on.

The wantonness of innovation, my lords, is a dangerous disease of the
mind; in a private station, it prompts men to be always discontented
with what they find, and to lose the enjoyment of good in search of
something better; it incites them to leave the safe and beaten tracks of
life, in search of those which they imagine nearer, but, which are, at
best, less secure, and which generally lead them to points far different
from that to which they originally intended to direct their course.

It is dangerous, my lords, to admit any alteration which is not
absolutely necessary, for one innovation makes way for another. The
parts of a constitution, like a complicated machine, are fitted to each
other, nor can one be changed without changing that which corresponds to
it. This necessity is not always foreseen, but when discovered by
experience is generally complied with; for every man is more inclined to
hazard farther changes, than to confess himself mistaken by retracting
his scheme. Thus, my lords, one change introduces another, till the
original constitution is entirely destroyed.

By the ambition of innovation, my lords, have almost all those empires
been destroyed, of which nothing now is left but the memory. Every human
establishment has its advantages and its inconveniencies, and by weak
attempts to remedy these defects, which, notwithstanding the utmost
attention, will embarrass the machine of government, alterations have
been introduced which have been quickly followed by a total dissolution.

There seem, my lords, to be few regulations on which it is more
dangerous to make experiments than on that of the armies of a nation. We
are sufficiently convinced how much of success is the consequence of
courage, and that courage is only an opinion of our own superiority,
arising from certain circumstances, either imaginary or real.

The courage which at present animates our forces, arises, my lords, from
a very proper ground, their former victories over the enemies which they
are now to combat, and will, therefore, doubtless, continue while they
can consider themselves as enjoying the same advantage with those
particular men by whom the victories were obtained. But, my lords, if
any essential part of their establishment be changed, they will be
considered, both by themselves and their enemies, as a different army;
they will then charge with less alacrity, and be opposed with less
dejection; they will consider themselv