False to their trusts, the mould'ring busts decay, THE CHAIRMAN'S* SPEECH TO THE SECRET COMMITTEE. April 1741. GENTLEMEN ; AFTER many and hard struggles to obtain it, we are at length met together, for the satisfaction of this injured nation, in a Secret Committe; and I will not doubt one instant, but that we are all (or at least a great majority of us) met James Hamilton, Viscount Limerick, was Chairman of the Secret Committee for inquiring into the last ten years of the administration of Robert, Earl of Orford. Mr. Pultney moved for the inquiry to be for the last twenty years, but that was rejected; and, as the same question cannot be moved twice in the same session, he moved a week or a fortnight afterwards for ten years, which was carried.—W. here with the same honest design of doing justice to Great Britain in general, and not to any one person in particular; and as there is nothing the people don't expect from our hands, surely we ought to stick at nothing to answer their expectations. As for my part, you may depend upon my executing my important trust with all the warmth and zeal of an inflamed English heart, and all the prudence and discretion of an Irish head. Gentlemen; There have been several Secret Committees in England; but God forbid that I should aim at confining to Precedents, so unprecedented a Committee as this. I shall, therefore, only point out such parts of the conduct of former ones, as I think most worthy our imitation. I shall begin with that of the year 1715, when it was thought necessary for some people to justify the clamour they had long kept up against the Lord Treasurer Oxford. That Committee met, and, to their immortal honour, did more than That could have been expected from them by any reasonable person; for they found out, and framed, articles of High Treason against that noble Earl, in which articles, the rest of the nation have not been able yet to perceive that there was the least thing treasonable. Committee, however, got the House to agree with them; and the Impeachment was carried up to the Lords: by which that Earl suffered a long and painful imprisonment for what he never could be tried for. Another instance that I must mention, is that of the Secret Committee upon the affairs of the South Sea. That Committee saw the flame that was in these kingdoms, and to appease it prevailed with the House to consent to strip numbers of persons of all they were possessed of in the world, without suffering them either to defend their innocence, or mitigate their guilt! No. They were gloriously punished, untried, unheard. I could instance other examples, but surely the two I have already quoted are sufficient to animate minds, so well disposed as ours, with a just sense of our duty, of what we owe to those who sent us hither. Pray consider that we are vested with the fullest powers, there's nothing we can't do ; and therefore our whole credit with the people is at stake, that we do a great deal. For does any person here imagine it will be a sufficient excuse to the people of England in general, or the good City of London in particular, to say the Earl of Orford escaped because he was innocent? No, gentlemen, do not flatter yourselves that such answers will satisfy. We have already persuaded them that he is guilty, and consequently they look upon it as our duty to find him so; and this, I hope, will prove no difficult task, considering the helps we have to effect it. Is there a person in these kingdoms (King and Lords not excepted), that we cannot bring before us. We are masters of every cabinet and escrutoir in this nation, and we can call for the most secret papers in England. Consider too, that at our tribunal every person may give vent |