To execute measures first, and then to require the approbation of the
senate, instead of advice, is surely such a degree of contempt as has
not often been shown in the most arbitrary reigns, and such as would
once have provoked such indignation in the other house, that there
would have been no need in this of a motion like the present.
But, my lords, in proportion as the other house seems inclined to pay
an implicit submission to the dictates of the ministry, it is our duty
to increase our vigilance, and to convince our fellow-subjects, by a
steady opposition to all encroachments, that we are not, as we have
been sometimes styled, an useless assembly, but the last resort of
liberty, and the chief support of the constitution.
The present design of those, who have thus dared to trample upon our
privileges, appears to be nothing less than that of reducing the
senates of Britain to the same abject slavery with those of France; to
show the people that we are to be considered only as their agents, to
raise the supplies which they shall be pleased, under whatever
pretences, to demand, and to register such determinations as they
shall condescend to lay before us.
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