y than by
intemperate acquisition.

In my opinion, it is our duty, when we have the desires of the people
before us, to pursue them, not in the spirit of literal obedience, which
may militate with their very principle,--much less to treat them with a
peevish and contentious litigation, as if we were adverse parties in a
suit. It would, Sir, be most dishonorable for a faithful representative
of the Commons to take advantage of any inartificial expression of the
people's wishes, in order to frustrate their attainment of what they
have an undoubted right to expect. We are under infinite obligations to
our constituents, who have raised us to so distinguished a trust, and
have imparted such a degree of sanctity to common characters. We ought
to walk before them with purity, plainness, and integrity of
heart,--with filial love, and not with slavish fear, which is always a
low and tricking thing. For my own part, in what I have meditated upon
that subject, I cannot, indeed, take upon me to say I have the honor _to
follow_ the sense of the people. The truth is, _I met it on the way_,
while I was pursuing their interest according to my own ideas. I am
happy beyond expression to find that my intentions have so far coincided
with theirs, that I have not had, cause to be in the least scrupulous to
sign their petition, conceiving it to express my own opinions, as nearly
as general terms can express the object of particular arrangements.

I am therefore satisfied to act as a fair mediator between government
and the people, endeavoring to form a plan which should have both an
early and a temperate operation. I mean, that it should be substantial,
that it should be systematic, that it should rather strike at the first
cause of prodigality and corrupt influence than attempt to follow them
in all their effects.

It was to fulfil the first of these objects (the proposal of something
substantial) that I found myself obliged, at the outset, to reject a
plan proposed by an honorable and attentive member of Parliament,[33]
with very good intentions on his part, about a year or two ago. Sir, the
plan I speak of was the tax of twenty-five per cent moved upon places
and pensions during the continuance of the American war. Nothing, Sir,
could have met my ideas more than such a tax, if it was considered as a
practical satire on that war, and as a penalty upon those who led us
into it; but in any other view it appeared to me very liable to
objec