forfeits his claim to trust, and since he that can be no
longer trusted is on the brink of ruin, I cannot but conclude that, as
by this motion all the secrets of our government must be inevitably
betrayed, my duty to his majesty, my love of my country, and my
obligations to discharge with fidelity the trust which my constituents
have conferred upon me, oblige me to oppose it.

Mr. LITTLETON then rose, and spoke to this effect:--Sir, it always
portends well to those who dispute on the side of truth and reason, when
their opponents appear not wholly to be hardened against the force of
argument, when they seem desirous to gain the victory, not by
superiority of numbers but of reason, and attempt rather to convince,
than to terrify or bribe. For though men are not in quest of truth
themselves, nor desirous to point it out to others; yet, while they are
obliged to speak with an appearance of sincerity, they must necessarily
afford the unprejudiced and attentive an opportunity of discovering the
right. While they think themselves under a necessity of reasoning, they
cannot but show the force of a just argument, by the unsuccessfulness of
their endeavours to confute it, and the propriety of an useful and
salutary motion, by the slight objections which they raise against it.
They cannot but find themselves sometimes forced to discover what they
can never be expected to acknowledge, the weakness of their own reasons,
by deserting them when they are pressed with contrary assertions, and
seeking a subterfuge in new arguments equally inconclusive and
contemptible. They show the superiority of their opponents, like other
troops, by retreating before them, and forming one fortification behind
another, in hopes of wearying those whom they cannot hope to repulse.

Of this conduct we have had already an instance in the present debate; a
debate managed with such vigour, order, and resolution, as sufficiently
shows the advantage of regular discipline long continued, and proves,
that troops may retain their skill and spirit, even when they are
deprived of that leader, to whose instructions and example they were
indebted for them. When first this motion was offered, it seems to have
been their chief hope to divert us from it by outcries of impossibility,
by representing it as the demand of men unacquainted with the state of
our offices, or the multiplicity of transactions, in which the
indefatigable industry of our ministers has been employ