ancestors, he is always in Parliament to serve
his country or in the field to defend it. But in all well-wrought
compositions some particulars stand out more eminently than the rest;
and the things which will carry his name to posterity are his two bills:
I mean that for a limitation of the claims of the crown upon landed
estates, and this for the relief of the Roman Catholics. By the former
he has emancipated property; by the latter he has quieted conscience;
and by both he has taught that grand lesson to government and
subject,--no longer to regard each other as adverse parties.

Such was the mover of the act that is complained of by men who are not
quite so good as he is,--an act most assuredly not brought in by him
from any partiality to that sect which is the object of it. For among
his faults I really cannot help reckoning a greater degree of prejudice
against that people than becomes so wise a man. I know that he inclines
to a sort of disgust, mixed with a considerable degree of asperity, to
the system; and he has few, or rather no habits with any of its
professors. What he has done was on quite other motives. The motives
were these, which he declared in his excellent speech on his motion for
the bill: namely, his extreme zeal to the Protestant religion, which he
thought utterly disgraced by the act of 1699; and his rooted hatred to
all kind of oppression, under any color, or upon any pretence
whatsoever.

The seconder was worthy of the mover and the motion. I was not the
seconder; it was Mr. Dunning, recorder of this city. I shall say the
less of him because his near relation to you makes you more particularly
acquainted with his merits. But I should appear little acquainted with
them, or little sensible of them, if I could utter his name on this
occasion without expressing my esteem for his character. I am not afraid
of offending a most learned body, and most jealous of its reputation for
that learning, when I say he is the first of his profession. It is a
point settled by those who settle everything else; and I must add (what
I am enabled to say from my own long and close observation) that there
is not a man, of any profession, or in any situation, of a more erect
and independent spirit, of a more proud honor, a more manly mind, a more
firm and determined integrity. Assure yourselves, that the names of two
such men will bear a great load of prejudice in the other scale before
they can be entirely outweighed.