FOX’S MOTION FOR INQUIRING INTO THE STATE OF THE NATION.
On the same day Mr. Fox made a motion, similar to that of the Duke of Richmond, in the house of commons. The committee was at once agreed to by ministers; but when Fox made a call for papers, Lord North opposed it, as liable to make discoveries prejudicial to the interests of the country. This drew down upon him a series of odious comparisons. Burke compared him to the “pigmy physician,” who watched over the health of Sancho Panza, in the government of Barataria, and who snatched away every dish from his patient’s well-supplied table, on various pretences, before he could get one mouthful. The house was convulsed with laughter, but Lord North remained immoveable; nor could the intelligence that the lords had granted the papers, alter his determination to oppose their production. Fox again spoke when he discovered that the premier was resolute; and this time he fell upon the chief manager of American affairs,—Lord George Germaine. He remarked:—“For two years that a noble lord has presided over American affairs, the most violent, scalping, tomahawk measures have been pursued: bleeding has been his only prescription. If a people, deprived of their ancient rights, are grown tumultuous, bleed them!—if they are attacked with a spirit of insurrection, bleed them!—if their fever should rise into rebellion, bleed them!—cries this state-physician. More blood! more blood! still more blood! When Dr. Sangrado had persevered in a similar practice of bleeding his patients, killing by the very means he used for a cure, his man took the liberty to remonstrate on the necessity of relaxing in a practice to which thousands of their patients had fallen sacrifices, and which was beginning to bring their names into disrepute. The doctor answered, I believe, indeed, that we have carried the matter a little too far; but you must know I have written a book on the efficacy of this practice: therefore, though every patient should die by it, we must continue bleeding, for the credit of my book.” The debate assumed a new feature from a speech made by Governor Pownall, who argued, that the production of the papers called for could answer no end. Pownall declared that he was as uninfluenced by party spirit as he had been nine years ago, when he predicted the precise progress of American resistance. He added:—“I now tell the house and government, that the Americans will never return to their subjection. Sovereignty is abolished, and gone for ever: the Navigation Act is annihilated. Of what use, then, are these papers?—of what import our debates? Disputation and abuse may afford amusement; but neither America nor England can be benefited by such discussions in the present crisis. Until the house shall be disposed to treat with the United States as an independent, sovereign people, schemes or plans of conciliation, whoever may suggest them, will be found unimportant.” This was speaking like a man of business, and the arguments adduced were unanswerable. The papers were refused, by a majority of one hundred and seventy-eight to eighty-nine.