William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham

“ The marriage of a Prince of Wales, Sir, has at all times been a matter of the highest importance to the public welfare, to present and to future generations; but at no time has it been a more important, a more dear consideration, than at this day: if a character, at once amiable and respectable, can embellish, and even dignify, the elevated rank of a Prince of Wales. ”

“ It tells us, also, that no court of justice can have a power inconsistent with, or paramount to the known laws of the land; that the people, when they choose their representatives, never mean to convey to them a power of invading the rights, or trampling on the liberties of those whom they represent. What security would they have for their rights, if once they admitted that a court of judicature might determine every question that came before it, not by any known positive law, but by the vague, indeterminate, arbitrary rule of what the noble Lord is pleased to call the wisdom of the court? ”

“ The grand capital mischief is fixed at home. It corrupts the very foundation of our political existence, and preys upon the vitals of the state. The Constitution has been grossly violated. The Constitution at this moment stands violated. Until that wound be healed, until the grievance be redressed, it is in vain to recommend union to Parliament, in vain to promote concord among the people. If we mean seriously to unite the nation within itself, we must convince them that their complaints are regarded, that their injuries shall be redressed. ”

“ Yet as the Laws now stand, an old Officer, a Man who has often ventured his Life, and often spilt his Blood, in the Service of his Country, may be dismissed, and reduced, perhaps, to a starving Condition, at the arbitrary Will and Pleasure, perhaps at the Whim of a favourite Minister; so that by the present Establishment of our Army, the Reward of a Soldier seems not to depend upon the Services done to his Country, but upon the Services he does to those who happen to be the favourite Ministers at the Time. ”

“ No gentleman ought to be afraid to exercise it. It is a liberty by which the gentleman who calumniates it might have profited, and by which he ought to have profited. He ought to have desisted from this project. The gentleman tells us, America is obstinate; America is almost in open rebellion. I rejoice that America has resisted. Three million of people so dead to all feelings of liberty, as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest. ”

“ Unless the traitor be actually in arms, unless the enemy be in the heart of your country, he can not move a single man from Ireland.
I feel myself compelled, my Lords, to return to that subject which occupies and interests me most. I mean the internal disorder of the Constitution, and the remedy it demands. But first I would observe, there is one point upon which I think the noble Duke has not explained himself. I do not mean to catch at words, but, if possible, to possess the sense of what I hear. I would treat every man with candor, and should expect the same candor in return. ”

“ Are all the generous efforts of our ancestors, are all those glorious contentions, by which they meant to secure to themselves, and to transmit to their posterity, a known law, a certain rule of living, reduced to this conclusion, that instead of the arbitrary power of a King, we must submit to the arbitrary power of a House of Commons? ”

“ MY LORDS, There is one plain maxim, to which I have invariably adhered through life: that in every question in which my liberty or my property were concerned, I should consult and be determined by the dictates of common sense. I confess, my Lords, that I am apt to distrust the refinements of learning, because I have seen the ablest and the most learned men equally liable to deceive themselves and to mislead others. ”

“ I see that, even where their measures are well chosen, they are incapable of carrying them through without some unhappy mixture of weakness or imprudence. They are incapable of doing entirely right. My Lords, I do, from my conscience, and from the best weighed principles of my understanding, applaud the augmentation of the army. ”

“ Without connections, without any natural interest in the soil, the importers of foreign gold have forced their way into Parliament by such a torrent of private corruption, as no private hereditary fortune could resist. My Lords, not saying but what is within the knowledge of us all, the corruption of the people is the great original cause of the discontents of the people themselves, of the enterprise of the Crown, and the notorious decay of the internal vigor of the Constitution. ”

“ The Constitution of this country has been openly invaded in fact; and I have heard, with horror and astonishment, that very invasion defended upon principle. What is this mysterious power, undefined by law, unknown to the subject, which we must not approach without awe, nor speak of without reverence— which no man may question, and to which all men must submit? ”

“ A great deal has been said without doors of the power, of the strength of America. It is a topic that ought to be cautiously meddled with. In a good cause, on a sound bottom, the force of this country can crush America to atoms. I know the valour of your troops. I know the skill of your officers. There is not a company of foot that has served in America out of which you may not pick a man of sufficient knowledge and experience to make him governor of a colony there. ”

“ I am convinced this surprizing Unanimity does not proceed from any Effect of the Places they have under the Crown; for if it did, a Man's being possessed of any Place under the Crown, would, in such a Case, I am sure, be an infallible Reason for the People not to trust him with the Preservation of their Liberties, or the Dispensation of their Properties in Parliament. ”

“ For example, my Lords: will any man deny that discontents prevail in many parts of his Majesty's dominions? or that those discontents arise from the proceedings of the House of Commons touching the declared incapacity of Mr. Wilkes? It is impossible. No man can deny a truth so notorious. Or will any man deny that those proceedings refused, by a resolution of one branch of the Legislature only, to the subject his common right? Is it not indisputably true, my Lords, that Mr. Wilkes had a common right, and that he lost it no other way but by a resolution of the House of Commons? ”

