has been thought necessary
by the commons, to pacify the general discontent, to restore the publick
tranquillity, and to recover that confidence in the government, without
which no happiness is to be expected, without which the best measures
will always be obstructed by the people, and the justest remonstrances
disregarded by the court.

But however laudable may be the end proposed by the commons, I cannot,
my lords, be so far dazzled by the prospect of obtaining it, as not to
examine the means to which we are invited to concur, and inquire with
that attention which the honour of sitting in this house has made my
duty, whether they are such as have been practised by our ancestors,
such as are prescribed by the law, or warranted by prudence.

The caution, my lords, with which our ancestors have always proceeded in
inquiries by which life or death, property or reputation, was
endangered; the certainty, or at least the high degree of probability,
which they required in evidence, to make it a sufficient ground of
conviction, is universally known; nor is it necessary to show their
opinion by particular examples, because, being no less solicitous for
the welfare of their posterity than for their own, they were careful to
record their sentiments in laws and statutes, and to prescribe, with the
strongest sanctions, to succeeding governments, what they had discovered
by their own reflections, or been taught by their predecessors.

They considered, my lords, not only how great was the hardship of being
unjustly condemned, but likewise how much a man might suffer by being
falsely accused; how much he might be harassed by a prosecution, and how
sensibly he might feel the disgrace of a trial. They knew that to be
charged with guilt implied some degree of reproach, and that it gave
room, at least, for an inference that the known conduct of the person
accused was such as made it probable that he was still more wicked than
he appeared; they knew that the credulity of some might admit the charge
upon evidence that was rejected by the court, and that difference of
party, or private quarrels, might provoke others to propagate reports
once published, even when in their own opinion they were sufficiently
confuted; and that, therefore, an innocent man might languish in infamy
by a groundless charge, though he should escape any legal penalty.

It has, therefore, my lords, been immemorially established in this
nation, that no man can be apprehended, or called into question for any
crime till there shall be proof.

First, that there is a _corpus delicti_, a crime really and visibly
committed; thus before a process can be issued out for inquiring after a
murderer, it must be apparent that a murder has been perpetrated, the
dead body must be exposed to a jury, and it must appear to them that he
died by violence. It is not sufficient that a man is lost, and that it
is probable that he is murdered, because no other reason of his absence
can be assigned; he must be found with the marks of force upon him, or
some circumstances that may make it credible, that he did not perish by
accident, or his own hand.

It is required, secondly, my lords, that he who apprehends any person as
guilty of the fact thus apparently committed, must suspect him to be the
criminal; for he is not to take an opportunity, afforded him by the
commission of an illegal act, to gratify any secret malice, or wanton
curiosity; or to drag to a solemn examination, those against whom he
cannot support an accusation.

And, my lords, that suspicion may not ravage the reputation of Britons
without control; that men may not give way to the mere suggestions of
malevolence, and load the characters of those with atrocious wickedness,
whom, perhaps, they have no real reason to believe more depraved than
the bulk of mankind, and whose failings may have been exaggerated in
their eyes by contrariety of opinion, or accidental competition, it is
required in the third place, my lords, that whoever apprehends or
molests another on suspicion of a crime, shall be able to give the
reasons of his suspicion, and to prove them by competent evidence.

These, my lords, are three essentials which the wisdom of our ancestors
has made indispensable previous to the arrest or imprisonment of the
meanest Briton; it must appear, that there is a crime committed, that
the person to be seized is suspected of having committed it, and that
the suspicion is founded upon probability. Requisites so reasonable in
their own nature, so necessary to the protection of every man's quiet
and reputation, and, by consequence, so useful to the security and
happiness of society, that, I suppose, they will need no support or
vindication. Every man is interested in the continuance of this method
of proceeding, because no man is secure from suffering by the
interruption or abolition of it.

Such, my lords, is the care and caution which the law directs in the
first part of any criminal process, the detainment of the person
supposed guilty; nor is the method of trial prescribed with less regard
to the security of innocence.

It is an established maxim, that no man can be obliged to accuse
himself, or to answer any questions which may have any tendency to
discover what the nature of his defence requires to be concealed. His
guilt must appear either by a voluntary and unconstrained confession,
which the terrours of conscience have sometimes extorted, and the
notoriety of the crime has at other times produced, or by the deposition
of such witnesses as the jury shall think worthy of belief.

To the credibility of any witness it is always requisite that he be
disinterested, that his own cause be not involved in that of the person
who stands at the bar, that he has no prospect of advancing his fortune,
clearing his reputation, or securing his life. For it is made too plain
by daily examples, that interest will prevail over the virtue of most
men, and that it is not safe to believe those who are strongly tempted
to deceive.

There are cases, my lords, where the interest of the person offering his
evidence is so apparent, that he is not even admitted to be heard; and
any benefit which may possibly be proposed, is admitted as an objection
to evidence, and weakens it in a measure proportionate to the distance
of the prospect and the degree of profit.

