Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/356

 and several other noblemen supported the motion of Chatham, but the ministerial majority was very large against it. In the Commons the papers relating to America were referred to a committee of the whole. The petition to the king issued by the Continental Congress was among these papers. Franklin, Lee, and Bollan, as agents for the colonies, on the 26th of January, tendered a petition to the House, stating that they were directed by Congress to present a memorial from it to Parliament. They also prayed to be heard at the bar in support of the memorial. The House refused to grant the application, and the ministry derided the complaints of America as being pretended grievances.

At the Beginning of February, Lord Chatham brought forward another bill "for settling the troubles, and for asserting the supreme legislative authority and superintending power of Great Britain over the colonies." Though this bill, as it contained a direct avowal of the supreme authority of Parliament over the colonies, in all cases except that of taxation, would probably never have received the assent of the Americans, yet as it expressly denied the Parliamentary power of taxing the colonies, without the consent of their Assemblies, and made other important concessions, it was rejected by a vote of two to one, without even the courtesy of a second reading. Lord Chatham, as Pitkin relates, had shown this bill to Dr. Franklin, before he submitted it to the House of Lords, but the latter had not an opportunity if proposing certain alterations which he had sketched. Dr. Franklin, however, at the special request of Lord Chatham, was present at the debates upon it. Lord Dartmouth was at first disposed to have the bill lie upon the table; but Lord Sandwich opposed its being received, and moved that it be immediately "rejected with the contempt it deserved. He could never believe," he said, " that it was the production of a British peer; it appeared to him rather the work of some American. Turning his face towards Dr. Franklin, then standing at the bar, "He fancied," he said, "he had in his eye the person who drew it up, one of the bitterest and most mischievous enemies this country had ever known." To this part of the speech of Lord Sandwich, the great Chatham replied, by saying, "that it was entirely his own. This declaration," he said, "he thought himself the more obliged to make, as many of their lordships appeared to have so mean an opinion of it; for if it was so weak or so bad a thing, it was proper in him to take care that no other person should unjustly share in the censure it deserved. It had been heretofore reckoned his vice not to be apt to take advice; but he made no scruple to declare, that if he were the first minister of this country, and had the care of settling this momentous business, he should not be ashamed of publicly calling to his assistance a person so perfectly acquainted with the whole of American affairs, as the gentleman alluded to, and so injuriously reflected on; one whom all Europe held in estimation for his knowledge and wisdom, and ranked with our