fectly ruined) one would think it must be their interest to provide, if possible, some further security for the terms, which they may obtain from their enemies. If the congress could be brought to declare in favour of those terms, for which 100 members of the house of commons voted last year, with some civility to the party which held out those terms, it would undoubtedly have an effect to revive the cause of our liberties in England, and to give the colonies some sort of mooring and anchorage in this country. It seemed to me, that Franklin might be made to feel the propriety of such a step; and as I have an acquaintance with him, I had a strong desire of taking a turn to Paris. Every thing else failing, one might obtain a better knowledge of the general aspect of affairs abroad, than, I believe, any of us possess at present. The duke of Portland approved the idea. But when I had conversed with the very few of your lordship's friends, who were in town, and considered a little more maturely the constant temper and standing maxims of the party, I laid aside the design; not being desirous of risking the displeasure of those, for whose sake alone I wished to take that fatiguing journey at this severe season of the year. The duke of Portland has taken with him some heads of deliberation, which were the result of a discourse with his Grace and Mr. Montagu at Burlington House. It seems essential to the cause, that your lordship should meet your friends with some settled plan either of action or inaction. Your friends will certainly require such a plan, and I am sure the state of affairs requires it, whether they call for it or not. As to the measure of a secession with reasons, after rolling the matter in my head a good deal, and turning it a hundred ways, I confess I still think it the most advisable, notwithstanding the serious objections that lie against it, and indeed the extreme uncertainty of all political measures, especially at this time. It provides for your honour. I know of nothing else, that can so well do this: it is something, perhaps all, that can be done in our present situation. Some precaution, in this respect, is not without its motives. That very estimation, for which you have sacrificed every thing else, is in some danger of suffering in the general wreck; and perhaps it is likely to suffer the more, because you have hitherto confided more, than was quite prudent, in the clearness of your intentions, and in the solidity of the popular judgment upon them. The former, indeed, is out of the power of events; the latter is full of levity, and the very creature of fortune. However, such as it is, (and for one I do not think I am inclined to overvalue it,) both our interest and our duty make it necessary for us to attend to it very carefully, so long as we act a part in publick. The measure you take for this purpose may produce no immediate effect; but with regard to the party, and the principles for whose sake the party exists, all hope of their preservation or recovery depends upon your preserving your reputation. By the conversation of some friends, it seemed as if they were willing to fall in with this design, because it promised to emancipate them from the servitude of irksome business, and to afford them an opportunity of retiring to ease and tranquillity. If that be their object in the secession and addresses proposed, there surely never were means worse chosen to gain their end; and if this be any part of their project, it were a thousand times better it were never undertaken.-The measure is not only unusual, and as such critical, but it is in its own nature strong and vehement in a high degree. The propriety, therefore, of adopting it depends entirely upon the spirit with which it is supported and followed. To pursue violent measures with languor and irresolution is not very consistent in speculation, and not more reputable or safe in practice. If your lordship's friends do not go to this business with their whole hearts, if they do not feel themselves uneasy without it, if they do not undertake it with a certain degree of zeal, and even with warmth and indignation, it had better be removed wholly out of our thoughts. A measure of less strength, and more in the beaten circle of affairs, if supported with spirit and industry, would be, on all accounts, infinitely more eligible.-We have to consider what it is, that, in this undertaking, we have against us: we have the weight of king, lords, and commons, in the other scale we have against us, within a trifle, the whole body of the law: we oppose the more considerable part of the landed and mercantile interests: we contend, in a manner, against the whole church: we set our faces against great armies flushed with victory, and navies, who have tasted of civil spoil, and have a strong appetite for more: our strength, whatever it is, must depend, for a good part of its effect, upon events not very probable. In such a situation, such a step requires not only great magnanimity, but unwearied activity and perseverance, with a good deal too of dexterity and management, to improve every accident in our favour. The delivery of this paper may have very important consequences. It is true, that the court may pass it over in silence, with a real or affected contempt. But this I do not think so likely. If they do take notice of it, the mildest course will be such an address from parliament, as the house of commons made to the king on the London remonstrance in the year 1769. This address will be