adjourned till twelve at noon. The House did not divide till one
on the Sunday morning. The amendment was then rejected by 324
votes to 162; and the original motion was carried. The following
Speech was made on the first night of the debate.

I can assure my noble friend (Lord Mahon.), for whom I entertain
sentiments of respect and kindness which no political difference
will, I trust, ever disturb, that his remarks have given me no
pain, except, indeed, the pain which I feel at being compelled to
say a few words about myself. Those words shall be very few. I
know how unpopular egotism is in this House. My noble friend
says that, in the debates of last March, I declared myself
opposed to the ballot, and that I have since recanted, for the
purpose of making myself popular with the inhabitants of Leeds.
My noble friend is altogether mistaken. I never said, in any
debate, that I was opposed to the ballot. The word ballot never
passed my lips within this House. I observed strict silence
respecting it on two accounts; in the first place, because my own
opinions were, till very lately, undecided; in the second place,
because I knew that the agitation of that question, a question of
which the importance appears to me to be greatly overrated, would
divide those on whose firm and cordial union the safety of the
empire depends. My noble friend has taken this opportunity of
replying to a speech which I made last October. The doctrines
which I then laid down were, according to him, most intemperate
and dangerous. Now, Sir, it happens, curiously enough, that my
noble friend has himself asserted, in his speech of this night,
those very doctrines, in language so nearly resembling mine that
I might fairly accuse him of plagiarism. I said that laws have
no force in themselves, and that, unless supported by public