صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

afford aid or fuccor to our rebellious colonies. The honor, fincerity, and fidelity of the Court of Spain were held up as facred, and thus were Parliament and the Nation kept in a constant state of delufion until they were awakened from their dream by the imminence of the impending ruin." The Address, however, containing the fullest affurances of support, was unanimoufly agreed to. But a subsequent motion of Lord John Cavendish, for the withdrawment of the troops from America, was evaded by a question of adjournment.

In consequence of the acknowledged neceffity of new and unprecedented exertions, a plan was formed by the Minifter for augmenting the militia to double the actual number; and a bill for that purpose paffed the Commons without difficulty, but met with an unexpected opposition with the Lords, and on a division the compulsory clause was thrown out by a majority of 39 to 22 voices; the Lord Prefident Lord Gower, and both the Secretaries of State, giving their votes against it. A folitary provifion for raifing volunteer companies only remained; and in this state it was returned to the Commons, to the great chagrin of the Minister, who openly complained of the defertion of his colleagues in office; nor was his mortification lessened by the taunts of the Oppofition, who remarked, that the disunion and difcord which the Adminiftration had been the means of spreading throughout the empire, empire, had now seized the Cabinet, and was equally visible amongst themselves.

On the 3d of July the King closed the session with a speech, in which his Majesty mentioned it as a happy omen of the success of his arms, that the increase of difficulties feemed only to augment the courage and constancy of the nation. The Memorial of Count d'Almodovar, and a long justificatory Manifesto subsequently published by the Court of Madrid, were filled with heavy complaints of the conduct of the English Court for several years past, though certainly grounded on no solid reason; the King of England truly affirming in his message to Parliament, "That with regard to Spain he had nothing to reproach himself with; and that his defire to cultivate peace and amity with that power had been uniform and fincere." The Court of Madrid pretended, that the infults and incredible violences offered to the Spanish traders by England from the year 1776 to the beginning of the present year 1779, were no less than 86 in number, fince which other insults and injuries had been offered; so that the whole amount arose to the precife and full complement of one hundred. The only circumstance really important and interesting in this fingular Manifefto, is the discovery that the mediation of Spain had been offered and accepted by Great Britain and France foon after the commencement

of

:

of hoftilities, and that a negotiation between these two Courts had been actually carried on for the space of eight months.

On the 14th of September, immediately subsequent to the arrival of the Count d'Almodovar in London, Lord Weymouth declared to his Excellency, that the King of England most fincerely defired to terminate the present war, by the mediation of his Catholic Majefty. In consequence of which, the King of Spain, after much difcuffion, proposed a general truce for a term of years, in order to allow time for the final accommodation of differences. In his ultimatum of the 3d of April 1778, he offered the city of Madrid for the holding of a General Congress for this purpose, to which the Colonies should be admitted to send Commissioners, and in the mean time to be treated as an Independent Power; and that a general difarming should take place within one month in Europe, and four months in America ; his Catholic Majefty offering at the same time his guarantee of the definitive treaty. The Manifefto states, "That the Court of London objected to recognizing the Independency of America during the continuance of the truce; and it forcibly urges, as a thing very extraordinary, and even ridiculous, that the Minister, Lord North, had, notwithstanding this objection, proposed in the English House of Commons that the Congress should be be treated with as the Plenipotentiaries of Independent States, on the very proviso suggested by Spain, that this conceffion should not be understood to preclude the subsequent poffible relinquishment of that independency. The Convention of Saratoga, the cartel settled for the exchange of prifoners, the nomination of Commiffioners to fupplicate the Americans for peace at their own doors, are, it is afferted, real and unequivocal acknowledgements of the Independency of America. The English nation itself is appealed to by his Catholic Majefty: ' whether these acts are more confonant with the dignity of the British Crown, than would be the granting, at the interceffion of his Catholic Majesty, a fuspension of hoftilities for the adjustment of differences, and the treating them in this interval as Independent States." Nevertheless the English Court positively refused, as the Manifefto proceeds to affirm, its afsent to the propofitions contained in this ultimatum; declaring moreover, that France should not interfere in the arrangement of the interests of those the affects to call her allies: and, in fine, the English Court had the effrontery to say, that the drift of Spain was to form, from the pretenfions of the Colonies to independence, one common cause with them and with France. On the contrary, his Catholic Majefty declares, that these last proposals were not even communicated to France before they were tranfmitted to the Court of London; so that the haughty expreffions of the English Ministry amount merely to this conclufion, 'that, in spite of the overture made by themselves, they prefer war to peace, or a treaty under the mediation of the Catholic King, whom they provokingly insulted, treating him as partial, inconsistent, and leagued with the enemies of Great Britain; notwithstanding which his Catholic Majesty did not issue orders for reprisals, but in consequence of the actual commencement of hoftilities on the part of Great Britain." Upon the whole it is evident, from the explicit and curious detail of the whole negotiation given in this Manifesto, clothed as it is in the stately language of Castilian pride, tinctured with absurdity, that Spain acted in this bufiness with generofity, openness, and honor. It was undoubtedly determined by both branches of the House of Bourbon, to establish the permanent independency of America: but this SPAIN at least wished to effect without involving herself in a war with England; and the expedient suggested by his Catholic Majefty was certainly the wisest and best which in present circumftances could be adopted; but the pride of the English Court was not yet fufficiently humbled to affent to the emancipation of America, though the idea of fubjugation became every day more palpably chimerical and extravagant.

« السابقةمتابعة »