ke children we must cry on.

We must follow the nature of our affairs, and conform ourselves to our
situation. If we do, our objects are plain and compassable. Why should
we resolve to do nothing, because what I propose to you may not be the
exact demand of the petition, when we are far from resolved to comply
even with what evidently is so? Does this sort of chicanery become us?
The people are the masters. They have only to express their wants at
large and in gross. We are the expert artists, we are the skilful
workmen, to shape their desires into perfect form, and to fit the
utensil to the use. They are the sufferers, they tell the symptoms of
the complaint; but we know the exact seat of the disease, and how to
apply the remedy according to the rules of art. How shocking would it be
to see us pervert our skill into a sinister and servile dexterity, for
the purpose of evading our duty, and defrauding our employers, who are
our natural lords, of the object of their just expectations! I think the
whole not only practicable, but practicable in a very short time. If we
are in earnest about it, and if we exert that industry and those talents
in forwarding the work, which, I am afraid, may be exerted in impeding
it, I engage that the whole may be put in complete execution within a
year. For my own part, I have very little to recommend me for this or
for any task, but a kind of earnest and anxious perseverance of mind,
which, with all its good and all its evil effects, is moulded into my
constitution. I faithfully engage to the House, if they choose to
appoint me to any part in the execution of this work, (which, when they
have made it theirs by the improvements of their wisdom, will be worthy
of the able assistance they may give me,) that by night and by day, in
town or in country, at the desk or in the forest, I will, without regard
to convenience, ease, or pleasure, devote myself to their service, not
expecting or admitting any reward whatsoever. I owe to this country my
labor, which is my all; and I owe to it ten times more industry, if ten
times more I could exert. After all, I shall be an unprofitable servant.

At the same time, if I am able, and if I shall be permitted, I will lend
an humble helping hand to any other good work which is going on. I have
not, Sir, the frantic presumption to suppose that this plan contains in
it the whole of what the public has a right to expect in the great work
of reformation they call