ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. . 37

prosecute them with a design that, by having our lives and properties in their power, they may with the greatest faciliity, enslave you. The cause of America is now the object of universal attention; it has at length become very serious. This unhappy country has not only been oppressed, but abused and misrepresented; and the duty we owe to ourselves and posterity, to your interest, and the general welfare of the British empire, leads us to address you on this very important subject.

Know then, that we consider ourselves, and do insist that we are and ought to be, as free as our fellow-subjects in Britain, and that no power on earth has a right to take our property from us, without our consent.

That we claim all the benefits secured to the subject by the English constitution, and particularly that inestimable one of trial by jury.

That we hold it essential to English liberty, that no man be condemned unheard, or punished for supposed offences, without having an opportunity of making his defence.

That we think the legislature of Great Britain is not authorized by the constitution to establish a religion fraught with sanguinary and impious tenets, or to erect an arbitrary form of government, in any quarter of the globe. These rights, we, as well as you, deem sacred; and yet, sacred as they are, they have, with many others, been repeatedly and flagrantly violated.

Are not the proprietors of the soil of Great Britain, lords of their own property? can it be taken from them without their consent? will they yield it to the arbitrary disposal of any man, or number of men whatever? You know they will not.

Why then are the proprietors of the soil of America less lords of their property than you are of yours? or why should they submit it to the disposal of your parliament, or any other parliament or council in the world, not of their election? Can the intervention of the sea that divides us, cause disparity in rights, or can any reason be given why English subjects who live three thousand miles from the royal palace, should enjoy less liberty than those who are three hundred miles distant from it?

Reason looks with indignation on such distinctions, and freemen can never perceive their propriety. And yet, however chimerical and unjust such discriminations are, the parliament assert that they have a right to bind us in all cases,

without exception, whether we consent or not; that they may take and use our property when and in what manner they please; that we are pensioners on their bounty for all that we possess, and can hold it no longer than they vouchsafe to permit. Such declarations we consider as heresies in English politics, and which can no more operate to deprive us of our property, than the interdicts of the pope can divest kings of sceptres which the laws of the land and the voice of the people have placed in their hands. At the conclusion of the late war-a war rendered glorious by the abilities and integrity of a minister to whose efforts the British empire owes its safety and its fame: at the conclusion of this war, which was succeeded by an inglorious peace, formed under the auspices of a minister of principles and of a family unfriendly to the protestant cause, and inimical to liberty: we say, at this period, and under the influence of that man, a plan for enslaving your fellow-subjects in America was concocted, which has ever since been pertinaciously carrying into execution.

Ex. XXIV.-GEN. GAGE AND THE MINISTRY.

Speech in Parliament, Dec. 19, 1774.

EDMUND BURKE.

I CAN not sit down, Sir, without first saying a word or two on the solicitude which the honorable member has just expressed for General Gage, and the troops under his command. It is, I confess, most humiliating and mortifying, and it is difficult to say whether those who have put them into this position deserve most our compassion or our ridicule. It is, indeed, an absurdity without parallel; a warlike parliament, and a patient, forbearing general. I would not be understood to reflect on the gentleman, who, I understand, is a very worthy, intelligent, deserving man; no, Sir, it is those who have sent him on such an errand that are to blame. The order of things is reversed in this new system. The rule of government now is to determine hastily, violently, and without consideration, and to execute indecisively, or rather not execute at all. And have not the consequences exactly corresponded with such a mode of proceeding?

INEXPEDIENCY OF MAINTAINING TROOPS IN BOSTON. 39

They have been measures not practicable in themselves in any event, nor has one step been taken to put them in execution. The account we have is that the General is besieging and besieged; that he had cannon sent to him, but they were stolen; that he himself has made reprisals of a similar nature on the enemy; and that his straw has been burnt, and his brick and mortar destroyed. It is painful to dwell on such monstrous and absurd circumstances, which could be only a subject of ridicule, if it did not lead to circumstances of a very alarming nature. In fact, Sir, your army is turned out to be merely an army of observation, and is of no other use but as an asylum for magistrates of your own creation. I have heard of such places for thieves, rogues, and female orphans; but it is the first time I ever heard of an asylum for magistrates. As to the protection of trade, on which the honorable gentleman has laid such stress, to protect trade, in a place where all sorts of trade or commerce are prohibited, is a glorious task, but not a difficult one. The gentleman has also spoken of blocking up the port of Boston. I cannot pretend to deny that the harbor may be blocked up-it is undoubtedly true; but to me this mode of blockade seems rather novel. Such an expression, it is certain, might come with great propriety from me; but I must confess, I never heard such a bull as that in my own country. At the entrance of Dublin harbor there is a north bull and a south bull; but even there or elsewhere, such a bull as this I never heard.

