This practice, my lords, is a sufficient foundation for the motion; a practice so injurious to the nation, so long continued, and so openly avowed, requires to be vigorously opposed, lest it should become established by long custom, and entangle itself with our constitution.

If the minister, my lords, has made it necessary to employ none but his adherents and blind followers, this necessity is alone a sufficient proof how little he confides in his own prudence or integrity, how apprehensive he is of the censure of the senate, and how desirous of continuing his authority, by avoiding it.  And, surely, my lords, it is our duty, as well as our right, to address the throne, that a minister should be removed who fears the people, since few men fear without hating, and nothing so much contributes to make any man an enemy to his country, as the consciousness that he is universally abhorred.

But, my lords, if this is done by him without necessity, if the general preference of his friends is only the consequence of mistaken judgment, or corrupt gratitude, this address is equally necessary, because the effects are equally pernicious.

When a minister, suspected of ill intentions, is continued in employment, discontent must naturally spread over the nation; and if the end of government be the happiness of the people; if suspicion and jealousy be contrary to a state of happiness; and if this suspicion which generally prevails, this discontent which fills the whole nation, can only be appeased by the removal of the minister; prudence, justice, and the examples of our ancestors, ought to influence us to endeavour that the affairs of the nation may be transferred to such whose greater integrity or wisdom has recommended them to the affection of the people.

In this motion, therefore, we need not be supposed to imply that the minister is either ignorant or corrupt, but that he is disliked by the people, disliked to such a degree, my lords, that it is not safe for his majesty to employ him.

It is, doubtless, our duty, my lords, to guard both the rights of the people, and the prerogatives of the throne, and with equal ardour to remonstrate to his majesty the distresses of his subjects, and his own danger.  We are to hold the balance of the constitution, and neither to suffer the regal power to be overborne by a torrent of popular fury, nor the people to be oppressed by an illegal exertion of authority, or the more insupportable hardships of unreasonable laws.

By this motion, my lords, the happiness of the people, and the security of his majesty, are at once consulted, nor can we suppress so general a clamour without failing equally in our duty to both.

To what, my lords, is the untimely end of so many kings and emperours to be imputed, but to the cowardice or treachery of their counsellors, of those to whom they trusted that intercourse, which is always to be preserved between a monarch and his people?  Were kings honestly informed of the opinions and dispositions of their subjects, they would never, or, at least rarely, persist in such measures, as, by exasperating the people, tend necessarily to endanger themselves.