The Virginia Gazette

The following is the substance of lord CHATHAM's speech to the house of lords, on the 26th of May, respecting this province. It was received from London by the Scarborough man of war, and came from the best authority: "I do not rest my opinion of the people of Massachusetts upon any one particular action, their tarring and feathering this or that man, or their throwing the tea into the sea. The whole tenor of their conduct, and their open and avowed resolutions in their assembly, manifest an evil and rebellious spirit against this country; and therefore, I think they ought to be brought to make a full and entire submission. When this is done we ought to treat them with lenity, but not till they have made this submission. I know these declarations will be far from popular in America, but I have already made the same out of this house that I have now in it; declarations which, I suppose, will not prompt them to erect any more statues of me."

Is it possible there can be any foundation in the foregoing heads of lord Chatham's speech, when we consider the character of that nobleman, who has ever with the utmost freedom of language vindicated the colonies? We have already published extracts from this very speech which these paltry heads the product of some malicious pen means to contradict. Will not the following extract have a material effect upon the mind of every impartial man, notwithstanding the boasted authority from which the preceding one is said to spring?

Additional particulars of Lord CHATHAM's speech: His lordship stated with great force many objections to the clause giving to the French Canadian so disadvantageous part of the seas wood on the Labrador coast of Newfoundland; considering the said fisheries of Labrador as a nursery of French Canadian seamen, to man, squadrons of France in these seas. This experienced and truly protestant statesman exposed, with unanswerable force, the train of fatal mischiefs attending the establishment of popery and arbitrary power in that vast and fertile region now annexed to the government of Quebec and capable of containing (if fully peopled) not less than thirty millions of souls.

His whole speech breathed nothing but the love of his country, the true principles of the reformation, and of the glorious revolution; deducing the whole series of laws from the supremacy first revindicated under Henry the eighth down to this day, as fundamentals constituting a clear compact that all establishments by law are to be protestant, which compact ought not to be altered, but by the consent of the collective body of the people. He further maintained, unanswered, that the dangerous innovations of this bill were at variance with all the safeguards and barriers against the return of popery, and of popish influence, so wisely provided against by all the oaths of office and of trust from the constable up to the members of both houses, and even to the sovereign in his coronation oath. He pathetically expressed his fears that it might shake the affections and confidence of his majesty's protestant subjects in England and Ireland, and totally lose the hearts of all his majesty's American subjects.