station, and glow with zeal to fill our places as becomes our situation and ourselves, we ought to auspicate all our public proceedings on America with the old warning of the church, Sursum corda! We ought to elevate our 5 minds to the greatness of that trust to which the order of providence has called us. By adverting to the dignity of this high calling our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire, and have made the most extensive and the only honorable conquests -not 10 by destroying, but by promoting the wealth, the number, the happiness, of the human race. Let us get an American revenue as we have got an American empire. English privileges have made it all that it is; English privileges alone will make it all it can be.

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In full confidence of this unalterable truth, I now, quod felix faustumque sit, lay the first stone of the Temple of Peace; and I move you

"That the Colonies and Plantations of Great Britain in North America, consisting of fourteen separate governments, and containing two millions and upwards of free inhabitants, have not had the liberty and privilege of electing and sending any Knights and Burgesses, or others, to represent them in the High Court of Parliament."

NOTES.

At the opening of the year 1775 the harsh treatment which the Colonies were receiving from England had forced them to combine for mutual support against further aggression. The Continental Congress had already assembled. Lexington and Bunker Hill were not far off. It was becoming a matter of grave importance to the English government to break up this formidable union, and to bring the Colonies once more to deal separately and singly with England. At this juncture Lord North, the Prime Minister, unexpectedly announced what he was pleased to term a measure for "conciliating the differences with America." He proposed to exempt from further taxation any Colony which, after providing for the maintenance of its own government, should guarantee to the mother-country an amount satisfactory to her as being, according to the condition, circumstances, and situation of such Colony," its proportionate contribution toward the common defence. This transparent scheme deceived no one, - it was really a plan to divide and conquer. To the friends of the Colonies, however, it was no small thing that the Ministry, after a long policy of coercion, should not merely accept, but of its own accord announce, the principle of conciliation. Burke seized the opportunity to propose conciliation which might really be effective.

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PAGE 1, 1. the austerity of the Chair means, of course, "the dignity and seriousness of this assembly." The parliamentary fiction which regards not merely the dignity, but the personality, of the House as embodied in its Speaker, is an old-time device to banish from public deliberations the fierceness and the confusion of personal encounters. To it we owe our common rule of debate that all remarks must be addressed to the Chair, and that no mention be made by name of any person in the assembly. This rule was, no doubt, more rigidly observed in Burke's day than it is at present. But the literalness with which Burke at times carries out the fiction,

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though meant as pleasantry, has a strong dash of the grotesque; as it has here in his ascription to the Chair of the actual moods and temper of the members, and again on p. 9, 1. 3, 4, where with doubtful compliment he speaks of "a blunter discernment than yours." In a like vein is his disparagement here of his own perfectly natural and worthy feeling as "frailty" and "superstition." Burke's weighty genius is not always at its best in toying with trifles.

8. the grand penal bill was a measure of Lord North's, cutting off the New England colonies from all trade except with the mother country and her dependencies, and, worst of all, putting a stop to the fisheries, one of their most successful and important industries. See pp. 14-16. The Lords returned the bill with a savage amendment making it apply to all the American Colonies. The amendment was afterwards withdrawn.

18-19. America.

our American Government means our government of

PAGE 2, 5, 7. awful, i.e., awe-inspiring. The time referred to was at the beginning of 1766. Long before this date, however, Burke had discerned the gravity of the Colonial question and had with characteristic energy set himself to master it, as is shown by his Account of European Settlements in America, published in 1757.

25, 26. The occasion was a memorable one -the repeal of the Stamp Act under Lord Rockingham's Ministry, March 18, 1766. The strength and sharpness of the impression made upon Burke are attested by a striking passage in his speech upon American Taxation, wherein, after sketching the situation within the House on that night and the bearing of the great leaders there, he goes on to tell how, outside the walls of the chamber, " the whole trading interest of this Empire, crammed into your lobbies, with a trembling and anxious expectation waited, almost to a winter's return of light, their fate from your resolutions"; and how, when the result was announced, "from the whole of that grave multitude there arose an involuntary burst of gratitude and transport."

