The first peer of the name, the first purchaser of the grants, was a Mr. Russell, a person of an ancient gentleman’s family, raised by being a minion of Henry the Eighth.  As there generally is some resemblance of character to create these relations, the favorite was in all likelihood much such another as his master.  The first of those immoderate grants was not taken from the ancient demesne of the crown, but from the recent confiscation of the ancient nobility of the land.  The lion, having sucked the blood of his prey, threw the offal carcass to the jackal in waiting.  Having tasted once the food of confiscation, the favorites became fierce and ravenous.  This worthy favorite’s first grant was from the lay nobility.  The second, infinitely improving on the enormity of the first, was from the plunder of the Church.  In truth, his Grace is somewhat excusable for his dislike to a grant like mine, not only in its quantity, but in its kind, so different from his own.

Mine was from a mild and benevolent sovereign:  his from Henry the Eighth.

Mine had not its fund in the murder of any innocent person of illustrious rank,[17] or in the pillage of any body of unoffending men.  His grants were from the aggregate and consolidated funds of judgments iniquitously legal, and from possessions voluntarily surrendered by the lawful proprietors with the gibbet at their door.

The merit of the grantee whom he derives from was that of being a prompt and greedy instrument of a levelling tyrant, who oppressed all descriptions of his people, but who fell with particular fury on everything that was great and noble.  Mine has been in endeavoring to screen every man, in every class, from oppression, and particularly in defending the high and eminent, who, in the bad times of confiscating princes, confiscating chief governors, or confiscating demagogues, are the most exposed to jealousy, avarice, and envy.

The merit of the original grantee of his Grace’s pensions was in giving his hand to the work, and partaking the spoil, with a prince who plundered a part of the national Church of his time and country.  Mine was in defending the whole of the national Church of my own time and my own country, and the whole of the national Churches of all countries, from the principles and the examples which lead to ecclesiastical pillage, thence to a contempt of all prescriptive titles, thence to the pillage of all property, and thence to universal desolation.

The merit of the origin of his Grace’s fortune was in being a favorite and chief adviser to a prince who left no liberty to their native country.  My endeavor was to obtain liberty for the municipal country in which I was born, and for all descriptions and denominations in it.  Mine was to support with unrelaxing vigilance every right, every privilege, every franchise, in this my adopted, my dearer, and more comprehensive country; and not only to preserve those rights in this chief seat of empire, but in every nation, in every land, in every climate, language, and religion, in the vast domain that still is under the protection, and the larger that was once under the protection, of the British crown.