at the same time declared his intention of appointing certain persons with authority to grant pardons to individuals, and to receive the submission of those colonies disposed to return to their allegiance.
In the debate on the address, in reply to the royal speech, the conduct of the ministry was severely canvassed. General Conway and the Duke of Grafton resigned their places and joined the opposition. The ill health of Lord Chatham prevented his advocating the cause of the Americans; but there were not wanting others to speak in tones of warning against the attempt to force the people of America to submission. Camden, Shelburne, Richmond, Barre, and others, did all in their power to prevent the action of the ministry; but Lord North was supported by large majorities, in both Houses. The king was obstinately bent upon this course, and the measures adopted wore of the most stringent character.[1] Twenty-five thousand men were promptly voted to be employed in America. As it was not found easy to enlist troops in England, the employment of foreign mercenaries was determined upon. Between seventeen and eighteen thousand men, principally from Hesse Cassel and Brunswick, were hired at exorbitant rates. The odiousness of employing the Hessians against the Americans was forcibly pointed out in Parliament, and probably no measure could have been devised which was calculated to wound so deeply the feelings of those who were contending for their rights and liberties. By this arrangement, a force of between forty and fifty thousand men was got together for the purpose of compelling the Americans to submission.
Richard Penn, who had had charge of the petition to the king, was examined before the House of Lords, and gave it as his positive opinion, that no designs of independency had hitherto been formed by Congress, as none certainly had at that time been openly and formally avowed; but the ministry were in possession of intercepted letters by John Adams, which plainly indicated designs of quite another description. The Duke of Richmond moved that the petition of Congress might be made the basis of a further reconciliation, but his motion was rejected. In the House of Commons, (November 16th,) Burke introduced and powerfully supported a bill for the repeal of the obnoxious Acts, granting an amnesty for the past, but his present efforts were as unsuccessful as the former, and the bill was rejected by a majority of two to one. A similar movement, made soon after by Hartley, met with no better fate.
Toward the close of December, the ministry carried through Parliament an act prohibiting all trade and commerce with the colonies, and authorizing the capture and condemnation, not only of all American vessels, with their cargoes, but all other vessels found trading in any port or place in the colonies, as if the same were the vessels and effects of open enemies; and the vessels and
- ↑ For an abstract of the debates in Parliament at this time, see Holmes's "Annals" vol. ii., pp. 227–31.
