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really mercantile circle, will be totally inade- |
quate to the consideration. Trade, indeed, in-
creases the wealth and glory of a country; but
its real strength and stamina are to be looked for
among the cultivators of the land. In their sim-
plicity of life is found the simpleness of virtue-
the integrity and courage of freedom. These
true, genuine sons of the earth are invincible;
and they surround and hem in the mercantile
bodies, even if these bodies (which supposition
I totally disclaim) could be supposed disaffected
to the cause of liberty. Of this general spirit
existing in the British nation (for so I wish to
distinguish the real and genuine Americans from
the pseudo-traders I have described)—of this
spirit of independence, animating the nation of
America, I have the most authentic information.
It is not new among them. It is, and has ever
been, their established principle, their confirmed
persuasion. It is their nature and their doctrine.
I remember, some years ago, when the repeal
of the Stamp Act was in agitation, conversing in
a friendly confidence with a person of undoubted |
respect and authenticity, on that subject, and he
assured me with a certainty which his judgment
and opportunity gave him, that these were the
prevalent and steady principles of America-that
you might destroy their towns, and cut them off
from the superfluities, perhaps the conveniences
of life, but that they were prepared to despise
your power, and would not lament their loss,
while they have-what, my Lords ?-their woods
and their liberty. The name of my authority,
if I am called upon, will authenticate the opinion
irrefragably.

Righ's vindicated the English Constitution; the same spirit which established the great fundamental, essential maxim of your liberties, that no subject of England shall be taxed but by his own.consent.

This glorious spirit of Whiggism animates three millions in America, who prefer poverty with liberty, to gilded chains and sordid affluence; and who will die in defense of their rights as men, as freemen. What shall oppose this spirit, aided by the congenial flame glowing in the breast of every Whig in England, to the amount, I hope, of double the American numbers? Ireland they have to a man. In tha country, joined as it is with the cause of the colɔ nies, and placed at their head, the distinction I contend for is and must be observed. This cour try superintends and controls their trade and nav igation; but they tax themselves. And this dis tinction between external and internal control is sacred and insurmountable; it is involved in the abstract nature of things. Property is private, individual, absolute. Trade is an extended and complicated consideration: it reaches as far as ships can sail or winds can blow: it is a great and various machine. To regulate the numberless movements of its several parts, and combine them into effect for the good of the whole, requires the superintending wisdom and energy of the supreme power in the empire. But this supreme power has no effect toward internal taxa. tion; for it does not exist in that relation; there is no such thing, no such idea in this Constitution, as a supreme power operating upon property. Let this distinction then remain forever as. If illegal violences have been, as it is said, certained; taxation is theirs, commercial regu committed in America, prepare the way, open lation is ours. As an American, I would recogthe door of possibility for acknowledgment and nize to England her supreme right of regulating satisfaction; but proceed not to such coercion, commerce and navigation; as an Englishman by such proscription; cease your indiscriminate in- birth and principle, I recognize to the Americans flictions; amerce not thirty thousand-oppress their supreme, unalienable right in their propernot three millions for the fault of forty or fifty ty: a right which they are justified in the deindividuals. Such severity of injustice must for- fense of to the last extremity. To maintain this ever render incurable the wounds you have al- principle is the common cause of the Whigs on ready given your colonies; you irritate them to the other side of the Atlantic and on this. unappeasable rancor. What though you march "'Tis liberty to liberty engaged," that they will from town to town, and from province to prov- defend themselves, their families, and their counince; though you should be able to enforce a try. In this great cause they are immovably temporary and local submission (which I only allied: it is the alliance of God and naturesuppose, not admit), how shall you be able to se-immutable, eternal-fixed as the firmament of cure the obedience of the country you leave behind you in your progress, to grasp the dominion of eighteen hundred miles of continent, populous in numbers, possessing valor, liberty, and resistance?

6

heaven.

To such united force, what force shall be op posed? What, my Lords? A few regiments in America, and seventeen or eighteen thousand men at home! The idea is too ridiculous to take up a moment of your Lordships' time. Nor can such a national and principled union be resisted by the tricks of office, or ministerial ma

This resistance to your arbitrary system of taxation might have been foreseen. It was obvious from the nature of things, and of mankind; and, above all, from the Whiggish spirit flourish-neuver. Laying of papers on your table, or ing in that country. The spirit which now resists your taxation in America is the same which formerly opposed loans, benevolences, and shipmoney in England; the same spirit which called all England on its legs," and by the Bill of

46

* It was Dr. Franklin.

counting numbers on a division, will not avert or postpone the hour of danger. It must arrive, my Lords, unless these fatal acts are done away; it must arrive in all its horrors, and then these boastful ministers, spite of all their confidence and all their maneuvers, shall be forced to hide their heads. They shall be forced to a disgrace

ful abandonment of their present measures and principles, which they avow, but can not defend; measures which they presume to attempt, but can not hope to effectuate. They can not, my Lords, they can not stir a step; they have not a move left; they are check-mated!

