All this may now be done at the
expense of the persons whose cause we pretend to espouse. We may all
part, my Lords, with the most perfect complacency and entire good humor
towards one another, while nations, whole suffering nations, are left to
beat the empty air with cries of misery and anguish, and to cast forth
to an offended heaven the imprecations of disappointment and despair.
One of the counsel for the prisoner (I think it was one who has
comported himself in this cause with decency) has told your Lordships
that we have come here on account of _some doubts_ entertained in the
House of Commons concerning the conduct of the prisoner at your
bar,--that we shall be extremely delighted, when his defence and your
Lordships' judgment shall have set him free, and shall have discovered
to us our error,--that we shall then mutually congratulate one
another,--and that the Commons, and the Managers who represent them
here, will be the first to rejoice in so happy an event and so fortunate
a discovery.
Far, far from the Commons of Great Britain be all manner of real vice;
but ten thousand times further from them, as far as from pole to pole,
be the whole tribe of false, spurious, affected, counterfeit,
hypocritical virtues! These are the things which are ten times more at
war with real virtue, these are the things which are ten times more at
war with real duty, than any vice known by its name and distinguished by
its proper character.
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