ld 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
of every part, to constitute and preserve the prosperous arrangement of
the whole empire.

The sound parts of America, of which I have spoken, must be sensible of
these great truths and of their real interests. America is not in that
state of desperate and contemptible rebellion which this country has
been deluded to believe. It is not a wild and lawless banditti, who,
having nothing to lose, might hope to snatch something from public
convulsions. Many of their leaders and great men have a great stake in
this great contest. The gentleman who conducts their armies, I am told,
has an estate of four or five thousand pounds a year; and when I
consider these things, I cannot but lament the inconsiderate violence of
our penal acts, our declaration of treason and rebellion, with all the
fatal effects of attainder and confiscation.

As to the disposition of foreign powers which is asserted [in the King's
speech] to be pacific and friendly, let us judge, my Lords, rather by
their actions and the nature of things than by interested assertions.
The uniform assistance supplied to America by France suggests a
different conclusion. The most important interests of France in
aggrandizing and enriching herself with what she most wants, supplies of
every naval store from America, must inspire her with different
sentiments. The extraordinary preparations of the House of Bourbon, by
land and by sea, from Dunkirk to the Straits, equally ready and willing
to overwhelm these defenceless islands, should rouse us to a sense of
their real disposition and our own danger. Not five thousand troops in
England! hardly three thousand in Ireland! What can we oppose to the
combined force of our enemies? Scarcely twenty ships of the line so
fully or sufficiently manned, that any admiral's reputation would permit
him to take the command of. The river of Lisbon in the possession of our
enemies! The seas swept by American privateers! Our Channel trade torn
to pieces by them! In this complicate