AFTER more than six weeks possession of the papers now before you, on a subject so momentous, at a time when the fate of this na­tion hangs on every hour; the Ministry have at length condescended to submit to the considera­tion of this House intelligence from America, with which your Lordships and the Public have been long and fully acquainted.

THE measures of last year, my Lords, which have produced the present alarming state of America, were founded upon misrepresentation— they were violent, precipitate and vindictive. The nation was told, that it was only a faction in Boston, which opposed all lawful govern­ment; that an unwarrantable injury had been done to private property, for which the justice of parliament was called upon, to order repara­tion;—that [Page 4] the least appearance of firmness would awe the Americans into submission, and upon only passing the Rubicon we should be, sine clade victor.

THAT the people might chuse their Repre­sentatives under the impression of those misre­presentations, the Parliament was precipitately dissolved. Thus the Nation was to be rendered instrumental in executing the vengeance of Ad­ministration on that injured, unhappy, traduced people.

BUT now, my Lords, we find, that instead of suppressing the opposition of the faction at Bos­ton, these measures have spread it over the whole continent. They have united that whole peo­ple, by the most indissoluble of all bands—into­lerable wrongs. The just retribution, is an in­discriminate unmerciful proscription of the inno­cent with the guilty, unheard and untried. The bloodless victory, is an impotent General with his dishonoured Army, trusting solely to the pick-axe and the spade, for security against the just indignation of an injured and insulted people.

MY Lords, I am happy that a relaxation o [...] my infirmities permits me to seize this earliest opportunity of offering my poor advice to save this unhappy country, at this moment tottering to its ruin. But, as I have not the honour of [...]ccess to his Majesty, I will endeavour to trans­mit to him through the constitutional channel of [Page 5] this House, my ideas on American business, to rescue him from the misadvice of his present Ministers. I congratulate your Lordships that that business is at last entered upon, by the no­ble Lord's (Lord Dartmouth) laying the papers before you. As I suppose your Lordships are too well apprised of their contents, I hope I am not premature in submitting to you my present motion (reads the motion) I wish my Lords not to lose a day in this urging present crisis: An hour now lost in allaying the ferment in Ameri­ca, may produce years of calamity; but for my own part, I will not desert for a moment the conduct of this mighty business from the first to the last; unless nailed to my bed by the extre­mity of sickness; I will give it unremitting at­tention: I will knock at the door of this sleep­ing, or confounded Ministry, and will rouse them to a sense of their important danger. When I state the importance of the Colonies to this country, and the magnitude of danger hanging over this country from the present plan of misadministration practised against them, I desire not to be understood to argue for a recipro­city of indulgence between England and Ameri­ca: I contend not for indulgence, but justice, to America; and I shall ever contend that the Americans justly owe obedience to us, in a li­mited degree; they owe obedience to our or­dinances of trade and navigation; but let the line be skilfully drawn between the objects of those ordinances, and their private, internal property: Let the sacredness of their property remain inviolate; let it be taxable only by their [Page 9] own consent, given in their provincial assem­blies, else it will cease to be property: As to the metaphysical refinements attempting to shew that the Americans are equally free from obedience to commercial restraints, as from taxation for revenue, as being unrepresented here, I pronounce them futile, frivolous and groundless.—Property is in its nature, single as an atom. It is indivisible, can belong to one only, and cannot be touched but by his consent. The Law that attempts to alter this disposal of it annihilates it.

WHEN I urge this measure of recalling the troops from Boston, I urge it on this pressing principle—that it is necessarily preparatory to the restoration of your peace, and the re-estab­ [...]ishment of your prosperity. It will then appear that you are disposed to treat amicably and equitably, and to consider, revise and repeal, if [...]t should be found necessary, as I affirm it will, [...]hose violent acts and declarations which have [...]isseminated confusion throughout your empire. Resistance to your acts, was as necessary as it was just; and your vain declarations of the om­ [...]ipotence of Parliament, and your imperious doctrines of the necessity of submission, will be [...]ound equally impotent to convince or enslave [...]our fellow subjects in America, who feel that [...]yranny, whether ambitioned by an individual [...]art of the Legislature, or by the bodies which [...]ompose it, is equally intolerable to British [...]rinciples.

[Page 7]As to the means of enforcing this thraldom, they are found to be as ridiculous and weak in practice, as they were unjust in principle. In­deed I cannot but feel with the most anxious sensibility, for the situation of General Gage and the troops under his command; thinking him, as I do, a man of humanity and understand­ing, and entertaining, as I ever shall, the high­est respect, the warmest love, for the British troops. Their situation is truly unworthy, pen [...] up, pining in inglorious inactivity. They are an army of impotence. You may call them a [...] army of safety and of guard; but they are in truth an army of impotence and contempt—and to render the folly equal to the disgrace, they are an army of irritation. I do not mean to censure the inactivity of the troops. It is a pru­dent and a necessary inaction. But it is a miser­able condition, where disgrace is prudence and where it is necessary to be contemptible This tameness, however disgraceful, ought no [...] to be blamed, as I am surprised to hear is don [...] by these Ministers. The first drop of blood shed in a civil and unnatural war, would be a immedicabile vulnus. It would entail hatre [...] and contention between the two people, fro [...] generation to generation. Woe be to him, wh [...] sheds the first—the unexpiable—drop of bloo [...] in an impious war, with a people contending i [...] the great cause of public Liberty. I will te [...] you plainly, my Lords, no son of mine, nor an [...] one over whom I have influence, shall ever dra [...] his sword upon his fellow subjects.

