The Virginia Gazette

The speech of the Lord Mayor, JOHN WILKES, esq; last Thursday, in the House of Commons, on the motion for an address to the King.

Mr. SPEAKER,

I ENTIRELY agree with the honourable gentleman, who seconded the motion for an address to his majesty, that every man ought now to speak out; and, in a moment so important as the present, to the whole empire, I think it ill becomes the dignity and duty of parliament to lose itself in such a fulsome adulatory address to the throne as that now proposed. We ought rather, sir, to approach our sovereign with sound and wholesome advice, and even with remonstrances against the conduct of his ministers, who have precipitated the nation into an unjust, ruinous, felonious, and murderous war. I call the war with our brethren in America an unjust; felonious war, because the primary cause, and confessed origin of it, is the attempt to take their money from them without their consent, contrary to the common rights of all mankind, and those great fundamental principles of the English constitution for which Hampden bled. I assert, sir, that it is in consequence a murderous war, because it is an attempt to deprive men of their lives for standing up in the just cause of the defence of their property, and their clear rights. It becomes no less a murderous war, with respect to many of our fellow-subjects of this island; for every man, either of the navy or army, who has been sent by government to America, and has fallen a victim in this unnatural and unjust contest, has been murdered by administration, and his blood lies at their door. Such a war, I fear, sir, will draw down the vengeance of Heaven upon this devoted kingdom. I think this war, sir, fatal and ruinous to our country. It absolutely annihilates the only great source of our wealth, which we enjoyed unrivalled by other nations, and deprives us of the fruits of the laborious industry of near three millions of subjects, which centred here. That commerce has already taken its flight; and our American merchants are now deploring the consequences of a wretched policy, which has been pursued to their destruction. It is, sir, no less ruinous with regard to the enormous expense of the fleets and armies necessary for this nefarious undertaking; so that we are wasting our present wealth, while we are destroying the sources of all we might have in future. I speak, sir, as a friend to England and America, but still more to universal liberty, and the rights of all mankind. I trust no part of the subjects of this vast empire will ever submit to be slaves. I am sure the Americans are too high-spirited to brook the idea. Your whole power, and that of your allies, if you had any, and of all the German troops you can hire, cannot effect so wicked a purpose. The conduct of the present administration has already wrested the sceptre of America out of the hands of our sovereign, and you have now scarcely a postmaster left in the whole northern continent. More than half the empire is already lost, and almost all the rest is in confusion and anarchy. The ministry have brought our sovereign into a more disgraceful situation than any crowned head now living. He alone has already lost, by their fatal councils, more territory than the three great united powers of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, have together robbed Poland of, and by equal acts of violence and injustice from administration. England was never engaged in a contest of such importance to our most valuable concerns and possessions. We are fighting for the subjection of a country infinitely more extended than our own, of which every day increases the wealth, the natural strength, and population. Should not we succeed, it will be a bosom friendship soured to hate and resentment. We shall be considered as their most implacable enemies, an eternal separation will succeed, and the grandeur of the British empire pass away. Success seems to me not equivocal, but impossible. However we may differ among ourselves, they are perfectly united. On this side the Atlantic, party rage unhappily divides us; but one soul animates the vast northern continent of America, the General Congress, and each provincial Assembly. An appeal has been made to the sword; and, at the close of the last campaign, what have we conquered? Bunker's hill, with the loss of 1200 men! Are we to pay as dearly for the rest of America? The idea of conquest is as romantick as unjust. The honourable gentleman who moved the address says, "the Americans have been treated with lenity." Was your Boston port bill a measure of lenity? Was your fishery bill a measure of lenity? Was your bill for taking away the charter of Massachusetts Bay a measure of lenity, or even justice? I omit your many other gross provocations and insults, by which the brave Americans have been driven into their present state. He asserts, that they avow a disposition to be independent. On the contrary, sir, all the declarations, both of the late and the present Congress, uniformly tend to this one object, of being put on the same footing they were in at the year 1763. This has been their only demand, from which they have never varied. Their daily prayers are, for liberty, peace, and safety. I use the words of the Congress of the last year. They justly expect to be put on an equal footing with the other subjects of the empire. If you confine all but trade to yourselves, say they, if you make a monopoly of our commerce, if you shut all other ports of the world against us, tax us not too. If you do, then give us a free trade, such as you enjoy yourselves; let us have equal advantages of commerce, all other ports open to us; then we can, and will, cheerfully pay taxes. It must give, sir, every man, who loves this country, the deepest concern at the naming, in the address, foreign troops, Hanoverians and Hessians, who are now called to interfere in our domestick quarrels, not to dwell this day on the illegality of the measure. The militia, indeed, are now employed; and that noble institution is at present complimented by ministers who hate the very name of a militia, because the embodying of those forces enables administration to butcher more of our fellow-subjects in America. Sir, I disapprove not only the evil spirit of the whole address, but likewise the wretched adulation of almost every part of it. My wish and hope therefore is, that it will be rejected by the House, and that another dutiful, yet decent, manly address, will be presented to the king, praying his majesty that he would sheathe the sword, prevent the farther effusion of the blood of our fellow-subjects, adopt some mode of negotiation with the General Congress, in compliance with their repeated petition, and thereby restore peace and harmony to this distracted empire.