This, indeed, would have been a most extraordinary way of declaring the law of parliament, and what I presume no man, whose understanding is not at cross purposes with itself, could possibly understand.
If, in a case of this importance, I thought myself at liberty to argue from suppositions rather than from facts, I think the probability, in this instance, is directly the reverse of what the Ministry affirm; and that it is much more likely that the house of commons at that time would rather have strained a point in favour of Mr. Taylor, than that they would have violated the law of parliament, and robbed Mr. Taylor of a right legally vested in him, to gratify a refractory borough, which, in defiance of them, had returned a person branded with the strongest mark of the displeasure of the House.
But really, Sir, this way of talking, for I cannot call it argument, is a mockery of the common understanding of the nation, too gross to be endured. Our dearest interests are at stake. An attempt has been made, not merely to rob a single county of its rights,
