mile’s circumference, for you were suffered to land as friends in the only sea-port town of any consequence which you possess. Would the noble Lord, whom his Majesty has lately raised to one of the highest civil offices, if he were sent on a military service there, would he venture, even at the head of the whole British cavalry, to advance ten miles into the country? He would not, I am persuaded, be so rash, nor do I think his spirit quite daring enough to make the attempt. And is any Minister weak enough to flatter himself with the conquest of all North-America? The Americans will dispute every inch of territory with you, every narrow pass, every strong defile, every Thermopylæ, every Bunker’s Hill. A train of most unfortunate events will probably ensue, and the power of recruiting, perhaps subsisting, your weakened forces, at such a distance, be lost. After an unavailing struggle of a very few years, when the ruined merchant and manufacturer besiege your doors, you will perhaps think of naming Ambassadors to the General Congress, instead of the wild and expensive job and farce now in contemplation, of thirty Commissioners, with a salary of four thousand pounds each, to cry Peace, where there is no peace.

Yet, sir, I think peace absolutely necessary between Great Britain and America, and, therefore, I approve the present motion, as holding out the olive-branch. The Americans are rapidly increasing in population, and in the knowledge of all the useful arts of life. Alas, sir, they are not ignorant even in the fashionable art of murdering our own species. The late worthy Governour of Pennsylvania declared at the bar of the other House, that that Province now grew more corn than was sufficient for the supply of its inhabitants; that they exported considerably every year; that they perfectly understood the art of making gunpowder, and had effected it; that they had established several works to procure saltpetre; that they had the materials and means in great plenty of casting iron cannon; that the art of casting both brass and iron cannon, as well as of fabricating small-arms, had been carried to great perfection; and that they were expert in ship-building beyond the Europeans. He declared, likewise, that single Province had actually enrolled twenty thousand men in arms, imbodied, but not in pay, and had four thousand Minute-men ready on the first notice of any real danger. The authentick accounts of the preparations for the forming, training, and disciplining troops in the Massachusetts-Bay and in Virginia are equally formidable; nor are they inconsiderable in the other United Provinces. Every idea of force, therefore, on our side, must appear infatuation.

All wise legislators, sir, have calculated the strength of a nation from the number of its inhabitants, the laborious, strong, and active. The population in most parts of America is doubled in the course of nineteen or twenty years; while that of this Island is known rather to have decreased since the year 1692. The emigrations of late from the three kingdoms have been amazing and alarming. Our own people have fled in multitudes from a Government under which they starved. It appears, from the nicest calculations, that many more of our fellow-subjects have voluntarily left this kingdom for America, never to return, than I believe Administration have hitherto sent in their pay, both fleets and armies, never to return, in any considerable proportion—I mean, for the force sent. The Americans, sir, are a pious and religious people. With much ardour and success they follow the first great command of Heaven, “Be fruitful and multiply.” While they are fervent in these devout exercises, while the men continue enterprising and healthy, the women kind and prolifick, all your attempts to subdue them by force will be ridiculous and unavailing, will be regarded by them with scorn and abhorrence. They are daily strengthening; and if you lose the present moment of reconciliation, to which this motion tends, you lose all. America may now be reclaimed or regained, but cannot be subdued.

Gentlemen, sir, do not seem to have considered the astonishing disadvantages under which we engage in this contest against the combined powers of America, not only from the distance and natural strength of the country, but the peculiar and fortunate circumstances of a young, rising empire. The Congress, sir, have not the monstrous load of a debt of above one hundred and forty millions, like our Parliament, to struggle with, the very interest of which would swallow up all their taxes! Nor a numerous and hungry band of useless placemen and pensioners to provide for; nor has luxury yet enervated their minds or bodies. Every shilling which they raise will go to the man who fights the battles of his country. They set out like a young heir with a noble landed estate, unincumbered with enormous family debts; while we appear the poor, old, feeble, exhausted, and ruined parent, but exhausted and ruined by our own wickedness, prodigality, and profligacy.

Sir, I daily hear the Americans, who glow with a divine zeal for liberty in all its branches, misrepresented in this House, and the ostensible Minister is diligent in propagating the most unjust calumnies against them. The noble Lord with the blue ribbon told us the liberty of the press was lost throughout America. The noble Lord deceives us in this as in many other things. From experience we know that his intelligence can never be relied upon. The liberty of the press, the bulwark of all our liberties, is lost only in Boston, for his Lordship’s Ministerial troops govern there only. The press is free at Watertown, (but seven miles distant from Boston,) at Philadelphia, Newport, Williamsburgh, and in the rest of North-America. I will give the House the demonstration. General Gage’s foolish and contemptible Proclamation against Samuel Adams and John Hancock, two worthy gentlemen, and, I dare to add, true patriots— even that Proclamation, declaring them Rebels and Traitors, while the Generals Washington, Putnam, and Lee, with all the naval commanders in arms, were unnoticed by him, appears reprinted in all the American papers. His letters, likewise, to Governour Trumbull and others, in which he most heroically apologized for his inert conduct, as necessary for the protection of the Army—the protection of an army!—and of an army which we were taught to believe would look all opposition into subjection, awe the factious, and give security to the well-affected,—these letters, too, were all faithfully copied. I believe all the curious, futile orders he has issued, all his unmeaning declarations and proclamations, will be found as exact in the Pennsylvania, Watertown, and other American newspapers, as in the Gazette, published by his authority in Boston, which, in other respects, is as partial and false as that of the American Secretary, published by authority in this capital.

The honourable gentleman who spoke last says the present Address is trifling, for we already know the author and adviser of all the late measures against America; that the noble Lord with the blue ribbon will avow them, and has done it. I wish to hear such a declaration. Will the noble Lord avow himself the adviser of only one of the late flagitious measures, that of establishing Popery and despotick power in Canada? The father of that monstrous birth, I thought, had prudently hitherto chosen to remain concealed. He likewise tells us, the motion now before us is coupled with nothing, and leads to nothing. I will tell him what it ought to lead to, what it ought to be coupled with: I mean an impeachment, sir; which I trust will follow, as the next motion of the honourable gentleman who spoke first in this debate. Whoever did advise the measures lately pursued, which have lost half our empire, I consider as a criminal of so deep a dye that his head would be a just sacrifice to the honour of England and the peace of America. The word “impeachment” I hope will always strike terrour to the ear and heart of a wicked and arbitrary Minister; and that the noblest and most important prerogative of this free people, secured to us by our great deliverer, King William III, in the “Act for the further limitation of the Crown, and better securing the rights and liberties of the subject,” will shortly have its full effect, “that no pardon under the great seal of England be pleadable to an impeachment by the Commons in Parliament.”

Lord North thanked Mr. Storer for the compliments he had paid him; but said, the honourable member who made the motion had not considered him as the responsible author of the measures he had mentioned. He allowed that the Cabinet and efficient Cabinet councils were no parts of the Constitution; but said, that the King might consult any part of the Privy Counsellors he pleased. He said the present motion was a very strange one; that there were several acts of Parliament concerned in it, of which he did not know the author: he did not know who was the author of the Act of Henry VIII, which he supposed was alluded to; that some of the other acts had been made in different Administrations. As for Popery, he said, that was established in