fatal consequences which he could not even think of without grief and horror. Such, he said, was the strength of his conviction, that no personal confideration whatever could induce him to refrain from giving his most determined opposition to the measures actually pursued, and to those which he understood were yet in contemplation. After a long and vehement debate, the amendment of lord Rockingham was rejected by 69 voices to 29, and the original motion, on a second divifion, carried by 76 voices to 33. But the lords in the minority entered upon the journals a most spirited and vigorous protest against it. "We have beheld with forrow and indignation," say their lordships, "freemen driven to resistance by acts of oppreffion and violence. We cannot confent to an address which may deceive his majesty and the public into a belief of the confidence of this house in the present ministry, who have disgraced parliament, deceived the nation, loft the colonies, and involved us in a civil war against our clearest interests, and upon the most unjustifiable grounds, wantonly spilling the blood of thousands of our fellow fubjects."

On the refignation of the duke of Grafton, lord Dartmouth, whose mild temper was ill calculated to enforce the present bloody and coercive measures, was advanced to the dignity of lord privy seal; and lord George Germaine, fo famous, or rather infamous, under his former appellation of lord George Sackville, who, after a long course of oppofition, had uniformly voted with the court on the questions relative to America, was appointed to the vacant post of secretary of state for the colonies. The most odious of tasks was now therefore properly affigned to the most odious of instruments. Lord Rochford also at this time choofing to retire from public business, the earl of Weymouth was reinstated in the office of secretary for the southern department, resigned by his lordship in the year 1771. The debate on the address in the house of commons was chiefly diftinguished diftinguished from that of the lords by the high offence which seemed to be taken by many of the country gentlemen, and fome other members who usually voted with the administration, at that clause in the speech from the throne in which his majesty mentioned the introduction of a body of his electoral forces into the garrifons of Port Mahon and Gibraltar; and the corresponding clause in the address, thanking his majesty for the same. This was, not without reason, represented as a measure in the highest degree unconftitutional and dangerous; and, the minister not seeming very willing to give any fatisfaction on this head, many gentlemen left the house without voting. On the report, the oppofition was renewed with fresh vigor; and a motion being now formally made by one of the country members for inferting in lieu of the obnoxious clause, the words, " And we will immediately take into our confideration the measure of introducing foreign troops into any part of the dominions of Great Britain without the previous consent of parliament;" the minifter began to see the neceffity of making fome conceffion; and, quitting the high but unfure ground of authority, he now declared, " that though he believed the measure to be right, as other gentlemen for whom he had the highest deference seemed to be of another opinion, he had no objection that the matter should be brought in a regular and parliamentary manner before the house, that its advifers might, if the neceffity of the cafe required it, receive the benefit of an act of indemnity." This acknowledgment brought back the deferters to the ministerial standard, and the address finally passed by a great majority. In the sequel, a bill of Indemnity was actually brought into the house of commons, and passed with general approbation; but after great debate it was, little to the fatisfaction of the public, rejected by the lords.

On the 10th of November, 1775, the duke of Richmond moved for the examination of Mr. Penn at the bar of the house of lords, to which the peers in administration gave a very reluctant afssent. In the course of this remarkable examination, it appeared that no question had been asked of Mr. Penn, or any enquiry made by ministers fince his arrival in England, although he had been governor of the colony in which the congress held their feffion, and was held in univerfal esteem as a man of great candor, ability, and information. He declared his firm belief, "that the congress had hitherto entertained no designs of independency; that the members of that affembly were men of character, fairly elected, and fully competent to declare the sense of their constituents; that the different provinces would certainly be governed by their decifions; that the war was levied and carried on by the colonists, merely in defence of what they conceived to be their undoubted rights and liberties; that the spirit of resistance was general, and that they believed themselves able to defend their liberties against the arms of Great Britain; that the colonies had been greatly dissatisfied with the reception of their former petitions, but had formed great hopes on the fuccess of that brought over by him, which was styled by them The Olive Branch,' and that he had been congratulated by his friends upon his being the bearer of it: that it was greatly to be feared, that, if conciliatory measures were not speedily pursued, they would form connections with foreign powers, and that such connections, once made, it would be found very difficult to diffolve. He affirmed, that the prevailing wish of America was restoration of friendship with England; but that the most intelligent men on the continent were of opinion, that a rejection of the prefent petition would prove an infuperable bar to reconcile

