which, a very skilful Colonist here drew of the three Officers chosen to undertake a similar task on the American Continent; they, too, talked of reluctance, they talked of compassion and universal philanthropy; at the very hour of encounter they announced themselves, necessitate hostes, voluntate hospites. Yet, sir, these very men, once familiarized to domestick slaughter, and to military sway, could not prevail upon themselves to stop, till they had subverted the Constitution, and totally annihilated the liberties of the whole Commonwealth. In short, by this war the Romans were irrecoverably undone. Hence the perpetual Dictatorship; hence the succeeding Triumvirs; and, at length, the throne and tyranny of Cœsar. Sir, I contend, that this our social war, like the war I have been speaking of, is founded on a laudable resistance to the despotism of Administration, sustained by a Parliamentary majority, rather than any defection in the Americans at heart from the mother country. The generous natives of England thirst not after an unjust dominion, neither can they look with an eye of malignant jealousy on their kindred Colonists, who, scarce a century ago, drew, in common with them, one parental breath. Jealousy is too mean a vice to grow in a soil with such exalted virtues as distinguish a Briton: he seeks not the palm of victory earned at so dear ct cost as by the destruction or abject servitude of millions of his fellow, subjects—that too for upholding principles which he himself sanctimoniously reveres.

The first duty of a good citizen is to the publick; and to assert, that the supreme sovereignty, as to the fundamentals of our Constitution, be vested in any form of Government whatever, or elsewhere, than with the society at large, is a traitorous doctrine, not merely against the Americans, but against our own immediate constituents here, at home. The same allegiance that every private individual owes to the estates of the British monarchy, legally established, do those very estates owe to the community in general, which hath always reserved to itself, and asserted, certain original rights of mankind, that it would be rebellion, it would be sacrilege in us to violate. One of these rights is, that every, the minutest of the component parts of this great Empire, shall be free from dissezin of property, unless under a direct or effective representation in Parliament.

To force a tax upon your Colonists, unrepresented, and universally dissentient, is acting in no better capacity than that of a banditti of robbers. Can our folly and our vanity lead us to flatter ourselves, that they will be taught by our armaments or commercial interdicts, to own for their liege lord and tax-master, the possessor of a poor solitary sheepcote on Salisbury plain? Or that (eccentrick as they are with respect to this our distant and circumscribed sphere of the British Isles) they will still continue to be cajoled by the absurd, empty plea of virtual representation? Sir, that word virtual must contain in it more my-stick power than the sacred archetype on Aaron's breastplate, before it can be made to work an effect so contradictory to reason and common sense. The advocates for the coercion of America, who have frequent recourse to your written Statutes, and who support their arguments as to the letter of law, from Selden, Lord Coke, and other high prerogative authorities, would do well calmly and seriously to consider of a passage in Montesquieu's divine Spirit of Laws. I allude, sir, to a part of his comment ojj the triumph of the people of Old Spain over the idolatrous, Mexicans; neither will it be necessary for me to point out to the House where the precise analogy lies between the first invaders of that Southern Continent, and our modern lawmakers of the North. "Free men" says he, "they made slaves, when they made slaves free: instead of giving them the religion of peace, they inculcated on their minds a more outrageous superstition: it were impossible for me to enumerate all the good things they might, have done; it were impossible for me to enumerate all the, bad things which they actually did. The end of conquest is this: it leaves upon their victors (though marshalled in the best licensed cause) an immense arrear of debt to be paid off to human nature." Impious as it may seem to arraign the dispensations of Providence, I can but lament that destiny had placed this 'fanciful' Montesquieu (as he is, called by our celebrated pensioned essayist Dr. Johnson) in the presidency of a foreign Parliament; the individual members of which, ever occupied in sacrificing to the graces, imperceptibly and totally lost their publick constitution and liberty. Had, sir, his lot been cast in this assembly to day, what might not so good a man, with his capacity and powers of inspiration, have effected? He might have staid the uplifted hand of ravage and oppression; and, though given us too late to prevent Great Britain from madly opening her own veins, he might perhaps have been the means of administering some timely remedy that should save her from bleeding to death. But, indeed, after the reception which a very respectable Member (Mr. Burke) here met with some evenings ago, who pleaded the cause of justice and humanity, with an almost supernatural force of reasoning and with every charm of eloquence, we might even despair of working the necessary reform in this House; though an angel from Heaven, with the full attributes of his beatitude, should descend among us.

There was a Parliament in the reign of Henry the Sixth, which, on account of the severity of its judgments and proscriptions against certain partisans of the York family, has gained in our annals the honourable distinction of Parliamentum Diabolicum. Now, sir, by passing such Acts as these are, shall not we lay in a just claim to be transmitted down to posterity, if possible, under a still more infernal appellation? I am for rejecting the Bill with the deepest marks of penitence in us, for having proceeded in it thus far, and with every term of ignominy and abhorrence with respect to the wicked principle on which this, and its fellow edict for butchery and famine, the Fishery Bill, are grounded.

Lord North defended the Bill on the former ground of necessity. He offered a clause to be added to the Bill—"To prevent frauds arising in the exportation of Goods of "the produce of the Counties of Kent, Sussex, and New-Castle."

A few observations were made on this extraordinary motion; which it was said was unprecedented in the annals of Parliament, that of condemning people unheard, nay, even without inquiry.

It was answered generally, that the House was in possession of information sufficient to warrant the insertion of the clause; that the Papers laying on the table contained that information; and that any gentleman who doubted that the inhabitants of those Counties deserved no exclusive favour or particular indulgence, had need only to peruse the Papers laid before the House, to be convinced.

The question then being put, it was agreed to by the House, that the clause be made part of the Bill,

Then several amendments were made by the House to the Bill.

Ordered, That the Bill, with the amendments, be engrossed.

Ordered, That the said Bill be read the third time upon Monday morning next, if the said Bill shall be then engrossed.

THURSDAY, March 30, 1775.

The Lord North presented to the House, by his Majesty's command,

No. 1. Extract of a Letter from the Honourable Governour Gage to the Earl of Dartmouth, dated Boston, 17th February, 1775; received 27th March, enclosing,

No. 2. Extracts from the Records of the late Provincial Congress held at Cambridge, in the months of October, November, and December, 1774; also, Extracts from the Minutes of the Proceedings of the Congress held at Cambridge, in February, 1775.

No. 3. Proceedings of the Provincial Congress at Cambridge, on the 7th, 15th, and 16th February, 1775.

No. 4. Extract of a Letter from the Honourable Governour Gage to the Earl of Dartmouth, dated Boston, 20th February, 1775; received 27th March.

Copy of the extract of a Letter from the Honourable Governour Gage to the Earl of Dartmouth, dated Boston 20th February, 1775.

"I am honoured with your Lordship's Despatch, of the 10th of December, No. 13; as also of your Lordship's Circular Letter of same date, enclosing copies of his Ma-