or what their pretensions are; the spirit which actuates all parties is the same; the spirit of ambition, of self-interest, of oppression and treachery.  This spirit entirely reverses all the principles which a benevolent nature has erected within us; all honesty, all equal justice, and even the ties of natural society, the natural affections.  In a word, my lord, we have all seen, and, if any outward considerations were worthy the lasting concern of a wise man, we have some of us felt, such oppression from party government as no other tyranny can parallel.  We behold daily the most important rights, rights upon which all the others depend, we behold these rights determined in the last resort, without the least attention even to the appearance or color of justice; we behold this without emotion, because we have grown up in the constant view of such practices; and we are not surprised to hear a man requested to be a knave and a traitor, with as much indifference as if the most ordinary favor were asked; and we hear this request refused, not because it is a most unjust and unreasonable desire, but because this worthy has already engaged his injustice to another.  These and many more points I am for from spreading to their full extent.  You are sensible that I do not put forth half my strength; and you cannot be at a loss for the reason.  A man is allowed sufficient freedom of thought, provided he knows how to choose his subject properly.  You may criticise freely upon the Chinese constitution, and observe with as much severity as you please upon the absurd tricks, or destructive bigotry of the bonzees.  But the scene is changed as you come homeward, and atheism or treason may be the names given in Britain, to what would be reason and truth if asserted of China.  I submit to the condition, and though I have a notorious advantage before me, I waive the pursuit.  For else, my lord, it is very obvious what a picture might be drawn of the excesses of party even in our own nation.  I could show, that the same faction has, in one reign, promoted popular seditions, and, in the next, been a patron of tyranny:  I could show that they have all of them betrayed the public safety at all times, and have very frequently with equal perfidy made a market of their own cause and their own associates.  I could show how vehemently they have contended for names, and how silently they have passed over things of the last importance.  And I could demonstrate that they have had the opportunity of doing all this mischief, nay, that they themselves had their origin and growth from that complex form of government, which we are wisely taught to look upon as so great a blessing.  Revolve, my lord, our history from the Conquest.  We scarcely ever had a prince, who, by fraud or violence, had not made some infringement on the constitution.  We scarcely ever had a Parliament which knew, when it attempted to set limits to the royal authority, how to set limits to its own.  Evils we have had