shameful and mischievous monopolies. The power given to the Admiralty and to the West-India Governours, to license ships, is of the same nature. If such monopolies and jobs should not arise from such powers, it is no fault of this bill, which, as if it had these purposes in view, has taken special care to provide as strong a temptation as human nature, set above law and restraint, and furnished with every facility to corruption, can possibly be exposed to.

“8. Because we know nothing of the business of these Commissioners, further than the above arbitrary discretion with regard to pardons. Rumour gives out, that they are to have a power to treat with the Americans for a redress of their grievances. Of this, however, neither the speech from the Throne nor the bill have given the least intimation; although, if the Commissioners treat on this subject at all, acts and powers of Parliament being the matter of complaint, the Commissioners ought to derive some previous authority from Parliament in order to give weight and efficacy to their negotiations, and to preserve some appearance of dignity in ourselves. It is hardly proper that Parliament should appear in no other light than as the instrument of penal restrictions, attainder, penalties, and confiscations; as the maker of menacing addresses, and the rejecter of dutiful petitions. It is hardly decent to show ourselves fierce and inflexible here, but to be satisfied with permitting unknown persons, whom Ministers shall choose in future to appoint, to dispose, in America, of powers and acts of Parliament at their pleasure; leaving us, first, the odium of rejecting reasonable requests, and afterwards the disgrace of ratifying shameful concessions.

“9. Because we reject, with indignation, that clause of this bill which, by a refinement in tyranny, and in a sentence worse than death, obliges the unhappy men who shall be made captives in this predatory war, to bear arms against their families, kindred, friends, and country; and after being plundered themselves, to become accomplices in plundering their brethren. If there exists a doubt whether to justify the infliction of capital punishment on desertion, it should be necessary to prove that a seaman was a pressed man or a volunteer. The object of this clause is to deprive the American seaman of the plea of his being a pressed man, as it declares ‘ that he is to be considered, to all intents and purposes, as having entered voluntarily into the service.’ By this clause, not only common seamen, but masters of vessels, are, without regard to age or circumstances or condition, to be ignominiously turned before the mast, and subjected to the austere discipline of the boatswain. Persons, in that subordinate station, not being animated with the liberal and ingenuous spirit which distinguishes officers in the Navy, and taught to consider these forced volunteers as Rebels, will be but too apt to aggravate the miseries of captivity by insult and outrage. These prisoners, among the comrades they are obliged to live and serve with, may, very probably, be often forced to behold the spoils of their honest industry, and the natural support of their sober families, squandered in riot and profligate debauchery before their faces. This, we look upon as the last degree of wretchedness and indignity to which human nature can be subjected. This cruelty, unknown to the most savage nations, is to be practised by Englishmen on Englishmen, It has been said in Parliament, that the pay the prisoners are to receive is to be considered as a full compensation for the principles they are obliged to violate. We do not envy any one that sentiment. An attempt is also made to justify it by the supposed right of pressing. We cannot conceive that the burdens of subjection ought ever to be imposed where the protection belonging to it is denied; or that a man can ever be despoiled of his goods as a foreign enemy, and at the same time obliged to serve the State as a citizen. This compulsion we have never heard to be practised on any prisoners in war or in rebellion; nor do we know any example of it, except among pirates—the outlaws and enemies of human society.

“10. Because a bill so unprecedented in its nature, and so important in its consequences, is brought in at a time of year when, by experience, it is known that most of the independent members of both Houses are called away by their domestick affairs, and when few but those in the immediate pay of the Court, and attending on their employments, are in town. This we conceive to be done in order to impress the publick with a delusive idea that those measures are agreeable to greater numbers in both Houses than in reality they are.

“The only part of this bill which we approve is, the repeal of the unjust and improvident acts which have produced all the evil effects we had foreseen, and none of the good which was pretended as the ground for making them; acts as unfit for, as incapable of, execution. But, to our inexpressible grief, and to the disgrace of the publick counsels of this kingdom, Ministers, untaught by misfortunes, and unchecked by disappointments, at the very instant they are obliged to demolish the old fabrick of their oppression, as useless and mischievous, are building up another on nearly the same model, and with the same materials, adding only something more of that injustice and violence which have always proved mischievous in proportion as they have been augmented.

Ordered, That the said Bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Ordered, That the House be put into a Committee upon the said Bill, on Monday next.

Monday, December 18, 1775.

The Order of the Day being read, for the House to be put into a Committee upon the Bill,

The Duke of Manchester said, that whatever view Administration could have in deceiving the publick, might be matter of speculation, and was what he would not pretend precisely to determine; but by the account in Saturday’s Gazette, published by authority, it appeared they were determined to bring the London Gazette on a level with the Brussels Gazette, published during the late war. By the account alluded to, he remarked, that our affairs in Canada were represented to be in a very flourishing condition; whereas the contrary was well known to be true, for there were authentick accounts of a later date from that country, which said, that St. John’s was in the hands of the Provincials, and that probably the next accounts would bring advices of the total destruction of General Carleton’s army, and that we were not in possession of a foot of land in Canada.

His Grace, as well on account of this news, as the general importance of the bill, moved,“That the House be put into a Committee upon the bill on the first day of meeting after the Christmas recess.”

The Marquis of Rockingham seconded the motion. He said, that the merchants were alarmed, and that in such a case he thought it would be very proper to defer the further consideration of the bill till after Christmas, as in such a state of uncertainty, but more particularly on account of the alarm the bill had created among the commercial part of the nation, the consequences were in many respects much to be dreaded.

The Earl of Suffolk said that the King’s Ministers were fully justified in causing the account relative to Canada to be inserted in the Gazette; that it was the last authentick account received from that Province. That the Ministry had received the account alluded to by the noble Duke, but they had no right to pay any attention to it, as it did not come through a channel on which they could depend; that it might be, for aught he could say to the contrary, very true; but whether it was or not, it could not affect the present bill; because if Canada was in the hands of the Provincials, it would become Great Britain to act with greater firmness and vigour.

Viscount Townshend said, that the present reason for deferring the commitment of the bill, had no possible weight with him. If an account of our prevailing in this skirmish, or being defeated in that, was to sway and influence the British councils, it was a state he never expected to see them reduced to; that if the principle which Parliament meant or avowed to pursue was a good one and practicable, nothing ought to divert them from it; for he hoped they had the power to enforce what they certainly had a right to claim.

The Earl of Shelburne observed, that no man had a