John Lane, the large debt due from the provinces of New England; and that if the fisheries should be stopped, how little is to be expected from their other means of remittance when compared to the demands on them, from this country. By Watson, Higginson, and Jenkins, the impracticability of carrying on these fisheries to an equal extent and advantage from Great Britain; and how dangerous it will be to divert out of its usual channel, a certain trade, the advantages of which centre in this kingdom.-From all these combined circumstances, I am led to believe, that this honourable Committee will see the impropriety of passing the fishery Bill into a law; and I trust will be convinced that the merchants and traders of the city of London do not trouble this House with petitions, but when the necessity of the case absolutely requires it, and that their anxiety to be heard at this bar, before measures are adopted, proceeds from the belief, that they have it in their power, to give such information as may enable the honourable House, consistent with its wisdom, its justice, and its dignity, to adopt measures the most advantageous to the landed and commercial interest of the whole British empire.

After this, the Speaker resumed the chair. Sir C. Whitworth reported from the Committee, that they had heard the petitioners the merchants, traders, and others, of the city of London, interested in the American commerce, in support of their petition, by their agent: and had made a progress in the Bill; and asked leave to sit again.

March 6. On the motion that the Bill be engrossed,

Lord Howe expatiated on the necessity of the measure, as the only moderate means of bringing the disobedient provinces to a sense of their duty, without involving the empire in all the horrors of a civil war. Mr. Charles Fox said, that this Bill must have been calculated to put an end to all that remained of the legislative authority of Great Britain over America. That it must be intended to shew to the colonies that there was no one branch of supreme authority, which parliament might not abuse in such a manner, as to render it reasonable to deny, and necessary to resist it. To prove this he went through the history of the several steps, by which the authority of parliament was denied, by having been abused. At first, said he, the [VOL. XVIII.]

Americans being pressed by parliament's not chusing to leave them their old privilege, whether that privilege was by law, custom, or mere indulgence, of taxing themselves internally, they denied only our right of internal taxation. However, it was soon proved to them, by argument and practice, that an external tax could be made to answer all the purposes, and to produce all the mischiefs, of internal taxation. They then denied the right of taxing for supply. Parliament next proceeded violently to deprive them of their charters, and to make them other acts relative to their trials; then they de nied your power of internal legislation. But still in the midst of all their violence and all their provocation to it, they never hitherto have formally rejected the power of parliament to bind their trade. But the British legislature is now to convince the Americans, that if but a single branch of legislative power is left to this country, we can make that single power answer all the purposes of a power to tax. This Bill, which is to restrain their commerce until they submit, until they cease to resist our taxing authority, and indeed, whatever else is thought fit to be imposed on them, will convince, he said, the Americans, that this power, thus used, may be made by far the most oppressive, and worse than any of those they had hitherto denied. He was quite satisfied, that the Bill was meant for nothing else but to exasperate the colonies into open and direct rebellion. Hitherto rebellion was only asserted, and that ambiguously, of one colony. It would from this Bill probably become apparent, and universal in all; and thus give an opportunity for drawing the sword, and throwing away the scabbard. He indeed acquitted the ministry of a design of raising a rebellion for the mere purpose of havoc and destruction. But said, that as by their injudicious measures they had brought the colonies into a state of the greatest disobedience, disorder, and confusion, without being at the same time within the legal description of rebellion, this was a state of things full of the greatest difficulties, and in which it required the utmost nicety to conduct government. But when things were brought to the length of rebellion, the course of proceeding, however desperate, was simple and obvious. And now, as by this Act all means of acquiring a livelihood, or of receiving provisions were cut off, no other alternative was left, but starving or rebellion.

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Mr. Jenkinson drew a very different inference from the fact of the progressive detail of the several parts of our legislative authority in America. That fact, so strongly stated by Mr. Fox, shewed clearly that the colonists aimed at a rebellious independence from the beginning; for having at first only denied our right of internal taxation, when that right was modelled to their own pretences, they quarrelled just as violently with this mode as with the former. Afterwards, when their multiplied disorders had made internal regulations necessary, they denied the power of making these regulations. They first provoked penalties by their disobedience, and then denied the right of the power which had been put under a necessity of inflicting those penalties. The reasons, he said, alleged in censure of the acts of legislature, were in reality their strongest justifi'cation and best panegyrics. He thought therefore this Act to be in every respect just, and considering the offence of those who are the object of it, merciful.

Mr. T. Townshend urged the cruelty and injustice of an Act which made no discrimination between innocence and guilt, which starved all alike, and which had a tendency to fix an eternal hatred of this country and its legislature in the minds of the Americans. With regard to the original provocation stated to have produced the penalties, he denied the fact; but asserted, on the contrary, that our violating their privileges, or grossly shocking their old respectable prejudices, first produced the disobedience, and then the disobe. dience was punished by the most cruel and unnatural acts.

