Thus, my lords, I have shown the impropriety of the bill now before us,
upon the most favourable supposition that can possibly be made; a
supposition of the guilt of the noble person against whom it is
contrived. And surely, my lords, what cannot even in that case be
approved, must, if we suppose him innocent, be detested.
That he is really innocent, my lords, that he is only blackened by
calumny, and pursued by resentment, cannot be more strongly proved than
by the necessity to which his enemies are reduced, of using expedients
never heard of in this nation before, to procure accusations against
him; expedients which they cannot show to have been at any time
necessary for the punishment of a man really wicked, and which, by
bringing guilt and innocence into the same danger, leave us at liberty
to imagine, that he is clear from the crimes imputed to him, even in the
opinion of those who pursue him with the fiercest resentment, and the
loudest clamours.
It may well be imagined, my lords, that those whom he has so long
defeated by his abilities, see themselves now baffled by his innocence;
and that they only now persecute his character, to hide the true reason
for which they formerly attacked his power.
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