doubt hear it objected, "Why should we submit | dress. We have injured them; we have enor concede? Has America done any thing on deavored to enslave and oppress them. Upon her part to induce us to agree to so large a this ground, my Lords, instead of chastisement, ground of concession?" I will tell you, my they are entitled to redress. A repeal of those Lords, why I think you should. You have been laws, of which they complain, will be the first the aggressors from the beginning. I shall not step to that redress. The people of America trouble your Lordships with the particulars; look upon Parliament as the authors of their misthey have been stated and enforced by the noble eries; their affections are estranged from their and learned Lord who spoke last but one (Lord sovereign. Let, then, reparation come from the Camden), in a much more able and distinct man- hands that inflicted the injuries; let conciliation ner than I could pretend to state them. If, then, succeed chastisement; and I do maintain, that we are the aggressors, it is your Lordships' bu- Parliament will again recover its authority; that siness to make the first overture. I say again, his Majesty will be once more enthroned in the this country has been the aggressor. You have hearts of his American subjects; and that your made descents upon their coasts; you have burn- Lordships, as contributing to so great, glorious, ed their towns, plundered their country, made salutary, and benignant a work, will receive the war upon the inhabitants, confiscated their prop- prayers and benedictions of every part of the erty, proscribed and imprisoned their persons. British empire. I do therefore affirm, my Lords, that instead of exacting unconditional submission from the colonies, we should grant them unconditional re The motion was lost by a vote of 99 to 28. SPEECH OF LORD CHATHAM ON A MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS TO THE THRONE, AT THE OPENING OF PARLIAMENT, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, NOVEMBER 18, 1777. INTRODUCTION. THIS was Lord Chatham's greatest effort. Though sinking under the weight of years and disease, he seems animated by all the fire of youth. It would, indeed, be difficult to find in the whole range of parliamentary history a more splendid blaze of genius, at once rapid, vigorous, and sublime. SPEECH, &c.' envelop it, and display, in its full danger and true colors, the ruin that is brought to our doors. This, my Lords, is our duty. It is the proper I RISE, my Lords, to declare my sentiments on | this most solemn and serious subject. It has imposed a load upon my mind, which, I fear, nothing can remove, but which impels me to en-function of this noble assembly, sitting, as we do, deavor its alleviation, by a free and unreserved communication of my sentiments. upon our honors in this House, the hereditary council of the Crown. Who is the ministerIn the first part of the address, I have the where is the minister, that has dared to suggest honor of heartily concurring with the noble Earl to the Throne the contrary, unconstitutional lanwho moved it. No man feels sincerer joy than guage this day delivered from it? The accusI do; none can offer more genuine congratula- tomed language from the Throne has been aptions on every accession of strength to the Prot-plication to Parliament for advice, and a reliance estant succession. I therefore join in every con- on its constitutional advice and assistance. As gratulation on the birth of another princess, and it is the right of Parliament to give, so it is the the happy recovery of her Majesty. duty of the Crown to ask it. But on this day, and in this extreme momentous exigency, no reliance is reposed on our constitutional counsels! no advice is asked from the sober and enlightened care of Parliament! but the Crown, from itself and by itself, declares an unalterable determination to pursue measures—and what measures, my Lords? The measures that have produced the imminent perils that threaten us; the measures that have brought ruin to our doors. But I must stop here. My courtly complaisance will carry me no farther. I will not join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. I can not concur in a blind and servile address, which approves, and endeavors to sanctify the monstrous measures which have heaped disgrace and misfortune upon us. This, my Lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment! It is not a time for adulation. The smoothness of flattery can not now avail-can not save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the Throne in the language of truth. We must dispel the illusion and the darkness which 1 This was reported by Hugh Boyd, and is said to have been corrected by Lord Chatham himself. Can the minister of the day now presume to expect a continuance of support in this ruinous infatuation? Can Parliament be so dead to its dignity and its duty as to be thus deluded into the loss of the one and the violation of the other? To give an unlimited credit and support for the steady perseverance in measures not proposed for our parliamentary advice, but dictated and forced upon us-in measures, I say, my Lords, which have reduced this late flourishing empire to ruin and contempt! "But