still more strongly, if possible, operates in behalf of the West-India Islands, which, by this bill, are to be included in the general proscription, without even so much as the slightest imputation of guilt. The West-Indians, too, are to be starved and ruined to effect the desirable purposes of Administration. Destitute of provisions and lumber, they cannot exist; or, supposing they could procure the former, what are they to do with their crops? or, on supposing they could preserve their crops, which it is well known they cannot, how is the produce to be exported to the European markets? Having said thus much to the general policy and justice of the bill, give me leave to say a word or two to the expediency of it. Though the bill were perfectly justifiable in every other respect, this, at least, will deserve your Lordships’ most mature deliberation: what force can you send out, with safety to yourselves, sufficient to carry this mass of oppression into execution? Recruits cannot be procured on any terms. Germans, it is well known, will not answer your purpose. The Russians cannot assist you, as they are likely to have employment enough nearer home; besides, Administration affect to disclaim ever having any such intention, though I believe the contrary is well known to be true. Whence, then, are you to draw all your force? By the complexion of this bill, I should be inclined to think the whole weight of this business is thrown on the Navy; but will your Lordships think it prudent to leave yourselves in a great measure defenceless at home, while the affairs of the North of Europe present themselves in their present form? I believe not. A storm, I am well informed, is gathering in that quarter. Russia and Sweden are making preparations for war. Prussia has interfered; and France, in case of an actual rupture, will give Sweden its promised protection, and that by a fleet. In such an event I shall not insist that a British fleet will become necessary in the Baltick; because I presume that none of your Lordships can imagine that Great Britain would remain inactive, and see France send a naval force into the Northern Seas; and that to act against the power in Europe with which she stands most closely connected and allied. My Lords, I shall not detain your Lordships any longer. I fear I have trespassed much too far already on your Lordships’ patience. I shall therefore sit down, with making an observation on the concluding clause of this bill: it is, the empowering the King to grant pardons to persons of whom you know nothing. In my opinion it is a very improper and a very dangerous extension of prerogative. I have no fear that his Majesty will make a bad use of it. I am sure he will not designedly; but I contend that a Prince, even of the best talents and first-rate powers of discrimination, cannot attain such a knowledge of the abilities and characters of the persons to be appointed under this commission as to prevent his being imposed on and deceived in the recommendations made to him; and that, consequently, the power is an improper one, because, from the very nature of it, with the best intentions in the Prince, it is likely to be abused. For this, and the other reasons before stated, I am against committing this bill.

Lord Lyttelton. I confess I am much astonished at the two assertions the noble Duke, who rose to oppose this bill, sat out with: that the bill had been brought in at an improper season, and had been carried through thin Houses. For my part, I beg leave to think very differently from his Grace—at least to draw very different conclusions. The necessity of the present bill justifies the bringing it in at the time; and I imagined I should never hear the objection of non-attendance arise from that side of the House. If the bill has been badly attended on the part of Opposition, in the other House, whose fault is that? Is a breach of publick duty in them to be imputed as a crime to their adversaries? I should imagine it is rather an argument in the favour of Administration. If we turn to the other part of the noble Duke’s assertion, we shall find it equally ill-founded. The bill took a due time in passing through its several stages, and was fully and solemnly debated in its progress, clause by clause. The noble Lord who conducts the publick business of the nation in the House where it originated, sustained the whole weight of opposition, obviated the several objections that were made to it in the course of those debates, and convinced the independent part of the House of its utility and necessity. Such being the circumstances attending this bill, I am authorized to say, that it was neither brought in at an improper season, nor was it indecently hurried. No charge of the latter kind can, in my opinion, therefore, be made against Administration; on the contrary, it is well known, and now confessed on all hands, (indeed the noble Lords on the other side have urged it as a fault that Administration have committed,) that they delayed instead of hurried the necessary measures for reducing this obstinate and rebellious people, from motives of lenity, and wishing to prevent the effusion of blood, and the horrid devastation consequent on a civil war. And I am not certain that all the mischiefs that have since happened may not, in a great measure, be attributed to mistaken motives of humanity. The noble Duke says, the present bill, by confiscating the property of the Americans, is a violation and invasion of the Bill of Rights, because it gives the property taken to the captors, without a legal previous conviction. Does not the preamble of this bill affirm the Americans to be in open rebellion? Is not, then, the proof of the property following such a declaration of the Legislature, and that founded on innumerable acts of hostility committed against the King and Parliament, a full and legal conviction? My Lords, it will be said, perhaps, that America is not in rebellion. What, then, can we call rebellion, if this be not? They have attacked our troops, seized the King’s forts and military magazines; they have, as far as was in their power, cut themselves off from this country, by prohibiting every kind of trade and commercial intercourse with it. If this be not a state of open war, hostility, and defiance, I cannot tell what is. Have not those unnatural Colonists to rebellion added all the circumstances of rapine and publick robbery? Have not they been base enough, under the treacherous pretence of defending the Canadians, to commit the most notorious acts of oppression and injustice? And have not the people of Canada been compelled to take up arms against them, in order to resist the universal brigandage that must have been the consequence, if they any longer continued passive, or did not rise in defence of their property, daily wrested out of their hands by the most shameful acts of violence? I lately saw a letter from that country, in which this reason is directly assigned: that at length they found it necessary to arm and defend themselves (the words were the very terms I have now used—contre brigandage) against this publick robbery and extortion. My Lords, the noble Duke tells you that a storm is gathering in the North, which may find sufficient employment for our fleet in Europe. Are, then, all the terrours of a rupture with France, in case this war should continue for any time, at once abandoned by his Grace and his friends on the other side of the House? and do they now falsify their own predictions, delivered with so much confidence, in order to hold up fresh bugbears of their own creating? We have now no longer any fears of an invasion from France. Our coasts are no longer in danger from that formidable enemy, who, according to the noble Duke’s information, is to be employed elsewhere. Sweden and Russia are preparing to attack each other. Prussia and France are to take respective sides in this quarrel. What, then, does this amount to, but that France, jealous of the increasing power ofRussia, and in compliance with her engagements entered into with Sweden, will take a part in those disputes? Does not this prove to a demonstration that France, operated on by her jealousies, and obliged by her treaties with Sweden, can never think of preventing or interrupting us in the prosecution of reducing our rebellious subjects? Such an attempt would be madness in any event, but, on the present occasion, would be directly militating against her own views. But supposing, my Lords, that the matter really stood as the noble Lords in Opposition have frequently stated it, in the course of the last and present session; I will suppose, what I am sure is not the case, that it was both the interest and intentions of France and Spain to prevent us from reducing our rebellious Colonists into a state of legal obedience and constitutional submission; and that, if we persisted in our declared resolution of asserting our rights, we must expect to be engaged in a war with the united force of the House of Bourbon: would that be a motive with your Lordships for submitting to your rebellious subjects in the present contest? I think it would not. I am sure it ought not. If a dread of a war with those Powers should be a sufficient reason for such a disgraceful, spiritless conduct, I am well convinced it would have a

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