offended, and with fome anger afked?" Quand vous étiez fi "près, pourquoi n'avez-vous pas pris le Prince?" That great officer who knew his bufinefs, anfwered coolly, J'avois peur, Madame, qu'il ne m'eut prit." 66 66 The miniftry tell you, that the Americans will not abide by the congrefs; they are tired of the affociation ;-true, many of the merchants may be-but it does not now depend on the merchants; nor do the accounts come even from the principal merchants; but from 'the runners for ministry. But were the diffatisfaction among the merchants ever so large, the account is no way conformable to the nature of America. The nation of America, who have the virtues of the people' they fprung from, will not be flaves. Their language is, If trade and flavery are companions, we quit the trade; let trade and flavery go where they will, they are not for us. Your anger represents them as refractory and ungrateful, in not fubmitting to the parent they fprung from; but they are in truth grown an acceffion of ftrength to this country; they know their importance; they wish to continue their utility to you; but though they may be fick of the affociation, those fons of the earth will never be diffuaded from their aflociation. After the repeal of the ftamp act, two years after, I was in the country an hundred miles off; a gentleman who knew the country, told me, that if regiments had landed at that time, and fhips had been fent to destroy the towns, they had come to a refolution to retire back into the country.-It is a fact-a noble Lord fmiles; if I were to mention the gentleman's name, it would not increase his smile. I wish the young gentlemen of our time would imitate thofe Americans that are mifrepresented to them; I wish they would imitate their frugality; I wish they would imitate that liberty which the Americans love better than life; imitate that courage which a love of liberty produces. One word more. I will fend my plan, if the state of a miferable conftitution ftretches me on a fick-bed. It is to put an end to the quarrel. "What before you know whe"ther they will come to terms?" Yes, let my expectations be what they will, I should recall the troops; it partakes of a nullity to accept fubmiffion under the influence of arms. I foretel, thefe bills must be repealed;"I fubmit to be called an ideot if they are not ;-three millions of men ready to arm, and talk of forcing them! There may be dangerous men and dangerous councils, who would inftil bad doctrines; advife the enflaving of America; they they might not endanger the crown perhaps, but they would render it not worth the wearing. The cause of America is allied to every true Whig. They will not bear the enflaving America. Some Whigs may love their fortunes better than their principles; but the body of Whigs will join; they will not enflave America. The whole Irish nation, all the true English Whigs, the whole nation of America, these combined make many millions of Whigs, averse to the fyftem. France has her full attention upon you; war is at your door; carrying a question here, will not fave your country in fuch extremities. This being the ftate of things, my advice is, to proceed to allay heats; I would at the inftant begin, and do fomething towards allaying and foftening resentment. My motion, you fee, refpects the army, and their dangerous fituation. Not to undervalue general Gage, who has ferved with credit, he acts upon his inftructions; if he has not been alert enough to shed blood; Non dimicare quam vincere maluit, And he judged well. The Americans too have acted with a prudence and moderation, that had been worthy of our imitation, were we wife ;-to their moderation it is owing, that our troops have fo long remained in safety. Mal-adminiftration has run its line-it has not a move left -it is a check mate. Forty thousand men are not adequate to the idea of fubduing them to your taxation. Taxation exifts only in reprefentation; take them to your heart, who knows what their generofity may effect? I am not to be understood as meaning a naked, unconditioned repeal; no, I would maintain the superiority of this country at all events. But you are anxious who shall difarm firft. That great poet, and perhaps a wifer and greater politician than ever he was a poet, has given you wifeft council, follow it, Tuque prior, tu parce; genus qui ducis Olympo. Projice tela manu. Who is the man who will own this fyftem of force as practicable? He then jufty cenfured the folly of pursuing a fyftem that was owned to be impracticable. His Lordship's motion was, "That an humble adddrefs be prefented to his Majefty, moft humbly to advise and beseech his Majefty, that, in order to open the ways towards an happy fettlement of the dangerous troubles in America, by beVOL. II. ginning C Earl of Suf folk. ginning to allay ferments and foften animofities there; and, above all, for preventing in the mean time, any fudden and fatal catastrophe at Bolton, now fuffering under the daily irritation of an army before their eyes, pofted in their town, it may graciously please his Majefty, that immediate orders may be dispatched to general Gage for removing his Majesty's forces from the town of Bofton, as soon as the rigour of the feafon, and other circumstances indifpenfable' to the safety and accommodation of the faid troops may render the fame practicable." The Earl of Suffolk. His Lordship condemned the conduct of the Americans in the moft determined and unreferved terms. He complimented the noble Earl, who opened the debate, on his great abilities, but begged leave to pronounce him mistaken, in almoft every pofition he laid down; and thought it extremely improper, confidering the prefent alarming ftate of America, to caufe divifions, and, by fo doing, to weaken the force of the parent ftate. He obferved, that the noble Earl had animadverted feverely on those who had, or were fuppofed to advise the measure of diffolving the parliament; and had likewife thrown out fome infinuations, directed against the fuppofed authors of the prefent intentions of adminiftration. As to the first, he avowed himself to be one of the principal advifers, as he looked upon it, nay forefaw from the beginning, that all the steps taken by the Americans, in congrefs and elsewhere, would beto influence the general election, by creating jealoufies, fears, and