The Virginia Gazette

A SPEECH INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN SPOKEN ON THE
BILL FOR ALTERING THE CHARTERS OF THE COLONY
OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY.

BY THE CELEBRATED JONATHAN SHIPLEY, BISHOP OF
SAINT ASAPH.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The author of the following SPEECH might justify his manner of
publishing it by very great authorities. Some of the noblest pieces of
eloquence the world is in possession of were not spoken on the great occasions
they were intended to serve, and seem to have been preserved merely from the
high sense that was entertained of their merit.

The present performance appears in public from humbler but juster motives;
from the great national importance of the subject, from a very warm desire
and some faint hope of serving our country, by suggesting a few of the useful
truths which great men are apt to overlook.

The author has abstained most religiously from personal reflections; he has
censured no man, and therefore hopes he has offended no man. He feels most
sensibly the misfortune of differing from many of those whom he wishes to live
and act with, and from some of as much virtue and ability as this kingdom
affords; but there are also great authorities on the other side, and the greatest
authority can never persuade him that it is better to extort by force what he
thinks may be gained more surely by gentle means.

He looks upon power as a coarse and mechanical instrument of government,
and holds the use of it to be particularly dangerous to the relation that subsists
between a mother country and her colonies. In such a case, he doubts whether
any point ought to be pursued which cannot be carried by persuasion, by the
sense of a common interest, and the exercise of a moderate authority. He thinks
it unnecessary to lay down the limits of sovereignty and obedience, and more
unnecessary to fight for them. If we can but restore that mutual regard and
confidence which formerly governed our whole intercourse with our colonies,
particular cases will easily provide for themselves. He acts the part of the
truest patriot in this dangerous crisis, whether he lives in London or at Boston,
who pursues sincerely the most lenient and conciliating measures, and wishes to
restore the public peace by some better method than the slaughter of our fellow
citizens.

It is of such great importance to compose or even to moderate the
diffensions, which subsist at present between our unhappy country
and her colonies, that I cannot help endeavouring, from the faint
prospect I have of contributing something to so good an end, to
overcome the inexpressible reluctance I feel at uttering my thoughts
before the most respectable of all audiences. The true object of all
our deliberations on this occasion, which I hope we shall never lose sight
of, is a full and cordial reconciliation with North America. Now I own,
my lords, I have many doubts whether the terrors and punishments we
hang out to them at present are the surest means of producing this recon-
cilation. Let us at least do this justice to the people of North America,
own that we can all remember a time when they were much better
friends than at present to their mother country. They are neither our
natural nor our determined enemies. Before the stamp Act we considered
them in the light of as good subjects as the natives of any county in
England.

It is worth while to enquire by what steps we first gained their affection.
and preserved it so long, and by what conduct we have lately lost it. Such
an enquiry may point out the means of restoring peace, and make the use
of force unnecessary against a people whom I cannot yet forbear to consider
as our brethren.

