support in this ruinous infatuation? Can Parliament be so dead to its
dignity and its duty as to be thus deluded into the loss of the one and
the violation of the other? To give an unlimited credit and support for
the steady perseverance in measures not proposed for our parliamentary
advice, but dictated and forced upon us--in measures, I say, my Lords,
which have reduced this late flourishing empire to ruin and contempt!
"But yesterday, and England might have stood against the world: now none
so poor to do her reverence." I use the words of a poet; but, though it
be poetry, it is no fiction. It is a shameful truth, that not only the
power and strength of this country are wasting away and expiring, but
her well-earned glories, her true honor, and substantial dignity are
sacrificed.
France, my Lords, has insulted you; she has encouraged and sustained
America; and, whether America be wrong or right, the dignity of
this country ought to spurn at the officious insult of French
interference. The ministers and ambassadors of those who are called
rebels and enemies are in Paris; in Paris they transact the
reciprocal interests of America and France. Can there be a more
mortifying insult? Can even our ministers sustain a more humiliating
disgrace? Do they dare to resent it? Do they presume even to hint a
vindication of their honor, and the dignity of the State, by
requiring the dismission of the plenipotentiaries of America? Such
is the degradation to which they have reduced the glories of
England! The people whom they affect to call contemptible rebels,
but whose growing power has at last obtained the name of enemies;
the people with whom they have engaged this country in war, and
against whom they now command our implicit support in every measure
of desperate hostility--this people, despised as rebels, or
acknowledged as enemies, are abetted against you, supplied with
every military store, their interests consulted, and their
ambassadors entertained, by your inveterate enemy! and our ministers
dare not interpose with dignity or effect. Is this the honor of a
great kingdom? Is this the indignant spirit of England, who "but
yesterday" gave law to the house of Bourbon? My Lords, the dignity
of nations demands a decisive conduct in a situation like this....
My Lords, this ruinous and ignominious situation, where we can
not act with success, nor suffer with honor, calls upon us to
remonstrate in the strongest and loudest language of truth, to
rescue the ear of majesty from the delusions which surround it. The
desperate state of our arms abroad is in part known. No man thinks
more highly of them than I do. I love and honor the English troops.
I know their virtues and their valor. I know they can achieve
anything except impossibilities; and I know that the conquest of
English America _is an impossibility_. You cannot, I venture to say
it, _you cannot_ conquer America. Your armies in the last war
effected everything that could be effected; and what was it? It cost
a numerous army, under the command of a most able general [Lord
Amherst], now a noble Lord in this House, a long and laborious
campaign, to expel five thousand Frenchmen from French America. My
Lords, _you cannot conquer America_. What is your present situation
there? We do not know the worst; but we know that in three campaigns
we have done nothing and suffered much. Besides the sufferings,
perhaps _total loss_ of the Northern force, the best appointed army
that ever took the field, commanded by Sir William Howe, has retired
from the American lines. _He was obliged_ to relinquish his attempt,
and with great delay and danger to adopt a new and distant plan of
operations. We shall soon know, and in any event have reason to
lament, what may have happened since. As to conquest, therefore, my
Lords, I repeat, it is impossible. You may swell every expense and
every effort still more extravagantly; pile and accumulate every
assistance you can buy or borrow; traffic and barter with every
little pitiful German prince that sells and sends his subjects to
the shambles of a foreign prince; your efforts are forever vain and
impotent--doubly so from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for
it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your enemies,
to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder,
devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling
cruelty! If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a
foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my
arms--never--never--never.
But, my Lords, who is the man, that, in addition to these disgraces
and mischiefs of our army, has dared to authorize and associate to
our arms the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the savage? to call into
civilized alliance the wild and inhuman savage of the woods; to
delegate to the merciless Indian the defence of disputed rights, and
to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren? My
Lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and punishment. Unless
thoroughly done away, it will be a stain on the national character.
It is a violation of the Constitution. I believe it is against law.
It is not the least of our national misfortunes that the strength
and character of our army are thus impaired. Infected with the
mercenary spirit of robbery and rapine, familiarized to the horrid
scenes of savage cruelty, it can no longer boast of the noble and
generous principles which dignify a soldier, no longer sympathize
with the dignity of the royal banner, nor feel the pride, pomp, and
circumstance of glorious war, "that make ambition virtue!" What
makes ambition virtue?--the sense of honor. But is the sense of
honor consistent with a spirit of plunder, or the practice of
murder? Can it flow from mercenary motives, or can it prompt to
cruel deeds?