34-35. objects—matters that it was dealing with. this interval, sc. since the repeal of the Stamp Act. Instead of their as the pronoun of reference to Parliament in line 36 and at the top of the next page, we should now use its.

PAGE 3, 15-17. This was a Mr. Rose Fuller, now in the Opposition along with Burke. During the previous session it was his proposition to repeal the Tea Tax which furnished the occasion of Burke's famous speech upon American Taxation, referred to in the last note. The pronouns of the first person used throughout this paragraph apply not to Parliament, but to the Opposition party to which Burke and his friend belonged.

PAGE 4, 12-19. Upon the Ministry and its supporters, Burke means to say, rests the responsibility for devising schemes for carrying on government. Schemes proposed by the Opposition are not merely sure to receive no fair consideration from the triumphant majority, but are apt thereby to be discredited in advance, and ruined for future usefulness. The scruple is thoroughly characteristic of Burke, as are also the considerations which induced him to set it aside.

PAGE 5, 6-7. you - the Speaker as the embodiment of the House. PAGE 6, 9-14. the project has been outlined above in the Introductory Note to this speech. The impossibility of assigning any definite values to the factors which were to determine the proportionate share of each Colony, as well as the cool irony of talking about proportion at all, when the real object was in each case to extort the largest sum possible, strongly roused Burke. His imagination at once pictures the scenes Parliament is likely to witness in attempting to carry out such a scheme, and he sarcastically figures these as the splendors and sensations of a new entertainment provided by the Ministry. The noble lord was Frederick North, Prime Minister from 1770 till 1782, and largely responsible for the separation of the Colonies from England. He was at this time "lord" only by courtesy of speech. He did not come into his earldom until his father's death in 1790. Sons and younger brothers of peers, though commonly styled lords, are only commoners in fact, and as such are eligible to the lower house, where they often seek a career. A notable example in our own day is Lord Randolph Churchill. The blue ribbon is the badge of the famous Order of the Garter, a decoration rarely conferred upon commoners, and therefore often mentioned by Burke in his parliamentary designation of this Prime Minister to whom he was so long opposed.

Colony agents. In default of any regular channel through which a colony could make its condition and its needs known to Parliament, the practice was to secure the services of some member of Parliament to act as agent for the colony, and to look after its interests in the general legislation. Burke himself was such an agent for New York. A fuller recognition is now accorded the colonies of England, in the addition to the Ministry of a special Secretary of State for the Colonies. But the Agents-General are still maintained. the interposition of your mace. When the ordinary call for order is ineffective to quell disturbance in the House, the Sergeant-at-Arms, at the Speaker's direction, takes up the mace from the table where it lies, and with it confronts the disorderly members. Before this symbol of the majesty of the House, they are expected to quail and sink into their seats. There is in the Speaker's power but one last resource more dreaded than this, and that is to name "the disorderly

member.

25, 26. For the Address see Note on the English Constitution, page 322. Its menacing front in this case was the declaration of a state of rebellion in Massachusetts, and a call for immediate action to suppress it. One of the heavy bills of pains and penalties was that referred to in the opening sentences of this speech as “the grand penal bill." See note, p. 1, 1. 8.

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PAGE 8, 2. object here and later in this discussion is not the end in view" but "the thing we are dealing with," i.e., the Colonies. PAGE 9, 5-12. An occasional system here means a policy which lacks the guidance of far-reaching principles, and so contents itself with makeshifts to meet new occasions or emergencies as they arise a policy of shifts. minima cf. the legal maxim, de minimis non curat lex - with mere trifles the law does not concern itself.

22. That is, "the subject of their commerce has been treated," etc. The gentleman was a Mr. Glover, who presented a petition from the West India planters praying that peace might be made with the American Colonies. His literary reputation, complimented here, is now quite forgotten. The bar is a movable barrier or rail in the main aisle, beyond which none but officers and members are allowed to pass. All other persons, if permitted to address the House, must do so standing outside this barrier.