ost solemn and deliberate manner;
that the names of the committee ought to have been published for the
satisfaction of the people, who could have judged, with some certainty,
whether the inquiry would be carried on with such impartiality as the
national misfortune required. They suspected that this reference to a
committee of the whole house was a mal-contrivance, to prevent a regular
and minute investigation, to introduce confusion and contest, to puzzle,
perplex, and obumbrate; to teaze, fatigue, and disgust the inquirers,
that the examination might be hurried over in a superficial and
perfunctory manner; and the ministry, from this anarchy and confusion of
materials, half explored and undigested, derive a general parliamentary
approbation, to which they might appeal from the accusations of the
people. A select committee would have probably examined some of the
clerks of the respective offices, that they might certainly know whether
any letters or papers had been suppressed, whether the extracts had been
faithfully made, and whether there might not be papers of intelligence,
which, though proper to be submitted to a select and secret committee,
could not, consistently with the honour of the nation, be communicated
to a committee of the whole house. Indeed, it does not appear that the
ministers had any foreign intelligence or correspondence that could be
much depended upon in any matter of national importance, and no evidence
was examined on the occasion; a circumstance the less to be regretted,
as, in times past, evil ministers have generally found means to render
such inquiries ineffectual; and the same arts would, at any rate, have
operated with the same efficacy, had a secret committee been employed at
this juncture. Be that as it may, several resolutions were reported
from the committee, though some of them were not carried by the majority
without violent dispute and severe altercation. The first and last of
their resolutions require particular notice. By the former, it appeared
to the committee, that his majesty, from the twenty-seventh day of
August, in the year one thousand seven hundred and fifty-five, to the
twentieth day of April in the succeeding year, received such repeated
and concurrent intelligence, as gave just reason to believe that
the French king intended to invade his dominions of Great Britain or
Ireland. In the latter they declared their opinion, that no greater
number of ships of war could be sent