see of what value that child is—examine whether you ought to shoot; and if you must shoot, shoot so as to avoid wounding what is dearest to you in the, world. Without examining your trade you cannot do this.

Mr. Charles Fox spoke on the same side. He arraigned, in the severest terms, the Acts of the last Parliament, as framed on false information, conceived in weakness and ignorance, and executed with negligence. We were promised that on the very appearance of Troops, all was to be tranquillity at Boston, yet so far from subduing the spirit of that people, these Troops were, by neglect of those who sent them, reduced to the most shameful situation, and dishonourably intrenched within the lines of circumvallation, which a necessary precaution for their own safety obliged them to form. That the contrary effect of what the Minister had promised, was foretold; but that the Minister, forsooth, in his usual negligence, avowed that when he was pursuing a measure of the last degree of importance, though it were treasonable in him, (the strength of the words he afterwards disavowed) yet he thought it would be blameable in him so much as to inquire what the effects were to be of his measures. Ho believed it was the first time any Minister dared to avow that he thought it his duty not to inquire into the effects of his measures; but it was suitable to the whole of the noble Lord's conduct, who bad no system or plan of conduct, no knowledge of business; that he had often declared his unfitness for his station, and he agreed that his conduct justified his declaration; and that the country was incensed, and on the point of being involved in a civil war by his incapacity. He pledged himself to join Mr. Burke in pursuing him, and bringing him to answer the mischiefs occasioned by his negligence, his inconsistency, and his incapacity: he said not this from resentment, but from a conviction of the destructive proceedings of a bad Minister.

Colonel Barré began with a short and spirited history of the late Parliament, who, he said, commenced their political life with a violation of the sacred right of election in the case of Middlesex; they had died in the act of Popery, when they established the Roman Catholick religion in Canada; and they had left a rebellion in America as a legacy. He asserted, in favour of the Americans, that they drew a just and reasonable line, which had been a line of peace, and would be so again, if we had sense enough to return to it. The Americans, he insisted on it, required no more; and they had too much justice on their side to be satisfied with less. He flatly denied that they had objected to the Declaratory Act; and for proof he referred to Mr. Dickinson's Pamphlet, entitled "A New Essay," &c., on which he passed the strongest eulogium. He concluded with a story which his friend Mr. Burke's archer had put him in mind of; than which nothing could be more apposite. There was another story, he said, of the famous William Tell, who, being ordered to shoot an apple off his child's head, effectually did it, and the tyrant who had given the inhuman command, seeing him draw out another arrow, said to him, "What, another arrow?" "Oui, dit-il, il y a une autre; et c'est pour toi, tyran, destinée." Yes, tyrant, another arrow, and it is destined for thee!

Mr. Solicitor General Wedderburn went upon a proposition of quieting the Merchants, by passing a law obliging the several Provinces in America to pay the respective debts due by the inhabitants of the said Provinces to the Merchants of this country.

Lord North said the question had been so fully discussed, that it would be presumption in him to rise at that late hour of the night to trespass on the indulgence of the House, he should therefore decline it; but he thought it nevertheless incumbent on him to say a word in answer to some insinuations, and some general charges made against him by two honourable gentlemen (Messrs. Burke and Fox.) He observed that those gentlemen constantly made a point, not even of attacking, but threatening him. As to general charges, he could only answer them in general terms; and when that black, bitter, trying, day should come, which had been prophecied by one of those gentlemen, and that he should bring any particular charge against him, he trusted he should be able to give it a particular answer. As to the other, who found so many causes of censure, and who disclaimed all resentment, he was sure, though he now discovered in him so much incapacity and negligence, there was a time when he approved of at least some part of his conduct.

Lord George Germaine began with a justification of the last Parliament; and insisted that in their proceedings towards America, they had gone upon sufficient information. He made a strong declamation on dignity. His Lordship mentioned the Declaratory Act, professing not to address himself to those who denied our right to tax America, but to those who favoured that Act; they, his Lordship insisted, were bound to support the idea of subduing America; the confession of the right implied the propriety and necessity of exercising it. If the Americans, pointing the late Acts out as a grievance, would petition for their repeal, he would stretch forth the first hand to present it; but, on the contrary, if they claimed such repeal as a right, thereby disputing the authority of the mother country, which no reasonable man ever called in question, he wished the said Acts might be enforced with a Roman severity.

Mr. Fox, in reply to Lord North, said: That my private resentments have not affected my publick conduct will be readily believed, when I might have long since justly charged the noble Lord with the most unexampled treachery and falsehood. Here Mr. Fox was called to order, and the House grew clamorous. He sat down twice or thrice, and on rising each time, repeated the same words; but at length, assuring the House he would abstain from every thing personal, he was permitted to proceed. He then repeated his former charges of negligence, incapacity, and inconsistency; and added, that though he at one time approved of part of the noble Lord's conduct, he never approved of it all; of which a stronger proof could not be given, than that he differed from him. He charged all the present dispute's with America, to his negligence and incapacity, and instanced his inconsistency in the case of the Middlesex election. It was true, he said, the noble Lord had often confessed his incapacity, and from a consciousness of it, pretended a willingness to resign; but the event had proved that whatever his consciousness might have been, his love of the emoluments of office had completely conquered it.

Lord North replied, that the high post he now occupied was not of his own seeking, but was submitted to, because he thought it his duty to obey the commands laid on him; that whatever interpretation might be put by the honourable gentleman, he well knew that it was no desire of his to retain his present situation; that that honourable gentleman was no stranger to how he had been tried on many critical occasions, particularly when we were threatened with a Spanish war, in the affairs of the East India Company, &c.

Mr. Burke rose to explain, but the clamour and call to order was so great that he was obliged to sit down unheard; to use his own words, in a "torrent of candour and a storm of moderation."

The question was then taken, and the House divided—Yeas 89, Noes 250.

So it passed in the Negative.

Ordered, That the Petition of the Merchants, Traders, and others, of the City of London, concerned in the commerce of North America, this day presented to the House, do lie upon the table.

A Petition of the Merchants and Manufacturers of the Town of Manchester, interested in American commerce, was presented to the House, and read, setting forth—

That the Petitioners have for several years carried on a very extensive and beneficial trade with the Continent of America; and that the payments for Goods exported to that country, have been such as to encourage the Merchants and Manufacturers to execute orders from thence with cheerfulness and confidence; and that the stoppage of trade occasioned by the late unhappy differences with the Americans, will soon render it necessary to discharge vast numbers of workmen, who have been maintained by this commerce; and that it is not requisite, were it possible, to enumerate the evils that must arise from the precarious situation on which their intercourse with America now stands; they therefore recommend themselves to the care and protection of Parliament, and rely on the justice, wisdom, and attention to the publick welfare, by which their present apprehensions may not only be removed, but a sys-