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Show [ 32 ] . failings which were not owing to a. noble caufe; to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate pailion for Fame; a pailion which is the infiinét of all great fouls. He worfhiped that goddels wherefoever {he appeared; but he paid his particular devotions to her in her favourite habitation, in her chofen temple, the Houfe of Commons. Befides the charaé‘ters of the individuals that compofe our body, it is impoflible, Mr. Speaker, not to obferve, that this houfe has a colleé'tive chara€ter of its own. That chara€ter too, however imperfeé‘t, is not unamiable. Like all great public collections of men, you poflefs a marked love of virtue, and an abhorrence of vice. ' But among vices, there is none, which the houfe abhors in the fame degree with ob/firzacy. Obf'tinacy, Sir, is certainly a great vice; and in the changeful ftate of political aflairs it is frequently the caufe of great mifchief. It happens, however, very unfortunately, that almol't t re whole line of the great and mafculine Virtues, confiancy, gravity, magnanimity, fortitude, fidelity, and firmnefs, are clofely allied to this difagreeable quality, of which you have to juf't an abhorrence; and in their excels, all thefe virtues very eafily fall into it. He, who paid fuch a puné‘tilious attention to all your feelings, certainly took care not to (hook them by that vice which is the mofl: difguftful to you. That fear of difplealing thofe who ought mofi to be pleafed, betrayed him fometimes into the other extreme. He had voted, and in the year 1765, had been an advocate for the Stamp Act. Things and the difpolition of mens minds werechanged. , _ changed. I 33 l In (hart, the Stamp Aft began to'he‘ no favourite in this houfe. He therefore att ended at the private meeting, in which the refolu tions moved by a Right Hon. Gentleman were lett led'; refolutious leading to the repeal. The nex t da he voted for that repeal; and he would have fpoken for it too, if an illnefs, (not as was then given out a political) but to my knowle dge, 3' very real illnefs, had not prevented it. The very next feliion, as the faihion of thi s world paffetb away, the repeal began to be in as had an odour in this houfe as the Stamp AC} had been in the fefiion before. To confcirm to the temper which began to prevail, and to prevail mollly amongft thofe molt in power, he dec lared, very early in the Winter, that a rev enue innit be had out of America. Infiantly he was tied dow n to his engagements by fome, who had no ob~ iection to inch errperiments, when mad e at the coil of perfons for whom they had no partic ular regard. The whole body of courtiers drove him onward. They always talked. as ifthe l-illlf'" lloo tl in a fort of humiliated flare, until fom‘etliincr of the kind {hould be done. D Here this extraordinary man,»- then Chance llor of the Exchequer, found himfelf in great limits. To pleafe univerfally was the obj‘eé'c of his li e; but to tax and to pleafe, no more than to lov e and to be wife, is not given to men. How ever he" attempted it. To render the tax palatable to the partizans of American revenue, he mad e a preamble (hating the neceflity offnch a'reve nuefl‘o clofe with the American diflinétion, this reV enue was external or port-duty; but again, to folten it . 2 to |