r
its real advantages, and of our steadiness to pursue them, the more
violent will be its resentment, if it shall appear, on this important
question, that we are either ignorant or timorous, that we are
unconcerned at the miseries of the people, or content ourselves with
pitying what our ancestors never failed to redress.

Let us, therefore, my lords, for our own interest, attend impartially to
the voice of the people; let us hear their complaints with tenderness,
and if, at last, we reject them, let it be evident that they were
impartially heard, and that we only differed from them because we were
not convinced.

Even then, my lords, we shall suffer, for some time, under the suspicion
of crimes, from which I hope we shall always be free; the people will
imagine that we were influenced by those whose interest it appears to
continue their miseries, and, my lords, all the consolation that will be
left us, must arise from the consciousness of having done our duty.

But, my lords, this is to suppose what I believe no history can furnish
an example of; it is to conceive that we may inquire diligently after
the true state of national affairs, and yet not discover it, or not be
able to prove it by such evidence as may satisfy the people.

The people, my lords, however they are misrepresented by those who, from
a long practice of treating them with disregard, have learned to think
and speak of them with contempt, are far from being easily deceived, and
yet farther from being easily deceived into an opinion of their own
unhappiness: we have some instances of general satisfaction, and an
unshaken affection to the government, in times when the publick good has
not been very diligently consulted, but scarcely any of perpetual
murmurs and universal discontent, where there have been plain evidences
of oppression, negligence, or treachery.

Let us not, therefore, my lords, think of the people as of a herd to be
led or driven at pleasure, as wretches whose opinions are founded upon
the authority of seditious scribblers, or upon any other than that of
reason and experience; let us not suffer them to be at once oppressed
and ridiculed, nor encourage, by our example, the wretched advocates for
those whom they consider as their enemies, nor represent them as
imputing to the misconduct of the ministry the late contrariety of the
winds, and severity of the winter.

The people, my lords, if they are mistaken in their charge, are mistake