But it is nothing to
the prolific principle upon which the sum was voted--a principle
that may be well called, THE FRUITFUL MOTHER OF A HUNDRED MORE.
Neither is the damage to public credit of very great consequence
when compared with that which results to public morals and to the
safety of the Constitution, from the exhaustless mine of corruption
opened by the precedent, and to be wrought by the principle of the
late payment of the debts of the Civil List. The power of
discretionary disqualification by one law of Parliament, and the
necessity of paying every debt of the Civil List by another law of
Parliament, if suffered to pass unnoticed, must establish such a
fund of rewards and terrors as will make Parliament the best
appendage and support of arbitrary power that ever was invented by
the wit of man. This is felt. The quarrel is begun between the
Representatives and the People. The Court Faction have at length
committed them.
In such a strait the wisest may well be perplexed, and the boldest
staggered. The circumstances are in a great measure new. We have
hardly any landmarks from the wisdom of our ancestors to guide us.
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