followed by addresses of a similar tendency, from all parts of the kingdom, in order to overpower you with what they will endeavour to pass as the united voice and sense of the nation. But if they intend to proceed further, and to take steps of a more decisive nature, you are then to consider, not what they may legally and justly do, but what a parliament, omnipotent in power, influenced with party rage and personal resentment, operating under the implicit military obedience of court discipline, is capable of. Though they have made some successful experiments on juries, they will hardly trust enough to them to order a prosecution for a supposed libel. They may proceed in two ways, either by an impeachment, in which the | without doors just in what light they please. To Tories may retort on the Whigs (but with better success, though in a worse cause) the proceedings in the case of Sacheverel, or they may, without this form, proceed, as against the bishop of Rochester, by a bill of pains and penalties more or less grievous. The similarity of the cases, or the justice, is (as I said) out of the question. The mode of proceeding has several very ancient, and very recent, precedents. None of these methods is impossible. The court may select three or four of the most distinguished among you for the victims; and therefore nothing is more remote from the tendency of the proposed act, than any idea of retirement or repose. On the contrary, you have all of you, as principals or auxiliaries, a much better and more desperate conflict, in all probability, to undergo than any you have been yet engaged in. The only question is, whether the risk ought to be run for the chance (and it is no more) of recalling the people of England to their ancient principles, and to that personal interest, which formerly they took in all publick affairs? At any rate I am sure it is right, if we take this step, to take it with a full view of the consequences; and with minds and measures in a state of preparation to meet them. It is not becoming, that your boldness should arise from a want of foresight. It is more reputable, and certainly it is more safe too, that it should be grounded on the evident necessity of encountering the dangers, which you foresee. Your lordship will have the goodness to excuse me, if I state, in strong terms, the difficulties attending a measure, which on the whole I heartily concur in. But as, from my want of importance, I can be, personally, little subject to the most trying part of the consequences, it is as little my desire to urge others to dangers, in which I am myself to have so inconsiderable a share. If this measure should be thought too great for our strength, or the dispositions of the times, then the point will be to consider, what is to be done in parliament. A weak, irregular, desultory, peevish opposition there will be as much too little as the other may be too big. Our scheme ought to be such, as to have in it a succession of measures; else it is impossible to secure any thing like a regular attendance; opposition will otherwise always carry a disreputable air; neither will it be possible, without that attendance, to persuade the people that we are in earnest. Above all, a motion should be well digested for the first day. There is one thing in particular I wish to recommend to your lordship's consideration; that is, the opening of the doors of the house of commons. Without this, I am clearly convinced, it will be in the power of ministry to make our opposition appear obtain a gallery is the easiest thing in the world, if we are satisfied to cultivate the esteem of our adversaries by the resolution and energy, with which we act against them but if their satisfaction and good humour be any part of our object, the attempt, I admit, is idle. I had some conversation, before I left town, with the d. of M. He is of opinion, that, if you adhere to your resolution of seceding, you ought not to appear on the first day of the meeting. He thinks it can have no effect, except to break the continuity of your conduct, and thereby to weaken and fritter away the impression of it. It certainly will seem odd to give solemn reasons for a discontinuance of your attendance in parliament, after having two or three times returned to it, and im mediately after a vigorous act of opposition. As to trials of the temper of the house, there have been of that sort so many already, that I see no reason for making another, that would not hold equally good for another after that; particularly, as nothing has happened in the least calculated to alter the disposition of the house. If the secession were to be general, such an attendance, followed by such an act, would have force; but being in its nature incomplete and broken, to break it further by retreats and returns to the chase must entirely destroy its effect. I confess I am quite of the d. of M.'s opinion in this point. I send your lordship a corrected copy of the paper; your lordship will be so good to communicate it, if you should approve of the alterations, to Lord J. C. and Sir G. S. I shewed it to the d. of P. before his Grace left town, and at his, the d. of P.'s desire, I have sent it to the d. of R. The principal alteration is in the pages last but one. It is made to remove a difficulty, which bac been suggested to Sir G. S. and which he thou had a good deal in it. I think it much the bettes for that alteration. Indeed it may want still more corrections, in order to adapt it to the present probable future state of things. What shall I say in excuse for this long letter. which frightens me when I look back upon it Your lordship will take it, and all in it, with your usual incomparable temper, which carries you through so much both from enemies and frieres. My most humble respects to Lady R. and belie me, with the highest regard, ever, &c. E. B. I hear that Dr. Franklin has had a most ex traordinary reception at Paris from all ranks of Beaconsfield, Monday night, AN ADDRESS TO THE KING.