the inclination—­and we all know that, if he had the inclination, he has not the power—­to substitute his will in the place of law.  The House of Lords has no such power.  The House of Commons has no such power.’  This passage, so artfully and unconstitutionally framed to agree with the delusions of the moment, cannot deceive a thinking reader.  The expression of your full persuasion of the upright intentions of the King can only be the language of flattery.  You are not to be told that it is constitutionally a maxim not to attribute to the person of the King the measures and misconduct of government.  Had you chosen to speak, as you ought to have done, openly and explicitly, you must have expressed your just persuasion and implicit confidence in the integrity, moderation, and wisdom of his Majesty’s ministers.  Have you forgot the avowed ministerial maxim of Sir Robert Walpole?  Are you ignorant of the overwhelming corruption of the present day?

You seem unconscious of the absurdity of separating what is inseparable even in imagination.  Would it have been any consolation to the miserable Romans under the second triumvirate to have been asked insultingly, Is it Octavius, is it Anthony, or is it Lepidus that has caused this bitterness of affliction? and when the answer could not be returned with certainty, to have been reproached that their sufferings were imaginary?  The fact is that the King and Lords and Commons, by what is termed the omnipotence of Parliament, have constitutionally the right of enacting whatever laws they please, in defiance of the petitions or remonstrances of the nation.  They have the power of doubling our enormous debt of 240 millions, and may pursue measures which could never be supposed the emanation of the general will without concluding the people stripped of reason, of sentiment, and even of that first instinct which prompts them to preserve their own existence.

I congratulate your Lordship upon your enthusiastic fondness for the judicial proceedings of this country.  I am happy to find you have passed through life without having your fleece torn from your back in the thorny labyrinth of litigation.  But you have not lived always in colleges, and must have passed by some victims, whom it cannot be supposed, without a reflection on your heart, that you have forgotten.  Here I am reminded of what I have said on the subject of representation—­to be qualified for the office of legislation you should have felt like the bulk of mankind; their sorrows should be familiar to you, of which, if you are ignorant, how can you redress them?  As a member of the assembly which, from a confidence in its experience, sagacity, and wisdom, the constitution has invested with the supreme appellant jurisdiction to determine the most doubtful points of an intricate jurisprudence, your Lordship cannot, I presume, be ignorant of the consuming expense of our never-ending process, the verbosity of unintelligible statutes, and the perpetual contrariety in our judicial decisions.