me there to aid the
distresses of their country by paying half-a-crown per cent,
out of the hundreds which they took from it. If they did not,
all he could say was, that to him their pretended charity was
little better than a fraud. Without, however, taking up more
of their time, he should move his amendment, with this one
additional observation, that it would be a disgrace to an
enlightened meeting, and particularly to a meeting which might
be considered as comprising an aggregate mass of the property
and intellect of the country, to place a fallacy upon the
record of their proceedings, and to build all their following
resolutions upon an assertion which had no foundation in
truth. He concluded by moving the following amendment to the
first resolution:--"That the enormous load of the national
debt, together with the large military establishment and the
profuse expenditure of public money, was the real cause of the
present public distress."

Mr. Wilberforce said he was himself too much of an Englishman,
and had been too long engaged in political discussions to feel
any surprise that those who felt warmly on such a subject as
the present should be anxious to give
expression to their sentiments: but he could not help thinking
that, upon cool reflection, the noble lord would be of opinion
that his own object would be better attained if he confined
himself, on this occasion, to the distinct question under
consideration. The noble lord said the country was in a
crisis, and would they apply a mere topical remedy? but he
might ask the noble lord if he would refuse to assuage the
pain of a temporary distemper because he had it not in his
power at once to cure it radically? To him the existing
distress appeared to be a distemper which rather called for
immediate alleviation, than for the speculative discussion of
its cause. He thought the most charitable and manly course to
be pursued--and that which must be most congenial to what
he knew to be the noble lord's own charitable and manly
disposition--was not to call upon the meeting to give any
opinion upon a political question not under consideration,
so as to divert them from pursuing it with diligence and
confidence, but to postpone to a better opportunity a
discussion of this nature, and to unite cordially in the
ge