ONE:On the 30th of January, 1793, Dundas announced to the House of Commons a message from the throne, communicating the news of the execution of the French king. This was accompanied by copies of a correspondence with M. Chauvelin, the late plenipotentiary of Louis, and of an order for his quitting the kingdom, in consequence of this sanguinary act. The message made a deep impression on the House, though the circumstances were already well known. It was agreed to take these matters into consideration on the 2nd of February, when Pitt detailed the correspondence which had for some time taken place between the British Cabinet and the French Government. He said that Britain, notwithstanding many provocations, had carefully maintained an attitude of neutrality, even when, in the preceding summer, France was at war with Austria and Prussia, and was menacing our Dutch allies. The French, on their part, had, he said, made similar professions. They had publicly renounced all aggression, and yet they had annexed Saxony, overrun Belgium, and now contemplated the invasion of Holland. They had done more: they had plainly menaced this country with invasion. So recently as the last day of the year, their Minister of Marine had addressed a letter to the seaports of France, in which this was the language regarding England:"The King and his Parliament mean to make war against us. Will the English Republicans suffer it? Already these free men show their discontent, and the repugnance they have to bear arms against their brothers, the French. Well, we will fly to their succour; we will make a descent on the island; we will lodge there fifty thousand caps of liberty; we will plant there the sacred tree; we will stretch out our arms to our Republican brethren, and the tyranny of their Government shall soon be destroyed!" There was a strong war spirit manifest in the House. Fox and his diminished party combated it in vain. The same prevailing expression was exhibited in a similar debate in the House of Lords, in which Lord Loughboroughwho, on the 20th of January, succeeded Thurlow as Lord Chancellorsupported the views of Ministers. But there was little time allowed for the two Houses to discuss the question of peace or war, for on the 11th of February Dundas brought down a royal message, informing the Commons that the French had declared war on the 1st of February, against both Britain and Holland. On the following day Pitt moved an Address to his Majesty, expressing a resolve to support him in the contest against France. In the debate, Burke declared the necessity of war against a nation which had, in fact, proclaimed war against every throne and nation. At the same time, he declared that it would be a war in defence of every principle of order or religion. It would not be the less a most desperate war. France was turning almost every subject in the realm into a soldier. It meant to maintain its armies on the plunder of invaded nations. Trade being ruined at home by the violence of mob rule, the male population was eager to turn soldiers, and to live on the spoils of the neighbouring countries. Lyons alone, he said, had thirty thousand artisans destitute of employment; and they would find a substitute for their legitimate labour in ravaging the fields of Holland and Germany. He deemed war a stern necessity. A similar Address was moved and carried in the Peers.
ONE:It was in these grave circumstances that Lord North, on the 5th of March, 1770, brought forward his bill, based on the terms of Lord Hillsborough's letter to the American governors, to repeal all the import duties except that on tea. This was one of those half-and-half measures which never succeed; it abandoned the bulk of the duties, but retained the really obnoxious thingthe principle. Grenville very truly told them that they should retain the whole, or repeal the whole. Lord Barrington and Welbore Ellis, in their dogged Toryism, protested against repealing a single item of them; and the Opposition, Barr, Conway, Meredith, Pownall, etc., as earnestly entreated them to remove the duties altogether, and with them all cause of irritation. The motion for leave to bring in the bill was carried by two hundred and four votes to one hundred and forty-two. During the debates it was shown that, during the financial year, the American tea duties had producednot the calculated ten or twelve thousand, but less than three hundred pounds! For such a sum did our legislators risk a civil war. As a last effort on this question at this time, the Opposition, on the 1st of May, called for the correspondence with America; and, on the 9th, Burke moved nine resolutions on the general topic. They were not only negatived, but a similar motion, introduced into the Peers by the Duke of Richmond, met the same fate.
ONE:The Duke of Richmond made a feeble reply, and then Chatham rose, in the deepest indignation, to answer the Duke, but the violence of his feelings overcame him; he staggered and fell in a swoon, and would have been prostrated on the[252] floor but for the assistance of some friendly hands. He lay apparently in the agonies of death. The whole House was agitated; the Peers crowded round him in the greatest commotion; all except the Earl of Mansfield, who beheld the fall of his ancient rival almost as unmoved, says Lord Camden, "as the senseless body itself." His youngest son, John Charles Pitt, was there, and exerted himself to render all possible assistance. The insensible orator was carried in the arms of his friends to the house of Mr. Sargent, in Downing Street. By the prompt aid of a physician, he was in some degree recalled to consciousness, and within a few days was conveyed to his own dwelling at Hayes. There he lingered till the morning of May 11th, when he died in the seventieth year of his age.Ulster 2,386,373 3,320,133 346,517 170,598
