at House of Commons,
distinguished for its independence. They could not confide in persons
who have shown a disposition to dark and dangerous intrigues. By these
intrigues they have weakened, if not destroyed, the clear assurance
which his Majesty's people, and which all nations, ought to have of what
are and what are not the real acts of his government.

If it should be seen that his ministers may continue in their offices
without any signification to them of his Majesty's displeasure at any of
their measures, whilst persons considerable for their rank, and known to
have had access to his Majesty's sacred person, can with impunity abuse
that advantage, and employ his Majesty's name to disavow and counteract
the proceedings of his official servants, nothing but distrust, discord,
debility, contempt of all authority, and general confusion, can prevail
in his government.

This we lay before his Majesty, with humility and concern, as the
inevitable effect of a spirit of intrigue in his executive government:
an evil which we have but too much reason to be persuaded exists and
increases. During the course of the last session it broke out in a
manner the most alarming. This evil was infinitely aggravated by the
unauthorized, but not disavowed, use which has been made of his
Majesty's name, for the purpose of the most unconstitutional, corrupt,
and dishonorable influence on the minds of the members of Parliament
that ever was practised in this kingdom. No attention even to exterior
decorum, in the practice of corruption and intimidation employed on
peers, was observed: several peers were obliged under menaces to retract
their declarations and to recall their proxies.

The Commons have the deepest interest in the purity and integrity of the
Peerage. The Peers dispose of all the property in the kingdom, in the
last resort; and they dispose of it on their honor, and not on their
oaths, as all the members of every other tribunal in the kingdom must
do,--though in them the proceeding is not conclusive. We have,
therefore, a right to demand that no application shall be made to peers
of such a nature as may give room to call in question, much less to
attaint, our sole security for all that we possess. This corrupt
proceeding appeared to the House of Commons, who are the natural
guardians of the purity of Parliament, and of the purity of every branch
of judicature, a most reprehensible and dangerous practice, tending to
shake the v