ed and Chesterfield
seconded. Carteret and Chesterfield opposed it with spirit and
eloquence. "Upon your Lordships' behavior to-day," said Carteret at
the close of a bitter and a passionate attack upon the Ministry and the
convention, "depends the fate of the British Empire. . . . This nation
has hitherto maintained her independence by maintaining her commerce;
but if either is weakened the other must fail. It is by her commerce
that she has been hitherto enabled to stand her ground against all the
open and secret attacks of the enemies to her religion, liberties, and
constitution. It is from commerce, my Lords, that I behold your
Lordships within these walls, a free, an independent assembly; but,
should any considerations influence your Lordships to give so fatal a
wound to the interest and honor of this kingdom as your agreeing to
this address, it is the last time I shall have occasion to trouble this
House. For, my Lords, if we are to meet only to give a sanction to
measures that overthrow all our rights, I should look upon it as a
misfortune for me to be either accessary or witness to such a
compliance. I will not only repeat what the merchants told your
Lordships--that their trade is ruined--I will go further; I will say
the nobility is ruined, the whole nation is undone. For I can call
this treaty nothing else but a mortgage of {166} your honor, a
surrender of your liberties." Such language may now seem too
overwrought and extravagant to have much effect upon an assembly of
practical men. But it was not language likely to be considered
overwrought and extravagant at that time and during that crisis. The
Opposition had positively worked themselves into the belief that if the
convention were accepted the last day of England's strength,
prosperity, and glory had come. Carteret, besides, was talking to the
English public as well as to the House of Lords. He knew what he meant
when he denounced the enemies of England's religion as well as the
enemies of England's trade. The imputation was that the Minister
himself was a secret confederate of the enemies of the national
religion as well as the enemies of the national trade. Men who but a
few short years before were secretly engaged in efforts at a Stuart
restoration, which certainly would not be an event much in harmony with
the spread of the Protestant faith in England, were now denouncing
Walpole every day on the ground that he was caballing with Catholi