the oath de fideli, whereby we are bound not only to give our vote, but our faithful advice in Parliament, as we should answer to God; and in our ancient laws, the representatives of the honorable barons and the royal boroughs are termed spokesmen.  It lies upon your lordships, therefore, particularly to take notice of such whose modesty makes them bashful to speak.  Therefore, I shall leave it upon you, and conclude this point with a very memorable saying of an honest private gentleman to a great queen, upon occasion of a State project, contrived by an able statesman, and the favorite to a great king, against a peaceable, obedient people, because of the diversity of their laws and constitutions:  “If at this time thou hold thy peace, salvation shall come to the people from another place, but thou and thy house shall perish.”  I leave the application to each particular member of this house.

My lord, I come now to consider our divisions.  We are under the happy reign (blessed be God) of the best of queens, who has no evil design against the meanest of her subjects, who loves all her people, and is equally beloved by them again; and yet that under the happy influence of our most excellent Queen there should be such divisions and factions more dangerous and threatening to her dominions than if we were under an arbitrary government, is most strange and unaccountable.  Under an arbitrary prince all are willing to serve because all are under a necessity to obey, whether they will or not.  He chooses therefore whom he will, without respect to either parties or factions; and if he think fit to take the advices of his councils or parliaments, every man speaks his mind freely, and the prince receives the faithful advice of his people without the mixture of self-designs.  If he prove a good prince, the government is easy; if bad, either death or a revolution brings a deliverance.  Whereas here, my lord, there appears no end of our misery, if not prevented in time; factions are now become independent, and have got footing in councils, in parliaments, in treaties, armies, in incorporations, in families, among kindred, yea, man and wife are not free from their political jars.

It remains therefore, my lord, that I inquire into the nature of these things; and since the names give us not the right idea of the thing, I am afraid I shall have difficulty to make myself well understood.

The names generally used to denote the factions are Whig and Tory, as obscure as that of Guelfs and Gibelins.  Yea, my lord, they have different significations, as they are applied to factions in each kingdom; a Whig in England is a heterogeneous creature, in Scotland he is all of a piece; a Tory in England is all of a piece, and a statesman in Scotland, he is quite otherways, an anti-courtier and anti-statesman.