body, but with that of at least nine-tenths of the people out of doors. Is the house and country prepared for such sacrifices, such sweeping preliminaries?

The honourable gentleman objects also to the conduct of ministers with respect to peerages. Here, too, he is, as usual, general and indistinct. What is it he means? Does he intend to say the prerogative of the crown to create peers should be extinguished? How does he limit his objections? What exceptions are they that he makes? Does he mean that no vacancies should be filled up, that he may supply large arrears when he comes into power, in the way formerly used, when, as he says,

peerage was given as an honour." Till particulars are mentioned, it is impossible to reply to such vague charges, which rather impeach the constitution than criminate the ministers. These, however, are the principal allegations, for which it is contended that ministers deserve to be dismissed from their offices, in order that others more competent to forward the national ininterests should serve the public in their stead.

If we pass the bill, the right honourable gentleman says that we shall not be considered as the representatives of the people, intimating thereby some doubt, at least, that we are not now the substantial and virtual representatives of that body. How does he make that assertion good? Because, he says, large meetings of the people have expressed their disapprobation of the bill; and therefore, if we do not adopt their opinions, he infers we have no sympathy with them, and in no sense whatever can be called their representatives. In the first place, I must observe, that these meetings were only held in the metropolis; that in other parts of the kingdom no disapprobation has been expressed, and that, even in the metropolis itself, the opposition has a good deal subsided since the modifications, which have removed the principal causes of objection. In the next place, I shall never agree that this house, as the representatives of the people, are bound to bend to every partial and unsettled opinion of that body. I mean not to deny that we should give due weight to the influence of public opinion; but it never was

the principle of the constitution, that the representatives of the people should shift with every breath of popular desire. Nothing could be more inconsistent with true wisdom and public utility, than that the legislators should be influenced by every fleeting and partial expression of the public will. How easy was it in the present case, by misrepresentation, and an imperfect view of the bill in its operation, to raise in the first instance a popular clamour against it! A general disinclination towards it appeared in the public meetings within the metropolis; but no sooner was the subject fully understood, and its particular hardships removed, than it was regarded in a very different light, as appeared by the proceedings of the common-hall in the city, and other parts. The gentlemen opposite to me are ready enough, on all occasions, not only to condemn the conduct of his Majesty's ministers, but also to make the public a party to their cause. [ have not only a right to consider them as prejudiced in this respect, but, from frequent experience, erroneous also; for in many cases where they have as loudly maintained the public opinion was with them, on a fair enquiry, where occasion offered, we have found the fact to be directly the reverse. Is it in the nature of things, that a heavy and general tax can, in the first instance, be popular? And, on the contrary, it ever must be the easiest of all things, by artifice and misrepresentation, to raise a clamour against any such measure on its first breaking upon the public mind. It is hardly possible for such a tax to be popular and cheerfully received. All taxes are necessarily hardships, and must be submitted to, not from pleasure, but a sense of public duty and I hope with confideuce that this tax will be so received by the good sense and fortitude of the people; and that, when it comes to be explained and amended, they will submit to the sacrifices it enjoins, as a measure of urgent necessity, under circumstances of the most severe trial that this nation ever experienced. It does not, however, enter into my ideas of, public duty, that the legislature should consult the popular opinion at the expense of public safety.

There was one part of the right honourable gentleman's speech that I am impelled to notice, from the extraordinary request it contained. He admitted the great use of unanimity, and allowed, that in this critical period in particular it was highly desirable. The mode, however, in which he means to obtain it is, in my opinion, somewhat singular. He says, we the minority conceiv ing ourselves right, will not yield to you, the majority, but, as unanimity is desirable, you should undoubtedly come over to our opinion. So that the majority are thus called upon at once to forego their opinions, though adopted after long and frequent debate, and to tread back all their steps, and admit themselves to be wrong, although they knew themselves to be right! This was the reasonable request his arguments conveyed; and we were told that a zealous unanimity was to be expected on no other terms. In like manner he requires us to postpone the bill indefinitely, though arising from urgent necessity, and calculated for security and defence, until he shall in his good time return to his parliamentary duty, and, as occasion suits, unfold to our view, for separate discussion, all the parts of that radical change in our system which he projects.

