had come off crowned with laurels. But now thofe laurels
appear to be tarnished, and withering on his brows; and I re-
gret the fad alteration in his fentiments, which have deprived
me of a firm and valuable affiftant in the profecution of Indian
delinquents. I am informed, that he has frequently fat with
the utmost composure of mind, and heard those Reports, both
of the Select and Secret Committees, abufed and calumniated
as fictions of the brain, fables, and affertions void of any degree
of truth. I fhould have liked to have been prefent on those
memorable occafions, when the right honourable gentleman, by
his filence, affented to the truth of those arguments; for I
would have wished to have obferved how his countenance ap◄
peared, when fuch an infult was offered to his understanding.
The right honourable gentleman's conduct brings to my recol-
lection the story that is related in the Bible concerning the
wifdom of Solomon, in which it is faid, that a certain woman
ftole a child from the real mother, and, on being detected, fhe
ftill infifted that it was her child. The matter coming before
Solomon for his decifion, he took a fword, and was about to
cut the child in two; when the real mother, whose heart was
full of maternal affection, cried aloud, and would on no ac-
count whatever confent to the death of her child.
This was
the celebrated inftance of Solomon's wisdom, by which he dis-
covered the real mother, and gave the world to expect the
greatest happiness from his prudence. The right honourable
gentleman appears on many occafions to be a Solomon, but not
by his defence of the Reports in the new Parliament; for al-
though he is the father of the child that has been produced in
the Committee-the five handsome volumes in folio-when it
was about to be torn in pieces by gentlemen of a certain de-
scription, who trembled at the consequence, if the relations of
plunder, peculation, and murders, were believed; when the
child was about to be torn in pieces, by feveral gentlemen
taking it by the legs, and afferting that it was a bastard, a fic-
tion of the brain, totally void of truth; when that was the

cafe,

cafe, the right honourable gentleman fat with the greatest tranquillity and in order to infinuate that he was not the father of the child, he left the other fide of the House-the oppofition---the happy privilege of calling aloud, "Stop! ftop your facrilegious hand." This was acting perhaps wifely, but not according to the juftice and wifdom of Solomon. Mr. Burke, July 28, 1784.

The right honourable gentleman (Mr. Pitt) fo frequently alludes to the American war that I verily believe he could not speak at all, if he were to forbear the mention of it, in like manner as Mr. Locke relates in his chapter on the affociation of ideas, that a man who had been fond of dancing in a room in which an old trunk stood, could not ftir a step when the trunk was removed.

Mr. Courtenay, May 10, 1785.

The Committee fhould not be fcrupulous, in viewing the Propofitions for a commercial treaty between Great Britain and Ireland, fixing their eyes on any trifling defect, if any fhould be found in this great and excellent fyftem. I will borrow the allufion of the ftatue and the pedestal, and apply it to the present cafe. The most celebrated sculptor of antiquity had finished a statue, which was laying on the ground, and one perfon found one fault with it, and another another; here a speck, there a flaw; but when placed on its pedestal, all these little deformities, and irregularities of the furface, difappeared; and every one, when it was placed in its true point of view, and was feen altogether, was ready to acknowledge the fymmetry of the proportion, and the beauty of the whole figure.

Mr. Wilberforce, May 19, 1785.

VOL. II.

Σ

TAXA

ALL public affemblies must be compofed of perfons who

have very different ways of thinking, different interests, and different ends. Every tax that can be propofed will be objected to by fome of thofe who are to pay it, and the moft unequal taxes will be approved of, and preferred to the most equal by thofe who are to contribute nothing, or a very little thereto. The Journals of this Houfe may afford us many examples of petitions prefented, and a vigorous oppofition made, against things that have in their own nature appeared to be an univerfal benefit to mankind. Those who live by the neceffities of mankind, will for ever oppose what is propofed for their relief; from hence it is, that we always fee great oppofition made to all attempts for improving the navigation of rivers, or of wafte lands and commons; we are therefore never to conclude against the public benefit of any propofition, because we fee it violently oppofed.

