XVIIL 1778. BOOK which it had been prosecuted. He laid it down ☑ as an incontrovertible axiom, "that it was impossible for any country to fall within so few years from the high pitch of power and glory which we had done, without some radical error in its government. The present calamitous state of the nation was evidently to be traced to the blind obstinacy and wretched incapacity of its ministers, who could not listen to any overtures of conciliation, who would not carry into effect any plan of coercion. He made it appear from the papers before them, that at a time when we were in immediate danger of encountering the whole force of the house of Bourbon, united with that of America, the army in England and Ireland had been so reduced and weakened by the continual drain of the war, as to fall several thousand men short of the usual peace establishment. To abandon the ministerial plan of conquest was therefore a matter not of choice but necessity, when the force employed in America was so much diminished in consequence of the late disastrous events, and when it was incapable of being reinforced without leaving this country absolutely without defence. Upon this ground Mr. Fox moved as a resolution of the committee, "that an address should be presented to his majesty, beseeching his majesty that no part of the national force in these kingdoms, or in the XVIII. 1778. garrisons of Gibraltar or Minorca, should be BOOK sent to America." To the infinite surprize of the public, no debate ensued, nor was any reply whatever made to this speech; but the question being called for, the motion was rejected on a division by a majority of 259 to 165, the largest minority that had yet appeared in this parliament in opposition to the ministry. In a few days after this Mr. Burke moved for the papers relative to the employment of the Indians; and in a speech distinguished by that glow and warmth of coloring, which characterized him on all occasions as a public speaker, he reprobated the measure as replete with disgrace and infamy. "The Indian mode of making war," he said, " was so horrible, as not only to shock the manners of all civilized nations, but far to exceed the ferocity of any other barbarians recorded in antient or modern history. Their chief glory consisted in the number of human scalps which they acquired, and their chief delight was in the practice of torturing, mangling, roasting, and devouring their captives. The attempt to prevent these enormities was wholly unavailing. Mr. Burke treated with contempt the efforts made to restrain them for what in effect was the language employed for this purpose? Go ye tender lions, ye gentle tygers, ye merciful wolves, ye meek and christian-hearted XVIII. 1778. BOOK hyænas, go fight the battles of the great Kingbut shed no blood." Those Indians employed both by general Burgoyne and colonel St. Leger had indiscriminately murdered men, women, and children-friends and foes-armed or unarmed, without distinction. The horrid murder of Miss Macrae, on the morning of her intended marriage with an officer of the king's troops, and the massacre in cold blood of the prisoners taken in an engagement near Fort Stanwix, were particularly instanced as proofs of the absolute impracticability of restraining the barbarities of these savages." After a long debate Mr. Burke's motion was negatived by a majority of 223 to 197. Various other motions made by Mr. Fox, colonel Barré, and Mr. Burke, in the committee of enquiry, being also rejected, the minister gave notice that he had digested a plan of conciliation, which he meant shortly to lay before the house. Accordingly, on the 17th of February, 1778, lord North moved for leave to bring in"1. A bill for removing all doubts and apprehensions concerning taxation by the parliament of Great Britain in any of the colonies and plantations in North America; and 2. A bill to enable his majesty to appoint commissioners with sufficient powers to treat, consult, and agree upon the means of quieting the disorders now subsisting in certain of the colonies in Ame-воок rica." His lordship, in opening his plan, acknowledged, that he had always known that American taxation could never produce a beneficial revenue-that it was not his policy to tax them, but that he had found them taxed when he unfortunately came into administration-and that he could not possibly suspect the regulation he had introduced in relation to the tea-duty could have been productive of such fatal consequences. With respect to the coercive acts, his lordship said, they had appeared necessary to remedy the distempers of the time; he complained, that the events of war had turned out very differently from what he had a right to expect from the great and well appointed force sent over; but to events and not expectations he must make his plan conform. His lordship said, that the appointment of five commissioners was in contemplation, who should be enabled to treat with the congress as if it were a legal body; or with any individuals in their present civil caраcities, or military commads;-that they should have a power to order a suspension of arms, to suspend the operation of all laws, and to grant all sorts of pardons. A preliminary renunciation of independency would not be required of America, and a contribution in any shape from Ame XVIII. 1778. XVIIL 1778. Book rica was not to be insisted upon as a sine qua nozz of the treaty. These concessions his lordship declared to be founded on reason and propriety; and if the question was asked, Why they had not been sooner proposed? he should reply, that the moment of victory, for which he had anxiously waited, seemed to him the only proper season for offering terms of concession. But though the result of the war had proved unfavourable, he would no longer delay the desirable and necessary work of reconciliation." Never, perhaps, was the inexpressible absurdity of the ministerial system more apparent than at the present moment. The powers now granted were obviously analogous to those with which it was the object of the motion made by the duke of Grafton, in the spring of 1776, to invest the former commissioners, lord and general Howe. Had that motion been adopted, the contest might unquestionably have been, with the utmost facility, amicably and honourably terminated; but the general aspect of affairs since that period was totally changed. From the declaration of independency which America had once made, she could never be expected to recede. The strength of Great Britain had been tried, and found unequal to the contest. The measures adopted by the English government, particularly in the employment of German mercenaries and |