therefore, be required. As to those other Acts, such as the Massachusetts Charter Act, which had produced or inflamed the quarrel, Lord North explicitly stated his opinion that they ought to cease. Instead, however, of repealing them here without further delay, he deemed it best to refer the whole matter to the Commissioners upon the spot, since the Americans would consider Acts already repealed as merely the basis of a treaty, and might be tempted to raise some new demands upon it. The Commissioners, said Lord North, should be instructed to negotiate for some reasonable and moderate contribution. towards the common defence of the empire when reunited; still this contribution was not to be insisted on as a SINE QUA NON; only if the Americans should refuse it, they were not to complain if hereafter they did not receive support from that part of the empire any proportion of whose charges they had declined to bear. Upon the whole it was, not obscurely, intimated that the Commissioners might accept almost any terms of reconciliation, short of independence, and subject to confirmation by a vote of Parliament.

The impression on the House that night, while Lord North was speaking, and after he sat down, is well described by the pen of a contemporary no other, in all probability, than Burke: "A dull melancholy silence for some time succeeded to this speech. It had been heard "with profound attention, but without a single mark of "approbation to any part, from any description of men, or any particular man in the House. Astonishment, dejection, and fear overclouded the whole assembly. Although the Minister had declared that the senti"ments he expressed that day had been those which he

always entertained, it is certain that few or none had "understood him in that manner; and he had been repre"sented to the nation at large as the person in it the "most tenacious of those Parliamentary rights which " he now proposed to resign, and the most remote from "the submissions which he now proposed to make." *

It may be said, indeed, that there was not a single

* Annual Register, 1778, p. 133. See also Gibbon's Letter to Holroyd, of February 23. 1778.

1778.

SPEECH OF FOX.

217

On

class or section of men within the walls of Parliament to which the plan of Lord North gave pleasure. The Ministerial party were confounded and abashed at finding themselves thus required to acknowledge their past errors and retrace their former steps. Some among them, as William Adam, and Morton, Chief Justice of Chester, loudly protested against the holding forth to rebels terms like these, which they said would dispirit the people and disgrace the Government. Others called out that they had been deceived and betrayed. In general, however, the majority acquiesced in sullen silence. the other part, the Opposition were by no means gratified to see the wind, according to the common phrase, taken from their sails. They could not, indeed, offer any resistance to proposals so consonant to their own expressed opinions, but they took care to make their support as disagreeable and as damaging as possible. Fox began his speech by conplimenting the Minister on his happy conversion, and congratulating his own friends on the acquisition of so powerful an ally. Above all, the continuance of the Minister in office, under such circumstances, was inveighed against with more truth than taste by several of the chiefs upon the other side. Did Lord North, it was asked, believe himself to wield the spear of Achilles, able to heal the wounds which itself had made? Could the same statesman who had provoked the war look for welcome as a peace-maker ? Must not his proposals, whatever they might be, come to the Americans as from a tainted spring, raise their jealousy as hollow and insincere, or keep alive their resentment as inadequate and worthless?

In spite of such taunts, and far from friendly feelings on all sides, the Conciliatory Bills, as they have been termed, were not in reality opposed from any quarter. There was only one division on a clause moved by Mr. Powys to repeal expressly and by name the Massachusetts Charter Act. Lord North induced a large majority to vote against that clause, but agreed that the object in view should be attained by a separate measure. A Bill for the purpose was therefore introduced by Mr. Powys, and passed through Parliament concurrently with the other two. In the House of Lords the same arguments were

with little change renewed. Lord Hillsborough, and Chatham's own brother-in-law, Lord Temple, vehemently declaimed against the Bills on the high prerogative ground, as forming a most disgraceful capitulation. The Ministers, on the other hand, received some acrimonious support from the Duke of Richmond and Lord Rockingham. Lord Shelburne took occasion to declare his full concurrence in the sentiments of Chatham, expressing "the strongest disapprobation of every idea that tended "to admit the independence of America," although acknowledging that future circumstances might create a necessity for such a submission. Lord Chatham himself was ill with gout at Hayes, and did not appear. There was no division; and on the 11th of March the King, seated on his Throne, gave to all three measures the Royal Assent.

