speak twice; I only finish what I designedly left | tutional rights. That was reserved to mark the imperfect. But if the House is of a different opinion, far be it from me to indulge a wish of transgression against order. I am content, if it be your pleasure, to be silent. [Here he paused. The House resounding with Go on! go on! he proceeded :] era of the late administration. Not that there were wanting some, when I had the honor to serve his Majesty, to propose to me to burn my fingers with an American stamp act. With the enemy at their back, with our bayonets at their breasts, in the day of their distress, perhaps the Americans would have submitted to the imposition; but it would have been taking an ungenerous, an unjust advantage. The gentleman boasts of his bounties to America! Are not these bounties intended finally for the benefit of this kingdom? If they are not, he has misapplied the national treasures! I am no courtier of America. I stand up for this kingdom. I maintain that the Parliament has a right to bind, to restrain America. Our legislative power over the colonies is sovereign and supreme. When it ceases to be sovereign and supreme, I would advise every gentleman to sell his lands, if he can, and embark for that country. When two countries are connected together like England and her colonies, without being incorporated, the one must necessarily govern. The greater must rule the less. she must so rule it as not to contradict the fundamental principles that are common to both. But If the gentleman does not understand the difference between external and internal taxes, I can not help it. There is a plain distinction between taxes levied for the purposes of raising a revenue, and duties imposed for the regulation of trade, for the accommodation of the subject; although, in the consequences, some revenue may incidentally arise from the latter. Gentlemen, sir, have been charged with giving birth to sedition in America. They have spoken their sentiments with freedom against this unhappy act, and that freedom has become their crime. Sorry I am to hear the liberty of speech in this House imputed as a crime. But the imputation shall not discourage me. It is a liberty I mean to exercise. No gentleman ought to be afraid to exercise it. It is a liberty by which the gentleman who calumniates it might have profited. He ought to have desist ed from his project. The gentleman tells us, America is obstinate; America is almost in open rebellion. I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people, so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest. I come not here armed at all points, with law cases and acts of Parliament, with the statute book doubled down in dog's ears, to defend the cause of liberty. If I had, I myself would have cited the two cases of Chester and Durham. I would have cited them to show that, even under former arbitrary reigns, Parliaments were ashamed of taxing a people without their consent, and allowed, them representatives. Why did the gentleman confine himself to Chester and Durham? He might have taken a higher example in Wales-Wales, that never was taxed by Parliament till it was incorporated. I would not debate a particular point of law with the gentleman. I know his abilities. I have been obliged to his diligent researches. But, for the defense of liberty, upon a general principle, upon a constitutional principle, it is a ground on which I stand firm-on which I dare meet any man. The gentleman tells us of many who are taxed, and are not represented the India Company, merchants, stock-nies, through all its branches, is two millions a holders, manufacturers. Surely many of these are represented in other capacities, as owners of land, or as freemen of boroughs. It is a misfortune that more are not equally represented. But they are all inhabitants, and, as such, are they not virtually represented? Many have it in their option to be actually represented. They have connections with those that elect, and they have influence over them. The gentleman mentioned the stockholders. I hope he does not reckon the debts of the nation as a part of the national estate. Since the accession of King William, many ministers, some of great, others of more moderate abilities, have taken the lead of government. [Here Mr. Pitt went through the list of them, bringing it down till he came to himself, giving a short sketch of the characters of each, and then proceeded:] None of these thought, or even dreamed, of robbing the colonies of their consti The gentleman asks, When were the colonies emancipated? I desire to know, when were they made slaves? But I dwell not upon words. When I had the honor of serving his Majesty, I availed myself of the means of information which I derived from my office. I speak, therefore, from knowledge. My materials were good. I was at pains to collect, to digest, to consider them; and I will be bold to affirm, that the profits to Great Britain from the trade of the colo year. This is the fund that carried you triumphantly through the last war. The estates that were rented at two thousand pounds a year, threescore years ago, are at three thousand at present. Those estates sold then from fifteen to eighteen years purchase; the same may now be sold for thirty. You owe this to America. This is the price America pays you for her protection. And shall a miserable financier come with a boast, that he can bring "a pepper-corn" into the exchequer by the loss of millions to the nation ? I dare not say how much higher these profits may be augmented. Omitting [i. e., not taking into account] the immense increase of people, by natural population, in the northern colonies, and the emigration from every part of 7 Alluding to Mr. Nugent, who had said that "a pepper-corn in