beginning; you ought, therefore, to make the first overture. I fay again, my lords, you have been the aggreffors, you have made descents upon their coafts, you have burned their towns, plundered their country, made war upon the inhabitants, confifcated their property, profcribed and imprifoned their perfons ;-you have injured, oppreffed, and endeavoured to enflave them. America is therefore entitled to redress. Let then reparation come from the hand that inflicted the injuries; let conciliation fucceed to oppreffion; and I maintain, that parliament will again recover its authority; that his majesty will be once more enthroned in the hearts of his fubjects; and that your lordships, as contributing to fo great, benignant, and glorious an event, will receive the prayers and benedictions of every part of the British empire.

The peers in adminiftration repeated upon this occafion their accustomed arguments against conceffions of any kind, as an acknowledgment of weakness on our part, which would excite the contempt of our friends, and fofter the malice of our enemies. They pofitively denied any danger from France, and afferted, that "the affiftance given to the Americans proceeded neither from the court nor the minifters, but from the fpirit of military enterprife and commercial adventure; and finally, that the motion

arraigned

arraigned in the most improper terms measures which had received the fanction of parliament." On a divifion, the numbers were 99 to 28 peers who fupported the question.

On the 7th of June, 1777, the feffion was terminated, and his majefty expreffed in his speech his entire approbation of the conduct of parliament, lavishing upon them high and flattering compliments for the unquestionable proofs they had given of their CLEAR DISCERNMENT of the TRUE INTERESTS of their COUNTRY. The pride and prefumption of the court feemed at this period to have no bounds or limits. The American government having a very confiderable number of British prifoners in their poffeffion, applied during the fpring of the present year, through the medium of Dr. Franklin, refident of the United States at Paris, to lord Stormont, ambaffador from the king of England, to exchange them for an equal number of Americans. To which his lordship made this memorable anfwer: "The king's ambaffador receives no application from rebels, unless they come to implore his majesty's mercy." Thus wantonly and wickedly were the horrors of war deepened, and thus the eternal principles of juftice and mercy facrificed to the barbarous and wretched etiquette of a court.

During the feffion a memorial in a very un

His

ufual style had been delivered by fir Jofeph Yorke, ambaffador at the Hague, to the States General, in which his excellency declared, "That the king, his mafter, had hitherto borne with unexampled patience the irregular conduct of the fubjects of their High Might ineffes, in their interested commerce at St. Euftatia, as alfo in America. If, faid the ambaffador, the measures which your High Mightineffes have thought proper to take, had been as efficacious as your affurances have been amicable, the underfigned would not now have been under the neceffity of bringing to the cognizance of your High Mightineffes facts of the moft ferious nature. excellency then proceeds to ftate, that M. Van Graaf, governor of St. Euftatia, had permitted the feizure of an English veffel, by an American pirate, within cannon fhot of the island; and that he had returned from the fortrefs of his government the falute of a rebel flag: and the ambaffador concludes with demanding, in his majefty's name, and by his express order, from their High Mightineffes, a formal difavowal of the falute by Fort Orange at St. Euftatia to the rebel fhip, and the difmiffion and immediate recall of the governor Van Graaf; declaring farther, that until fuch fatisfaction is given they are not to expect that his majesty will fuffer himself to be amufed by mere affurances, or that he will de

lay

lay one inftant to take fuch measures as he fhall think due to the intereft and dignity of his crown."

The States, highly offended at the imperious language of this memorial, would give no anfwer whatever to the ambaffador, but ordered count Welderen, their refident in London, to deliver into the king of England's own hand a counter-memorial, in which they complain of the menacing tone that reigns throughout that of the English court, fuch as ought not to take place between fovereign and independent powers; adding, however, "that from the fole motive of demonftrating their regard to his majesty, they have actually dispatched orders to M. De Graaf to render himfelf within the republic without delay, in order to give the neceffary information refpecting his conduct; nor do they scruple to difavow, in the most exprefs manner, any act or mark of honour which may have been given by their officers to any veffels belonging to the colonies of America, fo far as it may imply a recognition of American independence." The king thought proper to declare himself satisfied with thefe conceffions, but the utmost coolness from this time fubfifted between the courts of London and the Hague.

The acrimony difplayed on this occafion by the former may be without doubt imputed in a great

T3

a great degree to the extreme offence taken, previous to the interchange of these memorials, at the refufal of the States to part with the Scots brigade in their fervice, at the defire of the king of England, fignified by a letter written to their High Mightineffes in his own hand. "In what an odious light must this unnatural civil war appear to all Europe!" said one of the deputies of the province of Overyffel, M. Vander Capelle, in the debate which arofe on this fubject. "More odious still would it appear for a nation to take part therein who have fuccefsfully refifted oppreffion, and fought themselves free. Superlatively deteftable must it appear to those who, like me, regard the Americans as a brave people, engaged in defending thofe rights which they derive from GoD, not from the legislature of Great Britain. For the purpose of fuppreffing such a revolt, or, as fome please to call it, fuch a rebellion as this, I had rather fee janiffaries hired than the subjects of a free state."