tinguished advantages; and to cause the firm reliance and confidence which I have in the wisdom of my parliament, as well as in their zeal for the true interest of my people, to be justified and approved, both at home and abroad."

An Address of Thanks to the King having been moved by Sir George Osborne, and seconded by Sir Ralph Payne, Mr. Dowdeswell proposed the following amendment, "to assure His Majesty that this House will immediately enquire into the causes of the unhappy discontents which at present prevail in every part of His Majesty's dominions." The amendment was supported by Mr. Beckford, Mr. Cornwall, Lord George Sackville, Mr. Sheriff Townshend, Sir George Savile, Mr. Serjeant Glynn, Colonel Barré, and Mr. Burke: it was opposed by Lord Clare, Mr. Attorney General De Grey, Mr. Jenkinson, Mr. Rigby, Mr. Dyson, General Conway, Lord North, and others. Mr. Burke followed Lord North; what he said upon this occasion is thus given in the Gentleman's Magazine for January 1770.

Mr. BURKE rose and said:

Sir; The noble lord who spoke last, after extending his right leg a full yard before his left, rolling his flaming eyes, and moving his ponderous frame, at length opened his mouth. I was all attention. After these portents, I expected something still more awful and tremendous: I expected that the Tower would have been threatened in articulated thunder; but I have heard only a feeble remonstrance against violence and passion: when I expected the powers of destruction to "cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war," an overblown bladder has burst, and nobody has been hurt by the crack. Metaphors might easily be multiplied upon this occasion, but I remember an old scholastic aphorism, that beings must not be multiplied without a necessity. The noble lord has lamentably bewailed the mischiefs that he has suffered from mean arts, which show at once the weakness and malice of his opposers. He says, that his words have been misrepresented, and his meaning perverted; and I am inclined to believe that, if any meaning at all has been imputed to him, the first part of the charge may be true; his own words have no meaning, and therefore their meaning cannot be per

15

verted if words have been imputed to him that have a meaning, he has certainly suffered wrong, and I hope that gentlemen will for the future be more cautious how they commit such offences against ministers of state. I have this day watched his words with an honest solicitude to catch some that had a meaning, but the ideas they convey, are like those of a dream in the night, all incoherence and confusion.

--

He has told us, Sir, that the people have been persuaded there are grievances, by writing, meeting, and speaking; but if it is a fault to persuade by writing, meeting, and speaking, let him tell us what means of persuasion more eligible he has discovered. Writing, and meeting, and speaking, about grievances, do not make them: it has, indeed, been insinuated that our grievances are imaginary, because they are such as the peasants, or artificers of Yorkshire, would not immediately feel, nor perhaps discover till they felt. But if those who see oppression in its distant though certain approach, if those who see the subversion of liberty in its cause are always few, does it follow that there never are approaches to oppression, or remote causes of the subversion of liberty? If the few who can and do discover effects in their causes open the eyes of others, if those who see the rights of election invaded in Middlesex, acquaint the graziers and clothiers of remote counties with their interest in the event and its consequences, are they, for that reason, leaders of a faction, actuated by personal and selfish views? If all who are interested see their danger and seek redress, does it follow that they implicitly re-echo a causeless complaint? Or when redress is refused them, can it be pretended that they are well affected?

The ministers of the unhappy Charles the First told the same tales that are told now, and practised the same arts of delusion. When the people were ready to tear the crown from his head, they persuaded him that he was the idol of their hearts; that there was no discontent but

he had no enemies, but those who endeavoured to remove from his presence the men who were bringing him to the block. He was soothed with this fatal falsehood to his dying hour, and was weak enough to believe even upon the scaffold, that his affectionate people would not let him suffer.