But it is not repealing this act of Parliament, a is not repealing a piece of parchment, that can restore America to our bosom. You must peal her fears and her resentments, and you ay then hope for her love and gratitude. But now, insulted with an armed force posted at Bosta, irritated with a hostile array before her eyes, her concessions, if you could force them, would be suspicious and insecure; they will be "irato animo" [with an angry spirit]; they will not be the sound, honorable passions of freemen; they will be the dictates of fear and extortions of force. But it is more than evident that you can not force them, united as they are, to your unworthy terms of submission. It is impossible. And when I hear General Gage censured for inactivity, I must retort with indignation on those whose intemperate measures and improvident counsels have betrayed him into his present situation. His situation reminds me, my Lords, of the answer of a French general in the civil wars of France-Monsieur Condé opposed to Monsieur Turenne. He was asked how it happened that he did not take his adversary prisoner, as he was often very near him. "J'ai peur," replied Condé, very honestly, "j'ai peur qu'il ne me prenne;" I'm afraid he'll take me.

happiness; for that is your true dignity, to act with prudence and justice. That you should first concede is obvious, from sound and rational policy. Concession comes with better grace and more salutary effect from superior power. It reconciles superiority of power with the feelings of men, and establishes solid confidence on the foundations of affection and gratitude.

So thought a wise poet and a wise man in political sagacity-the friend of Mecænas, and the eulogist of Augustus. To him, the adopted son and successor of the first Cesar-to him, the master of the world, he wisely urged this conduct of prudence and dignity: "Tuque prior, tu parce; projice tela manu."

Every motive, therefore, of justice and of pol icy, of dignity and of prudence, urges you to al. lay the ferment in America by a removal of your troops from Boston, by a repeal of your acts of Parliament, and by demonstration of amicable dispositions toward your colonies. On the other hand, every danger and every hazard impend to deter you from perseverance in your

9 If Lord Chatham's memory had not failed him in respect to these words, his taste and genius would have suggested a still finer turn. They were addressed, not by Virgil to Augustus Cesar, but to a parent advancing in arms against a child; and would, therefore, have been applied with double force and beauty to the contest of England against America. The words are taken from that splendid passage at the close of the sixth book of Virgil's Eneid, where Anchises is showing to Eneas, in the world of spirits, the souls of those who were When your Lordships look at the papers destined to pass within "the gates of life," and to transmitted us from America-when you con- swell, as his descendants, the long line of Roman tiler their decency, firmness, and wisdom, you greatness. After pointing out the Decii and Drusii, ean not but respect their cause, and wish to make Torquatus with his bloody ax, and Camillus with it your own. For myself, I must declare and his standards of glory, he comes at last to Julius Ce. avow, that in all my reading and observation- sar, and Pompey, his son-in-law, preparing for the and it has been my favorite study-I have read battle of Pharsalia. As if the conflict might yet be Thucydides, and have studied and admired the averted, he addresses his future children, and en treats them not to turn their arms against their master-states of the world-that for solidity of country's vitals. He appeals especially to Cesar reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of con- as "descended from Olympian Jove," and exhorts clusion, under such a complication of difficult him "Taque prior, tu parce; projice tela manu." circumstances, no nation or body of men can Ille autem, paribus quas fulgere cernis in armis, stand in preference to the general Congress at Concordes anime nunc et dum nocte prementur, Philadelphia. I trust it is obvious to your Lord-Heu! quantum inter se bellum, si limina vitæ ships that all attempts to impose servitude upon such men, to establish despotism over such a mighty continental nation, must be vain, must be fatal. We shall be forced ultimately to retract; let us retract while we can, not when we must. I say we must necessarily undo these violent, oppressive acts. They must be repealed. You will repeal them. I pledge myself for it, that you will, in the end, repeal them. I stake my reputation on it. I will consent to be taken for an idiot if they are not finally repealed.8 Avoid, then, this humiliating, disgraceful necessity. With a dignity becoming your exalted situation, make the first advances to concord, to peace, and

The Boston Port Bill, and the act taking away the charter of Massachusetts.

