its own liberty, may be not the less inclined, upon that account, to domineer and tyrannize over others. Lord Chatham's fiate of health, during the two preceding feffions, had precluded him from making any confiderable parliamentary exertions, and he had rarely attended the House on any occafion; but, finding himself at this period somewhat relieved from the preffure of his complaints, he took the opportunity, on the third reading of the bill for quartering foldiers in America, to lay before the House and the Public his thoughts on this bill, and on American affairs in general, in a speech worthy of his diftinguished talents and illuftrious reputation. "If," said he, "my Lords, we take a tranfient view of those motives which induced the ancestors of our fellow-fubjects in America to leave their native country, to encounter the innumerable difficulties of the unexplored regions of the western world, our astonishment at the present conduct of their defcendants will naturally subside. There was no corner of the globe to which they would not have fled, rather than submit to the flavish and tyrannical spirit which prevailed at that period in their native country; and viewing them in their originally forlorn and now flourishing state, they may be cited as illuftrious instances to instruct the world, what great exertions mankind will naturally make, when left to the free exercise of their own powers. Notwithstanding withstanding my intention to give my hearty negative to the question now before you, I condemn, my Lords, in the severest manner, the turbulent and unwarrantable conduct of the Americans in some instances, particularly in the late riots at Boston; but, my Lords, the mode which has been pursued to bring them back to a sense of their duty, is so diametrically opposite to every principle of found policy, as to excite my utmost astonishment. You have involved the guilty and the innocent in one common punishment, and avenge the crime of a few lawless depredators upon the whole body of the inhabitants. My Lords, the different provinces of America, in the excess of their gratitude for the repeal of the Stamp Act, seemed to vie with each other in expressions of loyalty and duty; but the moment they perceived that your intention to tax them was renewed, under a pretence of ferving the East India Company, their resentment got the ascendent of their moderation, and hurried them into actions which their cooler reason would abhor. But, my Lords, from the whole complexion of the late proceedings, I cannot but incline to think, that Administration has purposely irritated them into these violent acts, in order to gratify their own malice and revenge. What else could induce them to dress Taxation, the father of American Sedition, in the robes of an EastIndia Director, but to break in upon that mutual peace and harmony which then so happily subsisted between the Colonies and the Mother Country. My Lords, it has always been my fixed and unalterable opinion, and I will carry it with me to the grave, that this country had no right under heaven to tax America. It is contrary to all the principles of justice and civil policy: it is contrary to that effential, unalterable right in nature, ingrafted into the British Conftitution as a fundamental law, that what a man has honeftly acquired is absolutely his own, which he may freely give, but which cannot be taken from him without his consent. Pafs then, my Lords, instead of these harsh and fevere edicts, an amnesty over their errors; by measures of lenity and affection allure them to their duty; act the part of a generous and forgiving parent. A period may arrive, when this parent may stand in need of every affistance she can receive from a grateful and affectionate offspring. The welfare of this country, my Lords, has ever been my greatest joy, and under all the viciffitudes of my life has afforded me the most pleasing confolation. Should the all-disposing hand of Providence prevent me from contributing my poor and feeble aid in the day of her distress, my prayers shall be ever for her profperity :- Length of days be in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and honor! May her ways be ways of pleasantness, and all her paths be peace!" VOL. II. E The The only effort of a nature directly conciliatory in the course of the present session, was made by Mr. Rofe Fuller, Member for Rye, who on the 19th April (1774) moved, that the House refolve itself into a Committee, to take into confideration the duty on the importation of teas into America, and the appropriation of the fame, with a view to its repeal. This motion was seconded and powerfully supported by Mr. Edmund Burke, in an elaborate speech, which excited very confiderable attention. This gentleman had, from the period of his first introduction to the House of Commons, as confidential Secretary to Lord Rockingham, during the administration of that nobleman, diftinguished himself by the fuperiority and splendor of his parliamentary talents; and he might at this time be confidered as the princi-pal organ through which the political sentiments were communicated of that once widely extended and potent connection of Whigs, of which Lord Rockingham had, since the death of the Duke of Newcastle, been confidered the head. The tide of power, of fortune, and of royal favor, having long fince flowed in a different channel, this party had been gradually deferted by many of their fummer friends, but still remained highly respectable from the firm conjunction of various families of the first distinction, who had ever been been numbered amongst the most zealous adherents of the Revolution, and Proteftant Succeffion in the House of Hanover. The fimple, unaffected, and unaffuming manners of the Marquis of Rockingham were amusingly contrasted in his representative Mr. Burke, whose deportment was lofty and fupercilious, and whose speeches in Parliament were for the most part characterized by a florid, diffusive, and oftentatious style of eloquence, ill-adapted to the investigation of truth; calculated rather to dazzle than inform, abounding with vanity and egotism, and apparently intended not fo much to exhibit the merits of the cause as the abilities of the speaker. Nevertheless, they difplayed a great extent of knowledge; they were en livened with frequent flashes of wit; they were illuminated with much brilliancy of allufion and metaphor, and adorned with bursts of oratory, bold, beautiful, and sublime. During the lifetime of the Marquis of Rockingham, he appeared, not indeed without fome remarkable deviations, to adhere with laudable zeal to the genuine principles of Whiggism: but from the lamented decease of that diftinguished nobleman, he became on a sudden very capricious and eccentric in his conduct; and his judgment being naturally weak, and his paffions proportionally violent and habitually indulged, the force of his genius in other respects has unfortunately only plunged him, in the latter |