th that of his associates, whence comes it, my lords, that he is more
particularly accused than they? Why is his guilt supposed greater if his
power is only equal?

But, my lords, I believe it will appear, that no guilt has been
contracted on this account, and that Dunkirk was always intended, even
by those that demanded the demolition of it, to continue a harbour for
small trading vessels, and that if larger ever arrived from thence, they
lay at a distance from the shore, and were loaded by small vessels from
the town.

With regard to other affairs, my lords, they were all transacted by the
council, not by his direction, but with his concurrence; and how it is
consistent with justice to single him out for censure, I must desire the
noble lords to show who approve the motion.

If the people, my lords, have been, by misrepresentations industriously
propagated, exasperated against him, if the general voice of the nation
condemns him, we ought more cautiously to examine his conduct, lest we
should add strength to prejudice too powerful already, and instead of
reforming the errours, and regulating the heat of the people, inflame
their discontent and propagate sedition.

The utmost claim of the people is to be admitted as accusers, and
sometimes as evidence, but they have no right to sit as judges, and to
make us the executioners of their sentence; and as this gentleman has
yet been only condemned by those who have not the opportunities of
examining his conduct, nor the right of judging him, I cannot agree to
give him up to punishment.

Lord HALIFAX spoke next, in substance as follows:--My lords, though I do
not conceive the people infallible, yet I believe that in questions like
this they are seldom in the wrong, for this is a question not of
argument but of fact; of fact discoverable, not by long deductions and
accurate ratiocinations, but by the common powers of seeing and feeling.

That it is difficult to know the motives of negotiations, and the
effects of laws, and that it requires long study and intense meditation
to discover remote consequences, is indubitably true. And, with regard
to the people in general, it cannot be denied, that neither their
education qualifies them, nor their employments allow them to be much
versed in such inquiries.

But, my lords, to refer effects to their proper causes, and to observe,
when consequences break forth, from whence they proceed, is no such
arduous task. The people of t