DEBATES ON AMERICA.
Addresses which were, as usual, echoes of the speech, were brought forward in both houses, and they elicited violent debates. In the commons Lord John Cavendish moved an amendment of greater length than even the proposed address. This amendment was seconded by the Marquess of Granby, and in it, and the debates that ensued, it was affirmed that the disaffection and revolt of the colonists could not have taken place, if there had not been great faults committed against them. The faults pointed out were, chiefly, the rejection of petitions and complaints; the improper instructions given to commissioners for the purpose of reconciliation; the endeavours made to break down the spirit and independence of the colonists, by the many acts of parliament passed during the recent sessions; and the project of extirpating the Americans by the sword. All these errors were imputed by the opposition to the want of information, and the too great confidence in ministers, who though in duty bound to ascertain the temper and disposition of the Americans, had totally failed for want of that knowledge. An appeal to the sword was denounced as a most dangerous precedent, and by a strange perversity of mind the leaders of the American revolution were described and especially by Wilkes, as men averse to a change of government, and as being only driven to extremities by an accumulation of neglect, insult and injury, and by two years of a savage, piratical, and unjust war, carried on against them by the English people. Wilkes also, with others on the same side, took umbrage at the word “treason,” as applicable to the Americans, asserting that what ministers called “treason,” the Americans denominated “a just resistance and glorious revolution.” As for the pacific declarations of foreign powers, and especially the Bourbons, all reliance on them was exposed with sarcasm and ridicule. Colonel Barré, indeed, declared that a war of the most serious nature with France and Spain was impending over the country. The whole of his majesty’s speech was, in truth, denounced as false, insidious, hypocritical, and deceptive;—as holding out law and liberty, indeed, but holding it out at the point of the sword.
The speech and address were defended by Lord North and Lord George Germaine. Lord North denied the charge which had been alleged against him of withholding information; declared that he had always communicated to the house as much as he could divulge with safety; and indignantly repelled the charge of hypocrisy advanced against that part of the king’s speech which stated his desire to restore law and liberty to the colonists. In his own peculiar quiet way, Lord North hinted to the opposition, that if they were members of the new American legislature, they could not have ventured to make so free with the president and majority of congress, as they were now doing with their sovereign, his ministers, and the majority of the English parliament. In the defence, Lord George Germaine remarked that we had been anxious for reconciliation upon mild and fair terms, and that these terms had been rejected with scorn by the American leaders. According to their own statements, he said, of the propositions made by Lord Howe, and the conference that had taken place on Staten Island, his lordship was as eager for the restoration of peace, as Franklin, Washington, and the other leaders were for the continuance of hostilities. He then turned to the statements made by foreign powers, concerning their friendship for England. These statements of the princes of the House of Bourbon must be taken as proofs of their pacific intentions, but if they proved false, and should incur the folly and the guilt of assisting a rebellion, Great Britain was prepared to meet them in the field. He pertinently asked:—“Will the Bourbons, blind to their own interests, wish the spirit of independence to cross the Atlantic? Can they be exempt from fear, lest their own colonists should catch fire at the doctrine of the unlimited rights of mankind, and prefer them to slavery and digging of gold? And will not great danger arise from the vicinity of powerful states freed from European control?” Finally, it was urged in defence of the speech and address, that the only question which called for debate, was simple in its nature it was, only, whether we chose to resign all the benefits we derived from our colonies, and which had been purchased by our best blood and treasures, and by truckling to the defiance and insult hurled at us by the Americans, cut off those sources of power and opulence, and submit to a degradation from the rank we held in the political system of Europe; or, whether we should, by the full exertion of our power, preserve those advantages, assert our ancient supremacy, restore the authority of the British Parliament, and bring back our ungrateful subjects to a sense of their duty. A division on the amendment answered these questions; it was negatived by a majority of two hundred and forty-two against eighty-seven, and the original address was therefore carried.
In the upper house, an amendment was moved by the Marquess of Rockingham, similar to that of Lord John Cavendish, and was followed by debates of equal violence. By the Earl of Shelburne the speech was denounced as a tissue of sophisms, and as a composition of unqualified absurdity, treachery, cruelty, hypocrisy, and deceit. He attempted to show, indeed, that all its paragraphs were false, differing only in this—that some of the falsehoods were fallacious, some specious, and some notorious. The Duke of Richmond maintained that America was lost for ever, and he thought that we had better sit down quiet and contented at the loss, consoling ourselves with the reflection that it had been no fault of our own, but, solely that of an unjust and imbecile administration. But even Lord Shelburne did not concur in this opinion: he never meant, he said, this country to give up its right of commercial control over America, which was the essential bond of connexion between the two countries; and he declared that as the national debt was truly and equitably the debt of every individual in the empire, whether at home, or in Asia, or America, the Americans ought in some way, to contribute to its discharge. Lord Sandwich, the first lord of the Admiralty, more warmly opposed the doctrine of quiescence propounded by the Duke of Richmond. It was, he said, derogatory to the honour and destructive to the interests of England; and he declared that he would hazard every drop of blood, and his last shilling, rather than see his country set at defiance, bullied, and dictated to, by her undutiful and ungrateful children; her disobedient and rebellious subjects. The amendment was negatived by a majority of ninety-one against twenty-six. Fourteen peers had it entered on the journals, at full length, as a protest signed by themselves.
On the 16th of November, Lord John Cavendish produced a copy of the proclamation issued by Lord Howe and his brother, as commissioners, and proposed that, in conformity to its tenor, the house should resolve itself into a committee for revising the acts by which the colonists felt themselves aggrieved. This proposition was seconded by Burke, and many of the opposition harangued in its favour. Ministers, however, opposed such a step, on the ground that this inquiry into grievances had been proffered only to those who should return to their duty, and hence a disavowal of independence, and an acknowledgment of British supremacy were requisite, before any measures of reconciliation could be adopted by Great Britain. On a division the motion was lost by a majority of one hundred and nine against forty-seven.
After the rejection of the proposition of Lord John Cavendish, many members of opposition, especially those of the Rockingham party, seceded from the business of parliament, alleging that it was useless to discuss or oppose ministerial measures. This conduct, however, was blamed by the majority of the opposition, who contended that no member of parliament could, consistently with his duty, desert the interests of his country, merely because he felt that his party would be outvoted. It was agreed that no one could infer from thence that his attendance would be useless, and that a respectable minority, though not able to carry measures of its own, might, nevertheless, modify injurious laws and counsels, by exposing their pernicious tendency. Some who held these opinions made efforts to bring the great orator, Chatham, to the charge again; but his gout prevented him from coming to the house, and little could be elicited from him beyond a declaration that his sentiments with regard to America were the same which he had always professed, and which stood fully explained in his Provisional Act. At the same time he expressed his fears that, in a few years, France would set her foot on English ground. Thus, cleared of its members, the house of commons voted the army and navy estimates without any display of violent opposition. The number of seamen voted was 45,000, and £3,205,505 were voted for the expenses of the navy; exclusive of £4000 for the support of Greenwich Hospital, and £500,000 to go towards the discharge of the debts of the navy. The army estimates voted, were about £3,000,000 exclusive of extras, and some new contracts with German princes, for more German troops to serve in America. These supplies being granted, on the 13th of December, both houses adjourned for the Christmas recess.