It has always been a most arduous task to govern distant provinces with
even a tolerable appearance of justice. The viceroys and governors of
other nations are usually temporary tyrants, who think themselves obliged
to make the most of their time, who not only plunder the people, but
carry away their spoils, and dry up all the sources of commerce and in-
dustry. Taxation in their hands is an unlimited power of oppression;
but in whatever hands the power of taxation is lodged, it implies and
includes all other powers. Arbitrary taxation is plunder authorised by
law; it is the support and the essence of tyranny, and has done more
mischief to mankind than those other three scourges from Heaven,
famine, pestilence, and the sword. I need not carry your lordships out
of your own knowledge, or out of your own dominions, to make you
conceive what misery this right of taxation is capable of producing in a
provincial government. We need only recollect that our countrymen in
India have, in the space of five or six years, in virtue of this right, de-
stroyed, starved, and driven away, more inhabitants from Bengal than
are to be found at present in all our American colonies, more than all
those formidable numbers which we have been nursing up for the space
of two hundred years with so much care and success, to the astonishment of all
Europe. This is no exaggeration, my lords, but plain matter of fact,
collected from the accounts sent over by Mr. Hastings, whose name I
mention with honour and veneration; and I must own such accounts
have very much lessened the pleasure I used to feel in thinking myself an
Englishman. We ought surely not to hold our colonies totally inexcusable
for wishing to exempt themselves from a grievance which has caused such
unexampled devastation, and, my lords, it would be too disgraceful to
ourselves to try so cruel an experiment more than once. Let us reflect,
that before these innovations were thought of, by following the line of
good conduct which had been marked out by our ancestors, we governed
North America with mutual benefit to them and ourselves. It was a
happy idea that made us first consider them rather as instruments of com-
merce than as objects of government. It was wise and generous to give
them the form and the spirit of our own constitution, an assembly, in
which a greater equality of representation has been preserved than at
home, and councils and governors, such as were adapted to their situation,
though they must be acknowledged to be very inferior copies of the dignity
of this house, and the majesty of the crown.

But what is far more valuable than all the rest, we gave them liberty;
we allowed them to use their own judgment in the management of their
own interest; the idea of taxing them never entered our heads. On the
contrary, they have experienced our liberality on many public occasions;
we have given them bounties to encourage their industry, and have de-
manded no return but what every state exacts from its colonies, the
advantages of an exclusive commerce, and the regulations that are necessary
to secure it. We made requisitions to them on great occasions in the
same manner as our princes formerly asked benevolences of their subjects,
and as nothing was asked but what was visibly for the public good, it was
always granted, and they sometimes did more than we expected; the
matter of right was neither disputed nor even considered; and let us not
forget that the people of New England were themselves, during the last
war, the most forward of all in the national cause; that every year we
voted them a considerable sum in acknowledgment of their zeal and their
services; that in the preceding war they alone enabled us to make the
treaty of Aix la Chapelle, by furnishing us with the only equivalent for
the towns that were taken from our allies in Flanders; and that in times
of peace they alone have taken from us six times as much of our own
woollen manufactures as the whole kingdom of Ireland. Such a colony,
my lords, not only from the justice, but from the gratitude we owe them,
have a right to be heard in their defence, and if their crimes are not of
the most inexpiable kind, I could almost say they have a right to be
forgiven.

But in the times we speak of our public intercourse was carried on with
ease and satisfaction; we regarded them as our friends and fellow citizens,
and relied as much upon their fidelity as on the inhabitants of our own
country. They saw our power with pleasure, for they considered it only
as their protection; they inherited our laws, our language, and our cus-
toms; they preferred our manufactures, and followed our fashions with
a partiality that secured our exclusive trade with them more effectually
than all the regulations and vigilance of the customhouse. Had we
suffered them to enrich us a little longer, and to grow a little richer
themselves, their men of fortune, like the West Indians, would un-
doubtedly have made this country their place of education and resort;
for they looked up to England with reverence and affection, as to the
country of their friends and ancestors; they esteemed and they called it
their home, and thought of it as the Jews once thought of the land of
Canaan.

Now, my lords, consider with yourselves what were the chains and
ties that united this people to their mother country, with so much
warmth and affection, at so amazing a distance. The colonies of other
nations have been discontented with their treatment, and not without
sufficient cause, always murmuring at their grievances, and sometimes
breaking out into acts of rebellion. Our subjects at home, with all their
reasons for satisfaction, have never been entirely satisfied. Since the
beginning of this century we have had two rebellions, several plots and
conspiracies, and we ourselves have been witnesses to the most dangerous
excesses of sedition; but the provinces in North America have engaged
in no party, have excited no opposition; they have been utter strangers
even to the name of Whig and Tory. In all changes, in all revolutions,
they have quietly followed the fortunes and submitted to the government
of England.

