and add to the Protestant strength thereof; that when the four thousand men now permitted to leave the Kingdom would go, there would not remain above six thousand five hundred effective men—too small a number to repel a foreign invasion, or keep quietness at home; that even the number now in the Kingdom was scarce sufficient to protect the revenue, and repress the riotous disposition of the lower class of inhabitants, who were ever rising in divers parts of the Kingdom; and that it would seem very odd to the British Minister to find that this House, ever since the augmentation, had every session, and even a month ago, voted that twelve thousand effective men were necessary for the defence of this Kingdom, should now, when Britain, at her own expense, offered to replace the forces which the exigency of affairs called abroad, should reject the proffered favour.

On the other hand, it was contended by Mr. Redmond Morres, Mr. Vice-Treasurer Flood, Mr. Hussey, Mr. Yel-verton, Mr. Bushe, Mr. Boyle Roche, &c., that the introduction of foreign troops into this Kingdom was a dangerous measure, pregnant with ruin to the liberty of this country. What would be the consequence when this House would find themselves surrounded by foreign mercenaries, who, not being paid by them, would not be under their command? That these troops, unacquainted with either the language or manners of the people, would be equally unfit for garrison or country duty; that it would be exposing the weakness of this Kingdom, and when these troops returned home, its defenceless situation would be the topick in all the coffee-houses on the Continent; that when the Regiments remaining here, after the four thousand men were gone, would be complete, we should have eight thousand men in the Kingdom—a force, until the late augmentation, thought sufficient for its defence, ever since the year 1690, though two foreign Wars, and two rebellions in Great Britain, had happened since that time; that the payment of twelve thousand men being already provided this session, the saving of near two hundred thousand pounds in the two years would be only putting the means of corruption into the hands of Administration. Lastly, Mr Ogle observed that there was an effectual and constitutional method of defence and security, by a national militia; that two hundred men thus raised in every County, would be a sufficient force to answer every purpose.

Mr. Flood adopted the idea of a militia, and showed i was a favourite wish of his to see it carried into execution.

Several amendments to the Resolution were proposed, but all rejected without a division. It being now eleven o’clock at night, the question on the Resolution itself was put, when there appeared, ayes, for the Resolution, 68; noes 106: majority 38.

Mr. Ogle then moved that the following Resolution be agreed to, in lieu of the rejected one:

Resolved, That it is the opinion of this Committee, that a Militia not exceeding six thousand men is necessary for the defence of this Kingdom.

It being now too late to enter into the merits of this question, it was agreed the Committee should report the Resolution they had agreed to last Saturday, and ask leave to sit again.

TO THE EMIGRANTS LATELY ARRIVED FROM THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND.

Williamsburgh, November 23, 1775.

FRIENDS AND COUNTRYMEN: A native of the same island, and on the same side of the Tweed with yourselves, begs, for a few moments, your serious attention. A regard for your happiness, and the security of your posterity, are the only motives that could have induced me to occupy your time by an epistolatory exhortation. How far I may fall short of the object I have thus in view, becomes me not to surmise. The same claim, however, has he to praise (though, perhaps, never equally rewarded) who endeavours to do good, as he who has the happiness to effect his purpose. I hope, therefore, no views of acquiring popular fame, no partial or circumscribed motive, will be attributed to me from this attempt. If this, however, should be the case, I have the consolation to know that I am not the first, of many thousands, who have been censured unjustly.

I have been lately told that our Provincial Congress have appointed a Committee to confer with you, respecting the differences which at present subsist between Great Britain and her American Colonies; that they wish to make you their friends, and treat with you for that purpose; to convince you, by facts and argumentation, that it is necessary that every inhabitant of this Colony should concur in such measures as may, through the aid of a superintending Providence, remove those evils under which this Continent is at present depressed.

The substance of the present contest, as far as my abilities serve me to comprehend it, is, simply, whether the Parliament of Great Britain shall have the liberty to take away your property without your consent. It seems clear and obvious to me that it is wrong and dangerous they should have such a power; and that if they are able to carry this into execution, no man in this Country has any property which he may safely call his own. Adding to the absurdity of a people’s being taxed by a body of men at least three thousand miles distant, we need only observe that their views and sentiments are opposite to ours, their manners of living so different that nothing but confusion, injustice, and oppression could possibly attend it. If ever we are justly and righteously taxed, it must be by a set of men who, living amongst us, have an interest in the soil, and who are amenable to us for all their transactions.

It was not to become slaves you forsook your native shores. Nothing could have buoyed you up against the prepossessions of nature and of custom, but a desire to fly from tyranny and oppression. Here you found a Country with open arms ready to receive you; no persecuting landlord to torment you; none of your property exacted from you to support court favourites and dependants. Under these circumstances, your virtue and your interest were equally securities for the uprightness of your conduct; yet, independent of these motives, inducements are not wanting to attach you to the cause of liberty. No people are better qualified than you, to ascertain the value of freedom. They only can know its intrinsick worth who have had the misery of being deprived of it.

From the clemency of the English Nation you have little to expect; from the King and his Ministers still less. You and your forefathers have fatally experienced the malignant barbarity of a despotick court. You cannot have forgot the wanton acts of unparalleled cruelty committed during the reign of Charles II. Mercy and justice were then strangers to your land, and your countrymen found but in the dust a sanctuary from their distresses. The cries of age, and the concessions of youth, were uttered but to be disregarded; and equally with and without the formalities of law, were thousands of the innocent and deserving ushered to an untimely grave. The cruel and unmerited usage given to the Duke of Argyle, in that reign, cannot be justified or excused. No language can paint the horrors of this transaction; description falters on her way, and, lost in the labyrinth of sympathy and wo, is unable to perform the duties of her function. This unhappy nobleman had always professed himself an advocate for the Government under which he lived, and a friend to the reigning monarch. Whenever he deviated from these principles, it must have been owing to the strong impulses of honour, and the regard he bore to the rights of his fellow-creatures. “It were endless, as well as shocking, (says an elegant writer,) to enumerate all the instances of persecution, or, in other words, of absurd tyranny, which at this time prevailed in Scotland. Even women were thought proper objects on whom they might exercise their ferocious and wanton dispositions; and three of that sex, for refusing to sign some test drawn up by tools of Administration, were devoted, without the solemnity of a trial, to a lingering and painful death.”

I wish, for the sake of humanity in general, and the royal family in particular, that I could throw a veil over the conduct of the Duke of Cumberland after the last rebellion. The indiscriminate punishments which he held out equally to the innocent and the guilty, are facts of notoriety much to be lamented. The intention may possibly, in some measure, excuse, though nothing can justify the barbarity of the measure.

Let us, then, my countrymen, place our chief dependance on our virtue, and, by opposing the standard of despotism