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I AM ASTONISHED! (exclaimed Lord Chatham, as he rose)→ shocked! to hear such principles confessed to hear them. avowed in this house, or in this country: principles equally unconstitutional, inhuman, and unchristian!

My lords, I did not intend to have encroached again upon your attention; but I cannot repress my indignation. I feel myself impelled by every duty. My lords, we are called upon as members of this house, as men, as Christian men, to protest against such notions standing near the throne, polluting the ear of majesty. "That God and nature put into our hands!" 1 know not what ideas that lord may entertain of God and nature; but I know that such abominable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity. What! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping-knife-to the cannibal savage torturing, murdering, roasting, and eating; literally, my lords, eating the mangled victims of his barbarous battles! Such horrible notions shock every precept of religion, divine or natural, and every generous feeling of humanity. And, my lords, they shock every sentiment of honor; they shock me as a lover of honorable war, and a detester of murderous barbarity..

These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that right reverend bench, those holy ministers of the gospel, and pious pastors of our church; I conjure them to join in the holy work, and vindicate the religion of their God. I appeal to the wisdom and the law of this learned bench, to defend and support the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops, to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn; upon the learned judges, to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollution. I call upon the honor of your lordships, to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country, to vindicate the national character. I invoke the genius of the constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestor of this noble lord frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country. In vain he led your victorious fleets against the boasted Armada of Spain; in vain he defended and established the honor, the liberties, the religion, the Protestant religion, of this country, against the arbitrary cruelties of popery and the inquisition, if these more than popish cruelties and inquisitorial practices are let loose among us; to turn forth into our settlements, among our ancient connexions, friends, and relations, the merciless cannibal, thirsting for the blood of man, woman, and child! to send forth the infidel savage-against whom? against your Protestant brethren; to

lay waste their country, to desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race and name, with these horrible hell-hounds of savage war-hell-hounds, I say, of savage war. Spain armed herself with blood-hounds to extirpate the wretched natives of America; and we improve on the inhuman example even of Spanish cruelty: we turn loose these savage hell-hounds against our brethren and countrymen in America, of the same language, laws, liberties, and religion; endeared to us by every tie that should sanctify humanity.

My lords, this awful subject, so important to our honor constitution, and our religion, demands the most solemn and effectual inquiry. And I again call upon your lordships, and the united powers of the state, to examine it thoroughly and decisively, and to stamp upon it an indelible stigma of the public abhorrence. And I again implore those holy prelates of our religion, to do away these iniquities from among us. Let them perform a lustration; let them purify this house, and this country, from this sin.

My lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more; but my feelings and indignation were too strong to have said less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor reposed my head on my pillow, without giving this vent to my eternal abhorrence of such preposterous and enormous principles.

This speech had no effect. The address was agreed to

LORD CHATHAM'S SPEECH,

IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, THE 11TH OF DECEMBER, 1777, AGAINST A MOTION FOR AN ADJOURNMENT.

MY LORDS,

It is not with less grief than astonishment I hear the motion now made by the noble earl, at a time when the affairs of this country present on every side prospects full of awe, terror, and impending danger; when, I will be bold to say, events of a most alarming tendency, little expected or foreseen, will shortly happen; when a cloud that may crush this nation, and bury it in destruction for ever, is ready to burst and overwhelm us in ruin. At so tremendous a season, it does not become your lordships, the great hereditary council of the nation, to neglect your duty, to retire to your country-seats for six weeks in quest of joy and merriment, while the real state of public affairs calls for grief, mourning, and lamentation; at least, for the fullest exertions of your wisdom. It is your duty, my lords. as the grand hereditary council of the nation, to advise your sovereign, to be the protectors of your country, to feel your own weight and authority. As hereditary counsellors, as mem bers of this house, you stand between the crown and the peo ple; you are nearer the throne than the other branch of the legislature; it is your duty to surround and protect, to counsel and supplicate it. You hold the balance. Your duty is to see that the weights are properly poised, that the balance remains even, that neither may encroach on the other, and that the executive power may be prevented, by an unconstitutional exertion of even constitutional authority, from bringing the nation to destruction. My lords, I fear we are arrived at the very brink of that state; and I am persuaded that nothing short of a spirited interposition on your part, in giving speedy and wholesome advice to your sovereign, can prevent the people from feeling beyond remedy the full effects of that ruin which ministers have brought upon us. These calamitous circumstances ministers have been the cause of: and shall we, in such a state of things, when every moment teems with events productive of the most fatal narratives, shall we trust, during an adjournment of six weeks, to those men who have brought those calamities upon us, when, perhaps, our utter overthrow is plotting, nay, ripe for execution, without almost a possibility of prevention? Ten thousand brave men have fallen victims to

