I need not even hint
at the probability there exists, that the noble lord then in
administration, would have been happy to have formed the very coalition
himself, which he is willing we should so much reprobate in another. I
need not mention the suspicions, that naturally suggested themselves
upon the invincible silence of his party, respecting the
mal-administration of lord North, for so long a time; and their bringing
forward the singular charge of fifty unaccounted millions at the very
moment that the coalition was completed. I should be sorry to have it
supposed, that the connexion I am defending, ever took an example from
the late premier, for one article of their conduct. And I think the mode
of vindicating them, not from temporary examples, but from eternal
reason, as it is in itself most striking and most honourable, so is it
not a whit less easy and obvious.
Let it be remembered then, in the first place, that there was no other
connexion, sufficiently unquestionable in their sincerity, and of
sufficient weight in the senate, with which to form a coalition. The
Bedford party, had they even been willing to have taken this step in
conjunction with the friends of lord Rockingham, were already stripped
of some of their principal and ablest members, by the arts of lord
Shelburne.
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