yesterday, and England might have stood against the world: now none so poor to do her reverence."2 I use the words of a poet; but, though it be poetry, it is no fiction. It is a shameful truth, that not only the power and strength of this country are wasting away and expiring, but her well-earned glories, her true honor, and substantial dignity are sacrificed. to rescue the ear of majesty from the delusions which surround it. The desperate state of our arms abroad is in part known. No man thinks more highly of them than I do. I love and honor the English troops. I know their virtues and their valor. I know they can achieve any thing except impossibilities; and I know that the conquest of English America is an impossibility. You can not, I venture to say it, you can not conquer America. Your armies last war effected every thing that could be effected; and what was it? It cost a numerous army, under the command of a most able general [Lord Amherst], now a noble Lord in this House, a long and laborious campaign, to expel five thousand Frenchmen from French America. My Lords, you can not conquer America. What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst; but we know that in three campaigns we have done nothing and suffered much. Besides the sufferings, perhaps total loss of the Northern force, the best appointed army that ever took the field, commanded by Sir William Howe, has retired from the American lines. He was obliged to relinquish his attempt, and with great delay and danger to adopt a new and distant plan of France, my Lords, has insulted you; she has encouraged and sustained America; and, whether America be wrong or right, the dignity of this country ought to spurn at the officious insult of French interference. The ministers and embassadors of those who are called rebels and enemies are in Paris; in Paris they transact the reciprocal interests of America and France. Can there be a more mortifying insult? Can even our ministers sustain a more humiliating disgrace? Do they dare to resent it? Do they presume even to hint a vindication of their honor, and the dignity of the state, by requiring the dismission of the plenipotentiaries of America? Such is the degradation to which they have re-operations. We shall soon know, and in any duced the glories of England! The people whom they affect to call contemptible rebels, but whose growing power has at last obtained the name of enemies; the people with whom they have engaged this country in war, and against whom they now command our implicit support in every measure of desperate hostilitythis people, despised as rebels, or acknowledged as enemies, are abetted against you, supplied with every military store, their interests consulted, and their embassadors entertained, by your inveterate enemy! and our ministers dare not interpose with dignity or effect. Is this the honor of a great kingdom? Is this the indignant spirit of England, who "but yesterday" gave law to the house of Bourbon ? My Lords, the dignity of nations demands a decisive conduct in a situation like this. Even when the greatest prince that perhaps this country ever saw, filled our throne, the requisition of a Spanish general, on a similar subject, was attended to, and complied with; for, on the spirited remonstrance of the Duke of Alva, Elizabeth found herself obliged to deny the Flemish exiles all countenance, support, or even entrance into her dominions; and the Count Le Marque, with his few desperate followers, were expelled the kingdom. Happening to arrive at the Brille, and finding it weak in defense, they made themselves masters of the place; and this was the foundation of the United Provinces. My Lords, this ruinous and ignominious situation, where we can not act with success, nor suffer with honor, calls upon us to remonstrate in the strongest and loudest language of truth, 2 "But yesterday the word of Cesar might event have reason to lament, what may have Your own army is infected with the contagion of these illiberal allies. The spirit of plunder and of rapine is gone forth among them. I know it; and, notwithstanding what the noble Earl [Lord Percy] who moved the address has given as his opinion of the American army, I know from authentic information, and the most experienced officers, that our discipline is deeply wounded. While this is notoriously our sinking situation, America grows and flourishes; while our strength and discipline are lowered, hers are rising and improving. But, my Lords, who is the man that, in addition to these disgraces and mischiefs of our army, has dared to authorize and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the savage? to call into civilized alliance the wild and inhuman savage of the woods; to delegate to the merciless Indian the defense of disputed rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war General Burgoyne's army. This was the established sentiment of all the Continent; and still, my Lords, in the great and principal part, the sound part of America, this wise and affectionate disposition prevails. And there is a very considerable part of America yet sound-the middle aud the southern provinces. Some parts may be factious and blind to their true interests; but if we express a wise and benevolent