difcontent of fome of the colonies, and the confequences which might be expected; they concealed them, even in defiance of an order of council. that they fhould be laid before parliament. Thus, by concealing the true ftate of the cafe, they rendered the wifdom of the nation as improvident as their own temerity, either in preventing or guarding against the mischief. It has indeed, from the beginning to this hour, been the uniform policy of this fet of men, in order, at any hazard to obtain a prefent credit, to propofe whatever might be pleafing, as attended with no difficulty; and afterwards to throw all the difappointment of the wild expectations they had raised, upon thofe who have the hard task of freeing the publick from the confequences of their pernicious projects. Whilft the commerce and tranquillity of the whole empire were shaken in this manner, our affairs grew ftill more distracted by the internal diffenfions of our minifters. Treachery and ingratitude was charged from one fide; defpotism and tyranny from the other; the vertigo of the regency bill; the awkward reception of the filk bill in the house of commons, and the inconfiderate and abrupt rejection of it in the house of lords; the ftrange and violent tumults which arofe in confequence, and which were rendered more ferious, by being charged by the minifters upon one another; the report of a grofs and brutal treat ment ment of the by a minifter at the fame time odious to the people; all confpired to leave the publick, at the close of the feffion of 1765, in as critical and perilous a fituation, as ever the nation was, or could be, in a time when he was not immediately threatened by her neighbours. It was at this time, and in these circumftances, that a new adminiftration was formed. Profeffing even induftrioufly, in this publick matter, to avoid anecdotes; I fay nothing of thofe famous reconciliations and quarrels, which weakened the body that should have been the natural fupport of this adminiftration. I run norifk in affirming, that, furrounded as they were with difficulties of every fpecies, nothing but the ftrongest and most uncorrupt fenfe of their duty to the publick could have prevailed upon fome of the perfons who composed it to undertake the king's bufinefs at: fuch a time. Their preceding character, their meafures while in power, and the fubfequent conduct of many of them, I think, leave no room to charge this affer, tion to flattery. Having undertaken the commonwealth, what remained for them to do? to piece their conduct upon the broken chain of former meafures? If they had been fo inclined, the ruinous nature of thofe measures, which began inftantly to appear, would not have permitted it..Scarcely had they entered into office, when letters arrived from all parts of America, making loud complaints, backed backed by strong reafons, against several of the principal regulations of the late miniftry, as threatening destruction to many valuable branches of commerce. These were attended with reprefentations from many merchants and capital manufacturers at home, who had all their interefts involved in the fupport of lawful trade, and in the fuppreffion of every fort of contraband. Whilft these things were under confideration, that conflagration blazed out at once in North America, an univerfal difobedience, and open refiftance to the ftamp act; and, in confequence, an univerfal ftop to the course of justice, and to trade and navigation, throughout that great important country; an interval during which the trading intereft of England lay under the moft dreadful anxiety which it ever felt. The repeal of that act was propofed. It was much too ferious a measure, and attended with too many difficulties upon every fide, for the then ministry to have undertaken it, as fome paltry writers have afferted, from envy and diflike to their predeceffors in office. As little could it be owing to perfonal cowardice, and dread of confequences to themselves. Minifters, timorous from their attachment to place and power, will fear more from the confequences of one court intrigue, than from a thousand difficulties to the commerce and credit of their country by difturbances at three thousand miles diftance. From which of these the minifters had had moft to apprehend at that time, is known, I prefume, univerfally. Nor did they take that refolution from a want of the fulleft fenfe of the inconveniences which muft neceffarily attend a meafure of conceffion from the fovereign to the fubject. That it must increase the infolence of the mutinous fpirits in America, was but too obvious. No great meafure indeed, at a very difficult crifis, can be purfued, which is not attended with fome mischief; none but conceited pretenders in publick bufinefs will hold any other language: and none but weak and unexperienced men will believe them, if they should. If we were found in fuch a crifis, let thofe whofe bold designs, and whofe defective arrangements, brought us into it, anfwer for the confequences. The bufinefs of the then ministry evidently was, to take fuch fteps, not as the withes of our author, or as their own wishes dictated, but as the bad fituation which their predeceffors had left them abfolutely required. The difobedience to this act was univerfal throughout America; nothing, it was evident, but the fending a very ftrong military, backed by a very strong naval force, would reduce the feditious to obedience. To fend it to one town, would not be fufficient; every province of America must be traverfed, and must be subdued. I do not entertain the leaft doubt but this could be done. We might, I think, without much difficulty have deftroyed ftroyed our colonies. This deftruction might be effected, probably in a year, or in two at the utmoft. If the queftion was upon a foreign nation, where every fuccessful stroke adds to your own power, and takes from that of a rival, a juft war, with fuch a certain fuperiority would be undoubtedly an adviseable measure. But four million of debt due to our merchants, the total ceffation of a trade annually worth four million more, a large fo-. reign traffick, much home manufacture, a very capital immediate revenue arising from colony imports, indeed the produce of every one of our revenues greatly depending on this trade, all thefe were very weighty accumulated confiderations, at least well to be weighed, before that fword was drawn, which even by its victories must producé all the evil effects of the greatest national defeat. How publick credit must have suffered, I need not fay. If the condition of the nation, at the close of our foreign war, was what this author reprefents it, fuch a civil war would have been a bad couch on which to repofe our wearied virtue. Far from being able to have entered into new plans of œconomy, we muft have launched into a new fea, I fear a boundless fea, of expence. Such an addition of debt, with fuch a diminution of revenue and trade, would have left us in no want of a State of the Nation to aggravate the picture of our diftreffes. Our |