would learn, sir, that to accuse and to prove are very different; and that reproaches, unsupported by evidence, affect only the character of him that utters them. Excursions of fancy and flights of oratory are indeed pardonable in young men, but in no other; and it surely would contribute more, even to the purpose for which some gentlemen appear to speak (that of depreciating the conduct of the administration), to prove the inconveniences and injustice of this bill, than barely to assert them, with whatever magnificence of language, or appearance of zeal, honesty, or compassion.

VI. MR. PITT'S REPLY.

SIR, the atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honourable gentleman has with such spirit and decency charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny ; but content myself with wishing that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience. Whether youth can be imputed to any man as a reproach, I will not, sir, assume the province of determining; but, surely age may become justly contemptible, if the opportunities which it brings have passed away without improvement, and vice appears to prevail when the passions have subsided. The wretch who, after having seen the consequences of a thousand errors, continues still to blunder, and whose age has only added obstinacy to stupidity, is surely the object of either abhorrence or contempt, and deserves not that his gray hairs should secure him from insult. Much more, sir, is he to be abhorred, who, as he has advanced in age, has receded from virtue, and becomes more wicked with less temptation; who prostitutes himself for money which he cannot enjoy, and spends the remains of his life in the ruin of his country. But youth, sir, is not my only crime: I have been accused of acting a theatrical part.-A theatrical part may either imply some peculiarities of gesture, or dissimulation of my real

sentiments, and an adoption of the opinions and language of another man.

In the first sense, sir, the charge is too trifling to be confuted, and deserves only to be mentioned to be despised. I am at liberty, like every other man to use my own language, and though, perhaps, I may have some ambition to please this gentleman, I shall not lay myself under any restraint, nor very solicitously copy his diction or his mien, however matured by age or modelled by experience. But if any man shall, by charging me with theatrical behaviour, imply that I utter any sentiments but my own, I shall treat him as a calumniator and a villain; nor shall any protection shelter him from the treatment he deserves. I shall, on such an occasion, without scruple, trample upon all those forms with which wealth and dignity intrench themselves, nor shall any thing but age restrain my resentment;-age, which always brings one privilege, that of being insolent and supercilious without punishment. But with regard, sir, to those whom I have offended, I am of opinion, that if I had acted a borrowed part, I should have avoided their censure: the heat that has offended them is the ardour of conviction, and that zeal for the service of my country, which neither hope nor fear shall influence me to suppress. I will not sit unconcerned while my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon public robbery. I will exert my endeavours, at whatever hazard, to repel the aggressor, and drag the thief to justice, whoever may protect him in his villany, and whoever may partake of his plunder.

VII.-SPEECH OF LORD CHATHAM AGAINST THE AMERICAN WAR, AND THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE INDIANS IN IT.

I CANNOT, my Lords, I will not, join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. This, my Lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment. It is not a time for adulation: the smoothness of flattery cannot save us in this rugged and

awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the throne in the language of truth. We must, if possible, dispel the delusion and darkness which envelop it, and display, in its full danger and genuine colours, the ruin which is brought to our doors. Can ministers still presume to expect support in their infatuation? Can parliament be so dead to its dignity and duty, as to give their support to measures thus obtruded and forced upon them? Measures, my Lords, which have reduced this late flourishing empire to scorn and contempt! "But yesterday, and Britain might have stood against the world; now, none so poor as to do her reverence."-The people, whom we at first despised as rebels, but whom we now acknowledge as enemies, are abetted against us, supplied with every military store, have their interest consulted, and their ambassadors entertained, by our inveterate enemyand ministers do not, and dare not, interpose with dignity or effect. The desperate state of our army abroad is in part known. No man more highly esteems and honours the British troops than I do; I know their virtues and their valour; I know they can achieve any thing but impossibilities; and I know that the conquest of British America is an impossibility. You cannot, 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. You may swell every expense, accumulate every assistance, and extend your traffic to the shambles of every German despot: your attempts will be for ever vain and impotent-doubly so, indeed, from this mercenary aid on which you rely, for it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your adversaries, 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 the

disgraces and mischiefs of the war, 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 inhabitants 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. But, my Lords, this barbarous measure has been defended, not only on the principles of policy and necessity, but also on those of morality; "for it is perfectly allowable,” says Lord Suffolk, "to use all the means which God and nature have put into our hands." I am astonished, I am shocked, to hear such principles confessed; to hear them avowed in this House, or in this country. My Lords, I did not intend to encroach so much on your attention, but I cannot repress my indignation-I feel myself impelled to speak. My Lords, we are called upon as members of this House, as men, as Christians, to protest against such horrible barbarity !— "That God and nature have put into our hands!" What ideas of God and nature that noble lord may entertain, I know not; but I know that such detestable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity. What! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping-knife! to the cannibal savage, torturing, murdering, devouring, drinking the blood of his mangled victims ! Such notions shock every precept of morality, every feeling of humanity, every sentiment of honour. These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation.

I call upon that Right Reverend, and this most Learned Bench, to vindicate the religion of their God, to support the justice of their country. I call upon the Bishops to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn; upon the Judges to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollution. I call upon the honour of your Lordships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I

call upon the spirit and humanity of my country, to vindicate the national character. I INVOKE THE GENIUS OF THE CONSTITUTION!

My Lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more; but my feelings and indignation were too strong to have said less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor even reposed my head upon my pillow, without giving vent to my eternal abhorrence of such enormous and preposterous principles.

VIII. QUARREL BETWEEN FLOOD AND GRATTAN.

[IN a debate in the Irish Parliament, October 28, 1783, on a Resolution for declaring that the condition of the kingdom required every practicable retrenchment consistent with the honour and safety of the state, Mr. Grattan made some strong personal allusions to Mr. Flood, who supported the Resolution, accusing him particularly of having affected an indisposition, and being guilty of apostacy. Mr. Flood rose, and replied in these words :-]

"The right honourable member can have no doubt of the propriety of my saying a word in reply to what he has delivered. Every member of the House can bear witness of the infirmity I mentioned, and therefore it required but little candour to make a nocturnal attack upon that infirmity. But I am not afraid of the right honourable member: I will meet him anywhere, or upon any ground, by night or by day. I should stand poorly in my own estimation and in my country's opinion, if I did not stand far above him. I do not come here dressed in a rich wardrobe of words to delude the people. I am not one who has promised repeatedly to bring in a Bill of Rights, yet does not bring in that bill, or permit any other person to do it. I am not one who threatened to impeach the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and afterwards shrunk from the charge. I am not one who would come at midnight, and attempt a vote of this House to stifle the people, which my egregious folly had raised against me. I am not the gentleman who subsists upon your accounts. I am not the mendicant patriot who was bought by his