rising from his seat, "shocked! to hear such principles confessed to hear them avowed in this House, or in this country :-principles equally unconstitutional, inhuman, and unchristian!" After calling upon the House to protest against such notions "standing near the throne, polluting the ear of Majesty, 'That God and Nature put into our hands!'"' -and calling upon the Right Reverend Bench of Bishops, and the learned Judges-and invoking the genius of the constitution, Lord Chatham proceeded in this outburst of indignation: "From the tapestry that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestor of this noble Lord frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country! In vain he led your glorious fleets against the boasted Armada of Spain; in vain he defended and established the honour, the liberties, the religion, the Protestant religion, of this country, against the arbitrary cruelties of Popery and the Inquisition, if these more than popish cruelties and inquisitorial practices are let loose among us; to turn forth into our settlements, among our ancient connexions, friends, and relations, the merciless cannibal, thirsting for the blood of man, woman, and child! to send forth the infidel savage-against whom? against your Protestant brethren; to lay waste their country, to desolate their dwellings, to extirpate their race and name with these horrible hell-hounds of savage war!-hell-hounds, 1 say, of savage war! Spain armed herself with blood-hounds. to extirpate the wretched natives of America; and we improve on the inhuman example even of Spanish cruelty; we turn loose these savage hell,hounds against our brethren and countrymen in America, of the same language, laws, and liberties, and religion; endeared to us by every tie that should sanctify humanity."

On the 2nd of December, Lord Chatham spoke upon the Duke of Richmond's motion on the State of the Nation. The arrival of intelligence from America soon proved the condition of the country to be more calamitous than the sagacity of Lord Chatham had predicted. The truth was not to be concealed-General Burgoyne and his army were prisoners of

war; upon which disaster Lord Chatham made a motion in a striking speech.

We add a few details to show how apposite was Lord Chatham's illustration of his "Tapestry Speech."

Thomas Howard, first Earl of Suffolk, was eminent for his services against the Spanish Armada, the destruction of which was represented in the tapestry. Howard, Earl of Effingham, Lord High Admiral of England, who commanded the fleet upon that glorious occasion, was another of Lord Suffolk's ancestors, and to him Lord Chatham more especially refers.

The great orator was not the first Peer who had illustrated his speech from these hangings. About thirty years before, Lord Chesterfield made a similar allusion in a speech on the then war: "he turned with a most rhetorical transition to the tapestry, and said with a sigh, that he feared that there were on historical looms at work now."--Walpole, 1745.

Lord Chatham alludes to these hangings in a letter to the Countess Stanhope, in one of the debates on the Falkland Islands, in 1771: "The House being kept clear of hearers, we are reduced to a snug party of unhearing and unfeeling Lords and the tapestry hangings; which last, mute as Ministers, yet tell us more than all the Cabinet on the subject of Spain, and the manner of treating with an insidious and haughty Power."

This tapestry was of Dutch workmanship, and was woven, according to Sandrart, by Francis Spiering, from the designs of Henry Cornelius Vroom, an eminent painter of Haarlem. It had been bespoken by Lord Howard, and was sold by him to James I. It originally consisted of ten compartments, forming separate pictures, each surrounded by a wrought border, including the portraits of the officers who held commands in the English Fleet. Engravings were made from these hangings by Mr. John Pine, and published in 1739. The tapestry was destroyed in the great Fire in 1834, except a few fragments which were saved from the flames.

LORD CHATHAM'S LAST APPEARANCE IN THE

HOUSE OF LORDS.

We now approach the closing scene. On the 7th of April, 1778, the Duke of Richmond, hitherto the ally and supporter of all Lord Chatham's American policy, moved an address to the Crown, representing in detail the expenses, losses, and misconduct of the war, entreating His Majesty to dismiss his Ministers, and to withdraw his forces by sea and land, from the revolted provinces. Lord Chatham saw that the address involved, though no in direct terms, the acknowledgment of American Independence; and on the motion being communicated to him the day before it was to be made, he apprised the Duke, "with unspeakable concern, that the difference between them, and the point of the independence and sovereignty of America, was so very wide, that he despaired of bringing about any reasonable issue. He was still ill, but hoped to be in town to-morrow!" On that morrow he appeared in the House of Lords for the last time.

