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this country immense possessions, few words were judged to be wisest: but, perhaps, the country would deem the verbose address less exceptionable, than that which was defended on the ground of its modesty; at least, he was sure the country would less feel the consequence of the one than of the other; but the Right Hon. Secretary had adopted a style of reasoning fit for the defence of such conduct: "True," said he, "the peace is a bad one, but could you have made a better? Much has been given to the enemy, but, thank God, that much is a heap of rubbish." France, said Mr. Burke, has obtained Tobago and St. Lucia in the West Indies, a dangerous extent of fishery, all the forts and islands in Africa, and a district in the East Indies, which cannot fail to render France a formidable enemy, whenever war shall again break out. To Spain we had ceded East Florida, and guaranteed West Florida and Minorca. To America we had given an unlimited extent of territory, part of the province of Canada, a right of fishery, and other extraordinary cessions; and yet the Right Hon. Secretary told the House, that what we had conceded was of little worth to us, and, in effect, a heap of rubbish. . . . Having argued this strongly, he came to a consideration of the treaty with the United States; a treaty, which in its preamble declared reciprocal advantage and mutual convenience to be its basis, but which was full of the most important concessions on our part, without the smallest balance, or equipoise to support that reciprocity it so much boasted. Had he been worthy to advise Ministers in making that treaty, he would have advised them not to mention such a word as reciprocity. If the terms, from the necessity of our situation, were obliged to be such as were replete with disgraceful concession, to talk of reciprocity was adding insult to injury. .

The Lord Advocate (Mr. Dundas)

He accounted, why the Quebec line of boundary was not adopted. and argued that the boundary prescribed by the articles of the present treaty was that least likely to create future uneasiness..

Governor Johnstone was very severe in his strictures on the boundaries of the United States, which he said appeared to him to be not only ignorantly drawn, but to give away lands, forts, and fisheries, which the crown had no legal power to cede. He pointed out the ignorance of those who drew up the second article, in which it was stated as one part of the boundaries, that a line was to be drawn "along the middle of the River Mississippi, until it should intersect the northernmost part of the 31st degree of north latitude." This, he said, was direct nonsense; there was no such thing as a northernmost part of a degree, and so a mere school-boy, who had just begun to look into a book of geography, could tell Ministers.

Mr. Sheridan

He took a view of the fur trade, the boundaries of Canada, &c. and was apprehensive the great solicitude shown by administration to conciliate the affections of America, as it had been termed, would be a means, in the marking of the boundaries, of creating future dissentions.

130

Sir W.Dolben begged the Houseto advert to the consideration of the important question which he had before stated: whether the King's Ministers were authorized by the prerogative of the Crown, to alienate from the state the American colonies? He averred, that prerogative did not extend so far; it gave no power to alienate territories not acquired by conquest during the war; at least, this was his most serious opinion. Then, if it did not rest in prerogative, he contended that the Act of last session gave Ministers no authority adequate to so important a measure. He wished to have the opinion of the gentleman of the gown; and he called upon them to give the House information on this most important point.

Mr. Mansfield said, that he did not consider himself qualified to rise and pronounce a hasty opinion; the question proposed by the hon. baronet was indeed of the greatest importance, and it would not be prudent in any man to hazard a light opinion. The prerogative of the Crown was allowed to go great, and indeed undefined lengths, as the circumstances of the state might require that measures should be taken for which there was neither precedent nor authority. In all such instances, however, the House would recollect, that responsibility was placed in Ministers, and they were bound to show, whenever they ventured on any extraordinary extension of the prerogative, that there was absolute necessity for such conduct. This he understood to be the doctrine of the constitution. But with respect to the present question; whether the King's Ministers were authorised by the Act of last session to alienate for ever the independence of America? he was free to acknowledge, that he thought the Act gave them sufficient powers. It was clearly determined thereby, that it was the sense of Parliament, and Ministers were bound to act up to what they understood to be the sense of the legislature: and though the Bill was not stated to be, in so many direct words, a Bill for granting independence to America; yet the provisions of the Act amounted exactly to the same thing; and he believed this was the design for which the Bill was introduced.

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Mr. Chancellor Pitt

It was necessary to look back, notwithstanding all that the hon. gentleman on the other side had said, to the language and the sentiments of that House on this very subject. Had they forgot the resolutions of last Session, by which Ministers were bound to recognise the Independence of America?

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[The report of the debate ends as follows:- -]

At half past seven in the morning the House divided on the ques tion, That the words proposed to be left out, stand part of the question:

Tellers,

Yeas Lord Mahon

Mr.

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Debate in the Commons on Lord John Cavendish's Resolutions of Censure on the terms of the Peace. Feb. 21.

Lord John Cavendish, [moved a series of resolutions, of which the fourth and fifth were as follows:-]

4. The concessions made to the adversaries of Great Britain, by the said provisional treaty and preliminary articles, are greater than they were entitled to, either from the actual situation of their respective possessions, or from their comparative strength.

5. That this House do feel the regard due from this nation to every description of men, who, with the risk of their lives, and the sacrifice of their property, have distinguished their loyalty, and been conspicuous for their fidelity during a long and calamitous war, and to assure His Majesty, that they shall take every proper method to relieve them which the state of the circumstances of this country will permit.

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[Sir W. Dolben renewed his point as to the King's power to make the treaty.]

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The Attorney-General

For the present, it was enough for him to say, that the Act of last session clearly gave His Majesty a right to recognise the independence of America; and it was obvious, that the Americans, standing in the predicament of persons declared to be rebels at the time of passing the Act, it was necessary to word it in the general and cautious manner, in which it stood upon the statute book.

