and mutual interest that united both countries. 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 enormities 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? the colonizing subjects of a free state can posBesides these murderers and plunderers, let me sess, or wish to possess; and I do not see why ask our ministers, What other allies have they they should not enjoy every fundamental right acquired? What other powers have they asso- in their property, and every original substantial ciated to their cause? Have they entered into liberty, which Devonshire, or Surrey, or the counalliance with the king of the gipsies? Nothing, ty I live in, or any other county in England, can my Lords, is too low or too ludicrous to be con- claim; reserving always, as the sacred right of sistent with their counsels. the mother country, the due constitutional dependency of the colonies. The inherent suprem 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. having nothing to lose, might hope to snatch something from public convulsions. Many of their leaders and great men have a great stake in this great contest. The gentleman who con 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 ad-acy of the state in regulating and protecting the dress. 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 The sound parts of America, of which I have we ought to unite in attaining. The Americans, spoken, must be sensible of these great truths contending for their rights against arbitrary ex- and of their real interests. America is not in actions, I love and admire. It is the struggle of that state of desperate and contemptible rebellfree and virtuous patriots. But, contending for ion which this country has been deluded to beindependency and total disconnection from En-lieve. It is not a wild and lawless banditti, who, gland, as an Englishman, I can not wish them success; for in a due constitutional dependency, including the ancient supremacy of this country in regulating their commerce and navigation, 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. since they had neither sagacity to foresee, nor 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 complais-nent prosperity to both countries. This, my ance. 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. Lords, is yet in our power; and let not the wisdom and justice of your Lordships neglect the happy, and, perhaps the only opportunity. By the establishment of irrevocable law, founded on mutual rights, and ascertained by treaty, these glorious enjoyments may be firmly perpetuated. And let me repeat to your Lordships, that the strong bias of America, at least of the wise and sounder parts of it, naturally inclines to this happy and constitutional reconnection with you. Notwithstanding the temporary intrigues with France, we may still be assured of their ancient and confirmed partiality to us. America and France can not be congenial. There is something decisive and confirmed in the honest American, that will not assimilate to the futility and levity of Frenchmen. 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 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: * It can not have escaped observation, says Chapman, with what urgent anxiety the noble speaker has pressed this point throughout his speech; the "And that this House does most humbly adcritical necessity of instantly treating with America. But the warning voice was heard in vain; the advise and supplicate his Majesty to be pleased to dress triumphed; Parliament adjourned; ministers cause the most speedy and effectual measures to enjoyed the festive recess of a long Christmas; and be taken for restoring peace in America; and America ratified her alliance with France. 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 near the Throne, polluting the ear of Majesty. "That God and nature put into our hands!" I know not what ideas that Lord may entertain of God and nature, but I know that such abominable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity. What! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and nature to the massacres 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 My Lords, this awful subject, so important to our honor, our Constitution, and our religion, demands the most solemn and effectual inquiry. And I again call upon your Lordships, and the united powers of the state, to examine it thoroughly and decisively, and to stamp upon it an indelible stigma of the public abhorrence. And I again implore those holy prelates of our relig 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. SPEECH OF LORD CHATHAM AGAINST A MOTION FOR ADJOURNING PARLIAMENT, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, DECEMBER 11, 1777. INTRODUCTION. ONE of the ministry having moved that the Parliament do adjourn for the space of six weeks, Lord Chatham opposed the motion in the following speech, in which he dwelt on the dangerous condition of the country, as demanding the immediate attention of Parliament. SPEECH, &c. say, my Lords, nor do I mean any thing personal, or that they have brought premeditated ruin on this country. I will not suppose that they foresaw what has since happened, but I do contend, my Lords, that their want of wisdom, their incapacity, their temerity in depending on their own judgment, or