we had forced the Americans to join the king's troops, and now those very men, who had been fighting to quell rebellion, were to be executed with ignominy, for having themselves been rebels. After working up himself and his hearers to the most distressful state of emotion, he branded the ministers as the cause of the horrid disasters he had decribed, and declared the Address to be the most hypocritical, infamous, abandoned, lying paper, that ever that House had been called upon to vote. After turning this affecting circumstance into various points of view, he mentioned a most singular fact. Earl Cornwallis was governor of the Tower of London, and consequently Mr. Laurens was his prisoner. Colonel Laurens, son to Mr. Laurens, was appointed captain-general of prisoners in America, and consequently Earl Cornwallis was prisoner to the son of his own prisoner. This was a circumstance that would incline a man the least addicted to superstition, to think that there was a special Providence in this affair, brought about for the purpose of humbling the proud, and teaching to all, by the vicissitudes of human fortune, the duties of tenderness and humility. He also mentioned this particular circumstance, that on the 17th of October, exactly to a day, four years from the surrender of General Burgoyne at Saratoga, Lord Cornwallis beat a parley to capitulate at York-town.

On the question being put, that the report be brought up, the House divided: Yeas 131: Noes 54. So it was resolved in the affirmative.

CASE OF MR. LAURENS EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS WITH AMERICA.

December 3.

THIS day, after the private business was over, it was expected that Mr. Burke, according to the notice he had given, would make some motion concerning the treatment of Mr. Laurens, a prisoner in the Tower; but the honourable member not being in the House, the Speaker was going to put the question of adjournment, when Mr. Fox said, that his honourable friend had not departed from his intention, that he had sent to his house to know the cause of his present absence, and expected the return of his servant every moment. Upon this, the House agreed to wait. But in less than a minute

Mr. BURKE came in, quite out of breath. He said he was extremely sorry, and begged pardon, for making the House wait. He was in the greatest confusion, but his confusion did not arise so much from a sense of delinquency on his part, as of the extraordinary and excessive indulgence of the House. The business on which he had expressed an intention to trouble them, was of very great importance, as it involved a question that concerned the justice and dignity of the nation, and might be productive of disagreeable consequences in America. From the moment he had agreed to undertake the business alluded to, he had taken extraordinary pains to get the best information and the best advice on the subject, lest from any omission on his part, or any impropriety in the mode of proceeding, he should injure the venerable character in the Tower, whose situation he wished to relieve. He therefore had written on Sunday to an honourable friend, one of the clerks of the treasury (Sir Grey Cooper), to know if ministers had any objection to have the lieutenant of the Tower examined at the bar. Unfortunately his honourable friend,

happened to be out of town, and he did not send an answer to his letter till this day at about half past two o'clock. The answer, however, did not convey much information to him; for it told him only, that the noble lord in the blue ribbon had no objection to have the lieutenant examined, if proper grounds should be shewn for bringing him to the bar. This only told him what he knew before, that if the noble lord should like the motion, he would not oppose it; but it did not give him the information he wished for. On the receipt of this answer, he immediately went to a friend for advice, lest he should do something wrong, by trusting to himself; and this was what had hindered him from arriving time enongh to prevent the House from being put to the trouble of waiting for him; which put him in the situation of the convict, who being tardy in going to execution, was asked how he could keep the justice of the nation waiting for him. He still was at a loss what to do, and could not think of proceeding without taking farther advice, and therefore he was under the necessity of supplicating the House to pardon him for not now bringing on a business, for which he wished a further delay to consider more fully.

Lord North said, that the substance of the answer, which he had given directions to have sent to Mr. Burke, was, that there was nothing peculiar in the case, that could, on the first blush of it, render it improper to have the lieutenant of the Tower examined at the bar; and that therefore if the honourable member should shew such general grounds for agreeing to his motion as ought to induce the House to do so, he certainly would not give it any opposition. Sir Grey Cooper gave the same explanation to the letter he had written. Nothing more was said, and the House adjourned.

December 17.

Mr. BURKE rose to give notice of a motion that he intended to make after the holidays, for leave to bring in

a bill, relative to the exchange of prisoners of war; and to obviate a difficulty, in the act for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus, which was at once disgraceful and inconvenient to the government of this country. He was drawn to the consideration of this matter from the particular cases of two characters; cases of a nature totally distinct, but which were both attended with striking circumstances of peculiar hardship. The House would naturally perceive that Mr. Laurens was one of the two cases to which he alluded. Under the law which he had mentioned, Mr. Laurens was confined in the Tower; but though it might seem to countenance his commitment, it could not authorize the hardships to which that venerable gentleman was exposed, and the rigours that he suffered in his imprisonment. It might be asked, why he had allowed a matter that had humanity for its pretext, to remain so long uninquired into, after he had declared it was his intention to bring it before the House? In answer to this, he could only observe, that there were strong reasons for his not going on with the business earlier, and that one of the most essential benefits arising from delay (which was undoubtedly the cause of a variety of evils in opposition to those benefits) was, that it enabled men to get at a more accurate knowledge of facts, and to tread with greater certainty on the ground they meant to take. It had, he was perfectly aware, been urged against him without doors, and perhaps the insinuation originated with some within, that he felt he had gone too far, that he found his opinion prematurely formed, and that had he attempted to proceed farther, he should have been obliged to retract his charge. It had also been said, that he was rash in proceeding on mere newspaper authority; that it was ridiculous to go upon anonymous letters published in a common newspaper, and that no wise man would, with such unsubstantial evidence, proceed a step farther in a matter of so much moment. In reply, he must say, that the newspaper publications on the subject were not vague, loose, and general; that they stated facts circumstantially, mentioned names of

men and things directly, and gave dates of time and place with a degree of confidence rarely assumed by fallacy or fraud; that five several correspondent and well-connected narrative letters had appeared upon the subject, and that the whole taken together, amounted to a printed charge, sufficiently respectable to warrant him, or any other reasonable man, in proceeding upon it. But the truth was, he had directly made no charge whatever respecting the case of Mr. Laurens; he had only declared his intention of moving for that worthy, enlightened, and respectable character to be brought to the bar by the lieutenant of the Tower, in order for the House to ascertain whether he had been ill-treated or not. When he fell into the hands of the promising young officer who took him, he was treated by him with every mark of distinction, which could be suggested to him, by a memory of what his prisoner had been, and what he then was; he treated him like a man who had been at the head of the greatest commonwealth on the face of the earth; like a man who was then invested with the character of ambassador from that commonwealth: he called it the greatest commonwealth on the face of the earth, upon the principle of Zanga, who speaking of Alonzo, said, "great let me call him; for he conquer'd me:" America had beaten Great Britain, according to the avowal of a right honourable membert, who, zealous as he had been in the American war, had confessed that we had been beaten. But no sooner had Mr. Laurens arrived in London than he found himself treated in a very different manner; not as a prisoner, whom the chance of war had thrown into our hands, but a traitor; and as such was committed to the Tower. His treatment there was of the most rigorous nature; kept a close prisoner, he was not indulged with the comfort of seeing his relations and his family, till that indulgence had been purchased by those relations, by sub