* We, your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, several of the peers of the realm, and several members of the house of commons chosen by the people to represent them in parliament, do in our individual capacity, but with hearts filled with a warm affection to your Majesty, with a strong attachment to your royal house, and with the most unfeigned devotion to your true interest, beg leave, at this crisis of your affairs, in all humility to approach your royal presence. Whilst we lament the measures adopted by the publick councils of the kingdom, we do not mean to question the legal validity of their proceedings. We do not desire to appeal from them to any person whatsoever. We do not dispute the conclusive authority of the bodies, in which we have a place, over all their members. We know, that it is our ordinary duty to submit ourselves to the determinations of the majority, in every thing, except what regards the just defence of our honour and reputation. But the situation, into which the British empire has been brought, and the conduct, to which we are reluctantly driven in that situation, we hold ourselves bound by the relation, in which we stand both to the Crown and the people, clearly to explain to your Majesty and our country. We have been called upon in the speech from the throne at the opening of this session of parliament, in a manner peculiarly marked, singularly emphatical, and from a place, from whence any thing implying censure falls with no common weight, to concur in unanimous approbation of those measures, which have produced our present distresses, and threaten us in future with others far more grievous. We trust, therefore, that we shall stand justified in offering to our sovereign and the publick our reasons for persevering inflexibly in our uniform dissent from every part of those measures. We lament them from an experience of their mischief, as we originally opposed them from a sure foresight of their unhappy and inevitable tendency. | ments in a design, of which, in our turn, we might become the victims. Knowing the inestimable value of peace, and the contemptible value of what was sought by war, we wished to compose the distractions of our country, not by the use of foreign arms, but by prudent regulations in our own domestick policy. We deplored, as your Majesty has done in your speech from the throne, the disorders which prevail in your empire: but we are convinced, that the disorders of the people, in the present time and in the present place, are owing to the usual and natural cause of such disorders at all times and in all places, where such have prevailed,—the misconduct of government;—that they are owing to plans laid in errour, pursued with obstinacy, and conducted without wisdom. We cannot attribute so much to the power of faction, at the expense of human nature, as to suppose, that in any part of the world a combination of men, few in number, not considerable in rank, of no natural hereditary dependencies, should be able, by the efforts of their policy alone, or the mere exertion of any talents, to bring the people of your American dominions into the disposition, which has produced the present troubles. We cannot conceive, that, without some powerful concurring cause, any management should prevail on some millions of people, dispersed over an whole continent, in thirteen provinces, not only unconnected, but in many particulars of religion, manners, government, and local interest totally different and adverse, voluntarily to submit themselves to a suspension of all the profits of industry and all the comforts of civil life, added to all the evils of an unequal war carried on with circumstances of the greatest asperity and rigour. This, Sir, we conceive, could never have happened, but from a general sense of some grievance, so radical in its nature, and so spreading in its effects, as to poison all the ordinary satisfactions of life, to discompose the frame of society, and to convert into fear and hatred that habitual reverence ever paid by mankind to an ancient and venerable government. That grievance is as simple in its nature, and as level to the most ordinary understanding, as it is powerful in affecting the most languid passions;— it is We see nothing in the present events, in the least degree, sufficient to warrant an alteration in our opinion. We were always steadily averse to this civil war-not because we thought it impossible that it should be attended with victory; but because we were fully persuaded, that in such a contest, victory would only vary the mode of our ruin; and, by making it less immediately sensible," would render it the more lasting and the more irretrievable. Experience had but too fully instructed us in the possibility of the reduction of a free people to slavery by foreign mercenary armies. But we had an horrour of becoming the instru • See note, p. 392. "AN ATTEMPT MADE TO DISPOSE OF THE PROPERTY OF A WHOLE PEOPLE WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT.” Your Majesty's English subjects in