is prohibitory bill comprehended every species of
commerce along the coast of the con-federated states, all former acts,
including the Boston Port Bill, were to be considered as repealed by it.
A clause, however, provided for pardon to all revolters on their return
to obedience, and commissioners were to be appointed to give effect to
its terms, as well as to inquire into any real grievances of which the
colonists might have to complain.

Lord North, in introducing this measure vindicated his own ministerial
conduct. The dispute about taxation, he said, was not commenced by him,
but by his predecessors in office; and, he asserted, that as he found
the country and parliament determined not to surrender the right, he had
embraced their cause. He added, that if the colonies, by appealing to
arms, chose to make war the medium, he must pursue that medium, although
he would constantly keep peace in view as the true point to be obtained.
The minds of the opposition were inflamed by the bill and these
declarations of the warlike minister. Fox especially declaimed against
the bill, asserting that it tended to destroy all trade with America,
and that it would cut off all hopes of future accommodation. In the
course of his speech he accused the ministers of wishing to ruin our
manufacturers in order that they might enlist in the army; and he
concluded by moving as an amendment, that the whole body and title of
the bill should be omitted, excepting only the portion which repealed
the Boston Port Bill, and the restraining acts. The debate now grew
hotter than before. It was argued that such a proposition would be a
formal abdication of our government of the colonies, and might, with
such omissions, be termed a bill for effectually carrying into execution
the decrees of congress, by completing the union of Americans between
themselves, and exciting them to make foreign alliances. The question
being put, therefore, the amendment was rejected by one hundred and
ninety-two to sixty-four. In the course of this debate, Lord Howe, who
was soon to sail with the fleet for America, remarked feelingly that no
struggle was so painful as that between his duty as an officer and as a
man: if left to his own choice, he said, he would decline serving, but
if commanded, he would perform his duty. To this General Conway replied,
that a war with our fellow-subjects in America differed widely from,
a war with a foreign nation; and that before an officer