The independent views of America have been stated and asserted as the
foundation of this address. My Lords, no man wishes for the due
dependence of America on this country more than I do. To preserve it,
and not confirm that state of independence into which your measures
hitherto have driven them, is the object which we ought to unite in
attaining. The Americans, contending for their rights against arbitrary
exactions, I love and admire. It is the struggle of free and virtuous
patriots. But, contending for independency and total disconnection from
England, as an Englishman, I cannot wish them success; for in a due
constitutional dependency, including the ancient supremacy of this
country in regulating their commerce and navigation, consists the mutual
happiness and prosperity both of England and America. She derived
assistance and protection from us; and we reaped from her the most
important advantages. She was, indeed, the fountain of our wealth, the
nerve of our strength, the nursery and basis of our naval power. It is
our duty, therefore, my Lords, if we wish to save our country, most
seriously to endeavor the recovery of these most beneficial subjects;
and in this perilous crisis, perhaps the present moment may be the only
one in which we can hope for success. For in their negotiations with
France, they have, or think they have, reason to complain; though it be
notorious that they have received from that power important supplies and
assistance of various kinds, yet it is certain they expected it in a
more decisive and immediate degree. America is in ill humor with France;
on some points they have not entirely answered her expectations. Let us
wisely take advantage of every possible moment of reconciliation.
Besides, the natural disposition of America herself still leans toward
England; to the old habits of connection and mutual interest that united
both countries. This _was_ the established sentiment of all the
continent; and still, my Lords, in the great and principal part, the
sound part of America, this wise and affectionate disposition prevails.
And there is a very considerable part of America yet sound--the middle
and the southern provinces. Some parts may be factious and blind to
their true interests; but if we express a wise and benevolent
disposition to communicate with them those immutable rights of nature
and those constitutional liberties to which they are equally entitled
with ourselves, by a conduct so just and humane we shall confirm the
favorable and conciliate the adverse. I say, my Lords, the rights and
liberties to which they are equally entitled with ourselves, _but no
more_. I would participate to them every enjoyment and freedom which the
colonizing subjects of a free state can possess, or wish to possess; and
I do not see why they should not enjoy every fundamental right in their
property, and every original substantial liberty, which Devonshire, or
Surrey, or the county I live in, or any other county in England, can
claim; reserving always, as the sacred right of the mother country, the
due constitutional dependency of the colonies. The inherent supremacy of
the state in regulating and protecting the navigation and commerce of
all her subjects, is necessary for the mutual benefit and preservation
of every part, to constitute and preserve the prosperous arrangement of
the whole empire.
The sound parts of America, of which I have spoken, must be sensible of
these great truths and of their real interests. America is not in that
state of desperate and contemptible rebellion which this country has
been deluded to believe. It is not a wild and lawless banditti, who,
having nothing to lose, might hope to snatch something from public
convulsions. Many of their leaders and great men have a great stake in
this great contest. The gentleman who conducts their armies, I am told,
has an estate of four or five thousand pounds a year; and when I
consider these things, I cannot but lament the inconsiderate violence of
our penal acts, our declaration of treason and rebellion, with all the
fatal effects of attainder and confiscation.
As to the disposition of foreign powers which is asserted [in the King's
speech] to be pacific and friendly, let us judge, my Lords, rather by
their actions and the nature of things than by interested assertions.
The uniform assistance supplied to America by France suggests a
different conclusion. The most important interests of France in
aggrandizing and enriching herself with what she most wants, supplies of
every naval store from America, must inspire her with different
sentiments. The extraordinary preparations of the House of Bourbon, by
land and by sea, from Dunkirk to the Straits, equally ready and willing
to overwhelm these defenceless islands, should rouse us to a sense of
their real disposition and our own danger. Not five thousand troops in
England! hardly three thousand in Ireland! What can we oppose to the
combined force of our enemies? Scarcely twenty ships of the line so
fully or sufficiently manned, that any admiral's reputation would permit
him to take the command of. The river of Lisbon in the possession of our
enemies! The seas swept by American privateers! Our Channel trade torn
to pieces by them! In this complicated crisis of danger, weakness at
home, and calamity abroad, terrified and insulted by the neighboring
powers, unable to act in America, or acting only to be destroyed, where
is the man with the forehead to promise or hope for success in such a
situation, or from perseverance in the measures that have driven us to
it? Who has the forehead to do so? Where is that man? I should be glad
to see his face.
You cannot _conciliate_ America by your present measures. You cannot
_subdue_ her by your present or by any measures. What, then, can you do?
You cannot conquer; you cannot gain; but you can _address_; you can lull
the fears and anxieties of the moment into an ignorance of the danger
that should produce them. But, my Lords, the time demands the language
of truth. We must not now apply the flattering unction of servile
compliance or blind complaisance. In a just and necessary war, to
maintain the rights or honor of my country, I would strip the shirt from
my back to support it. But in such a war as this, unjust in its
principle, impracticable in its means, and ruinous in its consequences,
I would not contribute a single effort nor a single shilling. I do not
call for vengeance on the heads of those who have been guilty; I only
recommend to them to make their retreat. Let them walk off; and let them
make haste, or they may be assured that speedy and condign punishment
will overtake them.
