“We have a King who disdains to keep pace with such a _servile lawyer_--but,” said he, (turning, and directly nodding at Hume Campbell, who sat three benches above him,) “I will not dress up this image under a third person; I apply it to him; his is the slavish doctrine, he is the slave; and the shame of this doctrine will stick to him as long as his gown sticks to his back--but his trade is words; they were not provoked by me--but they are not objects of terror, but of my contempt and ridicule. Then,” said he, turning to Murray, “I would come to another learned gentleman, but it is difficult to know where to pull the first thread from a piece so finely spun. Constructions ought never to condemn a great Minister, but I think this crime of violating the Act of Settlement is within the letter. If the dangerous illegality of it is to be inquired into, it should be referred to a Committee of the Whole House, not to a Committee of Supply. Inquired into it must be: will I suffer an audacious Minister to run before Parliament? I do not say _superiors_, I hate that miserable poor word; but if a Cabinet have taken on them to conclude subsidiary treaties without consent of Parliament, shall they not answer it?” He affirmed that there was not the smallest similarity between these and the treaties quoted. In 1717 and 1718 the Ministers stated dangers from Sweden, and then asked for money. The treaty of Hanover was grounded on the Ostend Company, and on the negotiations about Gibraltar, &c. Time, the great discoverer of truth, had not yet discovered whether there was any truth in the assertion of the Emperor and Spain designing to set the Pretender on the Throne. Would any lawyer plead, when his Majesty speaks in a treaty and says _dominions_, that he can mean anything but his British dominions? we were not to be explained out of our liberties, nor by being taught to subtilize, to lose respect for the essential.