the present. But, sir, in order to qualify us so to do, affection to our King, obligation to our country, and sober wisdom, all combine in requiring the closest and most deliberate discussions, and the deepest researches into the true bias of the times, previous to the offering up any address to the Throne whatever. An address at such a crisis as this, upon such important and decisive matters, cannot be considered as a mere point of etiquette, or personal compliment to our Sovereign; if it could, there is not a member of this House would be more forward in duty and obsequiousness than myself. Are we not totally ignorant of the real state of Great Britain and her Colonies? Sir, the sense of society at large is not to be ascertained by the signature of a score of Provincial corporations, under corrupt ministerial influence; it is not to be ascertained by the voice of repletion and revelry, by a few mistaken individuals, brought together under the hospitable roof of a great Baron’s castle. Sir, within those battlements Kings are not, now-a-days, made or unmade, [alluding to the famous Earl of Warwick, who alternately deposed Henry VI, and Edward IV;] it is not to be ascertained by the cry of a few Tory justices, ductile magistrates, huddled together by their creator, the Lord Lieutenant of the County, to approve of proscriptions and proclamations, devised in councils where he himself takes the lead as President. Sir, I will tell the noble Lord who spoke last, that if the people of Lancaster, Liverpool, and Manchester, were the oracles of British law and policy, the Electors of Hanover had never swayed the imperial sceptre of this realm. I admire, however, the spirited zeal and consistency of the addressing inhabitants of that part of England; I admire their firm reverence for the divine authority of Kings; their defence of popery, of arbitrary government, and sword law. The same political tenets which now fill the heads of these loyal addressers, filled also the heads of their townsmen in 1745 and 1746. Those heads which, being impaled over Temple-bar in the last Whig reign, were, soon after the commencement of the present, when a mighty Northern Thane came into office, taken down with veneration, and are now, it is said, enshrined in a certain interior cabinet, where a right honourable household officer in my eye, and others of the White-Rose junto, frequently offer, upon a bended knee, their secret orison and incense.

Sir, the noble Lord who spoke last, and the right honourable member who preceded him, have assured you that the sense of this country is against the Americans. I am confident, as well from the intelligence I have been able to procure from a multitude of persons widely different in station and description, as by my own remarks in the progress of many a journey through the interior of this Island during the summer season, that the sense of the mass of the people is in favour of the Americans. They think that the provocation given by a rash and insufficient Ministry to the Colony of Massachusetts-Bay, in lawless and oppressive exactions, enforced by famine, devastation, and slaughter, at length constitutionally justified an appeal to arms. A very learned judge, who now does signal honour to the coif, assures us, in his excellent book of Commentaries, that every freeman is warranted in the use of arms for defence of his rightful possessions and liberty. And that great luminary of his profession, Lord Chief Justice Holt, in pronouncing judgment on the memorable case of Tooly and Dekins, says: “When the liberty of the subject is invaded, it is a provocation to all the subjects of England.” Where, then, will these grievances, this civil war and carnage, terminate? I shall now borrow the words of Sir Charles Sedley, in the last age, to express my astonishment that a nation sick at heart as ours is, should wear so florid a countenance. But, sir, is it not that hectick bloom which is frequently found to accompany a radical decay of the constitution, or rather, some artificial beautifier spread over the surface of a cadaverous substance for popular show and delusion? We have heretofore found it expedient, when this kingdom has been shaken to its foundation from one extremity to the other, as it now actually is; when the original compact between the governing power and the subject has been differently construed, and in danger of being totally dissolved; I say, sir, that the Commons, in Parliament assembled, have found it expedient to inquire, in the first place, into the actual state and condition of the nation in general; for this we have a recent precedent, almost within the memory of man, not strictly speaking in the Journals of the Parliament, but in the Journals of a national and constitutional assembly, which has done more good than all your Parliaments since the days of Henry III put together, which restored and established, on a firm basis, the Protestant religion and civil liberties of the people, and which brought in the amiable families of Nassau and of Brunswick to maintain that religion, and to protect us in the enjoyment of those liberties; I mean, sir, the Convocation or Congress in the year 1688, whose acts and resolutions ought, like the leaves of the sybils of old, to be sanctimoniously reverted to, at all times of state perplexity and peril. I therefore desire that the motion made at the opening of this Congress, commonly called the Convention Parliament, and which was the groundwork of the Revolution, be now read.

The motion was then read, which stands upon the Journals in the following words: “That the House do appoint a day to take into consideration the state and condition of the nation;” which motion passed nem. con. for the Monday following.

I now move you, sir, that this House do appoint a day to take into consideration the present state and condition of Great Britain and her Colonies, in order to ground thereupon an affectionate and dutiful Address to the Crown, in an answer to his Majesty’s Speech this day delivered from the throne.

I am sorry not to see the honourable member who proposed, and so ably supported this Address, now in his seat, or I flatter myself he would acknowledge his motion premature, and admit of the necessity to take the preliminary step of ascertaining the temper and resources of Great Britain and her Colonies, in order to address his Majesty with good effect; when we shall, I trust, open his eyes to the manifold impositions put upon his royal confidence, by some dark and dangerous parricides, ambushed too near the throne, and help him to restore that peace, good order, and happiness, throughout all his dominions, without which it is impossible that he can continue to reign over us with security; or that so pious and benevolent a Prince as he is, though he wears the most brilliant diadem in Christendom, can make it sit easy on his brow.

General Conway apologized for opposing the King’s servants, but thought it his duty to oppose this Address, because it approved of the American war. He condemned that war as cruel, unnecessary, and unnatural; called it a butchery of his fellow-subjects, to which his conscience forbade him to give his assent. Though joined with the King’s servants, he detested that principle of implicitly supporting every measure of Government; and was severe upon those officers of the Crown who, because they are linked with others in Administration, think they are bound to wade through thick and thin with their colleagues. He demanded, with an emphasis, what was the state of the British empire in America? Called upon the noble Lord in the blue ribbon [Lord North] to give it, or at least to lay some information of the state of affairs in America before the House. Asked Administration, what part of America was to be called their own? Is Canada yours? he said; is Halifax yours? At this time, is even Boston yours? It is reported, that Boston is to be abandoned. Where, then, are the troops to be landed in the spring? Are they, like the first emigrants from this country, to sail along the coast till they find a place? He reprobated the idea of conquering America, declared explicitly against the right of taxation, and wished to see the Declaratory Law repealed, since so bad a use had been made of it. He declared his conscience forbade his assent to the butchery of the Provincials, and therefore he firmly protested against the Address.

Lord George Germaine replied, in favour of the Address; but did not say anything new, except that he had received a letter from General Burgoyne, who said, that notwithstanding the distresses and obstacles the King’s troops met with, they were zealous and determined in defence of their country.

Captain James Luttrell. Sir, I confess that I do not feel much surprise at the inflammatory language of some gentlemen opposite to me, for I am persuaded, from the vindictive, cruel, and oppressed measures they have recommended and pursued towards our fellow-subjects in America during the recess of Parliament, they determine to stake the prosperity of both countries to their own emolument and