བཤིར་

⚫ I mean to meddle with no mans opinion; and, leaving all men to follow the plan of their own opinions of former profeffions, my plan is to establish for the American an unequivocal, express right of not having his property taken from him but by his own confent, in his own affembly.

• Eight weeks delay admits no further hesitation, no, not of a moment; the thing may be over; a drop of blood renders it immedicabile vulnus.

• Whether it can ever now be a true reconciliation, must be owing to the full compensation that America shall receive. Repeal the mutual ill-will that fubfifts, for it is not the repeal of a little act of parliament that will work peace. Will the repeal of a bit of parchment avail? Will, think you, three millions of people in arms be fatisfied by fuch a repeal? It must be a repeal on the principle of juftice! There must be no procraftination; you are to a moment-now-inftantaneoufly. Every hour that a beginning is not made towards foftening, towards healing-the very news of which might work wonders!—endangers the fixed liberty of America, and the honour of the mother country.

The fuccefs and permanent effect of the best measures may arife from mutual good-will.

My motion is part of a plan; and I begin with a proof of goodwill. My motion is " to address the king to remove the forces from the town of Boston."

''The Congress, they are more wife and more prudent than the meeting of ancient Greece. Your lordships have read Thucydides. He mentions nothing of ancient story more honourable, more respectable, than this defpifed meeting.

The congrefs is treated harshly-I wish we would imitate their temper; firm, indeed, if you please-but congrefs is conducted with firm.nefs and moderation. I wish our House of Commons as freely and uncorruptly chofen.

"The proceedings from hence arife from ignorance of the circumftances of America. The idea of coercion by troops, where they were not the natural refource, was wanton and idle.

Anger was your motive in all you did. "What! fhall America prefume to be free? Don't hear them-chastise them!" This was your language caftigat auditque-the fevereft judge, though he chaftifes, alfo hears the party.

All the mifchief has arifen from your anger; for your not adapting your means to your ends: troops and violence were ill means to anfwer the ends of peace.

I understand government is not altogether fatisfied with the commander of your troops; he has not been quick enough to fhed blood; his moderation is ridiculed: but I know that gentleman, an officer of long service, has acted prudently; it was want of wisdom to place an army there-I have heard of armies of obfervation, but this is an army of irritation.

In the civil war of Paris, where thofe great men, the prince of Condé and Marshal Turenne, commanded the two parties-Marshal Turenne was faid often to have been near the prince.-The queen was

angry;

angry; he did not fee why, when he was fo near the prince, he should not take him; fhe was offended, and with fome anger asked, Quand vous etiez fi pris, pourquoi n'avez vous pas pris le Prince ?" That great officer who knew his business, answered coolly, “ J'avois peur, Madame, qu'il ne m'eut prit."

The miniftry tell you, that the Americans will not abide by the congrefs; they are tired of the affociation;-true, many of the merchants may be—but it does not now depend on the merchants, nor do the accounts come even from the principal merchants, but from the runners of miniftry, But were the diffatisfaction among the merchants ever so great, the account is no way conformable to the nature of America.

The nation of America, who have the virtues of the people they fprung from, will not be slaves. Their language is, if trade and slavery are companions, we quit the trade; let trade and flavery go where they will, they are not for us.

Your anger represents them as refractory and ungrateful in not fubmitting to the parent they sprung from; but they are in truth grown an acceffion of ftrength to this country; they know their importance; they wish to continue their utility to you; but though they may be fick of the affociation, those fons of the earth will never be diffuaded from their affociation.

After the repeal of the stamp act, two years after, I was in the country an hundred miles off; a gentleman who knew the country, told me, that if regiments had landed at that time, and ships had been fent to destroy the towns, they had come to a refolution to retire back into the country.- It is a fact; a noble lord fmiles; if I were to mention the gentleman's name, it would not increase his fmile.

"I wish the young gentlemen of our time would imitate thofe Americans that are mifreprefented to them; I wish they would imitate their frugality; I wish they would imitate that liberty which the Americans love better than life; imitate that courage which a love of liberty produces.

'One word more. I will fend my plan, if the state of a miserable constitution stretches me on'a fick bed. It is to put an end to the quarrel. "What before you know whether they will come to terms?” Yes, let my expectations be what they will, I fhould recal the troops; it partakes of a nullity to accept fubmiffion under the influence of

arms.

• I foretel, these bills must be repealed. I fubmit to be called an idiot if they are not. Three millions of men ready to be armed, and talk of forcing them!"

There may be dangerous men, and dangerous men and dangerous councils, who would inftil bad doctrines, advife the enflaving of America; they might not endanger the crown, perhaps, but they would render it not worth the wearing.

The caufe of America is allied to every true whig. They will not bear the enflaving of America. Some whigs may love their fortunes better than their principles; but the body of whigs will join; they will not enflave America. The whole Irish nation, all the true English whigs, the whole nation of America; these combined make many mil

lions of whigs, averfe to the fyftem. France has her full attention upon you; war is at your door; carrying a queftion here will not fave your country in fuch extremities.

• This being the state of things, my advice is, to proceed to allay heats; I would at the inftant begin, and do fomething towards allaying and foftening refentment. My motion, you fee, refpects the army, and their dangerous fituation. Not to undervalue General Gage, who has ferved with credit ;-he acts upon his instructions; if he has not been alert enough to shed blood;

Non dimicare quam vincere maluit.

And he judged well. The Americans too have acted with a prudence and moderation, that had been worthy of our example, were we wise ; -to their moderation it is owing that our troops have remained fo long in fafety.

Mal-administration has run its line—it has not a move leftit is a check-mate.

• Forty-thousand men are not adequate to the idea of fubduing them to your taxation. Taxation exifts only in reprefentation; take them to your heart, who knows what their generofity may effect ?

