the present measures, and must be presumed were the voice and sense of the nation.]

Lord Craven said, the manner and the means employed to obtain these addresses were well known. He should mention only that which was obtained in his own neighbourhood, which, he said, was shamefully smuggled; no notice being previously given the citizens of Coventry. It was drawn up by the mere agents and creatures of Administration; nine-tenths who signed it never heard a syllable of its contents; and yet, with all the arts used to deceive and mislead, no more than one hundred and seventeen, most of them ignorant of what they were doing, could be prevailed upon to sign it; while the Address he interested himself in, and which carried truth to the foot of the throne, attended with all the previous forms which should ever accompany declarations of this nature, where the sentiments of the people ought to be faithfully collected and expressed, was signed by four hundred and six names; and he could assure their Lordships, that in this number there was not one bought voice nor one pauper. From this instance, which came immediately within his own knowledge, he was led strongly to suspect, that most of the addresses alluded to by the noble Lords were obtained in a similar manner; and hoped, therefore, their Lordships would build nothing on so weak and rotten, though specious a foundation.

The Duke of Richmond reminded Administration of the very predictions which they now owned were the cause of their miscarriage. He told them that he, and many other Lords, had repeatedly pressed them on their real or pretended want of information; that if they were in earnest, their armaments, both by land and sea, were too weak; and if they were not in earnest, it was at once sacrificing the blood, treasure, commerce, and honour of this nation, to a most criminal lust of place and emolument, supposing that bloody measures were the tenure by which they held their offices. His Grace observed, that the publick papers held out threats against some of the members of both Houses, in order to stifle the freedom of debate; that he understood he was one of the persons singled out and meant to be honoured on this occasion; that he now called on his threateners and accusers, and (striking his hand on his heart) said, if any such be present, (I will not pretend to say there are,) I defy them; I scorn their menaces, and invite them to make good their charges. He did not suppose, he said, that any noble Lords in Administration would encourage or employ such base, futile, or scandalous means, to intimidate members from doing their duty, though they were certain that such a scheme would have the desired effect. His Grace next turned his attention to what a noble Earl, early in the debate, had said, respecting the cowardice of the Americans. He begged leave to remind his Lordship, that he did not speak conditionally; there was no if at the time the charge was made; it was a positive one, and could not now be explained away by conditions introduced for the first time; yet, however positive the noble Lord might have been then, or guarded he might be now, he could inform his Lordship that the New-England people were brave; that they had proved it; that the General who commanded at Bunker’s Hill had confessed it; that another, (General Burgoyne,) no less celebrated for his talents than zeal for the cause, had confirmed it; that an officer, a particular friend of his, on the spot, had united in the same opinion. He combated the facts and conclusions of the noble Earl, relative to the particulars of that day. He denied the superiority of numbers, and observed that he never recollected an instance where lines had been forced and no prisoners taken but such as were wounded. The noble Viscount who moved the Address, when questioned about the practicability of reducing and holding America in subjection, instanced the conquest of Corsica. The difference of extent of the two countries, the vicinity of the Island to France, and the number of persons in arms to resist, which were no more than six thousand, added to the immense superiority of the French in point of numbers, were sufficient to show how little the two cases were alike: and as to his Lordship’s general answer, that sixty thousand men in possession of all the posts of a country would in all probability succeed, he must have supposed the conquest as a matter previously effected; because he could see very little or no difference between the actual conquest of a country, and occupying all the posts which command the necessary communication by land and sea: that not being the case here, he must therefore look on his Lordship’s answer as deciding nothing. He condemned the Speech and Address with severity, and concluded with calling on the law Lords to rise and give their opinions, whether his Majesty was properly advised in taking Hanoverians into British pay, and bringing them into the dominions of Great Britain, without the previous consent of Parliament.

Earl Gower confessed that Administration had been deceived and misled; and that, consequently, the measures taken were by no means proportioned to the nature and extent of the service; that the accounts received from the Southern Provinces led to this mistake; and that several other events had happened, which it was impossible to foresee or prevent. In particular, the Province of New-York had been overawed and compelled, by a party of insurgents from Connecticut, into measures they would never have otherwise adopted; that still, if the friends of Government were emancipated by the aid of a force from this country, he had strong expectations the Colonies, by that means, might be brought to a sense of their duty, without the mother country being obliged to have recourse to those scenes of misery and desolation described by the noble Lords on the other side. His Lordship lamented, that those who had hitherto approved of the propriety of the measures respecting America should so suddenly abandon them, or that any foundation should be laid for suspecting they wished to defeat everything they had on a former occasion expressed the strongest desire to support. He was convinced that the proposition of the noble Duke would never answer the end proposed, and that the question was now simply reduced to the alternative of coercive measures, qualified in the manner he had pointed out, or forever relinquishing any power, dominion, or advantage, from our Colonies in North-America.

Lord Ferrars, (of Chartley,) apologized for his youth, and said, that whatever desire he might have to follow the opinion of his very near and noble relation, yet, as a Lord of Parliament, in the execution of a trust, and in the discharge of a duty, he felt himself called to a conscientious discharge of both. Such being his motives, he found himself under a necessity of supporting the amendment.

The Earl of Shelburne. I may, from this moment, congratulate the publick, that the Ministry have pronounced the funeral oration of their addresses. From the language of those addresses, and from the various threats which were industriously circulated, I came to town with some apprehensions, not for myself, but lest the zeal of some of my friends for the violated rights of their suffering fellow-subjects should have led them into unwary expressions, which might have enabled some dark designing lawyer to stab the publick freedom through the indiscretion of an individual. I do not blame the addressers who have thus unjustly aspersed the characters of those whose aim is, by steady, just, and temperate counsels, to save this deluded country from destruction. They were deceived: they were deceived by these very Ministers, who, being now called upon, explicitly avow, without any appearance of shame or remorse, that they have no evidence to support their accusation.

It is with equal astonishment and concern, my Lords, that I perceive not the least mention made in the speech which has been this day delivered to us, of a paper, the most important of any that could possibly come under the consideration of this House: I mean the last Petition from the General Congress in America. How comes it, that the Colonies are charged with planning independency, in the face of their explicit declaration to the contrary, contained in that Petition? Who is it that presumes to put an assertion, (what shall I call it, my Lords?) contrary to fact, contrary to evidence, notorious to the whole world, in that mouth, from which truth alone, if unprompted, would issue? Is it their intention, by thus perpetually sounding independence in the ears of the Americans, to lead them to it, or, by treating them, upon suspicion, with every possible violence, to compel them into that, which must be our ruin? For let visionary writers say what they will, it is a plain and incontestable fact, that the commerce of America is the vital stream of this great empire. A noble and reverend Lord has insinuated that the Petition seems to him to be conceived in terms of great art and ambiguity. I have examined it with great care; but this morning I read it repeatedly,