ballot. The members of
Parliament also shall decide by ballot. A fifth project is the change of
the present legal representation of the kingdom. On all this I shall
observe, that it will be very unsuitable to your wisdom to adopt the
project of a bill to which there are objections insuperable by anything
in the bill itself, upon the hope that those objections may be removed
by subsequent projects, every one of which is full of difficulties of
its own, and which are all of them very essential alterations in the
Constitution. This seems very irregular and unusual. If anything should
make this a very doubtful measure, what can make it more so than that in
the opinion of its advocates it would aggravate all our old
inconveniences in such a manner as to require a total alteration in the
Constitution of the kingdom? If the remedies are proper in triennial,
they will not be less so in septennial elections. Let us try them
first,--see how the House relishes them,--see how they will operate in
the nation,--and then, having felt your way, and prepared against these
inconveniences....

The honorable gentleman sees that I respect the principle upon which he
goes, as well as his intentions and his abilities. He will believe that
I do not differ from him wantonly and on trivial grounds. He is very
sure that it was not his embracing one way which determined me to take
the other. _I_ have not in newspapers, to derogate from his fair fame
with the nation, printed the first rude sketch of his bill with
ungenerous and invidious comments. _I_ have not, in conversations
industriously circulated about the town, and talked on the benches of
this House, attributed his conduct to motives low and unworthy, and as
groundless as they are injurious. _I_ do not affect to be frightened
with this proposition, as if some hideous spectre had started from hell,
which was to be sent back again by every form of exorcism and every kind
of incantation. _I_ invoke no Acheron to overwhelm him in the whirlpools
of its muddy gulf. _I_ do not tell the respectable mover and seconder,
by a perversion of their sense and expressions, that their proposition
halts between the ridiculous and the dangerous. _I_ am not one of those
who start up, three at a time, and fall upon and strike at him with so
much eagerness that our daggers hack one another in his sides. My
honorable friend has not brought down a spirited imp of chivalry to win
the first achievement and blazon o