bject
them to contempt and opposition.

Such, and such only, appears to be the tendency of the petition which
has now been read; a petition, sir, very unskilfully drawn, if it was
intended against the clause under our consideration, for it has not a
single period or expression that does not equally regard all the other
clauses.

If any particular objection is made, or any single grievance more
distinctly pointed at, it is the practice of impresses, a hardship, I
own, peculiar to the sailors; but it must be observed that it is a
practice established by immemorial custom, and a train of precedents not
to be numbered; and it is well known that the whole common law of this
nation is nothing more than custom, of which the beginning cannot be
traced.

Impresses, sir, have in all ages been issued out by virtue of the
imperial prerogative, and have in all ages been obeyed; and if this
exertion of the authority had been considered as a method of severity
not compensated by the benefits which it produces, we cannot imagine but
former senates, amidst all their ardour for liberty, all their
tenderness for the people, and all their abhorrence of the power of the
crown, would have obviated it by some law, at those times when nothing
could have been refused them.

The proper time for new schemes and long deliberations, for amending our
constitution, and removing inveterate grievances, are the days of
prosperity and safety, when no immediate danger presses upon us, nor any
publick calamity appears to threaten us; but when war is declared, when
we are engaged in open hostilities against one nation, and expect to be
speedily attacked by another, we are not to try experiments, but apply
to dangerous evils those remedies, which, though disagreeable, we know
to be efficacious.

And though, sir, the petitioners have been more particular, I cannot
discover the reasonableness of hearing them by their council; for to
what purpose are the lawyers to be introduced? Not to instruct us by
their learning, for their employment is to understand the laws that have
been already made, and support the practices which they find
established. But the question before us relates not to the past but the
future, nor are we now to examine what has been done in former ages, but
what it will become us to establish on the present occasion; a subject
of inquiry on which this house can expect very little information from
the professors of the law?

Perhaps th