at the same time to secure the means of performing that task, they
will exchange independence for protection, and will court a subservient
existence through the favor of those ministers of state or those secret
advisers who ought themselves to stand in awe of the Commons of this
realm.

A House of Commons respected by his ministers is essential to his
Majesty's service: it is fit that they should yield to Parliament, and
not that Parliament should be new-modelled until it is fitted to their
purposes. If our authority is only to be held up when we coincide in
opinion with his Majesty's advisers, but is to be set at nought the
moment it differs from them, the House of Commons will sink into a mere
appendage of administration, and will lose that independent character
which, inseparably connecting the honor and reputation with the acts of
this House, enables us to afford a real, effective, and substantial
support to his government. It is the deference shown to our opinion,
when we dissent from the servants of the crown, which alone can give
authority to the proceedings of this House, when it concurs with their
measures.

That authority once lost, the credit of his Majesty's crown will be
impaired in the eyes of all nations. Foreign powers, who may yet wish to
revive a friendly intercourse with this nation, will look in vain for
that hold which gave a connection with Great Britain the preference to
an affiance with any other state. A House of Commons of which ministers
were known to stand in awe, where everything was necessarily discussed
on principles fit to be openly and publicly avowed, and which could not
be retracted or varied without danger, furnished a ground of confidence
in the public faith which the engagement of no state dependent on the
fluctuation of personal favor and private advice can ever pretend to. If
faith with the House of Commons, the grand security for the national
faith itself, can be broken with impunity, a wound is given to the
political importance of Great Britain which will not easily be healed.

That there was a great variance between the late House of Commons and
certain persons, whom his Majesty has been advised to make and continue
as ministers, in defiance of the advice of that House, is notorious to
the world. That House did not confide in those ministers; and they
withheld their confidence from them for reasons for which posterity will
honor and respect the names of those who composed th