prejudices among the merchantile and trading part of the nation; that happinefs, the ideas he espoused had prevailed, by which means those finifter defigns were prevented from taking effect; that he was happy to find his conjectures right, and to perceive that thofe defigns were defeated ; and that an improper influence, originating whence it might, or in whatever manner, made very little difference. As to the point of advice, in relation to coercive measures, he very frankly declared himself to be equally ftrenuous; for all conciliating means having proved ineffectual, he thought it high time for the mother country to exert her authority, or for ever relinquish it. If the tafk be difficult now, what muft it be in a few years time? Parliament must be obeyed, or it must not; if it be obeyed, then who fhall refift its determinations? If it be not, then we may as well at once give up every claim of authority over America. I should fcorn, to be present in this Houfe, and fit ftill without freely declaring my fentiments: I fhould fcorn to continue one of his Majefty's minifters, and not advife coercive meatures, when I was fo firmly and fully convinced of their neceffity; and I take a particular pride in avowing those fentiments; and mean fteadily to abide by them at all events. His Lordfhip then proceeded to comment on the proceedings of the congrefs, in relation to their difapprobation of certain acts of parliament, particularly the four or five laft adverted to at that meeting. He defended them all, and contended, that the Bofton port bill, if the obftinacy of the Bostonians had not prevented it, would have executed itself, as a fatisfaction for the dommagément done to the Eaft India Company, would have at once put the port of Bofton on its former footing, and have of courfe made an opening for a compleat reconciliation. He infifted ftrongly that the mother country should never relax till America confeffed her fupremacy; and that as foon as America had dutifully complied, the would meet with every indulgence confiftent with the real interest of both countries; but that any conceffion on our parts, till the right on which all our pretenfions were founded, was allowed, would be to the laft degree impolitic, pufillanimous, and abfurd. He fuppofed, he faid, that the noble Earl would be alone in his opinion, that this country had not the right to tax America. The right implied, according to him, the neceffity of the exercise of it. He thought it a duty incumbent on administration to purfue their object of fubduing the refractory rebellious Americans; and avowed the minifteral refolution of enforcing obedience by arms. The Lord Wycombe, (Earl of Shelburne). His Lordship Earl of began with renouncing all perfonal engagements whatever; Shelburne and folemnly declared, that he adopted the noble Earl's fentiments, (the Earl of Chatham,) folely on account of their wisdom, justice, and propriety. He faid, the fpecious language of the fupremacy of the British legiflature, the interefts of Great-Britain, of her authority over the colonies, &c. was artfully held out to delude and deceive both parliament and people: it was intended to operate on every degree of men: the very cobler is, he fays, fwelled up with his own importance, as being a party in a conteft with thofe on the other fide, who are as artfully reprefented to be ready to throw off all obedience; who are described to be traitors, vagabonds, and rebels, guilty of the moft flagrant baseness and ingratitude. But fure, fays his Lordship, there is not a noble lord within thefe walls, there is not a man without, who does not inftantly perceive the notorious fallacy of fuch a mifrepresentation. No man can be at a loss to know, that Lord Lyt telton. a majority of both Houses, however conftituted, are the nation; that that majority is led and directed by an adminiftration confifting of four or five perfons; and thofe again, by one man. Let us, therefore, hear no more of the people, the parliament, or Great-Britain; but confider the iffue as fimply depending between the parties thus described, between administration on one fide, and all America on the other. He then proceeded to animadvert with great ability on the feveral acts of the laft feffion refpecting America; and contended without referve, that the Bofton port bill did not execute itself, nor was ever meant fo to do; for fuppofing the dommagement to be repaired, and the injury futained by the Eaft-India Company compenfated, what did the act fay? Why, that when his Majesty should think that the Bostonians had returned to their obedience, and peace and good government fully established, his Majesty might open the port on fuch conditions as he thought proper; and appoint fuch places for the landing and fhipping of goods within the faid port and harbour as he pleased. Here he highly arraigned the unconftitutional policy which dictated that part of the act, and wantonly lodged a power in the King and council, which parliament, if it regarded its own honour, fhould have never parted with. He condemned in general, the madnefs, injuftice, and infatuation of coercing the Americans into a blind and fervile fubmiffion; and repeated, what had been received in the moft ludicrous manner, on a former occafion, that a tipstaff would execute the acts better than a military force confifting of a hundred thousand men. The Lord Lyttelton fet out with complimenting the noble Earl, who firft fpoke in the debate, on his great political wifdom, his extenfive talents, and the fruits of both, the glorious fucceffes of the late war, which muft defervedly crown him with immortal laurels. He grounded his arguments chiefly on the legislative fupremacy of the British parliament. He ridiculed the abfurd idea of an inactive right, when there was the moft apparent and urgent neceffity for exercifing it. It would be a madness in the extreme, not directly to affert, or for ever relinquish it. He could not, he faid, at all agree with the noble Earl in his encomiums on the continental congrefs; for fo far from applauding their wifdom, &c. he contended, that the whole of their deliberations and proceedings breathed the fpirit of unconstitutional independency and open rebellion. His Lordship pointed to the particular language of fome of their refolutions; and endeavoured |