nature of things and from the nature of man, and, above all, from the confirmed habits of thinking, from the fpirit of whiggifm flourishing in America. The fpirit which now pervades America, is the fame which formerly oppofed loans, benevolences, and fhip-money in this country; the fame spirit which roused all England to action at the revolution; and which eftablifhed, at a remote æra, your liberties, on the basis of that grand fundamental maxim of the conftitution, that no fubject of England shall be taxed but by his own confent. What fhall oppose this fpirit, aided by the congenial flame glowing in the breast of every generous Briton? To maintain this principle is the common cause of the whigs on the other fide of the Atlantic and on this; it is liberty to liberty engaged. In. this great cause they are immoveably allied; it is the alliance of God and nature, immutable, eternal, fixed as the firmament of heaven. As an Englishman, I recognize to the Americans their fupreme unalterable right of property. As an American, I would equally recognize to England her fupreme right of regulating commerce and navigation. This distinction is involved in the abstract nature of things; property is private, individual, abfolute; the touch of another annihilates it. Trade is an extended aud complicated confideration; it reaches as far as fhips can fail or winds can blow; it is a vaft and various machine. To regulate the numberless movements of its feveral parts, and combine them into one harmonious effect, for the good of the whole, requires the fuperintending wisdom and energy of the fupreme power of the empire. On this grand practical diftinction then let us reft; taxation is theirs, commercial regulation is ours. As to the metaphyfical refinements, attempting to show that the Americans are equally free from legislative control and commercial reftraint, as from taxation for the purpofe of revenue, I pronounce them futile, frivolous, and groundless. When your lordships have perused the papers tranfinitted us from Ame rica, when you confider the dignity, the firmnefs, and the wifdom with which the Americans have acted, you cannot but refpect their caufe. Hiftory, my lords, has been my favorite ftudy, and in the celebrated writings of antiquity have I often admired the patriotifm of Greece and Rome: but, my lords, I muft declare and avow, that in the mafterftates of the world, I know not the people, or the fenate, who, in fuch a complication of difficult circumstances, can ftand in preference to the delegates of America affembled in general congrefs at Philadelphia. I truft it is obvious to your lordships, that all attempts to impofe fervitude upon fuch men, to establish despotifm over fuch a mighty continental nation, must be vain, muft be futile. Can fuch a national principled union be refifted by the tricks of office or minifterial manœuvres? Heaping papers on the table, or counting your majorities on a divifion, will not avert or poftpone the hour of danger. It muft arrive, my lords, unless these fatal acts are done away; it must arrive in all its horrors; and then these boaftful minifters, in fpite of all their confidence and all their manoeuvres, fhall be compelled to hide their heads. But it is not repealing a piece of parchment that can restore America to your bofom; you muft repeal her fears and refentments, and then you may hope for her love and gratitude. But now, infulted with an armed force, irritated with an hoftile array before her eyes, her conceffions, if you could force them, would be fufpicious and infecure. But it is more than evident that you cannot force them to your unworthy terms of fubmiffion; it is impoffible: we ourselves fhall be forced ultimately to retract; let us retract while we can, not when we must. I repeat it, my lords, we fhall one day be forced to undo thefe violent oppreffive Acts; they must be repealed, you will repeal them; I pledge myself for it, that you will in the end repeal them; I ftake my reputation on it; I will confent to be taken for an IDIOT if they are not repealed. Avoid this then hu miliating miliating difgraceful neceffity. With a dignity becoming your exalted fituation, make the first advances to concord, to peace, and to happiness. Conceffion comes with better grace and more falutary effect from fuperior power; it reconciles fuperiority of power with the feelings of man, and establishes solid confidence on the foundations of affection and gratitude. On the other hand, every danger and every hazard impend to deter you from perfeverance in the prefent ruinous meafures; foreign war hanging over your heads by a flight and brittle thread; France and Spain watching your conduct, and waiting for the maturity of your errors, 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 minifters thus perfevere in misadvífing and misleading the KING, I will not fay that they can alienate the affections of his fubjects from the crown; but I