rld, will fly from what has the least likeness to a positive
and precipitate engagement. To be a good member of Parliament is, let me
tell you, no easy task,--especially at this time, when there is so
strong a disposition to run into the perilous extremes of servile
compliance or wild popularity. To unite circumspection with vigor is
absolutely necessary, but it is extremely difficult. We are now members
for a rich commercial _city_; this city, however, is but a part of a
rich commercial _nation_, the interests of which are various, multiform,
and intricate. We are members for that great nation, which, however, is
itself but part of a great _empire_, extended by our virtue and our
fortune to the farthest limits of the East and of the West. All these
wide-spread interests must be considered,--must be compared,--must be
reconciled, if possible. We are members for a _free_ country; and surely
we all know that the machine of a free constitution is no simple thing,
but as intricate and as delicate as it is valuable. We are members in a
great and ancient _monarchy_; and we must preserve religiously the true,
legal rights of the sovereign, which form the keystone that binds
together the noble and well-constructed arch of our empire and our
Constitution. A constitution made up of balanced powers must ever be a
critical thing. As such I mean to touch that part of it which comes
within my reach. I know my inability, and I wish for support from every
quarter. In particular I shall aim at the friendship, and shall
cultivate the best correspondence, of the worthy colleague you have
given me.

I trouble you no farther than once more to thank you all: you,
Gentlemen, for your favors; the candidates, for their temperate and
polite behavior; and the sheriffs, for a conduct which may give a model
for all who are in public stations.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] Mr. Brickdale opened his poll, it seems, with a tally of those very
kind of freemen, and voted many hundreds of them.

SPEECH

ON

MOVING HIS RESOLUTIONS FOR CONCILIATION WITH THE COLONIES.

MARCH 22, 1775.

I hope, Sir, that, notwithstanding the austerity of the Chair, your
good-nature will incline you to some degree of indulgence towards human
frailty. You will not think it unnatural, that those who have an object
depending, which strongly engages their hopes and fears, should be
somewhat inclined to superstition. As I came into the House, full of
anxiety about the ev