Mr. Henry PELHAM then spoke, to this purport:—­Sir, I have attended to this petition with the utmost impartiality, and have endeavoured to affix, to every period, the most innocent sense; but cannot forbear to declare it as my opinion, that it is far distant from the style of submission and request:  instead of persuading, they attempt to intimidate us, and menace us with no less than bloodshed and rebellion.  They make themselves the judges of our proceedings, and appeal, from our determinations, to their own opinion, and declare that they will obey no longer than they approve.

If such petitions as these, sir, are admitted; if the legislature shall submit to receive laws, and subjects resume, at pleasure, the power with which the government is vested, what is this assembly but a convention of empty phantoms, whose determinations are nothing more than a mockery of state?

Every insult upon this house is a violation of our constitution; and the constitution, like every other fabrick, by being often battered, must fall at last.  It is, indeed, already destroyed, if there be, in the nation, any body of men who shall, with impunity, refuse to comply with the laws, plead the great charter of liberty against those powers that made it, and fix the limits of their own obedience.

I cannot, sir, pass over, in silence, the mention of the king, whose title to the throne, and the reasons for which he was exalted to it, are set forth with uncommon art and spirit of diction; but spirit, which, in my opinion, appears not raised by zeal, but by sedition; and which, therefore, it is our province to repress.

That his majesty reigns for the preservation of liberty, will be readily confessed; but how shall we be able to preserve it, if his laws are not obeyed?

Let us, therefore, in regard to the dignity of the assembly, to the efficacy of our determinations, and the security of our constitution, discourage all those who shall address us for the future, on this or any other occasion, from speaking in the style of governours and dictators, by refusing that this petition should be laid on the table.

[The question was put, and it was agreed, by the whole house, that it should not lie on the table.]

Mr. Henry PELHAM rose up again, and spoke thus:—­Sir, I cannot but congratulate the house upon the unanimity with which this petition, a petition of which I speak in the softest language, when I call it irreverent and disrespectful, has been refused the regard commonly paid to the remonstrances of our constituents, whose rights I am far from desiring to infringe, when I endeavour to regulate their conduct, and recall them to their duty.

This is an occasion, on which it is, in my opinion, necessary to exert our authority with confidence and vigour, as the spirit of opposition must always be proportioned to that of the attack.  Let us, therefore, not only refuse to this petition the usual place on our table, but reject it as unworthy of this house.