the lateness of the hour; but it was ably contended that it could be received, by sir George Savile, Mr. Burke, and Mr. T. Townshend, who all shewed the difference there was between receiving a petition and complying with its prayer: the thinness of the House and the late hour they treated with ridicule, by reminding their opponents, that when the question was first proposed the House was pretty full, and it was in the afternoon. A motion was drawn up by Mr. Burke, in order for the point to be discussed, but as the House was so thin, there being but forty members with the Speaker, it was withdrawn. Debate in the Commons on the Observance of King Charles's Martyrdom on the 30th of January.] Jan. 26. Mr. Gas coyne moved, "That the Chaplain to this House do preach before this House, at Saint Margaret's, Westminster, upon Monday next, the 30th January." Lord Folkestone objected to the motion. He thought the observance of the day in the usual manner, a reflection upon the Revolution. When the custom first prevailed many doctrines were held destructive of the rights of Englishmen, but the Revolution had entirely reprobated the former, and clearly ascertained the latter. He also thought the observance of the day blasphemy against our holy religion. Mr. Gascoyne said, he moved it because an act of parliament required it. Mr. Byng said, the act of parliament did not order any sermon to be preached. Sir Gilbert Elliot contended, the question was not upon a matter of opinion, but whether the positive terms of an act of parliament should be obeyed. The Lord Mayor, Mr. Wilkes, said, that he was for the observance of the day, not in the usual manner by fasting and prayer to deprecate the pretended wrath of heaven, but in a very different way from what some other gentlemen had proposed; that it should be celebrated as a festival, as a day of triumph, not kept as a fast; that the death of the first Charles, a determined enemy of the liberties of his country, who made war on his people, and murdered many thousands of his innocent subjects-an odious, hypocritical tyrant, who was, in the great Milton's words, ipso Ner ne neronior-should be considered as a sacrifice to the public justice of the nation, as highly approved by heaven, and ought to be had in solemn remembrance as the most glorious deed ever done in this, or any country, without which we should at this hour have had no constitution, degenerated into the most abject slaves on the face of the earth, not governed by the known and equal laws of a limited monarchy, but subject to the imperious will of an arbitrary sovereign. Mr Byng reminded the House of the disagreeable situation they were in some time ago, having thanked Dr. Nowel, the Speaker's chaplain, for his sermon on the 30th of January, and being afterwards obliged to expunge those thanks.* The previous question being put, that the said proposed question be now put; the House divided. The Noes went forth. Debate in the Commons on a Second Petition of the Merchants of London.] Jan. 26. Mr. Alderman Hayley presented a second Petition from the merchants of London, setting forth, "That the petitioners have ever_conceived, that the connection between Great Britain and America originally was, and ought to be, of a commercial kind; and that the benefits derived therefrom to the mother country are of the same nature; and observing the constant attention which the British legislature had for more than a century given to those valuable objects, they have been taught to admire the re gulations by which that connection had been preserved, and those benefits secured, as the most effectual institution which human wisdom could have framed for those salutary purposes; presuming therefore on this opinion, and supported by this observation, the petitioners represent to the House, that the fundamental policy of those laws of which they com plain, and the propriety of enforcing, re laxing, or amending, the same, are questions inseparably united with the com Mr. Hotham contended, that the order should be discharged, and a new one made for hearing the petitioners; that on the ground of law it was no more than what the petitioners might claim as a juridical right; on the grounds of justice and reason, the claim was equally clear on the one side, equally proper to be granted on the other; and as to expediency, nothing could be more compatible with that than a hearing of the petitioners, which by affording information to the House, might guide their deliberations in the paths of wisdom. merce between Great Britain and Ame-ous civil war. He expressed his fears, rica; and consequently that the conside- that the rejection of the informations of ration of the one cannot be entered on, the trading interest, and the precipitate without a full discussion of the other; hurry of resolutions in an uninformed and that the petitioners observe, by the committee, or informed only so far as mivotes, that a committee hath been ap- nistry chose, must drive on a civil war pointed, to take into their consideration with America. certain papers presented to the House by lord North on Thursday the 19th instant; and, by the titles and dates of the said papers, and in particular No. 148 and 149 of the same, the petitioners are warranted in presuming that the said papers contain matters respecting the present situation of America, and essentially concerning the