himself by his royal promise, there was nothing to prevent him from sending the whole or any part of the military force stationed in that kingdom to what part of the empire he pleased, if the exigency of affairs, or the operations of war, should make it necessary. In respect to foreigners, the very state of Ireland, as represented by the noble Duke, would be a sufficient reason for his Majesty to send a body of foreigners into that kingdom for its defence, without advising with his Parliament there for I believe the noble Duke will hardly contend that the King, with the advice of his Parliament here, or on an emergency previous to such an advice, may not send a body of troops into any part of the dominions of the British Crown, for its defence and protection.

The Duke of Grafton. The noble Duke who made the motion has stated the whole of the business of this day in so accurate a manner, with so much precision, and so judiciously pointed to the several leading points most deserving your Lordships’ attention, as to leave very little for me to add. Indeed, as to the matter immediately under consideration, his Grace has totally precluded me. I cannot, however, sit down without expressing my general sentiments on this very momentous and important motion. From the beginning of the present troubles, I sedulously endeavoured to satisfy myself of the true ground and nature of the dispute; to examine the respective pretensions of the parties, to procure the best lights the nature of the controversy afforded, and to form my opinion without predilection or partiality. The effect of those researches was, that I plainly saw the people of America, instead of being protected in their rights and secured in their property, would be left nothing which they could call their own, because no line could be drawn, no boundary could be set up, to limit the extent of the claim. You could not say that supremacy shall exist for such and such purposes, and shall be restrained in its exercise in such and such cases; because the very instant you set limits to its right of taxation, you would annihilate the principle on which that right is founded, and consequently leave the question as undecided as ever. Taking it in the other light, that unconditional supremacy, in the mode and extent laid down by the noble Earl with the white staff, was of the very essence of Government, similar difficulties, though arising from a different cause, presented themselves to my view; I mean the inexpediency of coercing America, and the impracticability of carrying coercive measures into effectual execution. I perceived that great allowances were to be made for a people who had been, as they thought, in the exercise and possession of certain specifick, defined lights for more than a century. I was convinced of the cruelty and bad policy of wresting those rights from them wantonly and without any apparent cause. I evidently perceived the wildness and impracticability of the attempt, and the insurmountable difficulties which stood in the way of a project so big with folly and injustice. But let me go one step further, and suppose that the expediency and practicability were equal to the presumed justice of the cause: ought we not to look to our own abilities, to our resources, and compare the inconveniences which must result from these measures with the advantages we propose to obtain? I am tolerably acquainted with the finances of this country, and I do most solemnly assure your Lordships, that I do not know of a single tax which it is in the power of the most fruitful invention to devise or conceive, that would increase the receipt at the Exchequer. Every tax that can possibly be thought of will interfere with some other already in being. The nation is loaded to the full extent of its abilities; and what are you going to do? You are entering into a war, the success of which is problematical at least, if not improbable. To carry on this war, new taxes will be necessary; and having no security to give, the consequence must be, that you will be obliged to pledge the old funds, contrary to publick faith, and the security of the publick creditors; or you will be compelled to contract new debts, which, if the war should continue for any time, national credit will be ruined and the kingdom undone. This leads me to a consideration of the first importance; it is, the general inattention and indifference to the interests of the nation which prevail among those to whom they are entrusted. A most alarming profligacy of manners, and unbounded love of pleasure and dissipation, have taken possession of almost all ranks and degrees of people. Ministers are trusted indiscriminately; Parliament has surrendered or abandoned its right of control, and all the great concerns of the nation are trusted to chance, or to men by no means fitted for the arduous task of Government. How do you think, my Lords, this will terminate? When the people find themselves borne down under the pressure of taxes, which they will be no longer able to pay; when publick bankruptcy stares them in the face; when, in consequence of such a state of things, universal ruin and despair spread themselves through every part of this Island;—I will tell you, my Lords, the people, no longer able to endure such calamities, and expecting no redress where only it can be legally or constitutionally sought, will seek relief in the means which God and nature has pointed out. They will forbear to look up to Parliament, because Parliament has betrayed them, has been deaf to their entreaties, and inattentive to their interests. It may be answered, that the present measures are measures of the people, that they are approved of by a great majority of the nation, and that they have, in a variety of instances, and through a variety of channels, expressed the most hearty and zealous approbation. I deny the fact; but though I should allow the proofs, they are very far from combatting anything I have now-asserted. If the people have been misled or Iulled into a deceitful security, it proves my argument on the ground I have taken it up. It is not on the wisdom and soundness of the measures, but on their fallacy and evil tendency, that I draw the present deductions. Besides, addresses, and the various means employed by men in power to obtain the publick sanction and approbation, will never pass with me for proof of their being the real sentiments of those to whom they are imputed; for at no time since the first establishment of the Monarchy did this test of publick opinion manifest itself more than during the greater part of the reign of James II. Addresses, congratulations, engagements to support him with their lives and fortunes, poured in from every quarter; yet that infatuated Monarch fatally discovered, in the hour of trial, that they were but the mere efforts of Ministerial art and Court adulation. On the whole, my Lords, considering this great question in all its different points of view, and pursuing it in all its consequences, I can perceive nothing but inevitable rain. I contemplate it with the most pungent anxiety; I turn my face from it with horrour. These have been my sentivnents from the very beginning, and I have uniformly acted conformably thereto. I have argued, prayed, and implored, that the wild, ruinous, and destructive project might be laid aside. I do now beseech your Lordships, for the last time, to bestow-some further consideration on the subject. The die is not irretrievably cast; the sword is drawn, but it may yet be sheathed. The proposition now made to you by the noble Duke may open a field for peace and reconciliation. This opportunity once lost, I fear can never again be recovered. I would beg to recall to your Lordships’ recollection what fell from me in the course of the last year, when in another situation, (where I unhappily stood single in opinion,) that I promised to submit a plan for composing the differences now subsisting between Great Britain and America to your consideration. Whatever has been urged by the noble Lord in the blue ribbon to the contrary, I am convinced it is not yet too late, and that all the miseries and calamities which now threaten the nation may yet be averted, if we will only, without distinction of party, undertake the performance of the arduous task with willing hearts and proper dispositions. As to the treaties, which make more particularly the subject of this day’s debate, they have been so amply commented on, and fully explained by the noble mover, that I should have hardly troubled your Lordships, did not I think it my duty, as applying directly to the manner in which this business of foreign treaties has been conducted on the part of Administration, to express my utmost astonishment at the language held by a noble Lord, in whose department, as Secretary of State, this negotiation must, of course, have been transacted. The noble Lord rises to declare his ignorance, whether or not a Commander-in-Chief, appointed by his Majesty, or the Commander of those foreign mercenaries, should have the supreme command? Did his Lord-ship take upon him to negotiate this treaty, without any one official requisite to conduct and conclude it? Or has he first made the treaty, and after it is finally concluded, and made binding on the nation, does he come into this House totally