Mr. PELHAM spoke next, in substance as follows:—­Sir, the reputation which the honourable gentleman has acquired by his uncommon knowledge of the usages of the senate, is too well founded to be shaken, nor was any attack upon his character intended, when he was interrupted in the prosecution of his design.  To censure any indecent expression, by whomsoever uttered, is, doubtless, consistent with the strictest regularity; nor is it less proper to obviate any misrepresentation which inattention or mistake may produce.

I am far, sir, from thinking that the gentleman’s indignation was excited rather by malice than mistake; but mistakes of this kind may produce consequences which cannot be too cautiously avoided.  How unwillingly would that gentleman propagate through the nation an opinion that the merchants were insulted in this house, their interest neglected, and their intelligence despised, at a time when no aspersion was thrown upon them, nor any thing intended but tenderness and regard?  And yet such had been the representation of this day’s debate, which this numerous audience would have conveyed to the populace, had not the mistake been immediately rectified, and the rumour crushed in the birth.

Nothing, sir, can be more injurious to the character of this assembly, by which the people are represented, than to accuse them of treating any class of men with insolence and contempt; and too much diligence cannot be used in obviating a report which cannot be spread in the nation, without giving rise to discontent, clamours, and sedition.

Those who shall be inclined to reject the petition, may, perhaps, act with no less regard to the merchants, and may promote their interest and their security with no less ardour than those who most solicitously labour for its reception:  for, if they are not allowed to be heard, it is only because the publick interest requires expedition, and because every delay of our preparations is an injury to trade.

That this is not a proper time for petitions against the bill to be heard, is universally known; and I can discover nothing in the petition that restrains it to this particular clause, which is so far from being specified, that it appears to be the only part of the bill of which they have had no intelligence.

Let the warmest advocates for the petition point out any part of it that relates to this single clause, and I will retract my assertion; but as it appears that there are only general declarations of the inexpediency of the measures proposed, and the pernicious tendency of the methods now in use, what is the petition, but a complaint against the bill, and a request that it should be laid aside.