ereign to dismiss his ministers; advising him to withdraw all his forces by sea and land from the revolted provinces, and to adopt amicable means only to recover their friendship, at least, if not their allegiance. This question of independence was enough to kindle all Lord Chatham's English enthusiasm.

After Lord Weymouth had spoken against the address, Lord CHATHAM rose with slowness and difficulty from his seat, leaning on his crutches, and supported by his two relations. He took one hand from his crutch and raised it, casting his eyes towards Heaven, and said "I thank God that I have been enabled to come here this day, to perform my duty, and to speak.on a subject which is so deeply impressed on my mind. I am old and infirm,-have one foot,-more than one foot,-in the grave. I have risen from my bed, to stand up in the cause of my country,—perhaps never again to speak in this House!"

The reverence, the attention, the stillness of the House were here most affecting; had any one dropped a handkerchief, the noise would have been heard.

At first, Lord Chatham spoke in that low and feeble tone which is characteristic of severe indisposition; but as he grew warm, his voice rose, and became as harmonious as ever; oratorical and affecting, perhaps more so than at any former period. He recounted the whole history' of the American war, the measures to which he had objected, and all the evil consequences which he had foretold; adding, at the end of every period, "And so it proved."

In one part of his speech, he ridiculed the apprehension of an invasion, and then recalled the remembrance of former invasions. "A Spanish invasion, a French invasion, a Dutch invasion, many noble Lords must have read in history; and some Lords (looking sternly at Lord Mansfield,*) may remember a Scotch invasion.

* Chatham retained his antipathy towards Mansfield to his last breath!

"I rejoice, my Lords, that the grave has not closed upon me, that I am still alive to lift up my voice against the dismemberment of this ancient and most noble monarchy! Pressed down as I am by the hand of infirmity, I am little able to assist my country in this most perilous conjuncture; but, my Lords, while I have sense and memory I will never consent to deprive the royal offspring of the House of Brunswick, the heirs of the Princess Sophia, of their fairest inheritance. I will first see the Prince of Wales, the Bishop of Osnaburg, and the other rising hopes of the royal family, brought down to the committee, and assent to such an alienation. Where is the man that will dare to advise it? My Lords, his Majesty succeeded to an empire as great in extent as its reputation was unsullied. Shall we tarnish the lustre of this nation by an ignominious surrender of its rights and fairest possessions? Shall this great kingdom, that has survived, whole and entire, the Danish depredations, the Scottish inroads, and the Norman conquest; that has stood the threatened invasion of the Spanish armada, now fall prostrate before the House of Bourbon? Surely, my Lords, this nation is no longer what it was! Shall a people, that, seventeen years ago, was the terror of the world, now stoop so low as to tell its ancient, inveterate enemy, Take all we have, only give us peace?' It is impossible!

"I wage war with no man or set of men. I wish for none of their employments; nor would I co-operate with men who still persist in unretracted error; or who, instead of acting on a firm, decisive line of conduct, halt between two opinions, where there is no middle path. In God's name, if it is absolutely necessary to declare either for peace or war, and the former cannot be preserved with honor, why is not the latter commenced without hesitation? I am not, I confess, well informed of the resources of this kingdom, but I trust it has still sufficient to maintain its just rights, though I know them not. But, my Lords, any state is better than despair. Let us, at least, make one effort; and if we must fall, let us fall like men!"

In the course of his speech in reply to Lord Chatham, the Duke of RICHMOND said, that "he did not doubt but the name of the EARL of CHATHAM (he begged to apologize for mentioning his Lordship by name) would rouse the spirit of the nation. But that name, great and mighty as it was, could not gain victories without an army, without a navy, and without money. If a large fleet of French ships met a few of ours, did the noble Earl think, that merely telling them that the Earl of Chatham had the conduct of public affairs, would prevent us from being beaten? If the fleet passed our ships, and the French effected an invasion, did the noble Earl imagine, that merely telling the invaders that Lord Chatham was the minister, and that he had roused the spirit of the nation, would induce them to re-imbark and abandon their purpose ?" During this and some other parts of the Duke's clumsy speech, Lord Chatham indicated, in countenance and gesture, symptoms of emotion and disgust. When the Duke of Richmond sat down, Lord Chatham made an eager effort to rise, as if laboring with some great idea, and impatient to give utterance to his feelings. But the body was unable to sustain the energies of the mind. After repeated attempts to retain his erect position, he suddenly pressed his hand to his great heart and fell. He lingered to the eleventh of the month following, when he died at his seat in Hayes.

His firmness of mind was remarkable. On his death-bed he said to his son, who was about to depart for Gibraltar, but was unwilling to leave his father, "Go, my son, go where your country calls you; let her engross all your attention; spare not a moment, which is due to her service, in weeping over an old man who will soon be no more."

CHAPTER XIII.

CHARACTER AND POLICY OF GEORGE THE THIRD.

ALTHOUGH JUNIUS observed proper respect for the Throne, it is manifest that he entertained a personal dislike to the King. This is a delicate subject; yet we must touch it. The official character of George the Third and the history of the American revolution and independency, are so interwoven, that we cannot separate them, without making an unseemly rent in the web of our narrative. One reign has passed away since that monarch's death, and another has just commenced. This allows us to speak of him with the same freedom as of any crowned head that preceded him.

JUNIUS disdains to disguise his contempt of the Duke of Grafton, his antipathy to Lord Mansfield, and his abhorrence of the characters of the Duke of Bedford and of Lord Barrington; and though he tries to throw a veil over his dislike of the King, we now and then discover the truth under some corners of it, which sudden gusts of resentment blow aside.

Like JUNIUS and like Lord Chatham, we Americans always maintained a theoretical reverence for the Sovereign, even from the year 1766 to 1776. Then, indeed, what had been, for ten years, dammed up, broke loose and inundated loyalty at once among those in authority, while the people as usual observed no degrees of comparison in their expres

s'ons of regal criminality. Adhering conscientiously to their 1 ational character, they spoke daggers, but used none.*

It was the political character and conduct of George the Third which gave birth to JUNIUS. Had his uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, ascended the throne, the Princess Dowager and her son George would have dwelt in comparative privacy, and neither JUNIUS, nor his harbinger, "The North Briton," would have ever appeared, nor the name of John Wilkes have ever been heard beyond the smoke of his chimney.

The private character of George the Third was almost in every respect unexceptionable. He was correct in les mœurs, and distinguished in les bienséances; his court was chaste, his queen discreet and remarkably circumspet, and their children rigidly governed as regarded their religious creed, and in the German system of etiquette. There was an easy, gentleman-like demeanor in the King, that hardly ever betrayed a consciousness of his very high station; which is remarkable, as in his national government and political measures and conduct, there was something like an unbending self-sufficiency, and unremitting adherence to maxims of state, partly German and partly Scotch, imbibed at an early period of life, before experience had time to judge of and correct them.

The English people were delighted with the novel circumstance of having a native-born King "to go in and out before them;" and the Scotch were greatly pleased at seeing one of their own noblemen the acknowledged favorite of the court, and another at the head of the judiciary. The whole realm appeared to rejoice that they had at length an-Englishman on the throne, not tied to Hanover by a natural feeling, or to France, Italy, or Germany, by uxoriousness. The public magnified every praiseworthy act in the young monarch, such

* During a period of great excitement and resentment in Boston against Sir Fran is Barnard, one of the English Commissioners asked the Governor if he was not afraid to walk the streets and over his farm unarmed and alone. He replied, "Not in the least. The Americans are not a bloody-minded people."