known as persons who have disapproved of meafures so injurious in their past effects and future tendency; and who are not in haste, 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 language of the Court on the first day of the Seffion, evident symptoms of irresolution in the Cabinet Councils were at this period difcernible; and all discussion of the affairs of America were studioufly avoided by the Minister, in Parliament, previous to the recefs. 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 surprising, a reduction of four thousand seamen took place from the twenty thousand voted last year-a circumstance which shews in the strongest 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 propofed would be fully fufficient for reducing the Colonies to obedience. With unpardonable indifcretion he spoke in terms the most contemp.tuous tuous both of the power and the courage of the Americans. He asserted, that they were neither difciplined, nor capable of discipline; and that, formed of fuch materials, and so indisposed to encounter danger, their numbers would only add to the facility of the defeat *." On the first day of * To the infolence 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," said the flave to the despot, " you are not only the most illustrious of all the Perfians who have hitherto appeared, but you may securely defy the competition of posterity. 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 troopsno extraordinary wealth-their PROWESS I myself have knownBesides this, I am informed that in all their military undertakings the Greeks betray the extremest ignorance and folly. Who, Sir, shall oppose you at the head of the forces and fleets of Afia? The Greeks I think never can be so audacious. If, however, 1 should be deceived, and they shall be so MAD as to engage us, they will foon find to their cost that in the art of war we are the first of mankind." How well the predictions of these vain boasters were verified let SALAMIS and SARATOGA tell! The abject manner in which the GREAT KING subsequently sued by his Ambassadors for peace, courting with fawning flattery the friendship and alliance of the very people he had thus injuriously treated, treated, and the disdainful refusal of the Athenians to enter into any negotiation fo long as the Persian army remained within the limits of the Grecian territory, are particularly related by the fame historian. "You may be assured," say these sons of freedom, " that your endeavors to perfuade us into an alliance with the BARBARIANS never will succeed. On the part of the Athenians we declare, that as long as the fun shall continue his ordi. nary course, so long will we avoid any friendship with Xerxesfo long will we continue to resist him. Hereafter do not presume to enter an Athenian assembly with overtures of this kind." Herod. book viii. sect. 9. It is curious to remark, that the Laureat Whitehead, in his New Year's Ode for 1774, has con verted this historic parallel into a poetic contraft with what color of plausibility a short extract will suffice to shew. of the meeting after the 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 general report, without confiderable opposition in the Cabinet from certain Members of the Administration, in the number of whom there was reason to believe that the First Lord of the Treasury himself, the Lord Privy Seal, and the Secretary of State for America, were to be accounted. Notwithstanding the continued infirmities of the Earl of Chatham, he had formed a resolution 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 his Administration had attained the summit of human prosperity 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 his country *. "Pass but a few short fleeting years," Shall breathe its last." True, tyrant!-wherefore then does pride Not fo do BRITAIN'S KINGs behold Their floating bulwarks of the main And gather all the winds aërial reign To hurl JUST THUNDERS ON INSULTING FOES, TO GUARD and not INVADE the WORLD'S REPOSE. fettled "Too * Such extraordinary powers of mind as were in this Noble man, combined with so much corporeal infirmity, recall to recollection "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, said his Lordship, the honor of access to his Majesty, 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 breaft? 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 lection the anecdote of M. Voltaire, who, on a visit to the famous M. Turgot, when last at Paris, found the Minister wrapt up in gouty flannels and unable to move: " You remind me, said the Philosopher to the Statesman, of the image feen in Nebuchadnezzar's dream." "Ah!" said M. Turgot, feet of clay!" " Yes, and the head of GOLD! the head of GOLD!" faid M. Voltaire. " the |