, any who prefer the gratification of their passions to the
safety and happiness of their country, who can riot without remorse in
the plunder of their constituents, who can forget the anguish of guilt
in the noise of a feast, the pomp of a drawing-room, or the arms of a
strumpet, and think expensive wickedness and the gaieties of folly
equivalent to the fair fame of fidelity and the peace of virtue, to them
I shall speak to no purpose; for I am far from imagining any power in my
language to gain those to truth who have resigned their hearts to
avarice or ambition, or to prevail upon men to change opinions, which
they have indeed never believed, though they are hired to assert them.
There is a degree of wickedness which reproof or argument cannot
reclaim, as there is a degree of stupidity which instruction cannot
enlighten.

If my country, sir, has been so unfortunate as, once more, to commit her
interest to those who propose to themselves no advantage from their
trust, but that of selling it, I may perhaps fall, once more, under
censure for declaring my opinion, and be, once more, treated as a
criminal for asserting what they who punish me cannot deny; for
maintaining the inconsistency of Hanover maxims with the happiness of
this nation, and for preserving the caution which was so strongly
inculcated by the patriots that drew up the act of settlement, and gave
the present imperial family their title to the throne.

These men, sir, whose wisdom cannot be disputed, and whose zeal for his
majesty's family was equal to their knowledge, thought it requisite to
provide some security against the prejudices of birth and education.
They were far from imagining, that they were calling to the throne a
race of beings exalted above the frailties of humanity, or exempted by
any peculiar privileges from errour or from ignorance.

They knew that every man was habitually, if not naturally, fond of his
own nation, and that he was inclined to enrich it and defend it at the
expense of another, even, perhaps, of that to which he is indebted, for
much higher degrees of greatness, wealth and power; for every thing
which makes one state of life preferable to another; and which,
therefore, if reason could prevail over prejudice, and every action were
regulated by strict justice, might claim more regard than that corner of
the earth in which he only happened to be born.

They knew, sir, that confidence was not always returned, that we most