The Earl having arrived at Westminster, refreshed himself awhile in the Lord Chancellor's room, until he learned that Parliamentary business was about to begin. He was then led into the House of Peers by his son, the Hon. William Pitt, and his son-in-law, Lord Mahon. He was dressed in a rich suit of black velvet, and covered up to the knees in flannel. Within his large wig little more of his countenance was seen than his aquiline nose, and his penetrating eye, which retained all its native fire. The Lords stood up, and made a lane for him to pass, while he gracefully bowed to them as he proceeded. Having taken his seat on the bench of the Earls, he listened to the speech of the Duke of Richmond with the most profound attention.

After Lord Weymouth had spoken against the address, Lord Chatham rose with slowness and difficulty from his seat, leaning on his crutches. He took one hand from his crutch and raised it; looking upward, he said: "I thank God that I

have been enabled to come here this day-to perform my duty, and to speak on a subject which is so deeply impressed on my mind. I am old and infirm-have one foot, more than one foot, in the grave. I have risen from my bed to stand up in the cause of my country-perhaps never again to speak in this House!”

The reverence, the attention, the stillness, of the House were here most impressive: had any one dropped a handkerchief, the noise would have been heard. At first Lord Chatham spoke in a low and feeble tone; but as he grew warm, his voice rose, and became as harmonious as ever; oratorical and affecting, perhaps more so than at any former period. He recounted the whole history of the American War; the measures to which he had objected; and all the evil consequences which he had foretold; adding, at the end of each period, " And so it proved."

When his Lordship sat down, Lord Temple said to him, "You have forgot to mention what we have been talking about-shall I get up?" Lord Chatham replied, "No, no; I will do it by and by."

In the course of his speech, in reply to Lord Chatham, the Duke of Richmond is said to have shown much asperity in its delivery; and the Earl, who heard the greater part of the speech with composure, occasionally indicated, both in his countenance and gesture, symptoms of displeasure.

When the Duke of Richmond had concluded, Lord Chatham made an eager effort to rise, as if impatient to give utterance to his feelings. But the body now proved itself unequal to sustain the energies of the mind. After repeated attempts to retain his erect position, Lord Chatham suddenly pressed his hand to his heart, and fell down in convulsions. The Duke of Cumberland, Lord Temple, Lord Stamford, and other Peers, caught him in their arms.

Alarm and agitation prevailed. The House was immediately cleared, the debate adjourned, and every consideration absorbed in anxiety for the life of Lord Chatham. But affliction for his situation did not deprive his friends of their

presence of mind. The Hon. James Pitt, his youngest son, although not more than seventeen years of age, was particularly active and useful in rendering assistance to his venerable father. His Lordship was conveyed to Mr. Sargent's house in Downing-street, and the medical assistance of Dr. Brocklesby, who was fortunately in the House at the time of his seizure, was immediately procured. Recovering, in some degree, from the attack, he was removed to Hayes, where his friend and physician, Dr. Addington, was unremitting in his attentions.

Walpole writes, on April 8: "Lord Chatham fell in the Senate-not by daggers, nor by the thunder of Lord Suffolk's eloquence. He had spoken with every symptom of debility, repeated his own phrases, could not recollect his own ideas; and, which was no new practice, persisted in our asserting sovereignty over America, though he could not tell by what means. It was only new to confess his ignorance. The Duke of Richmond answered him with much decency and temper, though Lord Chatham had called pursuit without means timid and pusillanimous conduct. The Earl was rising to reply, but fell down in a second fit of apoplexy, with strong convulsions and slabbering at the mouth. I do not doubt but the Morning Post will allow the Duke more rhetoric than it ever acknowledged, in order to ascribe Lord Chatham's fall to his Grace's invectives; but he, who is all tenderness and sensibility, was so affected, that at night the Duchess of Richmond desired me not to name it: yet Lord Chatham is not dead, and to-day is better, if existing after two strokes can be called so. To be sure, his biographer would have a fairer field had he died in his vocation. Now, I reckon him politically dead. He will probably neither recover strength nor faculties; his family will, if possible, prevent his re-appearance, and the Court will scarce inoculate a half-dead skeleton on their other infirmities. Lord Chatham certainly went to the House to express resentment at their having only dabbled with him indirectly, but his debility, or perhaps some gleam of hope of yet being adopted, moderated his style: his water-gull, Lord Temple, was at his elbow."

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