ent, clamours, and sedition.

Those who shall be inclined to reject the petition, may, perhaps, act
with no less regard to the merchants, and may promote their interest and
their security with no less ardour than those who most solicitously
labour for its reception: for, if they are not allowed to be heard, it
is only because the publick interest requires expedition, and because
every delay of our preparations is an injury to trade.

That this is not a proper time for petitions against the bill to be
heard, is universally known; and I can discover nothing in the petition
that restrains it to this particular clause, which is so far from being
specified, that it appears to be the only part of the bill of which they
have had no intelligence.

Let the warmest advocates for the petition point out any part of it that
relates to this single clause, and I will retract my assertion; but as
it appears that there are only general declarations of the inexpediency
of the measures proposed, and the pernicious tendency of the methods now
in use, what is the petition, but a complaint against the bill, and a
request that it should be laid aside.

The practice of impresses, sir, is particularly censured, as severe and
oppressive; a charge which, however true, has no relation to this
clause, which is intended to promote the voluntary engagement of sailors
in the service of the crown; yet it may not be improper to observe, that
as the practice of impressing is, in itself, very efficacious, and well
adapted to sudden emergencies; as it has been established by a long
succession of ages, and is, therefore, become almost a part of our
constitution; and as it is at this time necessary to supply the navy
with the utmost expedition, it is neither decent nor prudent to complain
too loudly against, or to heighten the discontent of the people at a
necessary evil.

We have, sir, examined every part of this bill with the attention which
the defence of the nation requires; we have softened the rigour of the
methods first proposed, and admitted no violence or hardship that is not
absolutely necessary, to make the law effectual, which, like every other
law, must be executed by force, if it be obstructed or opposed. We have
inserted a great number of amendments, proposed by those who are
represented as the most anxious guardians of the privileges of the
people; and it is not, surely, to no purpose that the great council of
the nation has so long and