Such are the rules hitherto followed in criminal proceedings, the
violation of which has been always censured as cruelty and oppression,
and perhaps always been repented even by those who proposed and defended
it, when the commotions of party have subsided, and the heat of
opposition and resentment has given way to unprejudiced reflection.

Of these rules, my lords, it is not necessary to produce any defence
from the practice of distant nations, because it is sufficient in the
present case, that they are established by the constitution of this
country, to which every Briton has a right to appeal; for how can any
man defend his conduct, if having acted under one law, he is to be tried
by another?

Let us, therefore, my lords, apply these rules to the present bill, and
inquire what regard appears to have been paid to them by the commons,
and how well we shall observe them by concurring in their design.

With respect to the first, by which it is required, that there be a
known and manifest crime, it does not appear to have engaged the least
attention in the other house; for no fact is specified in the bill, upon
which a prosecution can be founded, and, therefore, to inquire after
evidence is somewhat preposterous; it is nothing less than to invite men
to give their opinion without a subject, and to answer without a
question.

It may be urged, indeed, that there is a universal discontent over the
whole nation; that the clamour against the person mentioned in the bill,
has been continued for many years; that the influence of the nation is
impaired in foreign countries; that our treasury is exhausted; that our
liberties have been attacked, our properties invaded, and our morals
corrupted; but these are yet only rumours, without proof, and without
legal certainty; which may, indeed, with great propriety give occasion
to an inquiry, and, perhaps, by that inquiry some facts may be
ascertained which may afford sufficient reasons for farther procedure.

But such, my lords, is the form of the bill now before us, that if it
should pass into a statute, it would, in my opinion, put a stop to all
future inquiry, by making those incapable of giving evidence, who have
had most opportunities of knowing those transactions, which have given
the chief occasion of suspicion, and from whom, therefore, the most
important information must naturally be expected.

The first requisite qualification of a witness, whether we consult
natural equity and reason, or the common law of our own country, is
disinterestedness; an indifference, with regard to all outward
circumstances, about the event of the trial at which his testimony is
required. For he that is called as a witness where he is interested, is
in reality giving evidence in his own cause.

But this qualification, my lords, the bill now before us manifestly
takes away; for every man who shall appear against the person into whose
conduct the commons are inquiring, evidently promotes, in the highest
degree, his own interest by his evidence, as he may preclude all
examination of his own behaviour, and secure the possession of that
wealth which he has accumulated by fraud and oppression, or, perhaps,
preserve that life which the justice of the nation might take away.

Nothing, my lords, is more obvious, than that this offer of indemnity
may produce perjury and false accusation; nothing is more probable, than
that he who is conscious of any atrocious villanies, which he cannot
certainly secure from discovery, will snatch this opportunity of
committing one crime more, to set himself free from the dread of
punishment, and blot out his own guilt for ever, by charging lord ORFORD
as one of his accomplices.

It may be urged, my lords, that he who shall give false evidence,
forfeits the indemnity to which the honest witness is entitled; but let
us consider why this should be now, rather than in any former time,
accounted a sufficient security against falsehood and perjury. It is at
all times criminal, and at all times punishable, to commit perjury; and
yet it has been hitherto thought necessary, not only to deter it by
subsequent penalties, but to take away all previous temptations; no
man's oath will be admitted in his own cause, though offered at the
hazard of the punishment inflicted upon perjury. To offer indemnity to
invite evidence, and to deter them from false accusations by the
forfeiture of it, even though we should allow to the penal clause all
the efficacy which can be expected by those who proposed it, is only to
set one part of the bill at variance with the other, to erect and
demolish at the same time.

But it may be proved, my lords, that the reward will have more influence
than the penalty; and that every man who can reason upon the condition
in which he is placed by this bill, will be more incited to accuse lord
ORFORD, however unjustly, by the prospect of security, than intimidated
by the forfeiture incurred by perjury.

For, let us suppose, my lords, a man whose conduct exposes him to
punishment, and who knows that he shall not long be able to conceal it;
what can be more apparently his interest, than to contrive such an
accusation as may complicate his own wickedness with some transactions
of the person to whom this bill relates? He may, indeed, be possibly
confuted, and lose the benefit offered by the state; but the loss of it
will not place him in a condition more dangerous than that which he was
in before; he has already deserved all the severity to which perjury
will expose him, and by forging a bold and well-connected calumny, he
has at least a chance of escaping.

Let us suppose, my lords, that the bill now under our consideration,
assigned a pecuniary reward to any man who should appear against this
person, with a clause by which he that should accuse him falsely should
be dismissed without his pay; would not this appear a method of
prosecution contrary to law, and reason, and justice? Would not every
man immediately discover, that the witnesses were bribed, and therefore
they would deserve no credit? And what is the difference between the
advantage now offered and any other consideration, except that scarcely
any other reward can be offered so great, and consequently so likely to
influence?

