Speech to the Electors of Trinity College, Dublin.
1774 or 1775.
Vide p. 42.
Gentlemen,—The honour that has been done me by being put in nomination for one of your representatives by the very respectable person who spoke last, at the same time that it demands my warmest acknowledgments, renders it necessary for me to say a few words. I am well aware to how judicious and distinguishing an audience I now address myself; I am fully sensible how much the arduousness of my situation is increased by the necessity I am under of speaking on the most difficult and ungrateful of all subjects—oneself. But there are some situations where silence would be criminal.
It was thrown out, gentlemen, early last summer, when I first took the liberty of proposing myself to your consideration, that I was nephew to Mr. A. M. (Anthony Malone), and therefore an improper person to represent this learned body. Perhaps it might be a sufficient answer answer to this electioneering artifice to say, that the character of that man should not seem very obnoxious to reproach, to whom the principal objection is that he is connected with as wise and able, and certainly as disinterested a man as any in this kingdom. But, gentlemen, though this short and decisive answer might be sufficient, I will not rest this matter here. I beg leave, with your permission, to consider this objection in all its parts.
Whatever failings this great man may have, no one can say that he has not acted on principle. No man perhaps ever supported administration so disinterestedly, or got so few favours from Government either for himself or his connexions. This indeed is so notorious, and the corruption and venality of the times are such, that men although they evidently see it is the fact are unwilling to believe it, and resort to the most improbable and chimerical suppositions in order to account for it. The persons too, who arraign the conduct of this great statesman, forget that it is necessary that the administration of affairs should be carried on by some persons or other; and that the gravity and moderation of this
