by what misconduct they were brought upon it; when immense sums have been raised by the most oppressive methods of exaction, to ask why they were demanded, and how they were expended; when penal laws have been partially executed, to examine by what authority they were suspended, and by what they were enforced; and when the senate has for twenty years implicitly obeyed the direction of one man, when it has been known throughout the nation, before any question was proposed, how it would be decided, to search out the motive of that regular compliance, and to examine whether the minister was reverenced for his wisdom and virtue, or feared for his power, or courted for the publick money; whether he owed his prevalence to the confidence or corruption of his followers?

It cannot surely be thought inexpedient, to inquire into the reasons for which our merchants were for many years suffered to be plundered, or for which a war, solicited by the general voice of the whole nation, was delayed; into the reasons for which our fleets were fitted out only to coast upon the ocean, and connive at the departure of squadrons and the transportation of armies, to suffer our allies to be invaded, and our traders ruined and enslaved.

It is, in my opinion, convenient to examine with the utmost rigour, why time was granted to our enemies to fortify themselves against us, while a standing army preyed upon our people?  Why forces unacquainted with the use of arms were sent against them, under the command of leaders equally ignorant?  And why we have suffered their privateers in the mean time to rove at large over the ocean, and insult us upon our own coasts?  Why we did not rescue our sailors from captivity, when opportunities of exchange were in our power?  And why we robbed our merchants of their crews by rigorous impresses, without employing them either to guard our trade, or subdue our enemies?

If the senate is not to be suffered to inquire into affairs like these, it is no longer any security to the people, that they have the right of electing representatives; and unless they may carry their inquiries back as far as they shall think it necessary, the most acute sagacity may be easily eluded; causes may be very remote from their consequences, the original motives of a long train of wicked measures may lie hid in some private transaction of former years, and those advantages which our enemies have been of late suffered to obtain, were perhaps sold them at some forgotten congress by some secret article.

Such are, probably, the private transactions which the honourable gentleman is so much afraid of exposing to the light; transactions in which the interest of this nation has been meanly yielded up by cowardice, or sold by treachery; in which Britain has been considered as a province subordinate to some other country, or in which the minister has enriched himself by the sacrifice of the publick rights.