the colonies, possessing the ordinary faculties of mankind, know, that to live under such a plan of government is not to live in a state of freedom. Your English subjects in the colonies, still impressed with the ancient feelings of the people, from whom they are derived, cannot live under a government which does not establish freedom as its basis. This scheme being therefore set up in airect opposition to the rooted and confirmed sentiments and habits of thinking of an whole people, has produced the effects, which ever must result from such a collision of power and opinion. For we beg leave, with all duty and humility, to represent to your Majesty, (what we fear has been industriously concealed from you,) that it is not merely the opinion of a very great number, or even of the majority, but the universal sense of the whole body of the people in those provinces, that the practice of taxing, in the mode, and on the principles, which have been lately contended for and enforced, is subversive of all their rights. This sense has been declared, as we understand on good information, by the unanimous voice of all their assemblies; each assembly also, on this point, is perfectly unanimous within itself. It has been declared as fully by the actual voice of the people without these assemblies, as by the constructive voice within them; as well by those in that country who addressed, as by those who remonstrated; and it is as much the avowed opinion of those, who have hazarded their all rather than take up arms against your majesty's forces, as of those, who have run the same risk to oppose them. The difference among them is, not on the grievance, but on the mode of redress; and we are sorry to say, that they, who have conceived hopes from the placability of the ministers, who influence the publick councils of this kingdom, disappear in the multitude of those, who conceive, that passive compliance only confirms and emboldens oppression. to which we did not consent, either directly, or by When the late attempt practically to annihilate that inestimable privilege was made, great disorders and tumults, very unhappily and very naturally, arose from it. In this state of things, we were of opinion, that satisfaction ought instantly to b given; or that, at least, the punishment of the The sense of a whole people, most gracious disorder ought to be attended with the redress of sovereign, never ought to be contemned by wise the grievance. We were of opinion, that if eut and beneficent rulers; whatever may be the ab- dependencies had so outgrown the positive instit stract claims, or even rights, of the supreme power. tions made for the preservation of liberty in this We have been too early instructed, and too long kingdom, that the operation of their powers was habituated to believe, that the only firm seat of all become rather a pressure than a relief to the subauthority is in the minds, affections, and interests jects in the colonies, wisdom dictated, that the of the people, to change our opinions on the the-spirit of the constitution should rather be appli oretick reasonings of speculative men, or for the convenience of a mere temporary arrangement of state. It is not consistent with equity or wisdom to set at defiance the general feelings of great communities, and of all the orders which compose them. Much power is tolerated, and passes unquestioned, where much is yielded to opinion. All is disputed, where every thing is enforced. Such are our sentiments on the duty and policy of conforming to the prejudices of a whole people, even where the foundation of such prejudices may be false or disputable. But permit us to lay at your Majesty's feet our deliberate judgment on the real merits of that principle, the violation of which is the known ground and origin of these troubles. We assure your Majesty, that, on our parts, we should think ourselves unjustifiable, as good citizens, and not influenced by the true spirit of Englishmen, if, with any effectual means of prevention in our hands, we were to submit to taxes, to their circumstances, than its authority enforced with violence in those very parts, where its reason became wholly inapplicable. Other methods were then recommended, and followed, as infallible means of restoring peace and order. We looked upon them to be, what the have since proved to be, the cause of inflaming discontent into disobedience, and resistance int revolt. The subversion of solemn, fundamental charters, on a suggestion of abuse, without etation, evidence, or hearing: the total suspension c the commerce of a great maritime city, the capital of a great maritime province, during the pleas of the Crown: the establishment of a military force, not accountable to the ordinary tribunals of the country, in which it was kept up :-these and other proceedings at that time, if no previces cause of dissension had subsisted, were sufficiert to produce great troubles: unjust at all times, they were then irrational. We could not conceive, when disorders had arisen from the complaint of one violated right, that to violate every other was the proper means of quieting an exasperated people. It seemed to us absurd and preposterous to hold out, as the means of calming a people in a state of extreme inflammation, and ready to take up arms, the austere law, which a rigid conqueror would impose, as the sequel of the most decisive victories. Recourse, indeed, was at the same time had to force; and we saw a force sent out, enough to menace liberty, but not to awe