depending in this house, for the encouragement and increase of seamen,
and for the better and speedier manning his majesty's fleet, containing
several clauses which, should the bill pass into a law, would, as the
petitioners apprehend, impose hardships upon the people too heavy to be
borne, and create discontents in the minds of his majesty's subjects;
would subvert all the rights and privileges of a Briton; and overturn
Magna Charta itself, the basis on which they are built; and, by these
means, destroy that very liberty, for the preservation of which the
present royal family was established upon the throne of Britain; for
which reasons, such a law could never be obeyed, or much blood would be
shed in consequence of it."

Mr. Henry PELHAM then spoke, to this purport:--Sir, I have attended to
this petition with the utmost impartiality, and have endeavoured to
affix, to every period, the most innocent sense; but cannot forbear to
declare it as my opinion, that it is far distant from the style of
submission and request: instead of persuading, they attempt to
intimidate us, and menace us with no less than bloodshed and rebellion.
They make themselves the judges of our proceedings, and appeal, from our
determinations, to their own opinion, and declare that they will obey no
longer than they approve.

If such petitions as these, sir, are admitted; if the legislature shall
submit to receive laws, and subjects resume, at pleasure, the power with
which the government is vested, what is this assembly but a convention
of empty phantoms, whose determinations are nothing more than a mockery
of state?

Every insult upon this house is a violation of our constitution; and the
constitution, like every other fabrick, by being often battered, must
fall at last. It is, indeed, already destroyed, if there be, in the
nation, any body of men who shall, with impunity, refuse to comply with
the laws, plead the great charter of liberty against those powers that
made it, and fix the limits of their own obedience.

I cannot, sir, pass over, in silence, the mention of the king, whose
title to the throne, and the reasons for which he was exalted to it, are
set forth with uncommon art and spirit of diction; but spirit, which, in
my opinion, appears not raised by zeal, but by sedition; and which,
therefore, it is our province to repress.

That his majesty reigns for the preservation of liberty, will be readily
confessed; but how shall we be ab