mmon centre. Another
use has produced other consequences; and a power which refuses to be
limited by moderation must either be lost, or find other more distinct
and satisfactory limitations.

As for us, a supposed, or, if it could be, a real, participation in
arbitrary power would never reconcile our minds to its establishment. We
should be ashamed to stand before your Majesty, boldly asserting in our
own favor inherent rights which bind and regulate the crown itself, and
yet insisting on the exercise, in our own persons, of a more arbitrary
sway over our fellow-citizens and fellow-freemen.

These, gracious sovereign, are the sentiments which we consider
ourselves as bound, in justification of our present conduct, in the most
serious and solemn manner to lay at your Majesty's feet. We have been
called by your Majesty's writs and proclamations, and we have been
authorized, either by hereditary privilege or the choice of your people,
to confer and treat with your Majesty, in your highest councils, upon
the arduous affairs of your kingdom. We are sensible of the whole
importance of the duty which this constitutional summons implies. We
know the religious punctuality of attendance which, in the ordinary
course, it demands. It is no light cause which, even for a time, could
persuade us to relax in any part of that attendance. The British empire
is in convulsions which threaten its dissolution. Those particular
proceedings which cause and inflame this disorder, after many years'
incessant struggle, we find ourselves wholly unable to oppose and
unwilling to behold. All our endeavors having proved fruitless, we are
fearful at this time of irritating by contention those passions which we
have found it impracticable to compose by reason. We cannot permit
ourselves to countenance, by the appearance of a silent assent,
proceedings fatal to the liberty and unity of the empire,--proceedings
which exhaust the strength of all your Majesty's dominions, destroy all
trust and dependence of our allies, and leave us, both at home and
abroad, exposed to the suspicious mercy and uncertain inclinations of
our neighbor and rival powers, to whom, by this desperate course, we are
driving our countrymen for protection, and with whom we have forced them
into connections, and may bind them by habits and by interests,--an evil
which no victories that may be obtained, no severities which may be
exorcised, ever will or can remove.

If but the smalle