acknowledgment of the right to tax America, was of more value than millions without it." Enrope, I am convinced [on other grounds] that the commercial system of America may be altered to advantage. You have prohibited where you ought to have encouraged. You have encouraged where you ought to have prohibited. Improper restraints have been laid on the continent in favor of the islands. You have but two nations to trade with in America. Would you had twenty! Let acts of Parliament in consequence of treaties remain; but let not an English minister become a custom-house officer for Spain, or for any foreign power. Much is wrong! Much may be amended for the general good of the whole! Does the gentleman complain he has been misrepresented in the public prints? It is a common misfortune. In the Spanish affair of the last war, I was abused in all the newspapers for having advised his Majesty to violate the laws of nations with regard to Spain. The abuse was industriously circulated even in handbills. If administration did not propagate the abuse, administration never contradicted it. I will not say what advice I did give the King. My advice is in writing, signed by myself, in the possession of the Crown. But I will say what advice I did not give to the King. I did not advise him to violate any of the laws of nations. As to the report of the gentleman's preventing in some way the trade for bullion with the Spaniards, it was spoken of so confidently that I own I am one of those who did believe it to be true. The gentleman must not wonder he was not contradicted when, as minister, he asserted the right of Parliament to tax America. I know not how it is, but there is a modesty in this House which does not choose to contradict a minister. Even your chair, sir, looks too often toward St. James's. I wish gentlemen would get the better of this modesty. If they do not, perhaps the collective body may begin to abate of its respect for the representative. Lord Bacon has told me, that a great question would not fail of being agitated at one time or another. I was willing to agitate such a question at the proper season, viz., that of the German warmy German war, they called it! Every session I called out, Has any body any objection to the German war 28 Nobody would object to it, one This speech is so much condensed by the reporter as sometimes to make the connection obscure. Mr. Pitt is answering Mr. Grenville's complaints by a reference to his own experience when minister. Had Mr. Grenville been misrepresented in the pub lic prints? So was Mr. Pitt in respect to "the Spanish affair of the last war." Had the Stamp Act been drawn into discussion, though originally passed with out contradiction? Mr. Grenville might easily understand that there was a reluctance to contradict the minister; and he might learn from Lord Bacon that a great question like this could not be avoided; it would be "agitated at one time or another." Mr. Pitt, when minister, had a great question of this kind, viz., the "German war," and he did not shrink from meeting it, or complain of the misrepresenta tion to which he was subjected. He had originally gentleman only excepted, since removed to the Upper House by succession to an ancient barony [Lord Le Despencer, formerly Sir Francis Dashwood]. He told me he did not like a German war. I honored the man for it, and was sorry when he was turned out of his post. A great deal has been said without doors of the power, of the strength of America. It is a topic that ought to be cautiously meddled with. In a good cause, on a sound bottom, the force of this country can crush America to atoms. I know the valor of your troops. I know the skill of your officers. There is not a company of foot that has served in America, out of which you may not pick a man of sufficient knowledge and experience to make a governor of a colony there. But on this ground, on the Stamp Act, which so many here will think a crying injustice, I am one who will lift up my hands against it. In such a cause, your success would be hazardous. America, if she fell, would fall like the strong man; she would embrace the pillars of the state, and pull down the Constitution along with her. Is this your boasted peace-not to sheathe the sword in its scabbard, but to sheathe it in the bowels of your countrymen? Will you quarrel with yourselves, now the whole house of Bourbon is united against you; while France disturbs your fisheries in Newfoundland, embarrasses your slave trade to Africa, and withholds from your subjects in Canada their property stipulated by treaty; while the ransom for the Manillas is denied by Spain, and its gallant conqueror basely traduced into a mean plunderer! a gentleman (Colonel Draper) whose noble and generous spirit would do honor to the proudest grandee of the country? The Americans have not acted in all things with prudence and temper: they have been wronged; they have been driven to madness by injustice. Will you punish them for the madness you have occasioned? Rather let prudence and temper come first from this side. I will undertake for America that she will follow the example. There are two lines in a ballad of Prior's, of a man's behavior to his wife, so applicable to you and your colonies, that I can not help repeating them: "Be to her faults a little blind; Be to her virtues very kind." Upon the whole, I will beg leave to tell the House what is my opinion. It is, that the Stamp Act be repealed absolutely, totally, and immedi resisted the disposition of George II. to engage in wars on the Continent. But when things had wholly changed, when England had united with Prussia to repress the ambition of Austria sustained by France and Russia, he did carry on “a German war," though not one of his own commencing. And he was always