Another friend of our country in England was David Hartley. He was constant and even pertinacious on our side, although less prophetic than Pownall, with whom he co-operated in purpose and activity. His father was Hartley the metaphysician, and author of the ingenious theory of sensation. The son was born 1729, and died at Bath, 1813, During our revolution he sat in Parliament for Kingston-upon-Hull. He was also the British plenipotentiary in negotiating the definitive Treaty of Peace with the United States. He, too, has dropped out of sight. In the biographical dictionaries he has only a few lines. But he deserves a considerable place in the history of our independence.
John Adams was often austere, and sometimes cynical in his judgments. Evidently he did not like Hartley. In one place he speaks of him as "talkative and disputatious, and not always intelligible";[66] then, as "a person of consummate vanity";[67] and then, again, when he was appointed to sign the definitive Treaty, he says, "it would have been more agreeable to have finished with Mr. Oswald";[68] and, in still another place, he records, "Mr. Hartley was as copious as usual."[69] And yet, when writing most elaborately to Count de Vergennes on the prospects of the negotiation with England, he introduces opinions of Hartley at length, saying that he was "more for peace than any man in the kingdom."[70] Such testimony may well outweigh the other expressions, especially as nothing of the kind appears in the correspondence of Franklin, with whom Hartley was much more intimate.
The Parliamentary History is a sufficient monument for Hartley. He was a frequent speaker, and never missed an opportunity of pleading our cause. Although without the immortal eloquence of Burke, he was always clear and full. Many of his speeches seem to have been written out by himself. He was not a tardy convert. He began as "a new member" by supporting an amendment favorable to the Colonies, 5th December, 1774. In March, 1775, he brought forward "propositions for conciliation with America," which he sustained in an elaborate speech, where he avowed that the American Question had occupied him already for some time:—
"Though I have so lately had the honor of a seat in this House, yet I have for many years turned my thoughts and attention to matters of public concern and national policy. This question of America is now of many years' standing."[71]
In the course of this speech he thus acknowledges the services of New England at Louisburg:—
"In that war too, sir, they took Louisburg from the French, single-handed, without any European assistance,—as mettled an enterprise as any in our history,—an everlasting memorial of the zeal, courage, and perseverance of the troops of New England. The men themselves dragged the cannon over a morass which had always been thought impassable, where neither horses nor oxen could go, and they carried the shot upon their backs. And what was their reward for this forward and spirited enterprise,—for the reduction of this American Dunkirk? Their reward, sir, you know very well; it was given up for a barrier to the Dutch."[72]
All his various propositions were negatived; but he was not disheartened. On every occasion he spoke,—now on the budget, then on the address, and then on specific propositions. At this time he asserted the power of Parliament over the Colonies, and he proposed on the 2d November, 1775, that a test of submission by the Colonists should be the recognition of an act of Parliament, "enacting that all the slaves in America should have the trial by jury."[73] Shortly afterwards on the 5th December, 1775, he brought forward another set of "propositions for conciliation with America," where, among other things, he embodied the test on slavery, which he put forward as a compromise; and here his language belongs, not only to the history of our Revolution, but to the history of anti-slavery. While declaring that in his opinion Great Britain was "the aggressor in everything," he sought to bring the two countries together on a platform of human rights, which he thus explained:—
"The act to be proposed to America, as an auspicious beginning to lay the first stone of universal liberty to mankind, should be what no American could hesitate an instant to comply with, namely, that every slave in North America should be entitled to his trial by jury in all criminal cases. America cannot refuse to accept and enroll such an act as this, and thereby to re-establish peace and harmony with the parent state. Let us all be re-united in this, as a foundation to extirpate slavery from the face of the earth. Let those who seek justice and liberty for themselves give that justice and liberty to their fellow-creatures. With respect to putting a final period to slavery in North America, it should seem best that, when this country had led the way by the act for jury, each Colony, knowing their own peculiar circumstances, should undertake the work in the most practicable way, and that they should endeavor to establish some system by which slavery should be in a certain term of years abolished. Let the only contention henceforward between Great Britain and America be, which shall exceed the other in zeal for establishing the fundamental rights of liberty for all mankind."[74]
The motion was rejected; but among the twenty-three in its favor were Fox and Burke. During this same month the unwearied defender of our country came forward again, declaring that he could not be "an adviser or a well-wisher to any of the vindictive operations against America, because the cause is unjust; but at the same time he must be equally earnest to secure British interests from destruction," and he thus prophesies:—
"The fate of America is cast. You may bruise its heel; but you cannot crush its head. It will revive again. The new world is before them. Liberty is theirs. They have possession of a free government, their birthright and inheritance, derived to them from their parent state, which the hand of violence cannot wrest from them. If you will cast them off, my last wish is to them, May they go and prosper!"