No. 124. Extract of a Letter from the Deputy Governour of Pennsylvania to the Earl of Dartmouth, dated Philadelphia, 4th November, 1774: received 17th December.

No. 125. Copy of a Letter from the Deputy Governour of Pennsylvania to the Earl of Dartmouth, dated Philadelphia, 6th December, 1774; received 6th January, 1775.

No. 126. Copy of a Letter from the Earl of Dunmore to the Earl of Dartmouth, dated Williamsburg, 29th May, 1774; received 4th July, enclosing,

No, 127. Copy of an Order of the House of Burgesses, on 24th May, 1774.

No. 128. Copy of an Association signed by eighty-nine Members of the House of Burgesses.

No. 129. Copy of a Letter from the Earl of Dunmore to the Earl of Dartmouth, dated Williamsburg, 6th June, 1774; received 11th July, enclosing,

No. 130. Resolutions of the Inhabitants of the City of Annapolis, in the Province of Maryland, 25th May, 1774.

No. 131. Extract of a Letter from the Earl of Dunmore to the Earl of Dartmouth, dated Frederick County, in Virginia, 14th August, 1774; received 8th October, enclosing,

No.132. Copy of an Association resolved upon at a meeting of Delegates from the different Counties in Virginia.

No. 133. Copy of Instructions for the Deputies appointed to meet in General Congress on the part of the Colony of Virginia.

No. 134. Extract of a Letter from Lieutenant Governour Bull to the Earl of Dartmouth, dated Charlestown, 31st July, 1774; received 16th September, enclosing,

No. 135. Extract of a Letter from the South Carolina Gazette, on 11th July, 1774.

No. 136. Extract of a Letter from Lieutenant Governour Bull to the Earl of Dartmouth, dated Charlestown, 3d August, 1774; received 16th September, enclosing,

No. 137. Copy of Proceedings in the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina, on 2d of August.

No. 138. Extract of a Letter from Lieutenant Governour Bull to the Earl of Dartmouth, dated Charlestown, 23d November, 1774; received 16th January, 1775.

No. 139. Extract of a Letter from Sir James Wright, Baronet, to the Earl of Dartmouth, dated Savannah, 25th July, 1774; received 16th of September.

No. 140. Extract of a Letter from Sir James Wright, Baronet, to the Earl of Dartmouth, dated Savannah, 13th August, 1774; received 12th October.

No. 141. Extract of a Letter from Sir James Wright, Baronet, to the Earl of Dartmouth, dated Savannah, 24th August, 1774; received 26th October, enclosing,

No. 142. Copy of a Handbill, dated 14th of July, 1774.

No. 143. Copy of a Proclamation issued by Sir James Wright, Baronet.

No. 144. Copy of a Handbill, dated 27th of July, 1774.

No. 145. Copy of Resolutions entered into at Savannah, 10th August, 1774.

No. 146. Extract of a Letter from Sir James Wright, Baronet, to the Earl of Dartmouth, dated Savannah, 13th October, 1774; received 4th January, 1775, enclosing,

No. 147. Copies of Protests of the Inhabitants of several Districts in the Province of Georgia.

No. 148. Extracts from the Votes and Proceedings of the American Continental Congress, held at Philadelphia, 5th September, 1774.

No. 149. Petitions of sundry persons, on behalf of themselves and the inhabitants of several of his Majesty's Colonies in America; received 21st December, 1774.

Ordered, That the said Papers do lie on the table.

The Earl of Chatham rose. My Lords: After more than six weeks possession of the Papers now before you, on a subject so momentous, at a time when the fate of this Nation hangs on every hour, the Ministry have at length condescended to submit to the consideration of the House, intelligence from America, with which your Lordships and the publick have been long and fully acquainted.

The measures of last year, my Lords, which have produced the present alarming state of America, were founded upon misrepresentation; they were violent, precipitate, and vindictive. The Nation was told that it was only a faction in Boston, which opposed all lawful Government; that an unwarrantable injury had been done to private property, for which the justice of Parliament was called upon to order reparation; that the least appearance of firmness would awe the Americans into submission, and upon only passing the Rubicon, we should be fine clade victor.

That the people might choose their Representatives under the impression of those misrepresentations, the Parliament was precipitately dissolved. Thus the Nation was to be rendered instrumental in executing the vengeance of Administration on that injured, unhappy, traduced people.

But now, my Lords, we find that instead of suppressing the opposition of the faction at Boston, these measures have spread it over the whole Continent. They have united that whole people, by the most indissoluble of all bands—intolerable wrongs. The just retribution is an indiscriminate, unmerciful proscription of the innocent with the guilty, unheard and untried. The bloodless victory is an impotent General, with his dishonoured Army, trusting solely to the pickaxe and the spade for security against the just indignation of an injured and insulted people.

My Lords, I am happy that a relaxation of my infirmities permits me to seize this earliest opportunity of offering my poor advice to save this unhappy country, at this moment tottering to its ruin. But as I have not the honour of access to his Majesty, I will endeavour to transmit to him, through the constitutional channel of this House, my ideas on American business, to rescue him from the misadvice of his present Ministers. I congratulate your Lordships that that business is at last entered upon, by the noble. Lord's (Lord Dartmouth) laying the Papers before you As I suppose your Lordships are too well apprized of their contents, I hope I am not premature in submitting to you my present motion, [reads the motion.] I wish, my Lords, not to lose a day in this urgent pressing crisis. An hour now lost in allaying the ferment in America, may produce years of calamity; but, for my own part, 1 will not desert for a moment the conduct of this weighty business from the first to the last, unless nailed to my bed by the extremity of sickness; I will give it unremitting attention; I will knock at the door of this sleeping or confounded Ministry, and will rouse them to a sense of their important danger.

When I state the importance of the Colonies to this country, and the magnitude of danger hanging over this country, from the present plan of misadministration practised against them, I desire not to be understood to argue for a reciprocity of indulgence between England and America; I contend not for indulgence, but justice to America; and I shall ever contend that the Americans justly owe obedience to us, in a limited degree; they owe obedience to our Ordinances of Trade and Navigation; but let the line be skilfully drawn between the objects of those Ordinances, and their private internal property. Let the sacredness of their property remain inviolate; let it be taxable only by their own consent, given in their Provincial Assemblies, else it will cease to be property. As to the metaphysical refinements attempting to show that the Americans are equally free from obedience to commercial restraints, as from taxation for Revenue, as being unrepresented here, I pronounce them futile, frivolous, and groundless. Property is, in its nature, single as an atom. It is indivisible, can belong to one only, and cannot be touched but by his own consent. The law that attempts to alter this disposal of it annihilates it.

When I urge this measure of recalling the Troops from Boston, I urge it on this pressing principle—that it is necessarily preparatory to the restoration of your peace, and the establishment of your prosperity. It will then appear that you are disposed to treat amicably and equitably; and to consider, revise, and repeal, if it should be found necessary, as I affirm it will, those violent Acts and Declarations which have disseminated confusion throughout your Empire.

Resistance to your Acts was as necessary as it was just; and your vain declarations of the omnipotence of Parliament, and your imperious doctrines of the necessity of submission, will be found equally impotent to convince, or to