making peace, and of recovering, in any good degree, what was lost. Were this business delayed but for a few weeks, America and France might be in alliance, our commerce with the former of these countries would then be irretrievably gone from us, and in the moment of our being apprized of that evil, another would arise with it, the necessity of a war with France, for the recovery (however hopeless might be the endeavour) of our lost possessions and commerce. But a French war may not come from that quarter only: so long as the contest with America is continued, it must be constantly dreaded by us. Here he enlarged on the warlike preparations of the ancient and inveterate enemy of this country. War may proceed from sudden and unexpected causes, while each party have so many ships. The continuance of the war threatened nothing less than destruction to the British commerce, which in every sea was vexed, tormented, torn, by the captures made upon it, by Americans, by French and Spaniards, and all, whom the hopes of booty could allure to prey on it, under congress commissions. What effect had already been perceived from the captures made, he shewed from the high freight and insurance on all British shipping, and from the number of French vessels (twenty-six) now in the river Thames, which were receiving British merchandize for foreign markets, on account of the greater cheapness of such conveyance. He said, that in the beginning of this war, our trade had been considered as an object only of secondary consideration, and indeed as deserving no regard, when brought in competition with the high and uncontroulable supremacy of British legislature. That on this account the petition of the West India merchants was not suffered to be brought into question, till the deliberations, concerning that high political dignity, were closed: but was thrown into a corner, to be taken afterwards into the consideration of a committee, lest an earlier attention to it might have interfered with, and too much debased the resolutions of parliament, on that great sublime mystery. His lordship exposed the pride and folly of that proceeding; and said, he was sorry, in a British senate, he found it necessary to enter into an explanation of the nature, use, and importance of trade, to this country. He said that trade was its vital blood, diffusing itself, and running through all its parts, animating and filling all with life and vigour. In respect of American trade h recalled the attention of the House t what this country was before that trade was known in it, what it had grown to b while that trade flourished, and what w were likely to become, when it was gon from us. He treated the notion of conquest, and of success by force of arms, as utterly ridiculous, and the final and irreparable loss of America, as the inevitable consequence of a continuance of the war. Lord Weymouth objected to the motion, as inadequate to the purpose it was declar ed calculated to effect, and ill timed, because it could not at present be of any service, even if it were adopted by their lordships. He'denied the last speaker's assertion relative to Mr. Deane and Dr. Franklin being frequently in the antichamber at Versailles, and affronting lord Stormont; so far from this being the fact, the noble viscount declared that lord Stormont never met them there; and although he could not pretend to assert that they had never seen the minister of France, he was well aware that they had not received any public countenance from him, or any other part of the French cabinet. With regard to what had been said of the French having sent out stores, &c. to America, it was very true that the private merchants had taken advantage of the quarrel, as in all such cases was customary, and had shipped an inconsiderable quantity of stores, &c. in different bottoms, many of which our frigates and armed vessels had taken; but the French government were not answerable for such conduct. His lordship further observed, that the motion held out nothing specific. It was for an address to his Majesty; to do what? The noble earl, he presumed, did not mean to enter into specific terms for relinquishing the rights of parliament. An act of parliament had already appointed a commission; commissioners were now acting by the virtue of that commission. This address was not, he hoped, intended to cause his Majesty to supersede that commission, or to supersede the provisions of an act of parliament, contrary to law. Such a thing was totally impracticable. What good purpose, therefore, the present motion could answer, was more than he could perceive, however well intended. In its present shape he could not consequently speak to it, till the objects to the attainment of which it was ultimately directed, were first pointed out. those laws, of which they complain, will be the first step to that redress. The people of America look upon parliament as the authors of their miséries; their affections are estranged from their sovereign. Let, then reparation come from the hands which inflicted the injuries; let conciliation succeed chastisement; and I do maintain, that parliament will again recover its authority; that his Majesty will be once more enthroned in the hearts of his American subjects; and that your lordships, as contributing to so great, glorious, salutary, and benignant a work, will receive the prayers and benedictions of every part of the British empire. The Earl of Chatham. I perceive the noble lord neither apprehends my meaning, nor the explanation given by me to the noble earl in the blue ribbon, who spoke early in the debate. I will therefore, with your lordships' permission, state shortly what I meant. My lords, my motion was stated generally, that I might leave the question at large to be amended by your lordships. I did not dare to point out the specific means. I drew the motion up to the best of my poor abilities; but I intended it only as the herald of conciliation, as the harbinger of peace to our afflicted colonies. But, as the noble lord seems to wish for something more specific on the subject, and through that medium to seek my particular sentiments, I will tell your lordships very fairly what I wish for. I