But some of our ministerial gentlemen insist, that there are no grievances; others venture to deny that there are complaints. Those who admit that there are complaints, but deny that there are grievances, say, that the rabble, the base-born, the scum of the earth, are always discontented, and eagerly fasten upon any thing that is held up before them, as a justification of their discontent; the others deny that even this rabble, this scum of the earth are discontented; they have travelled the country through, and they find no discontent any where: both representations cannot be true, and it rests with these immaculate gentlemen to determine by which they will abide. It matters, indeed, not much what they pretend; it is manifest that such counsel is given and such measures pursued, as cannot fail to destroy that confidence and harmony which should ever subsist between a prince and his people: military executions have been wantonly exercised and wickedly countenanced; murders have been abetted, and murderers protected, encouraged, and rewarded: public money has been shamefully squandered, and no account given of millions that have been misapplied to the purposes of venality and corruption: obsolete and vexatious claims of the crown have been revived, with a view to influence the elections of members to sit in this House; the majority of one branch of the legislature have arrogantly assumed the power of the whole, and daringly superseded the law of the land by their resolutions; the humble petitions of the people to their gracious sovereign refused and discountenanced. The same baneful influence under which this country is governed, is extended to our fellow-sufferers in America; the constitutional rights of Englishmen are invaded, and money raised upon the sub

ject without his consent: whose legislative assemblies have been suspended, for no other reason than their having assented to unalienable rights of their constituents; British subjects in America have been threatened to be seized and brought to England, for crimes supposed to have been committed there: menaces have been used to intimidate the legislature of our provinces, and extort a compliance with ministerial requisitions that are altogether arbitrary and unjust: their admiralty courts are supported in the exercise of an oppressive power, by which the property of the subject is put into the hands of officers, who are interested in their condemnation. And now let me ask the most hardy of the ministerial hirelings, if there are no grievances.

At a time, Sir, when our taxes are higher than they have been at any former period, and trade every where declining-when our brethren in America are driven from the bosom of their mother country to the arms of foreign nations, whom their commerce will strengthen and enrichwhen in every part of our dominions the best, the wisest, and the most moderate men are ready to forget their alle giance, these hardened profligates sit unmoved, and would gravely persuade us, that there are neither grievances, discontents, nor complaints. While the vessel of state is beaten by a storm that threatens destruction, they are neither in the distress, nor sensible of the danger: they do nothing either for those who trim the sails, or for him that holds the helm, but stand, like horned cattle in the hold, torpid and insensible to all the horrors that surround them. Are these the men that are selected to carry on the government of a great nation? Look round, and you will find them al! of a class.

Whom have they selected in these perilous times to soothe the animosity, and reconcile the differences that now unhappily subsist between our colonies and the mothe country? I need not name the man*; every body knows him as a projector, as one who, by wild and chimerical

* Lord Botetourt.

3348

་་་

got my so embarrassed his own affairs as to his country impracticable, but brought

apon many others. These are services - proper to reward; this is a character erson determined to appropriate: the self us fugitive, therefore, was dignified with commission, and he that could no longer s own country, was made governor of another; reggie his own affairs, as a private individual, into sere confusion, is sent in a public character to su

Bose of a numerous and commercial people. y endd*, Sir, obtained leave to read, as a sample wie Lord's abilities to execute his trust, part of his assembly of Virginia, I hope therefore that I ged in a like favour. "It adds greatly," of burgesses in Virginia, "to our satisfacdence, to hear from your excellency, that his ut administration has at no time entertained proposing to parliament the laying any farther America for the purposes of raising a revenue,

not suffer our present hopes, arising from the espect your lordship has so kindly opened and aus, to be dashed by the bitter reflection, that administration will entertain a wish to depart

which affords the sincerest and most permanation of public tranquillity and happiness: no, * ej we are sure our most gracious sovereign, under heges may happen in his confidential servants, it table in the ways of truth and justice, and who da ingable of deceiving his faithful subjects; and w your lordship's information, not only as warperrgå den erva sanctified by the royal word.” In answer aphic attrs says his lordship, "Your kind and affec

more is heightens my present, and fills me with the moth expectations of my fully answering the purpown of my mal master. May the Almighty secure to me that most desirable object, by directing your councils

*Colonel Barré.