Chap. XX.} 1775. Feb. 9. |
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and Shelburne in a rejoinder gave the illustrious
jurist the lie.
On Thursday, the ninth day of February, the lord chancellor, the speaker, and a majority of the lords and commons went in state to the palace, and in the presence of the representatives of the great powers of Europe, presented to George the Third the sanguinary address which the two houses of parliament had jointly adopted, and which, in the judgment of Rockingham and his friends, ‘amounted to a declaration of war.’
The king, in his reply, pledged himself speedily and effectually to enforce ‘obedience to the laws and the authority of the supreme legislature.’
His heart was hardened.
Having just heard of the seizure of ammunition at the fort in New Hampshire, he intended that his language should ‘open the eyes of the deluded Americans.’
‘If it does not,’ said he to his faltering minister, ‘it must set every delicate man at liberty to avow the propriety of the most coercive measures.’
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1860.
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