During the recess, the government party and the opposition were equally zealous in securing the public opinion, and, consequently, the success of its future schemes. The intelligence of Burgoyne’s defeat seems to have had a momentary effect on the minds of the people, which favoured the views of opposition, but while a few politicians declaimed on the necessity of ending a ruinous war by recognising the independence of the United States, and others advised a cessation of arms and conciliation, the vast majority of the nation soon burned with ardour to blot out the recollection of Burgoyne’s disgrace, by deeds of arms, and by reducing the colonies to their original subjection to the mother country. Not only did public meetings of corporate bodies, towns, and counties, display their attachment to the cause of the crown by addresses, but some cities and towns as Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, raised each a regiment of 1000 men at their own expense. Private subscriptions were opened, large sums were given, and 15,000 soldiers were raised in England, Scotland, and Wales, without any cost or charge to government. Many of the maritime towns, also, armed ships to cruise in the Channel, where American privateers and Frenchmen with American colours were now becoming numerous. On the other hand, the opposition party represented that the American prisoners of war were treated with great cruelty in British prisons, and subscriptions were set on foot for their relief. Complaints had been made in the house of lords concerning the sufferings of the American prisoners, and the subject was investigated; but though it was found that their allowance in some instances had been slender, and that in others their keepers had treated them with severity, it could not be shown that this arose from any want of care on the part of government. Everything, however, was tried which could be tried by the opposition, in order to fix an indelible stigma of infamy on the members of Lord North’s administration.
MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.
The animus of opposition was exhibited in an unequivocal manner on the reassembling of parliament. On the 22nd of January, Sir Phillip Jennings Clarke moved for an account of the number of troops raised by private subscription, with the names of the commanding-officers. In the debate which followed this motion, ministers were accused of having incorporated 15,000 troops without consent of parliament, and represented their conduct in accepting their aid as most unconstitutional and inimical to the liberties of the country. Lord North, who agreed to the motion, in reply, argued that these spontaneous exertions proved that the people felt the insults and injuries offered to their king and country; and, also, that the country was not in that impoverished state which a jealous and impatient faction had asserted it was. Still the opposition hoped to obtain a vote of censure. In the house of lords the Earl of Abingdon moved that the twelve judges should be consulted as to the legality of raising troops without the authority of parliament. This motion was not pressed to a division; but, on the 4th of February, the same noble lord made another motion more specific, in order to cast blame upon government. He moved for a resolution that the grant of money in private aids or benevolences, without the sanction of parliament, for the purpose of raising armies, was against the spirit of the constitution and the letter of the law; and that, to obtain money by subscription was not only unconstitutional and illegal, but a direct infringement of the rights, and a breach of the privileges of parliament. This motion, after a warm debate, was negatived by ninety to thirty. On the same day in the commons, some money being demanded for the uniforms of these new troops, a still warmer discussion arose upon the subject. The new levies were treated with much discourtesy by the opposition; the two Scotch regiments, especially, being designated vile mercenaries, and willing tools of despotism. The opposition also maintained that such a practice of raising troops was contrary to the oath of coronation, and that all who subscribed were abettors of perjury. Lord North justified himself by precedents: he showed that independent regiments had been raised in 1745, and again in 1759, when Chatham was minister. On the latter occasion, he said, that Chatham had publicly and solemnly thanked those who raised such troops for the honour and service of their country. Yet, “that great oracle with a short memory,” on the very night on which Lord North reminded the lower house of this notable fact, declaimed in the upper house in support of the Earl of Abingdon’s motion against the practice Later in the session Wilkes renewed this subject, but the motion which he made relative to it was negatived by seventy-two against forty.
COMMITTEE FOR TAKING THE STATE OF THE NATION INTO CONSIDERATION.
On the 2nd of February, on the order of the day being read, for the house to resolve itself into a committee to take the state of the nation into consideration, Fox moved that no more troops should be sent out of the kingdom. On the same day, the Duke of Richmond, also, made a similar motion in the house of lords. In both houses the opposition represented that war with France and Spain was inevitable; and that our means of defence were not sufficient in the whole to meet the contingency; and, therefore, it was not prudent to protract an impracticable contest. No answer was made in the commons, but in the lords the motion and the arguments adduced in support of it were denounced as amounting to a public acknowledgment of our inability to prosecute war; as inviting the house of Bourbon to attempt an invasion; and as attacking the prerogative of the crown to raise, direct, and employ the military force of the kingdom. The motions were rejected in the lords by ninety-one against thirty-four; and in the commons by two hundred and ninety-five against one hundred and sixty-five.
BURKE’S MOTION RELATIVE TO THE EMPLOYMENT OF INDIANS.
On the 6th of February, Burke introdued a motion for papers relative to the employment of Indians in America, from 1774 to 1778. On this occasion he made a speech three hours in length, during the whole of which time the attention of the house was fixed on the orator. This speech, however, which is represented as being one of the most splendid efforts of his oratory, is very inadequately reported. From it, notwithstanding, it may be gathered that he drew a striking and ghastly picture of Indian warfare, and of the horrors committed by these savage auxiliaries. It had a greater effect upon the house than Chatham’s denunciations of the practice of employing the Indian tribes in our army, arising from the fact that the orator handled the subject with clean hands. Colonel Barré, excited by it, declared that if it were printed and published he would nail it on every church-door by the side of the king’s proclamation for a general fast; and Governor Johnson said it was fortunate for Lord North and Germaine that the galleries had been cleared before the speech was uttered, as the indignation and enthusiasm of strangers might have excited the people to lay violent hands upon them on their return home. The secret of the excitement occasioned by the speech seems chiefly to have consisted in the fact that it abounded in touching stories and pathetic episodes. Burke especially elaborated the affecting fate of Miss Mac Crea, who was strongly attached to the royal cause, and who, being on her way to marry an officer in Burgoyne’s army, was barbarously murdered by two Indian chiefs sent for her protection. The two chiefs having disputed which of them should be her principal guard and obtain a larger reward, he, from whose hands she was snatched, raised his tomahawk, and in a fit of rage cleft her head asunder. Such stories as these, founded in fact, were well calculated to produce excitement, especially as the murderer was left unscathed. Burke argued that these savage allies were too powerful, or their services too highly valued to run the risk of offending them; but it would rather appear that pardon was extended to the offender through an agreement with his tribe and the British general to abstain in future from indulging in such wanton cruelties, which Burgoyne considered of more importance than to take revenge on a wretch who scarcely knew that what he did was a sin either in the sight of God or man. Such stories as these, however, told upon the feelings of the house, and insured Burke strong-support. Governor Pownall, in taking the same side of the question, declared that there was not so unfair, so hellish an engine of war as savages mingled with civilized troops; and he recommended that terms should be proposed to congress whereby the two countries should mutually agree to break off all alliance with the Indians, and treat them as enemies whenever they should commit any act of hostility against a white person, American or European. He would answer for it, he said, that congress would embrace and execute such terms with good faith; and he suggested that the overture might occasion the happiest effects in producing mutual kind offices, and leading ultimately to a perfect reconciliation. He finally offered to go in person, without any pay or reward, and make the proposal to congress; asserting that he would answer with his life for the success of the negociation. But this noble proposal of Governor Pownall and Mr. Burke’s motion were alike rejected by a ministerial majority.