t application, assisted by long experience. I
hope, therefore, it will be no inexcusable presumption, if, instead of a
tacit submission to his censure, I assert, in my own vindication, that I
have not deviated from the established rules of the senate, that I have
spoken only in defence of merit insulted, and that I have condemned only
such injurious insinuations. I did not, sir, attempt to repeat
expressions, as ought not to be heard without reply.

Then the PRESIDENT said:--I believe the gentleman either heard
imperfectly, or misunderstood these expressions, which he so warmly
condemns, for nothing has been uttered that could justly excite his
indignation. My office obliges me on this occasion to remark, that the
regard due to the dignity of the house ought to restrain every member
from digressions into private satire; for in proportion as we proceed
with less decency, our determinations will have less influence.

Mr. PELHAM spoke next, in substance as follows:--Sir, the reputation
which the honourable gentleman has acquired by his uncommon knowledge of
the usages of the senate, is too well founded to be shaken, nor was any
attack upon his character intended, when he was interrupted in the
prosecution of his design. To censure any indecent expression, by
whomsoever uttered, is, doubtless, consistent with the strictest
regularity; nor is it less proper to obviate any misrepresentation which
inattention or mistake may produce.

I am far, sir, from thinking that the gentleman's indignation was
excited rather by malice than mistake; but mistakes of this kind may
produce consequences which cannot be too cautiously avoided. How
unwillingly would that gentleman propagate through the nation an opinion
that the merchants were insulted in this house, their interest
neglected, and their intelligence despised, at a time when no aspersion
was thrown upon them, nor any thing intended but tenderness and regard?
And yet such had been the representation of this day's debate, which
this numerous audience would have conveyed to the populace, had not the
mistake been immediately rectified, and the rumour crushed in the birth.

Nothing, sir, can be more injurious to the character of this assembly,
by which the people are represented, than to accuse them of treating any
class of men with insolence and contempt; and too much diligence cannot
be used in obviating a report which cannot be spread in the nation,
without giving rise to discont