militia pours in upon us from the northern confines of this Island? till the mercenaries of a German Electorate shall have assumed the guardianship of Portsmouth, Plymouth, and the rest of our seaport towns?—for they may lawfully do so, according to a very learned gentleman of the long robe, on the other side of the floor, [Mr. Wedderburn]—till, I say, all these motley legions shall have united to accomplish the hopeful purposes of such zealous addressers as appeared in the London Gazette of last week? * Then shall the uplifted hand of vengeance and outlawry fall upon the scattered, helpless corps of petitioners, throughout the several counties of England—those unreasonable petitioners to a Prince of the Brunswick family, in behalf of Revolution principles and lawful freedom! Then shall the Provinces of America, like many of those in Asia and Africa, be governed by Bashaws—by a knout or a bowstring; and a Parliament here at home, dastardly and dependant as the Ottoman Divan, maintaining Jannissary law, shall establish the sway of an arbitrary Sultan on the ruins of limited monarchy, and of the best Constitution that the wisdom and spirit of mankind ever framed for the happiness and glory of their fellow-creatures. Sir, the honourable gentleman who made this motion is for tracing this torrent of iniquity to its source; and it is our duty so to do. If there are efficient or super-efficient Ministers behind the curtain, let them no longer remain latent, but be dragged forth to publick execration and to publick justice. Certain I am, that the only fabricators of the American war are in this Island; they are in this Metropolis: they are most of them in this House. Several oblique hints and insinuations have, at different times, been cast to these benches near me from over the way. Some of the persons I allude to† must own it their duty in a double capacity, their duty within these walls, and their duty elsewhere, if they have substantial grounds for such charge, to produce and bring home evidence to the criminal persons. Are they naturally backward at employing spies or filing informations? or have they not such correct alertness in composing warrants of commitment? Where, then, are these enemies to their country on our side of the House? Are they to be found among those gentlemen opposing your present measures, who withdrew from the sunshine of a Court, and relinquished offices of great honour and profit, rather than sanctify such projects as their consciences revolted against? Are they among those opulent Commoners,‡ who have a landed property and hereditary consequence at stake, equal to the best subjects in Europe? Are they to be found in those heroick commanders ৷ who fought at the head of your fleets in the last war, with a prowess beyond the idea of the most romantick ages of antiquity? Or must we look for them in those intrepid magistrates, whose publick conduct has gained them the confidence and affection of their fellow-subjects, in the greatest city of the whole commercial world, and who are justly revered throughout the most respectable trading communities in all parts of the British empire—those magistrates to whose talents, vigilance, and stability, we now turn an eye of expiring hope, as to our sheet-anchor, which can alone preserve the labouring vessel of the State from the dreadful rocks by which it is encompassed? Sir, there are no Catalines§ on this side of the House. Far be it from me to charge any gentleman on the other side with meriting altogether that appellation. Many, very many, there are facing me, who act, I am sure, from such principles as they persuade themselves are principles of wisdom and rectitude; but, sir, I will say, that in the line of Ministers—in that sanguinary phalanx, at least, which, during all the evolutions and revolutions of Government, for several years past, has remained unshaken and impregnable—in them, and in the composition of their principles, I see many Catalinarian ingredients: an insatiate thirst of riches; a licentious pursuit after power; dominion to be acquired by the most desperate hazards and the most savage enterprises; by the burning of whole towns, the habitations of men, the temples of the Divinity; innocent families to be butchered; and the entire demolition of the Commonwealth, at her halcyon zenith of peace, harmony, and abundance. Whether or not, midst the arcana of their Cabinet, they, like the Cataline junto, pass from lip to lip the chalice, filled with human blood, as a pledge of secrecy and co-operative zeal, and to “rivet them to coercion,” is best known among themselves; but if any one may judge by the diabolical creeds which they have not scrupled to avow, such may well be the cup of their sacrament. Men of affluent incomes they have among them, yet chiefly from the stipends of office, not a patrimonial inheritance, nor the fruits of an honest industry. We may, it is true, give them the credit for a few renegado converts of note, taken in upon the Sherwood-Forest system of policy, in the days of Robin Hood, who recruited his troops from time to time with such needy stragglers as could stand a tough buffeting with the arch contrabandist himself, hand-to-fist.

Let us now look for their military coadjutors—those few they could claim of high reputation, and to whose abilities and spirit we might, on a future foreign war, venture to give in custodium the inestimable glories of the last: these, Ministers have grouped in a triumvirate, and transported to America, upon a worse than buccaneering expedition. We know that they were, last session, among the deceived at home, and have this year been already disgraced abroad— at this hour I am speaking, are, perhaps, in ignominious durance, or dead. If dead, be it for their best reputation and the repose of their departed spirits, that they achieved no part of the errand they were sent upon. This, sir, puts me in mind of another martialist, [looking at Lord George Germaine,] not unsighalized in former campaigns, who being now exalted to a place of the greatest publick importance, if no other members, better qualified than myself, shall undertake the task, I, perhaps, may, on a future occasion, hold it my duty to give him that distinct and copious eulogium which is his just due. Yet, before I sit down, I can by no means omit mentioning the person in office who, with little better pretensions, in my humble opinion, than the daily runner of a faction, [looking at Mr. Jenkinson,] having climbed into a post of high financial trust, the first duty of which is, to be provident of the treasure of his Sovereign and his country; measuring his claims by his own presumption and rapaciousness, not by desert, exacted from the Crown a more liberal gratuity than has heretofore been given for eminent and splendid national services—more than was asked by a Burleigh, a Godolphin, or an Earl of Chatham, and more than was deemed sufficient, by a munificent and grateful nation, for an illustrious naval conqueror, [Sir Edward Hawke,] who is now passing the evening of his life in humble frugality. Tell this, sir, to the people of America; and tell them that a Secretary of State, [Lord Rochford,] retiring from, or rather deserting the publick duty, at a conjuncture of some embarrassment, either through indolence, apprehension, or conscious insufficiency, is to be pensioned on the State to the amount of three thousand pounds per annum. I say, sir, relate these recent marks, how admirably we Britons appropriate our own money, and the Colonists can no longer hesitate to make us trustees for the disposal of theirs—especially if it be to pass through the same hands, and for the like hallowed purposes.

However, I shall still flatter myself, as a consequence of this motion, that our gracious Sovereign will, from the transcendent goodness of his heart and reflective wisdom, at length give ear to the supplications of his afflicted people; and notwithstanding he may, from an impulse of lenity, preserve the guilty Ministers from the punishment their offences demand, he will, for the sake of humanity, and for his own safety, remove them from his council and presence forever.

Mr. Hayley said that, instructed as he was by his constituents, he could not give a silent vote on the occasion; and he thought that, as all the petitions presented to the King had been rejected with disdain and contempt, the present method of an Address to the King from the House was a proper measure.

Lord Folkestone highly complimented the honourable mover, both as a publick and a private man; and said that he held a seat in that House on the most honourable terms; that, for his own part, he condemned all the measures which had been taken against America, because they were adopted in defiance of every principle on which we support our own liberties; that particularly the act for establishing despotism and Popery in Canada, was most obnoxious; for, not to

*The Scotch Addresses in the Gazette of 25th Novembe.

†The Attorney and Solicitor-General.

‡ Sir George Savile, Sir James Lowther, &c.

৷ Sir Charles Saunders, Admiral Keppel, &c.

§Alluding to an expression from the Ministerial side of the House a few evenings before.

*