The Solicitor General of Scotland* said, the Act had his most hearty approbation. That it was just, because provoked by the most criminal disobedience: it was merciful, because that disobedience would have justified the severest military execution. This measure was not sanguinary: and as to the famine which was so pathetically lamented, he was afraid it would not be produced by this Act. That though prevented from fishing in the sea, the New Englanders had fish in their rivers, to which this Act did not prevent them from resorting; and that though he understood their country was not fit for grain, yet they had a grain of their own, Indian corn, on which they might subsist full as well as

Mr. Henry Dundas, created viscount Melville in 1802.

they deserved; but whether they might so subsist or not, was no part of his consideration. He looked on the Act as coercive, and that the coercion which put the speediest end to the dispute, was certainly the most effectual. That when it was said no alternative was left to the New Englanders but to starve or rebel, this was not the fact, for there was another way, to submit. He wished, however, that some test to discriminate the innocent from the guilty had been adopted. That this test, notwithstanding it had been originally stated as part of the plan by lord North, had been dropped by his lordship. That it might serve to introduce a rule of obedience for all, and might prevent the inno cent from being involved with the guilty in a common punishment. But the Act was on the whole so right, and he approved and admired it so much, that he could not quarrel with it for this defect.-As to what had been apprehended from the loss to the merchants of Old England, by disabling those of the New to pay their debts, he said, that when the colonists had submitted, they might then resume their fisheries and their trade, and thus be enabled to pay their debts. In the mean time, that part of the capital stock of England, which was now employed in carrying on the fisheries of New England, would be employed in carrying on our own, and thus our merchants could suffer no loss a whatsoever. This was as clear as any demonstration of Euclid.

Lord John Cavendish was shocked with the perfect ease and alacrity with which they voted famine to a whole people; and he was in particular surprised at the ideas of clemency, entertained by the learned gentleman who spoke last. He commended this measure, because it was not sanguinary; but to kill by starving, was not cruelty; and provided a man's blood was not shed, he might be destroyed with great gentleness-in any other way whatsoever. This Act he considered as alienating the Americans for ever, and rendering use less any possible plan of reconciliation.

Mr. Rice did not adopt this proposition but with the greatest pain and reluctance. He knew it was harsh; but that harsh measures were unfortunately necessary. He was satisfied from a careful comparison of all the parts of the proceedings of the Americans with each other, that independency was their object; that they intended to throw off the commercial restric tions, as well as the taxes: on which latter point he was as much inclined to relax as

any other gentleman, if he could be tolerably assured that such relaxation would not be introductory to a further, and a worse opposition on their parts. He thought he saw, by the obstinate conduct of Boston in holding out so long, and under such inconveniences, that their designs were very deep; and he was convinced that the satisfaction to custom-house officers, required as a condition of pardon by the Act which shut up their port, was their principal reason for this stubborn opposition. And this pointed clearly to the true object of their resistance.

Mr. Edmund Burke was afraid any debate on this subject was to little purpose. When this parliament, originally disengaged to any system, and free to chuse among all, had, previous to any examination whatsoever, begun by adopting the proceedings of the last, the whole line of our public conduct was then determined. [Here the majority raised a great cry of approbation.] He said the cry was natural, and the inference from what he had said just; that the road by penitence to amendment was, he knew, humiliating and difficult; and that the greater part of mankind were disposed like Macbeth to think "I am in blood

"Stept in so far, that, should I wade no more “Returning were as tedious as go o'er;" and thus they pass towards the further bank, be the channel ever so wide, or the flood ever so deep and rapid. That as this measure was in the same spirit as all the former, he did not doubt but that it would be productive of the very same consequence.

That this was, in effect, the Boston Port Bill, but upon infinitely a larger scale. That evil principles are prolific; this Boston Port Bill begot this New England Bill; this New England Bill will beget a Virginia Bill; again a Carolina Bill, and that will beget a Pennsylvania Bill: till one by one parliament will ruin all its colonies, and root up all its commerce; until the statute book becomes nothing but a black and bloody roll of proscriptions, a frightful code of rigour and tyranny, a monstrous digest of Acts of penalty, incapacity, and general attainder; and that, open it where you will, you will find a title for destroying some trade, or ruining some province.

That the scheme of parliament was new and unheard of in any civilized nation, "to preserve your authority by destroying your dominions." It was rather the idea of hostility between independent states,

where one not being able to conquer another, thinks to reduce its strength gradually, by destroying its trade and cutting off its resources. That this mode was never used by princes towards their subjects in rebellion; the maxim in such cases always was, to cut off the rebels but to spare the country, because its strength is the strength of the sovereign himself. Here the principle was reversed; the force used against the rebels was trifling (though very expensive) but the trade, which was the wealth of the country, was to be de stroyed.

