[413] those extremities which would be fatal to both.Interest very soon divides mercantile people; and although there may be some mad, enthusiastic, or illde-signing people in the colonies, yet I am convinced that the greatest bulk, who have understanding and property, are still well affected to the mother country. The resolutions in the most of the assemblies have been carried by small majorities, and in some by one or two only. You have, my lords, many friends still in the colonies; take care that you do not, by abdicating your own authority, desert them and yourselves, and lose them for ever.
chap. XXII.} 1766. Feb.
You may abdicate your right over the colonies: take care, my lords, how you do so, for such an act will be irrevocable. Proceed, then, my lords, with spirit and firmness, and when you shall have established your authority, it will then be a time to show your lenity. The Americans, as I said before, are a very good people, and I wish them exceedingly well; but they are heated and inflamed. I cannot end better than by saying, in the words of Maurice, Prince of Orange, concerning the Hollanders, God bless this industrious, frugal, well-meaning, but easily deluded people!
The House of Lords accepted the argument of Mansfield as unanswerable, and when the house divided, only five peers, Camden, Shelburne, and the young Cornwallis——destined to a long and chequered career, —Torrington, and Paulet, went down below the bar. With these five, stood the invisible genius of popular reform; they began a strife which the child that was unborn would rue or would bless. The rest of the peers, one hundred and twenty-five1 in number, saw
