The manners of the Welsh nation followed the genius of the government. The
people were ferocious, restive, savage, and uncultivated; sometimes composed,
never pacified. Wales, within itself, was in perpetual disorder, and it kept the
frontier of England in perpetual alarm. Benefits from it to the state there were
none. Wales was only known to England by incursion and invasion.
Sir, during that state of things, Parliament was not idle. They attempted to
subdue the fierce spirit of the Welsh by all sorts of rigorous laws. They
prohibited by statute the sending all sorts of arms into Wales, as you prohibit
by proclamation (with something more of doubt on the legality) the sending arms
to America. They disarmed the Welsh by statute, as you attempted (but still with
more question on the legality) to disarm New England by an instruction. They
made an Act to drag offenders from Wales into England for trial, as you have
done (but with more hardship) with regard to America. By another Act, where one
of the parties was an Englishman, they ordained that his trial should be always
by English.
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