This prediction was verified. After a war of three years, a repeal of these acts was sent out to propitiate the Americans, but it was too late

Attingerint, quantas acies stragemque ciebunt,
Aggeribus socer Alpinis atque arce Monœci
Descendens, gener adversis instructus Eois!
Neu patriæ validas in viscera vertite vires!
Ne, pueri, ne tanta animis assuescite bella;
Tuque prior, tu parce, genus qui ducis Olympo,
Projice tela manu, sanguis meus!—826–835.
Those forms which now thou seest in equal arıs
Shining afar-united souls while here
Beneath the realm of night—what fields of blood
And mutual slaughter shall mark out their course
If once they pass within the Gates of Life!
See, from the Alpine heights the father comes
Down by Monaco's tower, to meet the son
Equipped with hostile legions from the East.
Nay! nay, my children! Train not thus your minds
To scenes of blood! Turn not those arms of strength
Against your country's vitals!

Thou! thou, descended from Olympian Jove!
Be first to spare! Son of my blood! cast down
Those weapons from thy band!

present ruinous measures.

Foreign war hang- | King, I will not say that they can alienate tt.e affections of his subjects from his crown, but I will affirm that they will make the crown not worth his wearing. I will not say that the King is betrayed, but I will pronounce that the king dom is undone.

ing over your heads by a slight and brittle thread; France and Spain watching your conJuct, and waiting for the maturity of your erzors, with a vigilant eye to America and the temper of your colonies, more than to their own concerns, be they what they may.

To conclude, my Lords, if the ministers thus persevere in misadvising and misleading the

The motion, after a long debate, was ist by a vote of 68 to 18.

SPEECH

OF LORD CHATHAM ON A MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS TO THE CROWN, TO PUT A STO) TO HOS TILITIES IN AMERICA, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE of LordS, MAY 30, 1777.

INTRODUCTION.

LORD CHATHAM had now been prevented by his infirmities from taking his place in the House of Lorda for more than two years. Anxious to make one effort more for ending the contest with America, he made his appearance in the House on the 30th of May, 1777, wrapped in flannels, and supported on crutches, and moved an address to the King, recommending that speedy and effectual measures be taken to put an end to the war between the colonies and the mother country. He spoke as follows:

SPEECH, &c.

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My Lords, this is a flying moment; perhaps among them to annihilate the Congress, and of but six weeks left to arrest the dangers that sur- your powerful forces to disperse their army. I round us. The gathering storm may break; it might as well talk of driving them before me with has already opened, and in part burst. It is this crutch! But what would you conquer difficult for government, after all that has pass- the map of America? I am ready to meet any ed, to shake hands with defiers of the King, de- general officer on the subject [looking at Lord fiers of the Parliament, defiers of the people. I Amherst.] What will you do out of the proam a defier of nobody; but if an end is not put tection of your fleet? In the winter, if togeth to this war, there is an end to this country. I er, they are starved; and if dispersed, they are do not trust my judgment in my present state of taken off in detail. I am experienced in spring health; this is the judgment of my better days hopes and vernal promises; I know what minis-the result of forty years' attention to America. ters throw out; but at last will come your equiThey are rebels; but for what? Surely not for noctial disappointment. You have got nothing defending their unquestionable rights! What in America but stations. You have been three have these rebels done heretofore? I remem-years teaching them the art of war; they are ber when they raised four regiments on their own bottom, and took Louisbourg from the vetcran troops of France. But their excesses have been great: I do not mean their panegyric; but must observe, in extenuation, the erroneous and infatuated counsels which have prevailed; the door to mercy and justice has been shut against them; but they may still be taken up upon the grounds of their former submission. [Referring to their petition.]

I state to you the importance of America: it is a double market-the market of consumption, and the market of supply. This double market for millions, with naval stores, you are giving to your hereditary rival. America has carried you through four wars, and will now carry you to your death, if you don't take things in time. In the sportsman's phrase, when you have found yourselves at fault, you must try back. You have ransacked every corner of Lower Saxony; but forty thousand German boors never can conquer ten times the number of British freemen. You may ravage-you can not conquer; it is impossible; you can not conquer the Americans. You talk, my Lords, of your numerous friends'

apt scholars; and I will venture to tell your Lordships that the American gentry will make officers enough, fit to command the troops of all the European powers. What you have sent there are too many to make peace-too few to make war. If you conquer them, what then? You can not make them respect you; you can not make them wear your cloth; you will plant an invincible hatred in their breasts against you. Coming from the stock they do, they can never respect you. If ministers are founded in saying there is no sort of treaty with France, there is still a moment left; the point of honor is still safe. France must be as self-destroying as England, to make a treaty while you are giving her America, at the expense of twelve millions a year. The intercourse has produced every thing to France; and England, Old England, must pay for all. I have, at different times, made different propositions, adapted to the circumstances in which they were offered. The plan contained in the former bill is now impracticable; the present motion will tell you where you are, and what you have now to depend upon. It may produce a respectable division in America, and

