either imply some peculiarities of gesture, ora dissimula- Chap.ii. tion of my real sentiments, and an adoption of the opi- , ,_. nions and language of another man. 1740.

"In the first sense the charge is too trisling to be consuted, and deserves onjy to be mentioned, that it may be despised. I am at liberty, like every other man, to use my own language; and though I, may, perhaps, have some ambition, yet to please this gentleman, I shall not lay myself Under any restraint nor very solicitously copy his .diction, or his mien, however matured by age, or modelled by experience. If any man shall by charging me with theatrical behaviour imply that I utter any sentiments but my own, I shall treat him as a calumniator and a villain, nor shall any protection (belter him from the treatment which he deserves. I shall, on such an occasion, without scruple, trample upon all those forms with which wealth and dignity intrench themselves, nor shall any thing but age restrain my resentment; age which always brings one privilege, that of being insolent and supercilious without punishment.

"But with regard to those whom I have ossended, I am of opinion, that if I had acted a borrowed part, I should have avoided their censure; the heat that offended them is the-ardour of conviction, and that zeal for the service of my country, which neither hope nor sear shall influence me to suppress. I will not sit unconcerned white my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon public robbery. I will exert my endeavours, at whatever hazaid, to repel the aggressor, and drag the thief to justice, , whoever may protect them in their villainy, and whoever may partake of their plunder. And if the Hon. Gentleman"

[Here he was called to order by Mr. Winning- Mn win_ ton, who reprehended him in very illiberal terms, nington. and was proceeding in the fame strain when Mr. Pin in turn called Mr. Winnington to order,] and said,

"If this be to preserve order, there is no danger of Reply to indecency from the most licentious tongue; for what Mr. Wincalumny can be more attrocious, or what reproach more nington.

severe,

Chap. II. severe, than that os speaking with regard to any thing but truth. Order may sometimes be broken by passion, or 1740. inadvertency, but will hardly be re-established by monitors like this, who cannot govern his own passion, whilest he is restraining the impetuosity of others.

"Happy would it be for mankind if everyone knew his own province; we ssiould not then see the same man at once a criminal and a judge ; nor would this gentleman assume the right of dictating to others what he has not learned himself.

'* That I may return in some degree the savour which he intends me, I will advise him never hereafter to exert himself on the subject or order, but whenever he sinds himself inclined to speak on such occasions, to remember how he has now succeeded, and condemn in silence what his censures will never perform."

On the 13th of February, 1741, Mr. Sandys (aiterwards Lord Sandys) moved an address to the King, requesting his Majesty to remove Sir Robert (Valpole srom his presence and councils for ever.

Mr. Pitt spoke in support of this motion, viz.

On the " l1 'ias keen °bserved that those who have formerMotion toly approved the measures of the gentleman into whose remove conduct we are now inquiring, cannot be expected to Sir R. disavow their former opinions, unlels new arguments are Walpole. produced of greater force, than thole which have formerly been offered; so the same steadiness must be expected in those who have opposed them, unless they can now hear them better desended.

"It is an established maxim, Sir, that as time is the test of opinions salshcod grows every day weaker, and truth gains upon mankind. This is most eminently just in political aflertions, which often respect suture eventsj and the remote consequences of transactions: and therefore never sail to be by time incontestibly verisied or undeniably combated. On many occasions it is impossible to determine the expediency of measures otherwise than by conjecture; because almost every step that can be taken,

may

may have a tendency to a good as well as to a bad end : chAr. \j and as he who proposes, and he who promotes, may con- _,- - ."' ceal their intentions, till they are ripened into execution, time can only discover the motives of their demands, and the principles of their conduct.

"For this reason it may easily be expected that bad measures will be condemned by men of integrity, when their consequences are sully discovered; though, when they were proposed, they might by plausible declarations and specious appearances, obtain their approbation and applause. Those, whose purity of intention and simplicity of morals exposed them to credulity and implicit conssidence, must resent the arts by which they were deluded into a concurrence with projects detrimental to their country; but of which the consequences were artsully concealed from them, or the real intention steadily denied.

