I there find, that that tyrannical monarch never dreamt of the tyranny exerted by this adminiftration.---Gods! Sir, fhall we be told, that you cannot annalize grievances ?---that you can have no communication with rebels, because they have declared for independency !---Shall you be told this, when the tyrant Philip did it after the fame circumftance in the Netherlands.---By edict he allowed their fhips to enter their ports, and fuffered them to depart in peace ;---he treated with them;---made them propofitions ;---and pofitively declared that he would redress all their grievances.---And James II. when he was failing from France, at the head of a formidable force, affifted like you by foreign troops, and having a great party in the kingdom, ftill offered fpecific terms;---while his exceptions of pardon were few, among the reft my honourable friend's ancestor, Sir Stephen Fox:---But you will offer none;---you fimply tell them to lay down their arms, and then you will do juft as you please. Could the moft cruel conqueror fay lefs? Had you conquered the Devil himself in hell, could you be lefs liberal? No! Sir, you would offer no terms;---you meant to drive them to the declaration of independency:---and even after it was iffued, ought by your offers to have reversed the effect. You would not receive the remonftrance which I brought you from New-York, because it denied your rights to certain powers;---yet the late King of France received the remonftrances from his parliaments, that expressly denied his right to the powers he was in the .conftant exercise of---anfwered them, and even redreffed fome of the grievances, which those very remonftrances complained of, though he refufed to grant, what he thought more peculiarly entrenched upon his own authority.

In this fituation, Sir,fhocking to fay, are we called upon by another proclamation to go to the altar of the Almighty, with war and vengeance in our hearts, inftead of the peace of our bleffed Saviour;---he faid, "My peace I give you;" ---but we are on this faft, to have war only in our hearts and mouths; war against our brethren.--. Till our churches are purified from this abominable fervice, I fhall confider them, not as the temples of the Almighty, but the fynagogues of Satan. An act not more infamous, respecting its political purpofes, than blafphemous and profane as a pretended act of national devotion, when the people are called upon, in the most soleinn and awful manner, to repair to church, to partake of a facrament, and at the foot of the altar, to commit facrilege, to perjure themfelves publicly by charging

2

their

Mr. Reus.

their American bretheren with the horrid crime of rebellion, with propagating" fpecious falfhoods," when either the charge must be notoriously falfe, or thofe who make it, not knowing it to be true, call Almighty God to witness to not a fpecious, but a moft audacious and blafphemous falfhood.

Mr. Rous entered into an abftract difcourfe on the nature of civil government, and applied his reafoning on the subject to the grounds of the prefent difpute fubfifting between Great Britain and her colonies. From thence he proceeded to ftate the various difficulties which prefented themselves on either hand on the fubject of taxation, whether the right was fufpended or concealed on our part, or acknowledged or exercised on the other, it would be liable to ftrong objections. However, there was one point, as a grand preliminary, which must be the bafts of every conciliatory step on either fide; that was a clear inequivocal acknowledgment of the legislative fupremacy of the British Parliament. If that was not to be obtained, but by the force of arms, he confeffed, that he was most eagerly defirous that arms should be reforted to; that probably the advantages we had lately obtained at Long Island, and in the neighbourhood of New York, might give us an opportunity of eftablishing a civil government in that province, the example and influence of which, when accompanied with a promife of a redress of real grievances, might be productive of the moft happy and falutary confequences.---After making a great many obfervations, he concluded thus :---" That he would be better pleafed to fee Britain dying of the wounds fhe might receive in this unnatural conflict given by her rebellious ungrateful children, than confent to one condescending Step that might tend to tarnish her former glories.

Mr. Byng obferved, that adminiftration had all along acted Mr. Byng. upon fyftem, and however mistaken they might be as to fome of the effects of their measures, they never loft fight of the great object they had in contemplation from the beginning; that was, to compel America to confent to unconditional fubmiffion, which was, in other words, to confent to be flaves; or, in the event of their refufal and confequent refiftance, to endeavour to fubdue or extirpate them.---This he contended was the great pervading principle which governed the American fyftem, and fuch was the intention of those to whom carrying it into execution was committed.---The oppofition given to the motion made by the noble Lord near

him,

him, [Lord J. Cavendish] was of a piece with the whole of the minifterial conduct, fince the commencement of this bufinefs.---Minifters in private, and their runners in public, were conftantly known to load the officers entrusted with the fuperior commands with reproaches, or to flatly charge them with difobedience of orders, and with the commiffion of acts to which they were not authorized.---Such, he prefumed, was the true purport of what was now urged against the motion. The declaration imports one thing, the obvious contents another; however, if a different interpretation should be put on it by the Americans, we ftill have two ways to get rid of it, and still keep up a femblance of good faith; for we retain the right of explaining our own meaning, or of disowning the declaration as exceeding the powers granted by the commiffion, and if more clofely preffed, of exceeding the powers granted by Parliament; fo that whatever the declaration promifes, can be of no avail, but to mislead America by falfe lights. Our aim is unconditional fubmiffion; every conceffion beyond that, we can explain away, and difavow.--He finally obferved, that this underhand conduct on the part of adminiftration, anfwered more purposes than one; it answered in a military, as well as a civil capacity, to skreen and varnish over, as well as to mislead and betray. Thus they had the address and effrontery to fhift the censure they would have fo defervedly incurred off their own fhoulders. This he inftanced in the perfons of Carleton, Howe, Clinton, and feveral others, who were reprefented by their runners about town, and even by fome of the principals, as mad, ignorant, rafh, or inactive, according as it fuited the prefent moment.---He fhould not have particularly adverted to those circumftances, he said, if it had not called to his recollection the fate of a near relation, who fell a facrifice to the fame treacherous motives of felf acquittal.

