TH

PREFACE.

HE following fpeech has been much the fub ject of converfation; and the defire of hav→ ing it printed was laft fummer very general. The means of gratifying the publick curiofity were obligingly furnished from the notes of fome gentlemen, members of the laft parliament.

This piece has been for fome months ready for the prefs. But a delicacy, poffibly over fcrupulous, has delayed the publication to this time. The friends of administration have been used to attribute a great deal of the oppofition to their meafures in America to the writings published in England. The editor of this fpeech kept it back, until all the measures of government have had their full operation, and can be no longer affected, if ever they could have been affected, by any publication.

Moft readers will recollect the uncommon pains taken at the beginning of the laft feffion of the last parliament, and indeed during the whole courfe of it, to afperse the characters, and decry the meafures, of those who were supposed to be friends to America; in order to weaken the effect of their oppofition

oppofition to the acts of rigour then preparing against the colonies. The fpeech contains a full refutation of the charges against that party with which Mr. Burke has all along acted. In doing this, he has taken a review of the effects of all the schemes which have been fucceffively adopted in the government of the plantations. The subject is interefting; the matters of information various, and important; and the publication at this time, the editor hopes, will not be thought unfeafonable.

SPEECH,

SPEECH, &c.

URING the laft feffion of the laft Parliament,

DURING the laft feffion of

on the 19th of April, 1774, Mr. Rofe Fuller, member for Rye, made the following motion; That an act made in the feventh year of the reign of his present majefty, intituled, "An act for "granting certain duties in the British colonies "and plantations in America; for allowing a "drawback of the duties of cuftoms upon the ex"portation from this kingdom of coffee and cocoa

nuts, of the produce of the faid colonies or plan"tations; for difcontinuing the drawbacks pay"able on china earthen ware exported to Ame"rica; and for more effectually preventing the "clandeftine running of goods in the faid colonies "and plantations;" might be read.

And the fame being read accordingly; he moved, "That this houfe will, upon this day feven

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night, refolve itself into a committee of the "whole house, to take into confideration the duty "of 3d. per pound weight upon tea, payable in all "his majesty's dominions in America, imposed by "the faid act; and alfo the appropriation of the "faid duty."

On

On this latter motion a warm and interesting debate arofe, in which Mr. Burke fpoke as follows:

I

SIR,

agree with the honourable gentleman* who spoke laft, that this fubject is not new in this house. Very difagreeably to this house, very unfortunately to this nation, and to the peace and profperity of this whole empire, no topick has been more familiar to us. For nine long years, feffion after feffion, we have been lafhed round and round this miferable circle of occafional arguments and temporary expedients. I am fure our heads must turn, and our ftomachs nauseate with them. We have had them in every fhape; we have looked at them in every point view. Invention is exhaufted; reason is fatigued; experience has given judgment; but obftinacy is not yet conquered.

The honourable gentleman has made one endeavour more to diverfify the form of this difgufting argument. He has thrown out a fpeech compofed almost entirely of challenges. Challenges are ferious things; and as he is a man of prudence as well as refolution, I dare fay he has very well weighed thofe challenges before he delivered them. I had long the happinefs to fit at the fame fide of the

Charles Wolfran Cornwall, Efq. lately appointed one of the lords of the treasury.

house,