cannot have different rights, and a different fecurity in different parts of your dominions, we wish to lay an even platform for your throne, and to give it an immoveable ftability, by laying it on the general freedom of your people, and by fecuring equally, to your Majefty, that confidence and affection in all parts of your dominions, which makes your best fecurity and dearest title in this chief feat of your empire.

"Such, Sire, being amongst us the foundation of the monarchy itfelf, much more clearly and peculiarly is it the ground of all parliamentary power. Parliament is a fecurity provided for the protection of freedom, and not a fubtle fiction contrived to amufe the people in its place; and the authority of both Houses can ftill lefs than that of the Crown be fupported upon different principles, or different places, fo as to be for one part of your fubjects a protector of liberty, and for another a fund of defpotifm, by which prerogative is extended by occafional powers, whenever an arbitrary will finds itfelf ftreightened by the restrictions of law."

This addrefs, which may be confidered as the creed of the Rockingham party, was not carried into effect. Mr. Burke was, however, determined that it should meet the public eye in fome form or other. He therefor transfused the spirit of it, in a letter which he addreffed to John Farr and John Harris, Efquires, Sheriffs of Bristol, on the affairs of America in 1777. No man but himself, perhaps, could have transfufed that spirit with fo much art, for every subject seemed to be as obedient to his touch as the clay to the plaftic hand of the potter; in fhort, his pen, on almost every occafion, may be compared to the fabled wand of the old magicians.

Attempts were made to drag even the private characters of thofe that oppofed the American war through all the filth and dirt of the minifterial prints. Mr. Burke, in this letter, defends thofe that oppofed

thofe ruinous meafures. He conceived that it would be happy for us, if the colonifts were taught to believe, that there was even a formed American party in England, to whom they could look for fupport. "Happy would it be for us, if in all tempers, they might turn their eyes to the parent ftate, fo that their very turbulence and fedition fhould find vent in no other place than this." He then comes to his own defence.

"I am charged with being an American. If warm affection towards thofe over whom I claim any share of authority, be a crime, I am guilty of this charge. But I do affure you (and they who know me publicly and privately well bear witnefs to me) that if ever one inan lived, more zealous than another, for the fupremacy of parliament, and the rights of this imperial crown, it was myself. Many others, indeed, might be more knowing in the extent of the foundation of these rights. I do not pretend to be an antiquary, a lawyer, or qualified for the chair of profeffor in metaphyfics. I never ventured to put your folid interefts upon fpeculative grounds. My having conftantly declined to do fo has been attributed to my incapacity for fuch difquifitions; and I am inclined to believe it is partly the caufe. I never fhall be ashamed to confefs, that where I am ignorant I am diffident. I am, indeed, not very folicitous to clear myfeif of this imputed incapacity; because men, even lefs converfant than I am, in this kind of fubtleties, and placed in ftations, to which I ought not to afpire, have, by the mere force of civil difcretion, often conducted the affairs of great nations with diftinguished felicity and glory."

Having given his opinion on the then ftate of public affairs," "I feel warmly," faid he, "on this fubject, and exprefs myself as I feel. I am too old, too stiff, in my inveterate partialities, to be ready at all the fashionable evolutions of opinion. I fcarce know how to adapt my mind to the feelings with

which the court gazettes mean to imprefs the people, It is not inftantly that I can be brought to rejoice, when I hear of the flaughter and captivity of long lifts of those names, which have been familiar to my ears from my infancy, and to rejoice that they have fallen under the fword of ftrangers, whofe barbarous appellations I scarcely know how to pronounce. The glory acquired at the white plains by Colonel Roaille, has no charms for me; and I fairly acknowledge, that I have not yet learned to delight in finding Fort Kniphaufen in the heart of the British dominions." In other inftances, as often as he touched on German mercenaries, his warmth kindled into indignation, his paffions flew to arms, and, in the conflict, it was feldom that the petty princes of Germany themselves, efcaped with a ftring of epithets as long as their titles.

