Lord LONSDALE next spoke to the effect following:--My lords, the
bill, on which we are now finally to determine, is of such a tendency,
that it cannot be made a law, without an open and avowed disregard of
all the rules which it has been hitherto thought the general interest
of human nature to preserve inviolable. It is opposite at once to the
precepts of the wise, and the practice of the good, to the original
principles of virtue and the established maxims of policy.
I shall, however, only consider it with relation to policy, because
the other considerations will naturally coincide; for policy is only
the connexion of prudence with goodness, and directs only what virtue
each particular occurrence requires to be immediately practised.
The first principle of policy, my lords, teaches us, that the power
and greatness of a state arises from the number of its people;
uninhabited dominions are an empty show, and serve only to encumber
the nation to which they belong; they are a kind of pompous ornaments,
which must be thrown away in time of danger, and equally unfit for
resistance and retreat.
In the present war, my lords, if the number of our people were equal
to that of the two nations against which we are engaged, the
narrowness of our dominions would give us a resistless superiority; as
we have fewer posts to defend, we might send more forces to attack our
enemies, who must be weak in every part, because they must be
dispersed to a very great extent.
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