The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Volume 10 Parlimentary Debates I

It may be expected that I, who cannot claim any regard in this disquisition, from my own experience, should produce some decisive evidence in favour of the method which I have t...

This, sir, is a mistake which might easily arise from a partial and imperfect knowledge of the affair, with which very few gentlemen have opportunities of being well acquainted....

There is no censure, my lords, made of his conduct, no charge of weakness, or suspicion of dishonesty, nor can any thing be equitably inferred from it, than that in the opinion...

But to the innholder, sir, whose utensils are always in use, and whose fire is always burning, the diet of a soldier costs only the original price paid to the butcher; and, in y...

If a man, sir, is liable to be forced from the care of his own private affairs, from his favourite schemes of life, from the engagements of domestick tenderness, or the prospect...

Even then, my lords, we shall suffer, for some time, under the suspicion of crimes, from which I hope we shall always be free; the people will imagine that we were influenced by...

For this reason, I cannot agree that our army, though numerous and burdensome, is greater than the necessity of affairs requires: if we cast our eyes on the continent, nothing i...

Let us, therefore, remember, my lords, the danger of our present state, and the necessity of steadiness, vigour, and wisdom, for our own preservation and that of Europe; let us...

Sir, the crime of exasperating the people against their governours, of raising discontent, and exciting murmurs in a time of general danger, and of attempting to represent wise...

By punishing the author of this libel, we have, in my opinion, sufficiently secured our dignity from any future attacks, we have crushed the head of the confederacy, and prevent...

The house of commons, in their address upon this occasion, expressed a dutiful sense of his majesty's just regard for the rights of the queen of Hungary, and for the maintaining...

But, my lords, the follies of last year cannot be easily rectified, and are only now to be exposed that they may not be repeated. If we are now to make new levies, and increase...

War, sir, is in its own nature a calamity very grievous to the most powerful and flourishing people, and to a trading nation is particularly destructive, as it at once exhausts...

The only act, sir, by which it can be discovered that they have any degree of penetration proportionate to their employments, is the embargo lately laid upon provisions in Irela...

That this law, sir, will be always executed with the strictest impartiality, and without the least regard to any private purposes, cannot, indeed, be demonstratively proved; eve...

The laws of honour, sir, require this from me, as they oblige every man to stand forth a vindicator of merit slighted and oppressed; and gratitude calls loudly upon me to exert...

Thus, in every place, it is the practice of men in power, to blind the people by false representations, and to impute the publick calamities rather to any other cause than their...

The exception proposed is, in the opinion of the honourable gentleman, so reasonable, that he declares himself ready to approve it in another place; and, to me, no place seems m...

If, in defining a seaman on the present occasion, it be thought proper to have any regard to the example of our predecessors, whose wisdom has, in this debate, been so much magn...

The hours, and days, and weeks, that have been improfitably spent upon bills which after all our endeavours could not be passed; the delays of real benefits to the publick, whic...

Then the PRESIDENT spoke thus:--Sir, it is, undoubtedly, required by the orders of the house, that the petitions should lie upon the table; and that any member, who is desirous...

On the sixty-first day, moved that the said account should be read; which being done, the house resolved itself into a grand committee on the present bill; and the first clause...

When a minister, suspected of ill intentions, is continued in employment, discontent must naturally spread over the nation; and if the end of government be the happiness of the...

It is not sufficient to point out inconveniencies, or to give striking representations of the hardships to which the people are exposed; for unless some better expedient can be...

But gentlemen, sir, are proper judges of debates between the army and the rest of the community, because they are equally related to both parties, as men who possess or expect e...

His lordship has observed, that the objections which are now made to the method of raising new regiments, were not produced last year upon a like occasion. I know not, indeed, w...

That other evidence will appear against him when he shall be reduced, in consequence of our agreeing to this motion, to the level with his fellow-subjects, that all informations...

Mr. Horace WALPOLE spoke next, to this effect:--Mr. Chairman, it does not yet appear that the gentlemen who have engaged in this debate, have sufficiently attended to the exigen...

It cannot be denied to be possible, and in my opinion it is very likely, that many contracts will be made without the knowledge of this law, and consequently without any design...

If we take, my lords, a review of our affairs, and examine the state of the nation in all its relations and all its circumstances, we cannot, surely, conceive that we are in a s...

To prove, sir, that there is now no such necessity, by a long train of arguments, would be superfluous, for it has been shown already, that our enemies will not suffer by the pr...

Then Mr. CLUTTERBUCK seconded the motion in this manner:--That I am not able to add any thing to the encomium of the right honourable gentleman nominated to the president's chai...

That our commerce has been unnecessarily exposed to the ravages of privateers, from which a very small degree of caution might have preserved it; that three hundred trading ship...

But, with regard, sir, to those whom I have offended, I am of opinion, that if I had acted a borrowed part, I should have avoided their censure; the heat that offended them is t...

We are in the discussion of this question, sir, to consider that we are engaged in a war against a nation from which insults, depredations, oppressions, and cruelties, have been...

Foreigners, sir, are very far from discovering the defect of their own establishment, or imagining that they should become more formidable by imitating our methods. When I trave...

To speak in terms more adapted to the subject before us: that the fleet of Spain, a fleet of transports with such a convoy, should lie three weeks in an open road, professedly f...

The duke of ARGYLE spoke to the following purpose:--My lords, it is with great reason that the present time has been represented to us from the throne as a time of uncommon dang...

Nor do I discover, sir, what can be inferred from his observation of the influence of example in time of action, but that officers should be selected with great care, and not be...

Mr. SANDYS this day moved for an humble address to his majesty, that, for the future ease of his majesty's subjects, all officers now subsisting upon half-pay, etc. might be emp...

I know not, therefore, my lords, upon what motives the debate is continued, nor what objections they are which hinder our unanimity, at a time when all petty controversies ought...

What was given up, or what was endangered by this detestable treaty, your lordships have often had occasion to observe, and the consequences of it were so obvious, that the nati...

That it is necessary to exert ourselves on this occasion, and to strike out some measures for securing the dominion of the ocean, cannot be denied by any one who considers that...

Such of your lordships who join with the people in ascribing our present unhappy state not to the errours, but to the crimes of the minister, and who, therefore, think a bare re...

How much it is our duty to support the house of Austria it is not necessary to explain to any man who has heard the debates of this assembly, or read the history of the last war...

This consideration alone is sufficient to redress the ardour of inquiry, for every man that has had opportunities of knowing the wonderful accomplishments of our ministry, the d...

The government of this country has long and justly been considered the best among the nations of Europe; and the English people have ever evinced a proportionate desire for info...