e not to be by us
considered as conclusive upon their authority. The chief advantage
which the publick receives from a legislature formed of several
distinct powers, is, that all laws must pass through many
deliberations of assemblies independent on each other, of which, if
the one be agitated by faction or distracted by divisions, it may be
hoped that the other will be calm and united, and of which it can
hardly be feared that they can at any time concur in measures
apparently destructive to the commonwealth.

But these inquiries, my lords, however proper or necessary, are to be
made by us not in solemn assemblies but in our private characters; and
therefore I shall not now lay before your lordships what I have heard
from those whom I have consulted for the sake of obtaining information
on this important question, or shall at least not offer it as the
opinion of the commons, or pretend to add to it any influence
different from that of reason and truth.

The arguments which have been offered in this debate for the motion,
are, indeed, such as do not make any uncommon expedients necessary;
they will not drive the advocates for the late measures to seek a
refuge in authority instead of reason. They require, in my opinion,
only to be considered with a calm attention, and their force will
immediately be at an end.

The most plausible objection, my lords, is, that the measures to which
your approbation is now desired, were concerted and executed without
the concurrence of the senate; and it is, therefore, urged, that they
cannot now deserve our approbation, because it was not asked at the
proper time.

In order to answer this objection, my lords, it is necessary to
consider it more distinctly than those who made it appear to have
done, that we may not suffer ourselves to confound questions real and
personal, to mistake one object for another, or to be confounded by
different views.

That the consent of the senate was not asked, my lords, supposing it a
neglect, and a neglect of a criminal kind, of a tendency to weaken our
authority, and shake the foundations of our constitution, which is the
utmost that the most ardent imagination, or the most hyperbolical
rhetorick can utter or suggest, may be, indeed, a just reason for
invective against the ministers, but is of no force if urged against
the measures. To take auxiliaries into our pay may be right, though it
might be wrong to hire them without applying to the senate;