do you mean to send? I answer, that the officers serving on the spot, those especially commanding, are the proper judges. What they, upon a full state of the service, think necessary, as far as my advice can go, shall be sent; not to be insulted. Such forces as are necessary to restore, maintain, and establish the power of this country in America, will not be wanting.

Much has been said about the plan of sending Commissioners. My idea of that measure is, that they should not only have power to pardon, but to inquire into grievances; and if the Americans, returning to a sense of their duty, should offer terms, (not with arms in their hands,) they should be empowered to consider, and, on their submission, to take off those penal restrictions under which, from the nature of their conduct, the Americans now lie. If, by opening a door to retreat, the Crown tries to induce them to lay down their arms, what can it do more? If they persist in their appeal to force, the force of the country must be exerted. The spirit of this country will go along with me in that idea, to suppress, to crush such rebellious resistance. As to the gentleman’s proposition, I think it has been fully proved that it would not answer the expectation of those in America, whose confidence he meant to gain; that it does not go so far as they expected; nor so far as some here would go; and previous concessions, as gratuitous preliminaries, whether accepted or not, without anything offered on their part, would put us on worse ground, and remove the matter still further from the conciliation he proposes. I am, therefore, ready to give my negative to it, or rather, to join in the previous question.

Mr. Fox was for the motion, and very severe upon Administration. With infinite wit and readiness, he gave a description of the Treasury Bench, beginning with Mr. Ellis, and ending with Mr. Cornwall, by a single epithet happily marking the characters of each of them, with fine satire, and without the least breach of decorum.

The Solicitor-General [Mr. Wedderburn,] in answer to Mr. Fox, defended Administration in a fine veio of oratory. And in answer to an observation of Mr. Burke upon the conduct of Demosthenes, he entered upon classical ground, and with consummate eloquence and accuracy of recollection, descanted upon the history of that period, with allusion to the present times. His speech was a restoration to the House; and though it was three o’clock in the morning, awakened the attention of every man in it.

General Conway replied to the last speaker, and showed, in a variety of instances, the futility of his arguments.

Mr. Graves seconded the motion for the previous question.

Lord North. I declare, that if I thought the motion would procure that conciliation which the honourable gentleman who made it has held out, I should be staggered. But it has appeared that this line of concession will not procure it; and it has been clearly marked to you, that this line is not sufficient. Therefore were I of opinion with the honourable mover as to repealing all the acts he mentions, as I am as to some of them, these concessions would not procure the end he proposes, but put us upon still worse ground, and remove us farther from any conciliation this country can agree to. I think, for instance, that those penal and restrictive acts which have been indefinite as to the term of their operation should be repealed, and the matter and purport of them thrown into one general act, framed to be enforced during the continuance of the war. The honourable gentleman [Mr. Burke] has in his bill proposed to empower the King to call a Congress in America. He has that power: has done it before, and may do it at any time. Besides, the proposed bill confines the power of the Crown to treat only with the Congress; therefore his Majesty can treat with nobody else, if there were any persons disposed to offer terms of submission.

A little before four o’clock in the morning the previous question was put, “That the question be now put:”

The House divided.

The noes went forth:

So it passed in the negative.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

Monday, November 20; 1775,

The House was moved, That an Act, made in the fourteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled “An Act to discontinue, in such manner, and for such time, as are therein mentioned, the Landing and Discharging, Lading or Shipping, of Goods, Wares, and Merchandise, at the Town, and within the Harbour of Boston, in the Province of Massachusetts-Bay, in North-America,” might be read.

And the same was read accordingly.

The House was also moved, That an Act, made in the, fifteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled “An Act to restrain the Trade and Commerce of the Provinces of Massachusetts-Bay and New-Hampshire, and Colonies of Connecticut and Rhode-Island and Providence Plantation, in North-America, to Great Britain, Ireland, and the British Islands in the West-Indies; and to prohibit such Provinces and Colonies from carrying on any Fishery on the Banks of Newfoundland, or other places therein mentioned, under certain conditions and limitations,” might be read.

And the same was read accordingly.

The House was also moved, That another Act, made in the fifteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled “An Act to restrain the Trade and Commerce of the Colonies of New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and South-Carolina, to Great Britain, Ireland, and the British Islands in the West-Indies, under certain conditions and limitations,” might be read.

And the same was read accordingly.

The House was also moved, That so much of his Majesty’s most gracious Speech to both Houses of Parliament, as relates to giving authority to certain persons to grant general or particular Pardons and Indemnities in America, and to receive the submission of any Province or Colony, or to authorize the persons so commissioned to restore such Province or Colony to the free exercise of its Trade and Commerce, might be read.

And the same being read accordingly,

Lord North then moved, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to prohibit all Trade and Intercourse with the Colonies of New-Hampshire, Massachusetts-Bay, Rhode-Island, Connecticut, New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, the three lower Counties on Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North-Carolina, South-Carolina, and Georgia, during the continuance of the present Rebellion within the Said Colonies respectively; for repealing an Act made in the fourteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty, to discontinue the Landing and Discharging, Lading or Shipping of Goods, Wares, and Merchandise, at the Town, and within the Harbour of Boston, in the Province of Massachusetts-Bay; and also two Acts, made in the last session of Parliament, for restraining the Trade and Commerce of the Colonies in the said Acts respectively mentioned; and to enable his Majesty to appoint Commissioners, and to issue Proclamations in the cases and for the purposes therein to be mentioned.

His Lordship explained the necessity of restraining the Americans from all trade during the present rebellion, and the justice there would be in immediately taking off the restraint from such Colony wherein it might cease; that the Boston Port Act, and the acts passed last year, being framed upon other grounds and for other purposes, would stand in the way of this operation; that the restraining bills were civil coercions against civil crimes; but we being now at war, the provisions were incapable, and other provisions were necessary. Those provisions he now proposed were such as would be made use of in case of war with any country in the world; but they were framed under such provisoes as might open the door of peace upon its first approach. That if we were ready also to repeal the Charter bills, yet he could not do it while they denied the right that we had to make them; that as to the bill for the administration of justice, there was no need to repeal that, because the country being in actual war, martial law took place, and there were no courts of justice in which it could operate; it was a temporary bill for three years, two of which are expired, and it would cease of itself. That he should also be ready to repeal the tea duty on the same grounds that he would suspend every exercise of the right of taxation, if the Colonies