The New Hampshire Gazette And Historical Chronicle

LONDON

The SPEECH of the Right Honourable the EARL of CHATHAM, in the HOUSE of LORDS, January 20, 1775; on a Motion for an ADDRESS to his MAJESTY, to give immediate Orders for removing his Troops from BOSTON, forthwith, in order to quiet the Minds and take away the Apprehensions of his good SUBJECTS in AMERICA.

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 this House Intelligence from America, with which your Lordships and the Public have been long and fully acquainted.

The present alarming State of America, were founded upon Misrepresentation---they were violent, precipitate 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; and that the least Appearance of Firmness would awe the American Colonies into Submission, and upon only passing the Rubicon, we should be fine classe victors.

Impression of those Misrepresentations, the Parliament was precipitated into instrumental in executing the Vengeance of Administration on that unfortunate Town:---the Assembly, the least suspected of Opposition of the Faction at Boston, these Measures have produced the contrary Effect, instead of suppressing it over the whole Continent. They have united that whole people, by the most indissoluble of all Bands---intolerable Wrongs.--The just Retribution, is an indiscriminate unmerciful Proscription of the Innocent with the Guilty, unheard and untried. The bloodless Victory, is an impotent General with his dismembered Army, trusting solely to the Pick-Ax 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. But as I have not the Honor of access to his Majesty, I will endeavor to transmit to him, through the constitutional Channel of the House, my Ideas on American Business, to rescue him from the Misadvice of his present Minister. I congratulate your Lordships that that Business is at last entered upon, by the noble Lord's (Lord Dartmouth) laying the Papers before you. As I suppose your Lordships are too well apprised of their Contents, I hope I am not premature in submitting to you my present Motion (reads the Motion) I wish, my Lords, not to lose a Day in this pressing 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 from the first to the last, unless nailed to my Bed by the Extremity of Sickness; I will give it unremitting Attention:--I will knock at the Door of this sleeping, or confounded Ministry, and will rouse them to a Sense of their important Danger.--When I state the Importance of the Colonies to this Country, and the Magnitude of Danger hanging over this Country from the present Plan of Misadministration practiced against them, 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 justly 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, & 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: As to the metaphysical Refinements, attempting to shew that the Americans are equally free from Obedience to commercial Restraints, as from Taxation for Revenue, as being unrepresented here, I pronounce them futile, frivolous and groundless--. Property is in its Nature single as an Atom. It is indivisible, can belong to one only, and cannot be touched but by his Consent. The Law that attempts to alter this Disposal of it, annihilates it.

When I urge this Measure of recalling the Troops from Boston, I urge it on this parting Principle---that it is necessarily preparatory to the Restoration of your Peace, and the Re-establishment of your Prosperity. It will then appear that you are disposed to treat amicably and equitably, and to consider, review 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 ambited by an individual part of the Legislature, or by the Bodies which compose, is equally intolerable to British Principles.