[Page 8]I THEREFORE urge and conjure your Lord­ships immediately to adopt this conciliatory measure. I will pledge myself for its immediate­ly producing conciliatory effects, from its being well timed. But if you delay, till your vain hope of triumphantly dictating the terms shall be accomplished—you delay forever. And even admitting that this hope, which in truth is des­perate, should be accomplished, what will you gain by a victorious imposition of amity. You will be untrusted and unthanked. Adopt then the grace, while you have the opportunity of reconcilement, or at least prepare the way; [...]llay the ferment prevailing in America, by re­moving the obnoxious hostile cause. Obnoxious [...]nd unserviceable; for their merit can be only [...]naction. "Non dimicare est vincere." Their [...]ictory can never be by exertions. Their force would be most disproportionately exerted, [...]gainst a brave, generous and united people; with arms in their hands and courage in their [...]earts; three millions of people, the genuine [...]escendants of a valiant and pious ancestry, [...]riven to these desarts by the narrow maxims of superstitious tyranny. And is the spirit of ty­ [...]annous persecution never to be appeased? Are [...] brave sons of those brave forefathers to in­ [...]erit their sufferings, as they have inherited [...]eir virtues? Are they to sustain the inflictions [...] the most oppressive and unexampled severity, [...]eyond the accounts of history or the description [...] poetry? "Rhadamanthus habet durissima [...]gna, Castigatque auditque." So says the wisest [...]tesman and politician. But the Bostonians [Page 9] have been condemned unheard. The indiscrimi­nating hand of vengeance has lumped together innocent and guilty: with all the formalities of hostility, has blocked up the town, and reduced to beggary and famine 30,000 inhabitants. But his Majesty is advised that the union of Ame­rica cannot last. Ministers have more eyes than I, and should have more ears, but from all the information I have been able to procure, I can pronounce it a union solid, permanent and effec­tual. Ministers may satisfy themselves and de­lude the public with the reports of what they call commercial bodies in America. They are not commercial. They are your packers and factors; they live upon nothing, for I call com­mission nothing; I mean the ministerial autho­rity for their American intelligence. The run­ners of government, who are paid for their in­telligence. But these are not the men, nor this the influence to be considered in America, when we estimate the firmness of their union. Even to extend the question, and to take in the really mercantile circle, will be totally inade­quate to the consideration. Trade indeed in­creases 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 simplicity of life is found the simplicity of virtue, the integrity and courage of freedom. Those true genuine sons of the earth are invincible; and they surround and hem in the mercantile bo­dies; even if those bodies, which supposition I to­tally disclaim, could be supposed disaffected to the cause of Liberty. Of this—general spirit exist­ing [Page 10] in the American 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 ever has 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 this 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 conveniencies of life, but that they were prepared to despise your power, and would not lament their loss, whilst they had, what, my Lords?—their woods and liberty. The name of my authority, if I am called upon, will authenticate the opinion irrefragably.

IF illegal violences have been, as it is said, committed in America, prepare the way, open a door of possibility, for acknowledgment and sa­ [...]isfaction. But proceed not to such coercion, [...]uch proscription: Cease your indiscriminate in­ [...]ictions, amerce not thirty thousands, oppress [...]ot three millions, for the faults of forty or fifty. [...]uch severity of injustice must for ever render in­ [...]rable the wounds you have already given your [...]loonies; you irritate them to unappeaseable ran­cour. [Page 11] What tho' you march from town to town, and from province to province? Though you should be able to force a temporary and local sub­mission, which I only suppose, not admit, how shall you be able to secure the obedience of the country you leave behind you in your progress? To grasp the dominion of 1800 miles of Conti­nent, populous in Valour, Liberty and Resist­ance? 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 flourishing in that country. The spirit which now resists your taxation in America, is the same which formerly opposed, and with success opposed, Loans, Be­nevolences, and Ship-money in England—the same spirit which called all England on its legs, and by the Bill of Rights vindicated the English Constitution—the same spirit which established the great fundamental and essential maxim of your Liberties, that no subject shall be taxed, but by his own consent. If your Lordships will turn to the politics of those times, you will see the at­tempts of the Lords to poison this inestimable be­nefit of the Bill, by an insidious proviso: You will see their attempts defeated, in their confe­rence with the Commons, by the decisive argu­ments of the Ascertainers and Maintainers of our Liberty: You will see the thin, inconclusive and fallacious stuff of those enemies to Freedom, con­trasted with the sound and solid reasoning of Serjeant Glanville and the rest, those great and learned men who adorned and enlightened this country, and placed her security on the summit [Page 12] of Justice and Freedom. And whilst I am on my legs, and thus do justice to the memory of those great men, I must also justify the merit of the living by declaring my firm and fixed opinion, that such a man exists this day. [looking towards Lord Camden] This glorious spirit of Whig­gism animates Three Millions in America, who prefer Poverty with Liberty, to Golden Chains and Sordid Affluence; and who will die in de­fence 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 at least double the American numbers! Ireland they have to a man. In that country, joined as it is with the cause of the Colonies, and placed at their head, the distinction I contend for, is and must be observed. This country superintends and con­trouls their trade and navigation; but they tax themselves. And this distinction between external and internal controul, 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 towards internal taxation—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.

