papers transmitted us from America, when you consider the dignity, the firmness, and the wisdom with which the Americans have acted, you cannot but respect their cause. History, my lords, has been my favourite study; and in the celebrated writings of antiquity have I often adinired the patriotism of Greece and Rome; but, my lords, I must declare and avow, that, in the master-states of the world, I know not the people, nor the senate, who in such a complication of difficult circumstances, can stand in preference to the Delegates of America, assembled in General Congress at Philadelphia. I trust it is obvious to your lordships that all attempts to im pose servitude upon such men, to establish despotism over such a mighty continental nation, must be vain, must be futile. Can such a national principled union be resisted by the tricks of office or ministerial manœuvres? Heaping papers on your table, or counting your majorities on a division, will not avert or postpone the hour of danger. It must arrive, my lords, unless these fatal acts are done away it must arrive in all its horrors; and then these boastful ministers, in spite of all their confidence and all their manœuvres, shall be compelled to hide their heads. But it is not repealing this or that act of parliament; it is not repealing a piece of parchment, that can restore America to your bosom you must repeal her fears and resentments, and then you may hope for her love and gratitude. But now, insulted with an armed force, irritated with an hostile array before her eyes, her concessions, if you could force them, would be suspicious and insecure. But it is more than evident that you cannot force them to your unworthy terms of submission: it is impossible: WE ourselves shall be forced ultimately to retract: let us retract while we can, not when we must. I repeat it, my lords, we shall one day be forced to undo these violent acts of oppression: they must be repealed; you will repeal them.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you will in the end repeal them: I stake my reputation on it: I will consent to be taken for an IDEOT if they are not repealed. Avoid then this humiliating, disgraceful necessity. With a dignity becoming your exalted situation, make the first advances to concord, to peace, and to happiness. Concession comes with better grace and more salutary effect from superior power: it reconciles superiority of power with the

feelings of man, and establishes solid confidence on the foundations of affection and gratitude. On the other hand, every danger and every hazard impend to deter you from perseverance in the present ruinous measures foreign war hanging over your heads by a slight and brittle thread-France, and Spain watching your conduct, and waiting for the maturity of your errors, with a vigilant eye to America and the temper of your colonies, MORE

THAN TO THEIR OWN CONCERNS, BE

THEY WHAT THEY MAY. To conclude, my lords, if the ministers thus persevere in misadvising and misleading the King, I will not say, that they can alienate the affections of his subjects from the crown ; but I affirm, they will make the crown not worth his wearing. I will not say that the KING IS BETRAYED, but I will pronounce, that the KINGDOM is UNDONE. $ 46. LORD CHATHAM'S Specch on moring an Amendment to the Address.

On the 20th of November 1777, just at the time that government had received some dispatches of an unfavourable nature from general BURGOYNE, but not extending to the catastrophe of Saratoga, parliament assembled; and the speech from the throne expressed not only a confidence that the spirit and intrepidity of his Majesty's forces would be attended with important success; but" a determination steadily to pursue the measures in which we were engaged," with a hope "that the deluded, and unwary multitude would finally return to their allegiance."

In moving an amendment to the address, lord CHATHAM spoke as follows:

It has been usual on similar occasions of public difficulty and distress, for the crown to make application to this House, the great hereditary council of the nation, for advice and assistance. As it is the right of parliament to give, so it is the duty of the crown to ask it. But, on this day, and in this extreme momentous exigency, no reliance is reposed on your counsels-no advice is asked of parliament; but the crown from itself, and by itself, declares an unalterable determination to pursue its own preconcerted measures; and what measures, my lords? measures which have produced hitherto nothing but disappointinents and defeats. I CANNOT my lords, I WILL NOT join in congratulation on misfortune and dis

grace. This, my lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment: it is not a time for adulation: the smoothness of flattery cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the throne, in the language of TRUTH. We must, if possible, dispel the delusion and darkness which envelope it; and display, in its full danger and genuine colours the ruin which is brought to our doors. Can ministers still presume to expect support in their infatuation! Can parliament be so dead to its dignity and duty as to give their support to measures thus obtruded and forced upon them? Measures, my lords, which have reduced this late flourishing empire to scorn and contempt. But yesterday," and England might have stood against the world-Now, none so poor to do her reverence." The people whom we at first despised as rebels, but whom we now acknowledge as enemies, are abetted against you, supplied with every military store, their interests consulted, and their ambassadors entertained by your inveterate enemy; and our ministers do not, and dare not, interpose with dignity or effect. The desperate state of our army abroad is in part known. No man more highly esteems and honours the English troops than I do: I know their virtues and their valour: I know they can achieve any thing except impossibilities; and I know that the conquest of English America is an impossibility. You CANNOT, my lords, you CANNOT conquer America. What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst, but we know that in three campaigns we have done nothing, and suffered much. You may swell every expence, and strain every effort, accumulate every assistance, and extend your traffick to the shambles of every German despot; your attempts for ever will be vain and impotent; doubly so indeed from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates to an incurable resentment the minds of your adversaries to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty. If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms NEVER! NEVER! NEVER! But, my lords, who is the man, that in addition to the disgraces and mischiefs of war, has dared to authorize, and associate to our