Only two days previously Lord North, who had opened his Budget on the 6th, had carried through his financial Resolutions in the House of Commons, involving a new loan of 6,000,000l., which was contracted on advantageous terms. Thus were funds provided to pursue the war, should that be requisite. Thus was an opening made for negotiations, should they be practicable. In either case the path was cleared for a new administration. Here then was the moment which Lord North had for some time past desired the moment when most with honour to himself, and most with advantage to his country, he could fulfil his intention of resigning. Several subordinate circumstances-several lesser causes of weakness or necessities for change in his government -might tend to confirm him in his purpose. He must have felt that the events of the last month had greatly shaken and loosened his hold over his majority in Parliament. In the House of Lords he had no supporter adequate to such troubled times. It would be necessary, should his government continue, to replace Lord Chancellor Bathurst by some more eloquent orator and more energetic statesman. In the Commons he was on the point of losing his principal colleague, Lord George Germaine. That nobleman, ever prompt and able, and in the Cabinet at least courageous, but hasty and violent, had embroiled himself in quarrels with the chief officers

1778.

SIR WILLIAM HOWE,

219

under his direction. Sir Guy Carleton had been provoked to write to him with expressions of so much asperity that Sir Guy was in consequence removed from the Government of Canada. Sir William Howe, at the same juncture, was not less offended. He complained that while he had pressed for larger reinforcements, while he had been led to hope for them, while he had been allowed to frame his plans in consequence, none, or next to none, had in point of fact been sent him. At last, early in the winter, he had written to Lord George as follows: "From the little attention, my Lord, given “to my recommendations since the commencement of my "command, I am led to hope that I may be relieved from "this very painful service, wherein I have not the good "fortune to enjoy the necessary confidence and support "of my superiors, but which I conclude will be extended "to Sir Henry Clinton, my presumptive successor, or to "such other servant as the King may be pleased to "appoint. By the return, therefore, of the packet I

humbly request I may have His Majesty's permission "to resign the command."* His request, perhaps on other grounds not undesirable, was soon granted, although, as was foreseen, involving probably the retirement also of his brother, Lord Howe. On the 4th of February we find Lord George write to Sir William announcing the desired permission from His Majesty, and at the same time directing him to deliver his orders and instructions to Sir Henry Clinton, as his successor. Yet, within a month of that 4th of February, Lord George, in a sally of anger, had himself resigned. The ground of his displeasure was, that the King, anxious to reward the past services of a most deserving officer, bestowed on Sir Guy Carleton the sinecure government of Charlemont, which Lord George chose to construe as an insult to himself. His retirement appears to have been agreed to and resolved upon, since we find the King, in his secret letters of this period, allude to his

*To Lord George Germaine, October 22. 1777. MS. State Paper Office, and Note of Mr. Sparks to Washington's Writings, vol. V. p. 160.

"defection," and inveigh against his "malevolence of "mind." *

These circumstances were not known to the public. But to Lord North they clearly showed that his administration at this period was already unhinged by the impending loss of that member of it next in importance to himself, as mainly charged with the conduct of the American affairs. Herein may have lain a further motive for his own retirement. But I have no doubt that the reason which weighed principally with Lord North, was the public-spirited conviction, such as his enemies had of late expressed, but such as also his own private judgment must have urged, that, considering the bitter resentment felt against him, whether rightly or wrongly, in America, any proposition of peace that he might make would be fraught with new and unnecessary obstacles, and afford a lesser chance of ultimate success. To whom then might Lord North ask to whom should the conduct of this negotiation, and the direction of the public councils at this crisis, be entrusted? To whom else than to that great statesman, so much venerated and beloved by the Americans, yet so resolute in his declarations against their independence?

Such was the advice which the Minister was preparing to offer to the King, when, only two days after the Royal Assent to the Conciliatory Bills, there ensued another event still further tending, as Lord North conceived, to the same conclusion. On the 13th of March, the French Ambassador in London, the Marquis de Noailles, delivered to the Secretary of State, Lord Weymouth, a Note, formally announcing the Treaty of Friendship and Commerce, as lately signed between France and the United States. That Note was couched in terms of irony, nay almost of derision. It remarked of the United States that they "are in full possession of independence, as "pronounced by them on the 4th of July, 1776," and it thus proceeded: "In making this communication to "the Court of London, the King (of France) is firmly persuaded it will find therein new proofs of His

*To Lord North, March 3. 1778.