This method is yet eligible on another account; by proceeding with frugality, we shall gain time to observe the progress of the war, and watch the appearance of any favourable opportunity, without exhausting ourselves so far as to be made unable to improve them.
The time, my lords, at which we shall be thus exhausted, at which we shall be reduced to an absolute inability to raise an army or equip a fleet, is not at a great distance. If our late profusion be for a short time continued, we shall quickly have drained the last remains of the wealth of our country. We have long gone on from year to year, raising taxes and contracting debts; and unless the riches of Britain are absolutely unlimited, must in a short time reduce them to nothing. Our expenses are not all, indeed, equally destructive; some, though the method of raising them be vexatious and oppressive, do not much impoverish the nation, because they are refunded by the extravagance and luxury of those who are retained in the pay of the court; but foreign wars threaten immediate destruction, since the money that is spent in distant countries can never fall back into its former channels, but is dissipated on the continent, and irrecoverably lost.
When this consideration is present to my mind, and, on this occasion, no man who has any regard for himself or his posterity can omit it, I cannot but think with horrour on a vote by which such prodigious sums are wafted into another region: I cannot but tremble at the sound of a tax for the support of a foreign war, and think a French army landed on our coasts not much more to be dreaded than the annual payment to which we appear now to be condemned, and from which nothing can preserve us but the address which is now proposed.
By what arguments the commons were persuaded, or by what motives incited to vote a supply for the support of this mercenary force, I have not yet heard; nor, as a member of this house, my lords, was it necessary for me to inquire. Their authority, though mentioned with so much solemnity on this occasion, is to have no influence on our determinations. If they are mistaken, it is more necessary for us to inquire with uncommon caution. If they are corrupt, it is more necessary for us to preserve our integrity. If we are to comply blindly with their decisions, our knowledge and experience are of no benefit to our country, we only waste time in useless solemnities, and may be once more declared useless to the publick.
The commons, my lords, do not imagine themselves, nor are imagined by the nation, to constitute the legislature. The people, when any uncommon heat prevails in the other house, disturbs their debates, and overrules their determinations, have been long accustomed to expect redress and security from our calmer counsels; and have considered this house as the place where reason and justice may be heard, when, by clamour and uproar, they are driven from the other. On this occasion, my lords, every Briton fixes his eye upon us, and every man who has sagacity enough to discover the dismal approach of publick poverty, now supplicates your lordships, by agreeing to this address, to preserve him from it.
Then the SPEAKER spoke to the following purport:—My lords, having very attentively observed the whole progress of this important debate, and considered with the utmost impartiality the arguments which have been made use of on each side, I cannot think the question before us doubtful or difficult; and hope that I may promote a speedy decision of it by recapitulating what has been already urged, that the debate may be considered at one view, and by adding some observations which have arisen to my own thoughts on this occasion.
At the first view of the question before us, in its present state, no man can find any reasons for prejudice in favour of the address proposed. This house is, indeed, yet divided, and many lords have spoken on each side with great force and with great address; but the authority of the other house, added to the numbers which have already declared in this for the support of the foreign troops, is sufficient to turn the balance, in the opinion of any man who contents himself to judge by the first appearance of things; and must incline him to imagine that position at least more probable, which is ratified by the determination of one house, and yet undecided by the other.
I know, my lords, what may be objected to these observations on the other house, and readily agree with the noble lord, that our determinations ought not to be influenced by theirs. But on this occasion, I introduce their decision not as the decrees of legislators, but as the result of the consideration of wise men; and in this sense it may be no less reasonable to quote the determination of the commons, than to introduce the opinion of any private man whose knowledge or experience give his opinion a claim to our regard.
Nor do I mention the weight of authority on one side as sufficient to influence the private determination of any in this great assembly. It is the privilege and the duty of every man, who possesses a seat in the highest council of his country, to make use of his own eyes and his own understanding, to reject those arguments of which he cannot find the force, whatever effect they may have upon others, and to discharge the great trust conferred upon him by consulting no conscience but his own.
Yet, though we are by no means to suffer the determinations of other men to repress our inquiries, we may certainly make use of them to assist them; we may very properly, therefore, inquire the reasons that induced the other house to approve those bills which are brought before them, since it is not likely that their consent was obtained without arguments, at least probable, though they are not to be by us considered as conclusive upon their authority. The chief advantage which the publick receives from a legislature formed of several distinct powers, is, that all laws must pass through many deliberations of assemblies independent on each other, of which, if the one be agitated by faction or distracted by divisions, it may be hoped that the other will be calm and united, and of which it can hardly be feared that they can at any time concur in measures apparently destructive to the commonwealth.