affirm, they will make the crown not worth his wearing. I will not fay that the KING is BETRAYED, but I will pronounce that the KINGDOM is UNDONE." The motion of lord Chatham was most ably feconded and supported by lord Camden: "king, lords, and commons," faid this great conftitutional lawyer," are grand and founding names: but king, lords, and commons may become tyrants as well as others. Tyranny in one or more is the fame: it is as lawful to refift the tyranny of many as of one; this has been a doctrine known and acted upon in this country, for ages. When the famous Selden was afked by what ftatute refiftance to tyranny could be juftified? his reply was, "It is to be justified by the custom of England, which is a part of the law of the land.' I will affirm, my lords, not only as a statesman, politician, and philofopher, but as a common lawyer, that you have no right to tax America. No man, agreeably to the principles of natural or civil liberty, can be divested of any part of his property without his confent; and when ever oppreffion begins, refiftance becomes lawful and right." The language of the lords in administration was high and decifive; it was declared, that the mother-country fhould never relax till America confeffed her fupremacy, and obedience must be enforced by arms. Lord Gower, prefident of the council, is reported, in addition to his menaces, to have faid with an air of contempt and difdain, "let the Americans, fo long as these measures are enforced, fit talking about their natural and divine rights, their rights as men and citizens, their rights from GoD and nature." In the refult the motion was rejected by 68 voices against 18. In the house of commons, the American papers were, by motion of lord North, referred to a committee of the whole house, on the 26th of January 1775; previous to which petitions were prefented to the house from the merchants of London, Bristol, Glasgow, &c. which, by an artifice characteristic of the prefent miniftry, were on a divifion of 197 to 81 members, configned to a feparate committee, to meet on the 27th of January, so that the house must neceffarily come to a final decifion on the grand question before the petitions were admitted to a hearing. This committee was denominated therefore by the oppofition, the committee of oblivion. The ground on which the miniftry juftified this procedure was, that commerce and politics were matters totally diftinct, and that the house muft decide on the queftion of peace and war folely on political confiderations; but that due care would be taken to fecure the commercial interests andproperty of the merchants whofe petitions were before the house. To which the petitioners replied, "that they were under no apprehenfions for their property, but from the measures which might be adopted by that honorable houfe in order to fecure it." The petition from the congrefs to the king having been referred by his majefty, amidst the common common mass of American papers, to the houfe, the American agents, Mr. Bollan, Dr. Franklin and Mr. Lee, petitioned the house to be heard at the bar in its fupport. But the minifters alledged, that the congrefs was no legal body; and to hear evidence on the fubject of their petition, would be giving that illegal body fome degree of countenance :-that with refpect to the pretended grievances alleged in the petition, the houfe could hear the colonies only through their legal affemblies, and their agents properly authorized; and that any deviations from this rule would deftroy the whole order of colony govern ment." To this the oppofition replied, "that the order of colony grvernment was deftroyed already in fome places by act of parliament; in others by the diffolution of affemblies by governors; and in others by popular violence that the queftion was now how to restore it. That the congrefs was furely an affembly fufficiently legal for the purpose of presenting a petition, which, as it was figned by all their names, might be received as the petition of individuals. That this mode of constantly rejecting petitions would infallibly end in univerfal revolt; and indeed a refufal to hear complaints feemed plainly to amount to an abdication of government,"-These reasonings made no impreffion, and the petition was in fine rejected by 218 voices to 68. Thus did the British parliament virtually refolve to devote three millions of British fubjects to deftruction unheard, and to carry fire and sword into the most flourishing provinces of the empire, rather than deviate an iota from the established etiquette of precedent and punctilio. The great majority by which lord Chatham's motion for the recall of the troops from Bofton was negatived, did not difcourage that nobleman from perfifting in his exer-tions for reftoring peace to the empire: and in the beginning of February he offered to the houfe of peers a bill for that purpose, under the title of "a provifional act for fettling |