judgment; but obstinacy is not yet conquered.

The honorable gentleman has made one endeavor more to diversify the form
of this disgusting argument. He has thrown out a speech composed almost
entirely of challenges. Challenges are serious things; and as he is a
man of prudence as well as resolution, I dare say he has very well
weighed those challenges before he delivered them. I had long the
happiness to sit at the same side of the House, and to agree with the
honorable gentleman on all the American questions. My sentiments, I am
sure, are well known to him; and I thought I had been perfectly
acquainted with his. Though I find myself mistaken, he will still permit
me to use the privilege of an old friendship; he will permit me to apply
myself to the House under the sanction of his authority, and, on the
various grounds he has measured out, to submit to you the poor opinions
which I have formed upon a matter of importance enough to demand the
fullest consideration I could bestow upon it.

He has stated to the House two grounds of deliberation: one narrow and
simple, and merely confined to the question on your paper; the other
more large and more complicated,--comprehending the whole series of the
Parliamentary proceedings with regard to America, their causes, and
their consequences. With regard to the latter ground, he states it as
useless, and thinks it may be even dangerous, to enter into so extensive
a field of inquiry. Yet, to my surprise, he had hardly laid down this
restrictive proposition, to which his authority would have given so much
weight, when directly, and with the same authority, he condemns it, and
declares it absolutely necessary to enter into the most ample historical
detail. His zeal has thrown him a little out of his usual accuracy. In
this perplexity, what shall we do, Sir, who are willing to submit to the
law he gives us? He has reprobated in one part of his speech the rule he