We ought to remember, that while the enemies of our country are
fortifying themselves behind an endless multiplicity of negotiations and
accounts, every day adds new strength to their intrenchments, and that
we ought to force them while they are yet unable to resist or escape us.
Sir William YONGE then spoke to the following effect:--Sir, however I
may be convinced in my own opinion of the impracticability of the
inquiry now proposed, whatever confidence I may repose in the extensive
knowledge and long experience of those, by whom it has been openly
pronounced not only difficult but impossible, I think there are
arguments against the motion, which though, perhaps, not stronger in
themselves, (for what objection can be stronger than impossibility,)
ought at least more powerfully to incite us to oppose it.
Of the impossibility of executing this inquiry, those who have proposed
it well deserve to be convinced, not by arguments but experience; they
deserve not to be diverted by persuasions from engaging in a task, which
they have voluntarily determined to undergo; a task, which neither
honour, nor virtue, nor necessity has imposed upon them, and to which it
may justly be suspected, that they would not have submitted upon any
other motives, than those by which their conduct has hitherto been
generally directed, ambition and resentment.
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