I am not to be understood as meaning a naked, unconditional repeal; no, I would maintain the fuperiority of this country at all events. • But you are anxious who shall difarm first. That great poet, and, perhaps, a wifer and greater politician than ever he was a poet, has given you wiseft counsel, follow it:

Tuque prior, tu parce; genus qui ducis Olympo.

Projice tela manu.

Who is this man that will own this fyftem of force as practicable ? And is it not the height of folly to pursue a fyftem that is owned to be impracticable?

I therefore move, that an humble address be presented to his majesty, most humbly to advise and beseech his majesty, that, in order to open the ways towards an happy fettlement of the dangerous troubles in America, by beginning to allay ferments and foften animofities there; and above all, for preventing, in the mean time, any fudden and fatal catastrophe at Bofton, now fuffering under the daily irritation of an army before their eyes, pofted in their town; it may graciously please his majesty, that immediate orders may be dispatched to General Gage, for removing his majesty's forces from the town of Boston, as foon as the rigour of the feason and other circumstances indispensable to the safety and accommodation of the said troops may render the fame practicable.'

There must have been fomething fafcinating in the Earl of Chatham's manner, which operated the great effects which his orations produced in the fenate. His eloquence, though great, was not fo transcendant as to move and fway affemblies of men, if we may judge of it from the fpecimen here produced,

ог

er from other fpecimens this collection. But if these are not faithfully reported, then the editors of the parliamentary fpeeches of the last reign were at greater pains than our present publishers.

The fpeech we have quoted of the Duke of Argyle approaches more nearly to the pure, chafte, bold, nervous, and concife manner, which we fo juftly admire in the ancient writers, and the modern Italian hiftorians who have copied it, than that of the Earl of Chatham, which is more loofe, prolix, and unconnected--yet voice, looks, gesture, a difcernment of the present tone and temper of the audience, and an adaption of fentiments; thefe circumftances, and qualities united with great talents, enabled Lord Chatham to rife to the very fummit of fame, in this country, for popular eloquence. All that we advance, is, that in the collection before us the fpeeches of the laft reign are more juftly compofed, or more judiciously felected, either by the original publishers of them, or by our compiler, than the later ones.

This truth would be more forcibly illuftrated were we to take a compa ative view of the orations of other and inferior orators to the Duke of Argyle and the Earl of Chatham. -The speeches of Mr. Henry Fox, the father, as ftated in this collection, appear to be equally manly, fenfible, and acute, with those of Mr. Charles Fox the fon, and far more elegant and claffical. If we defcend to the common herd of speakers, introduced into this collection, the difference between the firft and the last, in the order of time, will appear to be still more obvious and promi

nent.

The life of Sir Robert Walpole, prefixed to this collection, contains nothing that has not been already published, and which is not univerfally known to every perfon who is even initiated in the hiftory of this country.

The defign or plan of the prefent publication was good. Had the editor poffeffed tafte and judgment to select the best fpeeches on the most important fubjects, and to have arranged them under proper heads, according to fome general, philofophical, or hiftorical, or legal, or political divifion, he would have done fome little fervice to the public, and great honour to the British fenate. But his arrangement is like that of all index-makers, merely alphabetical; nor are the fubjects of the speeches so much as mentioned, except in the index, fo that the reader is left to conjecture, from the speeches themselves, the occasions on which they were delivered.

ART. V.

ART. V. A Reply to Sir Lucius O'Brien, Bart. in which that Part of his Letter to the Author, which most particularly respects the prefent State of the Iron Trade between England and Ireland, is confidered. By William Gibbons. 8vo. 1s. 6d. Robinfons, 1785.

MR. Gibbons, in this publication, confiders fuch parts of

Sir Lucius O'Brien's letter, as he thinks the iron trade is called on to reply to. There is but one way, in his opinion, to establish a rule of perfect equality between the two kingdoms, which is, that Ireland fhall pay the fame duty as England on bar iron.

• It is poffible Ireland has not yet benefitted by her free trade to the full latitude of her most fanguine expectations; but that does not ar gue her inability: fhe lies in the latitude of our great coal and iron mines, and is frequently finding new ones; but fuch mines are not opened, to any great effect, in a minute; nor are new establishments of manufactories the work of a day: Can any juft inference be drawn from hence, that years may not produce both collieries and manufactories? of this we are not jealous or begrudging: we only wifh, as two parts of one empire, that the competition may commence fairly, in refpect to duties, and then let the palm be the reward of those, who molt by their exertions deserve it; competitions promote industry, ingenuity, and excellence in quality, therefore may be productive of beneficial effects to both countries. It might, by way of argument, be added, that the country which has particular burthens, unfelt by the other, fhould be likewise entitled to particular privileges: but I wave all fuch fpeculative confiderations, and, ftanding on the broad bafis of equality, appeal to the candour of Ireland whether there is any thing more or less than equity in our proposals: let me proceed one ftep further; it must on all hands be agreed, that no power on earth has any legal right to interfere with your par

ment, in regulating the duties on your wares exported; but when two parts of one empire, whofe intereft is one, and whofe affections fhould by every means be cleared from the rubbish of jealousy, are negociating a permanent fyftem of equal and mutual benefits, in commerce and manufactures; if at fuch a time an advocate for a very important branch of manufacture comes forward, and fhews that the iron trade is, by a fatal accident, left in a moft unequal fituation in respect to the two countries, and no remedy is provided by the treaty in agitation; who will hesitate to say, that the justice and generofity of Ireland is not in fuch a cafe called upon to adminifter it's aid to the reciprocal interests of the two countries, by removing the inequality of which we complain ?'

We do not pretend to decide concerning the accuracy of the calculations on which Mr. Gibbons builds his doctrines. But we entirely approve fuch general principles as these.