mutual interests of the petitioners and that country; and that, under all these circumstances, the petitioners find reason sincerely to lament that the House has thought fit to refer the consideration of their said petition to any other committee than that to which the said papers had previously been referred, and the petitioners conceive that, by the resolution to which the House hath come, respecting the reference of their said petition, they are absolutely precluded from the benefit of such a hearing, in support of their said petition, as can alone procure them that relief, which the importance and present deplorable state of their trade requires; and therefore praying the House to take the premises into their immediate consideration, and to direct that the petitioners may be heard, by themselves or their agents, in support of their said former petition: and that no resolution respecting America may be taken by the House, or any committee thereof, until the petitioners shall have been fully heard in support of their said petition."" The regular method of bringing this Petition before the committee to whom the American Papers were referred, was to discharge the order which had referred the merchants' first Petition to the committee of the 27th. Mr. Hayley therefore moved, that the said order be discharged. He resented the indignity and mockery put on a great body of merchants, in referring their business, which was the business of the nation, and of the empire indeed, to a separate committee, whose object was pretended to be no more than to form commercial regulations, which no petition had required or asked; and which committee had not a pretended concern in the great points of commercial policy, the ill-conduct of which threatened a most danger Mr. Hans Stanley could not help persuading himself that interested and factious persons had induced the merchants to sign these petitions. He ar gued, with respect to the impropriety of discharging the order, and hearing the petitioners, substantially thus: the only end which can be proposed in hearing the petitioners at the bar is information. What information could they lay before the House? Were they to allege, that whilst the disputes between Great Britain and America subsisted, their trade would undergo a temporary stagnation? This was to say nothing but what was already known; it was known that a stoppage of trade would be occasioned by the American disputes; there was no question but the stockholders and landed interest would be greatly affected by these disputes;-but what of that? Unless the supremacy of parliament and the rights of sovereignty were vigorously asserted by Great Britain, the American traffic could not subsist. To support the sovereignty was therefore to support the trade of Great Britain; and if in attempting this arduous task, our commerce should be suspended, our funds should sustain a shock, and the landed property of individuals should experience a diminution, yet all these were evils gentlemen should patiently endure with firmness and magnanimity; the merchants should forego their own interests for the sake of those permanent advantages which they would undoubtedly reap when the Americans were subdued, if, peradven ture, a subduction, obtained by force, should be found expedient. Mr. Hayley said, that a committee of London ought not to be heard in the three capital merchants had attended the American committee? The most depresigning of the petition, to prevent inconsi-preciated paper currency ever issued by derable or improper persons from putting Rhode Island, in its worst times, was not their names to it. He affirmed that no more different from good money than this undue means were used to procure per- talk from sound argument. The other sons to sign it on the contrary, the gentleman (Mr. Lewis) was sitting mem greatest caution was taken: many more ber last parliament. I thought he had a would have signed it, but were prevented, good right to his seat. I lamented that either from not being known to be con- the public had for seven years been decerned in the American trade, or from prived of the benefit of his talents; but being deemed too inconsiderable. suppose this had been the same parliament Mr. T. Townshend replied to Mr. Stan- whose acts he defends, and of whose inley with irony, accepting his acknowledg- justice he was the proto-martyr, and that ment of the distress that must fall on the he had till the last session been silent, and commerce, the landholder, and the stock- that his modesty had persuaded him to holder; but the place-holder, said he, will defraud the House of the benefit of his batten in the sunshine of his country's talents to the last hour, would that sepruin; no distress of the public can af- tennial silence of his argue that he ought fect him; he may talk at ease of the pa- not to be heard at the end of the seven tience with which others are to endure years, when he at last chose to interfere in ruin. The contractors of every kind may the debates? Then we should have heard pant for a civil war; but the event of vio- him patiently and calmly nay, if his ar lent councils must shake to its very foun-gument had required an answer, we should dation the public credit, on which every thing depends. Mr. Lewis said he had a speech of an hon. gentleman (meaning Mr. Burke) in his hand; wherein the eloquent declaimer