HOPE, Sir, that notwithstanding the aufterity

of the Chair, your good-nature will incline you to fome degree of indulgence towards human frailty. You will not think it unnatural, that those who have an object depending, which strongly engages their hopes and fears, fhould be fomewhat inclined to fuperftition. As I came into the house full of anxiety about the event of my motion, I found to my infinite surprise, that the grand penal Bill, by which we had paffed fentence on the trade and fuftenance of America, is to be returned to us from the other house*. I do confefs, I could not help looking on this event as a fortunate omen. I look upon it as a fort of providential favour; by which we are put once more in poffeffion of our deliberative capacity, upon a business so very quef

*The Act to reftrain the trade and commerce of the provinces of Maffachuset's-Bay and New Hampshire, and colonies of Connecticut and Rhode Island, and Providence Plantation, in North America, to Great Britain, Ireland, and the British Islands in the Weft Indies; and to prohibit fuch provinces and colonies from carrying on any fishery on the banks of Newfound land, and other places therein mentioned, under certain conditions and limitations.

tionable

tionable in its nature, fo very uncertain in its iffue. By the return of this Bill, which feemed to have taken its flight for ever, we are at this very inftant nearly as free to chufe a plan for our American government, as we were on the first day of the feffion. If, Sir, we incline to the fide of conciliation, we are not at all embarrassed (unless we please to make ourselves fo) by any incongruous mixture of coercion and reftraint. We are therefore called upon, as it were by à fuperior warning voice, again to attend to America; to attend to the whole of it together; and to review the fubject with an unusual degree of care and calmness.

Surely it is an awful fubject; or there is none fo on this fide of the grave. When I firft had the honour of a feat in this houfe, the affairs of that continent preffed themselves upon us, as the most important and most delicate object of parliamentary attention. My little fhare in this great deliberation oppreffed me. I found myself a partaker in a very high truft; and having no fort of reason to rely on the ftrength of my natural abilities for the proper execution of that truft, I was obliged to take more than common pains, to inftruct myfelf in every thing which relates to our colonies. I was not lefs under the neceffity of forming fome fixed ideas, concerning the general policy of the British empire. Something of this fort feemed to be indifpenfable; in order, amidst fo vaft a fluctua

tion of paffions and opinions, to concenter my thoughts; to ballaft my conduct; to preferve me from being blown about by every wind of fashionable doctrine. I really did not think it fafe, or manly, to have fresh principles to feek upon every fresh mail which fhould arrive from America.

At that period, I had the fortune to find myself in perfect concurrence with a large majority in this House. Bowing under that high authority, and penetrated with the sharpness and ftrength of that early impreffion, I have continued ever fince, without the leaft deviation in my original fentiments. Whether this be owing to an obftinate perfeverance in error, or to a religious adherence to what appears to me truth and reafon, it is in your equity to judge.

Sir, Parliament having an enlarged view of objects, made, during this interval, more frequent changes in their fentiments and their conduct, than could be justified in a particular perfon upon the contracted scale of private information. But though I do not hazard any thing approaching to a cenfure on the motives of former parliaments to all those alterations, one fact is undoubted; that under them the ftate of America has been kept in continual agitation. Every thing administered as remedy to the publick complaint, if it did not produce, was at least followed by, an heightening of the diftemper; until, by a variety of experiments,

that

that important country has been brought into her prefent fituation ;-a fituation which I will not mifcall, which I dare not name; which I fcarcely know how to comprehend in the terms of any defcription.

In this pofture, Sir, things ftood at the begin. ning of the feffion. About that time, a worthy member* of great parliamentary experience, who, in the year 1766, filled the chair of the American committee with much ability, took me afide; and, lamenting the present aspect of our politicks, told me, things were come to fuch a pass, that our former methods of proceeding in the house would be no longer tolerated. That the publick tribunal (never too indulgent to a long and unfuccessful oppofition) would now fcrutinize our conduct with unufual feverity. That the very viciffitudes and fhiftings of minifterial measures, inftead of convicting their authors of inconftancy and want of fyftem, would be taken as an occafion of charging us with a predetermined difcontent, which nothing could fatisfy; whilst we accused every meafure of vigour as cruel, and every proposal of lenity as weak and irrefolute. The publick, he said, would not have patience to fee us play the game out with our adverfaries: we muft produce our hand. It would be expected, that thofe who for

Mr, Rofe Fuller,

many

many years had been active in fuch affairs fhould fhew, that they had formed fome clear and decided idea of the principles of colony government; and were capable of drawing out fomething like a platform of the ground, which might be laid for future and permanent tranquillity.

I felt the truth of what my hon. friend reprefented; but I felt my fituation too. His application might have been made with far greater propriety to many other gentlemen. No man was indeed ever better difpofed, or worfe qualified, for fuch an undertaking than myfelf. Though I gave fo far into his opinion, that I immediately threw my thoughts into a fort of parliamentary form, I was by no means equally ready to produce them. It generally argues fome degree of natural impotence of mind, or fome want of knowledge of the world, to hazard plans of government, except from a feat of authority. Propofitions are made, not only ineffectually, but fomewhat difreputably, when the minds of men are not properly difpofed for their reception; and for my part, I am not ambitious of ridicule; not abfolutely a candidate for difgrace.

Besides, Sir, to speak the plain truth, I have in general no very exalted opinion of the virtue of paper government; nor of any politicks, in which the plan is to be wholly feparated from the execution. But when I faw, that anger and violence prevailed