there also; the merchant's profit depends upon the number that can be crowded together, and upon the shortness of their allowance. Astringents, escarotics, and all the other arts of making them up for sale, are of the very essence of the trade; these arts will be concealed both from the purchaser and the legislature; they are necessary to the owner's profit, and they will be practiced. Again, chains and arbitrary treatment must be used in transporting them; our seamen must be taught to play the tyrant, and that depravation of manners among them (which some very judicious persons have treated of as the very worst part of the business) cannot be hindered, while the trade itself continues. As to the slave merchants, they have already told you that if two slaves to a ton are not permitted, the trade cannot continue; so that the objections are done away by themselves on this quarter; and in the West Indies, I have shown that the abolition is the only possible stimulus whereby a regard to population, and consequently to the happiness of the negroes, can be effectually excited in those islands.

I trust, therefore, I have shown that upon every ground the total abolition ought to take place. I have urged many things which are not my own leading motives for proposing it, since I have wished to show every description of gentlemen, and particularly the West India planters, who deserve every attention, that the abolition is politic upon their own principles also. Policy, however, sir, is not my principle, and I am not ashamed to say it. There is a principle above everything that is political; and when I reflect on the command which says: "Thou shalt do no murder," believing the authority to be Divine, how can I dare to set up any reasonings of my own against it? And, sir, when we think of eternity, and of the future consequences of all human conduct, what is there in this life that should make any man contradict the dictates of his conscience, the principles of justice, the laws of religion, and of God. Sir, the nature and all the circumstances of this trade are now laid open to us; we can no longer plead ignorance, we cannot evade it, it is now an object placed before us, we cannot pass it; we may spurn it, we may kick it out of our way, but we cannot turn aside so as to avoid seeing it; for it is brought now so directly before our eyes that this House must decide, and must justify to all the world, and to their own consciences, the rectitude of the grounds and principles of their decision. A society has been established for the

abolition of this trade, in which Dissenters, Quakers, Churchmen in which the most conscientious of all persuasions have all united, and made a common cause in this great question. Let not Parliament be the only body that is insensible to the principles of national justice. Let us make reparation to Africa, so far As we can, by establishing a trade upon true commercial principles, and we shall soon find the rectitude of our conduct rewarded by the benefits of a regular and a growing commerce.

JOHN WILKES

(1727-1797)

OHN WILKES, one of the most effective agitators against the Tory policies of the eighteenth century, was born at Clerkenwell, London, October 17th, 1727. His father, a rich distiller, educated him at the University of Leyden, where he became proficient in the classical languages and where supposably he lost. the restraining influence of the English scholastic tradition. At any rate, when he entered public life as a Member of Parliament in 1757, and journalism a little later as editor of the North Briton, he developed such power as no other Englishman had ever shown to disturb and exasperate the conservative and aristocratic classes. He was imprisoned in the Tower because of a criticism of the king's message published in the North Briton, April 23d, 1763, and in November of the same year, on motion of Lord North, the Administration majority in the House of Commons ordered that number of the paper to be publicly burned. On January 19th, 1764, he was expelled from the House of Commons, and on February 21st convicted in default in the King's Bench. At this time he was living in Paris, and for several years he remained on the continent, supported by contributions from the English Whigs. In 1768 he returned to England, ran for Parliament, and, on his election from Middlesex, was expelled by the Tories, February 3d, 1769. Middlesex re-elected him, and, when the Tories refused to seat him, re-elected him a third and a fourth time. When finally Wilkes's opponent, whom he had defeated by vote of more than four to one, was declared lawfully elected, the indignation of the Whigs was intense. Wilkes was in jail at the time under the old judgment, and his cell became, for the time being, headquarters for the Whig party. Money was liberally subscribed and issues were forced, until he was released from prison and elected alderman, sheriff, and finally Lord Mayor of London. In 1782 the resolutions invalidating his election to Parliament were expunged, and he served until 1790. During the period of Tory activity which forced the war with America, he uttered strenuous warnings against the policy which finally lost the colonies and created the United States. "The Americans will triumph!" he said in 1775; "the whole continent of North America will be dismembered from England and the wide arch of the raised empire fall." He died September 20th, 1797, after having lived to see his prophecy fulfilled.

