That the people are, to the last degree, exasperated and inflamed, I am far from intending to deny, but surely they have yet been guilty of no outrage so enormous as to justify so severe a punishment; they have generally confined themselves to harmless complaints, or, at least, to executions in effigy. The people, my lords, are enraged because they are impoverished, and, to prevent the consequences of their anger, their poverty is increased by new burdens, and aggravated by the sight of an useless, despicable herd, supported by their industry, for no other purpose than to insult them. By these useless armaments and military farces, our taxes, my lords, have been continued without diminishing our debts, and the nation seems condemned to languish for ever under its present miseries, which, by furnishing employment to a boundless number of commissioners, officers, and slaves, to the court, under a thousand denominations, by diffusing dependence over the whole country, and enlarging the influence of the crown, are too evidently of use to the minister for us to entertain any hopes of his intention to relieve us. Let it not be boasted that nine millions are paid, when a new debt of seven millions appears to be contracted; nothing is more easy than to clear debts by borrowing, or to borrow when a nation is mortgaged for the payment. But the weight of the present taxes, my lords, though heavier than was perhaps ever supported by any nation for so long a time, taxes greater than ever were paid, to purchase neither conquests nor honours, neither to prevent invasions from abroad, nor to quell rebellions at home, is not the most flagrant charge of this wonderful administration, which, not contented with most exorbitant exactions, contrives to make them yet more oppressive by tyrannical methods of collection. With what reason the author of the excise scheme dreads the resentment of the nation is sufficiently obvious; but surely, in a virtuous and benevolent mind, the first sentiments that would have arisen on that occasion, would not have been motions of anger, but of gratitude. A whole nation was condemned to slavery, their remonstrances were neglected, their petitions ridiculed, and their detestation of tyranny treated as disaffection to the established government; and yet the author of this horrid scheme riots in affluence, and triumphs in authority, and without fear, as without shame, lifts up his head with confidence and security. How much, my lords, is the forbearance of that people to be admired, whom such attacks as these have not provoked to transgress the bounds of their obedience, who have continued patiently to hope for legal methods of redress, at a time when they saw themselves threatened with legal slavery, when they saw the legislative power established only for their protection, influenced by all possible methods of corruption to betray them to the mercy of the ministry?