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CHAPTER IV

FORCE OR CONCILIATION?

Lord Chatham Moves That the Troops Be Withdrawn from Boston; His Speech on the Motion. He Is Supported by Lords Camden and Shelburne and the Marquis of Rockingham; the Measure Is Defeated-Chatham Presents a Plan of Conciliation: His Tilt with Lord Sandwich over the Character of Benjamin Franklin-British Petitions in Behalf of America Are "Shelved," and Acts to "Crush Rebellion" Are Adopted-Franklin's Proposals for Reconciliation-Conciliatory Plan of Lord NorthEdmund Burke on "Conciliation with America"-His Resolutions Are Defeated-His Speech on "The Right to Tax America."

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NEW Parliament met on the 29th day of November, 1774. The King informed Parliament that a most daring resistance and disobedience to the law still prevailed in Massachusetts and had broken out in fresh violences; that these proceedings had been countenanced and encouraged in the other colonies, and that unwarrantable attempts had been made to obstruct the commerce of the kingdom by unlawful combinations, and he expressed his firm determination to withstand every attempt to weaken or impair the supreme authority of Parliament over all the dominions of the Crown. Addresses in answer to the speech concurring in the sentiments expressed by the King were carried in both houses by large majorities. A committee was appointed to take the subject of colonial affairs into consideration.

Josiah Quincy, Jr., not long after his arrival in England, had an interview with Lord North as well as Lord Dartmouth at their special request.

The former, on the 19th of November, in conversation on the subject of American affairs, reminded Mr. Quincy of the power of Great Britain and that they were determined "to exert it to the utmost in order to effect the submission of the colonies."

"We must try," said he, "what we can do to support the authority we claim over America. If we are defective in power, we must sit down contented and make the best terms we can; and nobody can blame us after we have done our utmost; but till we have tried what we can do, we can never be justified in receding."

Mr. Quincy from this conversation with the Prime Minister, as well as information obtained from other sources, was convinced that the Americans had nothing to hope but from forcible resistance, and communicated this conviction to some of his particular friends in America.

In a letter to Joseph Reed of Philadelphia of the 17th of December he says:

"But by no means entertain an idea that commercial plans, founded on commercial principles, are to be engines of your freedom or the security of your felicity.

"Far different are the weapons with which oppression is repelled; far more noble the sentiments and actions which secure liberty and happiness to man.

"I cannot forbear telling you that I look to my countrymen with the feelings of one who verily believes they must yet seal their faith and constancy to their liberties with blood."

CHATHAM'S MOTION TO REMOVE THE TROOPS

Parliament, after the holiday recess, convened on the 20th of January, and on the same day Lord Chatham took his seat in the House of Lords and immediately moved:

"That, in order to open the way toward our happy settlement of the dangerous troubles in America by beginning to allay ferments and soften animosities there, and, above all, for preventing in the meantime any sudden and fatal catastrophe at Boston, now suffering under daily irritation of an army before their eyes posted in their town, it may graciously please His Majesty that immediate orders may be dispatched to General Gage for removing His Majesty's forces from the town of Boston."

This motion was supported by one of the most eloquent and impressive speeches ever delivered by that distinguished statesman and orator.

ON REMOVING THE TROOPS FROM BOSTON

LORD CHATHAM

"My Lords, these papers from America, now laid by administration for the first time before your lordships, have been, to my knowledge, five or six weeks in the pocket of the minister. And, notwithstanding the fate of this kingdom hangs upon the event of this great controversy, we are but this moment called to a consideration of this important subject.

"My Lords, I do not wish to look into one of these papers. I know their contents well enough already. I know that there is not a member in this house but is acquainted with their purport, also. There ought, therefore, to be no delay in entering upon this matter. We ought to proceed to it immediately. We ought to seize the first moment to open the door of reconciliation. The Americans will never be in a temper or state to be reconciledthey ought not to be-till the troops are withdrawn. The troops are a perpetual irritation to those people; they are a bar to all confidence and all cordial reconcilement.

"The way must be immediately opened for reconciliation. It will soon be too late. I know not who advised the present measures; I know not who advises to a perseverance and enforcement of them; but this I will say, that whoever advises them ought to answer for it at his utmost peril. I know that no one will avow that he advised or that he was the author of these measures; every one shrinks from the charge. But somebody has advised His Majesty to these measures, and, if he continues to hear such evil counselors, His Majesty will be undone. His Majesty may indeed wear his crown, but, the American jewel out of it, it will not be worth the wearing. What more shall I say? I must not say the king is betrayed; but this I will say, the nation is ruined. What foundation have we for our claims over America? What is our right to persist in such cruel and vindictive measures against that loyal, respectable people?

