I shall confine myself, my lord, in the few thoughts I mean to suggest upon this head, to your two more immediate ancestors, men distinguished above the common rate, by their virtues or their abilities.  Richard earl Temple, your lordship’s immediate predecessor, as the representative of your illustrious house, will be long remembered by posterity under the very respectable title of the friend of the earl of Chatham.  But though his friend, my lord, we well know that he did not implicitly follow the sentiments of a man, who was assuredly the first star in the political hemisphere, and whose talents would have excused, if any thing could have excused, an unsuspecting credulity.  The character of lord Chatham was never, but in one instance, tarnished.  He did not sufficiently dread the omnipotence of the favourite.  He fondly imagined that before a character so brilliant, and success so imposing as his had been, no little system of favouritism could keep its ground.  Twice, my lord, he was upon the brink of the precipice, and once he fell.  When he trembled on the verge, who was it that held him back?  It was Richard earl Temple.  Twice he came, like his guardian angel, and snatched him from his fate.  Lord Chatham indeed was formed to champ the bit, and spurn indignant at every restraint.  He knew the superiority of his abilities, he recollected that he had twice submitted to the honest counsels of his friend, and he disdained to listen any longer to a coolness, that assimilated but ill to the adventurousness of his spirit; and to a hesitation, that wore in his apprehension the guise of timidity.  What then did Richard earl Temple do?  There he fixed his standard, and there he pitched his tent.  Not a step farther would he follow a leader, whom to follow had been the boast of his life.  He erected a fortress that might one day prove the safeguard of his misguided and unsuspecting friend.

And yet, my lord, the character of Richard earl Temple, was not that of causeless suspicion.  He proved himself, in a thousand instances, honest, trusting, and sincere.  He was not, like some men, that you and I know, dark, dispassionate, and impenetrable.  On the contrary, no man mistook him, no man ever charged him with a double conduct or a wrinkled heart.  His countenance was open, and his spirit was clear.  He was a man of passions, my lord.  He acted in every momentous concern, more from the dictates of his heart, than his head.  But this is the key to his conduct; He kept a watchful eye upon that bane of every patriot minister, secret influence.  If there were one feature in his political history more conspicuous than the rest, if I were called to point out the line of discrimination between his character and that of his contemporaries upon the public stage, it would be the hatred of secret influence.