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The Works of Samuel Johnson, Volume 10 - Parlimentary Debates I by Samuel Johnson
page 38 of 662 (05%)
The province of Carolina, sir, has already suffered the inconveniencies
of this war beyond any other part of his majesty's dominions, as it is
situate upon the borders of the Spanish dominions, and as it is weak by
the paucity of the inhabitants in proportion to its extent; let us,
therefore, pay a particular regard to this petition, lest we aggravate
the terrour which the neighbourhood of a powerful enemy naturally
produces, by the severer miseries of poverty and famine.

Sir Robert WALPOLE spoke next, in substance as follows:--Sir, nothing is
more absurd than for those who declare, on all occasions, with great
solemnity, their sincere zeal for the service of the publick, to
protract the debates of this house by personal invectives, and delay the
prosecution of the business of the nation, by trivial objections,
repeated after confutation, and, perhaps, after conviction of their
invalidity.

I need not observe how much time would be spared, and how much the
despatch of affairs would be facilitated by the suppression of this
practice, a practice by which truth is levelled with falsehood, and
knowledge with ignorance; since, if scurrility and merriment are to
determine us, it is not necessary either to be honest or wise to obtain
the superiority in any debate, it will only be necessary to rail and to
laugh, which one man may generally perform with as much success as
another.

The embargo in Ireland was an expedient so necessary and timely, that
the reputation of it is thought too great to be allowed to the
administration, of whom it has been for many years the hard fate, to
hear their actions censured only because they were not the actions of
others, and to be represented as traitors to their country for doing
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