generally, that I might leave the question at large to be amended by your lordships. I did not dare to point out the specific means. I drew the motion up to the best of my poor abilities; but I intended it only as the herald of conciliation, as the harbinger of peace to our afflicted colonies.

But as the noble lord seems to wish for something more specific on the subject, and through that medium seeks my particular sentiments, I will tell your lordships very fairly what I wish for. I wish for a repeal of every oppressive act which your lordships have passed since 1763.

I would put our brethren in America precisely on the same footing they stood at that period. I would expect, that, being left at liberty to tax themselves, and dispose of their own property, they would, in return, contribute to the common burdens according to their means and abilities. I will move

your lordships for a bill of repeal, as the only means left to arrest that approaching destruction which threatens to overwhelm us.

My lords, I shall no doubt hear it objected, "Why should we submit or concede? Has America done anything on her part to induce us to agree to so large a ground of concession?" I will tell you, my lords, why I think you should. You have been the aggressors from the beginning. I shall not trouble your lordships with the particulars; they have been stated and enforced by the noble and learned lord who spoke last but one [Lord Camden] in a much more able and distinct manner than I could pretend to state them. If, then, we are the aggressors, it is your lordships' business to make the first overture. I say again, this country has been the aggressor. You have made descents upon their coasts; you have burned their towns, plundered their country, made war upon the inhabitants, confiscated their property, proscribed and

imprisoned their persons. I do therefore affirm, my lords, that instead of exacting unconditional submission from the colonies, we should grant them unconditional redress. We have injured them; we have endeavored to enslave and oppress them. Upon this ground, my lords, instead of chastisement, they are entitled to redress. A repeal of those laws of which they complain will be the first step to that redress. The people of America look upon Parliament as the authors of their miseries; their affections are estranged from their sovereign. Let, then, reparation come from the hands that inflicted the injuries; let conciliation succeed chastisement; and I do maintain, that Parliament will again recover its authority; that his Majesty will be once more enthroned in the hearts of his American subjects; and that your lordships, as contributing to so great, glorious, salutary, and benignant a work, will receive the prayers and benedictions of every part of the British empire.

LAST SPEECH ON AMERICA

[At the conclusion of the following speech Lord Richmond spoke in response, and when he had ended Lord Chatham made a sudden and strenuous attempt to rise, as if laboring under the pressure of painful emotions. He seemed eager to speak; but, after repeated efforts, he suddenly pressed his hand on his heart and sank down in convulsions, Those who sat near him caught him in their arms. His son William Pitt, then a youth of seventeen, who was standing without the bar, sprang forward to support him. The unswerving patriot, whose long life had been devoted to his country, had striven to the last. He was removed in a state of insensibility from the House, and carried to Hayes, where he lingered a few days, and died on the 11th of May, 1778, aged seventy.}

I

THANK GOD that I have been enabled to come here to-day-to perform my duty, and speak on a subject which is so deeply impressed on my mind. I am old and infirm. I have one foot more than one foot in the

grave. I have risen from my bed to stand up in the cause of my country-perhaps never again to speak in this House.

["The reverence, the attention, the stillness of the House," said an eye-witness, "were here most affecting; had anyone dropped a handkerchief, the noise would have been heard."

As he proceeded, Lord Chatham spoke at first in a low tone, with all the weakness of one who is laboring under severe indisposition. Gradually, however, as he warmed with the subject, his voice became louder and more distinct, his intonations grew more commanding, and his whole manner was solemn and impressive in the highest degree. He went over the events of the American war with that luminous and comprehensive survey for which he was so much distinguished in his best days. He pointed out the measures he had condemned, and the results he had predicted, adding at each stage as he advanced "and so it proved! And so it proved!" Adverting, in one part of his speech, to the fears entertained of a foreign invasion, he recurred to the history of the past: "A Spanish invasion, a French invasion, a Dutch invasion, many noble lords must have read of in history; and some lords" (looking keenly at one who sat near him, with a last reviving flash of his sarcastic spirit) "some lords may remember a Scotch invasion!" He could not forget Lord Mansfield's defence of American taxation, and the measures of Lord Bute, which had brought down the country to its present degraded state, from the exalted position to which he had raised it during his brief but splendid administration. He then proceeded in the following terms:]

My lords, I rejoice that the grave has not closed upon me; that I am still alive to lift up my voice against the dismemberment of this ancient and most noble monarchy! Pressed down as I am by the hand of infirmity, I am little able to assist my country in this most perilous conjuncture; but, my lords, while I have sense and memory, I will never consent to deprive the offspring of the royal house of Brunswick, the heirs of the Princess Sophia, of their

fairest inheritance. I will first see the Prince of Wales, the Bishop of Osnaburgh, and the other rising hopes of the royal family brought down to this committee and assent to such an alienation. Where is the man who will dare to advise it? My lords, his Majesty succeeded to an empire as great in extent as its reputation was unsullied. Shall we tarnish the lustre of this nation by an ignominious surrender of its rights and fairest possessions? Shall this great nation, that has survived, whole and entire, the Danish depredations, the Scottish inroads, the Norman conquests-that has stood the threatened invasion of the Spanish Armada, now fall prostrate before the house of Bourbon? Surely, my lords, this nation is no longer what it was! Shall a people that seventeen years ago was the terror of the world now stoop so low as to tell its ancient inveterate enemy, Take all we have, only give us peace? It is impossible!

I wage war with no man or set of men. I wish for none of their employments; nor would I co-operate with men who still persist in unretracted error, or who, instead of acting on a firm, decisive line of conduct, halt between two opinions, where there is no middle path. In God's name, if it is absolutely necessary to declare either for peace or war, and the former cannot be preserved with honor, why is not the latter commenced without delay? I am not, I confess, well informed as to the resources of this kingdom, but I trust it has still sufficient to maintain its just rights, though I know them not. But, my lords, any state is better than despair. Let us at least make one effort, and, if we must fall, let us fall like men!

WHITEFIELD

G

EORGE WHITEFIELD, a celebrated English evangelist and eloquent pulpit orator, was born at Gloucester, December 16, 1714. He was the son of a prosperous innkeeper and was educated at Pembroke College, Oxford. There, becoming acquainted with the Wesleys and their friends, he decided to enter the ministry and was ordained in Gloucester Cathedral, and preached his first sermon in that place in 1736. He then went to London, where his popularity as a preacher was so great that he sometimes held forth to crowded audiences four times on a Sunday. He sailed to Georgia as a missionary in 1738, and on his return to England preached to the miners in Wales and elsewhere, meeting with extraordinary success. He visited America seven times, attracting great numbers of people wherever he went, but he was bitterly opposed by the New England clergy in many cases. He died at Newburyport, Massachusetts, September 30, 1770, and was buried in the Presbyterian church there in which he had preached on the day of his death. From the time of his ordination, to a period embracing thirty-four years, he preached upward of 18,000 sermons, travelling thousands of miles both in England and America.]

SERMON: ON THE METHOD OF GRACE

"They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace."-Jeremiah vi, 14.

A

S GOD can send a nation or people no greater blessing than to give them faithful, sincere, and upright ministers, so the greatest curse that God can possibly send upon a people in this world is to give them over to blind, unregenerate, carnal, lukewarm, and unskilful guides. And yet, in all ages, we find that there have been many wolves in sheep's clothing, many that daubed with untempered mortar, that prophesied smoother things than God did allow. As it was formerly, so it is now; there are many that corrupt the word of God and deal deceitfully with it. It was so in a