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hands of our Sovereign, and you have now scarcely a Postmafter left in the whole northern continent; more than half the empire is already loft, and almost all the reft is in confufion and anarchy. The Ministry have brought our Sovereign into a more difgraceful fituation than any crowned head now living. He alone has already loft, by their fatal counfels, more territory than the three great united powers of Ruffia, Auftria, and Pruffia have together robbed Poland of; and by equal acts of violence and injustice from Administration.

England was never engaged in a conteft of fuch importance to our most valuable concerns and poffeffions. We are fighting for the fubjection of a country infinitely more extended than our own; of which every day increases the wealth, the natural ftrength, and population. Should we not fucceed, it would be a bosom friendship foured to hate and refentment. We shall be confidered as their most implacable enemies; an eternal feparation will fucceed, and the grandeur of the British empire pafs away. Succefs feems to me not equivocal, but impoffible. However we may differ among ourselves, they are perfectly united. On this fide the Atlantic, party-rage unhappily divides us; but one foul animates the vast northern continent of America, the General Congrefs, and each Provincial Affembly. An appeal has been made to the fword, and at the clofe of the laft campaign, what have we conquered? Bunker's-hill, with the lofs of 1200 men. Are we to pay as dearly for the reft of America? The idea of conqueft is as romantic as unjust.

The Honourable Gentleman who moved the Address, fays, "The Americans have been treated with lenity." Was your Bokon Port Bill a measure of lenity? Was your Fishery Bill a measure of lenity? Was your Bill for taking away the Charter of the Maffachusett's Bay a measure of lenity, or even justice? I omit your many other grofs provocations and infults, by which the brave Americans have been driven into their present state. He afferts, that they avow a difpofition to be independent. On

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the contrary, Sir, all the declarations both of the late and the prefent Congress, uniformly tend to this one object, of being put on the fame footing they were in the year 1763. This has been their only demand, from which they have never varied. Their daily prayers are for liberty, peace, and fafety. I ufe the words of the Congress last year. They juftly expect to be put on an equal footing with the other fubjects of the empire. If you confine all our trade to yourselves, fay they; if you make a monopoly of our commerce; if you fhut all other ports of the world against us, tax us not too. If you do, then give us a free trade, fuch as you enjoy yourselves; let us have equal advantages of commerce, all other ports open to us; then we can, and cheerfully will pay taxes.

It must give, Sir, every man who loves his country, the deepest concern, at the naming in the Addrefs foreign troops, Hanoverians and Heffians, who are now called to interfere in our domeftic quarrels, not to dwell this day on the illegality of the measure. The militia, indeed, are now employed, and that noble inftitution is at prefent complimented by Minifters, who hate the very name of a militia, because the embodying of thefe forces enables Adminiftration to butcher more of our fellow-fubjects in America.

Mr. Wilkes, O. 26, 1775.

I AM still clear, my Lords, as to the right this country has to exercife its fovereignty over America by taxation. I had no hand in paffing the Stamp Act, in the Declaratory Bill, in the Bill laying Duties upon Teas, and other commodities, in the partial repeal of that Act, nor yet in the infanity of fending the tea to America without repealing the duty. From thefe and other causes, together with the imbecillity of Adminiftration, this country is reduced to a fituation fo deplorable, that the wifeft and honefteft man in the kingdom can propofe nothing that promises an happy and honourable iffue. I feel that I fpeak in fetters; I therefore will not prefs arguments on H 2 either.

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either fide to their full extent. The next easterly wind will carry to America what fhall fall from any, and from every Lord in the Houfe. I do not wish that the nakedness of my country and its weakness, fhould ftand confirmed by the authority and fanction of teftimonies given here. It is a time to act, and not to talk. Much is to be done, and little faid. The die of war is caft, the fword is drawn, and the fcabbard thrown away. With great refpect to your Lordships, wife as you are, and no doubt the great hereditary council of the King and kingdom, yet allow me to fay, you are not enabled to decide upon matters of such tranfcendent importance and difficulty, without having the fulleft materials before you, which you moft certainly have not. This is a queftion for the Ministers to decide, who must be supposed to have the fulleft information: the execution will likewife lie with them. They have decided; and it is to be wifhed they have at laft fome well-confidered plan: not only taking into pay all the troops that can be got, at any rate, but also how they can be fupported, supplied, and enabled to act with effect; in fhort, a plan confifting of a great variety of efficient parts. If I had the honour of being in the King's Council (which thank God I have not) I should expect the amplest information before I should decide; but decide I would, and abide by the decifion. Retired, however, as I now am, and, uninformed, I have not prefumption enough to give an opinion, nor do I hold myself specially called upon to do it. My country is, indeed, reduced to a deplorable condition. We are driven between Scylla and Charybdis, and it will be transcendently difficult to fteer the veffel of the ftate into a safe port. I must be allowed freely to confefs, that I have not a good opinion of the King's fervants. Paft experience will not justify confidence. I cannot, therefore, anfwer to myself or to my country, the trufting fuch men with the expenditure of ten millions; and laying the foundation of lavishing many more, our laft ftake; thereby accelerating that bankruptcy, which, fooner or later, I fear, by adopting either meafure, is become inevitable.