Envy and malice will often prompt men to oppose what is apparently for their own immediate benefit, as well as for the benefit of their country. Every man, I believe, even in a private station of life, has enemies, but those who are in any public station have always a great many. Those who envy them, will always grudge them the glory of doing any thing for the public good, and will endeavour to defeat, or to give a wrong turn to whatever they propofe for the benefit of their country, or for the ease of the people.

Sir Robert Walpole, Feb. 9, 1732.

I came to town but to-day; I was a stranger to the tenor of His Majefty's fpeech, and the propofed address, till I heard them read in this House. Unconnected and un

confulted, I have not the means of information. As to the

prefent

prefent gentlemen, to thofe at least whom I have in my eye (looking at the Bench where Mr. Conway fat, with the Lords of the Treafury) I have not any objec→ tion; I have never been made a facrifice to any of them. Their characters are fair; and I am always glad when men of fair character engage in His Majesty's fervice. Some of them have done me the honour to ask my poor opinion, before they would engage. Thefe will do me the juftice to own, I advised them to engage; but notwithstanding-I love to be explicit-I cannot give them my confidence; pardon me, gentlemen, (bowing to the Minifters) confidence is a plant of flow growth in an aged bofom youth is the feafon of credulity; by comparing events with each other, reafoning from effects to caufes, methinks I plainly discover the traces of an overruling influence.

There is a claufe in the A&t of Settlement to oblige every Minifter to fign his name to the advice which he gives his Sovereign. Would it were obferved! I have had the honour to ferve the crown, and if I could have submitted to influence, I might have ftill continued to ferve; but I would not be refponfible for others I have no local attachments; it is indifferent to me whether a man was rocked in his cradle on this fide or that fide the Tweed.-I fought for merit wherever it was to be found.It is my boaft, that I was the firft Minifter who looked for it, and I found it in the mountains of the North. I called forth, and drew into your fervice, an hardy and intrepid race of men! men, who, when left by your jealousy, became a prey to the artifices of your enemies, and had gone nigh to have overturned the ftate, in the war before the laft. These men, in the laft war, were brought to combat on your fide: they ferved with fidelity, as they fought with valour, and conquered for you in every part of the

world detefted be the national reflections against them they are unjust, groundless, illiberal, unmanly. When I ceased to serve His Majefty as a Minifter, it was not the country of the man by which I was moved-but the man of that country wanted wisdom, and held principles incompatible with freedom,

It is a long time, Mr. Speaker, fince I have attended in Parliament. When the refolution was taken in the Houfe to tax America, I was ill in bed. If I could have endured. to have been carried in my bed, fo great was the agitation of my mind for the confequences, I would have folicited fome kind hand to have laid me down on this floor, to have borne my teftimony against it. It is now an act that has paffed. I would speak with decency of every act of this, House, but I must beg the indulgence of the Houfe to speak of it with freedom.

I hope a day will foon be appointed to confider the state of the nation with refpect to America. I hope gentlemen will come to this debate with all the temper and impartiality that His Majefty recommends, and the importance of the subject requires. A fubject of greater importance than ever engaged the attention of this House! that fubject only excepted, when, pear a century ago, it was the question, whether you your felves were to be bound or free. In the mean time, as I cannot depend upon health for any future day, fuch is the nature of my infirmities, I will beg leave to fay a few words at prefent, leaving the juftice, the equity, the policy, the expediency of the act, to another time. I will only speak to one point, a point which feems not to be generally understood-I mean to the right.-Some gentlemen (alluding to Mr. Nugent) feem to have confidered it as a point of honour. If gentlemen confider it in that light, they leave all measures of right and wrong, to follow a delufion that may lead to deftruction. It is my opinion that this kingdom has no right to lay a tax upon the Colonies.

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