Now let me appeal to your lordships as to men of enlarged and liberal
minds, who have been led by your office and rank to the study of history:
Can you find in the long succession of ages, in the whole extent of human
affairs, a single instance where distant provinces have been preserved in so
flourishing a state, and kept at the same time in such due subjection to
their mother country? My lords, there is no instance; the case never
existed before; it is perhaps the most singular phenomenon in all civil
history, and the cause of it well deserves your serious consideration. The
true cause is, that a mother country never existed before who placed her
natives and her colonies on the same equal footing, and joined with them
in fairly carrying on one common interest.

You ought to consider this, my lords, not as a mere historical fact,
but as a most important and invaluable discovery; it enlarges our ideas of
the power and energy of good government beyond all former examples,
and shews that it can act like gravitation at the greatest distances; it
proves to a demonstration that you may have good subjects in the remotest
corners of the earth if you will but treat them with kindness and equity.
If you have any doubts of the truth of this kind of reasoning, the ex-
perience we have had of a different kind will entirely remove them.

The good genius of our country had led us to the simple and happy
method of governing freemen, which I have endeavoured to describe.
Our ministers received it from their predecessors, and for some time con-
tinued to observe it, but without knowing its value. At length, pre-
suming on their own wisdom, and the quiet disposition of the Americans,
they flattered themselves that we might reap great advantages from their
prosperity by destroying the cause of it; they chose in an unlucky hour
to treat them as other nations have thought fit to treat their colonies;
they threatened and they taxed them.

I do not now enquire whether taxation is matter of right; I only
consider it as matter of experiment: For surely the art of government
itself is founded on experience. I need not suggest what were the con-
sequences of this change of measures. The evils produced by it were
such as we still remember, and still feel. We suffered more by our loss
of trade with them than the wealth flowing in from India was able to
recompence. The bankruptcy of the East India company may be suffi-
iently accounted for by the rapine abroad, and the knavery at home;
but it certainly would have been delayed some years, had we continued
our commerce with them in the single article of tea. But that, and
many other branches of trade, have been diverted into other channels,
and may probably never return entire to their old course. But what is
worst of all, we have lost their confidence and friendship; we have ig-
norantly undermined the most solid foundation of our own power.

In order to observe the strictest impartiality, it is but just for us to
enquire what we have gained by these taxes, as well as what we have
lost. I am assured, that out of all the sums raised in America, the last
year but one, if the expenses are deducted, which the natives would else
have discharged themselves, the net revenue paid into the treasury to go
in aid of the sinking fund, or to be employed in whatever public services
parliament shall think fit, is eighty five pounds. Eighty five pounds,
my lords, is the whole equivalent we have received for all the hatred and
mischief, and all the infinite losses this kingdom has suffered during that
year, in her disputes with North America. Money that is earned so
dearly as this ought to be expended with great wisdom and economy. My
lords, were you to take up but one thousand pounds more from North
America, upon the same terms, the nation itself would be a bankrupt.
But the most amazing, and the most alarming circumstance, is still be-
hind. It is that our case is so incurable, that all this experience has
made no impression upon us; and yet, my lords, if you could but keep
these facts, which I have ventured to lay before you, for a few moments
in your minds (supposing your right of taxation to be never so clear) yet I
think you must necessarily perceive that it cannot be exercised in any
manner that can be advantageous to ourselves or them. We have not
always the wisdom to tax ourselves with propriety; and I am confident
we could never tax a people, at that distance, without infinite blunders,
and infinite oppression; and to own the truth, my lords, we are not
honest enough to trust ourselves with the power of shifting our own bur-
thens upon them. Allow me, therefore, to conclude, I think, unan-
swerably, that the inconvenience and distress we have felt in this change
of our conduct, no less than the ease and tranquility we formerly found
in the pursuit of it, will force us, if we have any sense left, to return to
the good old path we trod in so long, and found it the way of pleasant-
ness.

