ncing
us, but surely by those who had forgotten our independence, or
resigned their own. It is not only the right, but the duty of either
house, to deliberate without regard to the determinations of the
other; for how would the nation receive any benefit from the distinct
powers that compose the legislature, unless their determinations are
without influence upon each other? If either the example or authority
of the commons can divert us from following our own convictions, we
are no longer part of the legislature; we have given up our honours
and our privileges, and what then is our concurrence but slavery, or
our suffrage but an echo?

The only argument, therefore, that now remains, is the expediency of
gratifying those by whose ready subscription the exigencies which the
counsels of our new statesmen have brought upon us, and of continuing
the security by which they have been encouraged to such liberal
contributions.

Publick credit, my lords, is, indeed, of very great importance, but
publick credit can never be long supported without publick virtue; nor
indeed if the government could mortgage the morals and health of the
people, would it be just or rational to confirm the bargain. If the
ministry can raise money only by the destruction of their
fellow-subjects, they ought to abandon those schemes for which the
money is necessary: for what calamity can be equal to unbounded
wickedness?

But, my lords, there is no necessity for a choice which may cost us or
our ministers so much regret; for the same subscriptions may be
procured by an offer of the same advantages to a fund of any other
kind, and the sinking fund will easily supply any deficiency that
might be suspected in another scheme.

To confess the truth, I should feel very little pain from an account
that the nation was for some time determined to be less liberal of
their contribution, and that money was withheld till it was known in
what expeditions it was to be employed, to what princes subsidies were
to be paid, and what advantages were to be purchased by it for our
country. I should rejoice my lords, to hear that the lottery by which
the deficiencies of this duty are to be supplied, was not filled; and
that the people were grown at last wise enough to discern the fraud,
and to prefer honest commerce, by which all may be gainers, to a game
by which the greatest number must certainly lose, and in which no man
can reasonably expect that he shall be the happ