said, is a circumstance that affects me with most sensible pleasure, and does me the greatest honour. But two things fell from that gentleman, which give me pain, as whatever falls from that gentleman, falls from so great a height as to make a deep impression. I must endeavour to remove it. It was objected, that the notice given to parliament of the troubles in America was not early. I can assure the House, the first accounts were too vague and imperfect to be worth the notice of parliament. It is only of late that they have been precise and full. An over-ruling influence has also been hinted at. I see nothing of it; I feel nothing of it; I disclaim it for myself, and (as far as my discernment can reach), for all the rest of his Majesty's ministers. Mr. Pitt said in answer to Mr. Conway, The excuse is a valid one, if it is a just one. That must appear from the papers now before the House. Mr. Grenville next stood up. He began with censuring the ministry very severely, for delaying to give earlier notice | to parliament of the disturbances in America. He said, They began in July, and now we are in the middle of January; lately they were only occurrences, they are now grown to disturbances, to tumults and riots. I doubt they border on open rebellion; and if the doctrine I have heard this day be confirmed, I fear they will lose that name to take that of revolution. The government over them being dissolved, a revolution will take place in America. I cannot understand the difference between external and internal taxes. They are the same in effect, and only differ in name. That this kingdom has the sovereign, the supreme legislative power over America, is granted. It cannot be denied; and taxation is a part of that sovereign power. It is one branch of the legislation. It is, it has been exercised, over those who are not, who were never represented. It is exercised over the India Company, the merchants of London, the proprietors of the stocks, and over many great manufacturing towns. It was exercised over the palatinate of Chester, and the bishopric of Durham, before they sent any representatives to parliament. I appeal, for proof, to the preambles of the acts which gave them representatives: the one in the reign of Henry 8, the other in that of Charles 2. [Mr. Grenville then quoted the acts, and desir ed that they might be read; which being done, he said:] When I proposed to tax America, I asked the House, if any gentleman would object to the right; I repeatedly asked it, and no man would attempt to deny it. Protection and obedi. ence are reciprocal. Great Britain pro tects America; America is bound to yield obedience. If not, tell me when the Americans were emancipated? When they want the protection of this kingdom, they are always very ready to ask it. That protection has always been afforded them in the most full and ample manner. The nation has run itself into an immense debt to give them their protection; and now they are called upon to contribute a small share towards the public expence, an expence arising from themselves, they renounce your authority, insult your officers, and break out, I might almost say, into open rebellion. The seditious spirit of the colonies owes its birth to the factions in this House. Gentlemen are careless of the consequences of what they say, provided it answers the purposes of opposition. We were told we trod on tender ground; we were bid to expect disobedience. What was this, but telling the Americans to stand out against the law, to encourage their obstinacy with the expectation of support from hence? Let us only hold out a little, they would say, our friends will soon be in power. Ungrateful people of America! Bounties have been extended to them. When I had the honour of serving the crown, while you yourselves were loaded with an enormous debt, you have given bounties on their lumber, on their iron, their hemp, and many other articles. You have relaxed, in their favour, the Act of Navigation, that palladium of the British commerce; and yet I have been abused in all the public papers as an enemy to the trade of America. I have been particularly charged with giving orders and instructions to prevent the Spanish trade, and thereby stopping the channel, by which alone North America used to be supplied with cash for remittances to this country. I defy any man to produce any such orders or instructions. I discouraged no trade but what was illicit, what was prohibited by act of parliament. I desire a West India merchant, well known in the city (Mr. Long), a gentleman of character, may be examined. He will tell you, that I offered to do every thing in my power to advance the trade of America. I was above giving an answer to anonymous calumnies; Here Mr. Grenville ceased. members got up to speak, but Several Mr. Pitt seeming to rise, the House was so clamorous for Mr. Pitt! Mr. Pitt! that the Speaker was obliged to call to order. After obtaining a little quiet, he said, Mr. Pitt was up! who began with informing the House, That he did not mean to have gone any further upon the subject that day: that he had only designed to have thrown out a few hints, which, gentlemen who were so confident