“ The Americans have not acted in all things with prudence and temper. They have been wronged. They have been driven to madness by injustice. Will you punish them for the madness you have occasioned? Rather let prudence and temper come first from this side. I will undertake for America, that she will follow the example. There are two lines in a ballad of Prior's, of a man's behaviour to his wife, so applicable to you and your colonies, that I cannot help repeating them:-
"Be to her faults a little blind Be to her virtues very kind." ”

“ The crisis is indeed alarming. So much the more does it require a prudent relaxation on the part of government. If the King's servants will not permit a constitutional question to be decided on according to the forms and on the principles of the Constitution, it must then be decided in some other manner; and, rather than it should be given up, rather than the nation should surrender their birthright to a despotic minister, I hope, my Lords, old as I am, I shall see the question brought to issue, and fairly tried between the people and the government. ”

“ How great soever the joy of the public may be, and very great it certainly is, in receiving this benefit from his Majesty, it must be inferior to that high satisfaction which he himself enjoys in bestowing it:- And if I may be allowed to suppose, that to a royal mind any thing can transcend the pleasure of gratifying the impatient wishes of a loyal people, it can only be the paternal delight of tenderly indulging the most dutiful application, and most humble request, of a submissive obedient son. ”

“ The kingdom is in a flame. As mediators between the King and people, it is our duty to represent to him the true condition and temper of his subjects. It is a duty which no particular respects should hinder us from performing; and whenever his Majesty shall demand our advice, it will then be our duty to inquire more minutely into the causes of the present discontents. Whenever that inquiry shall come on, I pledge myself to the House to prove that, since the first institution of the House of Commons, not a single precedent can be produced to justify their late proceedings. ”

“ No Man can doubt, nor would any Man oppose, their being all put upon half Pay; and I must observe that our half Pay is better, or as good as full Pay, I believe, in any other Country of Europe; for in the Method our Army is now kept up, I could shew by Calculation, that it costs the Nation more than would maintain three Times the Number of Men, either in France or Germany. ”

“ Were it not a sort of presumption to follow so great a person through his hours of retirement, to view him in the milder light of domestic life, we should find him engaged in the noble exercise of humanity, benevolence, and of every social virtue. ”

“ His Majesty is now so confined, by his promise, that he must leave twelve thousand men locked up in Ireland, let the situation of his affairs abroad, or the approach of danger to this country, be ever so alarming, unless there be an actual rebellion, or invasion, in Great Britain. ”

“ Why did the gentleman confine himself to Chester and Durham ? He might have taken a higher example in Wales; Wales, that never was taxed by parliament till it was incorporated. I would not debate a particular point of law with the gentleman. I know his abilities. I have been obliged to his dilligent researches: but, for the defence of liberty, upon a general principle, upon a constitutional principle, it is a ground on which I stand firm; on which I dare meet any man. he gentleman tells us of many who are taxed, and are not represented. ”

“ I flattered myself I should see some barriers thrown up in defense of the Constitution; some impediment formed to stop the rapid progress of corruption. I doubt not we all agree that something must be done. ”

“ There are so few of either in the Kingdom, that I am sure they can give no Man an Occasion for being afraid of them, and therefore there is not the least Shadow of Reason for saying, they are the Occasion of our being obliged to keep up such a numerous Standing Army. ”

“ King George III had, by a message through the Lord-Lieutenant, recommended the Irish House of Commons to augment the Irish army, and assured them expressly that on the augmentation being made, not less than 12,000 men should at all times, 'except in cases of invasion or rebellion in Great Britain,' be stationed in Ireland. ”

“ But if apprehensions of this kind are to affect us, let us consider which we ought to respect most, the representative or the collective body of the people. My Lords, five hundred gentlemen are not ten millions; and if we must have a contention, let us take care to have the English nation on our side. If this question be given up, the freeholders of England are reduced to a condition baser than the peasantry of Poland. If they desert their own cause, they deserve to be slaves! ”

“ My Lords, I can not agree with the noble Duke, that nothing less than an immediate attack upon the honor or interest of this nation can authorize us to interpose in defense of weaker states, and in stopping the enterprises of an ambitious neighbor. Whenever that narrow, selfish policy has prevailed in our councils, we have constantly experienced the fatal effects of it. ”

“ Omitting the immense increase of people by natural population, and the emigration from every part of Europe, I am convinced the whole commercial system of America may be altered to advantage. You have prohibited where you ought to have encouraged, encouraged where you ought to have prohibited. ”

“ That we ought to shew a proper Gratitude, that we ought to give a proper Regard to every Man, who has ventured his Life in the Cause of his Country, is what I am sure no Gentleman will deny: But when I have said this, Sir, I cannot help observing how defective our Laws and Customs are in this Respect. ”

“ We all know what the Constitution is. We all know that the first principle of it is, that the subject shall not be governed by the arbitrium of any one man or body of men - less than the whole Legislature, but by certain laws, to which he has virtually given his consent, which are open to him to examine, and not beyond his ability to understand. ”