member of Administration in 1765, [General Conway,] to the American Governours, maintaining the very doctrines supported by the noble Lords who spoke against the motion, that America, before she had a right to expect any indulgence from the mother country, must first acknowledge her sovereignty, and the supremacy of this Legislature.

Lord Abingdon said that the right of taxation, insisted on by them, stripped America of her property; and the claim of having a right to alter her Charters, deprived her of her municipal rights; so that, on both accounts, the present war to compel her to an unconditional submission, was a war of conquest, and, if successful, must terminate in the absolute slavery of the vanquished.

Lord Camden. I have so frequently given my opinion on the injustice, on our part, of compelling America to pay taxes without being represented in our Parliament, contrary to the fundamental principles of this Constitution, the privileges the people of that country are entitled to as British subjects, and the inalienable rights of mankind, that I shall not presume to trouble your Lordships on these subjects again, unless they come directly under debate, or make an essential part of the matter under consideration. I shall chiefly confine myself to the object of the present motion; observing, however, before I proceed further, that if there was any colour for the claim of taxing the Colonies, the form, the right which has been attempted to be exercised, is absurd beyond precedent. If it could at all be defended, it must be as an act of sovereign power issuing from the legislature; but the absurdity of the other House, whose power of granting aids arises from representation, granting other people’s money, is a solecism in politicks and legislation, reserved for modern discovery; an idea that every impartial, intelligent man must treat with derision; an idea which our predecessors would hardly believe possible to have entered into the mind of man to conceive, were, they to rise from the dead, to behold the ridiculous scene that is now passing, and the manifest injustice which it involves in it. The light I take the present motion in is, to remedy that extraordinary act called the Capture Act, passed immediately before Christmas. I confess I am astonished how such a law could have ever received your Lordships’ sanction. I do not mean to arraign its cruelty, injustice, and impolicy; they do not come within the view I intend to take of it. I was indisposed at Bath the time it passed this House, and I should be glad to know from either of the learned Lords who defended it, how they could possibly permit the clause of pardoning to pass unnoticed; or how they could let such a manifest imposition be put on the House, as that the clause delegated any power whatever of opening an accommodation with the Colonies. What does this celebrated clause say? That his Majesty shall be empowered to grant and receive submissions. 1 would ask the learned Lord, whether his Majesty can, under this act, empower Commissioners to grant pardons to Provinces, and whole bodies of men? If he should answer, that he can, I will engage to prove that he cannot; and that any person who presumed to act under such a power, would do it at his peril. But if his Majesty could delegate this power in the extent contended, would that answer the professed object of the clause? Would it enable the Commander-in-Chief, or Commissioners, to enter into a treaty, or agree upon conditions? I do maintain it would not. The man who, under such an authority, dare make a single concession, short of receiving an. unconditional submission or surrender, would hazard his neck. To what purpose, then, to send out Commissioners to treat, when any treaty, communication, or intercourse whatever, according to the language of this House, would not only be treason against the person of the King, but treason against the State, and the legislative rights of Parliament? The people of America have been declared Rebels: the very act I allude to describes them as such. Where, then, is the man bold enough to accommodate the subsisting disputes, by an authority short of that which declared them so, except, as before observed, America should unconditionally submit? This, then, is the clearest proof that unconditional submission is the object in view, though it was endeavoured to be concealed under the flimsy clause I have been now commenting on; and it is on that account principally that I am desirous the present motion should succeed, to get at the real intentions of Administration; to know whether they mean at all to recede from their full demands, or whether they intend to risk everything to pursue war for the purpose of a complete conquest in one event, or unconditional submission in the other. Their refusal will no longer leave a doubt of their ultimate intentions. Concession, treaty, negotiation, &c., will have just as much meaning as the word “accommodation” had with the soldier in Shakspeare. Accommodation, when desired to explain it, he said, meant accommodation. But, my Lords, great stress is laid upon the Americans seizing the castles, forts, munitions, &c., of his Majesty; and it is said this is rebellion. If this is true at all, the case can only apply to Canada. If, however, we are to examine the law, which in affairs of this nature can be our only guide, I question the truth of this assertion. Previous to Edward VI, it was not punishable as treason; during the reign of that Prince a law was enacted, which made the retaining the King’s castles, fortresses, &c., against his consent, high-treason. In the succeeding reign, (that of Queen Mary,) that, with all other laws passed since the 25th of Edward III, were repealed; and I know of none since enacted for the purpose; and, for my part, I cannot see, if the offence was merely confined to that, how a person could be legally punished. In this very strange clause I perceive there has an expression crept in, and but for the whole complexion of this iniquitous affair I should have been inclined to imagine it got there by the blunder of the clerk, as it is rank nonsense; it is the condition on which the pardons are to take place, as soon as the Province shall be in the “King’s peace.” The phrase is an unmeaning one, as applied here. The King’s peace, if it means anything, relates to the ancient custom, when the feudatories made war on each other, in avenging personal wrongs, or by way of reprisal and retaliation. When the King thought proper to put a stop to such quarrels, he proclaimed the respective districts which were the seat of quarrel, to be in the King’s peace. I have turned the matter frequently in my mind, and think I have at length discovered the true reason of introducing this antiquated term. It is of a piece with all the rest of this business, which has been directed from the very beginning, to enlarge the powers of the Crown, under the flimsy pretence of asserting the rights of Parliament. Parliament is at all events to be disgraced; and when Ministers have experienced the impracticability of their schemes, all they think they have to do will be to declare the Province to be in the King’s peace. Hostilities will instantly cease, and, as a noble Duke observed early in the debate, Parliament will incur, both here and in America, all the odium of this attack on the liberty and property of their fellow-subjects; and the King’s servants will have the credit of conceding and desisting from an attempt, of which they were the original authors, but which experience had taught them was as impracticable as it was unjust, cruel, and oppressive.

Lord Mansfield. If the noble Lord who spoke last had not so fully explained what the noble Duke who made the motion, and another noble Duke who spoke later in the debate, [Duke of Richmond,] meant by appealing to me, I never could have conceived that I should have been called upon to explain or defend a bill which, I do assure your Lordships, I never saw or was consulted upon till it was debated on the second reading. I remember, I came very late into the House that evening, and should not have said a syllable, if I had not been called upon then, as I am this night. There were but two doubts started on that occasion: one of them was by a noble Duke, [of Richmond,] who wished to know if the ships, their tackle, and apparel, lying in the ports and docks of America, not expressly offending against the principle of the act, by carrying on or intending to carry on any trade, &c., came within the intention of the general clause which creates the forfeiture under the description of all ships, goods and merchandise. I informed his Grace, your Lordships, that I thought it did; because any exception might be a source of endless confusion; for if a line were attempted to be drawn in favour of certain persons, or in respect of the mode of incurring the forfeitures, it might probably totally defeat the professed purposes of the bill. The other objection raised was by the noble Lord over the way, [Lord Shelburne.] His Lordship contended against the power of pardoning in the lump, vested in the Crown by the bill. For my part, I am now of the