Page:Defence of Shelburne.djvu/90

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[84]

sent publication, and for conveying something more than a mere implication, that it would be for the common interest if they were restored? In your former pamphlet you asserted, that the ministers would ruin the nation. In the present, you affirm that the nation is ruined. From page 17 to 18 is engrossed with proving the State has no resources; and in page 2, you applaud the former ministers for not despairing of resources. You declare you cannot tell 'on what fair ground of honest candor they were dispossessed'—You could give fifty reasons yourself about a year ago for dispossessing them—No man ever condemned them in terms more unequivocal. You say, in page 3, the new ministry had neither the will nor the power to change the system—My Lord, why would you be so careless in assertions? They proved that they had both will and power, and did very materially change the system. Was the relinquishment of the American war no change of system? Was the peace of Ireland, and getting 20,000 seamen, no change of system? Were the contractors bill, the revenue officers bill, the civil list bill, no change of system? The administration lasted just three months, and in that time this important change of system took place. If you do not think this a change of system, I

believe,