As to the principles of individual conduct in this house, it is not now a general question of how far a member is authorised to secede from his attendance; but, in my opinion, that virtual representation, of which the right honourable gentleman is so fond, cannot be more completely violated than by a dereliction of duty, particularly in a moment of imminent danger to the country. And this is doubtless aggravated if it should be done with a view of depreciating the body of which he is a member, and to alienate the affections of the people from it. I can hardly conceive how a man can act in grosser violation of his duty as a member of parliament, than by such a conduct. Much of the fact, in such a case, must be collected from attendant circumstances. I shall not now inquire by what motives those gentlemen acted (Mr. Burke and others), alluded to by the right ho nourable gentleman, who seceded in the American war; but I

recollect that his own secession was announced after the motion made by an honourable gentleman* for parliamentary reform; and that, in the course of that debate, the right honourable gentleman said, that, unless the measures were adopted, the house would not be any longer intitled to the respect of the people out of doors. As to the general principle, nothing can be more certain than that it is a violation of duty to desert a post committed to one's charge, and that it increases, in exact proportion to the danger of those for whom we undertake the charge. Now it did so happen, that the right honourable gentleman could not, in his whole political career, have chosen a moment of secession more encompassed with danger than the one in which he actually did secede. The motive, therefore, is at best suspicious, and declining to attend under such circumstances led at least to inquiry, whether by keeping away he sought opportunities to effect that, by inflaming the people without these walls, which no exertion of his talents could achieve within. He retired just as the rancour of our enemy became most inveterate, and exclusively directed to this country, and when the manifestation of their malice called forth the spirit and zeal of all classes to support our national independence and honour. Just at this juncture it was that the right honourable gentleman thought proper to retire.

On what ground is it that gentlemen oppose this bill? Do they deny the danger that surrounds us? Do they maintain that exertion is not necessary? that it can be suspended with safety? No; they do not attempt to do either; but, as the means of obtaining their own objects, they are willing to risk the honour, welfare, and existence of the country. The right honourable gentleman had asserted his right to secede on his own motives of expediency, and, of course, those who surround him will not object if I take their justification on the same principle; but the right honourable gentleman, it seems, retains his opinion of that expediency, and only now appears at the particular injunction of his constituents to defend their local interest. How comes it, then, that he appears so surrounded

* Mr. Grey.

with friends, who, adopting his principle of secession, have not, in the desire of their constituents, the same motive for his particular exception? Can any thing shew in a stronger light the blind acquiescence of party zeal, when, in defiance of every avowed principle of their public conduct, they now attend to add to the splendour of their leader's entry?

There is one point in the constitution of this country, in which difference of opinion arises, namely, concerning the instructions. of constituents to their representatives. Some think themselves bound to obey them, whatever their individual opinion may be on the subject. Others thinking those instructions intitled to their respect, yet follow the dictates of their own consciences. Of this latter class the right honourable gentleman professes himself to be. According, therefore, to his own admission, he now attends in spite of his own opinion of the expediency of secession, to discuss the local interest of his constituents. He, nevertheless, declined attending in that stage of the bill in which alone he could be of service in that particular, by proposing reliefs for the particular hardships his constituents might sustain; and now, without noticing the modifications made, he objects to other particulars, without suggesting or moving any remedy! He came here to oppose its local and partial effect, yet indulges only in a general and indiscriminate opposition to it; and professing to come for the express purpose of discussing this bill, he introduces every topic that has been decided during the long period of his absence! The house must therefore decide in what spirit, and for what real purpose he now appears. Nothing that he has said can be understood as touching in any degree the question now before us. He may, indeed, be said to reproach his Majesty's ministers, but can with no propriety be said to speak to the subject for which his constituents directed him to attend.

With respect to many objections urged in the course of the debate, I must say, in general, that if gentlemen had attended in the proper stage of the bill, they would have heard them answered. It is not that the objections are unanswerable, but they