Actuated by the same principle of choice, he has now on the anvil another scheme, full of difficulty and desperate hazard, which totally alters the commercial relation of two kingdoms, and, what end soever it shall have, may bequeath a legacy of heartburning and discontent to one of the countries, perhaps to both, to be perpetuated to the latest posterity.  This project is also undertaken on the hope of profit.  It is provided, that, out of some (I know not what) remains of the Irish hereditary revenue, a fund, at some time, and of some sort, should be applied to the protection of the Irish trade.  Here we are commanded again to task our faith, and to persuade ourselves, that, out of the surplus of deficiency, out of the savings of habitual and systematic prodigality, the minister of wonders will provide support for this nation, sinking under the mountainous load of two hundred and thirty millions of debt.  But whilst we look with pain at his desperate and laborious trifling, whilst we are apprehensive that he will break his back in stooping to pick up chaff and straws, he recovers himself at an elastic bound, and with a broadcast swing of his arm he squanders over his Indian field a sum far greater than the clear produce of the whole hereditary revenue of the kingdom of Ireland.[4]

Strange as this scheme of conduct in ministry is, and inconsistent with all just policy, it is still true to itself, and faithful to its own perverted order.  Those who are bountiful to crimes will be rigid to merit and penurious to service.  Their penury is even held out as a blind and cover to their prodigality.  The economy of injustice is to furnish resources for the fund of corruption.  Then they pay off their protection to great crimes and great criminals by being inexorable to the paltry frailties of little men; and these modern flagellants are sure, with a rigid fidelity, to whip their own enormities on the vicarious back of every small offender.

It is to draw your attention to economy of quite another order, it is to animadvert on offences of a far different description, that my honorable friend has brought before you the motion of this day.  It is to perpetuate the abuses which are subverting the fabric of your empire, that the motion is opposed.  It is, therefore, with reason (and if he has power to carry himself through, I commend his prudence) that the right honorable gentleman makes his stand at the very outset, and boldly refuses all Parliamentary information.  Let him admit but one step towards inquiry, and he is undone.  You must be ignorant, or he cannot be safe.  But before his curtain is let down, and the shades of eternal night shall veil our Eastern dominions from our view, permit me, Sir, to avail myself of the means which were furnished in anxious and inquisitive times to demonstrate out of this single act of the present minister what advantages you are to derive from permitting the greatest concern of this nation to be separated