European control?" Finally, it was urged in defence of
the speech and address, that the only question which called for debate,
was simple in its nature it was, only, whether we chose to resign all
the benefits we derived from our colonies, and which had been purchased
by our best blood and treasures, and by truckling to the defiance and
insult hurled at us by the Americans, cut off those sources of power
and opulence, and submit to a degradation from the rank we held in the
political system of Europe; or, whether we should, by the full exertion
of our power, preserve those advantages, assert our ancient supremacy,
restore the authority of the British Parliament, and bring back
our ungrateful subjects to a sense of their duty. A division on the
amendment answered these questions; it was negatived by a majority of
two hundred and forty-two against eighty-seven, and the original address
was therefore carried.

In the upper house, an amendment was moved by the Marquess of
Rockingham, similar to that of Lord John Cavendish, and was followed
by debates of equal violence. By the Earl of Shelburne the speech was
denounced as a tissue of sophisms, and as a composition of unqualified
absurdity, treachery, cruelty, hypocrisy, and deceit. He attempted to
show, indeed, that all its paragraphs were false, differing only in
this--that some of the falsehoods were fallacious, some specious, and
some notorious. The Duke of Richmond maintained that America was lost
for ever, and he thought that we had better sit down quiet and contented
at the loss, consoling ourselves with the reflection that it had been
no fault of our own, but, solely that of an unjust and imbecile
administration. But even Lord Shelburne did not concur in this opinion:
he never meant, he said, this country to give up its right of commercial
control over America, which was the essential bond of connexion between
the two countries; and he declared that as the national debt was truly
and equitably the debt of every individual in the empire, whether
at home, or in Asia, or America, the Americans ought in some way,
to contribute to its discharge. Lord Sandwich, the first lord of the
Admiralty, more warmly opposed the doctrine of quiescence propounded
by the Duke of Richmond. It was, he said, derogatory to the honour and
destructive to the interests of England; and he declared that he would
hazard every drop of blood, and his last shilling, rather than see his
country set a