[Page 13]LET this distinction then remain forever ascer­tained. Taxation is theirs, commercial regula­tion is ours. As an American I would recognize to England her supreme right of regulating com­merce and navigation: As an Englishman by birth and principle, I recognize to the Americans their supreme unalienable right in their property; a right which they are justified in the defence of, to the last extremity. To maintain this principle is the common cause of the Whigs on the other side of the Atlantic, and on this. 'Tis Liberty, to Liberty engaged, that they will defend them­selves, their families and their country. In this great cause they are immovably allied. It is the alliance of God and Nature—immutable, eter­nal, fix'd as the firmament of Heaven! To such united force, what force shall be opposed! What, my Lords; a few regiments in America, and 17 or 18000 men at home! The idea is too ridiculous to take up a moment of your Lordships time— nor can such a national principled union be resist­ed by the tricks of office or ministerial manoeuvres. Laying papers on your table, or counting noses 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, 'spit [...] of all their confidence and all their manoeuvres shall be forced to hide their heads. But it is no repealing this Act of Parliament, or that Act o [...] Parliament,—it is not repealing a piece o [...] parchment that can restore America to your bo [...]som. You must repeal her fears and her resent [...]ments, and you may then hope for her love an [...] [Page 14] gratitude. But now insulted with an armed force posted in Boston, irritated with an hostile array before her eyes, her concessions, if you could force them, would be suspicious and inse­cure: They will be, irato animo: They will not be the sound, honourable pactions of Freemen; they will be the dictates of fear and the extortions of force. But it is more than evident that you can­not force them, principled and 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 councils 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 Turenne I think. The Queen said to him with some peevishness, I observe that you were often very near the Prince during the campaign, why did you not take him? —The Mareschal reply'd with great coolness,— J' avois grand peur, qui Monsieur le Prince ne me pris,—I was very much afraid the Prince would take me.

WHEN your Lordships look at the papers transmitted us from America, when you consi­der their decency, firmness and wisdom, you cannot but respect their cause, and wish to make [...]t your own—for myself I must declare and [...]vow that in all my reading and observation, and [...]t has been my favourite study—I have read Thucidydes, and have studied and admired the master states of the world,—that for solidity [Page 15] and reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, under such a complication of differ­ent circumstances, no nation or body of men can stand in preference to the general Congress at Philadelphia.—I trust it is obvious to your Lordships, that all attempts to impose servitude on such men, to establish despotism over such a mighty continental nation—must be vain— must be fatal.—We shall be forced ultimately to retract, whilst we can, not when we must. I say we must necessarily undo these violent and oppressive Acts:—they must be repealed—you will repeal them: I pledge myself for it you will in the end repeal them: I stake my reputation on it: I will consent to be taken for an Ideot if they are not finally repealed.—Avoid then this humiliating disgraceful necessity.—With a dig­nity becoming your exalted situation, make the first advances to concord, to peace and happi­ness, for that is your true dignity, to act with prudence and with justice. That you should first concede is obvious from sound and rational policy. Concession comes with better grace and more salutary effect from the superior power. It reconciles superiority of power with the feel­ings of men; and establishes solid confidence in the foundation of affection and gratitude. So thought the wisest Poet and perhaps the wisest man in political sagacity, the friend of Maecenas, and the eulogist of Augustus. To him, the adopted son and successor of the first Caesar, to him, the master of the world, he wisely urged this conduct of prudence and dignity,

[Page 16]EVERY motive therefore of justice and of poli­cy, of dignity and of prudence, urges you to al­lay 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 towards your Colonies. On the other hand, every danger, and every hazard, impend to deter you from perseverance in your present ruinous measures: Foreign war hanging over your heads by a slight 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 Ministers thus persevere in misadvising and misleading the King, I will not say that they can alienate his subjects from his Crown, but I will affirm that they will make the Crown not worth his wearing: I shall not say that the King is betrayed, but I will pronounce that the Kingdom is undone.