Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

late Majesty's reign, which is mentioned in the title of this Bill, wherein are these words; And all and every person or persons so elected, nominated, and appointed, is and are hereby empowered to act and do, in putting this and the said former Act in execution, in as full and ample a manner as any of the trustees named in the said former or this present Act are empowered to act and do.' By which it appears, that these persons have the strongest titles to the rights and privileges granted by that Act; which Act is not repealed by the present Bill, and of which seven years remain yet unexpired.

2ndly, Because the depriving persons of their franchises, which they are in the actual possession of, and enjoy, under the authority of two Acts of Parliament, without the least misdemeanour or complaint suggested against them, seems, in our opinion, too great a deviation from that strict regard which this House has always shown to the property of the subject.

3rdly, Because we look on retrospect laws, in general, as injurious to the persons against whom they are made; but more particularly so in the present case, where a punishment is inflicted without any crime alleged, which we conceive to be without example; we are therefore at a loss to reconcile such a proceeding to the principles of justice or reason, especially as we have heard no argument made use of to support it.

4thly, Because we apprehend a precedent of this nature may be productive of the most fatal consequences, as it tends, in our opinion, to invalidate Parliamentary rights, and may hereafter be equally applied to cases of a higher and more dangerous nature. And if ever that should happen, we do not see what security any subject of these Kingdoms can have for his liberty and property which have been so long the boast of the British Constitution.

Thomas Foley, Lord Foley.

Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury.
Edward Harley, Earl of Oxford and Mortimer.

CCCXXXIV.

NOVEMBER 13, 1755.

In the spring of 1755, George II, very much against the wish of his Administration, left England for Hanover, and immediately afterwards a fleet of English vessels under Boscawen sailed to the St. Lawrence in order to watch a fleet which had just sailed from Brest to America.

There was a collision between these fleets off Newfoundland, and two French vessels were captured. The French ambassador, M. de Mirepoix, was recalled from London, and soon afterwards (the 18th of May, 1756) war was declared against France. During his residence in Hanover, George negotiated a treaty with the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel (the 18th of June, 1755) on the usual terms (Almond's Treaties, vol. ii, p. 154), the object being the defence of Hanover. In the Speech from the Throne, the 13th of November, 1755, the fact of this Treaty was announced to the Houses, and in the address from the Lords, assurances were given to the King that Parliament would assist him in the defence of those Kingdoms, or any other of his dominions, although not belonging to the Crown of Great Britain, in case they should be attacked on account of the part taken by his Majesty for the support of the essential interests of Great Britain.' This sentence was attacked both in the Lords and Commons, in the former by Lord Temple, in the latter by Mr. Samuel Martin. It was on this occasion that Mr. William Gerard Hamilton made the speech which gave him the name of Single Speech. Pitt opposed the Treaty, and lost his place. The motion for omitting the clause was negatived in the Lords without a division, was rejected in the Commons by 311 to 105.

[ocr errors]

The following protest is inserted.

1st, Because the words of the address objected to, pledging the honour of the nation to his Majesty in the defence of his electoral dominions, at this critical conjuncture, and under our present encumbered and perilous circumstances, tend not only to mislead his Majesty into a fallacious and delusive hope that they can be defended at the expense of this country, but seem to be the natural and obvious means of drawing on attacks upon those electoral dominions; thereby kindling a ruinous war upon the continent of Europe, in which it is next to impossible that we can prove successful, and under which Great Britain, and the Electorate itself, may be involved in one common destruction.

2ndly, Because it is, in effect, defeating the intention of that part of the Act of Settlement (the second Great Charter of England), whereby it is enacted, 'That in case the Crown and imperial dignity of this realm shall hereafter come to any person not being a native of this Kingdom of England, the nation be not obliged to engage in any war for the defence of any dominions or territories which do not belong to the Crown of England, without the consent of Parliament.' For if at this juncture, under all the circumstances of our present quarrel with France, to which no other Prince in Europe is a party, and in which we do not call for, nor wish to receive the least assistance from the Electorate of Hanover,

it shall be deemed necessary, in justice and gratitude, for this nation to make the declaration objected to, there never can be a situation, or point of time, when the same reasons may not be pleaded, and subsist in their full force. Nor can Great Britain ever engage in a war with France, in the defence of her most essential interests, her commerce and her colonies, in which she will not be deprived of the most invaluable advantages of situation bestowed upon her, by God and nature, as an island.

3rdly, Because, without any other previous engagement, his Majesty might safely rely upon the known attachment of this House to his sacred person, and upon the generosity of this country, famous and renowned in all times for her humanity and magnanimity, that we would set no other bounds to an object so desirable, but those of absolute necessity and self-preservation, the first and the great law of nature.

Richard Grenville, Earl Temple.

CCCXXXV.

DECEMBER 10, 1755.

