Oct. CHAP. newed. "If we suffer by the war," said Lord North, LL "the Americans will suffer much more. Yet," he 1775. added, "I wish to God, if it were possible, to put the colonies on the same footing they were in 1763." His seeming disinclination to the measures of his own ministry, justly drew on him the rebuke from Fox for not resigning his place. "The present war," argued Adair at length, "is unjust in its commencement, injurious to both countries in its prosecution, and ruinous in its event, staking the fate of a great empire against a shadow. The quarrel took its rise from the assertion of a right, at best but doubtful in itself; a right, from whence the warmest advocates for it have long been forced to admit that this country can never derive a single shilling of advantage. The Americans, it is said, will be satisfied with nothing less than absolute independence. They do not say so themselves; they have said the direct contrary: 'Restore the ancient constitution of the empire, under which all parts of it have flourished; place us in the situation we were in the year sixty three, and we will submit to your regulations of commerce, and return to our obedience and constitutional subjection: this is the language of the Americans. Our ministers tell us they will not in truth be content with what they themselves have professed to demand. Have you tried them? Make the experiment. Take them at their word. If they should recede from their own proposals, you may then have recourse to war, with the advantage of a united, instead of a divided people at home." Sir Gilbert Elliot was unwilling "to send a large armament to America, without sending at the same time terms of LI. Oct. accommodation." "I vote for the address," said Rig- CHAP. by, "because it sanctifies coercive measures. America must be conquered, and the present rebellion must 1775. be crushed, ere the dispute will be ended." The commons unhesitatingly confirmed their vote of the previous night. pe Among the lords, Shelburne insisted that the tition of the congress furnished the fairest foundation for an honorable and advantageous accommodation; and he bore his testimony to the sincerity of Franklin as one whom "he had long and intimately known, and had ever found constant and earnest in the wish for conciliation upon the terms of ancient connection." His words, which were really a prophecy of peace and a designation of its mediators, were that night unheeded; and he was overborne by a majority of two to one. Some of the minority entered their protest, in which they said: "We conceive the calling in foreign forces to decide domestic quarrels, to be a measure both disgraceful and dangerous." That same day the university of Oxford, the favored printer of the translated Bible for all whose mother tongue was the English, the natural guardian of the principles and the example of Wickliffe and Latimer and Ridley and Cranmer, the tutor of the youth of England, addressed the king against the Americans as "a people who had forfeited their lives and fortunes to the justice of the state." On the last day of October, Lord Stormont, the British ambassador in France, who had just returned to his post, was received at court. The king of France, whose sympathies were all on the side of monarchical power, said to him: "Happily the opposition party is LI. Oct. now very weak." From the king, Stormont went to Vergennes, who expressed the desire to live in perfect 1775. harmony with England; "far from wishing to increase your embarrassments," said he, "we see them with some uneasiness." "The consequences," observed Stormont, "cannot escape a man of your penetration and extensive views." "Indeed they are very obvious," responded Vergennes; "they are as obvious as the consequences of the cession of Canada. I was at Constantinople when the last peace was made; when I heard its conditions, I told several of my friends there, that England would ere long have reason to repent of having removed the only check that could keep her colonies in awe. My prediction has been but too well verified. I equally see the consequences that must follow the independence of North America, if your colonies should carry that point, at which they now so visibly aim. They might, when they pleased, conquer both your islands and ours. I am persuaded that they would not stop there, but would in process of time advance to the southern continent of America, and either subdue its inhabitants or carry them along with them, and in the end not leave a foot of that hemisphere in the possession of any European power. All these consequences will not indeed be immediate Neither you nor I shall live to see them; but for be ing remote they are not less sure.” Nov. The moderate men among British statesmen saw no less clearly that the king's policy was forcing independence upon the colonies. On the first of November the Duke of Manchester said to the lords: "The violence of the times has wrested America from the British crown, and spurned the jewel be LI. Nov. cause the setting appeared uncouth;" but the debate CHAP. which he opened had no effect except that Grafton took part with him, and as a consequence resigned 1775. his place as keeper of the privy seal. Every effort of the opposition was futile. On the tenth of November Richard Penn was called to the bar of the house of lords, where he bore witness in great detail to the sincerity of the American congress in their wish for conciliation, and to the unanimity of support which they received from the people. Under the most favorable auspices the duke of Richmond proposed to accept the petition from that congress to the king as a ground for conciliation; he was ably supported by Shelburne; but his motion, like every similar motion in either house, was negatived by a majority of about two to one. On the same day, the definitive ministerial changes, which were to give a character to the whole war, were completed. Rochford retired on a pension, and his place was taken by Lord Weymouth, who greatly surpassed him in ability and resolution. Dartmouth, who was mild tempered, amiable, and pure, yet weak, ignorant, and narrow, one of the best disposed of British statesmen, yet one whose hand was set to the most cruel and most arbitrary measures, exchanged his seat in the cabinet for the privy seal, consoling himself with the belief that he had been ever laboring for conciliation, while in fact he had been sanctioning and executing the policy at which his soul revolted. The seals of the American department were transferred to Lord George Sackville Germain, who owed his selection to his speech in the house of commons on the twenty eighth of March, 1774, and who came into CHAP. office on the condition of his enforcing the measures LI. recommended in that speech. 1775. Nov. Germain stood before Europe as a cashiered officer, disgraced for cowardice on the field of battle; and his unquestioning vanity made him eager to efface his ignominy by a career that should rival that of Pitt in the Seven Years' war. Haunted by corroding recollections, he stumbled like one in the dark as he struggled to enter the temple of fame, and eagerly went about knocking for admission at every gate but the right one. He owed his rehabilitation to Rockingham, to whom he instantly proved false; Chatham would never sit with him at the council board. His career was unprosperous, from causes within himself. His powers were very much overrated; he had a feverish activity, punctuality to a minute, and personal application, but no sagacity, nor quickness or delicacy of perception, nor soundness of judgment. He wanted altogether that mastery over others which comes from warmth of heart. Minutely precise and formal, he was a most uncomfortable chief, always throwing upon the officers under his direction the fault of failure even in impossible schemes. His rancor towards those at whom he took offence was bitter and unending. His temper was petulant; his selfish passions were violent and constant, yet petty in their objects. Apparelled on Sunday morning in gala, as if for the drawing room, he constantly marched out all his household to his parish church; where he would mark time for the singing gallery, chide a rustic chorister for a discord, stand up during the sermon to survey the congregation, or overawe the idle, and with unmoved sincerity gesticulate approbation to the |