It is to be remembered, that the patrons of this bill evidently call for
testimony from the abandoned and the profligate, from men whom they
suppose necessarily to confess their own crimes in their depositions;
and surely wretches like these ought not to be solicited to perjury by
the offer of a reward.

How cruel must all impartial spectators of the publick transactions
account a prosecution like this? What would be your lordships' judgment,
should you read, that in any distant age, or remote country, a man was
condemned upon the evidence of persons publickly hired to accuse him,
and who, by their own confession, were traitors to their country?

That wickedness, my lords, should be extirpated by severity, and justice
rigorously exercised upon publick offenders, is the uncontroverted
interest of every country; and therefore it is not to be doubted, that
in all ages the reflections of the wisest men have been employed upon
the most proper methods of detecting offences; and since the scheme now
proposed has never been practised, or never but by the most oppressive
tyrants, in the most flagitious times, it is evident, that it has been
thought inconsistent with equity, and of a tendency contrary to publick
happiness.

I am very far, my lords, from desiring that any breach of national trust
should escape detection, or that a publick office should afford security
to bribery, extortion, or corruption. I am far from intending to
patronise the conduct of the person mentioned in the present bill. Let
the commons proceed with the utmost severity, but let them not deviate
from justice. If he has forfeited his fortune, his honours, or his life,
let them by a legal process be taken from him; but let it always be
considered, that he, like every other man, is to be allowed the common
methods of self-defence; that he is to stand or fall by the laws of his
country, and to retain the privileges of a Briton, till it shall appear
that he has forfeited them by his crimes.

To censure guilt, my lords, is undoubtedly necessary, and to inquire
into the conduct of men in power, incontestably just; but by the laws
both of heaven and earth, the means as well as the end are prescribed,
_rectum recte, legitimum legitime faciendum_; we must not only propose a
good end in our conduct, but must attain it by that method which equity
directs, and the law prescribes.

How well, my lords, the law has been observed hitherto, on this
occasion, I cannot but propose that your lordships should consider. It
is well known, that the commons cannot claim a right to administer an
oath, and therefore can only examine witnesses by simple
interrogatories. That they cannot confer upon a committee the power
which they have not themselves, is indubitably certain; and therefore it
is evident, that they have exceeded their privileges, and proceeded in
their inquiry by methods which the laws of this nation will not support.

That they cannot, my lords, in their own right administer an oath, they
apparently confess, by the practice of calling in, on that occasion, a
justice of the peace, who, as soon as he has performed his office, is
expected to retire. This, my lords, is an evident elusion; for it is
always intended, that he who gives an oath, gives it in consequence of
his right to take the examination; but in this case the witness takes an
oath, _coram non judice_, before a magistrate that has no power to
interrogate him, and is interrogated by those who have no right to
require his oath.

Such, my lords, is my opinion of the conduct of the committee of the
house of commons, of whom I cannot but conclude that they have assumed a
right which the constitution of our government confers only on your
lordships, as a house of senate, a court of judicature; and therefore
cannot think it prudent to confirm their proceedings by an approbation
of this bill.

The commons may indeed imagine that the present state of affairs makes
it necessary to proceed by extraordinary methods; they may believe that
the nation will not be satisfied without a discovery of those frauds
which have been so long practised, and the punishment of those men by
whom they have so long thought themselves betrayed and oppressed; but
let us consider, that clamour is not evidence, and that we ought not
either to recede from justice, or from our own rights, to satisfy the
expectations of the people.

To remonstrate against this invasion of our privileges, my lords, might
be at this juncture improper; the dispute might, in this time of
commotion and vicissitude, distract the attention of those to whom the
publick affairs are committed, retard the business of the nation, and
give our enemies those advantages which they can never hope from their
own courage, or policy, or strength. It may, therefore, be prudent on
this occasion, only not to admit the right which they have assumed, to
satisfy ourselves with retaining our privileges, without requiring any
farther confirmation of them, and only defeat the invasion of them by
rejecting the bill, which is, indeed, of such a kind, as cannot be
confirmed without hazarding not only our own rights, but those of every
Briton.

For here is a species of testimony invited, which is hitherto unknown to
our law, and from which it may be difficult to tell who can be secure;
the witnesses are required to disclose all matters relating to the
conduct of _lord ORFORD, according to the best of their knowledge,
remembrance, or belief!_ A form of deposition, my lords, of great
latitude; a man's belief may be influenced by the report of others who
may deceive him, by his observation of circumstances, either remote in
themselves, or imperfectly discovered, or by his own reasonings, which
must be just or fallacious according to his abilities; but which must
yet have the same effect upon his belief, which they will influence, not
in proportion to their real strength, but to the confidence placed in
them by himself.

There is only one case, my lords, in which, by the common course of
proceedings, any regard is had to mere belief; and this evidence is only
accepted on that occasion, because no other can possibly be obtained.
When any claim is to be determined by written evidences, of which, in
order to prove their validity, it is necessary to inquire by whom they
were drawn or signed; those who are acquainted with the writing of a
dead person, are admitted to deliver, upon oath, their _belief_ that the
writing ascribed to him, was or was not his; but such secondary
witnesses are never called, when the person can be produced whose hand
is to be proved.