ready to meet the question. He challenged discussion. He called out, "Has any body objections to the German war?" Probably Mr. Pitt here alludes to an incident already refer red to. page 61, when, putting himself in an attitude of defiance, he exclaimed, “Is there an Austrian among you? Let him come forward and reveal himself!" ately. That the reason for the repeal be assign- | whatsoever!" Lord Camden, when the Declared, viz., because it was founded on an erroneous principle. At the same time, let the sovereign authority of this country over the colonies be asserted in as strong terms as can be devised, and be made to extend to every point of legislation whatsoever; that we may bind their trade, confine their manufactures, and exercise every power whatsoever, except that of taking their money out of their pockets without their consent. atory Act came into the House of Lords, took the same ground with Mr. Pitt in the House of Commons. "My position," said he, "is thisI repeat it-I will maintain it to the last hour: Taxation and representation are inseparable. This position is founded on the laws of nature. It is more; it is in itself an eternal law of nature. For whatever is a man's own is absolutely his own. No man has a right to take it from him without his consent, either expressed by himself or his representative. Whoever attempts to do this, attempts an injury. Whoever does it, commits a robbery. He throws down and destroys the distinction between liberty and slavery." Other counsels, however, prevailed. The Stamp Act was repealed, but the Declaratory Act was passed; its principles were carried out by Charles Townsend the very next year, by imposing new taxes; and the consequences are before the world. SPEECH OF LORD CHATHAM IN REPLY TO LORD MANSFIELD, IN RELATION TO THE CASE OF JOHN WILKES, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, JANUARY 9, 1770. INTRODUCTION. THIS was the first appearance of Lord Chatham in the House of Lords after his illness in 1767. The Duke of Grafton, his former friend and ally, was now minister, and had come out a virtual Tory. The case of John Wilkes agitated the whole kingdom. He had been expelled from the House of Commons for a "seditious libel," in February, 1769, and a new writ was issued for the election of a member from Middlesex. Wilkes was almost unanimously re-elected, and the House of Commons resolved, on the day after his election, that he was incapable of being chosen to that Parliament. Another election was therefore held; he was again chosen, and his election again declared void. A third was ordered, and the ministry now determined to contest it to the utmost. They prevailed upon Colonel Luttrell, son of Lord Irnham, to vacate his seat in the House, and become their candidate; but, with all their influence and bribery, they could obtain only 296 votes, while Wilkes numbered 1143. The latter, of course, was again returned as a member; but the House passed a resolution directing the clerk of the Crown to amend the return, by erasing the name of Mr. Wilkes and inserting that of Colonel Luttrell, who accordingly took his seat, in April, 1769. There is, at the present day, no difference of opinion as to these proceedings. "All mankind are agreed," says Lord Campbell, in his Lives of the Chancellors, "that the House of Commons acted illegally and unconstitutionally in expelling Mr. Wilkes for a supposed offense, committed before his re-election, and in seating Mr. Luttrell as representative for Middlesex." With Mr. Wilkes as an individual, Lord Chatham had no connection, either personal or political. He had, on the contrary, expressed his detestation of his character and principles, some years before, in the presence of Parliament. But he felt that one of the greatest questions had now arisen which was ever agitated in England, and that the House of Lords ought to enter their protest against this flagrant breach of the Constitution. He, perhaps, considered himself the more bound to come forward, because in his late ministry he had given the Duke of Grafton the place which he now held of First Lord of the Treasury, and had thus opened the way for the advancement of his grace to the station of Prime Minister. At all events, he determined, on the first day of his appearance in Parliament after his late ministry, to express his disapprobation of two measures which had been adopted by his former colleagues, viz., the taxation of America, and the expulsion of Mr. Wilkes. When, therefore, an address to the Throne was moved, January 9th, 1770, he came forward on both these subjects in one of his most celebrated speeches, but which, unfortunately, is very imperfectly preserved. He commenced with great impressiveness of manner: "At my advanced period of life, my Lords, bowing under the weight of my infirmities, I might, perhaps, have stood excused if I had continued in my retirement, and never taken part again in public affairs. But the alarming state of the country calls upon me to execute the duty which I owe to my God, my sovereign, and my country." He then took a rapid view of the external and internal state of the country. He lamented the measures which had alienated the colonies, and driven them to such excesses. But he still insisted that they should be treated with ten derness. "These excesses," he said, " are the mere eruptions of liberty, which break out upon the skin, and are a sign, if not of perfect health, at least of a vigorous constitution, and must not be repelled too suddenly, lest they should strike to the heart." He then passed to the case of Mr. Wilkes, and the prevailing discontent throughout the kingdom, in consequence of his expulsion from the House of Commons. The privileges of the House of Peers, he said, however transcendent, stood on