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If you empower the Commiffioners in America to propofe peace on equitable terms, offer to reftore their charters, and relinquifh the unfuftainable claim of taxation with a good grace; even now while your armies figure in the field, under hitherto triumphant Generals; and I make no doubt but by fo laudable a step you will obtain from your colonies, through the Howes, as fair and magnanimous an anfwer as that which was fent from the Falerii to the Roman Senate by the great Camillus: "The Romans in having preferred juftice to conqueft, have taught us to be fatisfied with fubmiffion instead of liberty."

Honourable Temple Luttrell, Oct. 31, 1776.

As a country gentleman, I muft call on my brethren of that denomination to interpofe and ferve their country; their paffive acquiefcence to every new burden made Sir Robert Walpole fay, "that the landed gentlemen were like the flocks upon their plains; they suffered themselves to be fhorn without refiftance, while the trading part of the nation resembled the hog, who would not let a brifle be plucked from his back without making the whole parish echo with his complaints." What with fpecious pretences and fair words to the one, and treafury acorns to the other, with which they were fed, the Minifter has effectually filenced the bog, and impofed upon the honeft fimplicity and patience of the sheep.

Sir Charles Bunbury, Dcc. 4, 1777:

I think, Sir, the Americans are fighting in a good caufe for the defence of their juft privileges, and chartered as well as innate rights. I am sure the proudest and most defpotic Court in Europe, that of Vienna, would not have treated their subjects in the manner this Court has treated the Americans as rebels. When the prefent Emprefs Queen, then only Queen of Hungary, fucceeded her father, the Emperor Charles the Sixth, in 1740, fhe fecured the affections of her Hungarian fubjects,

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by readily taking the old oath of the Sovereigns of that country, established in 1222, "If I, (fays fhe), or any of my fucceffors, at any time, fhould attempt to infringe your privileges, you and your posterity are permitted, by virtue of this promife, to defend yourfelves, without being liable to be treated as rebels."

Mr. Wilkes, Dec. 10, 1777.

In confidering the fituation of the noble Lord, (Lord North) his fecurity in office is certainly owing to the bad opinion the public entertain of those who wish to get into his place. The speech of Charles the Second to his brother James, Duke of York, is perfectly applicable to him. When the Duke of York told the King, "he wondered the Prince, who had rendered himself fo unpopular, would venture abroad without his body guard." The King replied, "Have no fears for my fafety, brother; I am perfectly fecure in my perfon, as long as my people know, that if I die, or am cut off, you must be my fucceffor."

Mr. Courtenay, Nov. 13, 1780.

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FIND that thofe gentlemen, who call themselves patriots, have laid this down as a fixed principle, that they must always oppose those measures which are refolved on by the King's Minifters, and confequently muft always endeavour to fhew that these measures are wrong; and this I take to be the only reason

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why they have been as yet so filent as to a certain subject, in which the intereft of their country is fo very much concerned. Their language at prefent is, "Do not let us declare our opinion; let us wait till we know what part the Ministry takes, and then let us endeavour to fhew, that they ought to have acted quite otherwife." They treat the Miniftry in the fame way as I am treated by fome gentlemen of my acquaintance, with respect to my drefs; if I am in plain clothes, then they fay, I am a flovenly, dirty fellow; and if by chance I have à fuit of clothes with fome lace on them, they cry, What! shall fuch an aukward fellow wear fine clothes? So that no dress I can appear in can poffibly please them. But to conclude, Sir, the cafe of the nation under the prefent Administration has been the fame with what it always has been, and always muft be; for to use a fimile, as long as the wind was fair and proper for carrying us to our defigned port, the word was steady, Steady; but when the wind began to fhift and change, the word come then neceffarily to be thus, thus, and no near.

Mr. Horatio Walpole, Jan. 23, 1734.

