theless 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 nearly so melancholy and alarming as they are, that there were more troops in the county of Kent alone, for the defence 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 America. It is monstrous to think of it. There are 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 defence, 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 oppression, the most cruel and devastating war, to enslave those people they would conciliate, to gain the confidence and affection of those who have survived the Indian tomahawk and German bayonet. Can your lordships entertain the most distant prospect of success from such a treaty and such negotiators? 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 dis

tant; that our enemies will leave us at liberty to prosecute this war to the utmost of our ability; suppose your lordships should grant a fleet one day, an army another: all these, I do affirm, will avail nothing, unless you accompany it with advice. Ministers have been in error: experience has proved it; and what is worse, they continue it. They told you in the beginning, that 15,000 men would traverse all America, without scarcely an appearance of interruption. Two campaigns have passed since they gave us this assurance. Treble that number have been employed; one of your armies, which composed two thirds of the force by which America was to be subdued, has been totally destroyed, and is now led captive through those provinces you call rebellious. Those men whom you called cowards, poltroons, runaways, and knaves, are become victorious over your veteran troops: and, in the midst of victory, and flush of conquest, have set ministers an example of moderation and magnanimity well worthy of imitation.

My lords, no time should be lost which may promise to improve this disposition in America, unless, by an obstinacy founded in madness, we wish to stifle those embers of affection which, after all our savage treatment, do not seem as yet to have been entirely extinguished. While on one side we must lament the unhappy fate of that spirited officer, Mr. Burgoyne, and the gallant troops under his command, who were sacrificed to the wanton temerity and ignorance of ministers, we are as strongly compelled on the other to admire and applaud the generous, magnanimous conduct, the noble friendship, brotherly affection, and humanity of the victors, who, condescending to impute the horrid orders of massacre and devastation to their true authors, supposed that, as soldiers and Englishmen, those cruel excesses could not have originated with the general, nor were consonant to the brave and humane spirit of a British soldier, if not compelled to it as an act of duty. They traced the first cause of those diabolic orders to their true source; and, by that wise and generous interpretation, granted their professed destroyers terms of capitulation which they could be only entitled to as the makers of fair and honorable war.

My lords, I should not have presumed to trouble you, if the tremendous state of this nation did not, in my opinion, make it necessary. Such as I have this day described it to be, I do maintain it is. The same measures are still persisted in; and ministers, because your lordships have been deluded, deceived, and misled, presume that whenever the worst comes they will be enabled to shelter themselves behind parliament. This, my lords, cannot be the case. They have committed themselves and their measures to the fate of war, and they must abide the

ssue. I tremble for this country. I am almost led to despair that we shall ever be able to extricate ourselves. At any rate, the day of retribution is at hand, when the vengeance of a much injured and afflicted people, will, I trust, fall heavily on the authors of their ruin; and I am strongly inclined to believe, that before the day to which the proposed adjournment shall arrive, the noble earl who moved it, will have just cause to repent of his motion.

MR. BURKE'S SPEECH,

APRIL 19, 1774, ON AMERICAN TAXATION

SIR,

I AGREE with the honorable gentleman who spoke last, that this subject is not new in this house. Very disagreeably to this house, very unfortunately to this nation, and to the peace and prosperity of this whole empire, no topic has been more familiar to us. For nine long years, session after session, we have been lashed round and round this miserable circle of occasional arguments and temporary expedients. I am sure our heads must turn, and our stomachs nauseate with them. We have had them in every shape; we have looked at them in every point of view. Invention is exhausted; reason is fatigued; experience has given judgment; but obstinacy is not yet conquered.

The honorable gentleman has made one endeavor more to diversify the form of this disgusting argument. He has thrown out a speech composed almost entirely of challenges. Challenges are serious things; and as he is a man of prudence as well as resolution, I dare say he has very well weighed those challenges before he delivered them. I had long the happiness to sit at the same side of the house, and to agree with the honorable gentleman on all the American questions. My sentiments, I am sure, are well known to him; and I thought I had been perfectly acquainted with his. Though I find myself mistaken, he will still permit me to use the privilege of an old friendship, he will permit me to apply myself to the house under the sanction of his authority; and, on the various grounds he has measured out, to submit to you the poor opinions which 1 have formed, upon a matter of importance enough to demand the fullest consideration I could bestow upon it.

He has stated to the house two grounds of deliberation; one narrow and simple, and merely confined to the question on your paper: the other more large and more complicated; comprehending the whole series of the parliamentary proceedings with regard to America, their causes, and their consequences. With regard to the latter ground, he states it as useless, and thinks it may be even dangerous, to enter into so extensive a field of inquiry. Yet, to my surprise, he had hardly laid down this restrictive proposition, to which his authority would have given so much weight, when directly, and with the same author

ity, he condemns it; and declares it absolutely necessary to enter into the most ample historical detail. His real has thrown him a little out of his usual accuracy. In this perplexity, what shall we do, Sir, who are willing to submit to the law he gives us? He has reprobated in one part of his speech the rule he had laid down for debate in the other; and after narrowing the ground for all those who are to speak after him, he takes an excursion himself, as unbounded as the subject and the extent of his great abilities.

Sir, when I cannot obey all his laws, I will do the best 1 can. I will endeavor to obey such of them as have the sanction of his example; and to stick to that rule, which, though not consistent with the other, is the most rational. He was certainly in the right when he took the matter largely. I cannot prevail on myself to agree with him in his censure of his own conduct. It is not, he will give me leave to say, either useless or dangerous. He asserts, that retrospection is not wise; and the proper, the only proper, subject of inquiry, is, "not how we got into this difficulty, but how we are to get out of it." In other words, we are, according to him, to consult our invention, and to reject our experience. The mode of deliberation he recommends is diametrically opposite to every rule of reason, and every principle of good sense established amongst mankind. For, that sense and that reason, I have always understood, absolutely to prescribe, whenever we are involved in difficulties from the measures we have pursued, that we should take a strict review of those measures, in order to correct our errors if they should be corrigible; or at least to avoid a dull uniformity in mischief, and the unpitied calamity of being repeatedly caught in the same snare.

Sir, I will freely follow the honorable gentleman in his historical discussion, without the least management for men or measures, further than as they shall seem to me to deserve it. But before I go into that large consideration, because I would omit nothing that can give the house satisfaction, I wish to tread the narrow ground to which alone the honorable gentleman, in one part of his speech has so strictly confined us.

He desires to know, whether, if we were to repeal this tax, agreeably to the proposition of the honorable gentleman who made the motion, the Americans would not take post on this concession, in order to make a new attack on the next body of taxes; and whether they would not call for a repeal of the duty on wine, as loudly as they do now for the repeal of the duty on tea? Sir, I can give no security on this subject. But I will do all that I can, and all that can be fairly demanded. To the experience which the honorable gentleman reprobates in one