His authorities are the acts and declarations of Parliament, given in their proper words.  So far as these go, nothing can be added to what he has quoted.  The question is, whether he has understood them rightly.  I think they speak plain enough.  But we must now see whether he proceeds with other authority than his own constructions, and, if he does, on what sort of authority he proceeds.  In this part, his defence will not be made by argument, but by wager of law.  He takes his compurgators, his vouchers, his guaranties, along with him.  I know that he will not be satisfied with a justification proceeding on general reasons of policy.  He must be defended on party grounds, too, or his cause is not so tenable as I wish it to appear.  It must be made out for him not only that in his construction of these public acts and monuments he conforms himself to the rules of fair, legal, and logical interpretation, but it must be proved that his construction is in perfect harmony with that of the ancient Whigs, to whom, against the sentence of the modern, on his part, I here appeal.

This July it will be twenty-six years[12] since he became connected with a man whose memory will ever be precious to Englishmen of all parties, as long as the ideas of honor and virtue, public and private, are understood and cherished in this nation.  That memory will be kept alive with particular veneration by all rational and honorable Whigs.  Mr. Burke entered into a connection with that party through that man, at an age far from raw and immature,—­at those years when men are all they are ever likely to become,—­when he was in the prime and vigor of his life,—­when the powers of his understanding, according to their standard, were at the best, his memory exercised, his judgment formed, and his reading much fresher in the recollection and much readier in the application than now it is.  He was at that time as likely as most men to know what were Whig and what were Tory principles.  He was in a situation to discern what sort of Whig principles they entertained with whom it was his wish to form an eternal connection.  Foolish he would have been at that time of life (more foolish than any man who undertakes a public trust would be thought) to adhere to a cause which he, amongst all those who were engaged in it, had the least sanguine hopes of as a road to power.

There are who remember, that, on the removal of the Whigs in the year 1766, he was as free to choose another connection as any man in the kingdom.  To put himself out of the way of the negotiations which were then carrying on very eagerly and through many channels with the Earl of Chatham, he went to Ireland very soon after the change of ministry, and did not return until the meeting of Parliament.  He was at that time free from anything which looked like an engagement.  He was further free at the desire of his friends; for, the very day of his return, the Marquis of Rockingham wished him to accept an employment under the new system.  He believes he might have had such a situation; but again he cheerfully took his fate with the party.