I desire to have it understood that I am opposing no rights that our
legislature may think proper to claim: I am only comparing two different
methods of government. By your old rational and generous adminis-
tration, by treating the Americans as your friends and fellow citizens, you
made them the happiest of human kind, and at the same time drew from
them, by commerce, more clear profit than Spain has drawn from all its
mines; and their growing numbers were a daily-increasing addition to
your strength. There was no room for improvement or alteration in so
noble a system of policy as this. It was sanctified by time, by experience,
by public utility. I will venture to use a bold language, my lords; I
will assert, that if we had uniformly adopted this equitable administration
in all our distant provinces, as far as circumstances would admit, it
would have placed this country, for ages, at the head of human affairs,
in every quarter of the world. My lords, this is no visionary or chimeri-
cal doctrine. The idea of governing provinces and colonies by force is
visionary and chimerical. The experiment has often been tried, and it
has never succeeded. It ends infallibly in the ruin of the one country or
the other, or in the last degree of wretchedness.

If there is any truth, my lords, in what I have said, and I most firmly
believe it all to be true, let me recommend it to you to resume that ge-
nerous and benevolent spirit, in the discussion of our differences, which
used to be the source of our union. We certainly did wrong in taxing
them. When the stamp act was repealed, we did wrong in laying on
other taxes, which tended only to keep alive a claim that was mischiev-
ous, impracticable, and useless. We acted contrary to our own prin-
ciples of liberty, and to the generous sentiments of our sovereign, when
we desired to have their judges dependent on the crown for their stipends
as well as their continuance. It was equally unwise to wish to make the
governors independent of the people for their salaries. We ought to
consider the governors, not as spies entrusted with the management of
our interest, but as the servants of the people, recommended to them by
us. Our ears ought to be open to every complaint against the governors;
but we ought not to suffer the governors to complain of the people. We
have taken a different method, to which no small part of our difficulties
are owing. Our ears have been open to the governors, and shut to the
people. This must necessarily lead us to countenance the jobs of interet-
ed men, under the pretence of defending the rights of the crown. But
the people are certainly the best judges whether they are well governed;
and the crown can have no rights inconsistent with the happiness of the
people.

Now, my lords, we ought to do what I have suggested, and many
things more, out of prudence and justice, to win their affection, and to
do them public service. If we have a right to govern them, let us exert
it for the true ends of government. But, my lords, what we ought to do
from motives of reason and justice, is much more than is sufficient to
bring them to a reasonable accommodation. For thus, as I apprehend,
stands the case. They petition for the repeal of an act of parliament,
which they complain of as unjust and oppressive; and there is not a man
amongst us, not the warmest friend of administration, who does not sin-
cerely wish that act had never been made. In fact, they only ask for what
we should wish to be rid of. Under such a disposition of mind, one
would imagine there could be no occasion for fleets and armies to bring
men to a good understanding. But, my lords, our difficulty lies in the
point of honour. We must not let down the dignity of the mother
country; but preserve her sovereignty over all the parts of the British
empire. This language has something in it that sounds pleasant to the
ears of Englishmen, but is otherwise of little weight. For sure, my
lords, there are methods of making reasonable concessions, and yet with-
out injuring our dignity. Ministers are generally fruitful in expedients
to reconcile difficulties of this kind, to escape the embarrassments of
forms, the competitions of dignity and precedency, and to let clashing
rights sleep, while they transact their business. Now, my lords, on this
occasion can they find no excuse, no pretence, no invention, no happy
turn of language, not one colourable argument, for doing the greatest
service they can ever render to their country? It must be something more
than incapacity that makes men barren of expedients at such a season as
this. Do but for once remove this impracticable stateliness and dignity,
and treat the matter with a little common sense, and a little good humour
and our reconciliation would not be the work of an hour. But after all,
my lords, if there is any thing mortifying in undoing the errors of our
ministers, it is a mortification we ought to submit to. If it was unjust
to tax them, we ought to repeal it for their sakes; if it was unwise to
tax them, we ought to repeal it for our own. A matter so trivial in
itself as the threepenny duty upon tea, but which has given cause to so
much national hatred and reproach, ought not to be suffered to subsist an
unnecessary day. Must the interest, the commerce, and the union, of
this country and her colonies, be all of them sacrificed to save the credit
of one imprudent measure of administration? I own I cannot comprehend
that there is any dignity either in being in the wrong, or in persisting in
it. I have known friendship preserved and affection gained, but I never
knew dignity lost, by the candid acknowledgment of an error; and, my
lords, let me appeal to your own experience of a few years backward (I
will not mention particulars, because I would pass no censures, and re-
vive no unpleasant reflections) but I think every candid minister must own
that administration has suffered in more instances than one, both in in-
terest and credit, by not choosing to give up points, that could not be
defended.

