The New-Jersey gazette — Burlington [N.J.], 1777-12-17 00:00:00, page 2

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LONDO N.
HOUSE of LORDS, June 3 , 1777-
Subflance of Lord Chatham's fteech, in the House of
Lords, on Friday lafl, as delivered by bis LordJbip,
bis Lordship fitting in bis place with bis bat on, both
of which deviations from the cuftomar, rules of debate
be prayed as an indulgence.
My Lords, ;
THE affairs of this Country are in so precarious
and critical a situation, that I could not, con
sistent with my duty, any longer postpone submitting
my thoughts to the House, in humble expectation,
that whatever I may offer will be received as intend
ed only for the dignity, honour, and interest of my
country; to promote the luftre of the crown, the case
arid happiness of my Sovereign, and the general be
nefit of every part of the British empire. If the effect
of the motion I am going to propose to your Lord
ships Should arrest the hand of power, and were to
answer the zeal and earned withes of him who makes
it, he would indeed be equally happy and fuccefsful.
My Lords, in explaining the objects of my motion,
I with to keep every thing from your recollection that
may give you pain ; but while I relate to your Lord-
Blips the grounds of the proposition l am about to
make, it is indispensably necessary that I Should tell
your Lordships what has caused the evils with Which
we are at present threatened. My Lords, you voted
away the property of the Americans without their
consent; when they complained, you would not
hear their complaints ; you called them factious, se
ditious, and rebellious. You quarrelled with your
fubje&s on the other fide of the Atlantic about a pal
try tax upon tea, you have spent many millions in
support of this tax. The war, my Lords, is got to
a height no man could forefee ; to a height which
now threatens' ruin and deftru&ion to this country.
America is loft. I fear England is undone. What
have you done, my Lords ? You have rendered Bri
tain a dependant state ; dependant on the precarious
friendfhip, or the more precarious neutrality of
France. What did you do, my Lords? You con
demned a whole province without hearing, even with
out demanding fatisfa&ion for the injury you sustain
ed. You proscribed them; you shut up their ports
and harbours; you robbed them of their chartered
rights ; you deprived them, my Lords, of their most
valuable privileges, of the unalienable birthright of
an Englishman, the trial by jury, the trial of the vi
cinage, of judges unacquainted with the parties, the
offence, the provocation, and the measure of punish
ment. What was the consequence, my Lords ? Three
millions of people refufed to be bound by your ar
bitrary edicts.—l beg your Lordships pardon; Mi
nisters were mistaken; it was Englishmen that were
to be bound and enslaved. My Lords, they refufed
it. The Skill and bravery of your Generals, the prow-
cfs of your troops, the Strength and pride of this
once powerful country, your navy was found infuf
ficient. What, my Lords, were you. obliged to do ?
You could not procure men at home ; Englishmen
do not like to enslave Englishmen, nor trample on
the rights of their feHow-fubjeCts. What did your
Lordfllips do? You hired 20,000 German boors;
your Ministers I fay, hired them, to cut the throats
of your inoffending colonies. Those colcinifts are
now, my Lords, called rebels ; they are Stigmatized
with every base and abusive epithet in the English
language. Yet, my Lords, I remember when this
country was waging war with the united powers of
France .and Spain, when there was a rebellion, and
a Scotch rebellion, within this land; I remember
when our fleets were useless, our armies unfuccefs
ful, that those men now described as the blackest arid
basest of all rebels ; nay more, that very colony which
has been represented as the hot-bed of sedition and
treason ; that colony against which the keenest light
nings of government are denounced, and have been
directed : I remember, I fay, my Lords, this very
colony fending forth the four regiments of undisci
plined militia, which gave the firft check to France
in her proud career, and erected the Standard of con
quest on the walls of Louifburgh. But, my Lords,
we need not point out particular facts in the proof of
the bravery, the zeal, the duty and affection of this
people ; the annals of the last war will tell fuch.of
your Lordships as are not old enough to remember,
how they fought, how they bled ; they will tell you,
hew generously they contributed, how like loving
brethren they Shared the common burthen and the
danger. These, my Lords, are the unhappy men
you have cruelly devoted to deftruCtion ; whole towns
you would raze, whose commerce you would anni
hilate, whose liberties you would destroy by the
sword, whose properties you would confifcate, and
whose persons you would enslave ; these are the peo
ple whom your Ministers would extirpate. What has
been the system pursued by Administration, and what
have been the measures taken for carrying it into ex
ecution ? Your system has been a government, erect
ed on the ruins of the constitution, and founded in
conquest, and you have swept all Germany of its re
fufe as its means. There is net a petty infignificant
Prince, whom you have not Solicited for aid: You
are become the suitors at every German court, and
have your Ministers enrolled in the German Chancery,
as the contracting parties, in behalf of this once great
and glorious country. The laurels of Britain are
faded, her arms are disgraced, her negotiations are
Spurned at, and her councils fallen into contempt.
