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faith. Sir, you have heard at your bar what your Committees have done. One has been fo flow in their motions, that the Company have given up long fince all hopes of redress from them; and the other has gone on altogether as rapid, that they do not know where to ftop. Like the fly of a jack, the latter has gone hey go mad! the other, like the ponderous lead at the other end; and in that manner, Sir, have roafted the India Company. Shame upon fuch proceedings !

Mr. Burke, Dec. 18, 1772.

The conduct of the Minifter, in withholding every proper information from the House, puts me in mind of a King, who perceiving one end of a Lutheran church exceedingly ruinous, and all the rest of it very good and elegant, proposed to rebuild that part for them, which he did in a very magnificent manner; but when they came to affemble there, they found that he had taken away all their light upon which they waited on His Majefty, thanking him for his favours, and also acquainting him with their misfortune, in not being able to see at church. Upon which His Majefty replied, it was perfectly right fo, for that it was written in the Scriptures, "Bleffed are they that believe, and do not fee."

Col. Barré, Nov. 1, 1775.

But allow that the profeffions of the Americans were general; that their inclinations were those of duty and respect towards this country; that they entered into the present rebellion through the intrigues and arts of a few factious and ambitious men, or those who ultimately directed them; that the stamp act was wrong; that the declaratory law might affert the fupremacy over that country, but it ought never to be exercised, nor amount to more than such a power as his present Majesty claims over the kingdom of France, a mere nominal dominion; that no troops fhould be fent into that country, even to defend them, without their own permiffion; that the VOL. II. Admiralty

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Admiralty Courts should never be made to extend there, though by the trial of jury, the parties themselves would be judges; that offenders against the laws and authority of this country should be tried for offences by perfons who themselves were ready to declare that they did not think the charges criminal; that no reftraints fhould be laid upon their commerce, though that great bulwark of the riches and commerce of this country, the Navigation Act, depended on fuch restraints; that every measure hitherto taken to compel fubmiffion to the Parliamentary authority of this country was cruel and unjust ; that every Ministry in this country were tyrannic and oppreffive, and that the last is worst of all. Yet admitting all this to be true, my Lords, what are we to do? Are we to reft inactive, with our arms across, till they fhall think proper to begin the attack, and gain ftrength to do it with effect? We are now in fuch a fituation, that we must either fight or be purfued. What a Swedish General said to his men, in the reign of Gustavus Adolphus, juft at the eve of a battle, is extremely applicable to us at present. Pointing to the enemy, who were marching down to engage them, fays he, "My lads, you see those men yonder, if you do not kill them, they will kill you."

Lord Mansfield, Dec. 20, 1775.

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This is the first time I have ever heard it afferted in the fame debate, that neither peace nor war is a proper time for reformation. Some gentlemen have faid, war was not the proper time for innovation or reformation; and other gentlemen have made a fimilar objection to a feafon of a peace. muft beg leave to retort a fimile in fupport of my fentiments, on this fpecies of minifterial logic. A perfon who had a fire engine to difpofe of, offered it to his neighbour for sale, in order, as he faid, to preserve his houfe from fire. The neighbour replied, "No, I do not want it; my house is not on fire." Anon his houfe is on fire; he applies to the owner of

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the engine, and tells him how much he is in want of it, but is anfwered, "that it has been long fince difpofed of."

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Sir George Savile, March 11, 1777.

We are are again brought back to that favourite paffage of the Rubicon, and the jacta est alea; of a truth, there is fome justice in the comparison, between our Minifters croffing the Atlantic, and Cefar croffing the Rubicon from Gaul: for though these Minifters, confidered as ftatefmen, or as commanders, are no more like Cefar than I am like Hercules, yet did he, like them, take up the battle against the conftitution of his country; and having rafhly made the first decifive step, he faw no poffibility of receding, without the lofs of his credit and his offices, perhaps the forfeiture of his life; for his offences had been scarce less criminal than those of Cataline. What Cicero remarked of the march of Cefar towards the capital of Italy, may also be well applied to our Ministers: "He came well provided with every thing," fays that celebrated orator, "excepting a good cause."

