It was, then, not my love, but my hatred to innovation, that produced my
plan of reform. Without troubling myself with the exactness of the
logical diagram, I considered them as things substantially opposite. It
was to prevent that evil, that I proposed the measures which his Grace
is pleased, and I am not sorry he is pleased, to recall to my
recollection. I had (what I hope that noble Duke will remember in all
his operations) a state to preserve, as well as a state to reform. I had
a people to gratify, but not to inflame or to mislead. I do not claim
half the credit for what I did as for what I prevented from being done.
In that situation of the public mind, I did not undertake, as was then
proposed, to new-model the House of Commons or the House of Lords, or
to change the authority under which any officer of the crown acted, who
was suffered at all to exist. Crown, lords, commons, judicial system,
system of administration, existed as they had existed before, and in the
mode and manner in which they had always existed. My measures were, what
I then truly stated them to the House to be, in their intent, healing
and mediatorial. A complaint was made of too much influence in the House
of Commons: I reduced it in both Houses; and I gave my reasons, article
by article, for every reduction, and showed why I thought it safe for
the service of the state. I heaved the lead every inch of way I made. A
disposition to expense was complained of: to that I opposed, not mere
retrenchment, but a system of economy, which would make a random
expense, without plan or foresight, in future, not easily practicable.
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