He then entered into the difference of expence, and the loss between the two modes; and proved, in detail, that these Bills would, in all probability, cost the nation more than the maintenance of an army of 40,000 men. That when things were come to violences he thought the sword much the most effectual, and though severe, not so unjust as these universal proscriptions, because it would fall only on those who resisted. But this Act confounded all kinds of people, all sexes, all ages, in one common ruin. That nothing could be at once more foolish, more cruel, and more insulting, than to hold out, as a resource to the starving fishermen, ship-builders, and the infinite number of other mechanics employed in trade and fishery, and ruined by this Act, that after the plenty of the ocean, they may poke in the brooks, and rake in the puddles of their respective countries, and diet on what we considered as husks and draft for hogs.

It was, he said, foolish and insulting; because, when you deprive a man of his trade and occupation, you deprive him of the means of his livelihood, if there were ever so much fish in the streams, or corn in the fields. That a shoemaker's livelihood goes when a fisherman can no longer pay him for his shoes. He has no resource in other people's plenty. How is he to get at horse-beans or Indian-corn, or at the worst of food, for himself and his starving family? Then he shewed, that the ruin of the staple trade of a people, involved in it the ruin of the whole community; and proved, by entering minutely into its nature and employment, that the British capital employed in the New England trade, could not possibly be turned to the British fishery; and (treating very lightly the demonstration of Euclid) he shewed, that one year's intermission of the course of the New Eng

Jand foreign trade, would be the certain loss of the whole debt now due to the English merchants.

But the point on which he rested most, was this: the sentence was, in the mildest way, beggary, if not famine on four great provinces. The condition of their redemption was, "When it should be made appear to the governors, and the majority of the council in two of these provinces, that the laws would be obeyed." By what evidence, said he, is this to be made to appear? Who is to produce it? What facts are to be proved? What rule has the person who is to make it appear, to go by? What rule have the two governors to determine, so as to acquit them-in employing or in refusing, either to government here, or to the people there? You sentence, said he, to famine, at least 300,000 people in two provinces, at the mere arbitrary will and pleasure of two men whom you do not know; for you do not know who will be governors when this Act takes place. And, lest these two should risk an act of mercy, you add, as a controul to them, the majority of two councils, whom you do not know, and one of them, at present, has no existence! And as to the other provinces, Connecticut and Rhode Island, the Act has not left a man in these two provinces, who, by the exertion even of an arbitrary discretion, can relieve 200,000 people more, or any innocent or repenting individual, let their behaviour be what it will. A governor of another province, who can never regularly and officially know their true state, can alone be arbitrary in favour of justice.

This, said he, is because, in these two ill-starred provinces, the people chuse their governors: but is that a crime in individuals, which is the legal constitution of the country? If it be a bad one, England has given it to them, and has not taken even a step towards altering it. On this point, of the unheard-of power given to governors, of starving so many hundreds of thousands at their mere pleasures, of which, he said, no history of real, and even no fabulous invention of fictitious tyranny, had ever furnished an example, he dwelt a long time, and placed it in an infinite variety of lights; and kindled into such warmth, that he was at length called to order. But he continued to repeat the strong terms, as, he said, he had a right to give such epithets to the Bill as he pleased, until it had passed the House. If that should be the case, he would then be

silent, because it would be against order to speak of it as it deserved, and against prudence, to offend a body of men who had so much power, and would shew, by passing that Bill, how harsh an use they were disposed to make of it.

He said, however, he was convinced, by the whole tenor of the debate, as well as by his private conversation, that most of those who would vote for this Bill had never read it; that what they did was not out of malice, but out of respect to the opinions of others, who, by presenting them such a Bill, shewed how little they deserved this unlimited confidence. He said, that if any were in that situation, he hoped they would have the benefit of the prayer made for those who alone had done an act worse than this, "Forgive them, they know not what they do."

The Lord Advocate of Scotland began with disclaiming any thing of cruelty, as foreign to his nature and disposition; but authority must be preserved, though the guilty, and sometimes even the guiltless, by accident, should suffer. That rigour was annexed to the idea of punishment, and that punishment was right or wrong, according to the desert of the parties; that whatever necessity made this punishment so rigorous, or extended it to so vast a latitude, was owing to those who, taking part with America, in this House or elsewhere, encouraged them to resist the just authority of parliament. They were, he said, guilty of the blood of the colonists. That he was sure the taxation of America was just and defensible by every principle of the constitution; and that though this ground of taxation was very much beaten, yet as the whole question originated there, it was necessary to shew the foundation of the right; this he did by a distinct enume ration of the acts of parliament. He was clear and methodical; but the House was not disposed to listen to an argument which they had heard so frequently discussed. He said, with temper, that he gave way to that disposition of the House, and was content to give his approbation to the Bill.

The question being put, That the Bill, with the Amendments, be ingrossed; the House divided. The Yeas went forth. Tellers.