In that case, there is an unnatural infection, a
pestilential taint, fermenting in the constitution of society, which
fever and convulsions of some kind or other must throw off, or in which
the vital powers, worsted in an unequal struggle, are pushed back upon
themselves, and, by a reversal of their whole functions, fester to
gangrene, to death,--and instead of what was but just now the delight
and boast of the creation, there will be cast out in the face of the sun
a bloated, putrid, noisome carcass, full of stench and poison, an
offence, a horror, a lesson to the world.
In my opinion, we ought not to wait for the fruitless instruction of
calamity to inquire into the abuses which bring upon us ruin in the
worst of its forms, in the loss of our fame and virtue. But the right
honorable gentleman[66] says, in answer to all the powerful arguments of
my honorable friend, "that this inquiry is of a delicate nature, and
that the state will suffer detriment by the exposure of this
transaction." But it is exposed; it is perfectly known in every member,
in every particle, and in every way, except that which may lead to a
remedy. He knows that the papers of correspondence are printed, and that
they are in every hand.
He and delicacy are a rare and a singular coalition. He thinks that to
divulge our Indian politics may be highly dangerous. He! the mover, the
chairman, the reporter of the Committee of Secrecy! he, that brought
forth in the utmost detail, in several vast, printed folios, the most
recondite parts of the politics, the military, the revenues of the
British empire in India! With six great chopping bastards,[67] each as
lusty as an infant Hercules, this delicate creature blushes at the sight
of his new bridegroom, assumes a virgin delicacy; or, to use a more fit,
as well as a more poetic comparison, the person so squeamish, so timid,
so trembling lest the winds of heaven should visit too roughly, is
expanded to broad sunshine, exposed like the sow of imperial augury,
lying in the mud with all the prodigies of her fertility about her, as
evidence of her delicate amours,--
Triginta capitum foetus enixa jacebat,
Alba, solo recubans, albi circum ubera nati.
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