unreflecting confidence.  That confidence demands a full return, and fixes a responsibility on the ministers entire and undivided.  The people stands acquitted, if the war is not carried on in a manner suited to its objects.  If the public honor is tarnished, if the public safety suffers any detriment, the ministers, not the people, are to answer it, and they alone.  Its armies, its navies, are given to them without stint or restriction.  Its treasures are poured out at their feet.  Its constancy is ready to second all their efforts.  They are not to fear a responsibility for acts of manly adventure.  The responsibility which they are to dread is lest they should show themselves unequal to the expectation of a brave people.  The more doubtful may be the constitutional and economical questions upon which they have received so marked a support, the more loudly they are called upon to support this great war, for the success of which their country is willing to supersede considerations of no slight importance.  Where I speak of responsibility, I do not mean to exclude that species of it which the legal powers of the country have a right finally to exact from those who abuse a public trust:  but high as this is, there is a responsibility which attaches on them from which the whole legitimate power of the kingdom cannot absolve them; there is a responsibility to conscience and to glory, a responsibility to the existing world, and to that posterity which men of their eminence cannot avoid for glory or for shame,—­a responsibility to a tribunal at which not only ministers, but kings and parliaments, but even nations themselves, must one day answer.

FOOTNOTES: 

[37] The Archduke Charles of Austria.

[38] Dec 27, 1790.

[39] Observations on a Late State of the Nation.

[40] This and the following tables on the same construction are compiled from the Reports of the Finance Committee in 1791 and 1797, with the addition of the separate paper laid before the House of Commons, and ordered to be printed, on the 7th of February, 1792.

BRICKS AND TILES. 
Years of Peace.  L | Years of War.  L
1787 94,521 | 1793 122,975
1788 96,278 | 1794 106,811
1789 91,773 | 1795 83,804
1790 104,409 | 1796 94,668
------- | ------- Increase to 1790
L386,981 | L408,258 L21,277. 
Increase to 1791
1791 L115,382 4 Years to 1791 L407,842 L416.

PLATE. 
Years of Peace.  L | Years of War.  L
1787 22,707 | 1793 25,920
1788 23,295 | 1794 23,637
1789 22,453 | 1795 25,607
1790 18,433 | 1796 28,513
------- | ------- Increase to 1790
L86,888 | L103,677 L16,789. 
Increase to 1791
1791 L31,528 4 Years to 1791 L95,704 L7,973.