There is yet another reason for which it is improper to admit such
evidence as this bill has a tendency to promote. It is well known, that
in all the courts of common law, the person accused is in some degree
secured from the danger of being overborne by false accusations, by the
penalty which may be inflicted upon witnesses discovered to be perjured;
but in the method of examination now proposed, a method unknown to the
constitution, no such security can be obtained, for there is no
provision made by the laws for the punishment of a man who shall give
false evidence before a committee of the house of commons.

It may likewise be observed, that this bill wants one of the most
essential properties of a law, perspicuity and determinate meaning; here
is an indemnity promised to those who shall discover _all_ that they
_know, remember, or believe_. A very extensive demand, and which may,
therefore, be liable to more fallacies and evasions than can be
immediately enumerated or detected. For how can any one prove that he
has a claim to the indemnity? He may, indeed, make some discoveries, but
whether he does not conceal something, who can determine? May not such
reserves be suspected, when his answers shall not satisfy the
expectations of his interrogators? And may not that suspicion deprive
him of the benefit of the act? May not a man, from want of memory, or
presence of mind, omit something at his examination which he may appear
afterwards to have known? And since no human being has the power of
distinguishing exactly between faults and frailties, may not the defect
of his memory be charged on him as a criminal suppression of a known
fact? And may not he be left to suffer the consequences of his own
confession? Will not the bill give an apparent opportunity for
partiality? And will not life and death, liberty and imprisonment, be
placed in the hands of a committee of the commons? May they not be
easily satisfied with informations of one man, and incessantly press
another to farther discoveries? May they not call some men, notoriously
criminal, to examination, only to secure them from punishment, and set
them out of the reach of justice; and extort from others such answers as
may best promote their views, by declaring themselves unsatisfied with
the extent of their testimony? And will not this be an extortion of
evidence equivalent to the methods practised in the most despotick
governments, and the most barbarous nations?

It has always been the praise of this house to pay an equal regard to
justice and to mercy, and to follow, without partiality, the direction
of reason, and the light of truth; and how consistently with this
character, which it ought to be our highest ambition to maintain, we can
ratify the present bill, your lordships are this day to consider. It is
to be inquired, whether to suppose a man guilty, only because some guilt
is suspected, be agreeable to justice; and whether it be rational before
there is any proof of a crime, to point out the criminal.

We are to consider, my lords, whether it is not unjust to hear, against
any man, an evidence who is hired to accuse him, and hired with a reward
which he cannot receive without confessing himself a man unworthy of
belief. It is to be inquired, whether the evidence of a man who declares
only what he _believes_, ought to be admitted, when the nature of the
crimes allows stronger proof; and whether any man ought to be examined
where he cannot be punished if he be found perjured.

A natural and just regard to our own rights, on the preservation of
which the continuance of the constitution must depend, ought to, alarm
us at the appearance of any attempt to invade them; and the necessity of
known forms of justice, ought to incite us to the prevention of any
innovation in the methods of prosecuting offenders.

For my own part, my lords, I cannot approve either the principles or
form of the bill. I think it necessary to proceed by known precedents,
when there is no immediate danger that requires extraordinary measures,
of which I am far from being convinced that they are necessary on the
present occasion. I think that the certainty of a crime ought to precede
the prosecution of a criminal, and I see that there is, in the present
case, no crime attempted to be proved. The commons have, in my opinion,
already exceeded their privileges, and I would not willingly confirm
their new claims. For these reasons, my lords, I openly declare, that I
cannot agree to the bill's being read a second time.

Lord TALBOT spoke next, to this effect:--My lords, so high is my
veneration for this great assembly, that it is never without the utmost
efforts of resolution that I can prevail upon myself to give my
sentiments upon any question that is the subject of debate, however
strong may be my conviction, or however ardent my zeal.

But in a very particular degree do I distrust my own abilities, when I
find my opinion contrary to that of the noble lord who has now spoken;
and it is no common perplexity to be reduced to the difficult choice of
either suppressing my thoughts, or exposing them to so disadvantageous a
contrast.

Yet, since such is my present state, that I cannot avoid a declaration
of my thoughts on this question, without being condemned in my own
breast as a deserter of my country, nor utter them without the danger of
becoming contemptible in the eyes of your lordships; I will, however,
follow my conscience, rather than my interest; and though I should lose
any part of my little reputation, I shall find an ample recompense from
the consciousness that I lost it in the discharge of my duty, on an
occasion which requires from every good man the hazard of his life.

The arguments of the noble lord have had upon me an effect which they
never, perhaps, produced on any part of his audience before; they have
confirmed me in the contrary opinion to that which he has endeavoured to
maintain. It has been remarked, that in some encounters, not to be put
to flight is to obtain the victory; and, in a controversy with the noble
lord, not to be convinced by him, is to receive a sufficient proof that
the cause in which he is engaged is not to be defended by wit,
eloquence, or learning.

