and the offices remain, you may fet the gratitude of fome againft the anger of others; you may oppofe the friends you oblige against the enemies you provoke. But fervices of the prefent fort create no attachments. The individual good felt in a public benefit, is comparatively fo fmall, comes round through fuch an involved labyrinth of intricate and tedious revolutions; whilft a prefent perfonal detriment is fo heavy where it falls, and fo inftant in its operation, that the cold commendation of a public advantage never was, and never will be, a match for the quick fenfibility of a private lofs: and you may depend upon it, Sir, that when many people have an intereft in railing, fooner or later, they will bring a confiderable degree of unpopularity upon any meafure. So that, for the prefent at leaft, the reformation will operate against the reformers; and revenge (as against them at the leaft) will produce all the effects of corruption.

This, Sir, is almost always the cafe, where the plan has compleat fuccefs. But how ftands the matter in the mere attempt? Nothing, you know, is more common, than for men to with, and call loudly too, for a reformation, who, when it arrives, do by no means like the severity of its afpect. Reformation is one of those pieces which must be put at some distance in order to please. Its greatest favourers love it better in the abstract than in the substance. When any old prejudice of their own, or any intereft that they value, is touched, they become fcrupulous, they become captious, and every man has his feparate exception. Some pluck out the black hairs, fome the grey; one point must be given up to one; another point must be yielded to another; nothing is fuffered to prevail upon its own principle: the whole is fo frittered down, and disjointed, that fcarcely

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fcarcely a trace of the original scheme remains! Thus, between the refiftance of power, and the unfyftematical process of popularity, the undertaker and the undertaking are both expofed, and the poor reformer is hiffed off the ftage, both by friends and foes.

Obferve, Sir, that the apology for my undertaking (an apology which, though long, is no longer than neceffary) is not grounded on my want of the fullest sense of the difficult and invidious nature of the tafk I undertake. I rifque odium if I fucceed, and contempt if I fail. My excuse must reft in mine and your conviction of the abfolute, urgent neceffity there is, that fomething of the kind fhould be done. If there is any facrifice to be made, either of estimation or of fortune, the smallest is the best. Commanders in chief are not to be put upon the forlorn hope. But indeed it is neceffary that the attempt fhould be made. It is neceffary from our own political circumstances; it is neceffary from the operations of the enemy; it is neceffary from the demands of the people; whofe defires, when they do not militate with the ftable and eternal rules of justice and reafon (rules which are above us, and above them) ought to be as a law to a Houfe of Commons.

As to our circumstances; I do not mean to aggravate the difficulties of them, by the ftrength of any colouring whatfoever. On the contrary, I obferve, and obferve with pleasure, that our affairs rather wear a more promifing aspect than they did on the opening of this feffion. We have had fome leading fucceffes. But those who rate them at the highest (higher a great deal indeed than I dare to do) are of opinion, that, upon the ground of fuch advantages, we cannot at this time hope to make any treaty of peace, which B 3 would

would not be ruinous and completely difgraceful. In fuch an anxious ftate of things, if dawnings of fuccefs ferve to animate our diligence, they are good; if they tend to increase our presumption, they are worse than defeats. The state of our affairs fhall then be as promifing as any one may choose to conceive it: It is however but promifing. We must recollect, that with but half of our natural ftrength, we are at war against confederated powers who have fingly threatned us with ruin: We must recollect, that whilft we are left naked on one fide, our other flank is uncovered by any alliance; That whilft we are weighing and balancing our fucceffes against our loffes, we are accumulating debt to the amount of at least fourteen millions in the year. That lofs is certain.

I have no wish to deny, that our fucceffes are as brilliant as any one chooses to make them; our resources too may, for me, be as unfathomable as they are reprefented. Indeed they are juft whatever the people poffefs, and will fubmit to pay. Taxing is an eafy business. Any projector can contrive new impofitions; any bungler can add to the old. But is it altogether wife to have no other bounds to your impofitions, than the patience of those who are to bear them?

All I claim upon the fubject of your resources is this, that they are not likely to be increased by wafting them.I think I fhall be permitted to af fume, that a fyftem of frugality will not leffen your riches, whatever they may be;-I believe it will not be hotly difputed, that thofe refources which lie heavy on the fubject, ought not to be objects of preference; that they ought not to be the very first choice, to an honeft reprefentative of the people.

This is all, Sir, that I fhall fay upon our circumftances and our refources: I mean to fay a

Tittle more on the operations of the enemy, because this matter feems to me very natural in our prefent deliberation. When I look to the other fide of the water, I cannot help recollecting what Pyrrhus faid on reconnoitering the Roman camp, Thefe Barbarians have nothing barbarous in

their discipline." When I look, as I have pretty carefully looked, into the proceedings of the French king, I am forry to fay it, I fee nothing of the character and genius of arbitrary finance; none of the bold frauds of bankrupt power; none of the wild ftruggles, and plunges, of defpotifm in diftrefs;-no lopping off from the capital of debt;-no fufpenfion of intereft ;-no robbery under the name of loan;—no raising the value, no debafing the fubftance of the coin. I fee neither Louis the fourteenth, nor Louis the fifteenth. On the contrary, I behold with aftonishment, rifing before me, by the very hands of arbitrary power, and in the very midft of war and confufion, a regular, methodical fyftem of public credit; I behold a fabric laid on the natural and folid foundations of truft and confidence among men; and rifing, by fair gradations, order over order, according to the juft rules of fymmetry and art. What a reverse of things! Principle, method, regularity, oeconomy, frugality, juftice to individuals, and care of the people, are the refources with which France makes war upon Great Britain. God avert the omen! But if we should fee any genius in war and politics arife in France, to fecond what is done in the bureau! -I turn my eyes from the confequences.

The noble Lord in the blue ribbon, laft year, treated all this with contempt. He never could conceive it poffible that the French minister of finance could go through that year with a loan of but seventeen hundred thousand pounds; and that he fhould be able to fund that loan without any

tax. The fecond year, however, opens the very fame scene. A fmall loan, a loan of no more than two millions five hundred thousand pounds, is to carry our enemies through the fervice of this year alfo. No tax is raised to fund that debt; no tax is raised for the current fervices. I am credibly informed that there is no anticipation whatsoever. *Compenfations are correctly made. Old debts continue to be funk as in the time of profound peace. Even payments which their treasury had been authorized to fufpend during the time of war, are not suspended.

A general reform, executed through every department of the revenue, creates an annual income of more than half a million, whilft it facilitates and fimplifies all the functions of adminiftration. The king's boufebold at the remoteft avenues to which, all reformation has been hitherto stopped-that household, which has been the ftrong-hold of prodigality, the virgin fortrefs which was never before attacked-has been not only not defended, but it has, even in the forms, been furrendered by the king to the economy of his minifter. No capitulation; no referve. Economy has entered in triumph into the public fplendour of the monarch, into his private amufements, into the appointments of his nearest and highest relations. Economy and public fpirit have made a beneficent and an honeft fpoil, they have plundered, from extravagance and luxury, for the ufe of fubftantial fervice, a revenue of near four hundred thousand pounds. The reform of the finances, joined to this reform of the court, gives to the public nine hundred thousand pounds a year and upwards.

The minifter who does these things is a great man-But the king who defires that they should be

This term comprehends various retributions made to perfons whofe offices are taken away, or who, in any other way, suffer by the new arrangements that are made.

done,