by an amendment that was carried, left out of
the motion; which will appear in the journals, though it is not the
practice to insert such amendments in the votes.

A

LETTER

TO

JOHN FARR AND JOHN HARRIS, ESQRS.,

SHERIFFS OF THE CITY OF BRISTOL,

ON THE

AFFAIRS OF AMERICA.

1777.

Gentlemen,--I have the honor of sending you the two last acts which have
been passed with regard to the troubles in America. These acts are
similar to all the rest which have been made on the same subject. They
operate by the same principle, and they are derived from the very same
policy. I think they complete the number of this sort of statutes to
nine. It affords no matter for very pleasing reflection to observe that
our subjects diminish as our laws increase.

If I have the misfortune of differing with some of my fellow-citizens on
this great and arduous subject, it is no small consolation to me that I
do not differ from you. With you I am perfectly united. We are heartily
agreed in our detestation of a civil war. We have ever expressed the
most unqualified disapprobation of all the steps which have led to it,
and of all those which tend to prolong it. And I have no doubt that we
feel exactly the same emotions of grief and shame on all its miserable
consequences, whether they appear, on the one side or the other, in the
shape of victories or defeats, of captures made from the English on the
continent or from the English in these islands, of legislative
regulations which subvert the liberties of our brethren or which
undermine our own.

Of the first of these statutes (that for the letter of marque) I shall
say little. Exceptionable as it may be, and as I think it is in some
particulars, it seems the natural, perhaps necessary, result of the
measures we have taken and the situation we are in. The other (for a
partial suspension of the _Habeas Corpus_) appears to me of a much
deeper malignity. During its progress through the House of Commons, it
has been amended, so as to express, more distinctly than at first it
did, the avowed sentiments of those who framed it; and the main ground
of my exception to it is, because it does express, and does carry into
execution, purposes which appear to me so contradictory to all the
principles, not only of the constitutional policy of Great Britain, but
even of that species of hostile justice which no asperity of war wholly
extinguishes in the minds of a civilized people.

I