George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 6, 10th edition.

[510] said Rice, on moving the Address, which was to

Chap. LII.} 1774. March

pledge Parliament to the exertion of every means in its power, ‘is, whether the Colonies are or are not the Colonies of Great Britain.’ Nugent, now Lord Clare, entreated that there might be no divided counsels. ‘On the repeal of the Stamp Act,’ said Dowdeswell, ‘all America was quiet; but in the following year you would go in pursuit of a pepper-corn, —you would collect from pepper-corn to pepper-corn, —you would establish taxes as tests of obedience. Unravel the whole conduct of America; you will find out the fault is at home.’ ‘The dependence of the Colonies is a part of the Constitution,’ said Pownall, the former Governor of Massachusetts. ‘I hope, for the sake of this country, for the sake of America, for the sake of general liberty, that this Address will go with a unanimous vote.’

As nothing was proposed but to carry out the Declaratory Act, no man in England could so little find fault with the principle of the proposed measures, as Edmund Burke; he only taunted the Ministry with their wavering policy. Lord George Germain derived all the American disturbance from the repeal of the Stamp tax. Conway pleaded for unanimity. ‘I speak,’ said William Burke, ‘as an Englishman; we applaud ourselves for the struggle we have had for our Constitution; the Colonists are our fellowsub-jects; they will not lose theirs without a struggle.’ Barre applauded the good temper with which the subject had been discussed, and refused to make any opposition ‘The leading question,’ said Wedderburn, who bore the principal part in the debate, ‘is the dependence or independence of America.’ The Address was adopted without a division.