XVIII.

"iron tears" of disappointed pride and fallen BOOK ambition-acknowledged "that he had indeed been unfortunate, but that his intentions were 1777. ever just and upright; that he had originally been in a manner forced into an office which he would most willingly and gladly resign, could his resignation facilitate the obtaining that peace and reconciliation for which he had ever earnest

wished." The American minister also professed, in terms of humiliation, "that he should be ever ready to submit his conduct to the judgment of the house; hoping, nevertheless, that the house would suspend their censures relative to the late unhappy event, till an impartial investigation both of the plan and the execution of it had taken place."

On the 5th of December (1777) lord Chatham, in consequence of the late intelligence from America, attended the house of peers, and moved, "that an address be presented to his majesty, to cause the proper officers to lay before the house copies of all orders and instructions to general Burgoyne relative to the late expedition from Canada." Holding up a paper in view of the house, his lordship said, "that he had the king's speech in his hand, and a deep sense of the public calamity in his heart. That speech, he said, contained a most unfaithful picture of the state of public affairs; it had a specious outside,

BOOK was full of hopes, while every thing within was XVIII. full of danger. A system destructive of all faith 1777. and confidence had been introduced, his lord

ship affirmed, within the last fifteen years at St.
James's, by which pliable men, not capable men,
had been raised to the highest posts of govern-
ment. A few obscure persons had obtained an
ascendency where no man should have a personal
ascendency, and by the most insidious means the
nation had been betrayed into a war of which they
now reaped the bitter fruits. The SPIRIT of DE-
LUSION, his lordship said, had gone forth; mini-
sters had imposed on the people; parliament had
been induced to sanctify the imposition; a vision-
ary phantom of revenue had been conjured up for
the basest of purposes, but it was now for ever
vanished. His lordship said, that the abilities of
general Burgoyne were confessed, his personal
bravery not surpassed, his zeal in the service un-
questionable. He had experienced no pestilence,
nor suffered any of the accidents which sometimes
supersede the wisest and most spirited exertions of
human industry. What then is the cause of his
misf
-Want of wisdom in our councils,
ty in our ministers. His lordship
an of penetrating into the colonies

wild, uncombined, and

le of carrying on the abarous, and feroci

XVIII.

1777.

ous recorded in the annals of history. The arms BOOK of Britain had been sullied and tarnished by blending the scalping knife and tomahawk with the sword and firelock. Such a mode of warfare was a contamination which all the waters of the Hudson and the Delawar would never wash away. It was impossible for America to forget or forgive so horrid an injury."

In the course of his speech he animadverted in the severest terms on the language recently held by a most reverend prelate, the archbishop of York, both in print and in that house. "The pernicious doctrines advanced by that prelate were, he said, the doctrines of Atterbury and Sacheverel. As a WHIG he abjured and detested them; and he hoped he should yet see the day when they would be deemed libellous, and treated as such."-The motion being negatived, his lordship next moved an address to the king, "that all orders and treaties relative to the employment of the Indian savages be laid before the house."

Lord Gower rose, and, with all that acrimony by which his speeches were usually distinguished, opposed and reprobated the motion; asserting, "that the noble lord had himself employed saut scruple in the operations of the his charge lord Chatham positively orily denied, and challenged the

BOOK ministers, if any such instructions of his were to XVIII. be found, to produce them. If at all employed, 1777. they had crept into the service from the occasional utility of their assistance in unexplored parts of the country. He said, "the late king George II. had too much regard for the military dignity of his people, and also too much Hu MANITY, to agree to such a proposal, had it been made to him; and he called upon lord Amherst to declare the truth." Lord Amherst, not able to evade this appeal, reluctantly owned that Indians had been employed on both sides-the French employed them first, he said, and we followed their example; but that he had been authorized to take them into his majesty's service by instructions from the minister, his lordship would not affirm. The motion was dismissed by the previous question.

The two houses in a few days after this determined upon an adjournment to the 20th of January 1778, notwithstanding an animated resistance on the part of the opposition, who demonstrated the impolicy at so critical a juncture of indulging in so long a recess. Lord Chatham on this occasion declared, "that it was with grief and astonishment he heard a proposal made of a nature so extraordinary at a crisis so urgent; when," said he, "my lords, I will be bold to say, events of a most alarming tendency, little

XVIII.

1777.

expected or foreseen, will shortly happen. Mi- BOOK
nisters flatter themselves, whenever the worst
comes, that they shall be able to shelter them-
selves behind the authority of parliament; but
this, my lords, cannot be. They stand com-
MITTED, and they must ABIDE the ISSUE. The
DAY OF RETRIBUTION is at hand, when the vEN-
GEANCE of a much injured people will, I trust,
FALL HEAVILY on the AUTHORS of their RUIN.

During the recess, the spirits of the ministry, which had sunk to so low an ebb, seemed to revive; and the powerful faction of the tories, which had of late years acquired such an ascendency under the patronage of the court, being if possible more than ever eager for the subjugation of America, large offers were made from different places for raising new regiments to supply the late heavy loss; and a determination was taken to prosecute the war with redoubled force and vigour.

On an early day after the recess, the house of commons, in consequence of a motion previously made by Mr. Fox, resolved itself into a committee on the state of the nation; and, in a most able and comprehensive speech, Mr. Fox entered at great length into a retrospective view of the whole conduct of the present administration respecting America, including as well the measures which led to the war, as the manner in

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