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Did not the title of this bill, my lords, give it some claim to a
serious consideration; and did not the integrity and capacity of those
by whom it was drawn up, exempt them from contempt and ridicule, I
should be inclined to treat a law like this with some degree of levity;
for who, my lords, can be serious when his consent is desired to a bill,
by which it is enacted, that men shall act on certain occasions, as they
shall think most expedient?
Nor is this, my lords, the only instance of precipitancy and want of
consideration, for many of the injunctions are without any penal
sanction; so that though we should pass this bill with the greatest
unanimity, we should only declare our opinion, or offer our advice, but
should make no law, or what, with regard to the purposes of government,
is the same, a law which may be broken without danger.
But general objections, my lords, will naturally produce general
evasions; and a debate may be prolonged without producing any clear view
of the subject, or any satisfactory decision of a single question: I
shall, therefore, endeavour to range my objections in order, and, by
examining singly every paragraph of the bill, show the weakness of some
expedients, the superfluity of others, and the general unfitness of the
whole to produce the protection and security intended by it.
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