Sir, I am well aware that the state and the result of the French economy which I have laid before you are even now lightly treated by some who ought never to speak but from information.  Pains have not been spared to represent them as impositions on the public.  Let me tell you, Sir, that the creation of a navy, and a two years’ war without taxing, are a very singular species of imposture.  But be it so.  For what end does Necker carry on this delusion?  Is it to lower the estimation of the crown he serves, and to render his own administration contemptible?  No!  No!  He is conscious that the sense of mankind is so clear and decided in favor of economy, and of the weight and value of its resources, that he turns himself to every species of fraud and artifice to obtain the mere reputation of it.  Men do not affect a conduct that tends to their discredit.  Let us, then, get the better of Monsieur Necker in his own way; let us do in reality what he does only in pretence; let us turn his French tinsel into English gold.  Is, then, the mere opinion and appearance of frugality and good management of such use to France, and is the substance to be so mischievous to England?  Is the very constitution of Nature so altered by a sea of twenty miles, that economy should give power on the Continent, and that profusion should give it here?  For God’s sake, let not this be the only fashion of France which we refuse to copy!

To the last kind of necessity, the desires of the people, I have but a very few words to say.  The ministers seem to contest this point, and affect to doubt whether the people do really desire a plan of economy in the civil government.  Sir, this is too ridiculous.  It is impossible that they should not desire it.  It is impossible that a prodigality which draws its resources from their indigence should be pleasing to them.  Little factions of pensioners, and their dependants, may talk another language.  But the voice of Nature is against them, and it will be heard.  The people of England will not, they cannot, take it kindly, that representatives should refuse to their constituents what an absolute sovereign voluntarily offers to his subjects.  The expression of the petitions is, that, “before any new burdens are laid upon this country, effectual measures be taken by this House to inquire into and correct the gross abuses in the expenditure of public money.”

This has been treated by the noble lord in the blue ribbon as a wild, factious language.  It happens, however, that the people, in their address to us, use, almost word for word, the same terms as the king of France uses in addressing himself to his people; and it differs only as it falls short of the French king’s idea of what is due to his subjects.  “To convince,” says he, “our faithful subjects of the desire we entertain not to recur to new impositions, until we have first exhausted all the resources which order and economy can possibly supply,” &c., &c.