of the right of this kingdom to send taxes to America, might consider; might, perhaps, reflect in a cooler moment, that the right was at least equivocal. But since the gentleman, who spoke last, had not stopped on that ground, but had gone into the whole; into the justice, the equity, the policy, the expediency of the Stamp-Act, as well as into the right, he would follow him through the whole field, and combat his arguments on every point. but in this place, it becomes one to wipe | puted as a crime. But the imputation He was going on, when Mr. George Onslow answered, That they were both in order, as nothing had been said, but what was fairly deducible from the King's Speech; and appealed to the Speaker. The Speaker decided in Mr. Onslow's favour. Mr. Pitt said, I do not apprchend I am speaking twice: I did expressly reserve a part of my subject, in order to save the time of this House, but I am compelled to proceed in it. I do not speak twice; I only finish what I designedly left imperfect. But if the House is of a different opinion, far be it from me to indulge a wish of transgression, against order. I am content, if it be your pleasure, to be silent. Here he paused-The House resounding with, Go on, go on; he proceeded: Gentlemen, Sir, (to the Speaker) I have been charged with giving birth to sedition in America. They have spoken their sentiments with freedom, against this unhappy act, and that freedom has become their crime. Sorry I am to hear the liberty of speech in this House, im taxed by parliamen, till it was incorpo- He then went through the list of them, [100 thought, or ever dreamed, of robbing the Those estates sold then from fifteen to colonies of their constitutional rights. eighteen years purchase; the same may That was reserved to mark the æra of the be now sold for thirty. You owe this to late administration: not that there were America. This is the price that America wanting some, when I had the honour to pays you for her protection. And shall a serve his Majesty, to propose to me to miserable financier come with a boast, burn my fingers with an American Stamp- that he can fetch a pepper-corn into the Act. With the enemy at their back, exchequer, to the loss of millions to the with our bayonets at their breasts, in the nation! I dare not say, how much higher day of their distress, perhaps the Ameri- these profits may be augmented. Omitcans would have submitted to the impositing the immense increase of people, by tion; but it would have been taking an un- natural population, in the northern cologenerous, and unjust advantage. The gen-nies, and the migration from every part of tleman boasts of his bounties to America Europe, I am convinced the whole comAre not those bounties intended finally fomercial system of America may be altered the benefit of this kingdom? If they are to advantage. You have prohibited, not, he has misapplied the national trea- where you ought to have encouraged; and sures. I am no courtier of America, I stand you have encouraged where you ought to up for this kingdom. I maintain, that the have prohibited. Improper restraints parliament has a right to bind, to restrain have been laid on the continent, in favour America. Our legislative power over the of the islands. You have but two nations colonies is sovereign and supreme. to trade with in America. Would you When it ceases to be sovereign and su- had twenty! Let acts of parliament in preme, I would advise every gentleman to consequence of treaties remain, but let sell his lands, if he can, and embark for not an English minister become a customthat country. When two countries are house officer for Spain, or for any foreign connected together, like England and her power. Much is wrong, much may be colonies, without being incorporated, the amended for the general good of the one must necessarily govern; the greater whole. must rule the less; but so rule it, as not to contradict the fundamental principles that are common to both. If the gentleman does not understand the difference between internal and external taxes, I cannot help it; but there is a plain distinction between taxes levied for the purposes of raising a revenue, and duties imposed for the regulation of trade, for the accommodation of the subject; although, in the consequences, some revenue might incidentally arise from the latter. The gentleman asks, when were the colonies emancipated? But I desire to know, when they were made slaves? But I dwell not upon words. When I had the honour of serving his Majesty, I availed myself of the means of information, which I derived from my office: I speak, therefore, from knowledge. My materials were good. I was at pains to collect, to digest, to consider them; and I will be bold to affirm, that the profits to Great Britain from the trade of the colonies, through all its branches, is two millions a year. This is the fund that carried you triumphantly through the last war. The estates that were rented at two thousand pounds a year, threescore years ago, are at three thousand pounds at present. Does the gentleman complain he has been misrepresented in the public prints? It is a common misfortune. In the Spanish affair of the last