ou could not so well do
yourselves; but you had a right to expect that I should avail myself of
the advantage which I derived from your favor. Under the impression-of
this duty and this trust, I had endeavored to render, by preventive
graces and concessions, every act of power at the same time an act of
lenity,--the result of English bounty, and not of English timidity and
distress. I really flattered myself that the events which have proved
beyond dispute the prudence of such a maxim would have obtained pardon
for me, if not approbation. But if I have not been so fortunate, I do
most sincerely regret my great loss,--this comfort, however, that, if I
have disobliged my constituents, it was not in pursuit of any sinister
interest or any party passion of my own, but in endeavoring to save them
from disgrace, along with the whole community to which they and I
belong. I shall be concerned for this, and very much so; but I should be
more concerned, if, in gratifying a present humor of theirs, I had
rendered myself unworthy of their former or their future choice. I
confess that I could not bear to face my constituents at the next
general election, if I had been a rival to Lord North in the glory of
having refused some small, insignificant concessions, in favor of
Ireland, to the arguments and supplications of English members of
Parliament,--and in the very next session, on the demand of forty
thousand Irish bayonets, of having made a speech of two hours long to
prove that my former conduct was founded upon no one right principle,
either of policy, justice, or commerce. I never heard a more elaborate,
more able, more convincing, and more shameful speech. The debater
obtained credit, but the statesman was disgraced forever. Amends were
made for having refused small, but timely concessions, by an unlimited
and untimely surrender, not only of every one of the objects of former
restraints, but virtually of the whole legislative power itself which
had made them. For it is not necessary to inform you, that the
unfortunate Parliament of this kingdom did not dare to qualify the very
liberty she gave of trading with her _own_ plantations, by applying, of
her _own_ authority, any one of the commercial regulations to the new
traffic of Ireland, which bind us here under the several Acts of
Navigation. We were obliged to refer them to the Parliament of Ireland,
as conditions, just in the same manner as if we were bestowing a
privilege of th