"With regard to those gentlemen, whose neglect of political studies have not qualisied them tp judge of the questions when they were sirst debated; and who, giving their suffrages, were not so much directed by their own conviction as by the authority of men, whose experience and knowledge they knew to be gseat, and whose integrity they had hitherto found no reason to distrust; it may be naturally expected that when they see those measures which were recommended, as necessary to peace and happiness, productive only of consusion, oppression and distress, they should acknowledge their- error and forsake their guides; whom they must discover to have been either ignorant or treacherous ; and by an open recantation of their former decisions, endeavour to repair the calamities, which they have contributed to bring on their country.

"The extent and complication of political questions is such, that no man can justly be ashamed of having been sometimes mistaken in his determinations, and the propensity of the human mind to considence and friendihip is so great, that every man, however cautious, however sagacious, or however experienced, is exposed sometimes to the artisices of interests and the delusions of hypocrisy; but it is the duty and ought to be the honour of every man to own his mistake whenever he discovers it, and to warn others against those frauds which have been too, successfully practiced upon himself.

"I am,

Chat. II. "I am, therefore, inclined to hope that every man will ,^-~~^_/ not be equally pre-determined in the present debate, and 1741. that as I (hall be ready to declare my approbation of integrity and wisdom, though they should be found where I have long suspected ignorance and corruption; as others will with equal justice censure wickedness and error, though they should have been detected in that person, whom they have been long taught to reverence as the oracle of knowledge, and the pattern of virtue.

"In political debates, time always produces new lights; time can in these inquiries never be neutral, but mult always acquit or condemn. Time indeed may not always produce new arguments against bad conduct, be• cause all its consequences might be originally foreseen and exposed; but it must always confirm them, and ripen conjectures into certainty. Though it should therefore be truly asserted, that nothing is urged in this debate which'was not before mentioned and rejected, it will not prove that because the arguments are the same, they ought to produce the same essect; because what was then only foretold, has now been seen and selt, and what was then but believed is now known.

"But if Time has produced no vindication of those measures, which were suspected of imprudence or oftreachery; it must be at length acknowledged that those suspicions were just, and that what ought then to have been rejected ought now be punished.

"This is for the most part the state of the Question. Those measures which were once desended by sophistical reasoning, or palliated by warm declamations of sincerity and disinterested zeal for the public happiness, are found to be such as they were represented by those who opposed them. It is now discovered that the treaty of Hanover was calculated only for the advancement of the house of Bourbon; that our armies are kept up only to multiply dependence, and to awe the nation from the exertion of its rights; that Spain has been courted only to the ruin of our trade; and that the convention was little more than an artisice to amuse the people with an idle appearance of a reconciliation, which our enemies never intended.

"Of the stipulation which produced the memorable treaty of Hanover, the improbability was ©ften urged,

but but the absolute salshood could be proved only by the de- Cuar. II

claration of one of the parties. This declaration was at ,

length produced by time, which was never savourable to 1741 i. the measures of our minister. For the Emperor of Germany asserted, with the utmost solemnity, that no such article was ever proposed ; and that his engagements with Spain had no tendency to produce any change in the government of this kingdom.

"Thus it is evident, Sir, that all the terrors which the apprehension of this Alliance produced, was merely the operations of fraud upon cowardice; and that they were only raised by the artsul French, to disunite us from the only power with which it is our interest to cultivate an inseparable friendship. This disunion may therefore . be justly charged upon the minister, who has weakened the interest of this country, and endangered the liberties of Europe.

«' If it be asked, Sir, how he could have discovered the falshood of the report, before it was consuted by the late Emperor? It may easily be answered, that he might have discovered it by the same tokens which betrayed it to his opponents, the impossibility of putting it into execution. For it must be consessed, that his French informers, well acquainted with his disposition to panic sears, had used no caution in the construction of their imposture, nor seem to have had any other view, than to add one error to another, to sink his reason with alarms, and to overbear him with astonishment.

'« When they found he began to be disordered at the danger of our trade from enemies without naval forces, they easily discovered, that to make him the slave of France nothing more was necessary, than to add, that these bloody consederates had projected an invasion; that they intended to add slavery to poverty; and to place the Pretender upon the Throne.

"To be alarmed into vigilance had not been unworthy of the firmest and most sagacious minister; but to be frighted by such reports into measures which even an invasion could scarcely have justisied, was at least a proof of a capacity not formed by nature for the administration of government; and which it is therefare'the interest of the nation to reduce to its proper sphere, and to mingle with the rest of the community.

"If it be required, what advantage was granted by