The New-Jersey gazette — Burlington [N.J.], 1782-03-13 00:00:00, page 1

LONDO N, Nov. 29.
H O U S,E of COMMONS.
ON a motion being made to bring up the
report of the address to his Majesty.
The Hon. William Pitt begged pardon
for troubling the house on a lubjeft up
on which they had already heard so much, more
especially as his arguments would be directed to the
support of others which had fallen the preceding
day from men so much abler than himfelf, but he
could not avoid standing up to give vent to those
emotions which filled his breast, and rendered his
situation too painful to be borne. Before gentle
men ultimately resolved to approach the throne with
an address that pledged the house in the most direct
manner to prosecute the American war, and support
the continuance of that fatal fyftera, which had led
this country, step by step. to the most calamitous,
disastrous and difgraceful situation, that ever a
once flourishing and glorious Rate could possibly be
driven to ! a situation that threatened the final disso
lution of the empire, if not prevented by timely,
wife and vigorous efforts, he implored them to
pause a moment, and confider what they were doing.
The address then at the bar was couched in terms
the most hypocritical and delusive, and if fuffered,
in a crisis alarming and melancholy as the present
on all hands confeffedly was, to be published to the
world as the real sentiments of the House of Com
mons, it would be an additional misfortune, greater
than any that had preceded it, inasmuch as it would
at once deceive the King, prostitute the judgment
of parliament, and degrade its diginity, insult the
people, and induce consequences fatal to the very
being and exigence of the empire. At this mo
ment, when every man's heart was deprefled, and
funk with the news of a recent and weighty cala
mity, a calamity which was too powerfully felt to
stand in need of description, was it becoming the
parliament of a free people to echo back words,
which a minister, long pra&ifed in the arts of de
lusion, had dared to put into the royal mouth, but
were every way unworthy of the Prince who deli
vered them. What information had they before
them to warrant such a step ? Inthe better days of
parliament, the attempt to entrap the house into a
countenance of assertions, wholly unexplained and
unexamined, merely on the authority of the mini
ster's word, would have been resented, and treated
with the indignation such an insult deserved. It
had been pretended by those, whose interest it was
to carry on the deceit, that the prosecution of the
American war was not the import of the address;
but let any man accurately read the words of the
address, and he would instantly fee that the prose
cution of that deftrudive war was as plainly and as
fully the meaning of it, as language could possibly
convey. Was there a man on either fide the house
that really doubted it; was there a man in the street
into whose hands the address could be put, that
would not on the firft perusal, inflantly fay as much ?
Why then was the house alone to facrifice their un
derstandings to the will of the minister, and to sup
port his delation ! It was with the greatest sincerity,
he declared, that nothing but his earned with to
refeue the British Commons from the disgrace and
infamy that must necessarily follow the presenting
such an address, induced him to call thus earnestly
upon the house, and before they adopted a propo
rtion of a stamp with all the measures which had
so deeply injured the honour of parliament, and so
fruitlefsly watted the blood and money of the king
dom, to fee it in its true light, and by a dole at
tention to be convinced that it was founded on the
most empty, weak, and shallow thought that ever
entered the brain of a minister. Let gentlemen
read the address, and judge for themselves. What
rights and what interests could be meant, but those
rights that had been given away one after another,
and those interests that had long since been aban
doned. What then could make the American war
an objed so ftedfaftly to be adhered to ? Was there
any national object in the pursuit ? Certainly there
NEW-JERSEY GAZETTE.
- [VOL. V.]
WEDNESDAY, March 13, 1782.
was none. The real truth was, it was an appen
dage to the firft Lord of the Treasury too dear to
be parted with ! it was the grand pillar, built on
the ruins of the constitution, by which he held his
situation; the great means of extending that bale
ful influence of the crown, on which alone he
placed all his security ! For his part, ever since he
left the house when it rose in the morning, so con
vinced had he long been of the ruinous tendency of
the war, that he spent his time in asking himfelf
what fort of arguments they were, which those
who had most occasion to juftify their support of
the address had advanced : and he begged leave for
a moment to interrupt the supercilious silence, and
what was ftiil more insulting the empty loquacity
of those who were its advocates by word and
vote, by reminding the house of what had been
said upon the fubje&. One of its avowed support
ers, the noble Lord in the blue riband, speaking
of the American war, had declared, that he ever
had considered it, and ftiil did confider it, as a war
just and neceiTary, founded on the claim of a mo
derate exercise of a right that was undisputed.—
With regard to the grammatical or logical corred-,
nefs of this reason, he would not institute an enquiry,
nor would he now enter into an argument upon the
justice of the war ; that point having been fufficient
ly difeuffed, for mankind to have made up their
minds upon it. What the noble Lord meant by
necessary, if he meant any thing fliort of a physical
necessity, he was at a loss to imagine. That an
end could not be put to the war, if parliament re
solved on such a measure, was too absurd an idea
to be maintained. The war had been proved by
fatal experience to be fruitlefs, and every day we
persisted in it clearly removed us farther off from
the day of reconciliation and reason, and tended
rather to create new difficulties than smooth the
path to peace and friendfhip. That the war was
originally just and necessary, was, however, the
only argument of one noble Lord; let the house