I

A WARNING AND A PROPHECY

(Delivered in the House of Commons, February 6th, 1775)

AM, indeed, surprised that in a business of so much moment as this before the House, respecting the British colonies in America, a cause which comprehends almost every question relative to the common rights of mankind, almost every question of policy and legislation, it should be resolved to proceed with so little circumspection, or rather with so much precipitation and heedless imprudence. With what temerity are we assured that the same men who have been so often overwhelmed with praises for their attachment to this country, for their forwardness to grant it the necessary succors, for the valor they have signalized in its defense, have all at once so degenerated from their ancient manners as to merit the appellation of seditious, ungrateful, impious rebels! But if such a change has, indeed, been wrought in the minds of this most loyal people, it must at least be admitted that affections so extraordinary could only have been produced by some very powerful cause. But who is ignorant, who needs to be told of the new madness that infatuates our ministers?— who has not seen the tyrannical counsels they have pursued for the last ten years? They would now have us carry to the foot of the throne a resolution stamped with rashness and injustice, fraught with blood, and a horrible futurity. But before this be allowed them, before the signal of civil war be given, before they are permitted to force Englishmen to sheath their swords in the bowels of their fellow-subjects, I hope this House will consider the rights of humanity, the original ground and cause of the present dispute. Have we justice on our side? No; assuredly no. He must be altogether a stranger to the British Constitution who does not know that contributions are voluntary gifts of the people; and singularly blind not to perceive that the words "liberty and property," so grateful to English ears, are nothing better than mockery and insult to the Americans, if their property can be taken without their consent. And what motive can there exist for this new rigor, for these extraordinary measures? Have not the Americans always demonstrated the utmost zeal and liberality whenever their succors have been required by the mother country?

In the last two wars they gave you more than you asked for, and more than their facilities warranted; they were not only lib. eral towards you, but prodigal of their substance. They fought

gallantly and victoriously by your side, with equal valor, against our and their enemy, the common enemy of the liberties of Europe and America, the ambitious and faithless French, whom now we fear and flatter. And even now, at a moment when you are planning their destruction, when you are branding them with the odious appellation of rebels, what is their language, what their protestations? Read, in the name of heaven, the late petition of the Congress to the King, and you will find "they are ready and willing, as they ever have been, to demonstrate their loyalty by exerting their most strenuous efforts in granting supplies and raising forces when constitutionally required." And yet we hear it vociferated by some inconsiderate individuals that the Americans wish to abolish the Navigation Act; that they intend to throw off the supremacy of Great Britain. But would to God these assertions were not rather a provocation than the truth! They ask nothing, for such are the words of their petition, but for peace, liberty, and safety. They wish not a diminution of the royal prerogative; they solicit not any new right. They are ready, on the contrary, to defend this prerogative, to maintain the royal authority, and to draw closer the bonds of their connection with Great Britain. But our ministers, perhaps to punish others for their own faults, are sedulously endeavoring, not only to relax these powerful ties, but to dissolve and sever them forever. Their address represents the Province of Massachusetts as in a state of actual rebellion. The other Provinces are held out to our indignation, as aiding and abetting. Many arguments have been employed by some learned gentlemen among us to comprehend them all in the same offense, and to involve them in the same proscription.

Whether their present state is that of rebellion, or of a fit and just resistance to unlawful acts of power, to our attempts to rob them of their property and liberties, as they imagine, I shall not declare. But I well know what will follow, nor, however strange and harsh it may appear to some, shall I hesitate to announce it, that I may not be accused hereafter of having failed in duty to my country, on so grave an occasion, and at the approach of such direful calamities. Know, then, a successful resistance is a revolution, not a rebellion: Rebellion, indeed, appears on the back of a flying enemy, but revolution flames on the breastplate of the victorious warrior. Who can tell, whether, in consequence of this day's violent and mad address to his Majesty, the scabbard may not be thrown away by them, as well as