789.

My Lords,--An event which had spread for a considerable time an
universal grief and consternation through this kingdom, and which in its
issue diffused as universal and transcendent a joy, has in the
circumstances both of our depression and of our exaltation produced a
considerable delay, if not a total suspension, of the most important
functions of government.

My Lords, we now resume our office,--and we resume it with new and
redoubled alacrity, and, we trust, under not less propitious omens than
when we left it, in this House, at the end of the preceding session. We
come to this duty with a greater degree of earnestness and zeal, because
we are urged to it by many and very peculiar circumstances. This day we
come from an House where the last steps were taken (and I suppose
something has happened similar in this) to prepare our way to attend
with the utmost solemnity, in another place, a great national
thanksgiving for having restored the sovereign to his Parliament and the
Parliament to its sovereign.

But, my Lords, it is not only in the house of prayer that we offer to
the First Cause the acceptable homage of our rational nature,--my Lords,
in this House, at this bar, in this place, in every place where His
commands are obeyed, His worship is performed. And, my Lords, I must
boldly say, (and I think I shall hardly be contradicted by your
Lordships, or by any persons versed in the law which guides us all,)
that the highest act of religion, and the highest homage which we can
and ought to pay, is an imitation of the Divine perfections, as far as
such a nature can imitate such perfections, and that by this means alone
we can make our homage acceptable to Him.

My Lords, in His temple we shall not forget that His most distinguished
attribute is justice, and that the first link in the chain by which we
are held to the Supreme Judge of All is justice; and that it is in this
solemn temple of representative justice we may best give Him praise,
because we can here best imitate His divine attributes. If ever there
was a cause in which justice and mercy are not only combined and
reconciled, but incorporated, it is in this cause of suffering nations,
which we now bring before your Lordships this second session of
Parliament, unwearied and unfatigued in our persevering pursuit; and we
feel it to be a necessary preliminary, a necessary fact, a necessary
attendant and concomitant of every public thanksgiving, that we