as might be made the basis of a reconciliation; they immediately sent to the American commissioners, and at once told them, they were ready to make and sign an actual treaty with them, on the ground of the project which had been proposed. This is the treaty referred to in that paper which the French minister delivered to his Majesty's Secretary of State. This treaty, preceded by such conduct as the French held towards the Americans, before they saw that they had drawn themselves into the necessity of signing it; this treaty, into which the French have been precipitated before they really intended; does not alter my idea of the probability of our having even yet peace with America, if we will but take the way that leads to it, and the only one that is open. Nothing but the perverseness of our own conduct can cross it. We know that the Americans are, and must be independent; and yet we will not treat with them as such. We acknowledge it in our own acts, and act and enact under the influence of this idea; and yet we are not to recognise in the only place where it can be of use, and where the crisis of our affairs demands it. So far as the measure of reconciliation has its basis in the acts which are passed, the legislature of this country has actually and in deed (however we may cover our shame in words) given up all right of government over the Americans. If government itself retains the least idea of sovereignty, it has already gone too far for that; if it entertains the least hope of peace, I say it has not gone far enough; and every step we shall take to put the Americans back from independency, will convince them the more of the necessity of going forward.

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Look into the four great acts of their proceedings; slow, but in measured steps; feeling their ground before they set their foot on it; yet when once set, there fixed for ever. Their first great act was their Declaration of Rights, in 1774. The rights there" declared, claimed, and insisted upon," are incompatible with provincial, and inapplicable to any other than a sovereign independent government, having all the powers necessary thereto within itself. Their next great act of state was the deduction of their reasons for taking up arms in defence of these rights, published in a Manifesto to all the world. Can those reasons and allegiance stand on any ground of agreement? Can they and supremacy stand any where on the same

ground? Their next act was the Declaration of their Independency; not suddenly taken up as an ebullition of enthusiasm, or in the bitterness of passion and revenge; but rather as coming on of course, by a train of events, linked together by a system of politics. This Declaration was not made till two years after the first Act, and not until July, 1776; and not even then until they were prepared for their next great Act, their Act of Confederation. After having renounced their allegiance to the crown of Great Britain, and all political connection with the nation; each province (thus become an independent community) formed and established (as an original act and compact of the people) their respective governments; and these, thus formed by a mutual and indissoluble Act of Confederation, have established a great republican empire; which, by principles of nature, and not of politics, necessarily sprung up from the ground whereon their affairs stood.

If these people, when they viewed their cause abandoned, as to all assistance which they looked to in Europe; when sinking, as to all appearance of what the utmost exertions of their own resources had done; when clouded with despair; would not give up the ground of independence, on which they were determined to stand; what hopes can there be, and from what quarter, that they will now, when every event of fate and fortune is reversed to us, and turned in their favour; when they feel their own power able to resist, to counteract, and, in one deplorable instance, superior to, and victorious over ours; when they see their cause taken up in Europe; when they find the nations, amongst which they have taken their equal station, acknowledging their independency, and concluding treaties with them as such; when France has actually and avowedly done it; when it is known that Spain must follow, and that Holland will-what hopes can there be, and from what quarter, that they will, all at once, pull down their own new governments, to receive our provincial ones? That they will dissolve their confederation? That they will disavow all their reasons for taking up arms? And give up all those rights which they have declared, claimed, and insisted upon, in order to receive such others at our hands, as supremacy on one hand will, and dependency on the other, can admit them to? It is nonsense, not even to be listened to! And as to that silly story of their having

make either this reimbursement or dédomagement by actual payment of money; they will therefore propose that the commissioners engage to give up to them Canada, Nova Scotia, and the Newfoundland fishery, in lieu thereof; and this they will insist upon. This I know, and this I affirm. Now what answer can any of the commissioners devise to give to these demands? If they treat with the Americans as with revolted subjects whom they wish to reclaim, and whose peace they must purchase at any rate, they must either risk all peace in the very threshold, or agree to these cessions. On the contrary, the acknowledging the Americans as independent states debarrasses this business of all such difficulties; for what claim of any such sort can any independent state with whom you are at war ever have? Had any nation ever such? And did any ever make such? It is not only become necessary to our situation, and the state of things, that we should acknowledge in politics what does actually exist in event; but, rebus sic stantibus, it is become the wisest and most politic measure that Great Britain, respecting herself, can now take. Her Act of Navigation, which I must always distinguish from the acts of trade, which is an Act to encourage British seamen and shipping, will then give to British seamen and shipping those preferences and advantages which the American seamen and shipping have now the sole profit of; and she will not lose, in the profits of her own trade, more than she now incurs expence in protecting that of America. If this was the proper time for such discussion, I could shew this to demonstration throughout the whole system. If I could entertain an idea that any man in this House hoped to regain the dependency of America, I would shew what that dependency would be. It is enough now to say that it would be a delusive and a ruinous one to the interest of this country; and that the supremacy would become dangerous to the constitution of it. It is enough, perhaps too much, to bave said and stated what I have done. I only throw it out to try the sense of the House. If they should so see their interest, as to think this measure a proper one, I should be ready to explain the whole, and to move it; nay, I am even ready now. I have a motion to that purpose in my pocket: but it is too much to be risked hastily. The only use, therefore, that I wish to make of the doctrine I have held, is, to convince the House, that the power