war, I was abused in all the news-papers, for having advised his Majesty to violate the law of nations with regard to Spain. The abuse was industriously circulated even in hand-bills. If administration did not propagate the abuse, administration never contradicted it. I will not say what advice I did give to the King. My advice is in writing, signed by myself, in the possession of the crown. But I will say, what advice I did not give to the King: I did not advise him to violate any of the laws of nations. As to the report of the gentleman's preventing in some way the trade for bullion with the Spaniards, it was spoken of so confidently, that I own 1 am one of those who did believe it to be true. The gentleman must not wonder he was not contradicted, when, as the minister, he asserted the right of parliament to tax America. I know not how it is, but there is a modesty in this House, which does not chuse to contradict a minister. I wish gentlemen would get the better of this modesty. Even that Chair, Sir, looks too often towards St. James's. If they do not, perhaps, the collective body may be gin to abate of its respect for the representative. Lord Bacon had told me, that a great question would not fail of being agitated at one time or another. I was willing to agitate that at the proper season, the German war: my German war, they called it. Every session I called out, Has any body any objections to the German war? Nobody would object to it, one gentleman only excepted, since removed to the upper House, by succession to an ancient barony, (meaning lord le Despencer, formerly sir Francis Dashwood;) he told me, " he did not like a German war." I honoured the man for it, and was sorry when he was turned out of his post. A great deal has been said without doors, of the power, of the strength of America. It is a topic that ought to be cautiously meddled with. In a good cause, on a sound bottom, the force of this country can crush -America to atoms. I know the valour of your troops. I know the skill of your officers. There is not a company of foot that has served in Ame rica, out of which you may not pick a man of sufficient knowledge and experience, to make a governor of a colony there. But on this ground, on the Stamp Act, when so many here will think it a crying injustice, I am one who will lift up my hands against it. In such a cause, your success would be hazardous. America, if she fell, would fall like a strong man. She would embrace the pillars of the state, and pull down the constitution along with her. Is this your boasted peace? Not to sheath the sword in its scabbard, but to sheath it in the bowels of your countrymen? Will you quarrel with yourselves, now the whole House of Bourbon is united against you? While France disturbs your fisheries in Newfoundland, embarrasses your slave trade to Africa, and withholds from your subjects in Canada, their property stipulated by treaty; while the ransom for the Manillas is denied by Spain, and its gallant conqueror basely traduced into a mean plunderer, a gentleman, (colonel Draper) whose noble and generous spirit would do honour to the proudest grandee of the country. The Americans have not acted in all things with prudence and temper. They have been wronged. They have been driven to madness by injustice. Will you punish them for the madness you have occasioned? Rather let prudence and temper come first from this side. I will undertake for America, that she will follow the example. There are two lines in a ballad of Prior's, of a man's behaviour to his wife, so applicable to you and your colonies, that I cannot help repeating them: 'Be to her faults a little blind: Upon the whole, I will beg leave to tell the House what is really my opinion. It is, that the Stamp Act be repealed absolutely, totally, and immediately. That the reason for the repeal be assigned, because it was founded on an erroneous principle. At the same time, let the sovereign authority of this country over the colonies, be asserted in as strong terms as can be devised, and be made to extend to every point of legislation whatsoever. That we may bind their trade, confine their manufactures, and exercise every power whatsoever, except that of taking their money out of their pockets without their consent.* Mr. Nicholson Calvert said: Sir; I last year gave my vote for laying a stamp duty in North America: the right of the legislature of Great Britain was not then called in question: and I must confess I did then think nothing could be founded more upon the basis of equity and fairness, than for America to support that force which was to be maintained merely and solely for her benefit and protection. I have, Sir, since that time altered my opinion. I think, Sir, it ill behoves any member of this House to change his opinion lightly. I therefore beg leave, in the shortest manner I am able, to lay before the House those reasons which have thus induced me to change my opinion, and at the same time not presuming to think any thing I can lay before the House can give the least weight or addition to the great opinions which have been already offered, but merely as an apology for my own conduct in this great and