ananinity at home; it will give America an option; she has yet had no option. You have said, Lay down your arms; and she has given you the Spartan answer, "Come, take." [Here he read his motion.] "That an humble address be presented to his Majesty, most dutifully representing to his royal wisdom that this House is deeply penetrated with the view of impending ruin to the kingdom, from the continuation of an annatural war against the British colonies in America; and most humbly to advise his Majesty to take the most speedy and effectual measures for putting a stop to such fatal hostilities, upon the only just and solid foundation, namely, the removal of accumulated grievances; and to assure his Majesty that this House will enter upon this great and necessary work with cheerulness and dispatch, in order to open to his Majesty the only means of regaining the affections of the British colonies, and of securing to Great Britain the commercial advantages of these valuable possessions; fully persuaded that to heal and to redress will be more congenial to the goodness and magnanimity of his Majesty, and more prevalent over the hearts of generous and free-born subjects, than the rigors of chastisement and the horrors of a civil war, which hitherto have served only to sharpen resentments and consolidate union, and, if continued, must end in finally dissolving all ties between Great Britain and the colonies."

[His Lordship rose again.] The proposal, he said, is specific. I thought this so clear, that I did not enlarge upon it. I mean the redress of all their grievances, and the right of disposing of their own money. This is to be done instantaneously. I will get out of my bed to move it on Monday. This will be the herald of peace; this will open the way for treaty; this will show Parliament sincerely disposed. Yet still much must be left to treaty. Should you conquer this people, you conquer under the cannon of France -under a masked battery then ready to open. The moment a treaty with France appears, you must declare war, though you had only five ships of the line in England; but France will defer a treaty as long as possible. You are now at the mercy of every little German chancery; and the pretensions of France will increase daily, so as to become an avowed party in either peace or war. We have tried for unconditional submission; try what can be gained by unconditional redress. Less dignity will be lost in the repeal, than in submitting to the demands of German chanceries. We are the aggressors. We have invaded them. We have invaded them as much as the Spanish Armada invaded England. Mercy can not do harm; it will seat the King where be ought to be, throned on the hearts of his people; and millions at home and abroad, now employed in obloquy or revolt, would pray for him. [In making his motion for addressing the King, Lord Chatham insisted frequently and strongly on the absolute necessity of immediately making peace with America. Now, he said, was the crisis, bee France was a party to the treaty.

This was the only moment left before the fate of this country was decided. The French court, he observed, was too wise to lose the opportunity of effectually separating America from the dominions of this kingdom. War between France and Great Britain, he said, was not less probable because it had not yet been declared. It would be folly in France to declare it now, while America gave full employment to our arms, and was pouring into her lap her wealth and produce. the benefit of which she was enjoying in peace. He enlarged much on the importance of America to this country, which, in peace and in war, he observed, he ever considered as the great source of all our wealth and power. He then added (raising his voice), Your trade languishes, your taxes increase, your revenues diminish. France at this moment is securing and drawing to herself that commerce which created your seamen, fed your islands, &c. He reprobated the measures which produced, and which had been pursued in the conduct of the civil war, in the severest language; infatuated measures giving rise to, and still continuing a cruel, unnatural, self-destroying war. Success, it is said, is hoped for in this campaign. Why? Because our army will be as strong this year as it was last, when it was not strong enough. The notion of conquering America he treated with the greatest contempt.

After an animated debate, in which the mo tion was opposed by Lords Gower, Lyttelton, Mansfield, and Weymouth, and the Archbishop of York, and supported by the Dukes of Grafton and Manchester, Lord Camden and Shelburne, and the Bishop of Peterborough,

