om they were produced; and so much is it
expected from innocence and justice to despise all foreign assistance,
and to stand the test of inquiry without asking the support of power,
that every man has been concluded guilty that has fled for shelter to
the throne.

And surely, my lords, if that man's suffrage is of little weight, who
appears determined to subscribe to the dictates of a minister, no
greater credit can be assigned to another, who professes himself only
the echo of the clamours of the populace. If it be a proof of a weak
cause, and consciousness of misconduct, to apply to the crown for
security and protection, it may be accounted an acknowledgment of the
insufficiency of arguments, when the people is called in to second them,
and they are only to expect success from the violence of multitudes.

That all government is instituted for the happiness of the people, that
their interest ought to be the chief care of the legislature, that their
complaints ought patiently to be heard, and their grievances speedily
redressed, are truths well known, generally acknowledged, and, I hope,
always predominant in the mind of every lord in this assembly. But, that
the people cannot err, that the voice of fame is to be regarded as an
oracle, and every murmur of discontent to be pacified by a change of
measures, I have never before heard, or heard it only to disregard it.

True tenderness for the people, my lords, is to consult their advantage,
to protect their liberty, and to preserve their virtue; and perhaps
examples may be found sufficient to inform us that all these effects are
often to be produced by means not generally agreeable to the publick.

It is possible, my lords, for a very small part of the people to form
just ideas of the motives of transactions and the tendency of laws. All
negotiations with foreign powers are necessarily complicated with many
different interests, and varied by innumerable circumstances, influenced
by sudden exigencies, and defeated by unavoidable accidents. Laws have
respect to remote consequences, and involve a multitude of relations
which it requires long study to discover. And how difficult it is to
judge of political conduct, or legislative proceedings, may be easily
discovered by observing how often the most skilful statesmen are
mistaken, and how frequently the laws require to be amended.

If then, my lords, the people judge for themselves on these subjects,
they must necessarily d