Towards the conclufion of this letter, the writer combats, with great force and eloquence, the doctrine which every venal minifter has endeavoured to diffeminate, namely," that every man has his price;" that the reader may judge for himself, we shall lay an extract of the paffage before him.

"The common cant is no juftification for taking this party (his own.) I have been deceived, fay they, by Titius and Maevius; I have been the dupe of this pretender, or of that mountebank; and I can trust appearances no longer. But my credulity and want of difcernment cannot, as I conceive, amount to a fair prefumption against any man's integrity. A confcientious perfon would rather doubt his own judgment, than condemn his fpecies. He would fay, I have obferved without attention, or judged upon erroneous maxims; I trusted to profeffion, when I ought to have attended to conduct. Such a man will grow wife, not malignant, by his acquaintance with the world. But he that accufes all mankind of corruption, ought to remember, that he is fure to convict only one. In truth, I fhould rather admit thofe whom at any time I have difrelished the most, to be patterns

of perfection, than feek a confolation to my own unworthiness, in a general communion of depravity with all about me.

"That this illnatured doctrine fhould be preached by the miffionaries of a court I do not wonder. It anfwers their purpose. But that it fhould be heard among those who pretend to be ftrong afferters of liberty, is not only furprifing, but hardly natural. This moral levelling is a fervile principle. It leads to practical paffive obedience, far better than all the doctrines which the pliant accommodation of theology to power has ever produced."

This letter found a ready reception with those who were already difpofed to fubfcribe to the contents of it; they did not fail to magnify it as a piece of found political reafoning and manly fenfe-It was read with great avidity by all parties. Lord Abingdon publifhed fome animadverfions on it. Mr. Burke did not reply, he left the public to judge-and his Lord: fhip did not appear to be highly pleafed with the

fentence.

An increase of the civil lift was the next queftion agitated in the Commons. This propofition underwent a warm difcuffion-it was, however, at length carried, and when the Speaker, Sir Fletcher Norton, prefented the bill at the bar of the Houfe of Lords, he addreffed the throne in the following speech

"Moft gracious Sovereign,"

"The bill, which it is now my duty to prefent to your Majefty, is intituled, An Act for the better fupport of his Majesty's houfhold, and of the honour and dignity of the crown of Great Britain, to which your Commons humbly beg your royal affent.

By this bill, Sir, and the circumftances which preceded and accompanied it, your faithful Commons have given their fulleft proofs and affurances to your Majefty; for in a time of public distress, full of difficulty and danger, your conftituents labouring under

burdens almoft too heavy to be borne, they have not only granted to your Majefty a large prefent fupply, but also a very great additional revenue, great beyond example, great beyond your Majefty's higheft expence. But all this they have done in a wellgrounded confidence, that you will apply wifely, what they have granted fo liberally, and feeling what every good fubject muft feel, that the affluence and grandeur of the crown will reflect honour and dignity upon the people."

On the return of the Speaker, he received the thanks of the House for his fpeech, and it was ordered to be printed. Mr. Burke, fpeaking of it to a friend, faid, that the conftitutional fentiments which it contained were only equalled by the dignity of the manner in which they were delivered.

Hitherto Mr. Burke had lived in the warmest friendship with the majority of his conftituents; they approved his parliamentary conduct; and this, if we may truft his own words, was the higheft meed he looked for; but a period was now at hand that was to put that mutual friendship to trial. He had taken a decided part in the fupport of two bills relative to the trade of Ireland in 1778, the truth is, he only attempted to awaken the long neglected Irish harp, every string of which had been once in tune*, not at the expence of the British lyre, but that the notes of both might flow into all "the concord of sweet sounds," and that the hearts of both nations might dance to the mufic, but his endeavours were not taken in this point of view, the refult of which was, that he wrote a letter to Samuel Span, Efq; Mafter of the Society of Merchants Adventurers of Bristol, in which he vin

* Sir John Davis mentions the profperous ftate of Ireland in his days, which he afcribed to the " encouragement given to the maritime towns and cities, as well to encreafe the trade of merchandize, as to cherish mechanical arts," and the confequence of which was, fays he," that the ftrings or the Irish harps were all in tune,"