Page:Defence of Shelburne.djvu/33

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[27]

I mean, if the Earl of Shelburne deem it necessary, and I sincerely trust his compassion and policy will not be deterred by those bellowers for justice to the Indians, in the House of Commons. Men of wisdom and virtue, it seems, are going out to assure the natives of Asia, that we have an earnest mind to be honest, and rob them no longer. All memory of bills of penalties must be washed away, and I hope to see Sir Thomas Rumbold, one of these days, baked up in a batch of Irish peers, and Mess. Whitehill and Perring, joint plenipotentiaries with Mess. Vaughan and Oswald, in securing the dignity of the British empire, and restoring Europe to her former harmony.

A third reproach upon the Earl of Shelburne is, that he will advise the King, to revive his negative to disagreeable acts of parliament, if the people insist upon a change in the representation. And will any man deny that the King has the right, however weak people may discourage the exertion of the right, at the very moment it is probable the Parliament may speak the sense of the nation? The constitution would not have placed a privilege in his hand for a mere mockery. Great writers have indeed asserted, that a King of England may be the most absolute prince in Europe by the noblest means, those of reigning in the

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