their base compliances with the orders and dictates of others, perhaps caused by the influence of one or two individuals, have rendered them totally unworthy of your Lordships' confidence, of the confidence of Parliament, and those whose rights they are the constitutional guardians of, the people at large. A remonstrance, my Lords, should be carried to the Throne. The King has been deluded by his ministers. They have been imposed on by false information, or have, from motives best known to themselves, given apparent credit to what they have been convinced in their hearts was untrue. The nation has been betrayed into the ruinous measure of an American war by the arts of imposition, by their own credulity, through the means of false hopes, false pride, and promised advantages, of the most romantic and improbable nature. It is not with less grief than astonishment I may, by this time, be no more. This very nation hear the motion now made by the noble Earl, at remains no longer safe than its enemies think a time when the affairs of this country present proper to permit. I do not augur ill. Events on every side prospects full of awe, terror, and of a most critical nature may take place before impending danger; when, I will be bold to say, our next meeting. Will your Lordships, then, events of a most alarming tendency, little ex- in such a state of things, trust to the guidance pected or foreseen, will shortly happen; when of men who in every step of this cruel, wicked a cloud that may crush this nation, and bury it war, from the very beginning, have proved themin destruction forever, is ready to burst and over-selves weak, ignorant, and mistaken? I will not whelm us in ruin. At so tremendous a season, it does not become your Lordships, the great hereditary council of the nation, to neglect your duty, to retire to your country seats for six weeks, in quest of joy and merriment, while the real state of public affairs calls for grief, mourn ing, and lamentation-at least, for the fullest exertions of your wisdom. It is your duty, my Lords, as the grand hereditary council of the nation, to advise your sovereign, to be the protectors of your country, to feel your own weight and authority. As hereditary counselors, as members of this House, you stand between the Crown and the people. You are nearer the Throne than the other branch of the Legislature; it is your duty to surround and protect, to counsel and supplicate it. You hold the balance. Your duty is to see that the weights are properly poised, that the balance remains even, that neither may encroach on the other, and that the executive power may be prevented, by an une nstitutional exertion of even constitutional authority, from bringing the nation to destruction. My Lords, I fear we are arrived at the very brink of that state, and I am persuaded that nothing short of a spirited interposition on your part, in giving speedy and wholesome advice to your sovereign, can prevent the people from feeling beyond remedy the full effects of that ruin which ministers have brought upon us. These calamitous circumstances ministers have been the cause of; and shall we, in such a state of things, when every moment teems with events productive of the most fatal narratives, shall we trust, during an adjournment of six weeks, to those men who have brought those calamities upon us, when, perhaps, our utter overthrow is plotting, nay, ripe for execution, without almost a possibility of prevention? Ten thousand brave men have falien victims to ignorance and rashness. The only army you have in America This refers to the surrender of Burgoyne's army, which took place October 17th, 1777. My Lords, I do not wish to call your attention entirely to that point. I would fairly appeal to your own sentiments whether I can be justly charged with arrogance or presumption if I say, great and able as ministers think themselves, that all the wisdom of the nation is not confined to the narrow circle of their petty cabinet. I might, I think, without presumption, say, that your Lordships, as one of the branches of the Legislature, may be supposed as capable of advising your sovereign, in the moment of difficulty and danger, as any lesser council, composed of a fewer number, and who, being already so fatally trusted, have betrayed a want of honesty or a want of talents. Is it, my Lords, within the utmost stretch of the most sanguine expectation, that the same men who have plunged you into your present perilous and calamitous situation are the prop er persons to rescue you from it? No, my Lords, such an expectation would be preposterous and absurd. I say, my Lords, you are now specially called upon to interpose. It is your duty to forego every call of business and pleasure, to give up your whole time to inquire into past misconduct; to provide remedies for the present; to prevent future evils; to rest on your arms, if I may use the expression, to watch for the public safety; to defend and support the Throne, and, if Fate should so ordain it, to fall with becoming fortitude, with the rest of your fellow-subjects, in the general ruin. I fear this last must be the event of this mad, unjust, and cruel war. It is your Lordships' duty to do every thing in your power that it shall not; but, if it must be so, I trust your Lordships