d suffered much.
Besides the sufferings, perhaps total loss, of the northern force, the
best-appointed army that ever took the field, commanded by Sir William
Howe, has retired from the American lines. As to conquest, I repeat, it
is impossible. You may swell every expense and every effort still more
extravagantly; pile and accumulate every assistance you can buy or
borrow; traffic and barter with every little pitiful German prince that
sells and sends his subjects to the shambles of a foreign prince; your
efforts are forever vain and impotent--doubly so from this mercenary aid
on which you rely; for it irritates to an incurable resentment the minds
of your enemies, to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and
plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling
cruelty! If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign
troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my
arms--never--never--never.

FOOTNOTE:

[28] Delivered in the House of Lords, Nov. 18, 1777.

II. ATTEMPT TO SUBJUGATE AMERICA

My lords, no man wishes for the due dependence of America on this
country more than I do. To preserve it, and not confirm that state of
independence into which your measures hitherto have driven them, is the
object which we ought to unite in attaining. The Americans, contending
for their rights against arbitrary exactions, I love and admire. It is
the struggle of free and virtuous patriots. America was indeed the
fountain of our wealth, the nerve of our strength, the nursery and basis
of our naval power. It is our duty, therefore, my lords, if we wish to
save our country, most seriously to endeavor the recovery of these most
beneficial subjects; and in this perilous crisis, perhaps the present
moment may be the only one in which we can hope for success.

I would impart to them every enjoyment and freedom which the colonizing
subjects of a free state can possess, or wish to possess; and I do not
see why they should not enjoy every fundamental right in their property,
and every original substantial liberty, which Devonshire or Surrey, or
the county I live in, or any other county in England, can claim;
reserving always as the sacred right of the mother country the due
constitutional dependency of the colonies. The inherent supremacy of the
state in regulating and protecting the navigation and commerce of all
her subjects is necessary for the mutual benefit and preservation o