ing the fairest portion of Europe. The French people, free and respected by the whole world, shall give to Europe a glorious peace, which shall indemnify it for all the sacrifices which it has borne the last six years. Then, by your own firesides you shall repose; and your fellow-citizens, when they point out any one of you, shall say: "He belonged to the army of Italy."

REPLY TO WALPOLE WILLIAM PITT.

Sir, the atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honorable 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 a 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. If any man shall, by charging me with theatrical behavior, 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 anything 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 cen

The heat that offended them is the ardor 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 endeavors at whatever hazard to repel the aggressor, and drag the thief to justice, whoever may protect them in their villainy, and whoever may partake of their plunder.

REPLY TO MR. GRENVILLE

-WILLIAM PITT

Sir, a charge is brought against gentlemen sitting in this House of giving birth to sedition in America. Several have spoken their sentiments with freedom against this unhappy act, and that freedom has become their crime. Sorry I am to hear the liberty of speech in this House imputed as a crime; but the imputation shall not discourage me. The gentleman tells us, America is obstinate; America is almost in open rebellion. I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to let themselves be made slaves would have been fit instruments to make slaves of all the rest. I come not here armed at all points with law cases and acts of Parliament, with the statute-book doubled down in dogs' ears, to defend the cause of liberty. I would not debate a particular point of law with the gentleman. I know his abilities. But, for the defence of liberty, upon a general principle, upon a Constitutional principle, it is a ground on which I stand firm, on which I dare meet any man.

The gentleman boasts of his bounties to America. Are not those bounties intended finally for the benefit of this Kingdom? If they are not, he has misapplied the national treasures. He asks, when

were the Colonies emancipated? I desire to know when they were made slaves. But I dwell not upon words. I will be bold to affirm that the profits of Great Britain from the trade of the Colonies through all its branches are two millions a year. This is the fund that carried you triumphantly through the last war. This is the price America pays for her protection. And shall a miserable financier come with a boast that he can fetch a pepper-corn into the exchequer, by the loss of millions to the Nation?

A great deal has been said without doors of the power, of the strength, of America. It is a topic that ought to be cautiously meddled with. In a good cause, the force of this country can crush America to atoms. I know the valor of your troops; I know the skill of your officers. But on this ground, on the Stamp Act, when so many here will think it a crying injustice, I am one who will lift up my hands against it. In such a cause even your success would be hazardous. America, if she fell, would fall like the strong man. She would embrace the pillars of the State, and pull down the constitution along with her. Is this your boasted peace? To sheathe the sword, not in its scabbard, but in the bowels of your countrymen? Will you quarrel with yourselves while the whole House of Bourbon is united against you? While France disturbs your fisheries in Newfoundland, embarrasses your slave-trade to Africa, and withholds from your subjects in Canada their property stipulated by treaty? While the ransom for the Manillas is denied by Spain? The Americans have been wronged. They have been driven to mad

ness by injustice. Will you punish them for the madness you have occasioned? Rather let prudence and temper come first from this side. I will undertake for America that she will follow the example. "Be to her faults a little blind;

Be to her virtues very kind."

Let the Stamp Act be repealed; and let the reason for the repeal, because the Act was founded on an erroneous principle, be assigned. Let it be repealed absolutely, totally, and immediately.

AMERICA UNCONQUERABLE

-LORD CHATHAM.

This, my Lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment. It is no 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 colors, 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 be thus deluded into the loss of the one and the violation of the other, as to give an unlimited support to measures which have heaped disgrace and misfortune upon us, measures 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. France, my Lords, has insulted you.