great injury to every officer now in the service, who was under the rank of colonel. If ten new regiments were to have been raised, it would have been justice to have offered them to the 10 oldest lieutenantcolonels in the army. He would venture to say, that they would any of them not only have gladly embraced the offer of raising regiments on the terms now given to the present gentlemen, but have given several thousand pounds each for the opportunity for the appointment of the officers to a whole regiment now given them, is worth a very large sum of money, if the commissions are sold, and he did not expect many presents would be made. He could make, he said, many more objections, but he had troubled the House too long already; he would only therefore, before he sat down, enter hisprotest against every part of the appointment.

and the rank of general in it; consequently he must have a regiment, or nothing.

Mr. Dunning began with explaining the cenary soldiers were raised, and kept up in common law, as it stood before any mertime of peace, unless such as were obliged to perform certain services arising from the nature of their tenures, and concluded with the Mutiny Act; in the course of which investigation, he proved that there tional or statute law, nor even of usurped was not the most faint colour of constituprerogative, for making levies without the consent, and during the sitting of parlia

ment.

Sir George Yonge was sorry to find, that in Scotch soldiers and Scotch statesmen a greater trust had been put of late years than in English.

Lord Barrington said, after administration had heard of the disaster which happened to the army under general Burgoyne, they turned their thoughts to the devising the most speedy and effectual means for augmenting our forces, preparatory to the next campaign; and an offer having been made by several respectable individuals, without any application on the part of ministers, it was thought prudent to accept of those offers. Manchester, and some other trading towns took an early part, as well as some noblemen and gentlemen from the northern parts of the kingdom; the highlands in particular distinguished itself, where his lordship particularly observed, the women are more fruitful than the soil. He said, there could be no occasion for reminding the House, that several regiments, independent companies, and corps, were raised there the late war, when two great ministers presided in this country. One in this House, and one in the other. That great man, lord Hardwicke, then assisted in the councils of this country, and he highly approved of procuring men from that part of the kingdom; and if a contrary opinion had prevailed, he was satisfied, that our armies could never have been recruited, nor our successes been so great or decisive, if it were not for the great resources drawn from that country. As to the allusion made by the hon. gentleman, of the colonel who had served in Sweden; he pre-fell in the impious attempt. sumed he pointed to Mr. McKenzie, commonly called lord M Cleod, (son to the late lord Cromartie, one of the rebel lords). He had a regiment in the Swedish service,

The Attorney General rested his argudwelt on the subscriptions set on foot in ments on precedents. He particularly 1745; and several others of a similar nature, during the late war. He said, the Bill of Rights law spoke for itself, and was conditional; and the Mutiny Act was regulating, not restrictive. If it was not, it would be the most dangerous law that ever was enacted; for it must be construed so as to tie up the King's hands, let the exigencies of the times, or the necessities of the state be what it may.

consequence of legalizing private donaMr. Fox contended, that the indubitable tions for raising of troops, must certainly justify the maintaining them, on grounds equally cogent; for who could draw a line, or how was it possible to know whether the money was for the purposes it was pretended to be employed? In such king and a bad parliament to lay out the a case, it would be in the power of a bad money thus raised as they might think completed as to he beyond remedy. proper, till the mischief was so effectually

long comparison between Britain and Mr. Van entertained the House with a Rome, America and Carthage, and concluded with asserting, that whatever opposition might be individually without, they were, as a party, rank ideots within doors. He compared some of their leaders to Hannibal, and predicted their fate to be similar to that famous general's, who vowed the destruction of Rome, and who

contributions really voluntary, were legal. The Solicitor General contended, that every merit to the two learned gentlemen, Mr. Byng was always ready to give

came as the spontaneous and generous effusions of love and loyalty to the King, and as a testimony of their zeal to support the legislature of Great Britain against the rebellion in America.

because the more that hon. gentleman abused him, the better he thought of himself; that the effusions of his eloquence were incapable of the guilt of slander; they were, on the contrary, satisfactory and reputable.

The Resolution of the Committee was then agreed to.

litary Employment of the Indians of America, in the present Civil War, from the 1st of March 1774, to the 1st of January 1778."*

Sir W. Meredith replied to lord North, that it was unjust to give any sanction to his own administration, at the expence of the reputation of another; that lord Chatham's conduct, which he represented Debate on Mr. Burke's Motion relative to be the same as his own, was nothing to the Military Employment of Indians in like it; that the subscriptions then were the Civil War with America.] Feb. 6. to raise recruits for old regiments which Mr. Burke moved, "That an humble had suffered in the wars; which had been Address be presented to his Majesty, that raised under the authority of parliament, he will be graciously pleased to give diapproved, voted, and for a long time paid rections, that there be laid before this by parliament: whereas, in the present House, Copies of all Papers that have case, both the money had been levied, passed between any of his Majesty's miand the troops raised, during the sitting nisters, and the generals of his armies in of parliament, without the consent, know- America, or any person acting for governledge, or any communication with parliament in Indian affairs, relative to the Miment whatever; that the precedent for his lordship's conduct might be drawn with more correctness from that of James the 2nd, who, on the duke of Monmouth's landing in the West, had adjourned the Mr. Burke began by observing, that one parliament, for the very purpose of levy- of the grand objects of the enquiry into ing the troops himself, without the inter- the State of the Nation, was the conduct ference of parliament, in order to chuse and quality of the troops employed in such as were most attached to his person, America. That an account of the King's and most likely to serve his purposes. He regular forces, and those of his European then went through the history of all bene- allies, were already before them. That volences, from the reign of Edward the hitherto no account had appeared of his 4th, to the present time; that they had irregular forces, particularly those of his been suppressed by two acts of parliament, savage allies; although great dependance which are now in force, and had been had been placed upon them, and they had treated as unconstitutional always, parti- been obtained at a very great expence. cularly in the reign of James the 1st, That it was necessary to examine into this when the king attempted to raise a sub-point; because an extension of their mode scription in a manner exactly similar to the present; namely, by sending certain of his confidential servants to different parts of the kingdom to raise spontaneous and voluntary subscriptions, unaccompanied with any circumstance of force whatever. Mr. St. John, who was esteemed the best constitutional lawyer in the kingdom, and afterwards lord chief justice, opposed those subscriptions with great vehemence, and declared, that the attempt to get money for the king's use in that way, was a breach of his majesty's coronation oath, and an abetting of perjury, in all those who subscribed.*

