By this expedient, sir, the inquiry will be made at least possible, and I hope, though it should still remain difficult, those who have so long struggled for the preservation of their country, and who have at last seen their labours rewarded with success, will not be discouraged from pursuing it.

The necessity of such an inquiry will grow every day more urgent; because wicked men will be hardened in confidence of impunity, and the difficulty, such as it is, will be increased by every delay; for what now makes an inquiry difficult, or in the style of these mighty politicians impossible, but the length of time that has elapsed since the last exertion of this right of the senate, and the multitude of transactions which are necessarily to be examined?

What is this year an irksome and tedious task, will in another year require still more patience and labour; and though I cannot believe that it will ever become impossible, it will undoubtedly in time be sufficient to weary the most active industry, and to discourage the most ardent zeal.

The chief argument, therefore, that has been hitherto employed to discourage us from an inquiry, ought rather, in my opinion, to incite us to it.  We ought to remember, that while the enemies of our country are fortifying themselves behind an endless multiplicity of negotiations and accounts, every day adds new strength to their intrenchments, and that we ought to force them while they are yet unable to resist or escape us.

Sir William Yonge then spoke to the following effect:—­Sir, however I may be convinced in my own opinion of the impracticability of the inquiry now proposed, whatever confidence I may repose in the extensive knowledge and long experience of those, by whom it has been openly pronounced not only difficult but impossible, I think there are arguments against the motion, which though, perhaps, not stronger in themselves, (for what objection can be stronger than impossibility,) ought at least more powerfully to incite us to oppose it.

Of the impossibility of executing this inquiry, those who have proposed it well deserve to be convinced, not by arguments but experience; they deserve not to be diverted by persuasions from engaging in a task, which they have voluntarily determined to undergo; a task, which neither honour, nor virtue, nor necessity has imposed upon them, and to which it may justly be suspected, that they would not have submitted upon any other motives, than those by which their conduct has hitherto been generally directed, ambition and resentment.

Men who, upon such principles, condemn themselves to labours which they cannot support, surely deserve to perish in the execution of their own projects, to be overwhelmed by the burdens which they have laid upon themselves, and to suffer the disgrace which always attends the undertakers of impossibilities; and from which the powers of raillery and ridicule, which they have so successfully displayed on this occasion, will not be sufficient to defend them.