ignorance and rashness. The only army you have in America may, by this time, be no more. This very nation remains no longer safe than its enemies think proper to permit. I do not augur ill. Events of a most critical nature may take place before our next meeting. Will your lordships, then, in such a state of things, trust to the guidance of men, who, in every single step of this cruel, this wicked war, from the very beginning, have proved themselves weak, ignorant, and mistaken? I will not say, my lords, nor do I mean anything personal, or that they have brought premeditated ruin on this country. I will not suppose that they foresaw what has since happened; but I do contend, my lords, that their want of wisdom, their incapacity, their temerity in depending on their own judgment, or their base compliances with the orders and dictates of others, perhaps caused by the influence of one or two individuals, have rendered them totally unworthy of your lordships' confidence of the confidence of parliament, and those whose rights they are the constitutional guardians of, the people at large. A re monstrance, my lords, should be carried to the throne. The king has been deluded by his ministers. They have been imposed on by false information, or have, from motives best known to themselves, given apparent credit to what they have been convinced in their hearts was untrue. The nation has been betrayed into the ruinous measure of an American war by the arts of imposition, by their own credulity, through the means of false hopes, false pride, and promised advantages, of the most romantic and improbable nature. My lords, I do not wish to call your attention entirely to that point. I would fairly appeal to your own sentiments, whether I can be justly charged with arrogance or presumption, if I said, great and able as ministers think themselves, that all the wisdom of the nation is not confined to the narrow circle of their petty cabinet. I might, I think, without presumption, say, that your lordships, as one of the branches of the legislature, may be supposed as capable of advising your sovereign, in the moment of difficulty and danger, as any lesser council, composed of a fewer number; and who, being already so fatally trusted, have betrayed a want of honesty, or a want of talents. Is it, my lords, within the utmost stretch of the most sanguine expectation, that the same men who have plunged you into your present perilous and calamitous situation are the proper persons to rescue you from it? No, my lords, such an expectation would be preposterous and absurd. I say, my lords, you are now specially called upon to interpose. It is your duty to forego every call of business and pleasure, to give up your whole time to inquire into past misconduct; to provide remedies for the pres

ent; to prevent future evils; to rest on your arms, if I may use the expression, to watch for the public safety; to defend and support the throne, and if fate should so ordain it, to fall with becoming fortitude, with the rest of your fellow-subjects, in the general ruin. I fear this last must be the event of this mad, unjust, and cruel war. It is your lordships' duty to do everything in your power that it shall not-but, if it must be So, I trust your lordships and the nation will fall gloriously.

My lords, as the first and most immediate object of your inquiry, I would recommend to you to consider the true state of our home defence. We have heard much from a noble lord in this house, of the state of our navy. I cannot give an implicit belief to all I have heard on that important subject. I still retain my former opinion relative to the number of line-ofbattle ships; but as an inquiry into the real state of the navy is destined to be the subject of future consideration, I do not wish to hear any more about it till that period arrives. I allow, in argument, that we have thirty-five ships of the line fit for actual service. I doubt much whether such a force would give us full command of the channel. I am certain, if it did, every other part of our possessions must lie naked and defenceless, in every quarter of the globe.

I fear our utter destruction is at hand. What, my lords, is the state of our military defence? I would not wish to expose our present weakness; but weak as we are, if this war should be continued, as the public declaration of persons in high confidence with their sovereign would induce us to suppose, is this nation to be entirely stripped? And if it should, would every soldier now in Britain be sufficient to give us an equality to the force of America? I will maintain they would not. Where then will men be procured? Recruits are not to be had in this country. Germany will give no more. I have read in the newspapers of this day, and I have reason to believe it true, that the head of the Germanic body has remonstrated against it, and has taken measures accordingly to prevent it. Ministers have, I hear, applied to the Swiss Cantons. The idea is preposterous. The Swiss never permit their troops to go beyond sea. But, my lords, even if men were to be procured in Germany, how will you march them to the waterside? Have not our ministers applied for the port of Emberden, and has it not been refused? I say, you will not be able to procure men even for your home defence, if some immediate steps be not taken. I remember, during the last war it was thought advisable to levy independent companies. They were, when completed, formed into battalions, and proved of great service. I love the army. I know its use. But I must never

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