rebellion against the Executive and Legislative powers of the State, and the undoubted rights of the people of this country. In answer to some strictures made by the noble Duke who spoke last, he defended the conduct of the naval officer who commanded on the American station, and seemed to hint some degree of censure upon the operations on shore. He confessed that things were much altered; and that it was necessary to considerably augment our Navy; that he had already taken every precaution in his power; that the armament of last year had consisted of thirty armed vessels, of different sizes, two of them two-decked vessels; that twenty were actually sailed, or were ready to sail to reinforce them; and that it was the intention of Administration to complete the number; by the time that operations were to commence, to seventy vessels, which would be such a force, co-operating with the Army, as would render it impossible for the Americans either to resist, keep together, or subsist; as they would have at once all the calamities of a war to contend with, without the means of carrying it on; being thus cut off from all supplies they might expect to derive from Europe, or elsewhere. His Lordship confessed that Administration had been deceived in some measure; yet he thought it necessary now to declare that it was his own private opinion that the stronger the Navy was the more effectual their operations would be. He saw the matter very evidently in that light; but it was generally believed if a larger force had been demanded, it would have raised an opposition to the measures at large; and this was one very powerful motive for his not explaining his own ideas so fully as otherwise he was most certainly disposed to do. It was fashionable to cry up the prowess and intrepidity of the Americans; but, in his opinion, if they had betrayed any proofs of cowardice and want of spirit formerly, nothing had yet happened on their part sufficient to wipe off the aspersion; for it had ever been a received opinion, that an army intrenched are at least equal to three times their number of assailants; whereas the superiority on the part of the Provincials was confessed on all hands to be in the direct contrary proportion; and yet the King’s troops were victorious. He commented on the proposition recommended by the noble Duke, and contended it was in fact giving up the whole contest, and at once relinquishing our rights of sovereignty, and every possible benefit we are entitled to claim in the way of trade and commerce; that though we should agree to repeal all the laws relative to America passed since the year 1763, yet, in all probability the noble proposer, as well as the proposition, would meet with the treatment and contempt that, last session, a noble Lord now absent from his place (the Earl of Chatham) did, which was, to be condemned in pamphlets and newspapers, and his person reviled in the most reproachful terms in scurrilous publications and ballads, hawked about the streets of their several capitals by old women and boys. He pursued the idea of the noble mover of the Address, relative to foreigners and papists, in the instance of France and Sardinia, who constantly retained large bodies of Swiss in their armies, who professed the Protestant religion, and contended generally that if the measure of reducing America was a right one, it was proper of course to enforce it; and he was astonished to hear the power of the King to call the aid of his Hanoverian subjects to his assistance doubted, or the propriety of employing foreigners, to effectuate measures previously determined to be necessary, condemned.

Lord Lyttleton resented what he deemed an implied censure on his noble relation, (the Earl of Chatham,) who, he observed, unfortunately for his country, was absent from his duty in Parliament, being confined to his bed by a severe fit of illness. The noble Earl, who endeavoured to load that truly great man with ridicule, ought to recollect and well weigh a character which he was no more able to depreciate by an attack in his absence, than he could add to it by any encomiums it was in his power to bestow. That great man was the ornament of his country, and the delight and admiration of every man, of every party, who wished well to it. Though a young man, he remembered when this country was pretty much in such a predicament as at present; and he remembered, too, that that steady patriot and able politician rescued it from the brink of destruction; and he was now fully convinced its salvation, nay, indeed, its existence, was only to be obtained and preserved by the same means.His Lordship turned to the question, and maintained the sovereignty of the Legislature in its fullest extent, but condemned, in the most marked language, the conduct of Administration. He said they had totally failed in their promises and information, and were no longer to be trusted or supported with safety. He alluded to his conduct during last session, when he voted with the Ministry, how strenuously he recommended vigorous measures or none, and how frequently he pressed them on this head. On the whole, therefore, though he could not vote for the amendment, because the Americans were not declared to be in rebellion, he totally disapproved of the Address, and the measures recommended in it. He said matters were now entirely altered. Boston was turned into an hospital, where more died of famine and want of care than by the sword. We probably had not a single foot of land in our possession on the continent of America. The expense and hazard of reducing it, the little dependance there was to be placed in men who had been misled themselves, or purposely misled others, operated so strongly on his mind that he could no longer lend his support to such measures, accompanied by such circumstances; and, consequently, must unite in opinion with the noble Duke, in wishing that all the acts respecting America, passed since the year 1763, might be repealed, as a ground for conciliation, a full restoration of the publick tranquillity, and return of America to her wonted obedience and subordinate dependance on the mother country.

The Bishop of Peterborough (Doctor John Hinchcliffe) answered some reflections which dropped from Lord Sandwich, on the obstructions thrown in the way of Administration, by declaring that he was so far from having had any disposition to clog the wheels of Government, that he had given his vote last year for the measures of the Ministry, upon the ground of the information he had received from reading the American correspondence. His Lordship, however, reminded the House that, notwithstanding the vote he then gave, he expressly declared that reconciliation, last year, was the object he ever had in view, and meant not to lose sight of. He hoped, therefore, that the Lords would not impute it to a spirit of faction, if (as he thought the state of things now very different from what they appeared then) he should be constrained to withhold his consent from the Address. My reasons, he added, for so doing, I will simply, and as briefly as possible, lay before your Lordships.

It appeared to me, in the last session, to be the general opinion of all such as I thought best capable to form a judgment what were the most probable means to effect a lasting reunion with the Colonies, that even a show of perseverance to support the authority of the Legislature, would intimidate the factious, and restore peace and tranquillity. Experience has now convinced me that a mistaken judgment upon this point was formed by the friends of Administration, both here and in America. The declaration of perseverance went forth, and though backed by ten thousand men, has not intimidated a single Colony.

We were assured last year, that upon the appearance of a reinforcement, which could protect them from the insults of the mob, a considerable party would declare themselves in favour of the mother country: that there is no reason now to flatter ourselves with such an expectation, is too obvious to be insisted upon. It was said, too, in the spring, that the Americans would not (some, indeed, were confidently persuaded they could not) fight; yet we now certainly know that they can and will fight, for they have fought. It is true they were defeated; but, considering the stand they made, and the intrepidity of the troops they had to contend with, they were not disgraced by their defeat.

We were made to believe, a year ago, that the restraints put upon the commerce and fisheries of the Colonies, would press so hard upon their interests as to bring them to submission : we have now learned that their commerce is but a secondary consideration. If it may not be called liberty itself that they are contending for, it is at least the opinion of liberty, which operates no less forcibly on the passions of mankind.

Having thus contrasted the past and present state of American affairs, he said that he was persuaded many Lords, besides himself, had, on some or all of the grounds he mentioned, been induced to approve of the measures proposed in the last session. He owned they were measures of coercion and correction, which he then thought advisable,