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1775.

Feb.

"The colonies are not in a state of rebellion," CHAP. said Dunning; "but resisting the attempt to estab lish despotism in America, as a prelude to the same system in the mother country. Opposition to arbitrary measures is warranted by the constitution, and established by precedent." "Nothing but the display of vigor," said Thurlow, "will prevent the American colonies becoming independent states."

Grant, the same officer, who had been scandalously beaten at Pittsburg, and had made himself so offensive in South Carolina, asserted amidst the loudest cheering, that he knew the Americans very well, and was certain they would not fight; "that they were not soldiers and never could be made so, being naturally pusillanimous and incapable of discipline; that a very slight force would be more than sufficient for their complete reduction ;" and he fortified his statement by repeating their peculiar expressions, and ridiculing their religous enthusiasm, manners, and ways of living, greatly to the entertainment of the house.

At this stage of the debate, Fox, displaying for the first time the full extent of his abilities, which made him for more than a quarter of a century the leading debater on the side of the liberal party in England, in a speech of an hour and twenty minutes, entered into the history of the dispute with great force and temper, and stated truly, that "the reason why the colonies objected to taxes for revenue was, that such revenue in the hands of government took out of the hands of the people that were to be governed, that control which every Englishman thinks he ought to have over the government to which his

CHAP. rights and interests are intrusted." The defence of XX. the ministry rested chiefly on Wedderburn. Gibbon 1775. had prepared himself to speak, but neither he nor Lord George Germaine could find room for a single word.

Feb.

Lord North again shrunk from measures against which his nature revolted; and Franklin, whose mediation was once more solicited, received a paper containing the results of ministerial conferences on "the hints" which he had written. "We desire nothing but what is necessary to our security and well-being," said Franklin to the friendly agents who came to him. In reply they declared with authority, that the repeal of the tea-act and the Boston port-act would be conceded; the Quebec act might be amended by reducing the province to its ancient limits; but the Massachusetts acts must be continued, both "as real amendments" of the constitution of that province, and "as a standing example of the power of parliament." Franklin's reply was brief: "While parliament claims the right of altering American constitutions at pleasure, there can be no agreement, for we are rendered unsafe in every privilege." "An agreement is necessary for America," it was answered; "it is so easy for Britain to burn all your seaport towns." "My little property," rejoined Franklin, "consists of houses in those towns; you may make bonfires of them whenever you please; the fear of losing them will never alter my resolution to resist to the last the claim of parliament."

The plan of intimidation proceeded. When on the sixth of February the address was reported to the house, Lord John Cavendish earnestly "depre

XX.

Feb.

cated civil war, necessarily involving a foreign one CHAP. also." "A fit and proper resistance," said Wilkes, "is a revolution, not a rebellion. Who can tell, 1775. whether in consequence of this day's violent and 7. mad address, the scabbard may not be thrown away by the Americans as well as by us, and should success attend them, whether, in a few years, the Americans may not celebrate the glorious era of the revolution of 1775 as we do that of 1688? Success crowned the generous effort of our forefathers for freedom; else they had died on the scaffold as traitors and rebels, and the period of our history which does us the most honor, would have been deemed a rebellion against lawful authority, not the expulsion of a tyrant."

During the debate, which lasted till half past two in the morning, Lord North threw off the responsibility of the tax on tea, in order to prepare the way for offering the repeal of that tax as the basis for conciliation. It was too late, for a new question of the power of parliament over charters and laws had intervened. The disavowal offended his colleagues, and in itself was not honest; his vote had decided the measure in the cabinet, and it was unworthy of a minister of the crown to intimate that he had obsequiously followed a chief like Grafton, or yielded his judgment to the king.

Lord George Germaine was fitly selected to deliver the message of the commons at the bar of the lords. "There is in the address one paragraph which I totally disclaim;" said Rockingham; "I openly declare, I will risk neither life nor fortune in support of the measures recommended. Four-fifths of the

1775.

CHAP. nation are opposed to this address; for myself, I shall XX. not tread in the steps of my noble but ill-fated anFeb. cestor, Lord Strafford, who first courted popular 7. favor, and then deserted the cause he had embarked in; as I have set out by supporting the cause of the people, so I shall never, for any temptation whatsoever, desert or betray them."

Mansfield, as if in concert with North, took the occasion to deny having advised the tea tax; which he condemned as the most absurd measure that could be imagined. "The original cause of the dispute," said Camden, "is the duty on tea," and he too disclaimed having had the least hand in that measure. "It is mean," said Grafton, "for him at this time to screen himself, and shift the blame off his own shoulders, to lay it on those of others. The measure was consented to in the cabinet. He acquiesced in it; he presided in the house of lords when it passed through its several stages; and he should equally share its censure or its merit."

A passionate debate ensued, during which Mansfield, in reply to Richmond, praised the Boston port act and its attendant measures, including the regulating act for Massachusetts, as worthy to be gloried in for their wisdom, policy, and equity; but he denied that they were in any degree the fruit of his influence. Now they were founded on the legal opinions and speeches of Mansfield, and he had often in the house of lords been the mouth-piece of Hutchinson, whose opinions reached him through Mauduit. Shelburne insinuated that Mansfield's disclaimer was in substance not correct. Mansfield retorted by charging Shelburne with uttering gross falsehoods;

and Shelburne in a rejoinder gave the illustrious CHAP. jurist the lie.

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9.

On Thursday, the ninth day of February, the lord 1775. chancellor, the speaker, and a majority of the lords and commons went in state to the palace, and in the presence of the representatives of the great powers of Europe, presented to George the Third the sanguinary address which the two houses of parliament had jointly adopted, and which, in the judgment of Rockingham and his friends, "amounted to a declaration of war." The king, in his reply, pledged himself speedily and effectually to enforce "obedience to the laws and the authority of the supreme legisla ture." His heart was hardened. Having just heard of the seizure of ammunition at the fort in New Hampshire, he intended that his language should "open the eyes of the deluded Americans." "If it does not," said he to his faltering minister, "it must set every delicate man at liberty to avow the propriety of the most coercive measures."