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