"They say, you have no right to tax them without their consent. They say truly. Representation and taxation must go together; they are inseparable. Yet there is scarcely a man in our streets, though so poor as scarcely to be able to get his daily bread, but thinks he is the legislator of America. 'Our American

subjects' is a common phrase in the mouths of the lowest orders of our citizens; but property, my lords, is the sole and entire dominion of the owner: it excludes all the world besides the owner. None can intermeddle with it. It is an unity, a mathematical point. It is an atom; untangible by any but the proprietor. Touch it, and the owner loses his whole property. The touch contaminates the whole mass, the whole property vanishes. The touch of another annihilates it; for whatever is a man's own is absolutely and exclusively his own

After stating that the Americans had been abused, misrepresented and traduced in the most atrocious manner in order to give color to and urge on the most precipitate, unjust, cruel, and vindictive measures that ever disgraced a nation, he asks:

"But how have this respectable people behaved under their grievances? With unexampled patience, with unparalleled wisdom. They chose delegates by their free suffrages; no bribery, no corruption, no influence there, my Lords. Their representatives meet with the sentiments and temper and speak the sense of the continent. For genuine sagacity, for singular moderation, for solid wisdom, manly spirit, sublime sentiments, and simplicity of language, for everything respectable and honorable, the Congress of Philadelphia shine unrivaled. This wise people speak out. They do not hold the language of slaves; they tell you what they mean. They do not ask you to repeal your laws as a favor; they claim it as a right—they demand it. They tell you they will not submit to them; and I tell you, the acts must be repealed; they will be repealed; you cannot enforce them. The ministry are checkmated; they have a move to make on the board; yet not a move but they are ruined. Repeal, therefore, my Lords, I say. But bare repeal will not satisfy this enlightened and spirited people. What! repeal a bit of paper! repeal a piece of parchment! That alone will not do, my lords. You must go through the work-you must declare you have no right to tax-then they may trust you; then they will have some confidence in you.'

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After adverting to the distinction he had formerly made, in the debate on the repeal of the Stamp Act, between taxation and legislation (see page 41) Lord Chatham thus concludes:

"My Lords, deeply impressed with the importance of taking some healing measures at this most alarming, distracted state of our affairs, though bowed down with a cruel disease, I have crawled to this House to give you my best counsel and experience; and my advice is to beseech His Majesty to withdraw his troops. This is the best I can think of. It will convince America that you mean to try her cause in the spirit and by the laws of freedom and fair enquiry, and not by codes of blood. How can she now trust you with the bayonet at her breast? She has all the reason in the world now to believe you mean her death or bondage. Thus entered on the threshold of this business, I will knock at your gates for justice without ceasing, unless inveterate infirmities stay my hand. My Lords, I pledge myself never to leave this business. I will pursue it to the end in every shape. I will never fail of my attendance on it, at every step and period of this great matter, unless nailed down to my bed by the severity of disease. My Lords, there is no time to be lost; every moment is big with dangers. Nay, while I am now speaking the decisive blow may be struck and millions involved in the consequences. The very first drop of blood will make a wound that will not easily be skinned over. Years, perhaps ages, may not heal it. It will be immedicabile vulnus: a wound of that rancorous, malignant, corroding, festering nature which in all probability will mortify the whole body. Let us then, my Lords, set to this business in earnest! Not take it up by bits and scraps as formerly, just as exigencies pressed, without any regard to general relations, connections, and dependencies. I would not, by anything I have said, my lords, be thought to encourage America to proceed beyond the right line. I reprobate all acts of violence by her mobility. But when her inherent constitutional rights are invaded, those rights she has an equitable claim to enjoy by the fundamental laws of the English constitution, and which are engrafted thereon by the unalterable laws of nature; then I own myself an American, and, feeling myself such, shall, to the verge of my life, vindicate those rights against all men who strive to trample upon or oppose them."

The motion of Lord Chatham, though supported by Lord Camden, Lord Shelburne, and the Marquis of Rockingham, was rejected by a large majority. The ministers, being now prepared to announce their determination to coerce obedience to the late acts of Par

1I. e., the common people; a word humorously coined from "mob" as an antonym for "nobility."

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