disposition to commuuicate with them those immutable rights of nature and those constitutional liberties to which they are equally entitled with ourselves, by a conduct so just and humane we shall confirm the favorable and conciliate the adverse. I say, my Lords, the rights and liberties to which they are equally entitled with ourselves, but no more. I would partici against our brethren? My Lords, these enor- | and mutual interest that united both countries. mities cry aloud for redress and punishment. Unless thoroughly done away, it will be a stain on the national character. It is a violation of the Constitution. I believe it is against law. It is not the least of our national misfortunes that the strength and character of our army are thus impaired. Infected with the mercenary spirit of robbery and rapine; familiarized to the horrid scenes of savage cruelty, it can no longer boast of the noble and generous principles which dignify a soldier; no longer sympathize with the dignity of the royal banner, nor feel the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war, "that make ambition virtue !" What makes ambition virtue ?-the sense of honor. But is the sense of honor consistent with a spirit of plunder, or the practice of murder? Can it flow from mer-pate to them every enjoyment and freedom which cenary motives, or can it prompt to cruel deeds? Besides these murderers and plunderers, let me ask our ministers, What other allies have they acquired? What other powers have they associated to their cause? Have they entered into alliance with the king of the gipsies? Nothing, my Lords, is too low or too ludicrous to be consistent with their counsels. the colonizing subjects of a free state can possess, or wish to possess; and I do not see why they should not enjoy every fundamental right in their property, and every original substantial liberty, which Devonshire, or Surrey, or the county I live in, or any other county in England, can claim; reserving always, as the sacred right of the mother country, the due constitutional dependency of the colonies. The inherent suprem[acy of the state in regulating and protecting the navigation and commerce of all her subjects, is necessary for the mutual benefit and preservation of every part, to constitute and preserve the prosperous arrangement of the whole empire. The sound parts of America, of which I have spoken, must be sensible of these great truths and of their real interests. America is not in that state of desperate and contemptible rebellion which this country has been deluded to be four or five thousand pounds a year; and when I consider these things, I can not but lament the inconsiderate violence of our penal acts, our declarations of treason and rebellion, with all the fatal effects of attainder and confiscation. The independent views of America have been stated and asserted as the foundation of this address. My Lords, no man wishes for the due dependence of America on this country more than I do. To preserve it, and not confirm that state of independence into which your measures hitherto have driven them, is the object which we ought to unite in attaining. The Americans, contending for their rights against arbitrary exactions, I love and admire. It is the struggle of free and virtuous patriots. But, contending for independency and total disconnection from En-lieve. It is not a wild and lawless banditti, who, gland, as an Englishman, I can not wish them having nothing to lose, might hope to snatch success; for in a due constitutional depend- something from public convulsions. Many of ency, including the ancient supremacy of this their leaders and great men have a great stake country in regulating their commerce and navi- in this great contest. The gentleman who congation, consists the mutual happiness and pros-ducts their armies, I am told, has an estate of perity both of England and America. She derived assistance and protection from us; and we reaped from her the most important advantages. She was, indeed, the fountain of our wealth, the nerve of our strength, the nursery and basis of our naval power. It is our duty, therefore, my Lords, if we wish to save our country, most seriously to endeavor the recovery of these most beneficial subjects; and in this perilous crisis, perhaps the present moment may be the only one in which we can hope for success. For in their negotiations with France, they have, or think they have, reason to complain; though it be notorious that they have received from that power important supplies and assistance of various kinds, yet it is certain they expected it in a more decisive and immediate degree. Amer-arations of the house of Bourbon, by land and by ica is in ill humor with France; on some points they have not entirely answered her expectations. Let us wisely take advantage of every possible moment of reconciliation. Besides, the natural disposition of America herself still leans toward England; to the old habits of connection As to the disposition of foreign powers which is asserted [in the King's speech] to be pacific and friendly, let us judge, my Lords, rather by their actions and the nature of things than by interested assertions. The uniform assistance supplied to America by France, suggests