and interest of this country is yet on safe and good ground, if we have the wisdom to take it; if we do not, it matters little what change we make of our ministers; or what commissions or commissioners we send to America. If we do adopt it, the measure will execute itself; and it signifies very little what ministers we keep, or whether there be any at all. Some gentlemen, I see, laugh. I remember the time, and a very critical one, too, in the last war, in actual time of war, when for several days there was no minister in this country. When, in the year 1756, I came over from America, with the plan and proposal of changing the object of the war, by making a direct attack on Canada, commenced by the siege of Quebec; I was in town for several days, without any body being able to tell me to whom I was to address myself. Mr. Fox was just then gone out, and no successor was as yet fixed upon. At last I had the pleasure to find that Mr. Pitt became the minister; and from that happy moment commenced the era of all the successes and glories of the last war. Now here, if an individual may be permitted to express his private wish; I should wish that the present ministers would advise his Majesty to take that same great man, now lord Chatham, to his councils, and to their aid; and that they would, as the ministry of the former reign did, lend him their majority. In the moment in which it was known that he had a lead in the councils, and the direction of the forces of this country, in that moment we should have peace in America, and should lower the haughty crest of France.

Thus much as to the state of our negociations with America. In my opinion, the state of the French negociation does not make any alteration in them. We never could have obtained peace without acknowledging the American independency; we never could have obtained any exclusive terms of commerce. The French treaty is not exclusive; and the ground is now open to us, if we are not too proud to tread upon it. If we lose no more time, we may now have just as good terms as we could before have had. And whether we do it at first or last, with a good grace, or grudgingly and of necessity, the event will be the same; we must finally acknowledge the independency of the free states. the other hand, there is rather an advan tage to be derived from this French notice; it may oblige ministers to think of

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swered by us in the same stile. The Address moved by the noble lord appears to me to be framed in the office of a secretary of state, and not in that of the minister. It seems calculated for negociation, where France intended no negociation; and, Consequently, where we should give a formal defiance to this insult. He then argued much on the weakness of France; said that we could borrow the principal sum, where they could get only the in terest: in short, that we could raise six millions, where all the accuracy even of French financiering could scarce get 330,000%. from the people. That the nobility and gentry not in the army were against the war; the people detested it; and none but the army wished it. That their army, though great and respectable, had their enemies; perhaps Bavaria alone might employ them. That their navy made more figure on paper than at sea; and he did not doubt we should give as good an account of them as we had formerly done. That as to America, he remembered what a learned gentleman had observed some years ago; that there never was a revolution in which one fifth of the people were engaged: that the American army might have silenced the opinions of the more quiet men; but it was by no means a proof that we had no friends in America; and that he did not doubt, when the conciliatory Bills reached them, we should have more; and still more, when the inhabitants found their governors were giving them up to France. That he never called the Americans cowards; nor did he ever think them so; neither did he think them so brave as to wish to encounter unnecessary difficulties. That all men were equally brave, in proportion to their military education: that therefore Americans had one advantage, as a militia, over most nations, that they were instructed from children in the use of the firelock. That he trusted their sense would shew them the advantage of an accommodation with us. That when he heard some gentlemen propose the independency of the colonies, though he differed totally, he still did not say it ought not to be a subject of argument in the House. But that the House of Bourbon should dare to talk to this nation of the indepen dency of our colonies, was what a British House of Commons' would not formerly have borne. He was therefore dissatis fied with the motion of the noble lord, as negociating, not answering the insult. [VOL. XIX.]

That, without entering into the question, how far ministers were or were not capable? he thought it always a dangerous experiment to change a ministry on the beginning of a war.

Mr. Thomas Pitt lamented the baneful influence which had for a long time pervaded, and still continued to prevail over the councils of this great country.

Mr. Jenkinson. However fate may have disposed the events of this war, it is on the ground, and in the principles by which it became necessary, a just war. There never was, on the most popular plan of government, a doubt, but that every part of the state should bear its share of the burthen of the state, as it shared in the protection. Although the Americans did not deny this; yet when they insisted that they ought not to pay any taxes towards the support of government, but what they paid in the profits which we derived from the monopoly of their commerce, they did absolutely refuse to pay in the way of tax or contribution; when this ground failed them, and they took the use of reasoning that this government had no right to tax them for those purposes, and put their re sistance on ground that denied the sovereignty of the crown and the supremacy of the whole government, and set themselves in array to oppose those legal methods by which government had a right to enforce its authority and laws; then they went into direct rebellion, and this war on the part of this country, was a just war. When the country which felt itself almost sinking under the burthen of taxes which lay upon it, found those Americans (in bringing up and protection of whom, they had in two successive wars incurred such enormous expences) would not only not pay any thing in aid, but ungratefully denied, that we had done any thing on their account, or that they had any obligation to us for what we had done that they now disdained our protection; and even refused to give quarter or shelter to the troops that the King sent there for their protection, and the maintenance of his dominions; that they refused all intercourse with us; prohibited our commerce, and finally plundered our merchants acting under our laws, and not contrary to any which they pretended to have. Then the apprehension of the merchant was first alarmed; then the manufacturer was at last, though slowly, provoked. The country would no longer sit tamely to bear the insult; all degrees of people arose in [3 P]