happy to have had him stil! among us, and therefore, as far as my voice goes, I will never consent to the rescinding, the discharging, or the repealing any one resolution, order or act, that either the last, or any former parliament has passed for the declaring, maintaining, and enforcing the legislative authority of Great Britain over all its colonies. Sir, I shall be very happy to give my vote, (and if I had health and abilities equal to my zeal and inclination) my assistance also, to any proper English constitutional measure that could effectually restore that harmony between the mother country and the colonies, so essentially necessary to both, but which I absolutely deny (in any one point of view) to be more so to England than to America: but, Sir, whilst there are those individuals on this side of the water, some of great abilities, some of great titles, and some few of great fortunes, but all of great passions, whom I fear are so forgetful of their duty, as to be sacrificing the honour and welfare of this country, nay risking the very existence of it to their own private views, and ambition, to their own private piques and resentments, we can never flatter ourselves that any measures will have the wished for effect, but the most determined, the inost firm, and the most vigorous ones. Having said this, Sir, let me not be understood to wish, or mean to recommend, the carrying execution through all the colonies, with fire and sword: No, Sir, God forbid I should have so sanguine a thought! I flatter myself other means may be found, and I hope, and have not a doubt, but so soon as they find us determined to do our duty, they will be brought to a sense of theirs, and all difficulties will subside without shedding one single drop of blood: but should I be so misunderstood here, and so misrepresented without doors (which is the prevailing mode) all I can say, is, that I am determined to be as indifferent to it as conscious innocence will ever be to every invidious slander. I look upon all such temporary misrepresentations and abuse, just as I do on the clouds that pass under the sun; they cast a momentary shade on all people and all things, wait but with a little patience, truth like the sun will break out, disperse those clouds, and all people and all things ap. pear in their proper lustre. I shall therefore, Sir, wait with patience for that moment, trusting to those abilities, to that temper, and to that firmness, with which the noble lord by me, who now holds the helm, has hitherto conducted us, through the violent storm, and through all the difficulties in which he found us involved; and make no doubt, but notwithstanding all the obstacles thrown in his way, he will bring us to a lasting and pleasing calm; and therefore, Sir, I shall most heartily concur in this proposed Address, and be against the re-commitment of it. Sir William Mayne. I should not rise to trouble you this day, could I reconcile to my own breast the giving a silent vote on a question, upon which depends not only the existence of this country, but the happiness of millions. The vote I shall give, will be free from the smallest tincture of that prejudice which has industriously been inculcated into the minds of the Americans from this side the water, that they are to expect from every member of this House who drew his first breath on the other side of the Tweed: No, Sir, I will give my vote this day, uninfluenced by party and undictated to by power; I will give it like an honest member of par liament, who considers the approbation of his own mind his best parliamentary reward, and who acknowledges no dictator but that of his own conscience. Some time ago, I gave my support to the address to his Majesty, holding myself at full liberty to decide upon every point relating to America when they came specially before this House. Since that time, I have taken all the information from the papers upon your table, as well as from the proceedings in America, by which I regulate my judgment upon this great and arduous situation of this country. And it is with sorrow I say it, that so very violent has been, and still is, the conduct of the Americans, that there is scarce an open ing left for British justice and British hu manity to interfere for their relief, or to give protection, to those loyal and faithful subjects, of which I trust many are yet to be found in that continent. No man, I think, can read the votes and proceedings of the American continental congress, held at Philadelphia on the 5th of September last, without amazement, compassion, and indignation; amazement at the act, compassion for the delusion, and indignation at the insult offered to their mother country. Declaratory of what they say they are entitled to by the immutable laws of nature, the principles of the English consti tution, and the several charters or com pacts, they come to eleven resolutions, all of which, in my opinion, both in spirit and in substance, are subversive of, and destructive to, every fundamental principle which either constitutes or supports our most excellent constitution. In the first resolution they tell you, they have never ceded to any power the disposal of their life, liberty, or property, which is a positive denial of their being British subjects, and of the existence of this constitution, which we all know has inherent in it a power to make laws to hold in penalty the lives, liberty and property of its subjects when the general safety of the whole requires it: as in cases of felony, where life and consequently liberty is forfeited; and in cases of high treason, where both life, liberty and property are forfeited. They set forth, that their ancestors were, at the time of their emigration from the mother country, entitled to all rights, liberties and immunities of free and natural born subjects within the realm of England, and that they their descendants are now entitled to the same: a claim which neither the wisdom nor justice