The only candid method of inquiry is to recur back to the state of affairs, as it then appeared, to consider what was openly declared, and what was kept impenetrably secret, what was discoverable by human sagacity, and what was beyond the reach of the most piercing politician.
With regard to the Hanover treaty, it is not, my lords, requisite that we should engage ourselves in a very minute examination; for it was not only not transacted by the right honourable gentleman whose behaviour is the subject of this debate, but cannot be proved to have been known by him till it was formally ratified. If he afterwards approved it either in the council or the senate, he cannot justly, how destructive or ridiculous soever that treaty may be thought, be charged with more than his share of the guilt, the bare guilt of a single vote.
But there is one accusation yet more malicious, an accusation not only of crimes which this gentleman did not commit, but which have not yet been committed, an accusation formed by prying into futurity, and exaggerating misfortunes which are yet to come, and which may probably be prevented. Well may any man, my lords, think himself in danger, when he hears himself charged not with high crimes and misdemeanours, not with accumulative treason, but with misconduct of publick affairs, past, present, and future.
The only charge against this gentleman, which seems to relate more to him than to any other man engaged in the administration, is the continuance of the harbour of Dunkirk, which, says the noble duke, he must be acquainted with as commissioner of the treasury; but if the title of first commissioner be denied, if his authority be but the same with that of his associates, whence comes it, my lords, that he is more particularly accused than they? Why is his guilt supposed greater if his power is only equal?
But, my lords, I believe it will appear, that no guilt has been contracted on this account, and that Dunkirk was always intended, even by those that demanded the demolition of it, to continue a harbour for small trading vessels, and that if larger ever arrived from thence, they lay at a distance from the shore, and were loaded by small vessels from the town.
With regard to other affairs, my lords, they were all transacted by the council, not by his direction, but with his concurrence; and how it is consistent with justice to single him out for censure, I must desire the noble lords to show who approve the motion.
If the people, my lords, have been, by misrepresentations industriously propagated, exasperated against him, if the general voice of the nation condemns him, we ought more cautiously to examine his conduct, lest we should add strength to prejudice too powerful already, and instead of reforming the errours, and regulating the heat of the people, inflame their discontent and propagate sedition.
The utmost claim of the people is to be admitted as accusers, and sometimes as evidence, but they have no right to sit as judges, and to make us the executioners of their sentence; and as this gentleman has yet been only condemned by those who have not the opportunities of examining his conduct, nor the right of judging him, I cannot agree to give him up to punishment.
Lord HALIFAX spoke next, in substance as follows:—My lords, though I do not conceive the people infallible, yet I believe that in questions like this they are seldom in the wrong, for this is a question not of argument but of fact; of fact discoverable, not by long deductions and accurate ratiocinations, but by the common powers of seeing and feeling.
That it is difficult to know the motives of negotiations, and the effects of laws, and that it requires long study and intense meditation to discover remote consequences, is indubitably true. And, with regard to the people in general, it cannot be denied, that neither their education qualifies them, nor their employments allow them to be much versed in such inquiries.