days, that government was the creature of civil society, and therefore that an established government was not to be resisted. To this the young philosopher answered, rightly: "The Supreme Intelligence who rules the world has constituted an eternal law, which is obligatory upon all mankind, prior to any human institution whatever. He gave existence to man, together with the means of preserving and beautifying that existence; and invested him with an inviolable right to pursue liberty and personal safety. Natural liberty is a gift of the Creator to the whole human race. Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society. It is not dependent on human caprice; but it is conformable to the constitution of man, as well as necessary to the well-being of society."

"The colony of New York," continued his antagonists, "is subject to the supreme legislative authority of Great Britain." "I deny that we are dependent on the legislature of Great Britain," he answered; and he fortified his denial by an elaborate discussion of colonial history and charters.

It was retorted that New York had no charter. "The sacred rights of mankind," he rejoined, "are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power. Civil liberty cannot be wrested from any people without the most manifold violation of justice and the most aggravated guilt. The nations Turkey, Russia, France, Spain, and all other despotic kingdoms in the world have an inherent right, whenever they please, to shake off the yoke of servitude, though sanctioned by immemorial usage, and to model their government upon the principles of civil liberty."

So reasoned the thoughtful West Indian, as one who had power to see the divine archetype of freedom. The waves of turbulent opinion dashed around him; cosmopolitan New York adopted the volunteer from the tropics as her son. New York still desired a constitutional union of Great Britain and America, but was resolved, at all events, to make common cause with the continent.

VOL. IV.-8

The confidence of the ministry reposed more and more on the central provinces, and Dartmouth still took for granted the peaceful settlement of every question; yet six sloops-of-war and two frigates were under orders for America, and it was ostentatiously heralded that seven hundred marines from England, and four regiments from Ireland, were to be prepared for embarkation; "less to act hostilely against the Americans than to encourage the friends of government."

In the house of commons the petitions in behalf of America, including those from London and Bristol, were consigned to a committee of oblivion, and ridiculed as already "dead in law." Hayley, of London, rebuked the levity of the house. "The rejection of the petitions of the trading interests," said he, on the twenty-sixth of January, "must drive on a civil war with America." "The Americans," argued Jenkinson, "ought to submit to every act of the English legislature." "England," said Burke, "is like the archer that saw his own child in the hands of the adversary, against whom he was going to draw his bow." Fox charged upon North that the country was on the point of being involved in a civil war by his incapacity. North complained: "The gentleman blames all my administration, yet he defended and supported much of it; nor do I know how I have deserved his reproaches." "I can tell the noble lord how," cried Fox: "by every species of falsehood and treachery." Sir George Saville asked that Franklin might be heard at the bar in support of the address of the American continental congress to the king; and, after a violent debate, the house, by the usual majority, refused even to receive its petition.

The demand of Gage for twenty thousand men was put aside with scorn. "The violences committed by those who have taken up arms in Massachusetts Bay," wrote Dartmouth, in the king's name, "have appeared to me as the acts of a rude rabble, without plan, without concert, and without conduct; and therefore I think that a smaller force now, if put to the test, would be able to encounter them. The first and essential step to be taken toward re-establishing government would be to arrest and imprison the principal actors and abettors in the provincial congress, whose proceedings appear in every light to be treason

and rebellion. If means be devised to keep the measure secret until the moment of execution, it can hardly fail of success. Even if it cannot be accomplished without bloodshed and should be a signal for hostilities, I must again repeat that any efforts of the people, unprepared to encounter with a regular force, cannot be very formidable. The imprisonment of those who shall be made prisoners will prevent their doing any further mischief. The charter for the province of Massachusetts Bay empowers the governor to use and exercise the law martial in time of rebellion. The attorney- and solicitor-general report that the facts stated in the papers you have transmitted are the history of an actual and open rebellion in that province, and therefore the exercise of that power upon your own discretion is strictly justifiable.”

"The minister must recede," wrote Garnier to Vergennes, "or lose America forever." "Your chief dependence," such were Franklin's words to Massachusetts, "must be on your own virtue and unanimity, which, under God, will bring you through all difficulties."

