True tenderness for the people, my lords, is to consult their advantage, to protect their liberty, and to preserve their virtue; and perhaps examples may be found sufficient to inform us that all these effects are often to be produced by means not generally agreeable to the publick.

It is possible, my lords, for a very small part of the people to form just ideas of the motives of transactions and the tendency of laws.  All negotiations with foreign powers are necessarily complicated with many different interests, and varied by innumerable circumstances, influenced by sudden exigencies, and defeated by unavoidable accidents.  Laws have respect to remote consequences, and involve a multitude of relations which it requires long study to discover.  And how difficult it is to judge of political conduct, or legislative proceedings, may be easily discovered by observing how often the most skilful statesmen are mistaken, and how frequently the laws require to be amended.

If then, my lords, the people judge for themselves on these subjects, they must necessarily determine without knowledge of the questions, and their decisions are then of small authority.  If they receive, implicitly, the dictates of others, and blindly adopt the opinions of those who have gained their favour and esteem, their applauses and complaints are, with respect to themselves, empty sounds, which they utter as the organs of their leaders.  Nor are the desires of the people gratified when their petitions are granted; nor their grievances overlooked when their murmurs are neglected.

As it is no reproach to the people that they cannot be the proper judges of the conduct of the government, so neither are they to be censured when they complain of injuries not real, and tremble at the apprehension of severities unintended.  Unjust complaints, my lords, and unreasonable apprehensions, are to be imputed to those who court their regard only to deceive them, and exalt themselves to reputation by rescuing them from grievances that were never felt, and averting dangers that were never near.

He only who makes the happiness of the people his endeavour, loves them with a true affection and a rational tenderness, and he certainly consults their happiness who contributes to still all groundless clamours, and appease all useless apprehensions, who employs his care, not only to preserve their quiet and their liberty, but to secure them from the fear of losing it, who not only promotes the means of happiness, but enables them to enjoy it.

Thus, it appears, my lords, that it is possible to be a friend, at the same time, to the people and the administration, and that no man can more deserve their confidence and applause, than he that dissipates their unreasonable terrours, and contributes to reconcile them to a good government.

That most of the clamours against the present government arise from calumnies and misrepresentations, is apparent from the sanction of the senate, which has been given to all the measures that are charged as crimes upon the administration.