and the nation will fall gloriously. the last war, it was thought advisable to levy independent companies. They were, when completed, formed into two battalions, and proved of great service. I love the army. I know its use. But I must nevertheless own that I was a great friend to the measure of establishing a national militia. I remember, the last war, that there were three camps formed of that corps at once in this kingdom. I saw them myself—one at Winchester, another in the west, at Plymouth, and a third, if I recollect right, at Chatham. Whether the militia is at present in such a state as to answer the valuable purposes it did then, or is capable of being rendered so, I will not pretend to say; but I see no reason why, in such a critical state of affairs, the experiment should not be made, and why it may not be put again on the former respectable footing. I remember, all circumstances considered, when appearances were not near so melancholy and alarming as they are, that there were more troops in the county of Kent alone, for the defense of the kingdom, than there are now in the whole island. My Lords, I contend that we have not, nor can procure any force sufficient to subdue AmerIt is monstrous to think of it. There are My Lords, as the first and most immediate object of your inquiry, I would recommend to you to consider the true state of our home defense. We have heard much from a noble Lord in this House of the state of our navy. I can not give an implicit belief to all I have heard on that important subject. I still retain my former opinion relative to the number of line of battle ships; but as an inquiry into the real state of the navy isica. destined to be the subject of future consideration, I do not wish to hear any more about it till | that period arrives. I allow, in argument, that we have thirty-five ships of the line fit for actual service. I doubt much whether such a force would give us full command of the Channel. I am certain, if it did, every other part of our possessions must lie naked and defenseless, in every quarter of the globe. several noble Lords present, well acquainted with military affairs. I call upon any one of them to rise and pledge himself that the military force now within the kingdom is adequate to its defense, or that any possible force to be procured from Germany, Switzerland, or elsewhere, will be equal to the conquest of America. I am too perfectly persuaded of their abilities and integrity to expect any such assistance from them. Oh! but if America is not to be conquered, she may be treated with. Conciliation is at length thought of. Terms are to be offered. Who are the persons that are to treat on the part of this afflicted and deluded country? The very men who have been the authors of our misfortunes. The very men who have endeavored, by the most pernicious policy, the highest injustice and op enslave those people they would conciliate, to gain the confidence and affection of those who have survived the Indian tomahawk and German I fear our utter destruction is at hand. What, my Lords, is the state of our military defense? I would not wish to expose our present weakness; but, weak as we are, if this war should be continued, as the public declaration of persons in high confidence with their sovereign would induce us to suppose, is this nation to be entirely stripped? And if it should, would every soldier now in Britain be sufficient to give us an equal-pression, the most cruel and devastating war, to ity to the force of America? I will maintain they would not. Where, then, will men be procured? Recruits are not to be had in this country. Germany will give no more. I have read in the newspapers of this day, and I have reason to believe it true, that the head of the Germanic body has remonstrated against it, and has taken measures accordingly to prevent it. Ministers have, I hear, applied to the Swiss Cantons. The idea is preposterous. The Swiss never permit their troops to go beyond sea. But, my Lords, even if men were to be procured in Germany, how will you march them to the water side? Have not our ministers applied for the port of Embden, and has it not been refused? I say, you will not be able to procure men even for your home defense, if some immediate steps be not taken. I remember, during * Here, and in many other parts of his speech, his Lordship broadly hinted that the house of Bourbon was meditating some important and decisive blow near home. bayonet. Can your Lordships entertain the most distant prospect of success from such a treaty and such negotiations? No, my Lords, the Americans have virtue, and they must detest the principles of such men. They have understanding, and too much wisdom to trust to the cunning and narrow politics which must cause such overtures on the part of their merciless persecutors. My Lords, I maintain that they would shun, with a mixture of prudence and detestation, any proposition coming from that quarter. They would receive terms from such men as snares to allure and betray. They would dread them as ropes meant to be put about their legs, in order to entangle and overthrow them in certain ruin. My Lords, supposing that our domestic danger, if at all, is far distant; that our enemies will leave us at liberty to prosecute this 3 This was afterward done. |