Carpenter's Hall

FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS - CONSEQUENT PARLIAMENTARY PROCEEDINGS

In the petition to the king, their expressions of duty and loyalty were strong, -more so than in the first draft which, in this respect, was considered deficient. To the people of Britain they expressed an "ardent desire to maintain the union as their greatest glory.and happiness, and to contribute with their utmost power to the welfare of the whole empire. They concluded, however, -"but if you are determined that your ministers shall wantonly sport. with the rights of mankind; if neither the voice of justice, the dictates of the law, the principles of the constitution, or the suggestions of humanity, can restrain your hands from shedding human blood in such an impious cause, we must then tell you, that we will never submit to be hewers of wood or drawers of water for any ministry or nation in the world."

The intelligence of most of these proceedings had reached Britain before the meeting of Parliament in November, 1774. The king's speech announced the violences committed in Massachusetts. and countenanced by the other colonies, declaring a resolution to withstand every attempt to weaken or impair the authority of the British legislature. This was reechoed by large majorities in both houses, though under a protest by nine lords, a proceeding very unusual on such occasions. Parliament was soon after prorogued; and ministers do not seem to have formed any fixed resolution, as they made no increase in the votes either for the army or navy. In the course of the recess, however, further intelligence being received, the determination was at length formed to employ coercive measures. As a prelude, Lord North, when the houses met on the 19th of January, 1775, laid before them a large mass of documents received from the governors of the different colonies, and which were submitted to a committee.

Lord Chatham.

They reproached the mover with sowing divisions, and giving eucouragement to the malecontents. The motion was negatived by sixty-eight to eighteen. Chatham, however, immediately followed it up by a bill for settling the transatlantic troubles.' It proposed to renounce the power of taxation, but to call upon Congress to acknowledge the supreme legislative power of Britain, and invite them to make a. free grant of a certain annual revenue, to be employed in meeting the charge on the national debt. All the obnoxious acts were then to be repealed. The Earl of Dartmouth was willing that it should lie on the table; but this was strongly condemned and opposed by the other members, and, after a warm debate, was negatived, though thirty,"two against sixty-one voted in its favour. Lord Camden afterwards bitterly reproached the house, that a plan coming from so high a quarter should, without examination, have been spurned and trampled upon. "Obliterate," said he, "the transaction from your records; let not posterity know it."

The minister, meantime, in a committee of the Commons, intimated his plans for coercing the colonies, by sending out an additional force, and by crushing the foreign trade and fisheries of New England. He proposed an address approving these measures, declaring Massachusetts to be in rebellion, and assuring his majesty of, full support in maintaining his just rights and those of Parliament. After some stormy debates, in which the usual arguments. were reiterated, it was carried in both houses; in the lower by. two hundred and ninety-six to one hundred and six; in the upper by eighty-seven to twenty- seven, eighteen peers protesting. This was followed, on a royal message, by an additional vote of two. thousand seamen, and four thousand four hundrea laud troops. The minister then brought into the Commons his. anti-commercial bill against New England, afterwards extended to the other colonies. This was represented as a just punishment for theIr contumacious proceedings, and only a fair retaliation of the similar course adopted by Congress. It encountered the usual opposition, Lord Camden saying: "It is a bill of war - it draws the sword." Rash and contemptuous expressions were used by members on the government side. General Grant declared that, with five regiments of infantry, he could drive them from one end of the continent to the other. Lord Sandwich described them as a raw, undisciplined, cowardly rabble, who, at the first sound of cannon, would run off as fast as their feet could carry them; their real object, he declared, was to defraud their creditors. Lord Suffolk, secretary of state, censured the use of contumelious expressions, and represented the measure to be merely temporary, with the view of bringing the Americans to their duty. It was carried, as usual, by large majorities, -one hundred and eighty-eight to fifty-eight in the one house, and seventy-three to twenty-one in the other.

After this series of coercive measures, Lord North, who had occasionally shown some symptoms of relenting, surprised the house by a conciliatory proposition. Its tenor was, that when the assembly in any colony should propose, besides maintaining its own civil government, to raise a certain revenue, and make it disposable by Parliament, it would be proper to forbear imposing any tax unless for the regulation of commerce. To these terms, it was objected by the parliamentary friends of the colonists, and afterwards by themselves, that they remedied no grievance except taxation, and even on that head contained nothing specific. It referred all to a future decision of the British legislature, in whose friendly disposition they were far from confiding. The premier had also to sustain a hot fire from his usual supporters, who branded this step as grossly inconsistent with the address and with all the other measures. He was obliged to represent that the rejection of these terms, admitted as highly probable, would at least increase the number of the well-affected, and divide the male- contents. The proposal was carried by two hundred and seventy-four to eighty-eight. Mr. Burke then brought forward, and eloquently supported, a series of resolutions, in which, without entering into any question of speculative right, a complete practical concession was made of the points in dispute. Their fate might be easily conjectured, being negatived by two hundred and seventy to seventy-eight.

The mercantile interest, however, smarting under the cessation of intercourse, adopted with ardour the cause of the colonists. On the 10th of April, an address was presented to the king by the lord mayor, aldermen, and livery of London, condemning all the late measures against the Americans, and pronouncing their resistance justifiable. A stern answer was re- turned, expressing astonishment that any subject should be capable of abetting and encouraging such rebellious courses.

The British government appears, after all, to have cherished a strong desire for pacification. Doctor Franklin being still resident in London, two gentlemen, with the consent of some of the ministry, earnestly solicited him to suggest some conciliatory plan. He drew up, under the title of "Hints," seventeen propositions, embracing of course all the demands of America, conceding payment for the tea, and certain contributions of revenue. While these were under discussion, Lord Howe procured an in traduction to him, and expressed an earnest wish for reconciliation, though he was afraid the terms would never be accepted. On the 4th of February, 1775, however, two months after their delivery, an answer was returned, agreeing, in an extent at least likely to be satisfactory, to the whole, except the abolition of the new constitution of Massachusetts. This, it was said, as being a real improvement, and as a standing example of the power of Parliament, must be continued. Franklin answered, that the claim of altering the charters and rights upon which the governments were founded, without the consent of the parties to whom they had been granted, was one which could never be submitted to. Yet another series of proposals were on the 16th of February presented from the ministry, but as they did not concede this article, the negotiation was unhappily broken up.