.

That bills, without any essential difference from that which is now
before us, have been passed in favour of private companies, is
indisputably certain; it is certain that they never produced any other
effect, than such as were expected from them by those who promoted them.
It is evident, that the welfare of the nation is more worthy of our
regard than any separate company; that the whole, of more importance
than a part; and therefore, the same measures may be now used with far
greater justice, and with equal probability of success.

The necessity of the law now proposed, my lords, cannot more plainly
appear, than by reflecting on the absurdity of the pleas made use of for
refusing it, which, considered in the whole, contain only this
assertion, that the security of one man is to be preferred to justice,
to truth, to publick felicity; that a precedent is rather to be
established, which will for ever shelter every future minister from the
laws of our country; and that all our miseries are rather to be borne in
silence, or lamented in impotence, than the man, whom the whole nation
agrees to accuse as the author of them, should be exposed to the hazard
of a trial, even before those whom every tie of interest and
long-continued affection has united to him.

It is, indeed, objected, that by passing this bill, we shall transfer
the authority of trying him to the other house; that we shall give up
our privileges for ever, erect a new court of judicature, and overturn
the constitution.

I have long observed, my lords, how vain it is to argue against those
whose resolutions are determined by extrinsick motives, and have been
long acquainted with the art of disguising obstinacy, by an appearance
of reasons that have no weight, even in the opinion of him by whom they
are offered, and of raising clouds of objections, which, by the first
reply, will certainly be dissipated, but which, at least, fill the mouth
for a time, and preserve the disputant from the reproach of adhering to
an opinion, in vindication of which he had nothing to say.

Of this kind is the objection which I am now to remove, though I remove
it only to make way for another, for those can never be silenced who can
satisfy themselves with arguments like this; however, those that offer
it expect it should be answered, and if it should be passed over in the
debate, will boast of its irrefragability, and imagine that they have
gained the victory by the superiori