There was no hope in England but from Chatham, who lost not a moment in his endeavor to prevent a civil war before it should be inevitably fixed; saying, "God's will be done, and let the old and new world be my judge." On the first day of February he presented his plan for "true reconcilement and national accord." It was founded substantially on the proposal of the American congress; parliament was to repeal the statutes complained of, and to renounce the power of taxation; America in turn was to recognise its right of regulating the commerce of the whole empire, and, by the free grants of her own assemblies, was to defray the expenses of her governments. This was the true meaning of his motion, though clauses were added to make it less unpalatable to the pride of the British legislature. Franklin was persuaded that he sincerely wished to satisfy the Americans; Jefferson, on reading the bill, hoped that it might bring on a reconciliation; but Samuel Adams saw danger lurking under even a conditional recognition of the supremacy of parliament, and said: "Let us take care, lest, instead of a thorn in the foot, we have a dagger in the heart."

No sooner had Chatham concisely invited the assistance of

the house in adapting his crude materials to the great end of an honorable and permanent adjustment, than Dartmouth spoke of the magnitude of the subject, and asked his consent that the bill should lie on the table for consideration. "I expect nothing more," was the ready answer. But Sandwich, speaking for the majority in the cabinet, interposed. "The proposed measure," he said, "deserves only contempt, and ought to be immediately rejected. I can never believe it to be the production of any British peer. It appears to me rather the work of some American ;" and looking at Franklin, who stood leaning on the bar, "I fancy," he continued, "I have in my eye the person who drew it up, one of the bitterest and most mischievous enemies this country has ever known."

The peers turned toward the American, when Chatham retorted: "The plan is entirely my own; but, if I were the first minister and had the care of settling this momentous business, I should not be ashamed of publicly calling to my assistance a person so perfectly acquainted with the whole of American affairs; one whom all Europe ranks with our Boyles and Newtons, as an honor not to the English nation only, but to human nature."

Overawed by the temper of the house, Dartmouth, with his wonted weakness which made him adopt the worst measures even when he inclined to the best, wheeled round against his own candor, and declared for rejecting the plan immediately. This Gower demanded; this even Grafton advised.

Perceiving the unalterable purpose of the ministry, Chatham poured upon them a torrent of invective. "This bill," said he, "though rejected here, will make its way to the public, to the nation, to the remotest wilds of America; and, however faulty or defective, it will at least manifest how zealous I have been to avert those storms which seem ready to burst on my country. Yet I am not surprised that men who hate liberty should detest those that prize it; or that those who want virtue themselves should persecute those who possess it. The whole of your political conduct has been one continued series of weakness and temerity, despotism and the most notorious servility, incapacity and corruption. I must allow you one merit, a strict attention to your own interests:

in that view, who can wonder that you should put a negative on any measure-which must deprive you of your places, and reduce you to that insignificance for which God and nature designed you?"

Lord Chatham's bill, though on so important a subject, offered by so great a statesman, and supported by most able and learned speakers, was resisted by ignorance, prejudice, and passion, by misconceptions and wilful perversion of plain truth, and was rejected on the first reading by a vote of sixtyone to thirty-two.

"There

"Hereditary legislators!" thought Franklin. would be more propriety in having hereditary professors of mathematics! But the elected house of commons is no better, nor ever will be while the electors receive money for their votes, and pay money wherewith ministers may bribe their representatives when chosen." Yet the wilfulness of the lords was happy for America; for Chatham's proposition contained clauses to which it never could safely have assented, and yet breathed a spirit which must have distracted its councils.

The ministers rushed on with headlong indiscretion, thinking to subdue the Americans by intimidation. Accordingly, Lord North, on the day after Chatham's defeat, proposed to the commons a joint address to the king to declare that a rebellion existed in Massachusetts, and to pledge their lives and properties to its suppression.

"The colonies," said Dunning, "are not in a state of rebellion, but resisting the attempt to establish despotism in America, as a prelude to the same system in the mother country. Opposition to arbitrary measures is warranted by the constitution, and established by precedent." "Nothing but the display of vigor," said Thurlow, "will prevent the American colonies becoming independent states."

Grant, the same officer who had been scandalously beaten at Pittsburg and had offended South Carolina, asserted, amid the loudest cheering, that he knew the Americans very well, and was sure they would not fight; "that they were not soldiers, and never could be made so, being naturally pusillanimous and incapable of discipline; that a very slight force would be more than sufficient for their complete reduction ;"