carried in this House, I greatly fear that not only this wise plan of the noble Lord, but every idea of a reconciliation between this country and her Colonies, will be utterly impracticable.

The Americans, sir, have of late been treated, both within doors and without, in a manner which marks no small degree of injustice, and even a wantonness of cruelty. We have been repeatedly told to-day, that they complain of the Navigation Act, and insist on the repeal of it. We have authentick evidence to the contrary. In the Resolutions of the Congress; they desire only to be put on the footing they were at the close of the late war, "as to the system of Statutes and Regulations;" nor among the various Acts, of which they solicit the repeal, have they once mentioned either the Navigation or Declaratory Act. It has likewise been asserted, that they are forward and angry enough to wish to throw off the supremacy of the mother country. Many express Resolutions, both of the General Congress, and the different Provincial Assemblies, are the fullest evidence of the sense which the Americans entertain of their obedience and duty to Great Britain. They are too numerous to be quoted. Their full claim, as stated by themselves, is so explicit and clear, that I beg leave to read it to the House from their Petition to the King. It declares, "We ask but for peace, liberty, and safety." Surely, sir, no request was ever more modest and reasonable, no claim better founded. It expressly mentions, "We wish not a diminution of the prerogative, nor do we solicit a grant of any new right in our favour. Your royal authority over us, and our connection with Great Britain, we shall always carefully and zealously endeavour to support and maintain."

What a contrast, sir, does this make with the proceedings of Administration at home. They are sedulously endeavouring to tear asunder those powerful ties, which have long and happily knit and bound us together.

The Address, sir, mentions the particular Province of the Massachusetts Bay as in a state of actual rebellion. The other Provinces are held out to our indignation as aiding and abetting. Many arguments have been employed by some learned gentlemen among us, to involve them in all the consequences of an open, declared rebellion, and to obtain the fullest orders for our Officers and Troops to act against them as against rebels. Whether their present state is that of rebellion, or of a fit and just resistance to unlawful acts of power, to our attempts to rob them of their property and liberties, as they imagine, I shall not declare. This I know; a successessful resistance is a revolution, not a rebellion. Rebellion indeed appears on the back of a flying enemy; but revolution flames on the breast-plate of the victorious warriour. Who can tell, sir, whether in consequence of this day's violent and mad Address to his Majesty, the scabbard may not be thrown away by them as well as by us; and should success attend them, whether in a few years the independent Americans may not celebrate the glorious era of the Revolution of 1775, as we do that of 1688? The generous efforts of our forefathers for freedom, Heaven crowned with success, or their noble blood had dyed our scaffolds, like that of Scottish Traitors and Rebels; and the period of our history, which does us the most honour, would have been deemed a rebellion against the lawful authority of the Prince, not a resistance authorized by all the laws of God and man, not the expulsion of a Tyrant.

The policy, sir, of this measure, I can no more comprehend, than I can acknowledge the justice of it. Is your force adequate to the attempt? I am satisfied it is not. What are your Armies? And how are they to be kept up and recruited? Do you recollect that the single Province of Massachusetts Bay has at this moment thirty thousand men well trained and disciplined? Do you not know that they can bring near ninety thousand men into the field? They will do it, when every thing dear to them is at stake, when they have their liberties to defend against cruel oppressors and invaders. You will not be able to conquer and keep even that single Province. The noble Lord (North) with the blue ribband, proposes only ten thousand of our Troops to be there, including the four Regiments now going from Ireland; and he acknowledges, with great truth, that the Army cannot enforce the late Act of Parliament. Why then is it sent? Boston, indeed, you may lay in ashes, or it may be made a strong Garrison; but the Province will be lost to you. Boston will be like Gibraltur. You will hold in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, as you do in Spain, a single Town, while the whole country remains in the power and possession of the enemy. Your Fleets and Armies may keep a few Towns on the Coast, for some, time at least; Boston, New-York, St. Augustine; but the vast Continent of America will be irrecoverably lest. A few Fortresses on the Coast, and some Seaports only, will remain in your possession. All the back settlements will be independent of you, and will thrive in the rapid progression of your violences and unjust exactions on the Towns. A new and amazing landed interest will be created. The ancient story of the Philosopher Calanus and the Indian Hide will be verified. Where you tread it will be kept down; but it will rise the more in all other parts. Where your Fleets and Armies are stationed, the possession will be secured while they continue; but all the rest will be lost. In the great scale of Empire, you will decline, I fear, from the decision of this day; and the Americans will rise to independence, to power, to all the greatness of the most renowned states; for they build on the solid basis of general publick liberty.

I tremble, sir, at the almost certain consequences of such an Address, founded in cruelty and injustice, equally contrary to the sound maxims of true policy, and the unerring rule of natural right. The Americans will certainly defend their property and their liberties with the spirit of freemen, with the spirit our ancestors did, and I hope we should exert on a like occasion. They will sooner declare themselves independent, and risk every consequence of such a contest, than submit to the galling yoke which Administration is preparing for them. An Address of this sanguinary nature cannot fail of driving them to despair. They will see that you are preparing not only to draw the sword, but to burn the scabbard. In the most harsh manner you are declaring them Rebels. Every idea of a reconciliation will vanish. They will pursue the most vigorous measures in their own defence. The whole Continent of North America will be dismembered from Great Britain, and the wide arch of the raised Empire fall. But I hope the just vengeance of the people will overtake the authors of these pernicious counsels, and the loss of the first Province of the Empire be speedily followed by the loss of the heads of those Ministers who advised these wicked and fatal measures.

Captain Harvey. I shall make no apology for intruding on the time of the House, because I think it a duty incumbent on every man, who has the welfare of his country at heart, to speak out on this occasion, and declare his sentiments on so very important a crisis; a crisis, sir, in which I believe this country has not been involved in a more intricate one since the Revolution, and for which we are not only indebted to the refractory spirit of some of those ungrateful subjects on the other side of the Atlantic, but to some no less restless ones on this side of it; and which induces me to believe, that as a great Minister once boasted in this House, that he had conquered America in Germany, so, I very much fear, we shall now be obliged to conquer it, or at least some part of it, again in England; for, till we put a stop to the sedition that is so constantly, so artfully, and so shamefully blown from hence, and give a check to those incendiaries who dare breathe forth such inflammatory poison as every newspaper conveys, we can never hope, without the last extremities, to bring the wicked leaders of those deluded people to a sense of their duty.

To acknowledge, sir, the supremacy of the Legislative power of this country over all its Dominions, and dispute the right of that power to exert itself, as it shall judge best for the good of the whole, is, in my humble opinion, too puerile and too trifling to throw away an argument upon; and, in our present situation with the Colonies, too criminal not to condemn without hesitation. Either the Legislative power of a Kingdom has authority over all its Dominions, or it has none over any part of them; it cannot be partial; nor do I think any one branch of that Legislature can, by any act or charter whatever, exempt any particular set of its subjects from the authority of the whole Legislature. Could that be done, sir, and could a preference be given to any, I am very sure this House would long ago have turned their eyes towards our sister Kingdom of Ireland, who has