mankind, and which has long been the honour and fafety of this Ifle. You have thought it right to curb their ideas of property, which lead them to imagine, we have no right to take any part of that property away from them without their free confent. My Lords, I respect the Decifions of the Majorities of this Houfe; but if thefe Decifions may have arisen from any peculiar circumstances now no more exifting; if they may have fprung from false or mistaken intelligence; if the whole difpofition of things, from various accidents and events, may have become totally different; perhaps it may not be unworthy your Lordfhips wisdom to reconfider what you have decided, to revife your judgments, to retrace the fteps we may have too haftily trod. My Lords, in the beginning of our unhappy contefts with America, thofe who debated the matter on the fide of the ruling Power of Government, stated not only the peceffity, but the great facility of forcing to a compliance with all the demands of Government, fuch Colonies as fhould dare to offer their vain refiftance: we are told they had not ftrength for war, they had not means of war, they had not union among themselves, that they wanted money, that they wanted difcipline, that they wanted Officers: and, to fum up the whole, to make them contemptible even as fubmiffive fubjects, that they poffeffed not courage to face an English Soldier, whose birth on this fide the Atlantic endowed him with that' intrepid fpirit, an American, whom even neceffity had inured to toils, could never afpire to reach. The Decifions, my Lords, of Administration, gave them union; the refufal to hear their Petitions, confined the whole in a firm knot of calm, deliberate, defperate determination to refift. Money, which is but the type of property, was foon fupplied by a type of equal fense and ufe; even perfonal freedom gave way to public security, and perfonal property was facrificed to the neceffities of the rifing State. The difaffection was general, and British Governors now no longer adminifter Law in British America. How true the charge of wanting martial spirit proved, let those H 4 relate relate who first faw the blood of civil war spilt at Lexington. To those who faved the honour of the day, at the bloody forcing of the lines on Bunker's-Hill, to those who saw the British valour checked, may I fafely refer for a full confutation of the abfurd fuppofition, that men defcended from the fame line as ourselves, whofe all is at ftake, who think their cause. juft, would, like the most enervated Afiatic tribe, yield a bloodless victory. My Lords, the hiftory of human nature teaches us, that the greatest talents often lie hid in the most difguifed obfcurity, till accident, till the buftle of the times, calls forth the genius, and lights the ethereal spark; then do these meteors caft an unexpected blaze: an Apothecary's late 'prentice leads forth armies, difplays the warrior's fkill, the warrior's intrepidity, and meets a death a Roman might have envied another, who, in peaceable times, might have never rofe to greater praise than a jockey's fkill, amidst every rigour of an inclement feafon, in an inclement country, aftonifhes us with a march a Hannibal would have admired, and carries the alarm of war to the walls of a great city, which must probably have yielded to the boldnefs of the undertaking, had not a Carleton faved it. I am not making a panegyric on American prowess, though great atchievements, even by an enemy, will ever meet my praife. But, my Lords, thefe are facts incapable of difpute. To come now, my Lords, to that which has caft the deepeft ftain on the glory of the British arms, to that which muft rouse the indignation of all who feel for her difgrace the army of Britain, equipped with every poffible effential of war, a chofen army, with chofen Officers, backed with the power of a mighty fleet, fent to correct revolted fubjects, fent to chaftife a refifting city, fent to affert Britain's authority, has for many tedious months been imprifoned within that town by the Provincial Army, who, their watchful guards, permitted them no inlet to the country, who braved all their efforts, and defied all their skill and abilities in war could ever attempt. One way, indeed, of efcape was left; the fleet is yet yet refpected; to the fleet the army has recourfe, and British Generals, whofe names never met with a blot of dishonour, are forced to quit that town which was the first object of the war, the immediate caufe of hoftilities, the place of arms, which has coft this nation more than a million to defend. The Duke of Manchester, May 10, 1776. I HAVE been reading a work given us by a country, that is perpetually employed in productions of merit-I believe it is not yet published-the Hiftory of Philip the IId; and there find, that that tyrannical monarch never dreamt of the tyranny exercised by this Administration. Gods! Sir, fhall we be told, that you cannot annalyze grievances! that you can have no communication with Rebels, because they have declared for Independency! Shall you be told this, when the tyrant Philip did it after the fame circumftance in the Netherlands. By Edict he allowed their fhips to