of this country will deny them, provided they will yield the same obedience to the laws and constitution of this country, which was the pride, the glory, and protection of their ancestors, at the time they left it. It has been strongly urged by the advocates for America, that they were not represented this has made deep impressions on the minds of many people, who thought if they were allowed an adequate number of representatives in the British senate all would be well, and every thing again subside to its original harmony: but how vain this hope, all must see who read the fourth resolution of the congress, whereby they expressly tell you that the English colonies from their local and other circumstances, cannot be represented in the British parliament; from which it must be obvious to every one, that it is not a common mixed representation with Great Britain they wish to enjoy, but a free and independent legislature of their own. They likewise claim the full benefit of our most excellent constitution, though in the same breath they deny and resist its legal authority in every part. They declare the keeping a standing army in the colonies in time of peace, without the consent of the legislature of the colony in which it is so kept up, is against law. In times of danger from their foreign and domestic enemies, they acquiesced without murmuring to this standing army, kept up at our expence; but no sooner is the moment of danger over, and they feel themselves in a state of security from the calamities of war, and that this standing army becomes necessary to secure their obedience and allegiance to the laws and constitution of this country-but it is inadmissible, contrary to law, and a flagrant violation of the freedom of their American constitution. Can we view with an indifferent eye the resolutions of the congress, where in a stile more becoming the haughty courts of Versailles and Madrid, they inhibit all intercourse of commerce between America and this country. To all nations with whom we are not actually at war, we can transport our commodities with safety, but it is only on the inhospitable continent of America, that British manufactures, the produce of British industry, cannot find an asylum. Much has been said with respect to the reception of the merchants' petition. Nobody can or ought to have a higher respect for that honourable body of men, than I have; but I must say, I think their petition was decently received and decently treated. The advocates for it pressed for its being referred to the same committee with the papers; alleging, if it was not heard in that committee that you would decide upon the papers without having the evidence of the merchants, which might be essential to your determining properly upon that great question. In the course of the business of this House, it so fell out, that on the Thursday fixed for considering the papers, which was the day before the merchants' committee, the House could not proceed upon them, and the consideration of them was adjourned till the Tuesday following. This left the very next day open for the merchants to come to your bar, and there give you their full evidence which we could carry in our minds to meet that of the papers on the Tuesday following: but what was our surprize, when this House resolved itself into a committee, and called for the merchants; only one single person appeared, who read a written paper, the purport of which was, that they had nothing to offer, as they could not be heard in the same committee with the papers. Much has been said too, of foreign powers taking the advantage of our disputes with America. I am persuaded, fears of that kind are ill-founded, as all powers on the continent of Europe, who have settlements in the western and southern world, are alarmed lest, if our colonies should succeed in shaking off their dependance on this country, theirs would soon follow the example. Strong suspicions have been thrown out, that the Americans have been heated to their present frenzy by incendiaries from home. If there are Catalines in this country, (I am sure there are none of them within these walls, for we are all honourable men) who have been plotting treasons in the dark against the state, let them be dragged to light; let them be offered up a sacrifice to the just resentments of the people and the violated rights of their country; let their names be handed down with infamy to posterity, and let ages yet to come execrate their memory. Therefore, upon the whole, if a universal resistance to the civil government of America, as by law established, if denying a free and reciprocal interchange of British and American commodities, if resisting every act of the British legislature, and absolutely, in word and deed, denying the sovereignty of this country, if laying a strong hand on the revenues of America, if seizing his Majesty's forts, artillery, and ammunition, if exciting and stimulating, by every means, the whole subjects of America, to take arms and to resist the constitutional authority of Great Britain, are acts of treason, then are the Americans in a state of the most flagrant rebellion; a state, that every good man must lament, and none more than myself, as I sincerely wish every moderate and constitutional method to be taken to bring back these unhappy and deluded people to a sense of their duty. But if, after all, conciliating measures shall fail, this country has no alternative left, but to make use of that power they enjoy, under heaven, for the protection of the whole empire; and to shew the Americans, that as our ancestors deluged this country with their blood, to gain this constitution for us, we, like men, in defiance of faction at home, or rebellion abroad, are determined, in glorious emulation of their example, to transmit it perfect and unimpaired to posterity, or perish in the attempt. These, Sir, are my sentiments on this great question, flowing from the purest dictates of an uninfluenced