reproached, resisted; instead of being
the hope and sure anchor in all storms, instead of being the means of
redress to all grievances, itself is the grand grievance of the nation,
our shame instead of our glory. If the only specific plan proposed,
individual personal representation, is directly rejected by the person
who is looked on as the great support of this business, then the only
way of considering it is a question of convenience. An honorable
gentleman prefers the individual to the present. He therefore himself
sees no middle term whatsoever, and therefore prefers, of what he sees,
the individual: this is the only thing distinct and sensible that has
been advocated. He has, then, a scheme, which is the individual
representation,--he is not at a loss, not inconsistent,--which scheme
the other right honorable gentleman reprobates. Now what does this go
to, but to lead directly to anarchy? For to discredit the only
government which he either possesses or can project, what is this but to
destroy all government? and this is anarchy. My right honorable friend,
in supporting this motion, disgraces his friends and justifies his
enemies in order to blacken the Constitution of his country, even of
that House of Commons which supported him. There is a difference between
a moral or political exposure of a public evil relative to the
administration of government, whether in men or systems, and a
declaration of defects, real or supposed, in the fundamental
constitution of your country. The first may be cured in the individual
by the motives of religion, virtue, honor, fear, shame, or interest. Men
may be made to abandon also false systems, by exposing their absurdity
or mischievous tendency to their own better thoughts, or to the contempt
or indignation of the public; and after all, if they should exist, and
exist uncorrected, they only disgrace individuals as fugitive opinions.
But it is quite otherwise with the frame and constitution of the state:
if that is disgraced, patriotism is destroyed in its very source. No man
has ever willingly obeyed, much less was desirous of defending with his
blood, a mischievous and absurd scheme of government. Our first, our
dearest, most comprehensive relation, our country, is gone.

It suggests melancholy reflections, in consequence of the strange course
we have long held, that we are now no longer quarrelling about the
character, or about the conduct of men, or the tenor of measures, but w