My Lords, I have submitted to you, with the freedom and truth which I
think my duty, my sentiments on your present awful situation. I have
laid before you the ruin of your power, the disgrace of your reputation,
the pollution of your discipline, the contamination of your morals, the
complication of calamities, foreign and domestic, that overwhelm your
sinking country. Your dearest interests, your own liberties, the
Constitution itself totters to the foundation. All this disgraceful
danger, this multitude of misery, is the monstrous offspring of this
unnatural war. We have been deceived and deluded too long. Let us now
stop short. This is the crisis--the only crisis of time and situation,
to give us a possibility of escape from the fatal effects of our
delusions. But if, in an obstinate and infatuated perseverance in folly,
we slavishly echo the peremptory words this day presented to us, nothing
can save this devoted country from complete and final ruin. We madly
rush into multiplied miseries, and "confusion worse confounded."
Is it possible, can it be believed, that ministers are yet blind to this
impending destruction? I did hope, that instead of this false and empty
vanity, this overweening pride, engendering high conceits and
presumptuous imaginations, ministers would have humbled themselves in
their errors, would have confessed and retracted them, and by an active,
though a late, repentance, have endeavored to redeem them. But, my
Lords, since they had neither sagacity to foresee, nor justice nor
humanity to shun these oppressive calamities--since not even severe
experience can make them feel, nor the imminent ruin of their country
awaken them from their stupefaction, the guardian care of Parliament
must interpose. I shall, therefore, my Lords, propose to you an
amendment of the address to his Majesty, to be inserted immediately
after the two first paragraphs of congratulation on the birth of a
princess, to recommend an immediate cessation of hostilities, and the
commencement of a treaty to restore peace and liberty to America,
strength and happiness to England, security and permanent prosperity to
both countries. This, my Lords, is yet in our power; and let not the
wisdom and justice of your Lordships neglect the happy, and, perhaps,
the only opportunity. By the establishment of irrevocable law, founded
on mutual rights, and ascertained by treaty, these glorious enjoyments
may be firmly perpetuated. And let me repeat to your Lordships, that the
strong bias of America, at least of the wise and sounder parts of it,
naturally inclines to this happy and constitutional reconnection with
you. Notwithstanding the temporary intrigues with France, we may still
be assured of their ancient and confirmed partiality to us. America and
France _cannot_ be congenial.
My Lords, to encourage and confirm that innate inclination to this
country, founded on every principle of affection, as well as
consideration of interest; to restore that favorable disposition into a
permanent and powerful reunion with this country; to revive the mutual
strength of the empire; again to awe the House of Bourbon, instead of
meanly truckling, as our present calamities compel us, to every insult
of French caprice and Spanish punctilio; to re-establish our commerce;
to reassert our rights and our honor; to confirm our interests, and
renew our glories forever--a consummation most devoutly to be
endeavored! and which, I trust, may yet arise from reconciliation with
America--I have the honor of submitting to you the following amendment,
which I move to be inserted after the two first paragraphs of the
address:
"And that this House does most humbly advise and supplicate his
Majesty to be pleased to cause the most speedy and effectual
measures to be taken for restoring peace in America; and that no
time may be lost in proposing an immediate opening of a treaty
for the final settlement of the tranquillity of these invaluable
provinces, by a removal of the unhappy causes of this ruinous
civil war, and by a just and adequate security against the
return of the like calamities in times to come. And this House
desire to offer the most dutiful assurances to his Majesty, that
they will, in due time, cheerfully co-operate with the
magnanimity and tender goodness of his Majesty for the
preservation of his people, by such explicit and most solemn
declarations, and provisions of fundamental and irrevocable
laws, as may be judged necessary for the ascertaining and fixing
forever the respective rights of Great Britain and her
colonies."
XXII. FROM "THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD."
THE FAMILY USE ART, WHICH IS OPPOSED WITH STILL GREATER.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.--1728-1774.