My Lords, you have vainly tried to conquer America
by the aid of German mercenaries, by the arms of
twenty thousand undifciplihed German boors, glean
ed and collected from every obfeure corner of that
country ; you have subsidized their masters; you
have lavished the public treasures on them ; and what
have you effected? Nothing, my Lords, but forcing
the colonies to declare themselves independent States.
You have caused them, my Lords, to act with vi
gour and resolution ; you have united and combined
them; you have, by this unnatural aft, cemented
them, and given them but one foul. Their breasts,
my Lords, are fired with indignation ; they are fired
with just resentments ; they burn with ardour to re
venge their injuries, and retaliate with interest on
their cruel and merciless oppressors. Yes, my Lords,
I fay, three millions of freemen will never submit to
twenty thousand mercenaries. No, my Lords, the
idea is preposterous ; the attempt is absurd; as well
might I expeCt to conquer them with this crutch, as
to suppose America will ever submit to so contempti
ble a force.
1 would recommend peace to your Lordships at all
events ; the longer the unhappy contest is continued,
the more difficult it will be to conciliate, and the less
able we Shall be to prosecute with vigour and effect,
or accommodate with honour or advantage : Mini
sters, as they blundered from the beginning, are led
into a fatal error, refpeCting our natural enemies the
French. They imagine that nothing is to be dread
ed from that quarter, because France has not inter
fered directly in favour of America. But, my Lords,
do Minivers, when they build such mighty things on
this circumstance, recoiled, that they argue as if
France were mad ! Would they have France run the
risk, hazard and expence of a war, when Britain is
doing all for France She can possibly wiSh or desire!
It was a gross mifeonception to suppose, that France
ever thought a Single minute about giving a dired aid
to the Colonies ; She never meant, my Lords, to in
terrupt this country in its wild career, nor Stand be
tween it and its Colonies: No, my Lords, she has
taken care from her conduct, to feed and nourish the
mad notions of conquest and dominion which have
unfortunately prevailed within these walls. She has
been equally sedulous to give just that degree of
countenance and protection, which has hitherto Serv
ed to keep the civil war alive, so as to baffle your
designs and to waste your Strength.
This cruel and unnatural war, my Lords, I dread
will be a fatal war; you have proscribed your own
children ; you have turned a deaf ear to their dutiful
petitions, their fervent entreaties, and have inter
preted their honest constitutional remonstrances into
Treason and Rebellion. You have, my Lords, loft
America ; you have poured the riches of America in
to the lap of the House of Bourbon. Will France
forget her own interest so much as to think of war ?
To effect what, my Lords ? What this country is ef
fecting at the rate of twenty millions per annum.
France, my Lords, knows her own interest better.
France is filling her arsenals with naval Stores, die is
disposing of her manufactures. She is accumulating
in her Storehouses the produce of America. She is
thereby preparing for war ; she is cultivating and ,ex
tending her commerce, and wifely opening new
sources of internal wealth, and external Strength,
while we continue daily to waste our own Strength ;
while our commerce languishes, and while our Specie
leaves the kingdom to purchase those commodities,
which besides the common advantages derived from
them in a commercial view, were all received in ex
change for our own manufactures.
We have, my Lords, tried hitherto to no purpose.
