der the ruins of her own foolish and inhuman system of destruction." In a subsequent letter he says, " It is plain that America cannot wear chains. Would to heaven it were equally plain that the oppreffor England is not doomed one day to bind them round her own hands, and wear them patiently!

Sævior armis

Luxuria incubuit, victumque ulcifcitur orbem.

Happily beyond the Atlantic this poison has not reached the heart. When then will infatuated administration begin to fear that freedom they cannot destroy, and which they do not know how to love?" And in a third letter he says, "I have not words to express my fatisfaction that the congress had conducted this most arduous and delicate business with such manly wisdom and calm resolution as does the highest honor to their deliberations. Very few are the things contained in their resolves that I could wish had been otherwise. Upon the whole I think it must be evident to every unprejudiced man in England, who feels for the rights of mankind, that America, under all her oppreffions and provocations, holds forth to us the most fair and just opening for restoring harmony and affectionate intercourse as heretofore. I trust that the minds of men are more than beginning to change on this great subject; and that it will be found impossible for freemen in England to wish to fee three millions of Englishmen slaves in America."

The PARLIAMENT, which had fat fix years only, was suddenly and unexpectedly diffolved in the month of September, and a new parliament immediately convened, which met on the ensuing 29th November 1774, and of which Sir Fletcher Norton, a lawyer of great eminence, was unanimously re-chosen speaker; for, this high office he had already occupied several years, in consequence of the resignation of Sir John Cust. The king, in his opening speech, acquainted the two houses, that a most daring fpirit of resistance and disobedience still prevailed in the province of Massachusetts

Bay, Bay, and had broke forth in fresh violences of a very criminal nature; that the most proper and effectual measures had been taken to prevent these mifchiefs; and that they might depend upon a firm refolution to withstand every attempt to weaken or impair the fupreme authority of this legislature over all the dominions of the crown." The address proposed in the house of commons produced a warm and animated debate. The minifter was reminded of the mighty effects he had predicted from the late acts against America. They were to humble the whole continent in the dust, and the punishment of Boston was to strike universal terror into all the colonies; that refractory town would be totally abandoned; and, instead of obtaining relief, a dread of the fame fate would even prevent the appearances of pity. An amendment being at length offered, that his majesty would be graciously pleased to communicate the letters, orders, and instructions, relative to the execution of the late acts, it was negatived by a majority of 264 to 73. In the house of lords, the numbers on the divifion were 63 to 13; but a protest against the address, the first which had ever appeared on the journals of the house, was figned by the lords in the minority; who, at the conclufion of it, thus express themselves: " It affords us a melancholy profpect of the disposition of lords in the present parliament, when we fee the house, under the preffure of so severe and uniform an experience, again ready, without enquiry, to countenance, if not to adopt, the spirit of former fatal proceedings. But whatever may be the mischievous defigns, or the inconfiderate temerity which leads others to this defperate course, we wish to be known as persons who have difapproved the measures so injurious in their past effects and future tendency; and who are not in hafte, without enquiry or information, to commit ourselves in declarations which may precipitate our country into all the calamities of a civil war." Notwithstanding the high lanVOL. I. guage

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guage of the court on the first day of the seffions, evident fymptoms of irresolution in the cabinet councils were at this period difcernible; and all difcuffion of the affairs of America were studiously avoided by the minifter, in parliament, previous to the recess. It was intimated only, that the apprehenfion of a war was wholly chimerical. The estimates were formed entirely upon a peace establishment, the land-tax was continued at three shillings; no vote of credit was required; the army remained on its former footing; and, what was most of all furprising, a reduction of four thousand feamen took place from the twenty thoufand voted last year a circumstance which shews in the ftrongest light, how astonishing was the delufion of the ministry, or how eager their folicitude to delude the public. Lord Sandwich, first lord of the admiralty, publicly declared in the house of peers, that he knew the low establishment proposed would be fully fufficient for reducing the colonies to obedience. With unpardonable indifcretion he spoke in terms the most contemptuous both of the powers and the courage of the Americans. He asserted, that they were neither difciplined nor capable of difcipline; and that formed of fuch materials, and fo indisposed to encounter danger, their numbers would only add to the facility of the defeat*." On the first day of the meeting after the recefs,

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*To the insolence and adulation of lord SANDWICH's rhetoric on this occafion, history affords perhaps no juster parallel than the speech of MARDONIUS TO XERXES on his projected invafion of Greece, as recorded by the pen of Herodotus. Sir," faid the flave to the despot, you are not only the most illuftrious of all the Persians who have hitherto appeared, but you may securely defy the competition of pofterity. You are entitled to our particular admiration for not fuffering the people of IONIA, contemptible as they are, to INSULT US with impunity. It would indeed be prepofterous, if, after reducing to our power the Sacæ, the Indians, the Ethiopians, and the Affyrians, with many other great and illustrious nations, we should not inflict vengeance on those GREEKS, who without provocation have molested us. There can be nothing to excite our alarm-no multitude of troops-no extraordinary wealth-their PROWES I myself have known-Besides this, I am informed that in all their military undertakings the Greeks betray the extremest ignorance and folly. Who, fir, shall oppose you at the head of the forces and fleets of Afia? The Greeks I think never can be so audacious. If, however, I should be deceived, and they shall be so MAD as to engage us, they will foon find to their cost

recess, January 20th, 1775, lord Dartmouth laid before the peers the official papers belonging to his department. The plan of ministerial coercion was now finally fettled not however, according to the general report, without confiderable oppofition in the cabinet from certain members of the administration, in the number of whom there was reafon to believe that the first lord of the treasury himself, the lord privy feal, and the secretary of state for America, were to be accounted. Notwithstanding the continued infirmities of the earl of Chatham, he had formed a refolution to attend the house, if poffible, on this memorable day, in order, before the die was finally caft, to make one powerful effort to avert the calamity, the danger, and the ruin which he saw impending over that great empire, which under

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under his administration had attained the summit of humarn profperity and glory. The house was unusually full, and a most respectable and crowded audience also filled the space below the bar. When he rose to speak, all was filence and profound attention. Animated and almost inspired by his subject, he seemed to feel his own unrivalled fuperiority. His venerable figure, dignified and graceful in decay, his language, his voice, his gesture, were such as might at this important crifis, big with the fate of Britain, seem to characterize him as the guardian genius of bis country*. "Too well apprized," he said, " of the contents of the papers now at last laid before the house, he would not take up their lordships' time in tedious and fruitless investigations, but would seize the first moment to open the door of reconcilement;-for, faid he, every moment of delay is a moment of danger. As I have not, faid his lordship, the honor of access to his majefty, I will endeavor to tranfmit to him, through the constitutional channel of this house, my ideas of America, to RESCUE him from the mif-advice of his present ministers. America, my lords, cannot be reconciled; the ought not to be reconciled to this country till the troops of Britain are withdrawn from the continent, they are a bar to all confidence, they are a source of perpetual irritation, they threaten a fatal catastrophe. How can America trust you, with the bayonet at her breast? How can she suppose that you mean less than bondage or death? I therefore, my lords, move, that an humble address be presented to his majesty, most humbly to advise and beseech his majesty, ' that in order to open the way towards an happy fettlement of the dangerous