your manufactures and agriculture, and trust the defence of the empire and commit the prosecution of your most essential interests to foreigners. Your country is small, and insignificant in point of numbers; the few hands you have are wanting at home; and should you employ them in war, your country would be ruined; the plough and loom must instantly stand still. Is this, my Lords, a language to be endured? Can this doctrine be seriously maintained in this House, without subjecting its authors to ridicule and derision? Were those the sentiments which prevailed during the late war, when we had at one time no less than three hundred and fifty thousand natives in actual service; and when the whole number we employed amounted to no less than four hundred and eighteen thousand men? Will any man say that our manufactures stood still for want of hands, when our imports increased full two millions annually, and when both our exports and imports exceeded anything known in former times? Could we thirteen years ago spare three hundred and fifty thousand men for carrying on the operations of war, and carry on our manufactures to an extent never before known; and shall it be this day gravely contended that we cannot raise a fifth part of the number, without ruining our manufactures, which consideration obliges us to apply for assistance to two paltry German States, as the only means of procuring our political salvation? Such arguments would surprise me, coming from any quarter; but much more so, from a set of men who have uniformly condemned all intercourse with the Continent, all German subsidies, and German connections. I remember a noble Duke, now no more, who I looked upon to be a very able man, and a noble Earl, both of whom have been mentioned in the course of this debate [Duke of Bedford and Lord Bute] during the late war, and at the conclusion of the late peace, held it as a point not to be departed from, that this country could subsist without any alliance to the Continent. I know that a noble Earl [Lord Chatham] who conducted that war, was of the same opinion; and justified his conduct by frequently declaring, in private and publick, “that he did not bring us to the Continent; that he found us there.“We all know that this system at last prevailed, and that it has been the uniform politicks of the present reign to adhere to it. Shall we now be told, by the same men, acting up to the same rule for more than fourteen years, that the system is a bad one; that alliances on the Continent must be formed; that we have not men sufficient to defend and protect us; and that if we had we cannot spare them without ruin to our manufactures? His Lordship then turned his attention to the new levies; showed how the principle of keeping up old corps established at the peace had been departed from, by raising new corps; and how Highlanders had been recruited in London, and several parts of England, to fill up General Frazer’s two battalions. He spoke of the ill-treatment and resentments of the King of Prussia and the Em-perour; and of out not having a single ally on the Continent of the least consequence.

Lord Lyttelton. My sentiments on the present subject are pretty well known. I shall only observe now that lenient measures have had no other effect than to produce insult after insult; that the more we conceded, the higher America has risen in her demands, and the more insolent she has grown. It is for this reason that I am now for the most effective and decisive measures; and am of opinion that no alternative is left us but to relinquish America forever, or finally determine to compel her to acknowledge the legislative supremacy of this country. I do not pretend to decide, in the present situation of both countries how far it may be expedient to insist on taxes, for the purpose of raising a revenue; not but it is evident we are fully competent to demand them, and able to compel their payment. However, it is plain, when they return to a proper state of obedience, that the right is with us, and that we may exercise it according to circumstances and local convenience. In the event of our prevailing in this contest, it is the principal of an unconditional submission I would be for maintaining; not that I would be for pushing the consequences of this doctrine to its full extent. I think the right once fully acknowledged, Great Britain ought, by all means, to secure to the people of that country those privileges and immunities to which every native subject of this free Government is confessedly entitled.

Lord Camden. Some allusions have been made in this debate to a fact, which has been misrepresented. It has been supposed that the noble Duke in the blue ribbon [Duke of Grafton] and myself, both occupying high offices in Administration at the time the duties were laid on in 1767, approved of the measure. I confess, as mere matter of supposition, his conjecture is plausibly supported; but the fact, I do assure his Lordship, was entirely otherwise. I never did, nor ever will, give my consent to the raising any taxes, in any form, on the people of America, for the purpose of raising a revenue to be under the disposal of the British Parliament. As for the treaties now on your Lordships’ table, and the proposed effect of the present motion, I shall beg your Lordships’ indulgence for a few words. If I understand them right, they contain an agreement with the Landgrave of Hesse, Duke of Brunswick, and Prince of Hanau, for a certain number of troops for specifick sums of money, accompanied by subsequent conditions of a double subsidy to be paid, in case the war should be terminated in a shorter time than that usually fixed for the existence of subsidiary treaties. To give this bargain the appearance of what it really is not, the. whole is stuffed up with pompous expressions of alliance, founded in reciprocal support and common interest; as if these petty States were really concerned in the event of the present contest between this country and America. Now, my Lords, I would appeal to any of your Lordships, if the whole of this transaction be not a compound of the most solemn mockery, fallacy, and gross imposition, that was ever attempted to be put on a House of Parliament. Is there one of your Lordships who does not perceive most clearly that the whole is a mere mercenary bargain for the hire of troops on one side, and the sale of human blood on the other; and that the devoted wretches thus purchased for slaughter, are mere mercenaries, in the worst sense of the word? This point once granted, look then on the present treaties in their naked and true light. Consider seriously the consequences which such a conduct on our part may probably be productive of. We not only pay dearer for these hirelings than was ever known on any former occasion, but, instead of availing ourselves of the advantages we might derive from treating with their respective Sovereigns, hiring out their troops in the manner now alluded to, we have entered into treaties of alliance offensive and defensive; we have, in fact, pledged the faith of the nation to all the eventual consequences of a Continental war. But, my Lords, even this measure, hazardous and impolitick as it is, is not what presses most forcibly on my mind, in the conduct of this wanton, cruel, and diabolical war; for if the arguments be true that have been urged by several of your Lordships this day in debate, they amount fairly to this, that men are not to be had in this country sufficient to give efficacy to the necessary powers of the State, nor assert the rights of this Legislature; and that, consequently, the present treaties, however exceptionable, are the mere creatures of necessity. I question much the truth of this argument; but supposing it to be a just one, does it not fairly prove that the salvation of this empire depends upon foreign assistance; and that all our boasted power, wealth, and every advantage, derived either from our situation or form of Government, are held under that precarious tenure? In short, that we can enjoy no one blessing of external strength, or domestick happiness, longer than our worthy mercenary allies on the Continent think proper to permit. Now, for my part, I always was of a different opinion; for, should the time ever arrive in which our existence as a nation depended on the assistance of foreign hirelings, from that instant I should deem our consequence as a sovereign State, and our liberties as a free people, no more. The history of all ages and nations prove the fatal effects of calling in foreign auxiliaries, but more particularly mere mercenaries, to fight their battles; and my memory hardly furnishes me with a single instance of conquest over any great state or empire, in which the conquerors were not first introduced into the country as friends and allies. This general truth, my Lords, I allow, does not directly apply to the present treaties; but the principle, were the national imbecility such as your Lordships’ heard it described to be this day really just, ought to create cause of great and serious alarm to every one of your Lordships. I cannot better express my disapprobation of employing foreigners, particularly to fight our domestick quarrels, than by quoting the opinion of that great man, Sir Walter Raleigh.

*