These generous words found an echo at the time. A note in the Parliamentary History says, "The Twenty-second Regiment of Foot, in which he held a captain's commission, being ordered to America, he resolved, though not possessed of an ample patrimony, to resign a darling profession, and all hopes of advancement, rather than bear arms in a cause he did not approve"; and the record proceeds to say that "the cities of London and Dublin voted him their thanks for this conduct."[201] If a soldier could bear testimony against an unjust war, it was easy for others not under the constraint of martial prejudice to do so. The sequel shows how the example prevailed.
First came the famous Duke of Grafton, who, in the House of Lords, on the Address of Thanks, October 26, 1775, after the Battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill, said:—
"I pledge myself to your Lordships and my country, that, if necessity should require it, and my health not otherwise permit it, I mean to come down to this House in a litter, in order to express my full and hearty disapprobation of the measures now pursuing, and, as I understand from the noble Lords in office, meant to be pursued. I do protest to your Lordships, that, if my brother or my dearest friend were to be affected by the vote I mean to give this evening, I could not possibly resist the faithful discharge of my conscience and my duty. Were I to lose my fortune and every other thing I esteem, were I to be reduced to beggary itself, the strong conviction and compulsion at once operating on my mind and conscience would not permit me to take any other part on the present occasion than that I now mean to adopt."
A protest at the close of this debate was signed by several peers, containing the following emphatic clause:—
"Because we cannot, as Englishmen, as Christians, or as men of common humanity, consent to the prosecution of a cruel civil war, so little supported by justice, and so very fatal in its necessary consequences, as that which is now waging against our brethren and fellow-subjects in America."
This was echoed in the House of Commons, where, on the same Address, Mr. Wilkes said:—
"I call the war with our brethren in America an unjust, felonious war.... I assert that it is a murderous war, because it is an effort to deprive men of their lives for standing up in the just cause of the defence of their property and their clear rights. It becomes no less a murderous war with respect to many of our fellow-subjects of this island; for every man, either of the navy or army, who has been sent by Government to America, and fallen a victim in this unnatural and unjust contest, has in my opinion been murdered by Administration, and his blood lies at their door. Such a war, I fear, Sir, will draw down the vengeance of Heaven upon this devoted kingdom."
Mr. Fox expressed himself as follows:—
"He could not consent to the bloody consequences of so silly a contest about so silly an object, conducted in the silliest manner that history or observation had ever furnished an instance of, and from which we were likely to derive nothing but poverty, misery, disgrace, defeat, and ruin."
He was followed by the eminent lawyer, Serjeant Adair:—