wish for a repeal of every oppressive act which your lordships have passed since 1763. I would put our brethren in America precisely on the same footing they stood at that period. I would expect, that being left at liberty to tax themselves, and dispose of their own property, they would in return contribute to the common burthens, according to their means and abilities. I will move your lordships a Bill of Repeal, as the only means left to arrest that approaching destruction which threatens to overwhelm us. My lords, I shall no doubt hear it objected, Why should we submit or concede? Has America done any thing, on her part, to induce us to agree to so large a ground of concession? I will tell you, my lords, why I think you should. You have been the aggressors from the beginning. I shall not trouble your lordships with the particulars, they have been stated and enforced by the noble and learned lord, (Camden) who spoke last but one, in a much more able and distinct manner than I could pretend to state them. If then, we are the aggressors, it is your lordships' business to make the first overI say again, this country has been the aggressor. You have made descents upon their coasts; you have burnt their towns, plundered their country, made war The Earl of Shelburne asserted, that the upon the inhabitants, confiscated their pro- doctrines held out in the sermon alluded perty, proscribed and imprisoned their to by the dukes of Grafton and Manchespersons. I do therefore affirm, my lords, ter, were highly dangerous and reprehenthat instead of exacting unconditional sub-sible. He quoted parts of the discourse, mission from the colonies, we should grant them unconditional redress. We have injured them; we have endeavoured to enslave and oppress them. Upon this clear ground, my lords, instead of chastisement, they are entitled to redress. A repeal of ture. Lord Weymouth was much obliged to the noble earl for his explanation; but every thing offered by his lordship, being founded on a supposition that Great Britain was the aggressor, and that not appearing to him to be the case, every argument built on such a supposition, consequently fell to the ground. So far from this country being the aggressor, he was of opinion that we procrastinated measures of force too long, in hopes that matters might be amicably adjusted without an appeal to arms. He denied, that if the present motion was rejected it would preclude all future hopes of conciliation. The contrary was much the more probable supposition; and though it were otherwise, it was impossible to prevent the evils meant to be deprecated by this or any resolution taken at this late season of the year, as the campaign would be begun, and the operations commenced before any account of the present motion could reach America. He was certain that neither Deane nor Franklin were invited to the French court, nor were admitted to the anti-chamber at Versailles, or to confront, or affront, the British minister there. They might have had interviews with some of the French ministry, but he was well authorised to confirm what had been advanced, that France at no time stood on a more friendly footing with this court than at present. and dared any prelate to avow such doctrine in that House. His lordship then took an extensive field of argument, and spoke relative to the state of France, the power of her navy, her connection with the Congress, and her intention at a proper op 1 portunity to attack us. He denied in the most positive terms her being ingenuous in her professions of friendship. Have you, said his lordship, insisted on Dr. Franklin and the other American deputies being sent from France? What answer have you received? Have you required the French ministers to shut their ports against the Americans, as Portugal has done? Have you explicitly demanded, that all American privateers should be removed from the French ports, and not be permitted to revisit them, either with or without their prizes? What answers have you received? Does France prevent her officers from serving in the American army? Has she not at this time 19 ships of the line completely fitted and lying at Brest, and 2,000 seamen taken out of her Newfoundland vessels ready to man four more? Has she not six ships of the line fitted and ready for sea at Toulon, and several ships and 6,000 troops at Hispaniola? Has not Spain a very capital fleet and army, completely manned and collected in Europe? Besides, has she not a considerable naval and land force in the West Indies? Will any noble lord rise, and tell me these things are not so; and will the noble lord at the head of the Admiralty (notwithstanding his great promises at the beginning of the session) now venture to inform your lordships, that on a sudden emergency he could command more than ten ships of the line? My lords, I will save the noble lord the trouble of answering this question by telling him, he could not. He said, every pretext of the ships which carried stores to America, being the adventures of private merchants, was fallacious, the private merchants of France were men of too little consideration to carry on such a trade; that 5,000l. sterling was more than any French merchants could raise, that there was no comparison to be made between the French and the English merchants, that the first were as petty, as poor, and as insignificant as the second were wealthy and respectable. His lordship declared, that having much leisure time, he had lately read a book entitled Political Papers, which treated of the public transactions in 1721, that in it he met with a passage which struck him much; cardinal Alberoni, the writer of one of the letters, talking to his correspondent on the subject of a war with Spain, said, "As long as you can keep the Spanish forces in Sicily, so long will you be safe from any attack from Spain." This, added his lordship, exactly suits the present times: France will let us convey all our men, and all our millions across the Atlantic; but will she suffer us to bring any of the former back again quietly? His lordship denied that the Americans had all along aimed at independency; he said the book which had been published under the title of Letters from