The Sun.
London, England, 1801-06-06 00:00:00

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those quoted by the .14e;tiourable Gentleman_clid
not-apply, The remedy now to lie adopted, Must
he different from any that had been formerly
tried in the Affairs of State, because the .complaint
to which it was applied was different; and we were
now in such a state, that if any man was bent on
the total deitruaion' of this Country,. he could not
do better for his purpose than to counsel us to fol-
low, nothing but what has been the praaice of for-
mer times ; by so doing, under the cloak of at-
tachment to precedent and reverence for antiquity,
he might soon work the ruin of thiS Country : for
in that course, nothing could be found that was ap.
plieable to the present political condition of things.
But it was not an uninteresting thing, this mode of
proceeding on the part of some Gentlemen on the
other side of the House. The vogue at present was
to say, " we ought to be tied to ancient precedent"
we are' to do nothing that we cannot sanction by
the authority of former proceedings." The short an-
swer to that was, that there is in fa&.no precedent
for the present condition of things--We might ask,
what precedent them was for Rebellion of the sort
which we had before us ?-,-We had indeed a Re-
bellion in the year 1715, and another in /745, and
they had some *resemblance to one another, but he
apprehended that the. first elementary book which
led us to comprehend subjeds in the way of reason,
would teach us that it was ,an inevitable Conse.
quence that two things must be of the same nature if
they happen to be of the same name. He therefore
apprehended that the Rebellion of 1715 or 1745,
were not the same as the present state of things,
merely because they might be both called Rebellion.
—He maintained that all reasoning which was to
be made use of was not to depend on maxims alone,
but was to be considered with reference to the case
before us and all its peculiarities.—ln thefirst place
it was a little odd to say, that since the French Re-
volution had taken effect, we are to be guided by
old maxims : that is to say, we are to be guided by
cold maxims when all moral principles are changed,
and we are in a state of things in which the Authors
of the new order boast they wipe off with- a spunge
every thing that was old.—lt was a little hard
that while there was so much invasion of right, so
much overthrow of custom in the pradice of the
present, there should be nothing new in the remedy
that was to be applied to the evil, and that we
should all at once become so much attached to old
maxims of Government. Besides, the thing
became a little more extraordinary when we
compared this fondness for , precedent with the
opinions which had been expressed by some of our
Reformers. We had some principles which he
hoped would be permanent, notwithstanding any
attempts that might be made to alter them ; but
others were changing in the variety of human
affairs.. The earliest usages of the Constitution of
our Country, the purity of which was formerly
proverbial, the Hon. Gentleman would have• us-
change with as Much facility as one could one's gar.
inent : but he would have no Law altered. No al-
teration whatever was to take place in any part of
the Law, but the Constitution itself, as was proposed,
by some Gentlemen, might be altered most readily.
He knew not whether it was a Toast at the Whig
Club or not, but he thought it would do well enough
to illustrate the doarine contended for to-night—
" fixt Laws and a moveable Constitution." But our
Laws were not to be changed : there was nothing that
should make such change nbw upon that subjed
lie could only say, that if the. French. Revolution
had not introduced a change in human affairs, he
knew of nothing that had done so since the General
Deluge. Notwithstanding all this change, the
Laws were not to be imnioveable, and Gentlemen
were become at once mysteriously fond of old
maxims, and of none more than Stare super vias
antiquas. Our Laws. were become ,fixt and unalter-
able, like the Laws of the Medes and Persians ; he
really: thought that Laws should be made to suit the
affairs of mankind as they arose, and that which was
now before the House was of that charader, and he
conceived that to be an answer to most of the oh.
servations of the Hon. Gentleman on the other side,
as well as to his Quotations from Tacitus, and from
MontesqUieu—Tacitus was a luminous historian, he
wrote well from what he knew, but nothing that
was to be found in his work had any resemblance to
the present condition of political affairs; and as to
'Montesquieu, he was a man of great learning cer-
tainly, ,but he was entirely a theoretical writer,
and therefore his labours should be perused with all
the allowances which belong to labours of that kind,
let. the .author haVe whatever skill be may. If,
however; that author were now living, he was per.
suaded he would be one of the first to admit that,
.although he thought his observation's generally
true, yet they were .not all applicable to the pre_
sent conditiOn of the politics of Europe. The
Honourable Gentleman had dwelt on a topic which
had, ,no great influence; perhaps, on his own
opinion, he meant the mode of appointing the,
Secret Committee. Upon this he could not help
observing, that when lie said the Committee was
composed of those 'who were interested more or
less in the subject that was referred to it, he thought
that objedion a-little inconclUsive ;or although
the question of interest, supposing that to be so, in
another view, they were fitter to be on that Com-
mittee than others.. It was true, that it was a thing
to •be desired, that the Committee should be com-
posed of those who were-impartial ; but it was de-
sirable also, that they should be enlightened—Upon
that part of the,subjed, the very Gentlemen who
had Teen objetled to .on the principle of partiality,-
were the fittest on the score of information. They
had long, been in the pursuit of information on
this subject, and therefore, if they could .be sup-
posed to have a partiality which it was desirable
to remove, so, on the other hand, they possessed
"advantages which made them superior to other Gen-
tlemen; so that taking the thing altogether, the
,Re-
port of the. Committee bad all the weight which the
Report of a respectable Committee ought to have.—
But, there was a point on which he had for • some
time Wished for an opportunity of saying a 'word
• or two, and that was not so much to the credit
of the Committee as for the credit of the House
itself-t-he meant the mode of forming a Committee
by ,ballot. That had been-.made a ground of charge,
'as if that. mode of shusinga Committee did in it-
self lay-- a presumption of something done unduly,
or with a sinister deSign. A tolerable answer