pu

arms the tomahawk and scalping knife of the savage--to call into civilized alliance the wild and inhuman inhabitant of the woods ?-to delegate to the merciless Indian the defence of disputed rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren? My lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and nishment. Familiarized to the horrid scenes of savage cruelty, our army can no longer boast of the noble and generous principles which dignify a soldier. No longer are their feelings awake to "the pride, pomp, and circumstance of GLORIOUS war;"-but the sense of honour is degraded into a vile spirit of plunder, and the systematic practice of murder. From the ancient connection between Greas Britain and her colonies, both parties derived the most important advantage. While the shield of our protection was extended over America, she was the fountain of our wealth, the nerve of our strength, the basis of our power. It is not, my lords, a wild and lawless banditi whom we oppose; the resistance of Ame rica is the struggle of free and virtuous patriots. Let us then seize with eagerness the present moment of reconciliation. America has not yet finally given herself up to France: there yet remains a possibility of escape from the fatal effect of our delusions. In this complicated crisis of danger, weakness, and calamity, terrified and insulted by the neighbouring powers, unable to act in America, or acting only to be destroyed, WHERE is the man who will venture to flatter us with the hope of success from perseverance in measures productive of these dire effects? WHO has the effrontery to attempt it? Where is that man? Let him if he DABE stand forward and shew his face. You cannot conciliate America by your present measures: you cannot subdue her by your present or any measures. What then can you do? You cannot conquer, you cannot gain; but you can ADDRESS: you can lull the fears and anxieties of the moment into ignorance of the danger that should produce them. I did hope, instead of that false and empty pride, engendering high conceits and presumptuous imaginations, that ministers would have humbled themselves in their errorswould have confessed and retracted them, and by an active, though a late repentance, have endeavoured to redeem them. But, my lords, since they have neither sagacity

cularly obliging. If this company should think it adviseable for me to withdraw, I shall respectfully retire: if you think otherwise, I shall go directly to the Council-house and to the 'Change, and, without a moment's delay, begin my canvass.

vain.

And now, gentlemen, on this serious day, when I come, as it were, to make up my account with you, let me take to myself some degree of honest pride on the nature of the charges that are against me. I do not here stand before you accused of venality, or of neglect of duty. It is not said, that, in the long period of my service, I have, in a single instance, sacrificed the slightest of your interests to my ambition, or to my fortune. It is not alleged, that to gratify any anger, or revenge of my own, or of my party, I have had a share in wronging or oppressing any description of men, or any one man in any description. No! the charges against me are all of one kind, that I have pushed the principles of general justice and benevolence too far; further than a cautious policy would warrant; and further than the opinions of many would go along with me.-In every accident which may happen through life, in pain, in sorrow, in depression, and distress-I will call to mind this accusation, and be com forted.

Gentlemen, I submit the whole to your judgment. Mr. Mayor, I thank you for the trouble you have taken on this occa

In your state of health it is parti

49. Speech of JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, Esq. in defence of LADY PAMELA FITZGERALD and her infant children, at the bar of the House of Commons in Ireland.

Lord Edward Fitzgerald having died in prison before trial, of the wound he received in resisting the person who ap prehended him; a bill was brought into parliament to attaint him after his death; Mr. Curran was heard at the bar of the house of commons, against the bill as counsel for the widow and infant children of that nobleman, (the eldest of whom was only four years old,) on which occa sion Mr. Curran delivered the following speech. Mr. Curran said, "He rose in support of a petition presented on behalf of Lord Henry Fitzgerald, brother of the deceased Lord Edward Fitzgerald, of Pamela, his widow, Edward, his only son and heir, of the age of four years, Pamela his eldest daughter, of the age of two years, and Lucy his youngest child of the age of three months; against the bill of attainder then before the committee. The bill of attainder (he said) had formed the subject into two parts. It asserted the fact of the late Lord Edward's treason, and secondly it purported to attaint him, and to vest his property in the crown; he would follow the same order: as to the first bill, he could not but remark upon the strange looseness of the allegation; the bill stated that he had during his life, and since the first of November last, com mitted several acts of high treason. Without stating what, or when, or where, or with whom; it then affected to state the different species of treason, of which he had been guilty, namely, conspiring to levy war and endeavouring to persuade the enemies of the king to invade the coun try, the latter allegation was not attempt ed to be proved! the conspiring to levy, without actually levying was clearly no high treason, and had been repeatedly so determined before this previous and important question, namely, the guilt of lord Edward, (and without the full proof of which no punishment can be just). He

had