Mr. Gascoygne was entering into some personal invective against sir W. Meredith, but the Speaker stopped him, which sir William, in reply, said he was sorry for;

See Howell's State Trials, vol. 2, p. 900.

ef making war had lately been strenuously recommended. The prevailing idea was, that, in the next campaign, the plans hitherto pursued were to be abandoned; and a war of distress and intimidation was

* Strangers were excluded during this debate. Mr. Burke spoke for nearly three hours and a half. Many gave the Speech a preference to any other be had ever spoken. Indeed, this applause was carried to such a pitch, that while one gentleman, in his place, wished it to be printed, and affixed to all the church doors which contained the proclamation for a general fast, a member of great distinction congratulated the ministers upon admitting no strangers on that day into the gallery, as the indignation of the people might have been excited against them to a degree that would have endangered their safety. It is to be regretted, that a full report of this Speech was never preserved. See Annual Register for 1778, p. 110.

to take place of a war of conquest, which was now found to be impracticable.

He said, that this mode of war had already been tried upon a large scale, and that the success which had hitherto attended it would afford the best evidence how far it might be proper to extend it to all our troops, and to all our operations. That if it did not promise to be very decisive as a plan merely military, it could be attended with no collateral advantages, whether considered with respect to our reputation, as a civilized people, or to our policy, in regard to the means of reconciling the minds of the colonies to his Majesty's government.

were accordingly under an inevitable necessity, not only of cultivating their friendship, and forming alliances with them, but of admitting them as parties in their contests and wars with each other; the affairs of both nations were so inextricably entangled with those of the people who had sold or given them lands, and admitted them to a share of their country, that they could not be separated; their contracts on both sides created a mutual interest; and while the savages retained any degree of their original power, they could not be indifferent to the disputes that arose among their new neighbours.

But the case was now totally altered. The English colonists were the only Europeans in North America; and the savages were so entirely reduced in number and power, that there was no occasion for holding any political connection with them as nations. They were now only formidable from their cruelty; and to employ them was merely to be cruel ourselves in their persons: and thus, without even the lure of any essential service, to become chargeable with all the odious and impotent barbarities, which they would inevitably commit, whenever they were called into action.

He then stated what the nature of a war, in which Indians were the actors against a civilized people, was; and observed, that the fault of employing them did not consist in their being of one colour or another; in their using one kind of weapon or another; but in their way of making war; which was so horrible, that it not only shocked the manners of all civilized nations, but far exceeded the ferocity of any other barbarians that have been recorded either by ancient or modern history. He observed, that the Indians in North America had but two principal objects in their wars; the one was the in- Mr. Burke then proceeded to examine dulgence of their native cruelty, by the the arguments or apologies that had been destruction, or, if possible, the extermina- used by ministers, in defence or alleviation tion of their enemies; the other, which of the measure. These he arranged always depended on the former, was the under three heads, the first and principal glory of acquiring the greatest number of of which was contained in the assertion, human scalps, which were hung up and "That if his Majesty had not employed preserved with the greatest care in their them, the rebels would." To this he huts, as perpetual trophies of victory, answered, that no proof whatever had been conquest, and personal prowess. As they given of the Americans having attempted had neither pecuniary emoluments, nor an offensive alliance with any one tribe of those honorary titles or distinctions, which savage Indians. Whereas the imperfect are so flattering in civilized nations, to papers already before the House demonbestow, the rewards of danger and war- strated, that the King's ministers had nefare consisted in human scalps, in human gociated and obtained such alliances from flesh, and the gratifications arising from one end of the continent of America to torturing, mangling, roasting alive by slow the other. That the Americans had fires, and frequently even devouring their actually made a treaty on the footing of captives. Such were the rewards of In-neutrality with the famous Five Nations, dian warriors, and such the horrors of an Indian war.

which the ministers had bribed them to violate, and to act offensively against the He then procceded to shew, that the colonies. That no attempt had been made employment of the savages in the wars in a single instance on the part of the between the French and the English, did King's ministers to procure a neutrality; not in any degree come up to the mea- and, that if the fact had been (what he sure in question, nor did it stand on the denied it to be) that the Americans had same principles. When those nations first actually employed those savages, yet the made settlements in North America, the difference of employing them against Indian tribes were, comparatively, numer-armed and trained soldiers, embodied and ous and powerful states; the new settlers encamped, and employing them against