Whether the vast expense of choosing such members into the senate, as would be content to do the public business, were absolutely necessary?
Whether those members, thus chosen in, would cross and impede the necessary course of affairs, unless they were supplied with great sums of money, and continued pensions?
Whether the same corruption and perverseness were to be expected from the nobles?
Whether the empire of Japan were in so low a condition, that the imperial envoys, at foreign courts, must be forced to purchase alliances, or prevent a war, by immense bribes, given to the ministers of all the neighbouring princes?
Why the debts of the empire were so prodigiously advanced, in a peace of twelve years at home and abroad?
Whether the Yortes were universally enemies to the religion and laws of the empire, and to the imperial family now reigning?
Whether those persons, whose revenues consist in lands, do not give surer pledges of fidelity to the public, and are more interested in the welfare of the empire, than others whose fortunes consist only in money?
And because Lelop-Aw, for several years past, had engrossed the whole administration, the emperor signified, that from him alone he expected an answer.
This minister, who had sagacity enough to cultivate an interest in the young prince's family, during the late emperor's life, received early intelligence from one of his emissaries of what was intended at the council, and had sufficient time to frame as plausible an answer as his cause and conduct would allow. However, having desired a few minutes to put his thoughts in order, he delivered them in the following manner.
"Upon this short unexpected warning, to answer your Imperial Majesty's queries I should be wholly at a loss, in your Majesty's august presence, and that of this most noble assembly, if I were armed with a weaker defence than my own loyalty and integrity, and the prosperous success of my endeavours.
"It is well known that the death of the Empress Nena happened in a most miraculous juncture; and that, if she had lived two months longer, your illustrious family would have been deprived of your right, and we should have seen an usurper upon your throne, who would have wholly changed the constitution of this empire, both civil and sacred; and although that empress died in a most opportune season, yet the peaceable entrance of your Majesty's father was effected by a continual series of miracles. The truth of this appears by that unnatural rebellion which the Yortes raised, without the least provocation, in the first year of the late emperor's reign, which may be sufficient to convince your Majesty, that every soul of that denomination was, is, and will be for ever, a favourer of the Pretender, a mortal enemy to your illustrious family, and an introducer of new gods into the empire. Upon this foundation was built the whole conduct of our affairs; and, since a great majority of the kingdom was at that time reckoned to favour the Yortes faction, who, in the regular course of elections, must certainly be chosen members of the senate then to be convoked; it was necessary, by the force of money, to influence elections in such a manner, that your Majesty's father might have a sufficient number to weigh down the scale on his side, and thereby carry on those measures which could only secure him and his family in the possession of the empire. To support this original plan I came into the service: But the members of the senate, knowing themselves every day more necessary, upon the choosing of a new senate, I found the charges to increase; and that, after they were chosen, they insisted upon an increase of their pensions; because they well knew that the work could not be carried on without them: And I was more general in my donatives, because I thought it was more for the honour of the crown, that every vote should pass without a division; and that, when a debate was proposed, it should immediately be quashed, by putting the question.