The Pennsylvania evening post — Philadelphia, Pa., 1776-03-21 00:00:00, page 2

fe& of Great-Britain, with all its con/equence; The Hono
rable Baronet has concluded his speech with another reason
for inducing us to join in the coercive measures proposed by
the address, which is still more extraordinary, faying,
" Whether we succeed or not may be uncertain; but if we
fail, we shall even then be no worse than we were." These
are the very words of the noble Lord on the treasury bench
last year. lam persuaded the worthy Baronet has words of
his own so much at will, that he borrows from no man ; but
1 am mote surprised he can fanftify such opinions by his
voice. If America is forced to invite foreign powers to share
in her commerce ; if she is drove to the necessity of follow
ing the example of Holland and Switzerland; if our armies
are destroyed, our fleets wrecked, our treasures wafted, our
reputation for justice and humanity loft, our senates corrupt
ed by the emoluments which mull fall to individuals, in the
prolecuticn of so expensive a war, and four Killings land
tax entailed cn us for ever, will the Hon. Gentleman fay we
are only where we were? What objects can call the attention
of the House in a Wronger degree than those I have enume
rated ? And yet they are all involved in the question now be
fore you, if ycu reject the amendment proposed. I fay,, it
is unfair in administration, and an affront to every individual
member of the House, to call upon them without any infor
mation laid on your table, without evidence brought to your
bar, destitute of every material by which a rational creature
can resolve, to require he should give his unlimited function
to measures of such moment, on the very firft day perhaps
of his arrival in town. The reason is obvious to me.. The
Minister clearly perceives if men were acquainted with the
real slate of things in America; if they had time to acquire,
information, to reason and reded, that all men of generous
feelings would leave him, and even his most desperate fol
lowers might be shaken :. Men are to be brought to this black
business hood-winked; they are to be drawn in by degrees,
till they cannot retreat. On the one hand, a dutiful address
to his Majesty, full of those general affirrances of loyalty and
refped becoming fubjeds to the firft magistrate,, is offered to
your determination ; on the other, a hafly approbation cf
measures you have had no time to confider, from men you
have every reason to fufped, lies before you. Is there a man
who feels the dignity of his situation,, that can hesitate in his
choice upon such an alternative?
I shall now expose to the House the falfe fads which are
assumed in his Majetty's speech, as composed by the minister.
First, The minister tells you he has called you early together.
This 1 deny. The commencement of open hostilities was in
April, the battle of Bunker's-hill in June, and the petition
from the Congress in July ; they severally arrived in England
within five or fix weeks after the events. Now I maintain,
as a member cf Parliament intrufted with a voice in the su
preme authority of the empire, that I am called late to deli
berate in the national council on such great events. The
next notorious untruth is,, that the Americans are collecting
a naval force. The third affection, that the Americans
meant only to amuse by vague expressions of attachment to
the patent slate, is equally injurious to their honor and to
truth. This can only be inserted as an excuse for the bad
conduct of administration and their ill success. The Ameri
cans told you in language the most dired and fimpte, again
and again repeated, that they would resist to the last appeal
those arbitrary innovations; but you affected not, to believe
them; nevertheless, 1 maintain the armaments were calcu
lated to resist men in arms, and the infufficiency arose from a
total ignorance of the force, character, and difpofitipns of
the people in America, as well as a misconception upon the
144
THREE POUNDS Reward.
RAN away this morning (March 21, 1776) from the sub
scriber living at the Old Ferry in Philadelphia, a ler
vant man named JOHN WILLIAMS, about twenty-three
years of age, five feet eleven inches high, a little knock
kneed, and his right leg very fore. He had on, and took
with him, a blue jacket, blue flannel trousers, check shirt,
yarn flockings, a small round hat bound round the edge,,
and a good coat of brown home spun cloth. Whoever takes
up said servant man, and secures him so that his maker gets
him again, shall haye the above reward, and reasonable
charges. WILLIAM MILNOR.
N. B. All masters of vessels are forbid to carry him off at
their peril.
c£e& the several retraining bills passed last feflions would
produce ; in short, from a perfect ignorance of the operati
ons of cruelty and oppression on high minded men, anting
under the spirit of freedom. All their knowledge seems to
have been drawn from one source, that of Governor Hutch
inson. The civil war now raging in America seems, hep by.
flep, to have been carried on by his advice. Whoever read's
his letters, lately published in America, fees every measure
pursued by administration to have been antecedently pointed,
cut by this gentleman in his confidential correspondence, un
til his sentiments seem dilated at last more by revenge and
disappointment than any other principle; what confidence
should be placed in the advice of a man who has declared in
the cool moments of committing his reflexions to paper that
every Machiavelian policy is now to be vindicated towards
the people of America ? I am here fuppoling the letters in
my hand to be genuine, and there is little reason to doubt
their authenticity, as they remain uncontradided. It mat
ters not to me, as a judge, how they were procured. The
only question refpe&ing my opinion on the conduct of
Mr. Hutchinson at present is, are the letters genuine or not {
For in this I always differed from the Lords of the Council,
who determined on the complaint of the province of New-
England against Governor Hutchinson, on the former letters
they difeovered. The Lords of the Council laid the whole
stress on the manner in which the letters had been obtained.
No man could admire the abilities of the advocate more than
1 did on that occasion ; it whs his business to inflame the pas
sions, to cover the turpitude of Governor Hutchinson's cor
dud, under crimes of a greater dye ; but it was fhameful in
the judges to be led away, it was unworthy the diferimination
so necessary to that character, to mingle the manner of ob
taining the letters with the fad they were brought to prove.
I shall suppose the letters had been obtained as infamonfly as
the Essay on Woman, and more infamoufly it is impossible ;.
yet my judgment on the conduct of a Governor writing to
men in high authority, on the political affairs of his province,
and concluding as his advice, that the liberty of British fub
je&s mull be abridged, would not have been altered from
that circumflance. And here I must avow my sentiments as
freely as Governor Hutchinson has communicated his, that
any officer in government, much less the supreme. magistrate,
entrusted with the preservation of the rights of every indivi
dual in his province, who could entertain such sentiments, is
unfit to be employed in any office, civil or military, after a.
fad of so heinous a nature against the constitution being fully
proved. lam confident our ancestors, iaftead of giving such
a man an enormous pension, would have inflicted the punish
ment he deserved, which I think should have been an ad
dress to the crown, that he might never more have been em
ployed in the ferviee of the public. [To be continued.]