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131 Sir Adam Ferguson declared himself ready to subscribe to the opinion, that the Act of last session gave the Crown the power in question, but he nevertheless thought His Majesty had exceeded the Act, and had gone farther than he had any legal or constitutional authority to go. What he meant was the cession to the United States of America, of a great part of the province of Quebec, and of Nova Scotia.

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Mr. Chancellor Pitt

We have acknowledged American independence that, Sir, was a needless form: the incapacity of the noble Lord who conducted our affairs; the events of war, and even a vote of this House, had already granted what it was impossible to withhold.

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[The report of the debate ends in this way:-]

The question being put, "That the concessions made to the adversaries of Great Britain, by the said provisional treaty and preliminary articles, are greater than they were entitled to, either from the actual situation of their respective possessions, or from their comparative strength:" the House divided at half past three o'clock, when the numbers were,—

Tellers.

(Lord Mahon__
Mr. Macdonald..

Majority for censuring the terms of the peace,-.

-}207

$190

17.

Lord John Cavendish then withdrew the motion relative to the loyalists, and the House adjourned.

No. 126.-1783, February 26: Extract from letter, Mr. Livingston to Mr. Washington.

PHILADELPHIA, February 26, 1783. DEAR SIR: In compliance with the directions of Congress contained in the enclosed resolution, I have the honor to inform your excellency that our last despatches, dated in October, announce a disposition in the belligerent powers to terminate the war by a general peace. The court of London, whose sincerity was most suspected because it was to make the greatest sacrifices, appears to have smoothed the way by the commission to Mr. Oswald (which your excellency has seen) empowering him to treat with the thirteen United States of America.

No. 127.-1783, March 12, 13, 14, and 15: Extract from Madison's Report of Debates in Congress.

These days were employed in reading the depatches brought on Wednesday morning by Captain Barney, commanding the Washington packet. They were dated from December the fourth to the twenty-fourth, from the ministers plenipotentiary for peace, with journals of preceding transactions; and were accompanied by the preliminary articles signed on the thirtieth of November, between the said ministers and Mr. Oswald, the British minister.

The terms granted to America appeared to Congress, on the whole, extremely liberal. It was observed by several, however, that the stipulation obliging Congress to recommend to the States a restitution of confiscated property, although it could scarcely be understood that the States would comply, had the appearance of sacrificing the dignity of Congress to the pride of the British King.

132

No. 128.-1783, March 12: Extract from letter, Mr. Livingston to Mr. Washington.

PHILADELPHIA, March 12, 1783. DEAR SIR: The Washington packet arrived this morning. I have not yet had leisure to read all my letters, but as an express is ready to go early to-morrow, I rather choose to rely upon your goodness to excuse a letter written in extreme haste than to hold myself inexcusable by not informing you of what we yet know of the state of our negociations. None of my letters is of a later date than the 25th of December. All difficulties had then been removed with respect to us and the preliminaries were signed; they consist of nine articles. The first acknowledges our independence.

The second describes our boundaries, which are as extensive as we could wish.

The third ascertains our rights as to the fishery, and puts them upon the same footing that they were before the war.

No. 129.-1783, March 12: Extract from Letter, Mr. Madison to Mr. Edmund Randolph.

PHILADELPHIA, March 12, 1783. DEAR SIR: Captain Barney, commanding the American packetboat, which has been long expected, with official intelligence from our ministers in Europe, arrived here this morning. He brings a supply of money, the sum of which I can not as yet specify, and comes under a passport from the King of Great Britain. The despatches from our ministers are dated the fifth, fourteenth, and twenty-fourth of December. Those of the fourteenth enclose a copy of the preliminary articles, provisionally signed between the American and British plenipotentiaries. The tenor of them is that the United States shall be acknowledged and treated with as free, sovereign, and independent; that our boundaries shall begin at the mouth of the St. Croix, run thence to the ridge dividing the waters of the Atlantic from those of the St. Lawrence; thence to the head of Connecticut River; thence down to forty-five degrees north latitude; thence to Cadaraqui; thence through the middle of Lakes Ontario, Erie, Huron, and Superior to Long Lake, to Lake of the Woods; and thence due west to the Mississippi; thence down the middle of the river to latitude thirty-one; thence to Apalachicola, to Flint River, to St. Mary's, and down the same to the Atlantic; that the fisheries shall be exercised as formerly;

No. 130.-1783, March 25: Extract from Letter, Mr. Livingston to the Peace Commissioners.

PHILADELPHIA, March 25, 1783. GENTLEMEN: I am now to acknowledge the favor of your joint letter by the Washington, together with a copy of the preliminary articles; both were laid before Congress. The articles have met with their warmest approbation, and have been generally seen by the people in the most favourable point of view.

The steadiness manifested in not treating without an express acknowledgment of your independence previous to a treaty is approved, and it is not doubted but it accelerated that declaration. The boundaries are as extensive as we have a right to expect, and we have nothing to complain of with respect to the fisheries."

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No. 131.-1783, April 11: Extract from letter, Mr. Thomas Jefferson

to Mr. Jay.

I cannot, however, take my departure without paying to yourself and your worthy colleagues my homage for the good work you have completed for us, and congratulating you on the singular happiness of having borne so distinguished a part both in the earliest and latest transactions of this revolution. The terms obtained for us are indeed great, and are so deemed by your countrymen, a few ill-designing debtors excepted.

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