It was their duty to advise the King, and not to ask his advice.

This the constitution had laid down as one of its most essential principles; and though in the present instance he saw no cause for blame, because he was persuaded His Majesty's ministers had not acted with any ill intention, it was still a principle never to be departed from, because it never could be departed from without establishing a precedent which might lead to very serious abuses.

He, lamented that the Privy Council, who had received no petitions from the people on the subject, should have instituted an inquiry, and that the House of Commons, the table of which had been loaded with petitions from various parts of the kingdom, should not have instituted any inquiry at all.

He hoped these petitions would have a fair discussion in that house, independently, of any information that could be given to it by His Majesty's ministers.

He urged again the superior advantages of an inquiry into such a subject, carried on within those walls, over any inquiry carried on by the Lords of the Council.