report it, that you often, at committees, put an able speaker into the
chair on purpose to prevent him from stopping a bill. Why, if it were no
more than this, I believe I should hardly choose, even among my footmen,
such a one to deliver a message, whose interest and opinions led him to
wish it might miscarry. But I remember to have heard old Colonel
Birch[4] of Herefordshire say, that "he was a very sorry Speaker, whose
single vote was not better than fifty common ones." I am sure it is
reckoned in England the first great test of the prevalency of either
party in the House. Sir Thomas Littleton[5] thought, that a House of
Commons with a stinking breath (supposing the Speaker to be the mouth)
would go near to infect everything within the walls, and a great deal
without. It is the smallest part of an able Speaker's business, what he
performs in the House, at least if he be in with the court, when it is
hard to say how many converts may be made in a circle of dinners, or
private cabals. And you and I can easily call to mind a gentleman in
that station, in England, who, by his own arts and personal credit, was
able to draw over a majority, and change the whole power of a prevailing
side in a nice juncture of affairs, and made a Parliament expire in one
party who had lived in another.

I am far from an inclination to multiply party causes, but surely the
best of us can with very ill grace make that an objection, who have not
been so nice in matters of much less importance. Yet I have heard some
persons of both sides gravely deliver themselves in this manner; "Why
should we make the choosing a Speaker a party cause? Let us fix upon one
who is well versed in the practices and methods of parliament." And I
believe there are too many who would talk at the same rate, if the
question were not only about abolishing the sacramental test, but the
sacrament itself.