Hon. Temple Luttrell, Nov. 18, 1777.

I can only compare the conduct and catastrophe of General Burgoyne, at the head of the northern army, with that of Charles, the bold Duke of Burgundy, when he iffued the most fevere proclamations against the brave Switzers, in the Canton of Berne. Looking upon them as already conquered, he carried with him chains to lead them captive at the feet of his cavalry, and he gave them notice, that he would cause to be erected the most stately monuments to his martial fame, in the very heart of their country. Sir, he fulfilled his promise; a monument they erected for him in the form of a charnelhoufe, filled with the fculls and fkeletons of the invading army, which was totally overthrown by the intrepidity of the Swifs peasants near the town of Morat, and the victors fur-. nished his monument with this emphatic infcription: "Caro

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lus Burgundiæ dux inclitus hoc fui monumentum reliquit," &c. It is, Sir, however, in vain to hold up fuch bloody scenes, in terrorem, before the hardened authors and conductors of this unnatural quarrel. You might as well, Sir, put an hungry leech on the richest vein of your body, and counsel with it not to draw blood, as to talk with these contractors, paymafters, treasurers, commiffaries, and a long lift of et ceteras, who traffic thus lucratively with the calamities of their country, to relinquish their hold, and confefs their ambition and their rapacity fatisfied. The minority, therefore, of which I certainly shall be one, have only to lament, that a Sovereign fo moral and pious as ours now on the throne, fo humane and fo generous, fo capable of governing a free people with honour, profperity, and renown, fhould already have facrificed one half of his dominions, and desperately hazard the lofs of the other half, to cherish and aggrandize a more immoral and profligate, a more tyrannical and fanguinary, and, in fhort, a more weak set of Minifters, than ever tried the patience of the English nation under the worft of the Stuart Kings.

Hon. Temple Luttrell, Nov. 18, 1777.

I cannot help obferving, Sir, that I have never heard the noble Lord (Lord North) behave with so much candour, generofity, and fpirit, as to-day; he has agreed to every tittle of what has been requested of him; he has published a bond, wherein he has granted all; but in the end has inferted a little defeafance, with a power of revocation, by which he has preferved himself from every grant he made. His conduct, Sir, exactly reminds us of a certain Governor, who, when he arrived at his place of appointinent, fat down to a table covered with profufion, and abounding with every dainty and delicacy that art, nature, and a provident fteward could furnish: but a pigmy phyfician, who watched over the health of the Governor, excepted to one difh, because it was disagreeable; to

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another, because it was hard of digeftion; to a third, because it was unhealthy; and in this progreffive mode, robbed the Governor of every dish on table, and left him without a dinner. Mr. Burke, Nov. 28, 1777.

Convinced, perhaps, of the inefficacy of violent remedies, we may learn, though late, to prefcribe lenitives. For two years that a certain noble Lord has prefided over American affairs, the moft violent, fcalping, tomahawk measures have been purfed: bleeding has been his only prescription. If a people deprived of their ancient rights are grown tumultuous -bleed them! If they are attacked with a spirit of insurrection-bleed them! If their fever could rife into rebellion-bleed them! cries this ftate physician: more blood! more blood! ftill more blood! When Doctor Sangrado had perfevered in a fimilar practice of bleeding his patients, killing by the very means which he used for a cure, his man took the liberty to remonftrate upon the neceffity of relaxing in a practice to which thousands of their patients had fallen facrifices, and which was beginning to bring their names into disrepute. The Doctor answered, "I believe we have, indeed, carried the matter a little too far; but you must know, I have written a book upon the efficacy of this practice, therefore, though every patient we have fhould die by it, we muft continue the bleeding for the credit of my book."

Mr. Fox, Dec. 2, 1777.

A right honourable gentleman has propofed, that a Conmittee fhould be appointed to regulate and adjust the public accounts. The noble Lord in the blue ribband, alarmed at the propofition, and fhrinking from the appeal, and a tribunal fo impartially and fo honourably conftituted, stepped in between the gentleman and the public in a manner feldom practifed in this Houfe, produced a bill, appointing a certain number of

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