With regard to the people of Boston, I am free to own that I neither
approve of their riots nor their punishment; and yet if we inflict it as we
ought, with a consciousness that we were ourselves the aggressors, that
we gave the provocation, and that their disobedience is the fruit of our
own imprudent and imperious conduct, I think the punishment cannot
rise to any great degree of severity.

I own, my lords, I have read the reports of the lords committees of
this house with very different sentiments from those with which it was
drawn up. It seems to be designed that we should consider their violent
measures and speeches as so many determined acts of opposition to the
sovereignty of England, arising from the malignity of their own hearts.
One would think the mother country had been totally silent and passive in
the progress of the whole affair. I, on the contrary, consider these vio-
lences as the natural effects of such measures as ours on the minds of
freemen; and this is the most useful point of view in which government
can consider them. In their situation, a wise man would expect to meet
with the strongest marks of passion and imprudence, and be prepared to
forgive them. The first and easiest thing to be done is to correct our
own errors; and I am confident we should find it the most effectual
method to correct theirs. At any rate, let us put ourselves in the right;
and then, if we must contend with North America, we shall be unani-
mous at home, and the wise and the moderate there will be our friends.
At present, we force every North American to be our enemy; and the
wise and moderate at home, and those immense multitudes, which must
soon begin to suffer by the madness of our rulers, will unite to oppose
them. It is a strange idea we have taken up, to cure their resentments
by increasing their provocations; to remove the effects of our own ill
conduct, by multiplying the instances of it. But the spirit of blindness
and infatuation is gone forth. We are hurrying wildly on without any
fixed design, without any important object. We pursue a vain phantom
of unlimited sovereignty, which was not made for man; and reject the
solid advantages of a moderate, useful, and intelligible authority. That
just God, whom we have so deeply offended, can hardly inflict a severer
national punishment, than by committing us to the natural consequences
of our own conduct. Indeed, in my opinion, a blacker cloud never hung
over this island.

To reason consistently with the principles of justice and national friend-
ship, which I have endeavoured to establish, or rather to revive what was
established by our ancestors, as our wisest rule of conduct for the govern-
ment of America, I must necessarily disapprove of the bill before us;
for it contradicts every one of them. In our present situation every act
of the legislature, even our acts of severity, ought to be so many steps
towards the reconciliation we wish for. But to change the government of
a people, without their consent, is the highest and most arbitrary act of
sovereignty, that one nation can exercise over another. The Romans
hardly ever proceeded to this extremity, even over a conquered nation,
till its frequent revolts and insurrections had made them deem it incor-
rigible. The very idea of it implies a most total, abject, and slavish de-
pendency, in the inferior state. Recollect that the Americans are men
of like passions with ourselves, and think how deeply this treatment must
have for our magna charta, and they ought, in reason, to have greater.

As well them. They have the same veneration for their charters that we

They are the title deeds to all their rights, both public and private.

