Please God, I will walk with caution, whenever I
am not able clearly to see my way before me.
I am now growing old. I have from my very early youth been conversant in
reading and thinking upon the subject of our laws and Constitution, as
well as upon those of other times and other countries; I have been for
fifteen years a very laborious member of Parliament, and in that time
have had great opportunities of seeing with my own eyes the working of
the machine of our government, and remarking where it went smoothly and
did its business, and where it checked in its movements, or where it
damaged its work; I have also had and used the opportunities of
conversing with men of the greatest wisdom and fullest experience in
those matters; and I do declare to you most solemnly and most truly,
that, on the result of all this reading, thinking, experience, and
communication, I am not able to come to an immediate resolution in favor
of a change of the groundwork of our Constitution, and in particular,
that, in the present state of the country, in the present state of our
representation, in the present state of our rights and modes of
electing, in the present state of the several prevalent interests, in
the present state of the affairs and manners of this country, the
addition of an hundred knights of the shire, and hurrying election on
election, will be things advantageous to liberty or good government.
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