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This moving the indignation of lord Chatham, he fuddenly rofe, and gave full vent to his feelings, in one of the most extraordinary bursts of eloquence that the pen of hiftory has recorded: "I am aftonifhed," exclaimed his lordfhip, "SHOCKED to hear fuch principles confeffed; to hear them avowed in this house, or even in this country. My lords, I did not intend to have encroached again on your attention, but I cannot reprefs my indignation-I feel myfelf IMPELLED to fpeak. My lords, we are called upon as members of this house, as men, as chriftians, to protest against fuch horrible barbarity.-That GOD and nature put into our hands! What ideas of GOD and nature that noble lord may entertain I know not-but I know that such deteftable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity. What! to attribute the sacred fanction of GOD and nature to the massacres of the Indian scalpingknife! to the cannibal-favage torturing, murdering, devouring, drinking the blood of his mangled victims! Such notions fhock every precept of morality, every feeling of humanity, every fentiment of honor. These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decifive indignation, I call upon that right reverend and this moft learned bench to vindicate the religion of their GOD, to fupport the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops, to interpose the unsullied fanctity of their lawn-upon the judges, to interpofe the purity of their ermine to fave us from this pollution. I call upon the honor of your lordships, to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country, to vindicate the national character. I invoke the GENIUS of the CONSTITUTION! From the tapestry that adorns these walls the immortal ancestor of this noble lord frowns with indignation at the difgrace of his country. In vain did he defend the liberty and establish the religion of Britain against the tyranny of Rome, if thefe worse than popish cruelties and inquifitorial

inquifitorial practices are endured among us. To fend forth the merciless cannibal thirsting for blood!-against whom?--Your proteftant brethren-to lay waste their country, to defolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race and name by the aid and inftrumentality of these horrible HELL-HOUNDS of WAR! Spain can no longer boast pre-eminence in barbarity. She armed herfelf with bloodhounds to extirpate the wretched natives of Mexico; but we, more ruthlefs, loose these DOGS of WAR against our countrymen in America, endeared to us by every tie that fhould fanctify humanity. My lords, I folemnly call upon your lordships, and upon every order of men in the state, to ftamp upon this infamous procedure the indelible ftigma of the public abhorrence. More particularly I call upon the holy prelates of our religion to do away this iniquity; let them perform a luftration to purify their country from this deep and deadly fin. My lords, I am old and weak, and at prefent unable to fay more, but my feelings and indignation were too ftrong to have faid lefs. I could not have flept this night in my bed, nor repofed my head upon my pillow, without giving this vent to my eternal abhorrence of fuch enormous and prepofterous principles."

Although lord Chatham on this occafion feemed, like fome "great mafter of the powerful fpell," to have uttered "those thrilling accents that awake the dead," the event, as on former occafions, proved that no impreffion could be made on the temper and difpofition of the house, more cold and callous than alpine fnows or monumental marble; for, on the divifion, 28 lords only voted in fupport of the motion, against 97 who oppofed it.

On the 2d of December (1777) Mr. Fox moved for an enquiry into the ftate of the nation, in which the minifter profeffed his cordial acquiefcence. Amongst other papers which were thought neceffary to elucidate the fubfequent investigation, Mr. Fox moved for returns of fuch colonies or places as had in purfuance of the powers vefted

in the commiffioners been declared at the king's peace, or copies of fuch papers as had relation thereto. This motion the minifter vehemently oppofed, and declared he neither could nor would confent to make discoveries inconfiftent with found wisdom and policy, and prejudicial to the realinterefts of the country.

During the heat of the debate intelligence was brought, that, in confequence of a motion of the duke of Grafton, thefe very papers had been actually laid upon the table of the other house; but the minifter, as if to try how far the obfequiousness of the house would extend, still perfifted in his refufal, and maintained "that the house of commons were not to be guided in their determinations by any extrinfic confideration;" and on a divifion, incredible as it may feem, the motion was actually negatived by a majority of 178 to 89. An act by which the dignity of the house was more wantonly facrificed by minifterial caprice and infolence, it would be most affuredly impoffible to find on the records of parliament.