had asserted, that during nine long years we had been lashed round the circle of miserable argumentation, without coming to any conclusion on the subject. The American merchants, he thought, came too late; that they ought not to have been silent so long; and that having so long confided in parliament, they ought to continue that confidence. He spoke of the relation of parent and child that subsisted between the countries; he supposed ingratitude in the child, and wished for its chastisement. Mr. Jenkinson said, that parliament had a right to regulate the internal concerns of America. He instanced an Act for regulating their paper currency; and from their submission to that, he concluded they ought to submit to every act of English legislature. He entertained no doubt that some resolutions for preserving the supremacy would answer every end of the merchants' Petition, and restore trade. Mr. Edmund Burke treated the talk of paper currency with very little respect, and said that Mr. Jenkinson's discourse had not the most remote tendency to prove this, or any other point. For what argument (said he) can be drawn from the instance of an Act to prevent paper currencies, to prove that the merchants of have answered him. He then turned to the slaughtered innocents who are to be victimated to the counsels of a ministry precipitate to dye the rivers of America with the blood of her inhabitants; besides these disasters, an impoverished revenue; famished millions; the stagnation of manufactures; the total overthrow of commerce; the encrease of the poor's rate; the accumulation of taxes; innumerable bankruptcies; and other shocks which may make the fabric of public credit totter to its basis: these were all depicted in the strongest colours by Mr. Burke. He professedly reserved himself, however, for that day when, if properly supported by the people, he vowed by all that was dear to him here and hereafter, he would pursue to condign punishment the advisers of measures fraught with every destructive consequence to the constitution, the commerce, the rights and liberties of this country. Jacobuses; when the king was taken out of his generals, and saw the money itself spread out before his eyes, he was frightened at what he was about, and threw himself in great agony on the mass of gold, and scrambling up a handful or two, there, said he, "ge'en that, that's enough." Now, said he, if we are to be generous in sacrificing our trade to our dignity, let us know what the value of the sacrifice is that we make; let us not be generous in the dark; true generosity is to give, and see, and know whatever we give. Let us, then, see this thing, this trade, we are to give up for our dignity. Your dignity may be worth it all, but let us be informed by the merchants what all really is. To be generous, without knowing what we give, is not liberality, but negligence; and fearlessness arising from ignorance, is not courage but insensibility. He said that the reason given by those who sent the Petitions to the Coventry Committee, Mr. Burke concluded his animated hafor not referring them to that on Ameri- rangue by quoting an instance, related in can Papers, was of a most extraordinary history, of an archer about to direct an arand unheard of nature: it was, that the row to the heart of his enemy, but found resolutions of that committee were to be that in his adversary's arms was enfolded solely on the grounds of policy, and that his own child. This singular incident he the commercial examination would delay recommended with cautionary admonition the measures necessary for the coercion to those statesmen who had in contemplaof America. This was to anticipate and tion the destruction of America, unmindpredetermine the future proceedings in a ful that they could not accomplish so bane. committee, as a reason for keeping infor- ful a purpose, without at the same time mation from it. How did they know plunging a dagger into the vitals of Great what measures would be pursued there, Britain. Let your commerce, said Mr. and on what principles? Was there any Burke, come before you,-see whether it instruction to the committee so to confine be not your child that America has in its itself? Or was it that the ministry had al- arms-see of what value that child is—exready not only solved what that committee amine whether you ought to shoot; and was to do, but reckoned upon it so much if you must shoot, shoot so as to avoid as a certainty, and as a matter so justifia-wounding what is dearest to you in the ble, that they did not scruple to avow it, world. Without examining your trade and to make it a ground of argument for you cannot do this. what the House ought, or ought not to have brought before its committee. This proceeding he thought no less alarming than unprecedented. If they meant hos tility, the reason they gave for not hearing was the strongest for it. But as their war ever must be dependent upon their finances, and their finances must depend upon their commerce, the true state of that commerce was necessary to be known, especially as colonies and commerce are inseparably connected. Having thus pleaded for the necessity of hearing the petitioners, Mr. Burke proceeded to lament the national calamities about to befal this devoted kingdom. Besides the horrors of a civil war, besides Mr. Charles Fox spoke on the same side. He arraigned in the severest