all the fervid glow of enthufiafm, to make him believe it? Fortunate man, he has lived to fee it! For-tunate, indeed, if he lives to fee nothing that fhall vary the profpect, and cloud the fetting of his day!"

The Earl of Chatham, on being afked his opinion of this speech, anfwered, "It is feasonable, reasonable, and eloquent ;" and now that I have mentioned this great ftatesman, perhaps the reader would like to fee a few extracts from his own fpeech on the fame fubject, nearly as follows:

I

"I therefore urge and conjure your lordships immediately to adopt this conciliating meafure. will pledge myself for its immediately producing conciliatory effects, by its being thus well timed: but if you delay till your vain hope fhall be accomplished, of triumphantly dictating reconciliation, you delay for ever. But, admitting that this hope, which, in truth, is defperate, fhould be accomplished, what do you gain by the impofition of your victorious amity? You will be untrufted and unthanked. Adopt, then, the grace, while you have the opportunity of recon-; cilement, or, at least, prepare the way. Allay the ferment prevailing in America, by removing the obnoxious, hoftile caufe-obnoxious and unferviceable; for the merit can be only in action: Non dimi-.. care et vincere, their victory can never be by exertion. Their force would be moft difproportionately exerted against a brave, generous, and united people, with arms in their hands, and courage in their hearts: Three millions of people, the genuine defcendants of a valiant and pious anceftory, driven to those deferts by the narrow maxims of a fuperftitious tyranny. And is the fpirit of perfecution never to be appeased? Are the brave fons of thofe brave forefathers to inherit their fufferings, as they have inherited their virtues? Are they to fuftain the infliction of the most oppreffive and unexampled feverity, beyond the accounts of hiftory, or defcription of poetry: "Rhadamanthus habet duriffima regna, caftigatque, auditque."

So fays the wifeft poet, and, perhaps, the wisest statef man and politician. But our minifters fay, the Americans must not be heard. They have been condemned unheard. The indifcriminate hand of vengeance has lumped together innocent and guilty; with all the formalities of hoftility, has blocked up the town*, and reduced to beggary and famine thirty thousand inhabitants.

"The means of enforcing this thraldom are found to be as ridiculous and weak in practice, as they are unjuft in principle. Indeed, I cannot but feel the moft anxious fenfibility for the fituation of General Gage, and the troops under his command; thinking him, as I do, a man of humanity and understanding, and entertaining, as I ever will, the highest refpect, the warmest love, for the Britifh troops. Their fituation is truly unworthy; penned up, pining in inglorious inactivity. They are an army of impotence. You may call them an army of safety and of guard, but they are, in truth, an army of impotence and contempt, and, to make the folly equal to the difgrace, they are an army of irritation and vex.

ation.

“Trade, indeed, increases the wealth and glory of a country; but its real ftrength and ftamina are to be looked for among the cultivation of the land In their fimplicity of life is found the fimplenefs of virtue-the integrity and courage of freedom. Thefe true genuine fons of the earth are invincible: and they furround and hem in the mercantile bodies; even if thefe bodies, which fuppofition I totally disclaim, could be fuppofed difaffected to the caufe of liberty.

"This refiftance to your arbitrary fyftem of taxation might have been foreseen; it was obvious, from the nature of things, and of mankind, and, above all, from the whiggish spirit flourishing in that coun

* Boston,

try. The fpirit which now refifts your taxation in America, is the fame which formerly oppofed loans, benevolences, and fhip-money, in England; the fame fpirit which called all England on its legs, and by the bill of rights, vindicated the English conftitution; the fame fpirit which established the great, fundamental, effential maxim of your liberties, that no fubject of England fhall be taxed but by his own

confent."