important business. On the outset of this great affair, Sir, two opinions, both equally true, (though carrying with them a seeming contradiction in this particular) were set before us, The one, that in all free countries no one can be taxed but by himself, or representative. The other, that there never was *“In the course of this debate, Mr. Edmund Burke made his first speech in parliament; and Mr. Pitt complimented him upon it, in terms peculiarly flattering to a young man." Life of lord Chatham. any country, since the Creation, where there was not somewhere lodged, for the superintendancy of the whole, one supreme legislative authority, controling, directing, and governing the whole. to that of making two millions of people, distributed from one corner of the American continent to the other, all unanimous in the opinion of right being on their side, submit to your decisions. It matters little to the question, whether they are in the right or not; they think themselves so. Can this be done but by force? The thought of putting it to the trial, Sir, strikes me with horror! Let us not, Sir, drive them to despair; the despair of a brave people always turns to courage: that courage once exerted, God knows what may be the end of it. But, alas! will those misfortunes await the Americans As to the first proposition, no doubt of it, it is, according to all the authors who have ever wrote upon that subject, the very criterion of liberty; there is no lover of liberty but treats it as such. The right hon. gentleman (Mr. Pitt) reasoning upon this subject," That the Americans migrating from this country, carrying with them all the rights of free-born Englishmen, struggling through the greatest hardships and difficulties, having at last found-alone! What must become of your own ed that which will one day produce a mighty empire, having lived uninterruptedly for the space of near two centuries, without any internal tax laid upon them; that the moment you lay that tax upon them, they are that instant slaves; for they that moment cease to have any property, when you have once confirmed an authority of taking any part of that property away, unheard, unrepresented, that you have the same right to every farthing they are worth, as to any part of it." I must own, Sir, these arguments struck deep into my mind; I saw the right hon. gentleman's reasoning founded on the broad basis of liberty, and, for ought I know, of sound policy. But alas, Sir! I could not at the same time but most heartily from my soul lament the truly deplorable state of this country; the present generation (and I see not any pros. pect for the succeeding one more promising) passing away in beggary and distress, all resources whatever cut off, and all this for our future benefit and advantage. God send it may so prove! But, Sir, as this matter has been cut short by the resolution of this House; that the parliament of Great Britain has, in all cases whatever, a right to lay taxes upon her colonies; the great question now before you, I think, may be confined to two points; that having this right, how far you may be able to carry it into execution? Or, being able to carry it into execution, how far it may be thought proper and prudent to exert that authority under the present situation? Sir, it has always been my opinion, to lay any taxes upon a numerous people, situated as the Americans are, without their consent, is impossible. It is a widely different thing, Sir, the quelling a paltry riot in Moorfields, or Bloomsbury-square, manufacturers here at home, while this contest is carrying on in America? Will the many thousands of this country, who depend on your American trade for their support, remain quiet, without victuals to eat, till you have made the Americans submit by force of arms? I much doubt whether the mischief may not be brought to your own doors long before the conflict is ended. Upon the whole, Sir, notwithstanding the right is now so indubitably asserted by the legislature of this country, notwithstanding you were certain by force of arms to carry that resolution into execution, yet I for one should be of opinion, that right, and that ability to exercise that right, is, at this time, neither proper nor expedient to be carried into execution. The Commons' Address of Thanks.] The Address was then agreed to without a division, as follows: "Most Gracious Sovereign, "We, your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of Great Britain, in parliament assembled, return your Majesty our most humble thanks for your most gracious Speech from the throne. "It is with the highest sense of your Majesty's goodness we acknowledge that care for the welfare of your people, and that confidence in the loyalty and affection of your faithful Commons, which your Majesty shews in the early communication your Majesty has been pleased to order, of the necessary informations relative to the disturbances in America. Your reliance on the wisdom and duty of your parliament in a matter of so great importance, and the attention shewn by your Majesty, in reserving to our deliberation and advice the joint concern of your Majesty's royal authority, the rights of your parliament, |