the Marquis de Montcalm, in which that officer appeared to have sent word to Old France many years ago, that he discovered a spirit of independence in the people of New England, and that if the English did not take effectual care to check it, it would one day burst forth to the cost of the mother country, had been discovered to be a forgery, and that the marquis had never hinted such an idea. That the fact was, the Americans were exceedingly unwilling to declare themselves independent, nor did they adopt that measure till the severities of our acts of parliament drove them to it; that we had step by step forced them to take up arms and declare war; that after having so done, what could be expected but that they should defend themselves as well as they were able. He declared that general Washington was at the head of a large army, and that after having spent three campaigns to so little purpose, after having suffered our brigades to lose their vigour, and to be so reduced that they were hardly fit for service, was it likely that we should be more successful this year than the last? His lordship charged administration with holding out false lights to the people; he said the American secretary had declared, that there was so much difficulty in procuring men for the rebel army, that they were obliged to pay 30l. a man, that indeed he had afterwards owned his mistake, and said he meant 30 dollars, as he was no financier his mistake was pardonable, for surely it would be no greater fault in him not to know the difference between dollars and pounds, than it was for the great financier to mistake currency for sterling. Here his lordship took occasion to complain of the carelessness of the Treasury-board, in the making their contracts, and particularly mentioned that for rum, so severely handled in the House of Commons; he said he never heard so contemptible a defence as had been made for that business; but that the whole conduct of administra tion was of a piece; they scandalously submitted to the most public insults from the French; they were pitifully mean and sillanimous towards the natural enemy of this kingdom, and barbarous, unjust and pu tyrannical towards their brethren and fellow subjects. dependence upon the British parliament; that their appeals to the King, in his mere regal capacity, as distinct from his parlia the doctrines maintained in support of chartered rights, uncontroulable by parliament, by which means a king may discharge any number of his subjects he pleases from the allegiance due to the other two branches of the legislature, was contrary to the fundamental principles of the constitution. He said, if he had described or pointed at any faction which did not exist in the state, he was content to bear the obloquy: or had maintained any doctrines that would not bear the test, he was ready to abide that degree of censure the offence merited. He trusted he had not. He did not suppose opposition would be willing to father all the doctrines imputed to the faction therein described; but as to the main ground for his reasons against the present motion, as well as those urged in the discourse, and on which he was well warranted in fixing a public stigma, they were to be found in the public protests and papers recorded in that House. He said, his way of life and mode of conducting himself, did not permit him to mix much with the world. He did not pretend to much knowledge of politics, but what he had learned from books. The publication so severely censured contained his sentiments. He might be mistaken, but he was nevertheless sincere. He was naturally in His lordship answered lords Gower and Lyttelton on the ground of an independentment, plainly pointed that out; and that majority having supported the measures of administration for the last ten years. He said such assertions tended to deceive and mislead. That a majority within doors, and a majority without, were two matters essentially distinct. That no man more heartily revered the real, disinterested country gentlemen than he did. That early in life he had been taught to value and to esteem them; and that if he might quote the saying of a very able and respectable friend then near him, it would, he doubted not, convince their lordships of the veracity of his assertion. His noble friend many years since told him, "That he was better pleased with hearing a sensible and independent country gentleman talk for ten minutes, than with the finest speech that ever was uttered by an Attorney-general." "But," continued his lordship, there is a line to be drawn; every country gentleman is not independent; there are modes of corruption which have found their way even to the land-holder, and he that has a vote is not always honest enough to avoid temptation." Taking the matter up, however, in the point of view, in which the noble lords have placed it, is not the great support of the British nation commerce? If the streams of commerce are stopped, will not men of all occupations feel the conse-clined to live quietly, and on a friendly quence? The tradesman, the shopkeeper, the mechanic, the manufacturer and the merchant, will not be the only sufferers, the country gentleman will find his land sink in value, in proportion as the country is drained of its wealth, and the means of increasing it are lost: the country gentle`man, therefore, forsakes his interest, and suffers himself to be made the instrument of his own destruction, in supporting measures which evidently tend to promote the destruction of commerce. His lordship concluded with highly commending the motion, and thanking the noble earl for having made it. The Archbishop of York said, he was proud to find himself of so much consequence. He did not mean to speak to the question; but as he was up, he should say a word or two. He said, the passage in the sermon alluded to by the noble lord, would serve and answer his purpose. He always thought that America aimed at independence; at least they disclaimed any footing with all mankind; but there were insults of such a nature as not to be borne ; nor would he bear to be insulted by even the proudest lord in that House.