Samuel Johnson - The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Volume 11

[The address was at length agreed to, without a division.]

Mr. PULTENEY then moved, that the state of the nation should be considered six weeks hence; sir Robert WALPOLE seconded the motion, and it was unanimously agreed, that this house will, on the 21st of next month, resolve itself into a committee of the whole house, to consider of the state of the nation. But when that day came, sir Robert WALPOLE having been able to defeat a motion which was to refer some papers to a secret committee, the consideration of the state of the nation was put off for a fortnight; but on the eve of that day, both houses adjourned for fourteen days, during which, sir Robert WALPOLE resigned his employments of first lord of the treasury, and chancellor and under treasurer of his majesty's exchequer; and was created a peer, by the title of lord WALPOLE, and earl of ORFORD.

Lord LIMERICK rose, and spoke in the following manner:—Sir, as I am about to offer to the house a motion of the highest importance to the honour and happiness of our country, to the preservation of our privileges, and the continuance of our constitution, I make no doubt of a candid attention from this assembly, and hope for such a determination as shall be the result not of external influence, but of real conviction.

I cannot but congratulate myself and all lovers of their country, that we are arrived at a time, in which such hopes may be rationally indulged, that we shall soon see the triumph of liberty, and the renovation of senatorial freedom. It is not without the highest satisfaction, that I find my life protracted to that happy day, in which the yoke of dependence has been shaken off, and the shackles of oppression have been broken; in which truth and justice have once more raised up their heads, and obtained that regard which had so long been paid to splendid wickedness and successful rapine.

The time is now past, in which it was meritorious to harden the heart against pity, and the forehead against shame; to plunder the people by needless taxes, and insult them by displaying their spoils before their eyes, in luxurious riot, and boundless magnificence; when the certain method of obtaining what the greatest part, even of good men, cannot but sometimes wish to acquire, interest, affluence, and honour, was an implicit resignation to authority, a desertion of all principles, defiance of all censure, and an open declaration against any other motives of action, than the sole pleasure of an arbitrary minister.

It is now, sir, no longer considered as an instance of disaffection to the government, to represent the miseries and declare the opinions of the people; to propose their interest as the great basis of government, the general end of society, and the parent of law. It is now no longer criminal to affirm, that they have a right to complain when they are, in their own opinion, injured, and to be heard when they complain. It may now be with safety asserted, that those who swell with the pride of office, and glitter with the magnificence of a court, however they may display their affluence, or boast their titles; with whatever contempt they may have learned of late to look upon their fellow-subjects, who have no possessions but what they have obtained by their industry, nor any honours but what are voluntarily paid to their understanding and their virtue; with whatever authority they may dictate to their dependants, or whatever reverence they may exact from a long subordination of hirelings, are, amidst all their pomp and influence, only the servants of the people, intrusted by them with the administration of their affairs, and accountable to them for the abuse of trust.

That trusts of the highest importance have been long abused, that the servants of the people, having long thought themselves out of the reach of justice, and above examination, have very ill discharged the offices in which they have been engaged, that the publick advantage has been wholly disregarded, that treaties have been concluded without any regard to the interest of Britain, and that our foreign and domestick affairs have been managed with equal ignorance, negligence, or wickedness, the present state of Europe, and the calamities of this country, will sufficiently inform us.

If we survey the condition of foreign nations, we shall find, that the power and dominions of the family of Bourbon, a family which has never had any other designs than the extirpation of true religion, and the universal slavery of mankind, have been daily increased. We shall find that they have increased by the declension of the house of Austria, which treaties and our interest engage us to support.

But had their acquisitions been made only by the force of arms, had they grown stronger only by victories, and more wealthy only by plunder, our ministers might, with some appearance of reason, have imputed their success to accident, and informed us, that we gained, in the mean time, a sufficient counterbalance to those advantages, by an uninterrupted commerce, and by the felicity of peace; peace, which, in every nation, has been found to produce affluence, and of which the wisest men have thought that it could scarcely be too dearly purchased.

But peace has, in this nation, by the wonderful artifices of our ministers, been the parent of poverty and misery; we have been so far from finding our commerce extended by it, that we have enjoyed it only by a contemptible patience of the most open depredations, by a long connivance at piracy, and by a continued submission to insults, which no other nation would have borne.

We have been so far from seeing any part of our taxes remitted, that we have been loaded with more rigorous exactions to support the expenses of peace, than were found necessary to defray the charges of a war against those, whose opulence and power had incited them to aspire to the dominion of the world.

How these taxes have been employed, and why our trade has been neglected, why our allies have been betrayed, and why the ancient enemies of our country have been suffered to grow powerful by our connivances, it is now time to examine; and therefore I move, that a committee be appointed to inquire into the conduct of affairs at home and abroad during the last twenty years.

Sir John ST. AUBIN then spoke as follows:—Sir, I rise up to second this motion; and, as the noble lord has opened it in so full and proper a manner, and as I do not doubt but that other gentlemen are ready to support it, more practised in speaking, of greater abilities and authority than myself, I am the less anxious about the injury it may receive from the part I bear in it. I think the proposition is so evident, that it wants no enforcement; it comes to you from the voice of the nation, which, thank God, has at last found admittance within these walls.

Innocence is of so delicate a nature, that it cannot bear suspicion, and therefore will desire inquiry; because it will always be justified by it. Guilt, from its own consciousness, will use subterfuges, and fly to concealment; and the more righteous and authoritative the inquiry, the more it will be avoided; because the greater will be the dread of punishment.

In private life, I am contented with men's virtues only, without seeking for opportunities of blame. In a publick character, when national grievances cry aloud for inquiry and justice, it is our duty to pursue all the footsteps of guilt; and the loud, the pathetick appeal of my constituents, is more forcibly persuasive than any motive of private tenderness. This appeal is not the clamour of faction, artfully raised to disturb the operation of government, violent for a while, and soon to be appeased. It is the complaint of long and patient sufferings, a complaint not to be silenced; and which all endeavours to suppress it, would only make more importunate and clamorous. It is the solemn appeal of the whole people, of the united body of our constituents, in this time of national calamity, earnestly beseeching you, in a legal parliamentary way, to redress their grievances, to revive your ancient right of inquiry, to explore the most remote and hidden sources of iniquity, to detect the bold authors of their distress, that they may be made examples of national justice.