I think it ftrange that this mighty fecret of our fears about the Pretender has never been discovered during the whole course of this debate, till the honourable gentleman who spoke laft but one difclofed it; I am glad, however, that it is at length discovered; for now gentlemen may have a very clear ftate of the cafe; which is, whether we ought to put the nation to the expence of maintaining 18,000 men, for no other reason, but because a certain gentleman is afraid of the Pretender? This is, I think, a clear and a true ftate of the cafe. As for the honourable gentleman's fears, they put me in mind of a mad fellow, called Butler, who used to go about, and at times would appear very much frightened at a certain phantom of his own brain, whom he called Prince Kantemir. This phantom haunted him about from place to place, and nothing could drive it out of his head. Really, Sir, I don't know what friends the Pretender

Pretender may make in this kingdom, if we fhall continue our army; but if we reduce that, I dare fay his intereft would exift no where but among a few madmen.

Sir William Wyndham, Feb. 3, 1738.

We have had a great deal of debate this night about the Conftitution and Government of this and other nations; and there is no question, Sir, but there are many different ones in the world. But I believe the People of Great Britain are governed by a power that never was heard of as a fupreme authority in any age or country before. This power, Sir, does not confift in the absolute will of the Prince, in the direction of Parlia ment, in the strength of an army, in the influence of the clergy; neither, Sir, is it a petticoat government; but, Sir, it is the government of the prefs. The stuff which our weekly newspapers are filled with is received with greater reverence than acts of Parliament; and the fentiments of one of these fcribblers have more weight with the multitude than the opinion of the beft politician in the kingdom.

Jofeph Danvers, Efq. Feb. 3, 1738.

As an honourable gentleman at the lower end of the Houfe threw out a proposal to send us all to school again for the reforming our manners, Sir, I think our care should be to prevent members of Parliament from being at school when they are here, from being under the lash of an infolent Minifter, as, if we may credit hiftory, has happened in fome former Parliaments. Sir, I do not mean the Parliaments in Queen Elizabeth's reign, however fervile they are represented to have been by an honourable member over the way. I am afraid the practice of Minifters naming members to boroughs at their own will and pleasure, which he told us was used by the Earl of Leicester, has not been dropped fince that time; and I wish our pofterity may never fee days lefs advantageous to liberty. Elizabeth loved her People, defired their honour, regarded

their intereft; fhe heard their complaints against the greatest, the most favoured of her Minifters; and yet I will own, Sir, there were many wrong things done in her reign, because fufficient reftraints were not then laid upon the power of the Crown; and therefore the example of her reign holds out a useful leffon to us, that even to the beft of Princes we should not allow fuch a dangerous influence as may tempt them, by the advice of bad Minifters, to encroach on our freedom.

George Lyttelton, Efq. May 27, 1739.

As the only method, Sir, of reducing this nation must be that of invading its colonies and difmembering its provinces, by which the chief perfons will be deprived of their revenues, and a general difcontent be spread over the People, the forces which will be levied for this expedition, (an expedition on which the honour of our arms and the profperity of our trade must fo neceffarily depend), ought to be selected with the greatest care, and difciplined with the exacteft regularity.

On this occafion, therefore, it is furely improper to employ troops newly collected from fhops and villages, and yet more irrational to truft them to the direction of boys called on this occafion from the frolicks of a fchool, or forced from the bofoms of their mother, and the softness of the nursery. It is not without compaffion, compaffion very far extended, that I confider the unhappy ftriplings doomed to a camp, from whom the fun has hitherto been screened, and the wind excluded; who have been taught by many tender lectures the unwholefomeness of the evening mift and the morning dews, who have been wrapt in furs in Summer, who have lived without any fatigue but that of drefs, or any care but that of their complection.

Who can forbear, Sir, fome degree of fympathy, when he fees animals like thefe taking their laft farewel of the maid that has fed them with fweetmeats, and defended them from infects; when he fees them dreft up in the habiliments of foldiers, loaded with a fword, and invefted with a command, not to mount the

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