rench tinsel into English gold. Is, then, the mere opinion and
appearance of frugality and good management of such use to France, and
is the substance to be so mischievous to England? Is the very
constitution of Nature so altered by a sea of twenty miles, that economy
should give power on the Continent, and that profusion should give it
here? For God's sake, let not this be the only fashion of France which
we refuse to copy!

To the last kind of necessity, the desires of the people, I have but a
very few words to say. The ministers seem to contest this point, and
affect to doubt whether the people do really desire a plan of economy in
the civil government. Sir, this is too ridiculous. It is impossible that
they should not desire it. It is impossible that a prodigality which
draws its resources from their indigence should be pleasing to them.
Little factions of pensioners, and their dependants, may talk another
language. But the voice of Nature is against them, and it will be heard.
The people of England will not, they cannot, take it kindly, that
representatives should refuse to their constituents what an absolute
sovereign voluntarily offers to his subjects. The expression of the
petitions is, that, "_before any new burdens are laid upon this country,
effectual measures be taken by this House to inquire into and correct
the gross abuses in the expenditure of public money_."

This has been treated by the noble lord in the blue ribbon as a wild,
factious language. It happens, however, that the people, in their
address to us, use, almost word for word, the same terms as the king of
France uses in addressing himself to his people; and it differs only as
it falls short of the French king's idea of what is due to his subjects.
"To convince," says he, "our faithful subjects of _the desire we
entertain not to recur to new impositions_, until we have first
exhausted all the resources which order and economy can possibly
supply," &c., &c.

These desires of the people of England, which come far short of the
voluntary concessions of the king of France, are moderate indeed. They
only contend that we should interweave some economy with the taxes with
which we have chosen to begin the war. They request, not that you should
rely upon economy exclusively, but that you should give it rank and
precedence, in the order of the ways and means of this single session.

But if it were possible that the desires of our constituents, desires