No man, sir, can very solicitously watch over the welfare of his neighbour whose mind is depressed by poverty, or distracted by terrour; and when the nation shall see us anxious for the preservation of the queen of Hungary, and unconcerned about the wants of our fellow-subjects, what can be imagined, but that we have some method of exempting ourselves from the common distress, and that we regard not the publick misery when we do not feel it?
Sir Robert WALPOLE replied, to the following effect:—Sir, it is always proper for every man to lay down some principles upon which he proposes to act, whether in publick or private; that he may not be always wavering, uncertain, and irresolute; that his adherents may know what they are to expect, and his adversaries be able to tell why they are opposed.
It is necessary, sir, even for his own sake, that he may not be always struggling with himself; that he may know his own determinations, and enforce them by the reasons which have prevailed upon him to form them; that he may not argue in the same speech to contrary purposes, and weary the attention of his hearers with contrasts and antitheses.
When a man admits the necessity of granting a supply, expatiates upon the danger that may be produced by retarding it, declares against the least delay, however speciously proposed, and enforces the arguments which have been already offered to show how much it is our duty and interest to allow it; may it not reasonably be imagined, that he intends to promote it, and is endeavouring to convince them of that necessity of which he seems himself convinced?
But when the same man proceeds to display, with equal eloquence, the present calamities of the nation, and tells to how much better purposes the sum thus demanded may be applied; when he dwells upon the possibility that an impolitick use may be made of the national treasure, and hints that it may be asked for one purpose and employed to another, what can be collected from his harangue, however elegant, entertaining, and pathetick? How can his true opinion be discovered? Or how shall we fix such fugitive reasonings, such variable rhetorick?
I am not able, sir, to discern, why truth should be obscured; or why any man should take pleasure in heaping together all the arguments that his knowledge may supply, or his imagination suggest, against a proposition which he cannot deny. Nor can I assign any good purpose that can be promoted by perpetual renewals of debate, and by a repetition of objections, which have in former conferences, on the same occasion, been found of little force.
When the system of affairs is not fully laid open, and the schemes of the administration are in part unknown, it is easy to raise objections formidable in appearance, which, perhaps, cannot be answered till the necessity of secrecy is taken away. When any general calamity has fallen upon a nation, it is a very fruitful topick of rhetorick, and may be very pathetically exaggerated, upon a thousand occasions to which it has no necessary relation.
Such, In my opinion, sir, is the use now made of the present scarcity, a misfortune inflicted upon us by the hand of providence alone; not upon us only, but upon all the nations on this side of the globe, many of which suffer more, but none less than ourselves.
If at such a time it is more burdensome to the nation to raise supplies, it must be remembered, that it is in proportion difficult to other nations to oppose those measures for which the supplies are granted; and that the same sum is of greater efficacy in times of scarcity than of plenty.
Our present distress will, I hope, soon be at an end; and, perhaps, a few days may produce at least some alteration. It is not without reason, that I expect the news of some successful attempts in America, which will convince the nation, that the preparations for war have not been idle shows, contrived to produce unnecessary expenses.