Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

lions 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, three score years ago, are at three thousand at present. Those estates sold then from fifteen to eighteen years purchase; the same may now be sold for thirty.

You owe this to America. This is the price America pays you for her protection. And shall a miserable financier come with a boast, that he can bring a pepper-corn into the exchequer, to the loss of millions to the nation! I dare not say, how much higher these profits may be augmented. Omitting the immense increase of people, by natural population, in the northern colonies, and the emigration from every part of Europe, I am convinced the commercial system of America may be altered to advantage. You have prohibited where you ought to have encouraged. You have encouraged where you ought to have prohibited. Improper restraints have been laid on the continent, in favour of the islands. You have but two nations to trade with in America. Would you had twenty! Let acts of parliament in consequence of treaties remain; but let not an English minister become a custom-house officer for Spain, or for any foreign power. Much is wrong. Much may be amended for the general good of the whole.

Does the gentleman complain he has been misrepresented in the publick prints? It is a common misfortune. In the Spanish affair of the last war, I was abused in all the newspapers, for having advised his majesty to violate the laws of nations with regard to Spain. The abuse was industriously circulated even in handbills. If administration did not propagate the abuse, administration never contradicted it. I will not say what advice I did give 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 I 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 choose to contradict a minister, Even your chair, sir, looks too often towards St. James's. I wish gentlemen would get the better of this modes. ty. If they do not, perhaps the collective body may begin to abate of its respect for the representative. Lord Bacon has 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 sessions I called out, Has any body any objection 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 topick 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 America out of which you may not pick a man of sufficient knowledge and experience to make a governour of a colony there. But on this ground, on the stamp act, which so many here will think 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 the 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 sheathe the sword in its scabbard, but to sheathe 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 Ameriea 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;

"Be to her virtues very kind."

Upon the whole, I will beg leave to tell the house what is 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.

THE SPEECH OF LORD MANSFIELD

IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, IN THE CASE OF THE CHAMBERLAIN OF LONDON VS. ALLAN EVANS, ESQ. ON THE 4th OF FEBRUARY, 1767.

IN 1748, the corporation of London, by a by-law, imposed a fine of 6001. upon every person, who, being elected, should refuse to serve the office of sheriff. The plaintiff, the chamberlain of London, levied debt, in the sheriff's court against the defendant for the penalty. The defendant pleaded the 13 Car. 2. which declares that no person shall be elected to any office relating to the government of any city, "who shall not have received the sacrament according to the rites of the church of England, within one year next before such election ;" and averred that he was a protestant dissenter within the Toleration Act, 1 & 2 W. & M. c. 18, of scrupulous conscience; and therefore had not received the sacrament. The plaintiff replied, the 5 G. 1. which confirms members of corporations in their respective offices, although they have not received the sacrament according to the di rections of 13 C. 2. To this replication the defendant demurred, and judgment was thereupon given in favour of the city. Mr. Evans appealed to the court of Hustings, where the judgment was affirmed. special commission was sued out, directed to Willis, C. J. Parker, C. B. and Foster, Bathurst, and Wilmot, justices, by whom, the judgments in the courts below were unanimously reversed. The city brought

[blocks in formation]

A

« ZurückWeiter »