“My uncertain state of health must plead my excuse if I wander from my argument; yet I thank God, my Lords, for having thus long preserved so inconsiderable a being as I am to take a part upon this great occasion, and to contribute my endeavours, such as they are, to restore, to save the constitution. My Lords, I need not look abroad for grievances. The grand capital mischief is fixed at home. It is corrupting the very foundation of our political existence, and preying 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. On _that_ foundation I would take the lead in recommending peace and harmony to the people. On any other I would never wish to see them united again. If the breach in the constitution be effectually repaired, the people will of themselves return to a state of tranquillity; if not, MAY DISCORD PREVAIL FOR EVER! If the king’s servants will not permit the constitutional question to be decided 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.”[96] Such words as these, however, indicate the struggles of a people whose representative government is so defective as not to offer a real representation, and who therefore are under the necessity, when their rulers do not represent them, of contemplating a violent resistance to their authority. We, on the contrary, now more happily situated, can contemplate a change by the ordinary course of elections of the individuals who represent us. The due action of this system under which we now live is well expressed in the words of De Lolme:—“When the rulers see that all their actions are exposed to public view, that in consequence of the celerity with which all things become communicated the whole nation forms, as it were, one continued _irritable body_, no part of which can be touched without exciting an universal _tremor_, they become sensible that the cause of each individual is really the cause of all, and that to attack the lowest among the people is to attack the whole people.”[97]