The fucceeding day was rendered for ever memorable by the disclosure of the melancholy catastrophe at Saratoga. The American secretary being called upon to declare the purport of the dispatches recently received from Canada, with fhame and reluctance communicated the intelligence of that fatal event. This was followed by a long and profound filence, and one general sentiment of amazement and confternation feemed to pervade the house. At length a torrent of invective, accompanied by taunts the most bitter and farcaftic, were poured out by the leaders of the oppofition against the minifters, whofe pride, ignorance, and incapacity had occafioned a more fignal disgrace and calamity than had ever before in the most disastrous war befallen the British arms. The time did not ferve for bold and lofty language on the part of minifters. Lord North, with much apparent dejection, and even tears-the " iron tears" of dif

appointed

appointed pride and fallen ambition-a knowledged "that he had indeed been unfortunate, but that his intentions were ever juft and upright; that he had originally been in a manner forced into an office which he would most willingly and gladly refign, could his refignation facilitate the obtaining that peace and reconciliation for which he had ever earnestly wished." The American minifter alfo profeffed, in terms of humiliation, " that he fhould be ever ready to submit his conduct to the judgment of that house; hoping, nevertheless, that the house would fufpend their cenfures relative to the late unhappy event, till an impartial investigation both of the plan and the execution of it had taken place."

On the 5th of December (1777) lord Chatham, in confequence of the late intelligence from America, attended the house of peers, and moved, "that an address be prefented to his majefty, to cause thé proper officers to lay before the house copies of all orders and inftructions to general Burgoyne relative to the late expedition from Canada." Holding up a paper in view of the houfe, his lordfhip faid, "that he had the king's speech in his hand, and a deep fenfe of the public calamity in his heart. That speech, he faid, contained a most unfaithful picture of the state of public affairs; it had a specious outside, was full of hopes, while every thing within was full of danger. A fyftem deftructive of all faith and confidence had been introduced, his lordship affirmed, within the last fifteen years at St. James's, by which pliable men, not capable men, had been raised to the higheft pofts of government. A few obfcure perfons had obtained an afcendency, where no man should have a personal ascendency, and by the most infidious means the nation had been betrayed into a war of which they now reaped the bitter fruits. The SPIRIT OF DELUSION, his lordship faid, had gone forth; minifters had imposed on the people; parliament had been induced to fanctify the impofition; a vifionary phantom of revenue had been conjured up for the baseft of purposes,

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but it was now for ever vanifhed. His lordship faid, that the abilities of general Burgoyne were confeffed, his perfonal bravery not furpaffed, his zeal in the fervice unqueftionable. He had experienced no peftilence, nor fuffered any of the accidents which fometimes fuperfede the wifeft and moft spirited exert ons of human industry. What then is the cause of his misfortune?-Want of wifdom in our councils, want of a ility in our ministers. His lordship faid, the plan of penetrating into the colonies from Canada was a moft wild, uncombined, and mad project; and the mode of carrying on the war was the most bloody, barbarous, and ferocious recorded in the annals of history. The arms of Britain had been fullied and tarnished by blending the scalping-knife and tomahawk with the fword and firelock. Such a mode of warfare was a contamination which all the waters of the Hudson and the Delawar would never wash away. It was impoffible for America to forget or forgive fo horrid an injury.”

In the course of his speech he animadverted in the severest terms on the language recently held by a most reverend prelate, the archbishop of York, both in print and in that house. "The pernicious doctrines advanced by that prelate were, he faid, the doctrines of Atterbury and Sacheverel. As a WHIG he abjured and detefted them; and he hoped he should yet see the day when they would be deemed libellous, and treated as fuch." The motion. being negatived, his lordfhip next moved an address to the king, "that all orders and treaties relative to the employment of the Indian favages be laid before the house.”

Lord Gower rofe, and, with all that acrimony by which his fpeeches were usually distinguished, opposed and reprobated the motion, afferting, "that the noble lord had himfelf employed favages without fcruple in the operations of the last war." This charge lord Chatham pofitively and peremptorily denied, and challenged the ministers, if any fuch inftruction of his were to be found, to produce them.

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