a different conclusion. The most important interests of France in aggrandizing and enriching herself with what she most wants, supplies of every naval store from America, must inspire her with different sentiments. The extraordinary prep sea, from Dunkirk to the Straits, equally ready and willing to overwhelm these defenseless islands, should rouse us to a sense of their real disposition and our own danger. Not five thousand troops in England! hardly three thousand in Ireland! What can we oppose to the com Is it possible, can it be believed, that ministers are yet blind to this impending destruction? I did hope, that instead of this false and empty vanity, this overweening pride, engendering high conceits and presumptuous imaginations, ministers would have humbled themselves in their errors, would have confessed and retracted them, and by an active, though a late repentance, have bined force of our enemies? Scarcely twenty | final ruin. We madly rush into multiplied misships of the line so fully or sufficiently manned, eries, and "confusion worse confounded." that any admiral's reputation would permit him to take the command of. The river of Lisbon in the possession of our enemies! The seas swept by American privateers! Our Channel trade torn to pieces by them! In this complicated crisis of danger, weakness at home, and calamity abroad, terrified and insulted by the neighboring powers, unable to act in America, or acting only to be destroyed, where is the man with the fore-endeavored to redeem them. But, my Lords, head to promise or hope for success in such a situation, or from perseverance in the measures that have driven us to it? Who has the forehead to do so? Where is that man? I should be glad to see his face. You can not conciliate America by your present measures. You can not subdue her by your present or by any measures. What, then, can you do? You can not conquer; you can not gain; but you can address; you can lull the fears and anxieties of the moment into an ignorance of the danger that should produce them. But, my Lords, the time demands the language of truth. We must not now apply the flattering unction of servile compliance or blind complaisance. In a just and necessary war, to maintain the rights or honor of my country, I would strip the shirt from my back to support it. But in such a war as this, unjust in its principle, impracticable in its means, and ruinous in its consequences, I would not contribute a single effort nor a single shilling. I do not call for vengeance on the heads of those who have been guilty; I only recommend to them to make their retreat. Let them walk off; and let them make haste, or they may be assured that speedy and condign punishment will overtake them. since they had neither sagacity to foresee, nor My Lords, I have submitted to you, with the freedom and truth which I think my duty, my sentiments on your present awful situation. I have laid before you the ruin of your power, the disgrace of your reputation, the pollution of your discipline, the contamination of your morals, the complication of calamities, foreign and domestic, that overwhelm your sinking country. Your dearest interests, your own liberties, the Constitution itself, totters to the foundation. All this disgraceful danger, this multitude of misery, is the monstrous offspring of this unnatural war. We have been deceived and deluded too long. Let us now stop short. This is the crisis-the only crisis of time and situation, to give us a possibility of escape from the fatal effects of our delusions. But if, in an obstinate and infatuated perseverance in folly, we slavishly echo the per-ever-a consummation most devoutly to be enemptory words this day presented to us, nothing can save this devoted country from complete and It can not have escaped observation, says Chapman, with what urgent anxiety the noble speaker has pressed this point throughout his speech; the critical necessity of instantly treating with America. But the warning voice was heard in vain; the address triumphed; Parliament adjourned; ministers enjoyed the festive recess of a long Christmas; and America ratified her alliance with France. My Lords, to encourage and confirm that innate inclination to this country, founded on every principle of affection, as well as consideration of interest; to restore that favorable disposition into a permanent and powerful reunion with this country; to revive the mutual strength of the empire; again to awe the house of Bourbon, instead of meanly truckling, as our present calamities compel us, to every insult of French caprice and Spanish punctilio; to re-establish our commerce; to reassert our rights and our honor; to confirm our interests, and renew our glories for deavored! and which, I trust, may yet arise from reconciliation with America-I have the honor of submitting to you the following amendment, which I move to be inserted after the two first paragraphs of the address : "And that this House does most humbly advise and supplicate his Majesty to be pleased to cause the most speedy and effectual measures to be taken for restoring peace in America; and that no time may be lost in proposing an imme diate cessation of hostilities there, in order to the opening of a treaty for