Whatever might have been Sophia's sensations, the rest of the family was
easily consoled for Mr. Burchell's absence by the company of our
landlord, whose visits now became more frequent and longer. Though he
had been disappointed in procuring my daughters the amusements of the
town, as he designed, he took every opportunity of supplying them with
those little recreations which our retirement would admit of. He usually
came in the morning, and while my son and I followed our occupations
abroad, he sat with the family at home, and amused them by describing
the town, with every part of which he was particularly acquainted. He
could repeat all the observations that were retailed in the atmosphere
of the play-houses, and had all the good things of the high wits by rote
long before they made their way into the jest-books. The intervals
between conversation were employed in teaching my daughters piquet, or
sometimes in setting my two little ones to box to make them _sharp_, as
he called it; but the hopes of having him for a son-in-law, in some
measure blinded us to all his imperfections. It must be owned that my
wife laid a thousand schemes to entrap him; or, to speak it more
tenderly, used every art to magnify the merit of her daughter. If the
cakes at tea ate short and crisp, they were made by Olivia: if the
gooseberry wine was well knit, the gooseberries were of her gathering:
it was her fingers that gave the pickles their peculiar green; and in
the composition of a pudding, it was her judgment that mixed the
ingredients. Then the poor woman would sometimes tell the 'squire, that
she thought him and Olivia extremely of a size, and would bid both stand
up to see which was tallest. These instances of cunning, which she
thought impenetrable, yet which everybody saw through, were very
pleasing to our benefactor, who gave every day some new proofs of his
passion, which, though they had not risen to proposals of marriage, yet
we thought fell but little short of it; and his slowness was attributed
sometimes to native bashfulness, and sometimes to his fear of offending
his uncle. An occurrence, however, which happened soon after, put it
beyond a doubt that he designed to become one of our family; my wife
even regarded it as an absolute promise.
My wife and daughters happening to return a visit to neighbor
Flamborough's, found that family had lately got their pictures drawn by
a limner, who travelled the country, and took likenesses for fifteen
shillings a head. As this family and ours had long a sort of rivalry in
point of taste, our spirit took the alarm at this stolen march upon us,
and notwithstanding all I could say, and I said much, it was resolved
that we should have our pictures done too. Having, therefore, engaged
the limner, for what could I do? our next deliberation was to shew the
superiority of our taste in the attitudes. As for our neighbor's family,
there were seven of them, and they were drawn with seven oranges, a
thing quite out of taste, no variety in life, no composition in the
world. We desired to have something in a brighter style, and after many
debates, at length came to an unanimous resolution of being drawn
together in one large historical family piece. This would be cheaper,
since one frame would serve for all, and it would be infinitely more
genteel; for all families of any taste were now drawn in the same
manner. As we did not immediately recollect an historical subject to hit
us, we were contented each with being drawn as independent historical
figures. My wife desired to be represented as Venus, and the painter was
desired not to be too frugal of his diamonds in her stomacher and hair.
Her two little ones were to be as Cupids by her side, while I, with my
gown and band, was to present her with my books on the Whistonian
controversy. Olivia would be drawn as an Amazon, sitting upon a bank of
flowers, dressed in a green Joseph richly laced with gold, and a whip in
her hand. Sophia was to be a shepherdess, with as many sheep as the
painter could put in for nothing; and Moses was to be dressed out with
an hat and white feather. Our taste so much pleased the 'squire, that he
insisted on being put in as one of the family, in the character of
Alexander the Great, at Olivia's feet. This was considered by us all as
an indication of his desire to be introduced into the family, nor could
we refuse his request. The painter was therefore set to work, and as he
wrought with assiduity and expedition, in less than four days the whole
was completed. The piece was large, and it must be owned he did not
spare his colors; for which my wife gave him great encomiums. We were
all perfectly satisfied with his performance; but an unfortunate
circumstance had not occurred till the picture was finished, which now
struck us with dismay. It was so very large that we had no place in the
house to fix it. How we all came to disregard so material a point is
inconceivable; but certain it is, we had been all greatly remiss. The
picture, therefore, instead of gratifying our vanity, as we hoped,
leaned, in a most mortifying manner, against the kitchen wall, where the
canvas was stretched and painted, much too large to be got through any
of the doors, and the jest of all our neighbors. One compared it to
Robinson Crusoe's long-boat, too large to be removed; another thought it
more resembled a reel in a bottle; some wondered how it could be got
out, but still more were amazed how it ever got in.
But though it excited the ridicule of some, it effectually raised more
malicious suggestions in many. The 'squire's portrait being found united
with ours, was an honor too great to escape envy. Scandalous whispers
began to circulate at our expense, and our tranquillity was continually
disturbed by persons who came as friends to tell us what was said of us
by enemies. These reports we always resented with becoming spirit; but
scandal ever improves by opposition.
We once again therefore entered into a consultation upon obviating the
malice of our enemies, and at last came to a resolution which had too
much cunning to give me entire satisfaction. It was this: as our
principal object was to discover the honor of Mr. Thornhill's addresses,
my wife undertook to sound him by pretending to ask his advice in the
choice of an husband for her eldest daughter. If this was not found
sufficient to induce him to a declaration, it was then resolved to
terrify him with a rival. To this last step, however, I would by no
means give my consent, till Olivia gave me the most solemn assurances
that she would marry the person provided to rival him upon this
occasion, if he did not prevent it, by taking her himself. Such was the
scheme laid, which, though I did not strenuously oppose, I did not
entirely approve.