opposition; tending to bring odium on the civil power, and contempt on the military; at once to provoke and encourage resistance. Force was sent out not sufficient to hold one town: Laws were passed to inflame thirteen provinces. At length British blood was spilled by British hands-a fatal era, which we must ever deplore, because your empire will for ever feel it! Your Majesty was touched with a sense of so great a disaster. Your paternal breast was affected with the sufferings of your English subjects in America. In your speech from the throne, in the beginning of the session of 1775, you were graciously pleased to declare yourself inclined to relieve their distresses, and to pardon their errours. You felt their sufferings under the late penal acts of parliament. But your ministry felt differently. Not discouraged by the pernicious effects of all they had hitherto advised, and notwithstanding the gracious declaration of your Majesty, they obtained another act of parliament, in which the rigours of all the former were consolidated, and embittered by circumstances of additional severity and outrage. The whole trading property of America (even unoffending shipping in port) was indiscriminately and irrecoverably given, as the plunder of foreign enemies, to the sailors of your navy. This property was put out of the reach of your mercy. Your people were despoiled; and your navy, by a new, dangerous, and prolifick example, corrupted with the plunder of their countrymen. Your people in that part of your dominions were put, in their general and political, as well as their personal, capacity, wholly out of the protection of your government. This mode of proceeding, by harsh laws and feeble armies, could not be defended on the principle of mercy and forbearance. For mercy, as we conceive, consists not in the weakness of the means, but in the benignity of the ends. We apprehend, that mild measures may be powerfully enforced and that acts of extreme rigour and mercy. : injustice may be attended with as much feebleness in the execution, as severity in the formation. In consequence of these terrours, which, falling upon some, threatened all, the colonies made a common cause with the sufferers; and proceeded, on their part, to acts of resistance. In that alarming situation, we besought your Majesty's ministers to entertain some distrust of the operation of coercive measures, and to profit of their experience. Experience had no effect. The modes of legislative rigour were construed, not to have been erroneous in their policy, but too limited in their New severities were adopted. The fisheries of your people in America followed their charters; and their mutual combination to defend, what they thought, their common rights, brought on a total prohibition of their mutual commercial intercourse. No distinction of persons or merits was observed-the peaceable and the mutinous, friends and foes, were alike involved, as if the rigour of the laws had a certain tendency to recommend the authority of the legislator. extent. Whilst the penal laws encreased in rigour, and extended in application over all the colonies, the direct force was applied but to one part. Had the great fleet, and foreign army since employed, been at that time called for, the greatness of the preparation would have declared the magnitude of the danger. The nation would have been alarmed, and taught the necessity of some means of reconciliation with our countrymen in America, who, whenever they are provoked to resistance, demand a force to reduce them to obedience full as destructive to us as to them. But parliament and the people, by a premeditated concealment of their real situation, were drawn into perplexities, which furnished excuses for further armaments; and whilst they were taught to believe themselves called to suppress a riot, they found themselves involved in a mighty war. Though unwilling to dwell on all the improper modes of carrying on this unnatural and ruinous war, and which have led directly to the present unhappy separation of Great Britain and its colonies, we must beg leave to represent two particulars, which we are sure must have been entirely contrary to your Majesty's order or approbation. Every course of action in hostility, however that hostility may be just or merited, is not justifiable or excusable. It is the duty of those, who claim to rule over others, not to provoke them beyond the necessity of the case; nor to leave stings in their minds, which must long rankle, even when the appearance of tranquillity is restored.-We therefore assure your Majesty, that it is with shame and sorrow we have seen several acts of hostility, which could have no other tendency than incurably to alienate the minds of your American subjects. To excite, by a proclamation issued by your Majesty's governour, an universal insurrection of negro slaves in any of the colonies, is a measure full of complicated horrours; absolutely illegal; suitable neither to the practice of war, nor to the laws of peace. Of the same quality we look upon all attempts to bring down on your subjects an irruption of those fierce and cruel tribes of savages and cannibals, in whom the vestiges of human nature are nearly effaced by ignorance and barbarity. They are not fit allies for your Majesty in a war with your people. They are not fit instruments of an English government. These, and many other acts, we disclaim as having advised, or approved when done; and we clear ourselves to your Majesty, and to all civilized nations, from |