Is there the most distant rational profpeCt that affairs
-will bear a better face at the end of this year, than
they did at the last. We have exerted our utmost
Strength to little or no purpose. We have talked of
conquering America. Have we done it? No, my
Lords, we have nothing to boast of but a few trifling
advantages, which, when we confider the price paid
for them, and the circumstances which attended the
obtaining them, wear in fad, every appearance of
defeat. We continue to fend troops, and have voted
.millions ; and what, my Lords, are we told ? That
our army, after such enormous Supplies, will be just
equal to what it was last year, when it effected w
thing, or next to nothing.
His Lordship Shewed the absurdity of relying lon
ger on the mere force of arms, and very pathetically
pressed the necessity of a speedy conciliation. Wq
were, he laid, on the brink of a precipice; on th§
very verge of. destruction ; and desired their Lordships
to snatch the present moment, as probably the last,
in which they would have the opportunity of procur
ing the national Salvation. A few weeks, nay, a Single
day's delay might be too late. War, fays his Lord-
Ship, has been tried; let us, my Lords, fee what
conciliation will do ; let us recoiled our critical Situ
ation ; let us confider, Should we persevere in the
fame wild, ruinous, and oppressive system, the in
evitable alternatives with which we are surrounded
on either hand. Should we lose America, America,
will be added in fad to the French Empire. Should
we,prove fuccefsful in the Struggle, debilitated, ex
hausted and impoverished as we must be, we Shall in
that event have conquered America for France. If,
not waiting for either of those events, France Should
change her present system, which I can hardly think:
die will, except by some unexpected change in her
Councils, then America as a matter of course, will
be loft for ever to this country. Should this latter
be the case, and that She Should make a public a
vowal of her sentiments by fupporfing the cause of
America ; though we had but five Ships of war in the
world, I would instantly be for declaring war against
her, as,the only reparation that could possibly Satisfy
the wounded honour of a great nation, be the event
what it. might. His Lordship reminded the House,
likewise, of the propositions moved by his bill and
motion, early in 1775, before a drop of blood had
been Shed on either fide; pointed out the fatal policy
Which caused their rejection, and the very violent
and indecent manner in which they were rejected.
His Lord Ship spoke for above fifty minutes.
Lord Cambden, in one of the ablejlfpeeches ever heard,
event through the whole present state of American af
fairs, and in a most maflerly. manner supported his
noble friend Lord Chatham, representing the danger of
the present crifa to England from the preparations of
France, and their own conduct in particular. (The
abovementioned most excellent Speech Shall have a
place in our next.)
WA S loft on Thursday the 1 3th inftapt, be
tween Bristol and Newtown, in the county
of Bucks, a double cased Silver W AT C H, mak
er's name Benjamin Lamb, London, the number
forgotten, marked IT in a double cypher on the
back of the outside case, the cypher somewhat worn,
has a ribbon String, a brass key much worn, and a
small red Cornelian seal set in Silver, with the com
pass and square in the Silver work. Whoever finds
the fame, and will leave it with Mr. Robert Ram
sey in Newtown, Mr. Beffonet in Bristol, Mr. Isaac
Wood in Mouptholly, or with the printer of this
paper, Shall have the above reward.
N. B. If the person into whose possession it may
come, Should be so ungenerous as not to return it
to either of the above gentlemen, every watchmaker
and others, are requested to endeavour to expose
the villainy, ow* tbe
November 26, 1777.
WAS STOLE N,
From the fubferiber, living in Salem, Weft New-
Jersey, on Tuesday the 18th of this instant;
A GREY gelding, saddle and bridle: The
horse fix years old, about fifteen hands high,
trots, paces, and canters well, marked about th©
head with a number of black spots, one remarkably
large under his near eye, has a small nick in the
back edge of each of his ears. Any person who
.will Secure the horse and thief, so that the owner
may have the horse, and the thief be brought to
justice, Shall receive a reward of TWENTY
POUND S, for the horse only Ten Pounds.
6 w * EBENEZER HOWELL.
A GOOD PRICE AND READY MONEY,
Is given by the Printer hereof, for
CLEAN LINEN RAGS.
November 20, 1777.
FIVE POUNDS REWARD.