and unbiassed conscience, supported by a heart ready to bleed for the rights and liberties of the people, indifferent to me where I meet the invaders of them, whether on the cultivated plains of Britain, or the more wild and uncultivated deserts of America; so shall give my hearty affirmative to this motion. Mr. T. Townshend insisted that the imputation of causing a civil war was misplaced; called upon the last speaker to point out those Catalines who had fomented civil dissentions; and said that every one else thought the imputation and description belonged to another set of men. You are, said he, in the last moment wherein there can be any possibility of a pause that may suggest any measure of reconciliation. The Address cries havock! Mr. Jolliffe said, his ideas differed so widely from the noble lord (North) that he could not give his assent to measures his soul shuddered at. He disapproved of the plan, and was for considering it in every light, lest resistance should be made justifiable. Mr. Hans Stanley approved of the proposed Address; remarked on the papers; said he wanted nothing but the Americans to submit; would then hang out the olive branch, propose an amnesty, an act of grace and oblivion, a compact; but thought some examples ought to be made. Lord Irnham began with asking, what are the real springs and motives for admi nistration carrying on this alarming and ruinous American war? The House of Commons, in my humble opinion, said his lordship, cannot perceive, by any thing that has been communicated to us from papers read at your table, which contain very little more than what we have seen in the public prints; nor do I think it likely we should grow wiser by any information more candid and satisfactory than that they have already bestowed upon us. However, I shall suppose in their favour, that they have other motives for their conduct, than have hitherto appeared to that part of this House which consists of independent members. When I say they,' I mean the noble lord at the head of administration, and a few others his chief associates; for, as to the mass of those who support his measures, I believe they do not insist upon more weighty arguments than that con stant one he furnishes them with. Since, therefore, parliament cannot merely, from the materials on your table, approve or sanctify this violent attack upon America; and since the safety or consequence of it cannot be tried on any commercial consi derations, which this House has for the present debarred us from, kindly indeed, in one respect, as the view of it would have exhibited a most gloomy and uncomfortable prospect; we are therefore, in obedience to their will, to combat them on the ground they have chosen; and we must consider this American war, in regard to its being a constitutional, and likewise a political question, under the latter head, including foreign and domestic policy. On the ground, then, that they have chosen, I will meet them, and fairly put our cause to the issue. First, to consider it in a constitutional light, it militates against the great principle which has constantly been adopted by the friends of liberty, which is the life and soul of true Whiggism-that the interest of the community at large, and their sense of that interest, ought to govern and be the rule for the executive power to act by, in preference to the will or opinion of any man, or order of men, however dignified, as servants of that community. To evince this clearly, let us look back to the first struggle for liberty, in the reign of Charles the martyr. What was then the great point to be decided? Was it not whether the few, though possessed of all the powers in the state, civil, military, and ecclesiastical, might employ those powers against the will of the many (the body of the people) or should conform themselves to the latter? On the one side were, not only the monarch then on the throne, but a high spirited and splendid peerage, my lords the bishops, and indeed the whole hierarchy, called the church, by far the majority of my lords the judges, and the other superiors of the long robe, with their numerous dependants. These all were for supporting the prerogative of the crown, as enlarged by the Tudors and Stuarts. They were for the dispensing power, star-chamber prosecutions, ship-money, and other arbitrary claims, as the true plan on which this nation should be governed. mined in favour of the people at large; and on that decision all your liberty, property, and happiness has been foundedon that principle, of the sovereignty virtually, ultimately, and really, residing in the people. All Whiggism, every rational idea of the constitution of this, and any other perfectly free country, must rest and be bottomed on this definition. It was the constitution of Rome, when in its perfection. The Romans had consuls representing the kingly power; they had also a senate, but the sovereignty vir tually and ultimately resided in the people at large. Now, Sir, let us try the question of this day, as it includes in its consequences the liberty and property of your whole wide and extended empire, still more extensive than that of Rome. Let us try it, Sir, by that touchstone, that criterion, the interest and the opinion of that interest, conse quently the will and desire of all who claim the rights of Englishmen. First, Sir, your vast and beneficial territories in America; your kingdom of Ireland; your unpensioned and unwarped neighbours of Scotland; and at home, your citizens of London, Bristol, and Norwich; your trading towns of Manchester, Birmingham, Coventry; and, in short, every great commercial and manufacturing city and town in England; the Whigs dispersed throughout every county; these are all averse to this dreadful and dangerous civil war, and are attached and rivetted to the cause I now espouse, and to which administration are enemies. Pray, Sir, what can you arrange on the opposite side? And who are for supporting those