On the present question, my lords, as on all others, he has produced all
that can be urged, either from the knowledge of past ages, or experience
of the present; all that the scholar or the statesman can supply has
been accumulated, one argument has been added to another, and all the
powers of a great capacity have been employed, only to show that right
and wrong cannot be confounded, and that fallacy can never strike with
the force of truth.

When I survey the arguments of the noble lord, disrobed of those
ornaments which his imagination has so liberally bestowed upon them, I
am surprised at the momentary effect which they had upon my mind, and
which they could not have produced had they been clothed in the language
of any other person.

For when I recollect, singly, the particular positions upon which his
opinion seems to be founded, I do not find them by any means
uncontrovertible; some of them seem at best uncertain, and some
evidently mistaken.

That there is no apparent crime committed, and that, therefore, no legal
inquiry can be made after the criminal, I cannot hear without
astonishment. Is our commerce ruined, are our troops destroyed, are the
morals of the people vitiated, is the senate crowded with dependants,
are our fleets disarmed, our allies betrayed, and our enemies supported
without a crime? Was there no certainty of any crime committed, when it
was moved to petition his majesty to dismiss this person from his
councils for ever.

It has been observed, my lords, that nothing but a sight of the dead
body can warrant a pursuit after the murderer; but this is a concession
sufficient for the present purpose; for if, upon the sight of a murdered
person, the murderer may lawfully be inquired after, and those who are
reasonably suspected detained and examined; with equal reason, my lords,
may the survey of a ruined nation, a nation oppressed with burdensome
taxes, devoured by the caterpillars of a standing army, sunk into
contempt in every foreign court, and repining at the daily decay of its
commerce, and the daily multiplication of its oppressors, incite us to
an inquiry after the author of its miseries.

It is asserted, that no man ought to be called into question for any
crime, who is not suspected of having committed it. This, my lords, is a
rule not only reasonable in itself, but so naturally observed, that I
believe it was never yet broken; and am certain, no man will be charged
with the violation of it, for accusing this person as an enemy to his
country.

But he that declares his suspicion, may be called upon to discover upon
what facts it is founded; nor will this part of the law produce any
difficulty in the present case; for as every man in the nation suspects
this person of the most enormous crimes, every man can produce
sufficient arguments to justify his opinion.

On all other occasions, my lords, publick fame is allowed some weight:
that any man is universally accounted wicked, will add strength to the
testimony brought against him for any particular offence; and it is at
least a sufficient reason for calling any man to examination, that a
crime is committed, and he is generally reported to be the author of it.

That this is the state of the person into whose conduct the commons are
now inquiring; that he is censured by every man in the kingdom, whose
sentiments are not repressed by visible influence; that he has no
friends but those who have sold their integrity for the plunder of the
publick; and that all who are not enemies to their country, have, for
many years, incessantly struggled to drag him down from the pinnacle of
power, and expose him to that punishment which he has so long deserved,
and so long defied, is evident beyond contradiction.

Let it not, therefore, be urged, my lords, that there is no certainty of
a crime which is proved to the conviction of every honest mind; let it
not be said that it is unreasonable to suspect this man, whom the voice
of the people, a voice always to be reverenced, has so long condemned.

The method of procuring evidence against him by an act of indemnity has
been represented by the noble lord as not agreeable to justice or to
law: in the knowledge of the law I am far from imagining myself able to
contend with him; but I think it may not be improper to observe, that a
person of the highest eminence in that profession, whose long study and
great abilities give his decisions an uncommon claim to authority and
veneration, and who was always considered in this house with the highest
regard, appears to have entertained a very different opinion.

It was declared by him, without the least restriction, that all means
were lawful which tended to the discovery of truth; and, therefore, the
publick may justly expect that extraordinary methods should be used upon
occasions of uncommon importance.

Nor does this expedient appear to me very remote from the daily practice
of promising pardon to thieves, on condition that they will make
discoveries by which their confederates may be brought to justice.

If we examine only the equity of this procedure, without regard to the
examples of former times, it appears to me easily defensible; for what
can be more rational than to break a confederacy of wretches combined
for the destruction of the happiness of mankind, by dividing their
interest, and making use, for the publick good, of that regard for their
own safety, which has swallowed up every other principle of action?

It is admitted that wickedness ought to be punished, and it is
universally known that punishment must be preceded by detection; any
method, therefore, that promotes the discovery of crimes may be
considered as advantageous to the publick.

As there is no wickedness of which the pernicious consequences are more
extensive, there is none which ought more diligently to be prevented, or
more severely punished, than that of those men who have dared to abuse
the power which their country has put into their hands; but how they can
be convicted by any other means than those which are now proposed, I
confess myself unable to discover; for by a very small degree of
artifice, a man invested with power may make every witness a partner of
his guilt, and no man will be able to accuse him, without betraying
himself. In the present case it is evident, that the person of whose
actions the bill now before us is designed to produce a more perfect
discovery, has been combined with others in illegal measures, in
measures which their own security obliges them to conceal, and which,
therefore, the interest of the publick demands to be divulged.

