division, in which Mr. Burke voted in the majority, by 217 against 71.




SPEECH.


Mr. Speaker,--I should not trouble the House upon this question, if I
could at all acquiesce in many of the arguments, or justify the vote I
shall give upon several of the reasons which have been urged in favor of
it. I should, indeed, be very much concerned, if I were thought to be
influenced to that vote by those arguments.

In particular, I do most exceedingly condemn all such arguments as
involve any kind of reflection on the personal character of the
gentlemen who have brought in a petition so decent in the style of it,
and so constitutional in the mode. Besides the unimpeachable integrity
and piety of many of the promoters of this petition, which render those
aspersions as idle as they are unjust, such a way of treating the
subject can have no other effect than to turn the attention of the House
from the merits of the petition, the only thing properly before us, and
which we are sufficiently competent to decide upon, to the motives of
the petitioners, which belong exclusively to the Great Searcher of
Hearts.

We all know that those who loll at their ease in high dignities, whether
of the Church or of the State, are commonly averse to all reformation.
It is hard to persuade them that there can be anything amiss in
establishments which by feeling experience they find to be so very