hostile measures? for, excepting the noble lord at the head of administration, and some few others, so very few, that they will easily occur to every one that hears me, the rest of the abettors of this extraordinary attempt, are as contemptible a collection of servile courtiers, renegado Whigs, and fawning, bigotted Tories, as ever strove to support the meaOn the contrary side, were the people sures of any administration. It reminds of England at large, and as part of them- me of Virgil's arrangement of the opselves, their faithful and independent re- posite forces at the battle of Actium. On presentatives in this House; the great the one side were troops of Bactrians, commercial cities of London and Bristol; Arabians, Egyptians, and every servile the important inland towns, Coventry, nation then in the world; and at the head Birmingham, Manchester, &c. the manu- of them their contemptible divinities. facturers, artificers; and husbandmen" Omnigenumque Deûm monstra et latrathroughout the kingdom: both sides appealed to the sword, and after the trial of many a well-fought field, it was deter tor Anubis"-[that Egyptian dog who was the emblem of servitude]" Contra Neptunum et Venerem contraque Miner vam;" for, Sir, Neptune, that is the whole seafaring as well as commercial interest, is against this measure. As to Venus, every grace of body and mind is annexed to liberty. And as for Minerva, wisdom and true policy are on the side of the Americans; and the arts, of which she is the patroness, must immediately withdraw, when you have removed her olive branch. the laws he found established both there and here: and I am fully persuaded, by the frequent gracious declarations that have fallen from his mouth, he, following his natural and noble disposition, unperverted and unseduced, either by his avowed or by his inward cabinet, would of all men living less wish to possess such despotic power. But that the attempt may prove ruinous to our liberty, property, and every thing dear to our civil rights, I appeal to the history of every state that has heretofore figured on the stage of the world. And now, Sir, to view it next in a political light: first, in regard to foreign powers, and then in regard to ourselves at home. Is it possible to conceive that any thing on earth could give that The adopting of the measures of sup -heart-felt pleasure to France and. Spain porting large standing armies to enforce that this unfortunate system of oppressing the sovereignty over their provinces, (an America has done! You had become the alluring motive) has subjugated them all masters of all warlike America, which they in their turns, and extinguished their conterm bold America; and with that assist- stitutional provisions and barriers against ance you bid fair to crush their power in tyranny. To pass over the lesser states, every part of the globe, whenever they not only Marius and Sylla and Cæsar, but dared to provoke you; and now you have Augustus and Tiberius, those able tyrants, weakly, impoliticly, and dangerously, con- who systematically ruined the Roman trived to irritate, injure and inflame all liberty, achieved it by troops raised to America against you; and if we are not maintain the Roman sovereignty over their blind to, our own interest, we might easily provinces. They did indeed subdue those perceive this by the conduct of the provinces; but they also oppressed the French and Spaniards, on your applying liberty of the Roman republic; and their to their respective courts for orders to project reached still farther than they exstop their merchants from supplying Ame-pected; for it stopped not till the military rica with goods or warlike stores. They immediately (apparently against every motive of their interest and policy) comply with your demands: and for what ends, but plainly to urge you on, and to incite you to your own destruction? For depend on it, that notwithstanding all this courtesy and politesse, the Americans will receive from them every ounce of powder and ball that they can pay for, as well as all other goods in abundance. This is therefore a measure of confiding in our new friends and old enemies the French and Spaniards, instead of our old friends and brethren the Americans. This kind of policy is insecure in private concerns, but must be ruinous, in this important, this decisive one. And now, Sir, to sift and examine it in what is infinitely of more importance, by a political process; by which it may be tried in those respects wherein it would operate as to our own internal happiness and security: that the making our prince absolute and despotic over all his vast American dominions, cannot, in the sober apprehension or constitutional creed of any man that hears me, add a tittle to the happiness our sovereign enjoys, as a monarch limited by power, established by them for that end, overturned the imperial power itself. In less than fifty years from the death of Augustus, those armies raised to keep the provinces in awe, had no less than three emperors on foot at the same time; and thenceforward the military power disposed of the empire, and gave to whom it pleased the throne of the Cæsars. Whoever will calmly examine those precedents, must be convinced that the like causes must have similar effects. Oppressed by an overgrown army, the liberty of America and Ireland (for that stands next in the minis terial plan) and afterwards that of Great Britain, will follow of course; the monster of despotism will only grant even to the latter the favour intended for Ulysses, that of being last devoured. I have now, Sir, to the best of my ability, agitated this great question on the ground proposed by administration, in a constitutional as well as in a political light; and will venture to assert, that it appears in both those views formidable and destructive; and that it becomes absolutely necessary to retract the uncon stitutional and impolitic steps which administration have hitherto taken, founded |