That Paxton has distributed large sums for purposes which he dares not
discover, we are informed by the reports of the secret committee; and I
suppose every body suspects that they were distributed as rewards for
services which the nation thinks not very meritorious, and I believe no
man will ask what reason can be alleged for such suspicions.

But since it may be possibly suggested that Paxton expended these sums
contrary to his master's direction, or without his knowledge, it may be
demanded, whether such an assertion would not be an apparent proof of a
very criminal degree of negligence in a man intrusted with the care of
the publick treasure?

Thus, my lords, it appears in my opinion evident, that either he has
concurred in measures which his servile agent, the mercenary tool of
wickedness, is afraid to confess, or that he has stood by, negligent of
his trust, and suffered the treasure of the nation to be squandered by
the meanest wretches without account.

That the latter part of the accusation is undoubtedly just, the report
of the commons cannot but convince us. It appears that for near eight
years, Paxton was so high in confidence, that no account was demanded
from him; he bestowed pensions at pleasure; he was surrounded, like his
master, by his idolaters; and after the fatigue of cringing in one
place, had an opportunity of purchasing the taxes of the nation, the
gratification of tyranny in another.

I presume, my lords, that no man dares assert such a flagrant neglect of
so important an office, to be not criminal in a very high degree; to
steal in private houses that which is received in trust, is felony by
the statutes of our country; and surely the wealth of the publick ought
not to be less secured than that of individuals, nor ought he that
connives at robbery to be treated with more lenity than the robber.

Therefore, my lords, as I cannot but approve of the bill, I move that it
may be read a second time; and I hope the reasons which I have offered,
when joined with others, which I expect to hear from lords of a greater
experience, knowledge, and capacity, will induce your lordships to be of
the same opinion.

Lord HERVEY spoke next, to this effect:--My lords, as the bill now
before us is of a new kind, upon an occasion no less new, I have
endeavoured to bestow upon it a proportionate degree of attention, and
have considered it in all the lights in which I could place it; I have,
in my imagination, connected with it all the circumstances with which it
is accompanied, and all the consequences that it may produce either to
the present age, or to futurity; but the longer I reflect upon it, the
more firmly am I determined to oppose it; nor has deliberation any other
effect, than to crowd my thoughts with new arguments against it, and to
heighten dislike to detestation.

It must, my lords, immediately occur to every man, at the first mention
of the method of proceeding now proposed, that it is such as nothing but
extreme necessity can vindicate; that the noble person against whom it
is contrived, must be a monster burdensome to the world; that his crimes
must be at once publick and enormous, and that he has been already
condemned by all maxims of justice, though he has had the subtilty to
escape by some unforeseen defect in the forms of law. It might be
imagined, my lords, that there were the most evident marks of guilt in
the conduct of the man thus censured, that he fled from the justice of
his country, that he had openly suborned witnesses in his favour, or
had, by some artifice certainly known, obstructed the evidence that was
to have been brought against him. It might at least be reasonably
conceived, that his crimes were of such a kind as might in their own
nature easily be concealed, and that, therefore, some extraordinary
measures were necessary for the discovery of wickedness which lay out of
the reach of common inquiry.

But, my lords, none of these circumstances can be now alleged; for there
is no certainty of any crime committed, nor any appearance of
consciousness or fear in the person accused, who sets his enemies at
defiance in full security, and declines no legal trial of his past
actions; of which it ought to be observed, that they have, by the nature
of his employments, been so publick, that they may easily be examined
without recourse to a new law to facilitate discoveries.

The bill, therefore, is, my lords, at least unnecessary, and an
innovation not necessary ought always to be rejected, because no man can
foresee all the consequences of new measures, or can know what evils
they may create, or what subsequent changes they may introduce. The
alteration of one part of a system naturally requires the alteration of
another.

But, my lords, that there is no necessity for this law now proposed, is
not the strongest argument that may be brought against it, for there is
in reality a necessity that it should be rejected. Justice and humanity
are necessarily to be supported, without which no society can subsist,
nor the life or property of any man be enjoyed with security: and
neither justice nor humanity can truly be said to reside, where a law
like this has met with approbation.

My lords, to prosecute any man by such methods, is to overbear him by
the violence of power, to take from him all the securities of innocence,
and divest him of all the means of self-defence. It is to hire against
him those whose testimonies ought not to be admitted, if they were
voluntarily produced, and of which, surely, nothing will be farther
necessary to annihilate the validity, than to observe that they are the
depositions of men who are villains by their own confession, and of whom
the nation sees, that they may save their lives by a bold accusation,
whether true or false.

