upon the borders of the Spanish dominions, and as it is weak by
the paucity of the inhabitants in proportion to its extent; let us,
therefore, pay a particular regard to this petition, lest we aggravate
the terrour which the neighbourhood of a powerful enemy naturally
produces, by the severer miseries of poverty and famine.

Sir Robert WALPOLE spoke next, in substance as follows:--Sir, nothing is
more absurd than for those who declare, on all occasions, with great
solemnity, their sincere zeal for the service of the publick, to
protract the debates of this house by personal invectives, and delay the
prosecution of the business of the nation, by trivial objections,
repeated after confutation, and, perhaps, after conviction of their
invalidity.

I need not observe how much time would be spared, and how much the
despatch of affairs would be facilitated by the suppression of this
practice, a practice by which truth is levelled with falsehood, and
knowledge with ignorance; since, if scurrility and merriment are to
determine us, it is not necessary either to be honest or wise to obtain
the superiority in any debate, it will only be necessary to rail and to
laugh, which one man may generally perform with as much success as
another.

The embargo in Ireland was an expedient so necessary and timely, that
the reputation of it is thought too great to be allowed to the
administration, of whom it has been for many years the hard fate, to
hear their actions censured only because they were not the actions of
others, and to be represented as traitors to their country for doing
always what they thought best themselves, and perhaps sometimes what was
in reality approved by those who opposed them.

This, sir, they have borne without much uneasiness, and have contented
themselves with the consciousness of doing right, in expectation that
truth and integrity must at last prevail, and that the prudence of their
conduct and success of their measures would at last evince the justice
of their intentions.

They hoped, sir, that there would be some occasions on which their
enemies would not deny the expedience of their counsels, and did not
expect that after having been so long accused of engrossing exorbitant
power, of rejecting advice, and pursuing their own schemes with the most
invincible obstinacy, they should be supposed on a sudden to have laid
aside their arrogance, to have descended to adopt the opinions, and give
themselves up to t