CHAPTER XVI. THE FOURTEENTH PARLIAMENT OF GREAT BRITAIN. OCTOBER-DECEMBER, 1774. XVI. 1774. "IT is the united voice of America to preserve their CHAP. freedom, or lose their lives in defence of it. Their resolutions are not the effect of inconsiderate rashness, but the sound result of sober inquiry and deliberation. The true spirit of liberty was never so universally diffused through all ranks and orders of people in any country on the face of the earth, as it now is through all North America. If the late acts of parliament are not to be repealed, the wisest step for both countries is to separate, and not to spend their blood and treasure in destroying each other. It is barely possible that Great Britain may depopulate North America; she never can conquer the inhabitants." So wrote Joseph Warren, and his words were the mirror of the passions of his countrymen. They were addressed to the younger Quincy, who as a private man had crossed the Atlantic to watch. the disposition of the ministry; they were intended to be made known in England, in the hope of awaken CHAP. ing the king and his ministers from the delusion that XVI. America could be intimidated into submission. 1774. Oct. The eyes of the world were riveted on Franklin Nov. and George the Third. The former was environed by dangers; Gage was his willing accuser from Bos ton; the hatred which Hutchinson bore him never slumbered; the ministry affected to consider him as the cause of all the troubles; he knew himself to be in daily peril of arrest; but "the great friends of the colonies" entreated him to stay, and some glimmering of hope remained, that the manufacturers and merchants of England would successfully interpose their mediating influence. The king on his part never once harbored the thought of concession; and "left the choice of war or peace" to depend on the obedience of Massachusetts. The new elections to parliament came on, while the people of England were still swayed by pride; and the question was artfully misrepresented, as though it were only that Massachusetts refused to pay a just and very moderate indemnity for property destroyed by a mob, and resisted an evident improvement in its administrative system, from a deliberate conspiracy with other colonies to dissolve the connection with the mother country. During the progress of the canvass, bribery came to the aid of the ministry, for many of the members who were purchasing seats, expected to reimburse themselves by selling their votes to the government. The shrewd French minister at London, witnessing the briskness of the traffic, bethought himself that where elections depended on the purse, the king of France might buy a borough as rightfully at least as XVI. Oct. the king of England, who, by law and the constitu- CHAP. tion, was bound to guard the franchises of his people against corruption. "You will learn with interest," 1774. thus Garnier, in November, announced his bargain to Nov. Vergennes, "that you will have in the house of commons, a member who will belong to you. His vote will not help us much; but the copies of even the most secret papers, and the clear and exact report which he can daily furnish us, will contribute essentially to the king's service." Excess had impoverished many even of the heirs to the largest estates, and lords as well as commoners offered themselves at market; so that "if America," said Franklin, "would save for three or four years the money she spends in the fashions and fineries and fopperies of this country, she might buy the whole parliament, ministry and all." In the general venality, Edmund Burke was displaced. Lord Varney, who had hitherto gratuitously brought him into parliament, had fallen into debt, and instead of carrying along his investment in the chance of Rockingham's return to the ministry, he turned his back on deferred hopes and friendship, and pocketed for his borough the most cash he could get. Burke next coquetted with Wilkes for support at Westminster; but "the great patriot" preferred Lord Mahon. "Wilkes has touched Lord Mahon's money, and desires to extort more by stirring up a multitude of candidates," said Burke, in the fretful hallucinations of his chagrin; while, in fact, the influence of Wilkes was of no avail; Westminster shared the prevalent excitement against America and elected to CHAP. ries. Sometimes, when alone, Burke fell into an in 1774. XVI. expressible melancholy, and thought of renouncing public life, for which he owned himself unfit. There Nov. seemed for him no way to St. Stephen's chapel, except Oct. through a rotten borough belonging to Rockingham; and what influence would the first man in England for speculative intelligence exert in the house of commons, if he should appear there as the paid agent of an American colony and the nominee of an English patron? Such seemed his best hope, when, on the eleventh of October, he was invited to become a candidate at Bristol against Viscount Clare, the statesman who in the debates on repealing the stamp act, had stickled for "the peppercorn" from America. He hastened to the contest with alacrity, avowing for his principle British superiority, which was yet to be reconciled with American liberty; and after a struggle of three weeks, he, with Cruger of New York as his colleague, was elected one of the representatives of the great trading city of western England. Bristol was almost the only place which changed its representation to the advantage of America; Wilkes was successful in the county of Middlesex, and after a ten years' struggle, the king, from zeal to concentrate opinion against America, made no further opposition to his admittance; but in the aggregate the ministry increased its majorities. It was noticeable that Sir William Howe was returned for Nottingham. To the questions of that liberal constituency he freely answered, that the ministry had pushed matters too far; that the whole British army would not be sufficient to conquer XVI. America; that if offered a command there, he would CHAP. refuse it; that he would vote for the repeal of the four penal acts of parliament; and he turned to his 1774. advantage the affectionate respect still cherished for Nov. his brother who fell near Lake George. Oct. The elections were over, and it was evident that Nov. the government might have every thing its own way, when, on the eighteenth of November, letters of the preceding September, received from Gage, announced that the act of parliament for regulating the government of Massachusetts could be carried into effect only after the conquest of all the New England colonies; that the province had warm friends throughout the North American continent; that people in Carolina were "as mad" as in Boston; that the country people in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island were exercising in arms and forming magazines of ammunition and such artillery, good and bad, as they could procure; that the civil officers of the British government had no asylum but Boston. In a private letter Gage proposed that the obnoxious acts should be suspended. In an official paper he hinted that it would be well to cut the colonies adrift, and leave them to anarchy and repentance; they had grown opulent through Britain, and were they cast off and declared aliens, they must become a poor and needy people. But the king heard these suggestions with scorn. "The New England governments," said he to North," are now in a state of rebellion. Blows must decide whether they are to be subject to this country or to be independent." This was his instant determination, to which he obstinately adhered. On the other hand, Franklin, who was confident of the |