That the bill will, indeed, be effectual to the purposes designed, that
it will crowd the courts of justice with evidence, and open scenes of
wickedness never discovered before, I can readily believe; for I cannot
imagine that any man who has exposed his life by any flagrant crime,
will miss so fair an opportunity of saving it by another. I shall
expect, my lords, that villains of all denominations, who are now
skulking in private retreats, who are eluding the officers of justice,
or flying before the publick pursuit of the country, will secure
themselves by this easy expedient; and that housebreakers, highwaymen,
and pickpockets, will come up in crowds to the bar, charge the earl of
ORFORD as their accomplice, and plead this bill as a security against
all inquiry.

That this supposition, however wild and exaggerated it may seem, may not
be thought altogether chimerical; that it may appear with how little
consideration this bill has been drawn, and how easily it may be
perverted to the patronage of wickedness, I will lay before your
lordships such a plea as may probably be produced by it.

A man whom the consciousness of murder has for some time kept in
continual terrours, may clear himself for ever, by alleging, that he was
commissioned by the earl of ORFORD to engage, with any certain sum, the
vote or interest of the murdered person; that he took the opportunity of
a solitary place to offer him the bribe, and prevail upon him to comply
with his proposals; but that finding him obstinate and perverse, filled
with prejudices against a wise and just administration, and inclined to
obstruct the measures of the government, he for some time expostulated
with him; and being provoked by his contumelious representations of the
state of affairs, he could no longer restrain the ardour of his loyalty,
but thought it proper to remove from the world a man so much inclined to
spread sedition among the people; and that, therefore, finding the place
convenient, he suddenly rushed upon him and cut his throat.

Thus, my lords, might the murderer represent his case, perhaps, without
any possibility of a legal confutation; thus might the most atrocious
villanies escape censure, by the assistance of impudence and cunning.

A bill like this, my lords, is nothing less than a proscription; the
head of a citizen is apparently set to sale, and evidence is hired, by
which the innocent and the guilty may be destroyed with equal facility.

It is apparent, my lords, that they by whom this bill is proposed, act
upon the supposition that the noble person mentioned in it, is guilty of
all those crimes of which he is suspected; a supposition, my lords,
which it is unjust to make, and to which neither reason, nor the laws of
our country, will give countenance or support.

I, my lords, will much more equitably suppose him innocent; I will
suppose that he has, throughout all the years of his administration,
steadily prosecuted the best ends, by the best means; that if he has
sometimes been mistaken or disappointed, it has been neither by his
negligence nor ignorance, but by false intelligence, or accidents not to
be foreseen; and that he has never either sacrificed his country to
private interest, or procured, by any illegal methods, the assistance
and support of the legislature; and I will ask your lordships, whether,
if this character be just, the bill ought to be passed, and doubt not
but every man's conscience will inform him, that it ought to be rejected
with the utmost indignation.

The reason, my lords, for which it ought to be rejected, is evidently
this, that it may bring innocence into danger. But, my lords, every man
before his trial is to be supposed innocent, and, therefore, no man
ought to be exposed to the hazards of a trial, by which virtue and
wickedness are reduced to a level. A bill like this ought to be marked
out as the utmost effort of malice, as a species of cruelty never known
before, and as a method of prosecution which this house has censured.

I did not, indeed, expect from those who have so long clamoured with
incessant vehemence against the measures of the ministry, such an open
confession of their own weakness. Nothing, my lords, was so frequently
urged, or so warmly exaggerated, as the impossibility of procuring
evidence against a man in power; nothing was more confidently asserted,
than that his guilt would be easily proved when his authority was at an
end; and that even his own agents would readily detect him, when they
were no longer dependant upon his favour.

The time, my lords, so long expected, and so ardently desired, is at
length come; this noble person whom they have so long pursued with
declamations, invectives, and general reproaches, has at length resigned
those offices which set him above punishment or trial; he is now without
any other security than that by which every other man is sheltered from
oppression, the publick protection of the laws of his country; but he is
yet found impregnable, he is yet able to set his enemies at defiance;
and they have, therefore, now, with great sagacity, contrived a method
by which he may be divested of the common privileges of a social being,
and may be hunted like a wild beast, without defence, and without pity.

Where, my lords, can it be expected that malice like this will find an
end? Is it not reasonable to imagine that if they should be gratified in
this demand, and should find even this expedient baffled by the
abilities which they have so often encountered without success, they
would proceed to measures yet more atrocious, and punish him without
evidence, whom they call to a trial without a crime.

It has been observed by the noble lord who spoke last, that there are
crimes mentioned in the report of the secret committee of the house of
commons, or that at least such facts are asserted in it, that an
accusation may, by easy deductions, be formed from them. The report of
that committee, my lords, with whatever veneration it may be mentioned,
by those whose purposes it happens to favour, or of whatever importance
it may be in the other house, is here nothing but a pamphlet, not to be
regarded as an evidence, or quoted as a writing of authority. It is only
an account of facts of which we know not how they were collected, and
which every one may admit or reject at his own choice, till they are
ascertained by proper evidence at our own bar, and which, therefore,
ought not to influence our opinion in the present debate.

