violation of the
indefensible rights of man, every other description of government. Take
it, or leave it: there is no medium. Let the irrefragable doctors fight
out their own controversy in their own way and with their own weapons;
and when they are tired, let them commence a treaty of peace. Let the
plenipotentiary sophisters of England settle with the diplomatic
sophisters of France in what manner right is to be corrected by an
infusion of wrong, and how truth may be rendered more true by a due
intermixture of falsehood.

* * * * *

Having sufficiently proved that nothing could make it _generally_
improper for Mr. Burke to prove what he had alleged concerning the
object of this dispute, I pass to the second question, that is, Whether
he was justified in choosing the committee on the Quebec Bill as the
field for this discussion? If it were necessary, it might be shown that
he was not the first to bring these discussions into Parliament, nor the
first to renew them in this session. The fact is notorious. As to the
Quebec Bill, they were introduced into the debate upon that subject for
two plain reasons: First, that, as he thought it _then_ not advisable to
make the proceedings of the factious societies the subject of a direct
motion, he had no other way open to him. Nobody has attempted to show
that it was at all admissible into any other business before the House.
Here everything was favorable. Here was a bill to form a new
Constitution for a French province under English dominion. The question
naturally arose, whether we should settle that constitution upon English
ideas, or upon French. This furnished an opportunity for examining into
the value of the French Constitution, either considered as applicable to
colonial government, or in its own nature. The bill, too, was in a
committee. By the privilege of speaking as often as he pleased, he hoped
in some measure to supply the want of support, which he had but too much
reason to apprehend. In a committee it was always in his power to bring
the questions from generalities to facts, from declamation to
discussion. Some benefit he actually received from this privilege. These
are plain, obvious, natural reasons for his conduct. I believe they are
the true, and the only true ones.

They who justify the frequent interruptions, which at length wholly
disabled him from proceeding, attribute their conduct to a very
different interpretation of hi