Perhaps you will tell me, as some have already had the weakness to do, that it is of little importance to either party to have a Speaker of their side, his business being only to take the sense of the House and report it, that you often, at committees, put an able speaker into the chair on purpose to prevent him from stopping a bill. Why, if it were no more than this, I believe I should hardly choose, even among my footmen, such a one to deliver a message, whose interest and opinions led him to wish it might miscarry. But I remember to have heard old Colonel Birch[4] of Herefordshire say, that "he was a very sorry Speaker, whose single vote was not better than fifty common ones." I am sure it is reckoned in England the first great test of the prevalency of either party in the House. Sir Thomas Littleton[5] thought, that a House of Commons with a stinking breath (supposing the Speaker to be the mouth) would go near to infect everything within the walls, and a great deal without. It is the smallest part of an able Speaker's business, what he performs in the House, at least if he be in with the court, when it is hard to say how many converts may be made in a circle of dinners, or private cabals. And you and I can easily call to mind a gentleman in that station, in England, who, by his own arts and personal credit, was able to draw over a majority, and change the whole power of a prevailing side in a nice juncture of affairs, and made a Parliament expire in one party who had lived in another.
I am far from an inclination to multiply party causes, but surely the best of us can with very ill grace make that an objection, who have not been so nice in matters of much less importance. Yet I have heard some persons of both sides gravely deliver themselves in this manner; "Why should we make the choosing a Speaker a party cause? Let us fix upon one who is well versed in the practices and methods of parliament." And I believe there are too many who would talk at the same rate, if the question were not only about abolishing the sacramental test, but the sacrament itself.
But suppose the principles of the most artful Speaker could have no influence either to obtain or obstruct any point in Parliament, who can answer what effects such a choice may produce without doors? 'Tis obvious how small a matter serves to raise the spirits and hopes of the Dissenters and their high-flying advocates, what lengths they run, what conclusions they form, and what hopes they entertain. Do they hear of a new friend in office? That is encouragement enough to practise the city, against the opinion of a majority into an address to the Queen for repealing the sacramental test; or issue out their orders to the next fanatic parson to furbish up his old sermons, and preach and print new ones directly against Episcopacy. I would lay a good wager, that, if the choice of a new Speaker succeeds exactly to their liking, we shall see it soon followed by many new attempts, either in the form of pamphlet, sermon, or address, to the same, or perhaps more dangerous purposes.