Ex. XXV.-INEXPEDIENCY OF MAINTAINING TROOPS IN

BOSTON.

Speech in Parliament, Jan. 20, 1775.

EARL OF CHATHAM.

MY LORDS:-After more than six weeks' possession of the papers now before you, on a subject so momentous, at a time when the fate of this nation hangs on every hour, the ministry have at length condescended to submit to the consideration of the house intelligence from America with which your lordships and the public have long been acquainted.

The measures of last year, my lords, which have produced the present alarming state of America, were founded upon misrepresentation-they were violent, precipitant and vindictive. The nation was told that it was only a faction in Boston, which opposed all lawful government; that an unwarrantable injury had been done to private property, for which the justice of parliament was called upon to order reparation; that the least appearance of firmness would awe the Americans into submission, and upon only passing the Rubicon, we should find ourselves victorious.

But, my lords, we find that instead of suppressing the opposition of the faction at Boston, these measures have spread it over the whole continent. They have united that whole people by the most indissoluble of bands-intolerable wrong. The just retribution is an indiscriminate, unmerciful proscription of the innocent with the guilty, unheard and untried. The bloodless victor is an impotent general, with his dishonored army, trusting solely to the pickaxe and the spade, for security against the just indignation of an injured and insulted people.

My lords, I am happy that a relaxation of my infirmities permits me to seize this earliest opportunity of offering my poor advice to save this unhappy country, at this moment tottering to its ruin. I wish not to lose a day in this urging present crisis; an hour now lost in allaying the ferment in America, may produce years of calamity; but for my own part, I will not desert for a moment the conduct of this mighty business, unless nailed to my bed by the extremity of sickness; I will give it unremitting attention; I will knock at the door of the sleeping or confounded ministry, and will rouse them to a sense of their impending danger.

When I state the importance of the colonies to this country, I desire not to be understood to argue for a reciprocity of indulgence between England and America; I contend not for indulgence, but justice, to America; and I shall ever contend that the Americans owe obedience to us in a limited degree; they owe obedience to our ordinances of trade and navigation; but let the line be skilfully drawn between the objects of those ordinances, and their private, internal property. Let the sacredness of their property remain inviolate; let it be taxable only by their own consent, given in their provincial assemblies, else it will cease to be property. The law that attempts to alter this disposal of it, annihilates it.

TRIBUTE TO THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.

41

When I urge this measure for recalling the troops from Boston, I urge it on this pressing principle, that it is necessarily preparatory to the restoration of your prosperity. It will then appear that you are disposed to treat amicably and equitably, and to consider, revise and repeal, if it should be found necessary, as I affirm it will, those violent acts and declarations which have disseminated confusion throughout your empire. Resistance to your acts was as necessary as it was just; and your vain declarations of the omnipotence of parliament, and your imperious doctrines of the necessity of submission, will be found equally impotent to convince or enslave your fellow-subjects in America, who feel that tyranny, whether ambitioned by an individual part of the legislature, or by the bodies which compose it, is equally intolerable to British principles.

Ex. XXVI.-TRIBUTE TO THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. Speech in Parliament, Jan. 20, 1775.

EARL OF CHATHAM.

WHEN your lordships look at the papers transmitted to us from America; when you consider their decency, firmness and wisdom, you can not but respect their cause, and wish to make it your own. For myself, I must declare and avow, that in all my reading and observation, (and it has been my favorite study; I have read Thucydides, and have studied and admired the master states of the world,) I say I must declare, that, for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, under such a complication of difficult circumstances, no nation or body of men can stand in preference to the General Congress at Philadelphia. I trust it is obvious to your lordships, that all attempts to impose servitude upon such men, to establish despotism over such a mighty continental nation, must be vain, must be fatal.

We shall be forced, ultimately, to retract; let us retract while we can, not when we must. I say we must necessarily undo these violent oppressive acts. They MUST be repealed. You WILL repeal them. I pledge myself for it, that you will in the end repeal them. I stake my reputation on it. I will consent to be taken for an idiot, if they are not finally repealed.