did the gentleman confine himself to Chester and Durham? He might have taken a higher example in Wa.es, Wales, that never was taxed by parliament till it was incorporated. I would not debate a particular point of law with the gentleman. I know his abilities. I have been obliged to his diligent researches. But, for the defence of liberty, upon a general principle, upon a constitutional principle, it is a ground on which I stand firm; on which I dare meet any man. The gentleman tells us of many who are taxed, and are not represented;-the India company, merchants, stockholders, manufacturers. Surely many of these are represented in other capacities, as owners of land, or as freemen of boroughs. It is a misfortune that. more are not equally represented. But they are all inhabitants, and as such are they not virtually represented? Many have it in their option to be actually represented. They have connexions with those that elect, and they have influence over them. The gentleman mentioned the stockholders. I hope he does not reckon the debts of the nation as a part of the national estate. Since the accession of king William, many ministers, some of great, others of more moderate abilities, have taken the lead of government.

He then went through the list of them, bringing it down till he came to himself, giving a short sketch of the characters of each of them. None of these, he said, thought or ever dreamed of robbing the colonies of their constitutional rights. That was reserved to mark the era of the late administration: not that there were wanting some, when I had the honor to serve his majesty, to propose to me to burn my fingers with an American stamp act. With the enemy at their back, with our bayonets at their breasts, in the day of their distress, perhaps the Americans would have submitted to the imposition; but it would have been taking an ungenerous, an unjust advantage. The gentleman boasts of his bounties to America! Are not these bounties intended finally for the benefit of this kingdom? If they are not, he has misapplied the national treasures. I am no courtier of America. I stand up for this kingdom. I maintain that the parliament has a right to bind, to restrain America.

Our legislative power over the colonies is sovereign and supreme. When it ceases to be sovereign and supreme, I would advise every gentleman to sell his lands, if he can, and embark for that country. When two countries are connected together like England and her colonies without being incorporated, the one must necessarily govern. The greater must rule the less; but so rule it, as not to contradict the fundamental principles that are common to both.

If the gentleman does not understand the difference between external and internal taxes, I cannot help it; but there is a plain distinction between taxes levied for the purposes of raising a revenue, and duties imposed for the regulation of trade, for the accommodation of the subject; although, in the consequences, some revenue might incidentally arise from the latter.

The gentleman asks, when were the colonies emancipated? But I desire to know, when were they made slaves? But I dwell not upon words. When I had the honor of serving his majesty, I availed myself of the means of information, which I derived from my office. I speak therefore from knowledge. My materials were good. I was at pains to collect, to digest, to consider them; and I will be bold to affirm, that the profits to Great Britain from the trade of the colonies, through all its branches, is two millions a year. This is the fund that carried you triumphantly through the last war. The estates that were rented at two thousand pounds a year, three-score years ago, are at three thousand at present. Those estates sold then from fifteen to eighteen years' purchase; the same may now be sold for thirty.

You owe this to America. This is the price America pays you for her protection. And shall a miserable financier come with a boast, that he can bring a pepper-corn into the exchequer, to the loss of millions to the nation! I dare not say, how much higher these profits may be augmented. Omitting the immense increase of people, by natural population, in the northern colonies, and the emigration from every part of Europe, I am convinced the commercial system of America may be altered to advantage. You have prohibited where you ought to have encouraged: you have encouraged where you ought to have prohibited. Improper restraints have been laid on the continent, in favor of the islands. You have but two nations to trade with in America. Would you had twenty! Let acts of parliament in consequence of treaties remain; but let not an English minister become a custom-house officer for Spain, or for any foreign power. Much is wrong. Much may be amended for. the general good of the whole.

Does the gentleman complain he has been misrepresented in the public prints? It is a common misfortune. In the Spanish affair of the last war, I was abused in all the newspapers, for having advised his majesty to violate the laws of nations with regard to Spain. The abuse was industriously circulated even in handbills. If administration did not propagate the abuse, administration never contradicted it. I will not say what advice I did give the king. My advice is in writing, signed by myself, in the possession of the crown. But I will say what

advice I did not give to the king. I did not advise him to violate any of the laws of nations.

As to the report of the gentleman's preventing in some way the trade for bullion with the Spaniards, it was spoken of so confidently that I own I am one of those who did believe it to be true.

