acquiescence in all that remained. After this experience, nobody shall
persuade me, when an whole people are concerned, that acts of lenity are
not means of conciliation.

I hope the honorable gentleman has received a fair and full answer to
his question.

I have done with the third period of your policy,--that of your repeal,
and the return of your ancient system, and your ancient tranquillity and
concord. Sir, this period was not as long as it was happy. Another scene
was opened, and other actors appeared on the stage. The state, in the
condition I have described it, was delivered into the hands of Lord
Chatham, a great and celebrated name,--a name that keeps the name of
this country respectable in every other on the globe. It may be truly
called

Clarum et venerabile nomen
Gentibus, et multum nostræ quod proderat urbi.


Sir, the venerable age of this great man, his merited rank, his superior
eloquence, his splendid qualities, his eminent services, the vast space
he fills in the eye of mankind, and, more than all the rest, his fall
from power, which, like death, canonizes and sanctifies a great
character, will not suffer me to censure any part of his conduct. I am
afraid to flatter him; I am sure I am not disposed to blame him. Let
those who have betrayed him by their adulation insult him with their
malevolence. But what I do not presume to censure I may have leave to
lament. For a wise man, he seemed to me at that time to be governed too
much by general maxims. I speak with the freedom of history, and I hope