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