LVI.

1777.

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CHAP. " rebellious subjects every means that God and "Nature have put into our hands!"— These last words called up Lord Chatham to reply: "My Lords, I did not intend to have encroached again upon your attention; but I cannot repress my indignation-I feel myself impelled by every duty. We are called upon, as members of this "House, as men, as Christian men, to protest against such notions standing near the Throne,

polluting the ear of Majesty. That God and "Nature have put into our hands!' I know "not what ideas that Lord may entertain of God "and Nature; but I know that such abominable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and

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humanity. What! to attribute the sacred sanc❝tion of God and Nature to the massacres of the "Indian scalping knife—to the cannibal savage, "torturing, murdering, roasting, and eating. "literally, my Lords, eating the mangled

"victims of his barbarous battles!

"These abominable principles, and this more "abominable avowal of them, demand the most "decisive indignation. I call upon that Right "Reverend Band, those holy ministers of the

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Gospel and pious pastors of our Church; I con'jure them to join in the holy work, and vindicate "the religion of their God; I appeal to the "wisdom and the law of this Learned Bench to "defend and support the justice of their country. "I call upon the Bishops to interpose the un"sullied sanctity of their lawn upon the Judges

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LVI.

"to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save CHAP. "us from this pollution. I call upon the honour "of your Lordships to reverence the dignity of 1777. your ancestors and to maintain your own; I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country to "vindicate the national character; I invoke the genius of the Constitution. From the tapestry "that adorns these walls the immortal ancestor of "this Noble Lord (the Earl of Effingham) frowns "with indignation at the disgrace of his country.* "In vain he led your victorious fleet against the "boasted Armada of Spain; in vain he defended "and established the honour, the liberties, the religion, the Protestant religion of this country, against the arbitrary cruelties of Popery and the “ Inquisition, if these more than Popish cruelties "and Inquisitorial practices are let loose among us; to turn forth into our settlements, among "our ancient connexions, friends and relations, "the merciless cannibal thirsting for the blood of "man, woman, and child!-to send forth the "infidel savage-against whom?-your Protest

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This appeal to the tapestry hangings, which has been often quoted and justly admired, was not entirely original. We may trace the germ of it in Lord Chatham's own mind, at an earlier period (Corresp. vol. iv. p. 55.); and thirty-two years before this speech, Lord Chesterfield had made a similar allusion in reference to the war of that time. According to Horace Walpole, "he turned with a most rhetorical allusion to the tapestry, and said with a sigh, that he feared there were no "historical looms at work now!" (To G. Montagu, July 13. 1745.)

LVI.

CHAP. "ant brethren; to lay waste their country; to "desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race " and name!"

1777.

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From the extracts, brief and imperfect though they be, which I have given of Lord Chatham's speeches, it will be seen how little either age or sickness had been able to quench his fire. The Duke of Grafton thus speaks in his Memoirs :"It would be useless to attempt to describe the brilliancy of Lord Chatham's powers as an orator on this memorable occasion, for no relation can give more than a faint idea of what he really displayed. In this debate he exceeded all that "I had ever admired in his speaking." This the Duke says more especially of Chatham's first speech; while of the splendid burst in reply wholly unpremeditated as it must have been-his Grace declares that it "appeared to me to surpass "all that we have ever heard of the celebrated "orators of Greece or Rome."*

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Notwithstanding its blaze of splendid eloquence, this reply was not deemed entirely conclusive. Earl Gower rose to express his wonder that those who had the conduct of the last war should

*See in my Appendix an extract from the MS. Memoirs, headed "Lord Chatham and the Duke of Grafton, 1777." The reports of Lord Chatham's speeches in this debate, appear far superior to most others of the same period; they were supplied by Mr. Hugh Boyd. In Almon's Register the whole spirit evaporates.

LVI.

1777.

forget the means by which it was conducted, and CHAP. now condemn the measures they had formerly authorised, adding that Indians had been employed on our side during the former campaigns in Canada, that presents had been given, and treaties made with them. Up started Lord Chatham again : "I do not forget," he cried; "I well know they "had been employed, for the necessary purpose of "war as I presume, and not to be stretched far "and wide for murder and massacre, and all their "concomitant horrors. If the previous use of "them by the French, our natural enemy, and the "inevitable necessities of our army obliged us to

employ them in military purposes to scour the "country, or cover our flanks, the General who "then commanded and acted from those necessities "the General who has now a seat among your Lordships will account for them. To that "General, here present, I appeal. Upon that "General, I call to declare whether the administra"tion in that war ever directed or authorised the

use of the savages? Whether ever a line from "office had given that measure a public or official "sanction?" Lord Amherst, thus called upon, could not forbear to rise, but rose with great embarrassment. He had been the General, he was still the friend, of Chatham; but, on the other hand, he now stood high in the confidence of Ministers, who shortly before had made him a Peer, and who shortly afterwards made him Commander

1777.

CHAP. in-chief.* In few brief words, he said that LVI. certainly Indians had been employed during the last war in America; that they had been employed by both sides; that perhaps both sides might have been in the wrong; but that he did not impute any sanction or knowledge of their use to the administration of that day. Lord Townshend, who, on the death of Wolfe, had succeeded to his post, supplied a more ample explanation. "The case was

this; M. de Montcalm employed them early in the "war, which put us under the necessity of doing "the same; but they were never employed in the

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army I commanded but to assist the troops in "the laborious services necessarily attending an

army; they were never under military com"mand, nor arrayed for military purposes."-The controversy did not end here, but was renewed in the House with no less acrimony on another day. At the request of Lord Chatham, there were supplied to him copies of his instructions to the Generals in Canada, and of their despatches bearing on this point. From these papers it appears that General Amherst had, on one occasion, been desired to keep a constant correspondence with the Indians, and endeavour "to engage them to "take part and act with our forces in all opera"tions as he should judge most expedient;" but

* A few days only before this debate, we find in a letter from Mr. Lancelot Brown, who had just seen the King: "The Court "sal-volatile is Lord Amherst." (To the Countess of Chatham, November 11. 1777.)