terms, the Acts of the last parliament, as framed on false information, conceived in weakness and ignorance, and executed with negligence. We were promised that on the very appearance of troops, all was to be tranquillity at Boston, yet so far from subduing the spirit of that people, these troops were by neglect of those who sent them, reduced to the most shameful situation, and dishonourably intrenched within the lines of circumvallation, which a necessary precaution for their own safety obliged them to form. That the contrary effect of what the minister had promised, was foretold; but that the minister, for Mr. Solicitor General Wedderburn went upon a proposition of quieting the merchants, by passing a law, obliging the several provinces in America to pay the respective debts due by the inhabitants of the said provinces, to the merchants of this country. sooth, in his usual negligence, avowed, that when he was pursuing a measure of the last degree of importance, though it were treasonable in him, (the strength of the words he afterwards disavowed) yet he thought it would be blameable in him so much as to enquire what the effects were to be of his measures. He believed Lord North said the question had been it was the first time any minister dared to so fully discussed, that it would be preavow that he thought it his duty not to en-sumption in him to rise at that late hour quire into the effects of his measures; but it was suitable to the whole of the noble lord's conduct, who had no system or plan of conduct, no knowledge of business; that he had often declared his unfitness for his station, and he agreed that his conduct justified his declaration; and that the country was incensed, and on the point of being involved in a civil war by his incapacity. He pledged himself to join Mr. Burke, in pursuing him, and bringing him to answer the mischiefs occasioned by his negligence, his inconsistency, and his incapacity: he said not this from resentment, but from a conviction of the destructive proceedings of a bad minister. of the night, to trespass on the indulgence of the House; he should therefore decline it: but he thought it nevertheless incumbent on him, to say a word in answer to some insinuations, and some general charges made against him by two honourable gentlemen [Messrs. Burke and Fox.] He observed, that those gentlemen constantly made a point, not even of attacking, but threatening him. As to general charges, he could only answer them in general terms; and when that black, bitter, trying day should come, which had been prophesied by one of those gentlemen, and that he should bring any particular charge against him, he trusted he should be able to give it a particular answer. As to the other, who found so many causes of censure, and who disclaimed all resentment, he was sure, though he now discovered in him so much incapacity and negligence, there was a time, when he approved of at least some part of his conduct. Colonel Barré began with a short and spirited history of the late parliament, who, he said, commenced their political life with a violation of the sacred right of election in the case of Middlesex; they had died in the act of popery, when they established the Roman Catholic religion in Canada; and they had left a rebellion Lord George Germaine began with a in America as a legacy. He asserted, injustification of the last parliament; and infavour of the Americans, that they drew a just and reasonable line, which had been a line of peace, and would be so again, if we had sense enough to return to it. The Americans, he insisted on it, required no more; and they had too much justice on their side, to be satisfied with less. He flatly denied that they had objected to the Declaratory Act; and for proof he referred to Mr. Dickenson's pamphlet, entitled "A New Essay," &c. on which he passed the strongest eulogium. He concluded with a story which his friend Mr. Burke's archer had put him in mind of; than which nothing could be more apposite. There was another story, he said, of the famous William Tell, who being ordered to shoot an apple off his child's head, effectually did it, and the tyrant who had given the inhuman command, seeing him draw out another arrow, said to him, "What, another arrow?" "Oui, dit-il, il y a une autre; et c'est pour toi, tyran, destinée." Yes, tyrant, another arrow, and it is destined for thee! sisted that in their proceedings towards America, they had gone upon sufficient information. He made a strong declama tion on dignity. His lordship mentioned the Declaratory Act, professing not to address himself to those who denied our right to tax America, but to those who favoured that Act; they, his lordship insisted, were bound to support the idea of subduing America; the confession of the right implied the propriety and necessity of exercising it. If the Americans, point. ing the late Acts out as a grievance, would petition for their repeal, he would stretch forth the first hand to present it; but, on the contrary, if they claimed such repeal as a right, thereby disputing the authority of the mother country, which no reasonable man ever called in question, he wished the said Acts might be enforced with a Roman severity. Mr. Fox, in reply to lord North, said: That my private resentments have not af fected my public conduct, will be readily believed, when I might have long since |