the final settlement of the tranquillity of these invaluable provinces, by a removal of the unhappy causes of this ruinous civil war, and by a just and adequate security against the return of the like calamities in times to come. And this House desire to offer the most dutiful assurances to his Majesty, that they will, in due time, cheerfully co-operate with the magnanimity and tender goodness of his Majesty for the preservation of his people, by such explicit and most solemn declarations, and provisions of fundamental and irrevocable laws, as may be judged necessary for the ascertaining and fixing forever the respective rights of Great Britain and her colonies." [In the course of this debate, Lord Suffolk, secretary for the northern department, undertook to defend the employment of the Indians in the war. His Lordship contended that, besides its policy and necessity, the measure was also allowable on principle; for that "it was perfectly justifiable to use all the means that God and nature put into our hands!"] I am astonished! (exclaimed Lord Chatham, as he rose), shocked! to hear such principles confessed to hear them avowed in this House, | or in this country; principles equally unconstitutional, inhuman, and unchristian! of their lawn; upon the learned Judges, to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollution. I call upon the honor of your Lordships, to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country, to vindicate the national character. I invoke the genius of the Constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestor of this noble Lord frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country. In vain he led your victorious fleets against the boasted Armada of Spain; in vain he defended and established the honor, the liberties, the religion-the Protestant religion-of this country, against the arbitrary cruelties of popery and the Inquisition, if these more than popish cruelties and inquisitorial practices are let loose among us-to turn forth into our settlements, among our ancient connections, friends, and relations, the merciless cannibal, thirsting for the blood of man, woman, and child! to send forth the infidel savage-against whom? against your Protestant brethren; to lay waste their country, to desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race and name with these horrible hell-hounds of savage war-hell-hounds, I say, of savage war! Spain armed herself with blood-hounds to extirpate the wretched natives of America, and we improve on the inhuman example even of Spanish cruelty; we turn loose these savage hell-hounds against our brethren and countrymen in America, of the same language, laws, liberties, and religion, endeared to us by every tie that should sanctify humanity. My Lords, I did not intend to have encroached again upon your attention, but I can not repress my indignation. I feel myself impelled by every duty. My Lords, we are called upon as members of this House, as men, as Christian men, to protest against such notions standing My Lords, this awful subject, so important to near the Throne, polluting the ear of Majesty. our honor, our Constitution, and our religion, That God and nature put into our hands!" I demands the most solemn and effectual inquiry. know not what ideas that Lord may entertain of And I again call upon your Lordships, and the God and nature, but I know that such abom-united powers of the state, to examine it thorinable principles are equally abhorrent to relig- oughly and decisively, and to stamp upon it an ion and humanity. What! to attribute the sa- indelible stigma of the public abhorrence. And cred sanction of God and nature to the massa- I again implore those holy prelates of our religcres of the Indian scalping-knife-to the canni-ion to do away these iniquities from among us. bal savage torturing, murdering, roasting, and eating-literally, my Lords, eating the mangled victims of his barbarous battles! Such horrible notions shock every precept of religion, divine or natural, and every generous feeling of humanity. And, my Lords, they shock every sentiment of honor; they shock me as a lover of honorable war, and a detester of murderous barbarity. These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that right reverend bench, those holy ministers of the Gospel, and pious pastors of our Church-I conjure them to join in the holy work, and vindicate the religion of their God. I appeal to the wisdom and the law of this learned bench, to defend and support the justice of their country. I call upon the Bishops, to interpose the unsullied sanctity Let them perform a lustration; let them purify this House, and this country, from this sin. My Lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more; but my feelings and indignation were too strong to have said less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor reposed my head on my pillow, without giving this vent to my eternal abhorrence of such preposterous and enormous principles. This speech had no effect. The amendment was rejected by a vote of 97 to 24. 5 The tapestry of the House of Lords represented the English fleet led by the ship of the lord admiral, Effingham Howard (ancestor of Suffolk), to engage the Spanish Armada. |