Germaine.

Lord George Germaine next spoke, and faid, he arofe to Lord George clear up fome matters of fact. That the noble Lord, who' made the motion, had fuppofed that he received the procla-. mation with the difpatch from General and Lord Howe; that on the contrary, the proclamation was left at Falmouth with other matters, and coming up to town in the ordinary way, did not reach his hands till Monday morning, when the extraordinary Gazette was already publifhed. That he forbore to infert it in Tuesday's Gazette, because he really did not think it of importance enough; that it was not concealed, many copies having been pafted against

the

the walls of New York, and many fent all over America.
That as it was only part of a treaty, he thought it improper
to publish it, and he conceived it was altogether unufual, as
he remembered the converfations between Lord Chatham
(when Mr. Pitt) and Monfieur de Buffy, previous to the
finishing the treaty of peace with France, were never pub-
lifhed. With regard to the great American queftion, he said,
it was endless to argue upon it. Every gentleman present,
he doubted not, had formed his opinion, and that the House
might debate to eternity without altering the different ideas
of different men. That he, from his opinion, called the
Americans rebels, and approved of the meafures pursued
against them by government; that he was averfe to the pre-
fent motion, as it would deprive General and Lord Howe of
the honour of making peace with America, an honour which
he flattered himself the gentlemen on the oppofite fide of the
House wished them to have. As to the proclamation for a
faft, he had before this day only heard it read once in coun-
cil, and therefore from what the honourable gentleman had
faid, he had been induced to imagine, that the Archbishop
who drew it up might have made fome mistake; but that he
had now read it, and thought it a very good and a very pro-
per proclamation. His Lordfhip then read it at the table,
and having finished, declared the words, "fpecious falf-
hoods," were properly introduced; he bid the gentlemen re-
collect the American declaration for independency, and then
ask, if the rebels had not published "fpecious falfhoods ?":
He bid them read their feveral other publications, and he
doubted not they would all agree with him, that the affer-
tion was most true; but he observed, he could easily account
for his not feeing the matter in the fame light as the honour-
able gentleman oppofite him; he was neither fo accomplished
an orator, nor fo excellent a divine!

Mr. Dun

ning.

Mr. Dunning opened with observing, that he was not at the Opera (alluding to Mr. Solicitor General) on Tuefday evening, and as he did not imagine any news-paper contained any matter likely to entertain him, he had not read one that day; that he came down to Westminsterhall in the way of his profeffion, and had come from thence into that Houfe, without any previous knowledge of the debate; but as the proclamation, read from the news-paper, produced by the noble Lord his friend, had been declared to be authentic by the noble Lord in the blue ribbon, and the other noble Lord who fat next him (Lords North

North and Germaine] it was evident that news-paper infor mation was to be trufted as much as that given in any other manner. He declared his amazement, that the motion which had been made fhould be deemed fudden and ill-timed ; he faid, he knew of no time more proper for appointing a committee for the revifion of fuch acts as were deemed grievances by the Americans than the prefent. That the queftion was not now, what should be altered, and what should remain in force; that thofe were confiderations to be agitated when they came into a committee; that it was high time the legislature of Great Britain gave America reason to fuppofe they would not always turn a deaf ear to her complaints; that it appeared by the proclamation of Lord Howe that he had promifed in the King's name, that fuch acts as they thought grievances fhould be revifed; that the promise went to an affertion, that Parliament, as a branch of the legiflature, would enable the King to keep his word; that therefore is was high time Parliament convinced America how ready they were to fecond the King's endeavours to reftore peace, by beginning the good work with a revifal of the acts which oppreffed America, and a removal of those obftacles to a reconciliation. He faid, the remarks of a learned gentleman, (who had taken the other fide of the queftion) relative to the futility of the Houfe's taking into their confideration what they thought. the grievances of America, because it might afterwards appear they were not confidered by the Americans as grievances was notoriously ill-founded. That the Gentleman did himself and the Houfe much wrong, if becaufe Parliament had collectively been blind to the feveral petitions and publications of America, he fuppofed that the members as individuals had been equally blind, and neglected to peep into the petitions. which had been prefented. That all the members had made themselves mafters of the fubject, and that the House knew the grievances America had to complain of, was well aware what fhe felt as grievances, and might with great certainty proceed to redrefs them. He faid, the learned gentleman had given fome new ideas of liberty; he had declared, that America must be fubdued, America muft be conquered in order to her deliverance. This fort of deliverance was to him a new confequence of conqueft; from all that he had read or heard, he never knew that a conquered people were a free people, and he believed the Houfe would join with him in fuppofing, that from time immemorial, the very VOL. VI.

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