But, with regard, sir, to those whom I have offended, I am of opinion, that if I had acted a borrowed part, I should have avoided their censure; the heat that offended them is the ardour of conviction, and that zeal for the service of my country, which neither hope nor fear shall influence me to suppress. I will not sit unconcerned while my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon publick robbery. I will exert my endeavours, at whatever hazard, to repel the aggressor, and drag the thief to justice, whoever may protect them in their villany, and whoever may partake of their plunder. And if the honourable gentleman—
Here Mr. WINNINGTON called to order, and Mr. PITT sitting down, he spoke thus:—It is necessary, sir, that the order of this assembly be observed, and the debate resumed without personal altercations. Such expressions as have been vented on this occasion, become not an assembly intrusted with the liberty and welfare of their country. To interrupt the debate on a subject so important as that before us, is, in some measure, to obstruct the publick happiness, and violate our trust: but much more heinous is the crime of exposing our determinations to contempt, and inciting the people to suspicion or mutiny, by indecent reflections, or unjust insinuations.
I do not, sir, undertake to decide the controversy between the two gentlemen, but must be allowed to observe, that no diversity of opinion can justify the violation of decency, and the use of rude and virulent expressions; expressions dictated only by resentment, and uttered without regard to—
Mr. PITT called to order, and said:—Sir, if this be to preserve order, there is no danger of indecency from the most licentious tongue: for what calumny can be more atrocious, or what reproach more severe, than that of speaking with regard to any thing but truth. Order may sometimes be broken by passion, or inadvertency, but will hardly be reestablished by monitors like this, who cannot govern his own passion, whilst he is restraining the impetuosity of others.
Happy, sir, would it be for mankind, if every one knew his own province; we should not then see the same man at once a criminal and a judge. Nor would this gentleman assume the right of dictating to others what he has not learned himself.
That I may return, in some degree, the favour which he intends me, I will advise him never hereafter to exert himself on the subject of order; but, whenever he finds himself inclined to speak on such occasions, to remember how he has now succeeded, and condemn, in silence, what his censures will never reform.
Mr. WINNINGTON replied:—Sir, as I was hindered by the gentleman's ardour and impetuosity from concluding my sentence, none but myself can know the equity or partiality of my intentions, and, therefore, as I cannot justly be condemned, I ought to be supposed innocent; nor ought he to censure a fault of which he cannot be certain that it would ever have been committed.
He has, indeed, exalted himself to a degree of authority never yet assumed by any member of this house, that of condemning others to silence. I am henceforward, by his inviolable decree, to sit and hear his harangues without daring to oppose him. How wide he may extend his authority, or whom he will proceed to include in the same sentence, I shall not determine; having not yet arrived at the same degree of sagacity with himself, nor being able to foreknow what another is going to pronounce.
If I had given offence by any improper sallies of passion, I ought to have been censured by the concurrent voice of the assembly, or have received a reprimand, sir, from you, to which I should have submitted without opposition; but I will not be doomed to silence by one who has no pretensions to authority, and whose arbitrary decisions can only tend to introduce uproar, discord, and confusion.
Mr. Henry PELHAM next rose up, and spoke to this effect:—Sir, when, in the ardour of controversy upon interesting questions, the zeal of the disputants hinders them from a nice observation of decency and regularity, there is some indulgence due to the common weakness of our nature; nor ought any gentleman to affix to a negligent expression a more offensive sense than is necessarily implied by it.