George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 8

[169] Edward Newenham could not agree to send more

Chap. LI.} 1775. Nov.

troops to butcher men who were fighting for their liberty; and he reprobated the introduction of foreign mercenaries as equally militating against true reason and sound policy. ‘If men must be sent to America,’ cried George Ogle, ‘send there foreign mercenaries, not the brave sons of Ireland.’ Hussey Burg condemned the American war as ‘a violation of the law of nations, the law of the land, the law of humanity, the law of nature; he would not vote a single sword without an address recommending conciliatory measures; the ministry, if victorious, would only establish a right to the harvest when they had burned the grain.’ Yet the troops were voted by one hundred and twenty one against seventy six, although the resolution to replace them by foreign Protestants was negatived by sixty eight against one hundred and six.

The majority in parliament did not quiet Lord

Dec.

North. Sir George Saville describes him ‘as one day for conciliation; but as soon as the first word is out, he is checked and controlled, and instead of conciliation out comes confusion.’ On the first day of December, he pressed to a second reading the American prohibitory bill, which consolidated the three special acts against the port of Boston, the fisheries, and the trade of the southern colonies, and enlarged them into a prohibition of all the trade of all the thirteen colonies. American vessels and goods were made the property of their captors; the prisoners might be compelled to serve the king even against their own countrymen. No one American grievance was removed; but commissioners were to be appointed to accept the submission of the colonies, or parts of colonies,