the same broad bottom as the rights of the people. It was, therefore, their highest interest, as well as their duty, to watch over and protect the people; for when the people had lost their rights, the peerage would soon become insignificant. He referred, as an illustration, to the case of Spain, where the grandees, from neglecting and slighting the rights of the people, had been enslaved themselves. He concluded with the following remarkable passage: "My Lords, let this example be a lesson to us all. Let us be cautious how we admit an idea, that our rights stand on a footing different from those of the people. Let us be cautious how we invade the liberties of our fellow-subjects, however mean, however remote. For be assured, my Lords, in whatever part of the empire you suffer slavery to be established, whether it be in America, or in Ireland, or here at home, you will find it a disease which spreads by contact, and soon reaches from the extremities to the heart. The man who has lost his own freedom, becomes, from that moment, an instrument in the hands of an ambitious prince to destroy the freedom of others. These reflections, my Lords, are but too applicable to our present situation. The liberty of the subject is invaded, not only in the provinces, but here at home! The English people are loud in their complaints; they demand redress; and, depend upon it, my Lords, that, one way or another, they will have redress. They will never return to a state of tranquillity till they are redressed. Nor ought they. For in my judgment, my Lords, and I speak it boldly, it were better for them to perish in a glorious contention for their rights, than to purchase a slavish tranquillity at the expense of a single iota of the Constitution. Let me entreat your Lordships, then, by all the duties which you owe to your sovereign, to the country, and to yourselves, to perform the office to which you are called by the Constitution, by informing his Maj. esty truly of the condition of his subjects, and the real cause of their dissatisfaction." With this view, Lord Chatham concluded his speech by moving an amendment to the address, "That we will, with all convenient speed, take into our most serious consideration the causes of the discontents which prevail in so many parts of your Majesty's dominions, and particularly the late proceedings of the House of Commons touching the incapacity of John Wilkes, Esq., expelled by that House, to be re-elected a member to serve in the present Parliament, thereby refusing, by a resolution of one branch of the Legislature only, to the subject his common right, and depriving the electors of Middlesex of their free choice of a representative." mons. This amendment was powerfully resisted by Lord Mansfield. Nothing remains, however, of his speech. except a meager account of the general course of his argument. He contended "that the amendment violated every form and usage of Parliament, and was a gross attack on the privileges of the House of ComThat there never was an instance of the Lords inquiring into the proceedings of that House with respect to their own members, much less of their taking upon themselves to censure such proceedings, or of their advising the Crown to take notice of them. If, indeed, it be the purpose of the amendment to provoke a quarrel with the House of Commons, I confess,' said his Lordship, 'it will have that effect certainly and immediately. The Lower House will undoubtedly assert their privileges, and give you vote for vote. I leave it, therefore, to your Lordships, to consider the fatal effects which, in such a conjuncture as the present, may arise from an open breach between the two houses of Parliament." Lord Chatham immediately arose and delivered the following speech in reply. SPEECH, &c.' MY LORDS,-There is one plain maxim, to which I have invariably adhered through life: that in every question in which my liberty or my property were concerned, I should consult and be determined by the dictates of common sense. I confess, my Lords, that I am apt to distrust the refinements of learning, because I have seen the ablest and the most learned men equally liable to deceive themselves and to mislead others. The condition of human nature would be lamentable indeed, if nothing less than the greatest learning and talents, which fall to the share of This is the best reported and most eloquent speech of Lord Chatham, except that of November 18th, 1777. It was published at the time from manuscript notes taken by an unknown individual, who is now ascertained with almost absolute certainty to have been the celebrated Sir Philip Francis, considered by so many as the author of Junius's Letters. so small a number of men, were sufficient to direct our judgment and our conduct. But Providence has taken better care of our happiness, and given us, in the simplicity of common sense, a rule for our direction, by which we can never be misled. I confess, my Lords, I had no other guide in drawing up the amendment which I submitted to your consideration; and, before I heard the opinion of the noble Lord who spoke last, I did not conceive that it was even within the limits of possibility for the greatest human genius, the most subtle understanding, or the acutest wit, so strangely to misrepresent my meaning, and to give it an interpretation so entirely foreign from what I intended to express, and from that sense which the very terms of the amendment plainly and distinctly carry with them. If there be the smallest foundation for the censure thrown upon me by that noble Lord; if, either expressly, or by the most distant implication, I have said or insinuated any part of what the noble Lord has charged me with, discard my opinions forever, discard the motion with contempt. ing in that Parliament? And