* Archbishop of York's Sermon: "It is the usual artifice of faction to look for something colourable, by which the ignorant and unwary may be deceived, and this is commonly affected, by the adoption of a false, or the misapplication of a true principle. "What is assumed upon the present occasion, is the glorious nature of liberty. Of this there can be no question; and I hope, that no times will be so wretchedly debased, as to make it a question in this free country. It is certainly the first and most valuable of all human possessions. It realizes and secures all the rest; and by those, who are in the enjoyment of it, ought to be maintained at all hazards. But it remains to be settled; wherein does it consist? I have sometimes thought it a misfortune, that a thing so valuable and important should have no word in our language to ex The Earl of Shelburne observed, in re- | misrepresented, the right reverend prelate ply, that the right reverend prelate had had every opportunity of confuting him, promulged those doctrines in a place and defending his assertions. His lordship where they could not be answered at the then put him in mind of his want of good time; which, among other reasons, was a manners; observed, that in his Sermon very good one for abstaining from using the word liberty' had stuck in his throat, the pulpit as a medium for conveying party being too hard for digestion. And added, or factious doctrines. He, on the other that the greatest act of magnanimity in his hand, had controverted them in the face of Majesty was the removal from the tuition the whole nation, where, if he erred or of his son, a man, who would not suffer press it, except one which goes to every thing that is wild and lawless. "If therefore we would avoid abusing our understanding with the ideas of savage liberty, which have no place in regulated society, we should use it with an addition, such as legal or civil liberty. It seems to consist, in a freedom from all restraints, except such as established law imposes, for the good of the community, to which the partial good of each individual is obliged to give place. "As there are in the nature of things, but two sorts of government; that of law, and that of force; it wants no argument to prove, that under the last, freedom cannot subsist. If it subsists therefore, it must be under law; and of necessity that law must be supreme; for if it is not supreme, its power must be abridged by its enemy, force. The foundation therefore of legal freedom, is the supremacy of law. It has been acknowledged as such, by all common-wealths from the beginning of the world; as the only power which can protect our rights from their natural adversaries, despotism and anarchy. These indeed have usually gone together, for no anarchy ever prevailed, which did not end in despotism. "The passions of men are restless and enterprising, the occasions which time may present to them are innumerable, and the possible situation of things much more various, than any wisdom can foresee. But the supremacy of law is a steady and uniform rule, to which those, who mean well, may in all circumstances safely adhere. tunes by any other tenure, than that of law? and will they put them to the hazard, for the chance of gaining something better in the uproar? "This would be a more desperate species of gaming, than any other which is known, even in these times. But nothing is too mean for the uses of parties, especially as they are now constituted. Parties once had a principle belonging to them, absurd perhaps, and indefensible, but still carrying a notion of duty, by which honest minds might easily be caught. "But there are now combinations of individuals, who instead of being the sous and ser vants of the community, make a league for advancing their private interests. It is their business to hold high the notion of political honour. I believe and trust it is not injurious to say, that such a bond is no better than that, by which the lowest and wickedest combinations are held together; and that it denotes the last stage of political depravity. "There is another point, in the clearing of which the common cause of legal freedom is intimately concerned. Those, who maintain these doctrines, justify themselves by the glorious Revolution. Are the cases in any view similar? Or did the leaders in that great business act upon principles such as theirs? Many went into that enterprize, who were of different complexions and characters, and with very different designs and motives; some, who but little before, when they thought it their interest, were ready enough to have betrayed the constitution. But the best and honestest among them stood forth avowedly, as supporting the supremacy of law. Have these men done the same? or "To those indeed, who mean delinquency, it is not very favourable. This they were aware of, and have therefore substituted ano-have they not, in every step of the American ther rule, by which every man's humour or interest is to be made the measure of his obedience. "By this system of political rights, ambition, revenge, envy, and avarice, with the other bad passions, the controuling of which is the very intent and meaning of law, are all let loose; and those dear interests, for the protection of which we trust in law, are at once abandoned to outrage. "It is wonderful that so weak a system should find stability, even in popular madness. It is wonderful that extreme folly should not be more innocent. But it is most wonderful that those who have any thing to lose, should adopt such a system. Do they hold their distinctions and for contest, assailed and insulted it? They have maintained, that a charter which issues from the king's sole pleasure, is valid against an act of parliament. They have maintained, that a king of England has the power to discharge any number of his subjects that he pleases, from the allegiance that is due to the state. "They used their best endeavours to throw the whole weight and power of the colonies into the scale of the crown; but we thank God's good providence, that we had a prince upon the throne, whose magnanimity and justice were superior to such temptations. Of those men therefore they have taken the name, but not the principles, and have so far aspersed their memory." |