As to the Means of enforcing this Thraldom, they are found to be as ridiculous and weak in Practice, as they are unjust in Principle. Indeed I cannot but feel with the most anxious Sensibility for the Situation of General Gage and the Troops under his Command; thinking him, as I do, a Man of Humanity and Understanding, and entertaining, as I ever shall, the highest Respect, the warmest Love, for the British Troops. Their Situation is truly pitiable, pent up and pining in inglorious Inactivity. They are an Army of Impotence. You may call them an Army of Safety, or of Guard; but they are in Truth an Army of Impotence and Contempt --& to render the Folly equal to the Disgrace, they are an Army of Irritation. I do not mean to censure the Inactivity of the Troops. It is a prudent and necessary Inaction. But it is a miserable Condition, where Disgrace is Prudence; and where it is necessary to be contemptible. This Fanness, however dictated by the Ministers. The first Drop of Blood shed in a civil and unnatural War, would be an unexpiable--.Drop of Blood in an impious War, with a People contending, in the great Cause of public Liberty. I will tell you plainly, my Lords, no Son of Mine, nay any over whom I have Influence, shall ever draw his Sword upon his fellow Subjects. I therefore urge and conjure your Lordships immediately to adopt this conciliatory Measure. I will pledge myself for its immediately producing conciliatory Effects, from its being well timed.' But if you delay, till your vain Hope of triumphantly dictating the Terms shall be accomplished---you delay forever. And even admitting that this Hope, which in Truth is desperate, should be accomplished, what will you gain by a victorious Imposition of Grace, while you have the Opportunity of Reconciliation, or at Amity? You will be distrusted and unthanked. Adopt then the least prepare the Way; allay the Ferment prevailing in America, by removing the obnoxious hostile Cause; obnoxious and unservicable, for this Merit can only be Taxation. "Nen dimicare e vincire." Their Victory can never be by Executions, Their Force would be most disproportionately exerted, against a brave, generous and united People; with Arms in their Hands, and Courage in their Hearts, three Millions of People, the genuine Descendants of a valiant and pious Ancestry, driven to these Extremes by the narrow Maxims of a superstitious Tyranny. And is the Spirit of tyrannous Persecution never to be appeased? Are the brave Sons of those brave Forefathers to inherit their Sufferings, as they have inherited their Virtues? Are they to sustain the Inflictions of the most oppressive and unexampled Severity, beyond the Accounts of History, or the Description of Poetry? "Rhadamanthus habet durissima regna, Castigatque." So say the wisest Statesman and Politician. But the Bostonians have been condemned unheard. The indiscriminating Hand of Vengeance has lumped together Innocent and Guilty: With all the Formalities of Hostility, has blocked up the Town, and reduced to Beggary and Famine 10,000 Inhabitants. But his Majesty is advised that the Union of America cannot last. Ministers have more Eyes than I, and should have more Ears; but from all the Information I have been able to procure, I can pronounce it a Union solid, permanent and effectual. Ministers may satisfy themselves, and delude the Public with the Reports of what they call commercial Bodies in America. They are not Commercial, they are jour Packers and Factors; they live upon nothing, for I call Commission nothing; I mean: the ministerial Authority for their American Intelligence, the Runners of Government, who are paid for their Intelligence. But these are not the Men, nor this the Influence to be considered in America, when we estimate the Firmness of their Union. Even to extend the Question, and to take in the really mercantile Circle, will be totally inadequate to the Consideration. Trade indeed increases the Wealth and Glory of a Country; but in real Strength & Stamina are to be looked for among the Cultivators of the Land.. In their Simplicity of Life is found the Simplicity of Virtue, the Integrity and Courage of Freedom. Those true genuine Sons of the Earth are Invincible; and they surround and hem in the Mercantile Bodies; even if those Bodies, which Supposition I totally Disclaim, could be supposed Disaffected to the cause of Liberty. Of this-- general Spirit existing in the American Nation, for so I wish to distinguish the Real and Genuine Americans from the Pseudo-Traders I have Described: Of this Spirit of Independence animating the Nation of America, I have the most Authentic Information. It is not new among them; it is & ever has been their established Principle, their confirmed Persuasion; It is their Nature and their Doctrine. I Remember some Years ago, when the Repeal of the Stamp-Act was in Agitation, Conversing in a Friendly Confidence with a Person of Undoubted Respect & Authority on this Subject; and he assured, me, with a Certainty which his Judgment and Opportunity gave him, that these were the Prevalent and steady Principles of America; that you might destroy their Towns, and cut them off from the Superfluities, perhaps the Conveniences of Life, but that they were prepared to despise your Power, and would not Lament their Loss, whilst they had. what. my Lords ?... Their Woods and Liberty. The Name of my Authority, if I am called upon, will Authenticate the Opinion irrefutably.

If Illegal Violences have been, as it is said Committed in America, prepare the Way, open a Door of Probability, for Acknowledgment and Satisfaction; but proceed not to such Coercion, such Proscription: Cease your Indiscriminate Inflictions; amerce not Thirty Thousand, Oppress not Three Millions, for the Faults of Forty or Fifty: Such Severity of Injustice must for ever render Incurable the Wounds you have already given your Colonies; you Irritate them to unspeakable Rancour. What though you March from Town to Town, and from Province to Province? Though you should be able to force a Temporary and local Submission, which I only suppose, not admit, how shall you be able to secure the Obedience of the Country you leave Behind you in your Progress-? To Grasp the Dominions at Six Hundred Miles of Continent, Populous in Valour, Liberty and Resistance? This Resistance to your Arbitrary System of Taxation might have been foreseen: it was Obvious from the Nature of Things and of Mankind; & above all, from the Whiggish Spirit Flourishing in that Country.. The Spirit which now Resists your Taxation in America, is the same which formerly Opposed, and with Success Opposed Loans, Benevolences, and Ship-Money, in England--the same Spirit which called all England on its Legs, and by the Bill of Rights Vindicated the English Constitution-.-the same Spirit which Established the great fundamental and essential Maxim of your Liberties, that no Subject shall be taxed, but by his own Consent. If your Lordships will turn to the Politics of those Times, you will see the Attempts of the Lords to Poison this Inestimable Benefit of the Bill by an Inidious Proviso: You will see their Attempts Defeated, in their Conference with the Commons, by the Decisive Arguments of the Assertainers & Maintainers of our Liberty: You will see the Thin, Inconclusive and Fallacious Stuff of those Enemies to Freedom, Contrasted with the Sound & Solid Reasoning of Serjeant Glanville & the rest, those Great & Learned Men who Adorned and Enlightened this Country, & placed Her Security on the Summit of Justice and Freedom. And whilst I am on my Legs, and thus do Justice to the Memory of those great Men, I must also justify the Merit of the Living, by declaring my firm and fixed Opinion, that such a Man exists this Day. (looking towards Lord Camden.) This glorious Spirit of Whiggism animates three Millions in America, who prefer Poverty with Liberty, to gilded Chains and sordid Affluence; and who will die in Defence of their Rights, as Men---as Freemen. What shall oppose this Spirit? Aided by the congenial Flame glowing in the Breast of every Whig in England, to the Amount, I hope, of at least double the American Numbers! Ireland they have to a Man. In that Country, joined as it is with the Cause of the Colonies, and placed at their Head, the Distinction I contend for, is and must be observed. This Country superintends & controuls their Trade & Navigation; but they tax themselves, and this Distinction between external and internal Controul, is sacred & insurmountable; it is involved in the abstract Nature of Things. Property is private, individual, absolute. Trade is an extended and complicated Consideration; it reaches as far as Ships can sail, or Winds can blow: It is a great and various Machine--To regulate the numberless Movements of its several Parts, and combine them into Effect for the Good of the whole, requires the superintending Wisdom and Energy of the supreme Power in the Empire, But this supreme Power has no Effect towards internal Taxation,-.. for it does not exist in that Relation. There is no such Thing, no such Idea in this Constitution, as supreme Power operating upon Property.