is it not their resolution alone which refuses to the subject his common right? The amendment says farther, that the electors of Middlesex are deprived of their free choice of a representative. Is this a false fact, my Lords? Or have I given an unfair representation of it? Will any man presume to affirm that Colonel Luttrell is the free choice of the electors of Middlesex? We all know the contrary. We all know that Mr. Wilkes (whom I mention without either praise or censure) was the favorite of the county, and chosen by a very great and acknowledged majority to represent them in Parliament. If the noble Lord dislikes the manner in which these facts are stated, I shall think myself happy in being advised by him how to alter it. I am very little anxious about terms, provided the substance be preserved; and these are facts, my Lords, which I am sure will always retain their weight and importance, in whatever form of language they are described. Now, my Lords, since I have been forced to enter into the explanation of an amendment, in which nothing less than the genius of penetration could have discovered an obscurity, and hav My Lords, I must beg the indulgence of the House. Neither will my health permit me, nor do I pretend to be qualified to follow that learned Lord minutely through the whole of his argument. No man is better acquainted with his abilities and learning, nor has a greater respect for them than I have. I have had the pleasure of sitting with him in the other House, and always listened to him with attention. I have not now lost a word of what he said, nor did I ever. Upon the present question I meet him without fear. The evidence which truth carries with it is superior to all argument; it neither wants the support, nor dreads the opposition of the greatest abilities. If there be a single word in the amendment to justify the interpretation which the noble Lord has been pleased to give it, I am ready to renounce the whole. Let it be read, my Lords; let it speak for itself. [It was read.] In what instance does it interfere with the privileges of the House of Commons? In what respect does it question their jurisdiction, or sup-ing, as I hope, redeemed myself in the opinion pose an authority in this House to arraign the of the House, having redeemed my motion from justice of their sentence? I am sure that every the severe representation given of it by the noble Lord who hears me will bear me witness, that Lord, I must a little longer entreat your LordI said not one word touching the merits of the ships' indulgence. The Constitution of this counMiddlesex election. So far from conveying any try has been openly invaded in fact; and I have' opinion upon that matter in the amendment, I heard, with horror and astonishment, that very did not even in discourse deliver my own senti- invasion defended upon principle. What is this inents upon it. I did not say that the House of mysterious power, undefined by law, unknown Commons had done either right or wrong; but, to the subject, which we must not approach when his Majesty was pleased to recommend it without awe, nor speak of without reverence— to us to cultivate unanimity among ourselves, I which no man may question, and to which all thought it the duty of this House, as the great men must submit? My Lords, I thought the hereditary council of the Crown, to state to his slavish doctrine of passive obedience had long Majesty the distracted condition of his dominions, since been exploded; and, when our Kings were together with the events which had destroyed obliged to confess that their title to the Crown, unanimity among his subjects. But, my Lords, and the rule of their government, had no other I stated events merely as facts, without the foundation than the known laws of the land, I smallest addition either of censure or of opinion. never expected to hear a divine right, or a diThey are facts, my Lords, which I am not only vine infallibility, attributed to any other branch convinced are true, but which I know are indis- of the Legislature. My Lords, I beg to be unputably true. For example, my Lords: will any derstood. No man respects the House of Comman deny that discontents prevail in many parts mons more than I do, or would contend more of his Majesty's dominions? or that those dis- strenuously than I would to preserve to them contents arise from the proceedings of the House their just and legal authority. Within the bounds of Commons touching the declared incapacity of prescribed by the Constitution, that authority is Mr. Wilkes? It is impossible. No man can necessary to the well-being of the people. Bedeny a truth so notorious. Or will any man yond that line, every exertion of power is arbideny that those proceedings refused, by a reso- trary, is illegal; it threatens tyranny to the peolution of one branch of the Legislature only, to ple, and destruction to the state. Power withthe subject his common right? Is it not indis-out right is the most odious and detestable object putably true, my Lords, that Mr. Wilkes had a that can be offered to the human imagination. common right, and that he lost it no other way It is not only pernicious to those who are subbut by a resolution of the House of Commons?ject to it, but tends to its own destruction. It My Lords, I have been tender of misrepresent- is what my noble friend [Lord Lyttleton] has ing the House of Commons. I have consulted truly described it, "Res detestabilis et caduca." their journals, and have taken the very words of My Lords, I acknowledge the just power, and their own resolution. Do they not tell us in so reverence the constitution of the House of Commany words, that Mr. Wilkes having been expelled, was thereby rendered incapable of serv 2 A thing hateful, and destined to destruction. |