enter their ports, and fuffered them to depart in peace; he treated with them; made them Propofitions; and pofitively declared that he would redress all their grievances. And James the IId, when he was failing from France, at the head of a formidable force, affifted like you by foreign troops, and having a great party in the kingdom, ftill offered specific terms; while his exceptions of pardon were few, amongst the reft my honourable friend's anceftor, Sir Stephen Fox. But you will offer none;-you simply tell them to lay down their arms, and then you will do just as you please. Could the most cruel conqueror fay lefs? Had you conquered the devil himself in hell, could you be less liberal? No! Sir, you would offer no terms;-you meant to drive them to the declaration of Independency: and even after it was iffued, ought, by your offers, to have reverfed the effect. You would not receive the Remonftrance that I brought you from New-York, because it denied your Rights to certain Powers; yet the late King of France received the Remonfrances from his Parliaments, that exprefly denied his Rights -- to to the Powers he was in the conftant exercife of-anfwered them, and even redreffed fome of the Grievances which those very Remonftrances complained of; though he refused to grant what he thought more peculiarly entrenched upon his own Authority. In this fituation, Sir, fhocking to fay, are we called upon by another Proclamation to go to the Altar of the Almighty, with war and vengeance in our hearts, instead of the peace of our Bleffed Saviour; he faid, "My peace I give you," but we are on this Faft to have war only in our hearts and mouths; war against our brethren.-'Till our churches are purified from this abominable fervice, I fhall confider them, not as the temples of the Almighty, but the fynagogues of fatan. An act not more infamous, respecting its political, than blafphemous. and profane as a pretended act of național devotion, when the People are called upon, in the most folemn and awful manner, to repair to Church, to partake of a Sacrament, and at the foot of the Altar to commit facrilege; -to perjure themselves publicly by charging their American brethren with the horrid crime of Rebellion, with propagating " fpecious falfhood," when either the charge must be notoriously false, or those who make it, not knowing it to be true, call Almighty God to witness. to not a fpecious, but a moft audacious and blafphemous falfhood. Mr. Burke, Nov. 2, 1776. I HAVE read, Sir, a late Proclamation of that great General and Preacher, Mr. Burgoyne, which is fhocking to a civilized and generous nation. As a State Paper it difgraces our country. The Imperial Court have often employed many kind of irregular troops, Croats, Pandours, and Huffars, but their names difgrace no public act. If they plunder, they do not torture. The pious Preacher, Mr. Burgoyne, complains of this froward and ftubborn generation; and at the very moment of mentioning his consciousness of Christianity, displays a fpirit of cruelty repugnant to every principle of humanity. He He boasts that he will give ftretch to the Indian forces under his direction, and they amount to thousands. Merciful Heayen! Thousands of Indian favages let loofe by the command. of a British General against our brethren in America! Human nature fhrinks back from fuch a scene. At his heels, leasht in like hounds, fhould famine, fword, and fire, crouch for em-ployment. Mr. Burgoyne's feelings as a man, I fear, will not hereafter be as univerfally acknowledged, as the military talents of the great General. In the prefent cafe I have that pity for him and his employers, which they have not fhewn to others, What, Sir, has been, and continues, the conduct of the Indian favages in war? Is it not to exercise the most wanton cruelties on their enemies, without distinction of age and fex? The conduct of this war goes on a par with its principles. Has the feeble old man, the helpless infant, the defenceless female, ever experienced the tender mercies of an Indian favage? He drinks the blood of his enemy, and his favourite repast is on human flesh. Is a ftretch given to thousands of thefe cannibals by command, in a public Manifefto of one of the King's Generals? I am bold, Sir, to declare, that fuch orders are unworthy the General of any Chriftian King. (They are only becoming a Jewish Priest to a Jewish King, a Samuel to a Saul, in the most bloody and barbarous of all hiftories, the History of the Jewish Nation. The orders of the Jewish Priests were, now go and fmite the Amalekites, and destroy all that they have, and fpare them not; but flay both man and woman, ox and fheep, camel and afs. General Burgoyne threatens the Americans with all the vengeance of the State, not its justice, that the meffenger of wrath will meet them in the field, devastation, and famine, and every concomitant horror. Not the sword of even-handed juftice falling on the head of the bold rebel, but the favage horrors of the tomahawk, from the thousands of Indians under his direction, on the innocent women and children. I remember, Sir, an honourable Gentleman, (Lord Advocate of Scotland) whom I fee in his place, a Gentleman |