ham's original proposition, that taxes for revenue should be given up, and duties for regulation of trade retained, it was clear that at this time peace was not to be obtained by compromise. Not even the veneration in which the name of Chatham was justly held, could have made such an arrangement possible. The Americans had made up their minds to independence, and would not have agreed to submission on any terms. When Lord North proposed the conciliatory bills, Washington wrote thus to a member of Congress: "Nothing short of independence, it appears to me, can possibly do. A peace on any other terms would, if I may be allowed the expression, be a peace of war. The injuries we have received from the British nation were so unprovoked, and have been so great and so many, that they can never be forgotten. Besides the feuds, the jealousies, the animosities that would ever attend a union with them, besides the importance, the advantages which we should derive from an unrestricted commerce, our fidelity as a people, our gratitude, our character as men, are opposed to a coalition with them as subjects; but, in case of the last extremity, were we easily to accede to terms of dependence, no nation, upon future occasions, let the oppressions of Britain be ever so flagrant and unjust, would interfere for our relief, or at most they would do it with a cautious reluctance, and upon conditions most probably that would be hard, if not dishonourable to us."*

In this division of opinion there can be little doubt that the Duke of Richmond and Mr. Fox were in the right. The march of General Burgoyne showed the general enthusiasm of New England in the cause of independence; the little progress made by General Howe in the south proved Sparks's "Life of Washington," vol. i. p. 287.

that Washington might be driven back, but could not be destroyed. Lord Chatham and Lord Shelburne were mistaken in thinking that with the loss of America the sun of England would set for ever. Seven years of unavailing contest, and seventy-five years of the greatness of the British empire after separation, have proved the wisdom of the advice which the Rockingham Whigs gave to their country. Mr. Fox said truly, that commerce with America on friendly terms would serve us better than a nominal dependence. Experience has proved the truth of his assertion. The trade between Great Britain and America has increased at least fivefold since the separation. Not all the jealousy of the mercantile system, not all the prohibitions to which Lord Chatham adhered, nor all the taxes which the financial genius of Mr. Grenville could have devised, could have furnished to Great Britain any advantages to be compared with the profits of unrestricted intercourse founded on the sense of mutual benefits, and the amity of two great independent States.

CHAPTER X.

PROCEEDINGS IN PARLIAMENT-WAR WITH FRANCE-PROGRESS OF AFFAIRS IN AMERICA-NEGOTIATIONS-DEATH OF CHATHAM.

1778.

SOON after the meeting of Parliament, Colonel Luttrell, complaining that in a certain morning paper he had been grossly misrepresented, informed the House that for his future safety and protection he was determined to move that the Standing Order of the House for excluding strangers from the gallery should be strictly enforced.

Mr. Fox laid down the true doctrine of publicity on this occasion. He said: "That he was convinced the true and only method of preventing misrepresentation was by throwing open the gallery, and making the debates and decisions of the House as public as possible. There was less danger of misrepresentation in a full company than in a thin one, as there would be a greater number of persons to give evidence against the misrepresentation. The shutting of the gallery could not prevent the proceedings of the House from finding their way to public view; for, during a certain period, when the gallery was kept empty, the debates were printed, let the manner of obtaining them be what it might, and, in fact, the public had a right to know what passed in Parliament."

On the 2nd of February Mr. Fox, in a committee on the

state of the nation, moved, "That no more of the old corps should be sent out of the kingdom." Public expectation having been raised by Mr. Fox's notice, the lobbies were crowded, and the doors being closed, strangers forced their way, in spite of the doorkeepers, into the gallery. Nearly sixty ladies, including the Duchess of Devonshire, were also present. But the House, resenting the forcible entrance of strangers, ordered the gallery to be cleared, and on the suggestion of Governor Johnstone, the ladies were likewise excluded. The following extracts are taken from the report of Mr. Fox's speech :

"Sir, I shall not now enter into any more of the proceedings relative to America than are necessary to show the immediate steps which have brought us into our present situation. Without discussing the various questions which have been for many years agitated in Parliament, I shall take up the measures relative to America in the year 1774, when the riots at Boston first called for the attention of this House; papers were, indeed, called for and granted, but there were some things that tended that year to shut the eyes of Ministers to the true state of that country, and the true interest of this; which was to prevent, rather than stimulate and increase the general discontents in the colonies. Every one must allow that the agreement with the East India Company was a most unfortunate one, and the immediate source of all the troubles that have since followed. Here began a capital mistake of the Ministry; they mistook the single province of Massachusetts Bay for the American empire. Virginia, a colony no less jealous of its rights, nor less warm in its assertion of them, was entirely forgotten; it was not thought possible that any other colony should unite with Massachusetts; now, who

ever fights against ten men, and thinks he is contending only with one, will meet with more difficulties than if he was aware of the force brought against him; for I believe I may lay it down as an undoubted maxim in politics, that every attempt to crush an insurrection with means inadequate to the end, foments instead of suppressing it. The case here was, you took a great object for a small one, you took thirteen provinces for one; and not only that, you imagined the other twelve were with you, when the very act you were then doing made those twelve equally hostile. Sir, another mistake at this time was the taking a violent step against the town of Boston. If America was not before sufficiently united in a determined resistance to the claims of this country, this measure made all America combined; they were all from that moment united with the town of Boston, which might have been before the object of the jealousy of the rest. Another mistake was the altering the government of the province of Massachusetts Bay; whereas the acts of all the other colonies as well as this, plainly showed it was not the form of government in that province which occasioned the commotions there, because other provinces which depended more on the Crown, and which have the appellation of royal governments, were not less early or less vigorous in their opposition and resistance. Now, sir, if the form of this government was not itself the cause of the troubles in that country, then the alarm given by the alteration of that government was certainly a most capital mistake; because it gave the whole continent reason to fear that they had no security in the permanency of their government, but that it was liable to be altered or subverted at our pleasure, on any cause of complaint, whether real or supposed. Thus their natura!