Nor is the bill, my lords, only founded upon principles inconsistent
with the constitution of this nation, apparently tending to the
introduction of a new species of oppression, but is in itself such as
cannot be ratified without injury to the honour of this great assembly.

In examining the bill, my lords, I think it not necessary to dwell upon
the more minute and trivial defects of the orthography and expression,
though they are such as might justly give occasion for suspecting that
they by whom it was written, were no less strangers to our language than
to our constitution. There are errours or falsehoods which it more
nearly concerns us to detect, and to which we cannot give any sanction,
without an evident diminution of our own authority.

It declares, my lords, that there is now an inquiry depending before the
senate, an assertion evidently false, for the inquiry is only before the
commons. Whether this was inserted by mistake or design, whether it was
intended to insinuate that the whole senatorial power was comprised in
the house of commons, or to persuade the nation that your lordships
concurred with them in this inquiry, it is not possible to determine;
but since it is false in either sense, it ought not to receive our
confirmation.

If we should pass the bill in its present state, we should not only
declare our approbation of the measures hitherto pursued by the commons,
by which it has been already proved, by the noble and learned lord who
spoke first against the bill, that they have not only violated the law,
but invaded the privileges of this house. We should not only establish
for ever in a committee of the house of commons, the power of examining
upon oath, by an elusive and equivocatory expedient, but we should in
effect vote away our own existence, give up at once all authority in the
government, and grant them an unlimited power, by acknowledging them the
senate, an acknowledgment which might, in a very short time, be quoted
against us, and from which it would not be easy for us to extricate
ourselves.

It has, indeed, been remarked, that there is a large sum of money
disbursed without account, and the publick is represented as apparently
injured, either by fraud or negligence; but it is not remembered that
none but his majesty has a right to inquire into the distribution of the
revenue appropriated to the support of his family and dignity, and the
payment of his servants, and which, therefore, cannot, in any degree, be
called publick money, or fall under the cognizance of those whom it
concerns to inspect the national accounts. Either the civil list must be
exempt from inquiries, or his majesty must be reduced to a state below
that of the meanest of his subjects; he can enjoy neither freedom nor
property, and must be debarred for ever from those blessings which he is
incessantly labouring to secure to others.

There is, likewise, another consideration, which my regard for the
honour of this assembly suggested to me, and of which I doubt not but
that all your lordships will allow the importance. The noble person who
is pointed out in this bill as a publick criminal, and whom all the
villains of the kingdom are invited to accuse, is invested with the same
honours as ourselves, and has a son who has for many years possessed a
seat amongst us; let us not, therefore, concur with the commons to load
our own house with infamy, and to propagate reproach, which will at last
fix upon ourselves.

Innumerable are the objections, my lords, which might yet be urged, and
urged without any possibility of reply; but as I have already been heard
with so much patience, I think what has been already mentioned
sufficient to determine the question: and as I doubt not but the other
defects and absurdities will be observed, if it be necessary, by some
other lords, I shall presume only to add, that as the bill appears to me
contrary to the laws of this nation, to the common justice of society,
and to the general reason of mankind, as it must naturally establish a
precedent of oppression, and confirm a species of authority in the other
house which was either never claimed before, or always denied; as I
think the most notorious and publick criminal ought not to be deprived
of that method of defence which the established customs of our country
allow him, and believe the person mentioned in this bill to deserve
rather applauses and rewards, than censures and punishments, I think
myself obliged to oppose it, and hope to find your lordships unanimous
in the same opinion.

Then the duke of ARGYLE answered, in substance as follows:--My lords,
whatever may be the fate of this question, I have little hope that it
will be unanimously decided, because I have reason to fear that some
lords have conceived prejudices against the bill, which hinder them from
discovering either its reasonableness or its necessity; and am convinced
that others who approve the bill, can support their opinion by arguments
from which, as they cannot be confuted, they never will recede.

Those arguments which have influenced my opinion, I will lay before your
lordships, and doubt not of showing that I am very far from giving way
to personal malice, or the prejudices of opposition; and that I regard
only the voice of reason, and the call of the nation.

Calmness and impartiality, my lords, have been, with great propriety,
recommended to us by the noble lord who spoke first in this debate; and
I hope he will discover by the moderation with which I shall deliver my
sentiments on this occasion, how much I reverence his precepts, and how
willingly I yield to his authority.

I am at least certain, that I have hitherto listened to the arguments
that have been offered on either side with an attention void of
prejudice; I have repressed no motions of conviction, nor abstracted my
mind from any difficulty, to avoid the labour of solving it: I have been
solicitous to survey every position in its whole extent, and trace it to
its remotest consequences; I have assisted the arguments against the
bill by favourable suppositions, and imaginary circumstances, and have
endeavoured to divest my own opinion of some appendant and accidental
advantages, that I might view it in a state less likely to attract
regard; and yet I cannot 

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