to accede to the desires of his discontented subjects? Is
there anything peculiar in this case, to make a rule for itself? Is all
authority of course lost, when it is not pushed to the extreme? Is it a
certain maxim, that, the fewer causes of dissatisfaction are left by
government, the more the subject will be inclined to resist and rebel?

All these objections being in fact no more than suspicions, conjectures,
divinations, formed in defiance of fact and experience, they did not,
Sir, discourage me from entertaining the idea of a conciliatory
concession, founded on the principles which I have just stated.

In forming a plan for this purpose, I endeavored to put myself in that
frame of mind which was the most natural and the most reasonable, and
which was certainly the most probable means of securing me from all
error. I set out with a perfect distrust of my own abilities, a total
renunciation of every speculation of my own, and with a profound
reverence for the wisdom of our ancestors, who have left us the
inheritance of so happy a Constitution and so flourishing an empire,
and, what is a thousand times more valuable, the treasury of the maxims
and principles which formed the one and obtained the other.

During the reigns of the kings of Spain of the Austrian family,
whenever they were at a loss in the Spanish councils, it was common for
their statesmen to say that they ought to consult the genius of Philip
the Second. The genius of Philip the Second might mislead them; and the
issue of their affairs showed that they had not chosen the most perfect
standard. But, Sir, I am sure that I shall not be misled, when, in a
case of constitutional difficulty, I consult the genius of the English
Constitution. Consulting at that oracle, (it was with all due humility
and piety,) I found four capital examples in a similar case before me:
those of Ireland, Wales, Chester, and Durham.

Ireland, before the English conquest, though never governed by a
despotic power, had no Parliament. How far the English Parliament itself
was at that time modelled according to the present form is disputed
among antiquarians. But we have all the reason in the world to be
assured, that a form of Parliament, such as England then enjoyed, she
instantly communicated to Ireland; and we are equally sure that almost
every successive improvement in constitutional liberty, as fast as it
was made here, was transmitted thither. The feudal baronage, and the
fe