What, my lords, must these rights never acquire any legal assurance and

stability? Can they derive no force from the peaceable possession of near

two hundred years? And must the fundamental constitution of a powerful

state be forever subject to as capricious alterations as you may think fit to

make, in the charters of a little mercantile company, or the corporation

of a borough? This will undoubtedly furnish matter for a more pernicious

debate than has yet been moved. Every other colony will make the case

its own. They will complain that their rights can never be ascertained;

that every thing belonging to them depends upon our arbitrary will; and

may think it better to run any hazard, than to submit to the violence of

their mother country, in a matter in which they can see neither modera-

tion nor end.

But let us coolly enquire, what is the reason of this unheard of inno-

vation. Is it to make them peaceable? My lords, it will make them

mad. Will they be better governed if we introduce this change? Will

they be more our friends? The least that such a measure can do is, to

make them hate us. And would to God, my lords, we had governed

ourselves with as much economy, integrity, and prudence, as they have

done. Let them continue to enjoy the liberty our fathers gave them.

(Gave them, did I say? They are coheirs of liberty with ourselves; and

their portion of the inheritance has been much better looked after than ours.

Suffer them to enjoy, a little longer, that short period of public integrity

and domestic happiness, which seems to be the portion allotted by Pro-

vidence to young rising states.

Instead of hoping that their constitution

may receive improvement from our skill in government, the most useful

wish I can form in their favour

, that Heaven may long preserve them

from our vices and our politics.

Let me add farther, that to make any changes in their government,

without their consent, would be to transgress the wisest rules of policy,

when our power has begun to lose something of its superiority, and to wound our most important interests. As they increase in numbers

and in riches, our comparative strength must lessen. In another age,

we shall be happy if we could support our authority by mutual goodwill and the

habit of commanding; but chiefly by those original establishments, which

time and public honour might have rendered inviolable. Our posterity

will then have reason to lament that they cannot avail themselves of those

treasures of public friendship and confidence which our fathers had wisely

hoarded up, and we are throwing away. It is hard, it is cruel, besides all

our debates and taxes, and those enormous expenses which are multiply-

ing upon us every year, to load our unhappy sons with the hatred and

Curses of North America. Indeed, my lords, we are treating posterity

very scurvily. We have mortgaged all the lands, we have cut down all

the oaks, we are now trampling down the fences, rooting up the seed-

ling and sample, and ruining all the resources of another age. We

shall send the next generation into the world, like the wretched heir of a

worthless estate,

without money, credit, or friends; with a stripped, in-

cumbered

and untenanted estate.

Having

so largely argued against the principle of the bill, it is hardly

necessary to enter into the merits of it. I shall only observe, that even

if we had the consent of the people to alter their government, it would be

unwise to make such alterations as these. To give the appointment of

the governor and council to the crown, and the disposal of all places, even

of the judges, and with a power of removing them, to the governor, is evi-

dently calculated with a view to form a strong party in our favour. This

I know has been done in other colonies; but still this is opening a source

of perpetual discord, where it is our interest always to agree. If we mean

any thing by this establishment, it is to support the governor and the

council against the people; that is, to quarrel with our friends, that we

may please their servants. This scheme of governing them by a party

is not wisely imagined, it is much too premature, and, at all events,

must turn to our disadvantage; if it fails, it will only make us contempti-

ble; if it succeeds, it will make us odious. It is our interest to

take very little part in their domestic administration of government, but

purely to watch over them for their good. We never gained so much by

North America as when we let them govern themselves, and were con-

tent to trade with them, and to protect them. One would think, my

lords, there was some statute law, prohibiting us, under the severest

penalties, to profit by experience.

My lords, I have ventured to lay my thoughts before you, on the

greatest national concern that ever came under your deliberation, with as

much honesty as you will meet with from abler men, and with a me-

lancholy assurance, that not a word of it will be regarded. And yet, my

lords, with your permission. I will waste one short argument m

on

the same cause; one th

wr m fond of, and which cor

it,

what, I think, m

us mind. My

pon

North America

of freemen r

the

face of the ear

"fFo

'en

wept away, in

yea, by treachery

tn.

