advantage desired from the
employment of the Hanoverians, since the regiments which they were to
replace at Gibraltar and Port Mahon could not, after such delay, have
reached America in time to be of service; and since he also consented
eventually to ask Parliament for an Act of Indemnity, the preamble of
which affirmed the existence of doubts as to the legality of the step
which had been taken. And the fate of this act afforded a still more
striking proof of the divisions in the ministry, since, after Lord North
himself had proposed it in the House of Commons, and it had been passed
there by a large majority, it was rejected in the House of Lords, where
his own colleagues, Lord Gower, Lord Suffolk, and Lord Weymouth, spoke
and voted against it as needless, because, in their judgment, no doubt
of the state of the law on the subject could exist.

From a statesman-like point of view, the employment of the Hanoverians
seems abundantly defensible, if force were still to be employed to bring
back the Colonists to their obedience. The circumstance of their being
subjects of our sovereign in his other character of Elector of Hanover,
clearly distinguished it from the hiring of the Hessian and Brunswick
mercenaries, which has been deservedly condemned. And, as the entire
number fell short of two thousand,[55] Lord Shelburne's expression of
fear for the liberties and religion of Englishmen was an absurd
exaggeration. Moreover, the warm approval which, less than twenty years
before, Parliament had given to the introduction of a far larger body of
the same troops into England itself, justified the anticipation that a
similar sanction would now be cheerfully given. That sanction--which,
indeed, might have been thought to be invited by the announcement of the
measure in the King's speech--was undoubtedly requisite. And, if it was,
a Bill of Indemnity for having acted without it was equally necessary.
But, as has been seen in the last chapter, for an administration, on
urgent occasions, to take action on its own responsibility, and then to
apply for indemnity, is a course in strict harmony with the practice of
the constitution; and if in this instance the ministers are in any
respect blamable, their error would seem to have been limited to their
abstaining from instantly calling Parliament together to sanction their
act, and being contented to wait for the ordinary time of the Houses
meeting.

The war, therefore, went on. The asser