Lord ISLAY spoke next to the following purpose:—­My lords, as there has in this debate been very frequent mention of extraordinary cases, of new modes of wickedness, which require new forms of procedure, and new arts of eluding justice, which make new methods of prosecution necessary, I cannot forbear to lay before your lordships my sentiments on this question; sentiments not so much formed by reflection as impressed by experience, and which I owe not to any superiour degree of penetration into future events, but to subsequent discoveries of my own errours.

I have observed, my lords, that in every collision of parties, that occasion on which their passions are inflamed, is always termed an extraordinary conjuncture, an important crisis of affairs, either because men affect to talk in strong terms of the business in which they are engaged, for the sake of aggrandizing themselves in their own opinion and that of the world, or because the present object appears greatest to their sight by intercepting others, and that is imagined by them to be really most important in itself, by which their own pleasure is most affected.

On these extraordinary occasions, my lords, the victorious have always endeavoured to secure their conquest, and to gratify their passions by new laws, by laws, even in the opinion of those by whom they are promoted, only justifiable by the present exigence.  And no sooner has a new rotation of affairs given the superiority to another party, than another law, equally unreasonable and equally new, is found equally necessary for a contrary purpose.  Thus is our constitution violated by both, under the pretence of securing it from the attack of each other, and lasting evils have been admitted for the sake of averting a temporary danger.

I have been too long acquainted with mankind to charge any party with insincerity in their conduct, or to accuse them of affecting to represent their disputes as more momentous than they appeared to their own eyes.  I know, my lords, how highly every man learns to value that which he has long contended for, and how easily every man prevails upon himself to believe the security of the publick complicated with his own.  I have no other intention in these remarks, than to show how men are betrayed into a concurrence in measures, of which, when the ardour of opposition has subsided, and the imaginary danger is past, they have very seldom failed to repent.

I do not remember, my lords, any deviation from the established order of our constitution, which has not afterwards produced remorse in those that advised it.  I have known many endeavour to obviate the evils that might be produced by the precedents which they have contributed to establish, by publick declarations of their repentance, and acknowledgments of their errour; and, for my part, I take this opportunity of declaring, that though I have more than once promoted extraordinary bills, I do not recollect one which I would not now oppose, nor one of which experience has not shown me, that the danger is greater than the benefit.