Let this Distinction then remain forever ascertained: Taxation Is theirs, commercial Regulation is ours. As an American, I would recognize to England her supreme Right of regulating Commerce and Navigation: As an Englishman by Birth & Principle, I recognize to the Americans their supreme, unalienable Right in their Property; a Right which they are justified in the Defence of. to the last Extremity. To maintain this Principle is the common Cause of the Whigs on the other Side of the Atlantic, and on this. It is Liberty, to Liberty engaged, that they will defend themselves, their Families and their Country. In this great Cause they are immovably allied. It is the Alliance of GOD and Nature-.. immutable, eternal, fixed as the Firmament of Heaven! To. such united Force, what Force shall be opposed! What, my Lords, a few Regiments in America, and fifty or sixty thousand Men at Home! The Idea is too ridiculous to wake up a Moment of your Lordships Time. Nor can such a national principled Union be resisted by the Tricks of Office or ministerial Manoeuvres. Laying Papers on your Table, or counting Noses 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 Manoeuvres, shall be forced to hide their Heads. But it is not by repealing a Piece of Parchment, that can restore America to your Bosom. You must repeal her Fears & her Resentments, & not by repealing this Act of Parliament, or that Act of Parliament, --.it is by repealing your Wrath, your Rancour, and your Resentment against America. But now insulted with an armed Force posted in Boston, irritated with an hostile Array before her eyes, her Concessions, if you could force them, would be suspicious and insecure: They will be, juro animo: They will not be the sound, honorable Pactions of Freemen; they will be the Dictates of Fear, and the Extortions of Force. But it is more than evident that you cannot force them, principled and united as they are, to your unworthy Terms of Submission. It is impossible. And when I hear General Gage censured for Inactivity, I must retort with Indignation on those whose intemperate Measures and improvident Councils have betrayed him into his present Situation. His Situation reminds me, my Lords, of the Answer of a French General in the Civil Wars of France, Monsieur Turenne, I think. The Queen said to him with some Peevishness. I observe that you were often very near the Prince during the Campaign, why did you not take him? The Mareschal replied with great Coolness,-.-I' avois grand peur. qui Monsieur le Prince ne me pris,--.I was very much afraid the Prince would take me.

When your Lordships look at the Papers transmitted us from America, when you consider their Decency, Firmness & Wisdom, you cannot but respect their Cause, and wish to make it your own, for thatyself I must declare and avow, that in all my reading & observation; and it has been my favourite Study.-.I have read Thucydides. and have studied & admired the Master States of the World, .--that for Solidity and Reasoning. Force of Sagacity, and Wisdom of Conclusion, under such a Complication of different 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 on such Men, to establish Despotism over such a mighty continental Nation-- must be vain.-- must be fatal,.. We shall be forced ultimately to retract whilst we can, not when we must. I say we must necessarily undo these violent and oppressive Acts :.-They must be repealed-.. you will repeal them : I pledge myself for it you will in the End repeal them : I take my Reputation on it : I will consent to be taken for an Idiot if they are not finally repealed.--..-Avoid then this humiliating disgraceful Necessityy.-.-With a Dignity becoming your exalted Situation, make the first Advances to Concord, to Peace and Happiness, for that is your true Dignity, coat with Prudence and with Justice. That you should first concede, is obvious from sound and rational Policy. Concession comes with better Grace and more salutary Effect from the superior Power. It reconciles Superiority of Power, with the Feelings of Men ; and establishes solid Confidence in the Foundation of Affection and Gratitude. So thought the wise Poet and perhaps the wisest Man in political Sagacity. the Friend of Mecenas, and the Eulgist of Augustus. To him, the adopted Son and Successor of the first Caesar, to him, the Master of the World, he wisely urged this Conduct of Prudence and Dignity :

Iugue prior, &c. VIRGIL.

Every Motive therefore of Justice and of Policy, of Dignity & of Prudence, urges you to allay the Ferment in America, by a removal of your Troops from Boston, by a repeal of your Acts of Parliament, & by Demonstration of amicable Dispositions towards your Colonies. On the other Hand, every Danger, and every Hazard, impend to deter you from Perseverance in your present ruinous Measures : Foreign War hanging over your Heads by a light 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 his Subjects from his Crown, but I will affirm that they will make the Crown not worth his wearing: I shall not say that the King is betrayed, but I will pronounce that the Kingdom is undone.