had made the night before in another House, he was called to order by the House and by the Speaker. He protested that he had been deceived by the Ministry; he had been taught to believe that Government had so many friends in America that the appearance of a few regiments there would give them security in avowing themselves; secure an obedience to our laws, and ensure peace; that, upon this principle, he voted for sending over the forces last session; peace was his object in that measure; but now that the Minister declared himself for war, he could not but object to his proceedings. He could not consent to the bloody consequences of so silly a contest about so silly an object, conducted in the silliest manner that history or observation had ever furnished an instance of; and from which we were likely to derive nothing but poverty, misery, disgrace, defeat, and ruin.

Mr. Henry Dundas (Lord Advocate of Scotland) said, it would be ridiculous in Administration to recede, or to listen at present to conciliatory measures, whilst America was making so effectual a resistance; that all Europe would say we had felt our inability to enforce our rights, and therefore were glad to accommodate matters on any terms; that when we had regained and re-established our authority there, he would be happy to join in any plan for the better and more happy government of that part of the empire. He said it was not uncommon for Great Britain to be unsuccessful in the beginning, and victorious in the progress and conclusion of her wars; and that he was not at all dismayed by the gloomy pictures which some gentlemen were pleased to draw of our perilous and deplorable situation. He concluded with an attack upon Opposition, which he executed with great good humour.

Governour Johnstone arraigned the conduct of Administration pretty severely; he declared that he was certain that the Hanoverian soldiers could not be tried by martial law for any offences; that if they should be tried, they would have an action in Great Britain against their officers; and that if any of them should be put to death in consequence of the sentence of a court-martial, those who gave that sentence would be guilty of murder, according to our laws. He insisted that our garrisons abroad were, in the true sense of the word, a part of this kingdom, and he was against the paragraph, as a dangerous precedent.

The Attorney-General insisted that decency demanded that we should return his Majesty thanks for the considerations which induced him to take the step, though we might afterwards condemn the measure. “Suavifer in modo, sed fortiter in re,” should ever be a maxim in British minds. He declared that it was his opinion that the Bill of Rights did not forbid the introduction of foreign troops into our territories abroad; that it only mentioned this kingdom; that, consequently, he could no more see any illegality than he could danger in the measure.

Mr. Charles Mellish. I agree with the gentlemen on the other side of the House, that every Government is originally instituted for the governed; but I must insist, that when a Government is actually formed, it becomes the duty of the governed to submit to the governours. I will, however, agree that there is at times a power of constitutional resistance; and that in our own Government, if a King’s Minister oppressed the body of the people by repeated acts of violence, our ancestors had, under the sanction of the two Houses, attempted to remedy the grievance. I will also admit, that if Lords and Commons, at the will of any King or any Minister, could so far betray their sacred trust as to tyrannize over the governed in such a manner that human nature could not submit to the tyranny, (which was a case I thought scarcely possible to exist, and my blood run cold at the thoughts of it,) I was settled in my principles; if the bulk of the people concurred, and I could not be mistaken, I should oppose the appearance of a Constitution which no longer existed; and then I will allow that any new Government is better for the governed. But I call upon gentlemen to consider, if the two Houses of Parliament, supported by the united voice of the people, were cautious in their method of opposing the King alone, how much more ought gentlemen to be cautious in attacking the sacred Constitution of King, Lords, and Commons. In order properly to consider whether such a case existed, we must look for its signs. Freedom of debate in Parliament seems to me the great touchstone; and I dare say that every gentleman who hears me will be of my opinion, that at no time this House has ever enjoyed more freedom of debate than at present; it has kept us from our bed till five this morning, and may probably keep us to the same hour this night.

Much has been said in former debates, particularly on an equal representation. Indeed, in our own state the representation was formed originally equal, I mean in the time of William I. It was, indeed, a representation of merely the landed interest. Time has by degrees produced so total an inequality of representation, that now it is a certain fact, that not one-third part of England is represented in Parliament. Does it not therefore follow, as a consequence, that America has no more reason to complain for the want of a representation, than two-thirds of the people of England? Here it is that the fiction of law steps in to the relief of the subject: it declares us members for every part of his Majesty’s dominions, and consequently for America; it has, therefore, altered the ancient principle of the Constitution, which said, that the member was obliged to obey his constituents. Necessity has adopted this fiction of a. virtual representation, and it is now become our duty to consult the interest of the kingdom in general, in preference to the advantage of our Borough or County.

It is strange that reasonable men should not be contented with the Government of the country in which they live. I shall ever maintain that I am bound to support the Constitution left me by my ancestors. The term Constitution is, indeed, vague; it is continually altering; like the human body, new particles are continually flying from it, and new particles are adding to it. We ought from time to time to improve the Constitution, or reduce it to its first principles, as the case may require, but not by violent means. I hope and trust we shall never again fall into the fatal errors of the times of Charles I, when every man thought he had a right to set up his new-fangled ideas; in opposition to the Government of his country; and when the people at last discovered the miseries they had drawn on themselves by their folly, they received Charles II with that weakness and imbecility of spirit, that they lost much of their liberties.

As to the present question, I think Ministry is right in its measures, and am satisfied with their late conduct. America has formerly submitted to the right of taxation. Many are the acts passed by us, submitted to by them. I shall shortly state some of them. We have asserted our rights not only in the navigation acts, and the internal acts of the post office, by 9 Anne, c. 10, but we have annihilated in some cases their own acts of Assembly; for by 7 and 8 William III, we have declared void all the laws, &c., made in their plantations, which were repugnant to that act, or to any other law hereafter to be made in this kingdom. The act of 11 and 12 William III, c. 7, made for the suppression of piracy, in its 13th section is express. The words are, if any of the “Governours in the said Plantation, or any person in authority there, shall refuse to yield obedience to this act, such refusal is hereby declared to be a forfeiture of all and every the charters granted for the government or the propriety of such Plantation.” These acts were made in the* time of the patron of our liberties, the great King William; even the charter itself which the inhabitant:; of the Massachusetts-Bay now so eagerly clamour after, is not their original charter, but, a charter crammed down their throats by the great King William. We have carried our legislative power still farther over the internal police of America, and America has submitted. The Colonies allow that the Greenwich Hospital act, of 7 and 8 William III, c. 21, extends to them. By 3 and 4 Anne, c. 11, we have forbidden their selling their pitch and tar trees under a certain growth, &c. By 5 George II, c. 22, not a single hat can be exported from the Colonies anywhere. And by 7 George II, c. 7, we have altered their common law in the most essential of all points, their property, in the teeth of their own acts of Assembly. For the more easy recovery of debts, even if due to ourselves, we have made their lands assets. And to close the whole, by 13 George II, c. 7, we have made foreigners, who inhabit seven years in the Colonies, natives of these very countries, of which they deny us the right of legislation.

But the mode of laying the late taxes has been objected to. Yet by 25 Car. II, c. 7, we have laid port duties on the exportation of sugars, under the express regulation of the Commissioners of the Customs and Treasury; and by 1 George I, c. 12, we have ordered those duties to be paid into