As the American war is now become a matter of hiftory, and can be useful and inftructive only in that point of view, we fhall leave it to the hiftorian, and only touch on it merely to fhew the part that Mr. Burke took in it. In all wars a great deal is to be left to the chapter of accidents. Mr. Burke feems to have left as little to it as poffible in all his calculations on that momentous fubje&t. In his very outlet on this question, he appears to have examined it with great caution and judgment, and the caufe only feems to have interefted him, for he says himself, in his fpeech at Bristol in 1780, "That the Americans were utter ftrangers to him, a nation amongft whom he was not fure he had a fingle acquaintance." Under thefe impreffions, as often as this conteft was agitated, he never failed to call forth fresh arguments and additional reprobation of it. Every aid that the human intellect and unwearied induftry could furnish, were at his devotion. Even fcurrility furnished her filth, and wit her poignant darts; every one as pointed as the Parthian arrow, and as rapid as its flight. If the Premier chanced to nod, Mr. Burke's imagination furnished him with dreams of fplendid victories, and the interpretation of them into the bargain. In fhort, he excelled the minifter in every thing but good humour and majorities. Money has been confidered, but too generally, as the finews of war. The American coffers were exhaufted, nor did Congress disguise their f

fituation. Every day witneffed the depreciation of their paper credit, 'till at length it fell, like the leaves of their native woods in autumn. Mr. Burke saw this, but, at the fame time, he faw the buds of future credit; he did not wish to chill them, but he wifhed that England fhould fhare the promised fruit, as friends, and that they fhould not be plucked with the rude hand of power. In fhort, fo early as the year 1777, he seems to have feen with a prophetic eye, the refult of what time has confirmed: "America," faid he, at that period," is not fubdued. Not one unattacked village which was originally adverse throughout that vaft continent, has yet fubmitted from love or terror. You have the ground you encamp on, and you have no more. The cantonments of your troops and your dominions are exactly of the fame extent. You fpread devaftation, but you do not enlarge the fphere of authority."

At the opening of the feffion in October, 1776, oppofition attended almost to a man, in hopes that the minifter had profitted from experience in the recefs, especially as he faw that feveral of his favourite plans to bring the Americans to their fenfes, as he called it, had failed, were failing, and ought to be relinquifhed. But it is with ftates as it is with individuals, there is a feafon when arguments will not avail. Mr. Burke and his party felt this; their attendance became more lax, and a feceffion was propofed, and, as it was not generally approved, he ftates the grounds on which it was difapproved, and does juftice to thofe who flood on that ground; "They questioned," he fays, "whether any

*

"Without arms, ammunition, difcipline, revenue, government, or ally, and in the weakness of youth, as it were, with a staff and a fling only, we (Americans) dared, in the name of the Lord of Hotts, to engage a gigantic adverfary, prepared at all points, boasting of his ftrength, and of whom mighty warriors were greatly afraid." This was the real unexaggerated fituation of America at the time, as published by Congrefs.

member could, confiftently with his duty, withdraw himself individually from the bufinefs of parliament, merely from an opinion that he would be outvoted, and that his attendance would, therefore, be useless. They acknowledged that a feceffion, collectively in a body, had not only the fanction of precedent, but might be practifed with great advantage, and be productive of much benefit in fuch cafes as the prefent. But for this purpose, it must be attended with the following circumftances: In the first place it must be general, including the whole minority, against the measure that provoked the feceffion; and, in the next, it should not be a filent act, but the motives for the feceffion fhould be proclaimed, either by a remonftrance on the journals, or a public address to the people. Under these circumstances, and in cases of imminent danger to the conftitution, a feceffion might operate as a call to the nation, and awaken people to a fense of their fituation."

Mr. Burke tried every means that argument and perfuafion could fuggeft, to point out the propriety and neceffity of fuch a ftep, and to remove every fcruple on that head, and in order to haften the unanimity, he drew up a paper on the fubject, in the shape of a remonftrance, in order that it might find its way on the journals; we fhall only fay, that if it had been put and carried in that form, it would have illumined thofe Belgic folios. It would have served as a precedent on all fuch emergent occafions. It would have ferved as a faithful record in which minifters might learn, that truth, in the end, will prevail over venal majorities. It was thought advifeable, however, to convey the fubftance of it in an address to the King, and, if this propofition had been adopted, perhaps a more refpectful and affectionate address never was conveyed to the foot of the throne. It will remain as long as the English language lafts, as a monument of the powers and beauties of that tongue, and the ufe which the writer