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 this or that act of Parliament; it is not repealing a piece of parchment that can reftore America. to your bofom; you must 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 I repeat it, my Lords, we fhall one day be forced to undo these violent oppreffive acts; they muft be repealed, you will repeal them; I pledge myfelf for it, that you will in the end repeal them; I ftake my reputation on it; I will confent to be taken for an IDEOT if they are not repealed. Avoid then this humiliating 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

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 mifadvifing 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 seconded and fupported 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. by what ftatute refiftance to tyranny could be juftified his reply was, It is to be juftified 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 Philosopher, 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 whenever oppreffion begins, refiftance becomes lawful and right."

When the famous Selden was afked,

The language of the Lords in Adminiftration 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 disdain, "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 result 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 Houfe from the Merchants of London,

Bristol,

Bristol, Glasgow, &c. which, by an artific echaracteristic of the prefent Miniftry, were, on a divifion of 197 to 81 Members, configned to a separate Committee, to meet on the 27th of January, fo that the House must neceffarily come to a final decifion on the grand queftion 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 Ministry justified this procedure was, that commerce and politics were matters totally diftinct, and that the House must decide on the queftion of peace and war folely upon political confiderations; but that due care would be taken to fecure the commercial interests and property of the Merchants whofe petitions were before the Houfe. To which the petitioners replied," that they were under no apprehenfions for their property, but from the meafures which might be adopted by that Honorable House in order to fecure it." The petition from the Congress to the King having been referred by his Majefty, amidft the common mass of American Papers, to the House, the American Agents, Mr. Bollan, Dr. Franklin, and Mr. Lee, petitioned the House to be heard at the bar in its fupport. But the Ministers alleged, that the Congress was no legal body; and to hear evidence on the subject of their petition, would be giving that illegal body fome degree of countenance :-that with respect to

the pretended grievances alleged in the petition, the House could hear the Colonies only through their legal Affemblies, and their Agents properly authorized; and that any deviations from this rule would destroy the whole order of Colony Government." To this the Oppofition replied," that the order of Colony Government was deftroyed already in fome places by Act of Parliament; in others by diffolution of Affemblies by Governors; and in others by popular violence-that the question was now, how to restore it. That the Congress was furely an Affembly fufficiently legal for the purpofe 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 conftantly rejecting petitions would infallibly end in univerfal revolt: and indeed a refufal to hear complaints feemed plainly to amount to an abdication of government."-Thefe reafonings 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 subjects to deftruction'unheard, and to carry fire and fword into the moft 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