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County of Middlesex have been deprived of one of their legal Reprefentatives." In defcanting on the fubject of this bill, he declared, "that a violent outrage had been committed, which ftruck at every thing dear and facred to the liberties of Englishmen. I am afraid," faid he, " my Lords, that this measure has fprung too near the throne. I am forry for it; but I hope his Majefty will foon open his eyes and fee it in all its deformity." The motion for the fecond reading being negatived, Lord Gower moved for its rejection; and, on a divifion, 89 voted for the motion, 43 against it. Before the Houfe adjourned, Lord Chatham defired their Lordfhips might be fummoned for the 4th of May; for," faid he, "I have a motion of great importance to make relative to the KING."-And the Lords being fummoned accordingly on the day appointed, Lord Chatham moved, “That it is the opinion of the House, that the advice inducing his Majefty's answer to the late Addrefs of the City of London, is of a moft dangerous tendency, inafinuch as the exercise of the cleareft rights of the subject has been thereby checked and reprimanded-an anfwer fo harfh," his Lordfhip affirmed, "as to have no precedent in the hiftory of this country, and fuch as the Stuarts had never dared to venture upon in the zenith of their power." In the Address alluded to by his Lordship, which alfo bore the unufual title of a Remonftrance to

the

the King, the addreffers hazard the extravagant affirmation, "that the Houfe of Commons have done a deed more ruinous in its confequences than the levying of fhip-money by Charles I. or the difpenfing power affumed by James II.-a deed which muft VITIATE ALL THE PROCEEDINGS of this Parliament; for the Acts of the Legislature can no more be valid without a legal House of Commons, than without a legal Prince on the throne." Thus we fee how folly on the part of the Government generates faction on that of the People. Notwithstanding the deference due to the opinion of Lord Chatham, whofe patriotic ardor tranfported him on this occafion far beyond the fober limits of difcretion, it must be acknowledged that the King, in his anfwer, with too much reafon pronounced the contents of this Remonftrance "to be disrespectful to himself, injurious to Parliament, and irreconcileable to the principles of the Conftitution." It is fcarcely neceffary to add, that the motion of Lord Chatham was negatived by a vast majority; and the Address itself gave birth to a refolution of the House of Commons, that " to deny the legality of the present Parliament, or to affert their Acts to be invalid, was unwarrantable, and tended to deftroy the allegiance of the fubjects:" and a joint Address was presented to the King by the two Houses, thanking him for his conduct on this occafion. The language of the courtiers against the framers

VOL. I.

T

framers of this Remonftrance was high and menăcing; but no Minifter of the Crown durft, at this juncture, take upon himself the responsibility of a judicial profecution against them.

Not to be diverted or intimidated from his purpofe, Lord Chatham made, after a fhort interval, a motion for an Addrefs to the King to diffolve the Parliament. He ftated" the public difcontents in England, Ireland, and America; affirmed, that the people had no confidence in the present House of Commons, who had betrayed their truft; and fhewed, from the fituation of publie affairs, the great neceffity of having a Parliament in whom the people can place a proper confidence. Inftead," he faid, "of depriving a county of its representative, one or more members ought to be added to the representation of the counties, in order to operate as a balance against the weight of the feveral corrupt and venal boroughs*." All arguments were

in

* This was a very favorite idea with Lord Chatham, and repeatedly suggested by him on various occafions, both public and private. In a letter to Lord Temple, dated April 17, 1771, he fays, "Allow a fpeculator in a great chair to add, that a plan for more equal reprefentation, by additional Knights of the Shire, feems highly reasonable, and to fhorten the duration of Parliaments not lefs fo. If your Lordship fhould approve, could Lord Lyttelton's caution be brought to tafte thofe ideas, we should take poffeffion of ftrong ground, let who will decline to follow us." To this plan of reform, however, ferious objec

in vain-fcarcely indeed was the appearance of decorum preferved. The Court Lords called for the question! the queftion! and a rude negative was put upon the motion. He had the fatisfaction, nevertheless, to perceive his conduct during the whole of this interefting feffion highly acceptable to the nation; and on the 1ft of June a Committee, delegated by the City of London, waited on his Lordship with a vote of thanks for the zeal he had thewn in fupport of those invaluable and facred privileges, the right of election and the right of petition, as well as for the wifhes expreffed by him that parliaments may be restored to their original purity, by fhortening their duration, and introducing a more full and equal representation." But no efforts could after all reinftate this Nobleman in the poffeffion of his former envied and splendid height of popular affection and favor.

In the former part of the feffion, Lord North, as one of the first acts of his administration, had moved the repeal of the obnoxious port-duties of 1767, EXCEPTING the DUTY on TEA, which was intentionally omitted, on the avowed principle of afferting the fupremacy of Great Britain; and

tions may be made; and Lord Chatham himself, with the candor and ingenuoufness of a great mind, fpeaks of it on another occafion as "a plan humbly submitted to the public wisdom, to be deliberately weighed, accurately examined, and maturely digested,"

when ftrongly urged by the Members in oppofition, both of the Rockingham and Grenville parties, not to preferve the contention when he relinquifhed the revenue, his language was the reverse of conciliatory. "Has the repeal of the Stamp Act," faid this Minifter, " taught the Americans obedience? Has our lenity infpired them with moderation? Can it be proper, while they deny our legal power to tax them, to acquiefce in the argument of illegality? and, by the repeal of the whole law, to give up that power? No-the properest time to exert our right of taxation is when the right is refused. To temporize is to yield; and the authority of the Mother Country, if it is now unfupported, will in reality be relinquifhed for ever. A total repeal cannot be thought of till AMERICA IS PROSTRATE at our FEET."

Such were the political axioms which pofterity will be amazed to learn, under the ill-fated reign of George III. paffed for wifdom. Even conceffion was combined with infolence; and a feeble effort to regain the affections of America was converted, by an unaccountable infatuation, into an unpardonable infult to her feelings. In vain was it urged, that the repeal of the Stamp Act had in fact produced all the happy and beneficial effects which had been previoufly expected or predicted by its advocates; that lenity on the part of Britain had produced moderation on that of America ;