The three free to

Gers re like so many dy

n.t

go out one after al.s.ner, and which mut all be foon exti

under

the detruetive greatnefs of thcir neighbours. Holland is litt . re t

a great trading company, wi.h luxurious manners, and an exhaufted re-

venue ; with little ftrength. and with lefs fpirit. Switzerland alone is

tree and happy within the narrow enclofure of its rocks and vallies. As

for the tate tof this country, my lord. I can only refer myelf to your

own fecret tibughts. I am difposed to think and hope the bet of public

liberty. Wete I to defcribe her according to my own ideas at prefent, I

hould fay that she has a fickly countenance, but I trut fhe has a strong

conftitution

But whatever may be our future fate, the greateft glory that attends

this country, a greater than any cther nation ever acquired, is, to have

formed and nurfed up to fuch a state of happinefs, thole colonies whom

we are now fo eager to butcher. We ought to cherifh them as the im-

mortal monuments of our public juftice and wifdom; as the heirs of our

better days, of our old arts and manners, and of our expiring national

virtues. What work of art or power, or public utility, has ever equalled

the glory of having peopled a continent without guilt or bloodfheds with

a mdtitude of free and happy commonwealths, to have given them the

beft arts of life and governiment, and to have uffered them, under

the fhelter of our authority, to acquire in peace the kill to ufe them.

In comparifon of this, the policy of governingby influence, and even the

pride of war and vietory, are dithoneft tricks, and poor contemptible

pageantry.

We feem not to be fenfible of the high and important truft which Pro-

vidence has committed to our charge. The moft precious remains of civil

liberty, that the world can now boaft of, are lodged in our hands ; and

God forbid that we fhould violate fo facred a deposit. By enfl iving your

colonies, you not only ruin the peace, the commerce, and the fortunes,

of both countries, but you extinguith the fairet hopes, and thut up the

lat afylum of mankind. I think, my lords, without being weakly fu-

perititious, that a good man may hope that Heaven will take part againft

the execution of a plan which feems big, not only with mifchief, but

impiety.

Let us be content with the poils and the detruction of the eat. If

your lordfhips can fee no impropriety in it, let the plunderer and the op-

prefor still go free. But let not the love of liberty be the only crime you

think worthy of punishment. I fear we thall foon make it a part of our

natural charatter-to rainr cvery thias phat hae the mrsfortune to depond

upon us.

No nation has ever before contrived, in fo fhort a space of time, with-

out any war or public calamicy (unlefs unwife meafures may be fo called)

to deitroy fuch ample refources of commerce, wealth, and power, as of

late were ours, and which, if they had been rightly improved, might

have raifed ut tb a ffate of more honourable and more permanent greatnefs

than the world has yet feen.

Let me remind the noble lords in administration, that before the stamp

a, they had power fufficient to anfwer all the juit ends of government,

and they were all complently anfwered. If that i the power they want,

though we have lo't much of it at prefent, a few kind words would re-

cover it all.

But if the-tendency of this bill is, as I own it appears to me, to ac-

quire a power of governing them by influence and corruption; in the firt

p'ace, my lords, this is not true government, but a fophiticated kind,

which counterfeits the appearance, but without the pirit or virtue of

the true; and then, as it tends to debafe their spirits, and corrupt their

manners, to deftroy all that is grcnt and refpectable in o confiderable a

part of the human species, and by degrees to gather them together with

the reft of the world, under the yoke of univerfal flavery; I think, for

thee reafons, it is the duty of every wife man, of every honest man,

and f every Englithman, by all lawful means, to cppofe it.

THE foregoing SPEECH will be printed next

week in a neat PAMPHLET, on fine pat paper, and an

elegant type: Tbofe gentlemen, therefore, wbo wouid wiflh

to preserve fo valuable a production, will much pblige the

printer of this paper by giving in their commands as early

is poffible, as he at prefent intends to trike off but a fmall

impcellion. The price of it will be one pitereen.