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inevitable. Nor am I, on the other hand, fo friendly to them, as by declaring our utter inability to reduce America, to furnifh them with a golden bridge for concluding an inglorious peace, on any the most ruinous and difgraceful terms, I cannot confent to throw this once great and glorious country at the feet of America; and there humbly implore fuch peace, as fhe, in her generofity and magnanimity fhall condefcend to grant us. I am not yet made to the idea of hanging out a white flag of furrender, To thofe who lament the prefent moft melancholy state of the Colonies, once fo profperous and flourishing, beyond the example of any others known in the annals of time, I cannot help obferving, that I rejoice in the teftimony, because it does honour to the government of England, under whose care and influence they had profpered fo wonderfully. I do verily believe, that till the late troubles, they had infinitely less to complain of than the Mother Country herself; and that, feparated as they are by the vaft Atlantic, it was not in the nature of things, that there must not be much to complain of, tho' not sufficient to justify their ingratitude to the Parent State. I cannot blame a determination to make peace, fword in hand; the fooner it can be had upon reasonable, fafe, and honourable terms, the better for both countries. I never did declare, whether I thought it was confiftent with found policy to impofe any new tax upon America, and it will hardly be expected that I fhould decide it now. I have heard it called an unjust war; I know not who in this House have a right to call it fo. Infinite. fagacity and difcretion are neceffary to the attainment of what all alike, I am persuaded, must eagerly wish. When the happy and favourable moment for conciliation fhall arrive, I hope the Minifters will feize it, and I fincerely with them fuccefs. At leaft at such a crifis, I will not hang upon the wheels of Government, and thereby render what is already but too diffi cult, the more impracticable.

Earl Temple, March 5, 1776,

My Lords, I have not the arrogance to think, that what I fhall fubmit to your Lordships has escaped the vigilance of all your Lordship's judgments: I have not the vanity to imagine, that the arguments my circumfcribed talents may suggest to me to use, can have the good fortune to perfuade the majority of this Houfe, unless they should meet with the fupport of men of greater weight. Some there are who chance to be absent, whofe great authorities I muft lament the lofs of. But, my Lords, if what I may offer should throw any light upon a subject as interefting as ever arofe fince Britain has extended her power beyond the confines of the ifle, I fhall at least have the fatisfaction to think, I have not buried my ideas; I have not been wanting in that duty, which, from the rank we hold in life, is mine, is that of every Lord in this Houfe. My Lords, for a paltry fet of words, for an unreasonable claim of power, for a fascinating affertion of impracticable authority, for an airy nothing, a vifionary shadow of ideal revenue, impossible to be raised but by the confent of that people whofe contributions we fo much thirst after, and whose consent we do defpife, has Britain been duped into an unnatural war, where victory or defeat muft each enfeeble this lately great empire; a war carried on against a part of our fellow-fubjects, whofe numbers, at leaft, equal a fifth of the whole; and who in extent of country fo far exceeds the fize of Britain, that the compariton of her is but as a fpeck in the disk of the fun. I will not dwell on the difadvantages our army muft labour under from the farextended distance of the war; a common map, to the commoneft understanding, must demonstrate more than rhetoric can paint. But, my Lords, it has been your pleasure to enter into this war; the matter has been laid before you, and often has been debated, and your Lordships, in your judgments, have deemed it neceffary to correct the faucy freedom of highminded fons, grown up to manly age; to check in your American children that independent fpirit, that ftrange love of liberty, which, where permitted to take root, does so infatuate

mankind,

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