He was persuaded, he said, that no gentleman could disapprove the deviation in question from the Act of Settlement, but from apprehensions of its being drawn into a precedent--he would state the case. Could the most designing Minister come to Parliament (for before they get rid of Parliament, they must make use of it against itself), and say, in the year 1756 you consented to allow commissions to about forty foreign officers to regiment and discipline a proportion of Swiss and Germans, none of them Hanoverians, in Pensylvania, to defend that province against the encroachments of the French, when the Quaker natives would not, and you could not, raise troops to defend them; and therefore we hope you will have no scruple to violate it again now, perhaps in the year 1800, but will let us import into England some regiments of Hanoverians already raised and disciplined?--no; they could not say this; and when a precedent does not tally, it is in no danger of becoming a precedent. King William’s patriots could not mean that any part of the West Indies should be sacrificed to France, rather than suffer it to be defended by a providential supply of foreigners whom tyranny had driven, not invited, thither. Who was there, at this day, who did not commiserate the blind bigotry of the Jews,[53] who thought God capable of giving them so absurd a precept, as a prohibition of defending their country on a Sunday? “This is the light, Sir,” said he, “in which I protest I see it. I think I execute the will of those great men better by departing from, than by adhering to the letter of that valuable testament they left us. Could it be possible for them to have been narrow-minded enough to have intended such rigid minuteness, common sense would teach me to reject so prejudicial a bequest; and yet, Sir, though I have declared my opinion so strongly, if even this clause in the Act of Settlement should still occasion difficulty, as I hope it will not be efficient to obstruct the scheme, I should not be sorry to see it. Even a literal violation of such an Act is too material to be passed over lightly. We ought to show that we do not supersede a single sentence of it without weighty consideration. I never wish to see unanimity on such a measure. Unanimity is a symptom of monarchy; jealousy is constitutional; and not only constitutional, but the principle of our existence. If our ancestors had intended only an assembly of deliberation, the Privy Council, or that more compact body of wisdom, the Cabinet-Council, might have sufficed to deliberate. We were calculated to suspect, to doubt, to check. I think, Sir,” added he, “we have already shown that we do not proceed wantonly or inconsiderately. One honourable gentleman (Pitt), with whom I must ever lament to differ, by standing up for the very letter of the Act, has given all the weight that can be given to it--his dissent is sufficient deliberation--and I flatter myself that my agreeing with _those_