recollect what had fallen from another noble Lord,
whose situation rendered all that he said upon the
fubjed peculiarly the object of attention. That
noble Lord had held a very different language. —
Without laying claim to that boldness of pride and
ambition, which alone could generate the hope of
making America the vidim of conquest, he had
said, all his hope rested on the more mild, lenient,
and moderate expectation of the practicability of
fending a fufficient force into the country, to enable
the numerous friends of Great-Britain, to get the
better of the party that opposed them, and had
possessed themselves of power. The noble Lord
has told them, that he never imagined America
could be recovered by arms, but that the loyalists,
who, according to his account, far outnumbered
the Americans of a different political complexion,
would be able, with their assistance, to effect all that
could be wished for. In order to fee the wisdom
of this conceit, Mr. Pitt advised the house to look
back to the events of the war, and especially to
those of the last campaign, which were too recent
to stand in need of a recital, and which every man's
breast was too full of to render it necessary for him
to undergo the anguifli of dwelling upon. Above
all, he begged the house, if they wanted further
proof of the power of protection, which Great-
Britain was warranted to hold out, let them look at
the articles of capitulation of Lord Cornwallis,
and let them cast their eye on the answer to the 10th
article. They would there fee, that all the friends
of Great-Britain, all the loyalists who had been
treacherously deluded to join Lord Cornwallis, and
deceived by falfe hopes and ill founded promises,
so far from being protected, mere left to the civil
juflice of the country. What the civil justice of
America was, it was utterly impossible for him to
fay, but if the fame treacherous system that had
long disgraced Great-Britain, was fuffered to be
persevered in after what had happened, perhaps the
civil justice of this country, would soon overtake
some men, who were undoubtedly much properer
objects of its vengeance, than those unfortunate
THE
wretches, who looking up to the British standard
with that reverence and opinion of its influence,
which in better times and when measures were more
wifely planned, and more ably conducted, jt was
wont to create, wherever it was erected, had fool*
ifhly facrificed their lives and fortunes to the empty
promises of an abandoned administration.
After arguing with peculiar force of language
upon what had fallen the preceding day from the
firft Lord of the Treasury, and the American Se
cretary, Mr. Pitt returned to the fubjedof the
address, which he termed a dark and desperate at
tempt to blind the eyes of the King, and insult the
people of England. He asked, where under the
dreadful pressure of national calamity, was a mo
narch of a free people to take refuge and find re
source, but in the honest, undisguised, and loyal
councils of his fubje&s; would fallacy administer
comfort to the wounded mind: would fraud sup
port a falling state ? He called upon any one advo
cate for the measures of administration, who prided
himfelf on the independence of his principles, to
stand up in his place and fay, whether those men
who had hitherto so misguided the affairs of the
kingdom, and in whose hands almost e~ery under
taking had failed, ought to be trusted with the fu
ture nianagen^pt of a war, which they had hither
to condudedro ill. Could the nation have confi
dence in anttminiftration composed of members
who had no confidence in themselves ? Run from
one end of the treasury bench to the other, and who
would venture to declare that any one person there
seated could trust the person who fat next him ?
With an administration so disunited, was any con
fidence to be reposed? Let the house recollect what
was already past. What had been done for the
blood that had been fpilt, the supplies that had been
given, and the money that had been trusted to their
hands ? The great events of the war were but so
many fatal disasters ; defeat and disgrace following
every effort of our arms, from one end of the con
tinent to the other. He declared to God, he spoke
to answer no private purpose whatever, his feelings
were publick, and what he had said, he said in dis
charge of his conscience, and in discharge of his
duty to his King and country. He once more
therefore earnestly implored the house not to vote
an address fraught with hypocrisy and treachery.
An address, which could not have been framed by
any who felt the smallest spark of private regard
for the King, or publick jealousy for the honour
of his crown, and the dignity of his parliament.
He concluded with apologizing for having trespass
ed so long on the patience of the house, but he
thought it did not become him as a member of the
parliament of a free people to have said less. He
hoped, however, he had not presumed too much,
and he declared, if he had made any impression on
the minds of his hearers, that should induce them
to forego the fatal measure of voting the address,
he was persuaded he had not only unloaded his own
bosom from the weight that eppreffed it, but should
have laved his Prince from a degree of angurih,
which loon or late must be the inevitable consequence
of prosecuting the American war, and which none
but the most cruel and inhuman could wish to in
fli& on the mind of their sovereign, already Effi
ciently pressed with misfortune and calamity.
Mr. Burke said the noble and learned Lord, de
ferred the proper ground when he said so much
about the mode of conducing the war. The end
and objed of it were the confederations to be spoken
to. It was there that the Toe pinched, there that
calamity, expence, disgrace, and ruin stared every
man in the face! As a proof that ministers them
selves were not clear in their ground refpeding the
address, he said the Scotch Secretary of State, and
the Irifli Secretary of State, had both of them, in
another place, held a language totally different from
that of the South British minister in that house.
The Scotch and Irifli Secretaries had expressly de
clared that the address did pledge those who voted
for it to a prosecution of the American war. The
(Numb. 220.]