He faid that the Americans were well fatisfied with the repeal of the stamp act, notwithstanding the declaratory law which accompanied it; and if no innovations had been afterwards made, they would have remained content: that they would allow the imperial authority of Great Britain, but not its right of taxation." The examination being finished, the duke of Richmond moved, "That the petition from the continental congress to the king was ground for a conciliation conciliation of the unhappy differences subsisting between Great Britain and America." After a violent debate, the motion was negatived by 86 to 33 voices.

The minister having moved in the house of commons, that the land-tax for the year 1776 be four shillings in the pound, the country gentlemen were congratulated by the members in opposition on this additional taxation, as the first fruits of their darling scheme for the coercion of America; and it was predicted, that below the present level the land-tax would NEVER AGAIN BE REDUCED. The country members, irritated equally by the increase of the tax and the bitter sarcasms by which it was accompanied, and difpleased also with the language now held by lord North, " that the contest was not for taxation but for fovereignty," declared through the medium of their leaders, that they had supported government in its plans of coercion, in the firm perfuafion that their burthens would be eventually diminished by a great revenue to be drawn from America; but if the idea of a revenue were abandoned, they could not think of expending any more money in a contest attended with so many evils, and wholly unproductive of benefit; and they would therefore oppose the noble lord's motion for the increase of the land-tax. The minister, who was a great adept in the art of accommodation, and perfectly skilled in the science of government within the walls of that house, instantly perceived the neceffity, as at other times, and on other favorite points, of conciliating this occafionally obstinate and refractory class of members. He now therefore assured them, " that the idea of taxation, and of levying a productive revenue from America, was never abandoned; and that, when any thing of that fort was affirmed, nothing more was meant than that it was dropped for the present; taxation being a matter of secondary confideration only, when the fupremacy of the country was at stake. He even declared, that no means exifted by which the legislative authority and commercial control of this country over the colonies could be insured, but by combining them with taxation," This explanation giving much fatisfaction, the motion was carried by a great majority; and thus were these credulous and honeft gentlemen, the loyal and zealous DE COVERLEYS of the house, led to believe, that a war carried on at so enormous and uncalculable an expence, was a war founded on the economical principle of reducing taxes and diminishing burdens; though it is remarkable, that the most sanguine ideas of Mr. Grenville himfelf never extended to the expectation of extorting a revenue from America equal in amount to the interest of the loan already wanting, and which it would be annually necessary, under increasing difficulties and difadvantages, to raise, in order to establish a claim which was now declared to be the object of the contest.

In the course of this month (Nov. 1775) a series of motions made in the upper house by the duke of Grafton, for eftimates to be laid before the house respecting the state of the army in America, and the addition of force necessary for the service of the ensuing campaign, were negatived without a division. Parliament was left to wander in darkness and uncertainty, on pretence of the danger of giving any information that might reach the enemy. On the day succeeding this rejection, Mr. Burke moved for leave to bring in a bill " for quieting the present troubles in America," which was professedly founded on the famous statute passed in the 35th year of Edward I. known by the name of Statutum de tallagio non concedendo. He justly observed, " that fovereignty was not in its nature an idea of absolute unity, but was capable of great complexity and infinite modifications, according to the temper of those who are to be governed, and to the circumstances of things; which being infinitely diversified, government ought to be adapted to them, and to conform itself to their nature, instead of vainly endeavoring to force that to a contrary bias; that the grand Seignior himself could not exercise his authority in the same VOL. I.

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