Sir Robert Walpole, 1676-1745, was educated at Eton and Cambridge. He
entered Parliament in 1700, and soon became a good debater and skillful
tactician. He was prime minister of Great Britain from 1721 to 1742, in
the reigns of George I. and George II. He was an able statesman; but has
been accused of employing corruption or bribery on a large scale, to
control Parliament and accomplish his purposes.
###
I was unwilling to interrupt the course of this debate, while it was
carried on with calmness and decency, by men who do not suffer the ardor
of opposition to cloud their reason, or transport them to such expressions
as the dignity of this assembly does not admit.
I have hitherto deferred answering the gentleman, who declaimed against
the bill with such fluency and rhetoric, and such vehemence of gesture;
who charged the advocates for the expedients now proposed, with having no
regard to any interests but their own, and with making laws only to
consume paper, and threatened them with the defection of their adherents,
and the loss of their influence, upon this new discovery of their folly
and ignorance. Nor, do I now answer him for any other purpose than to
remind him how little the clamor of rage and petulancy of invective
contribute to the end for which this assembly is called together; how
little the discovery of truth is promoted, and the security of the nation
established, by pompous diction and theatrical emotion.
Formidable sounds and furious declamation, confident assertions and lofty
periods, may affect the young and inexperienced; and perhaps the gentleman
may have contracted his habits of oratory by conversing more with those of
his own age than with such as have more opportunities of acquiring
knowledge, and more successful methods of communicating their sentiments.
If the heat of temper would permit him to attend to those whose age and
long acquaintance with business give them an indisputable right to
deference and superiority, he would learn in time to reason, rather than
declaim; and to prefer justness of argument and an accurate knowledge of
facts, to sounding epithets and splendid superlatives, which may disturb
the imagination for a moment, but leave no lasting impression upon the
mind. He would learn, that to accuse and prove are very different; and
that reproaches, unsupported by evidence, affect only the character of him
that utters them.
Excursions of fancy and flights of oratory are indeed pardonable in young
men, but in no other; and it would surely contribute more, even to the
purpose for which some gentlemen appear to speak (that of depreciating the
conduct of the administration), to prove the inconveniences and injustice
of this bill, than barely to assert them, with whatever magnificence of
language, or appearance of zeal, honesty, or compassion.