The Earl of Chatham again rose, and in reply to what had fallen from Lord Weymouth, said:¦ My Lords, I perceive the noble Lord neither apprehends my meaning, nor the explanation given by me to the noble Earl [Earl Gower] in the blue ribbon, who spoke early in the debate. I will, therefore, with your Lordships' permission, state shortly what I meant. My Lords, my motion was stated generally, that I might leave the question at large to be amended by your Lordships. I did not dare to point out the specific means. I drew the motion up to the best of my poor abilities; but I intended it only as the herald of conciliation, as the harbinger of peace to our afflicted colonies. But as the noble Lord seems to wish for something more specific on the subject, and through that medium seeks my particular sentiments, I will tell your Lordships very fairly what I wish for. I wish for a repeal of every oppressive act which your Lordships have passed since 1763. I would put our brethren in America precisely on the same footing they stood at that period. I would expect, that, being left at liberty to tax themselves, and dispose of their own property, they would, in return, contrib ute to the common burdens according to thei means and abilities. I will move your Lordships for a bill of repeal, as the only means left to ar rest that approaching destruction which threat. ens to ove whelm us. My Lords, I shall no

doubt hear it objected, "Why should we submit | dress. We have injured them; we 12.9 on. or concede? Has America done any thing on deavored to enslave and oppress them. Upor her part to induce us to agree to so large a this ground, my Lords, instead of chastisement, ground of concession ?" I will tell you, my they are entitled to redress. A repeal of those Lords, why I think you should. You have been laws, of which they complain, will be the first the aggressors from the beginning. I shall not step to that redress. The people of America trouble your Lordships with the particulars; look upon Parliament as the authors of their misthey have been stated and enforced by the noble eries; their affections are estranged from their and learned Lord who spoke last but one (Lord sovereign. Let, then, reparation come from the Camden), in a much more able and distinct man-hands that inflicted the injuries; let conciliation ner than I could pretend to state them. If, then, succeed chastisement; and I do maintain, that we are the aggressors, it is your Lordships' bu- Parliament will again recover its authority; that siness to make the first overture. I say again, his Majesty will be once more enthroned in the this country has been the aggressor. You have hearts of his American subjects; and that your made descents upon their coasts; you have burn- Lordships, as contributing to so great, glorious, ed their towns, plundered their country, made salutary, and benignant a work, will receive the war upon the inhabitants, confiscated their prop- prayers and benedictions of every part of the erty, proscribed and imprisoned their persons. British empire. I do therefore affirm, my Lords, that instead of exacting unconditional submission from the colonies, we should grant them unconditional re

The motion was lost by a vote of 99 to 28.

SPEECH

OF LORD CHATHAM ON A MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS TO THE THRONE, AT THE OPENING OF PARLIAMENT, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, NOVEMBER 18, 1777.

INTRODUCTION.

THIS was Lord Chatham's greatest effort. Though sinking under the weight of years and disease, no seems animated by all the fire of youth. It would, indeed, be difficult to find in the whole range of parliamentary history a more splendid blaze of genius, at once rapid, vigorous, and sublime.

SPEECH, &c.'

I RISE, my Lords, to declare my sentiments on this most solemn and serious subject. It has imposed a load upon my mind, which, I fear, nothing can remove, but which impels me to endeavor its alleviation, by a free and unreserved communication of my sentiments.

In the first part of the address, I have the honor of heartily concurring with the noble Earl who moved it. No man feels sincerer joy than I do; none can offer more genuine congratulations on every accession of strength to the Protestant succession. I therefore join in every congratulation on the birth of another princess, and the happy recovery of her Majesty.

But I must stop here. My courtly complaisance will carry me no farther. I will not join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. I can not concur in a blind and servile address, which approves, and endeavors to sanctify the monstrous measures which have heaped disgrace and misfortune upon us. This, my Lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment! It is not a time for adulation. The smoothness of flattery can not now avail-can not save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the Throne in the language of truth. We must dispel the illusion and the darkness which

: This was reported by Hugh Boyd, and is said have been corrected by Lord Chatham himself

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envelop it, and display, in its full danger and true colors, the ruin that is brought to our doors.

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This, my Lords, is our duty. It is the proper function of this noble assembly, sitting, as we do, upon our honors in this House, the hereditary council of the Crown. Who is the ministerwhere is the minister, that has dared to suggest to the Throne the contrary, unconstitutional language this day delivered from it? The accustomed language from the Throne has been application to Parliament for advice, and a reliance on its constitutional advice and assistance. it is the right of Parliament to give, so it is the duty of the Crown to ask it. But on this day, and in this extreme momentous exigency, no reliance is reposed on our constitutional counsels ! no advice is asked from the sober and enlightened care of Parliament! but the Crown, from itself and by itself, declares an unalterable determination to pursue measures and what measures, my Lords? The measures that have produced the imminent perils that threaten us; the measures that have brought ruin to our doors

Can the minister of the day now presume to expect a continuance of support in this ruinous infatuation? Can Parliament be so dead to its dignity and its duty as to be thus deluded inte the loss of the one and the violation of the other ? To give an unlimited credit and support for the steady perseverance in measures not proposed

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