The gentleman must not wonder he was not contradicted, when, as the minister, he asserted the right of parliament to tax America. I know not how it is, but there is a modesty in this house which does not choose to contradict a minister. Even your chair, sir, looks too often towards St. James's. I wish gentlemen would get the better of this modesty. If they do not, perhaps the collective body may begin to abate of its respect for the representative. Lord Bacon has told me, that a great question would not fail of being agitated at one time or another. I was willing to agitate that at the proper season, the German war:-my German war, they called it. Every sessions I called out, Has anybody any objection to the German war? Nobody would object to it, one gentleman only excepted, since removed to the upper house by succession to an ancient barony (meaning lord Le Despencer, formerly Sir Francis Dashwood.) He told me, "He did not like a German war." I honored the man for it, and was sorry when he was turned out of his post. A great deal has been said without doors of the power, of the strength, of America. It is a topic that ought to be cautiously meddled with. In a good cause, on a sound bottom, the force of this country can crush America to atoms. I know the valor of your troops. I know the skill of your officers. There is not a company of foot that has served in America out of which you may not pick a man of sufficient knowledge and experience to make a governor of a colony there. But on this ground, on the stamp act, which so many here will think a crying injustice, I am one who will lift up my hands against it.

In such a cause, your success would be hazardous. America, if she fell, would fall like the strong man; she would embrace the pillars of the state, and pull down the constitution along with her. Is this your boasted peace-not to sheathe the sword in its scabbard, but to sheathe it in the bowels of your countrymen? Will you quarrel with yourselves, now the whole house of Bourbon is united against you, while France disturbs your fisheries in Newfoundland, embarrasses your slave trade to Africa, and withholds from your subjects in Canada their property stipulated by treaty; while the ransom for the Manillas is denied by Spain, and its gallant conqueror basely traduced into a mean plunderer! a gentleman (colonel Draper) whose noble and generous spirit would do honor to the proudest gran

dee of the country? The Americans have not acted in all things with prudence and temper; they have been wronged; they have been driven to madness, by injustice. Will you punish them for the madness you have occasioned? Rather let prudence and temper come first from this side. I will undertake for America that she will follow the example. There are two lines in a ballad of Prior's, of a man's behavior to his wife, so applicable to you and your colonies, that I cannot help repeating them:

"Be to her faults a little blind

Be to her virtues very kind."

Upon the whole, I will beg leave to tell the house what is my opinion. It is, that the stamp act be repealed absolutely, totally, and immediately. That the reason for the repeal be assigned, because it was founded on an erroneous principle. At the same time, let the sovereign authority of this country over the colonies be asserted in as strong terms as can be devised, and be made to extend to every point of legislation whatsoever; that we may bind their trade, confine their manufactures, and exercise every power whatsoever, except that of taking their money out of their pockets without their consent.

LORD CHATHAM'S SPEECH,

IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, JANUARY 9, 1770, IN REPLY TO LORD MANSFIELD, ON THE FOLLOWING AMENDMENT TO THE ADDRESS TO THE THRONE.

"That we will, with all convenient speed, take into our most serious consideration the causes of the discontents which prevail in so many parts of your majesty's dominions, and particularly the late proceedings of the house of commons touching the incapacity of John Wilkes, Esq. expelled by that house, to be reelected a member to serve in this present parliament; thereby refusing, by a reso lution of one branch of the legislature only, to the subject his common right, and depriving the electors of Middlesex of their free choice of a representative."

MY LORDS,

THERE is one plain maxim, to which I have invariably adhered through life: that in every question, in which my liberty, or my property were concerned, I should consult and be determined by the dictates of common sense. I confess, my lords, that I am apt to distrust the refinement of learning, because I have seen the ablest and the most learned men equally liable to deceive themselves, and to mislead others. The condition of human nature would be lamentable indeed, if nothing less than the greatest learning and talents, which fall to the share of so small a number of men, were sufficient to direct our judgment and our conduct. But Providence has taken better care of our happiness, and given us, in the simplicity of common sense, a rule for our direction, by which we shall never be misled. I confess, my lords, I had no other guide in drawing up the amendment, which I submitted to your consideration; and, before I heard the opinion of the noble lord who spoke last, I did not conceive that it was even within the limits of possibility for the greatest human genius, the most subtle understanding, or the acutest wit, so strangely to misrepresent my meaning, and to give it an interpretation so entirely foreign from what I intended to express, and from that sense which the very terms of the amendment plainly and distinctly carry with them. If there be the smallest foundation for the censure thrown upon me by that noble lord; if, either expressly, or by the most distant implication, I have said or insinuated any part of what the noble lord has charged me with, discard my opinions for ever, discard the motion with contempt.

My lords, I must beg the indulgence of the house. Neither will my health permit me, nor do I pretend to be qualified to