On this day, Earl Temple moved, 'That it is the opinion of this House, that the two subsidiary treaties, lately concluded with the Empress of Russia and the Landgrave of Hesse Cassell respectively, tend to involve this nation in an expensive and ruinous war upon the continent, to consume our strength and treasure, and to divert us from the exertion of our utmost efforts for the defence of these Kingdoms, threatened with invasion, and for the recovery and protection of our possessions in America, encroached upon, and actually invaded, by the arms of France.' An important debate followed, the particulars of which are very imperfectly preserved. The treaty with Russia will be found in Almond's Treaties, vol. ii, p. 137. The motion was rejected by 84 to 11, and the following protest was inserted.

Ist, Because though it was urged in the debate of this motion, that the subsidiary treaty with the Empress of Russia had a pacific intention, I apprehend its operation may prove fatally the reverse of so prudential a view, the clauses it contains of free quarter and predatory devastation, rather denouncing hostility, than speaking the equitable and conciliating language of peace.

2ndly, Because in the late war, the troops of the Landgrave of Hesse, levied at the expense of this nation, and duly paid their stipendiary hire, in violation of federal faith, engaged themselves

in the service of the Emperor Charles the Seventh, then in arms against the cause maintained by the British Standard.

3rdly, Because an event may happen, which may make the Protestant Succession in these Kingdoms not the object of the wishes, or considered as the interest of a Landgrave of Hesse.

4thly, Because I am convinced that a proper exertion of our strength on the American continent, and a steady pursuit of the vigorous and laudable conduct of our naval force, will enable us to dictate terms of peace to the Court of Versailles; and as firmly believe that a war upon the European continent must soon reduce us to implore them.

William Talbot, Lord Talbot.

CCCXXXVI.

MARCH 5, 1756.

An Act, enabling the King to grant commissions to a certain number of foreign Protestants who have served abroad as officers or engineers, to act and rank as officers or engineers in America only, under certain restrictions and qualifications, was brought from the Commons, and passed without a division. The Act (29 George II, cap. 5) received the royal assent on the 9th of March. It gives as a reason for employing the service of foreign born settlers in the British plantations in America, that many of the settlers were Quakers, whose backwardness in their own defence exposes them, and that part of America, to imminent danger.' The colonel of each of the four regiments is to be a natural-born subject, the number of officers is not to exceed fifty, of engineers twenty; they are to give certificates to the effect that they have received the Sacrament in some Protestant church, and they are to receive pay when they are reduced.

[ocr errors]

The Act produced the following protest.

6

Ist, Because this Bill, to enable his Majesty to grant military commissions to a certain number of foreigners, is framed in direct opposition to the principle and letter of that provision, in the Act of the 12th of King William the Third, for the further limitation of the Crown, and better securing of the rights and liberties of the subject, which expressly provides that no foreigner, even although he be naturalised, or made a denizen, shall be capable to enjoy any office or place of trust, civil or military;' which provision having since been renewed by the legislature, and the report thereof guarded against by the Act of the 1st of King George the First, as far as a law in one age can prevent the repeal in another, has

to this day been considered and reverenced as an essential and sacred part of our present Constitution.

2ndly, Because none of the allegations in favour of this measure, upon the truth of which alone the expediency or necessity thereof must depend, have been in any degree proved. On the contrary, when facts asserted have been denied, and it has been proposed to go into the enquiry, upon evidence brought from those provinces, where this necessity is supposed to take its rise, all witnesses have been refused, and necessary information precluded. And surely the plea of necessity, alleged in support of this measure (a plea always to be received with suspicion, when urged to introduce a change in a free Constitution) is in the present case not a little extraordinary, as that necessity, if it does exist, can only arise from the present neglected, defenceless, and calamitous state of our American colonies, whose distress and danger have been brought upon them, as we really believe, by the conduct of an Administration, who after having, with an unexampled patience, acquiesced under an uninterrupted course of encroachments from the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle to the year 1754, when actual war broke out (a fort of his Majesty being taken, and his troops attacked and beaten in the meadows), did at last send the small succour of two battalions only, consisting of no more than five hundred men each, under General Braddock, since whose defeat in July last no farther succour of troops has been sent to America.

3rdly, Because we have reason to believe, that if evidence had been admitted, it would have appeared that this Bill, as a scheme for raising an American force, is neither expedient nor necessary; that the granting commissions to foreign officers, strangers to America, and aliens to Great Britain, will retard, and possibly prevent the levies they are pretended to facilitate; and that the granting such commissions from his Majesty, rank in America, and half-pay in Great Britain, to these foreign officers, advantages repeatedly refused to the provincial troops of North America, as well as by a most dangerous innovation giving power to such foreign officers to sit in courts-martial, and though aliens themselves, to judge upon the lives and honour of his Majesty's natural-born subjects, must create an universal disgust there, highly prejudicial to the rights of his Majesty, and to the interests of this country.

4thly, Because the provision in the Bill, which enacts that the

« PreviousContinue »