nt diminution of our own authority.

It declares, my lords, that there is now an inquiry depending before the
senate, an assertion evidently false, for the inquiry is only before the
commons. Whether this was inserted by mistake or design, whether it was
intended to insinuate that the whole senatorial power was comprised in
the house of commons, or to persuade the nation that your lordships
concurred with them in this inquiry, it is not possible to determine;
but since it is false in either sense, it ought not to receive our
confirmation.

If we should pass the bill in its present state, we should not only
declare our approbation of the measures hitherto pursued by the commons,
by which it has been already proved, by the noble and learned lord who
spoke first against the bill, that they have not only violated the law,
but invaded the privileges of this house. We should not only establish
for ever in a committee of the house of commons, the power of examining
upon oath, by an elusive and equivocatory expedient, but we should in
effect vote away our own existence, give up at once all authority in the
government, and grant them an unlimited power, by acknowledging them the
senate, an acknowledgment which might, in a very short time, be quoted
against us, and from which it would not be easy for us to extricate
ourselves.

It has, indeed, been remarked, that there is a large sum of money
disbursed without account, and the publick is represented as apparently
injured, either by fraud or negligence; but it is not remembered that
none but his majesty has a right to inquire into the distribution of the
revenue appropriated to the support of his family and dignity, and the
payment of his servants, and which, therefore, cannot, in any degree, be
called publick money, or fall under the cognizance of those whom it
concerns to inspect the national accounts. Either the civil list must be
exempt from inquiries, or his majesty must be reduced to a state below
that of the meanest of his subjects; he can enjoy neither freedom nor
property, and must be debarred for ever from those blessings which he is
incessantly labouring to secure to others.

There is, likewise, another consideration, which my regard for the
honour of this assembly suggested to me, and of which I doubt not but
that all your lordships will allow the importance. The noble person who
is pointed out in this bill as a publick criminal, and whom all the
villains of the ki