Gates was enabled to write to the president of the congress, "The enemy have so far the worst of the campaign, having loft confiderably more men, officers, and arms than your army, and even lost ground, as they had feveral posts at the beginning of the campaign on the Pedee, all of which are now evacuated." But the exultation of the court faction in England, on the intelligence of lord Cornwallis's victory at Camden, was extreme. Untaught by former difappointments, all the flattering and favorite ideas of abfolute conquest and unconditional fubmiffion feemed for a time to be revived. "I have not the leaft doubt," said the American fecretary of state to lord Cornwallis in his dispatch of November 9th, " from your lordship's vigorous and alert movements, that the whole country fouth of the Delawar will be restored to the king's obedience in the course of the next campaign." It is even poffible that the animation inspired by this success contributed to the adoption of the violent counsels, by which at this period matters were brought to the last extremity with the states general. On the 3d of September, the Mercury, a congress packet, was taken by the Vestal frigate off the banks of Newfoundland. On board this packet was Mr. Laurens, late prefident of the congress, charged with a commiffion, to Holland. On being brought to England, he was examined by the privy council, and committed close prifoner to the tower, on an accufation of high treason. His papers, which had been thrown overboard, and by great dexterity and diligence recovered and deciphered, were found to contain the sketch of a treaty of amity and commerce between the republic of Holland and the states of America. This treaty appeared to be in a train of negotiation, and to have received the sanction and approbation of M. Van Berkel, counsellor and pensionary of Amsterdam. Such was the high offence taken by the court of London at this difcovery, that immediate orders were tranfmitted to fir Jofeph Joseph York, to represent to the states general, that the states of Amsterdam, as appeared from the papers of the Sieur Laurens, calling himself prefident of the pretended congress, had entered into a clandestine correspondence with the American rebels, and that instructions and powers had been given by them for the purpose of concluding a treaty of indiffoluable friendship with the said rebels. His Britannic majesty, therefore, required not only a formal disavowal of fo irregular a conduct, but also insisted on speedy fatisfaction adequate to the offence; and the exemplary punishment of the Pensionary Van Berkel and his accomplices, as disturbers of the public peace and violators of the rights of nations; otherwise the king would be obliged to take such steps as became his dignity and the interests of his fubjects. The states general, though they passed without difficulty resolutions of disavowal and enquiry, delaying to give a formal and explicit answer to this declaration, a fecond memorial was presented by fir Joseph York on the 12th of December, in which the ambassador requires an immediate and fatisfactory answer from the states. "The king," he says, " has never imagined that your high mightinesses had approved of a treaty with his rebellious fubjects. That had been raising the buckler on your part. But the offence has been committed by a city which makes a confiderable part of the state, and it belongs to the sovereign power to punish and give satisfaction for it: and it will not be till the last extremity, in case of denial or filence, that the king will take them upon himself." The ambassador was now informed that the memorial would be taken ad referendum by the deputies of the respective provinces, according to the received custom and constitution of their government. This being regarded as a palpable evasion, the ambassador received orders immediately to leave the Hague, and a declaration of war was published against Holland on the 20th of December 1780. This was a measure totally unexpected on the part of the states general, who were ill-prepared for such a rupture. Before the departure of count Welderen, he delivered, by order of the states, a letter to lord Stormont, which his lordship returned unopened. However unjust and indefensible had been the policy of the British government, the hoftile conduct of the Dutch, apparently proceeding less from a spirit of generous attachment to the cause of violated freedom, than from a fordid and avaricious selfisiness, had rendered them the objects of the national resentment and aversion. The declaration of war, therefore, which carried with it a refemblance of vigor, and even of magnanimity, was received with a great share of approbation and applaufe. There were not, however, wanting those who, without any prejudice in favor of Holland, hefitated not to affirm that this laft act of the British ministry, filled up the measure of their iniquity and absurdity. "Where," said they, "could be the civil or political offence for the subjects of a foreign state to enter into provisional agreements with the Americans, which were not, and could not be fupposed valid, till the recognition of American independence had taken place, and which, in the very words of the instrument itseif, professed to be merely " outlines of a treaty of commerce, such as might be concluded hereafter, between their high mightinesses and the united states of America?" If to maintain an amicable intercourse of this indefinite nature with the Americans was criminal in the Dutch, Holland could be regarded in no other light than as a province of England. The king of England seemed not to recollect, that the subjects of the states general were not his subjects, or accountable to him for their actions. They farther affirmed, that a provisional treaty, or speculative project, for it was no more, of peace and amity with America, did by no means necessarily imply enmity or illwill to England:-that this treaty, whether it boded good or or ill to England, had been already publicly and unreservedly disavowed by the Dutch government; and that nothing less than a direct and positive injury could, in the eye of reason, justify a denunciation of hoftility. As to the infolent requifition of exemplary punishment on the person of Van Eerkel, who might, for any thing that appeared, be actuated by motives the most upright and patriotic; the king of England ought to have reflected, that the laws of England, in similar circumstances, would not have authorised him to have inflicted the flightest punishment on even the meanest of his subjects, who should have formed the plan of a mere contingent agreement with the revolted provinces of another power, to take effect only when their claim of sovereignty should be actually recognised, and when the conditions should be approved and ratified by the government to which alone they owed allegiance. On the whole, it may safely be affirmed, that a more frivolous and invalid plea or pretext of national hoftility has feldom been urged, even by royal logicians. The folly of the measure also was no less obvious than its injustice: for, though Holland was attacked thus fuddenly and unprepared, there could be no doubt but that she would, in a short time, become a potent accession to the strength of that formidable confederacy which seemed already to threaten the very existence of Britain. The FOURTEENTH PARLIAMENT of Great Britain was dissolved by proclamation on the ist of September, and a new parliament convened, which met on the 31st of October 1780. On the event of this dissolution, amidst the multiplicity of election advertisements usual on such occasions, a very remarkable address from fir George Savile, member for the county of York, to his constituents, was published, well deferving the notice of history, as exhibiting the fentiments, not merely of that eminently distinguished patriot, 1 triot, but of all intelligent, reflecting, and disinterested perfons, at this alarming period. In renewing the tender of his services, he confesses, that " it has not been without much serious confideration, and more than common hefitation, that he determined upon it. This fatisfaction and honor," says this Ariftides of Britain, "of attending your business have ever over-balanced the labor. But my attendance during the last parliament has been something worse than laborious-it has been discouraging, grievous, painful. Look back for a moment upon the things which have been done, or being done, have been approved of by that body of which I have been a constituent part. In comparing the present with the past situation of public affairs, one confolation only remains, that of being able to affert that there has been no measure of all those, that have proved so ruinous and fatal, which I have not, as an individual, resisted to the utmost of my power:-a poor, barren, ineffectual negative is indeed all the claim I can plead to your favor; and tauth obliges me to add, that I at length return to you with hardly a ray of hope of feeing any change in the miferable course of public calamities. "On this melancholy day of account, in rendering up to you my trust, I deliver to you your share of a country maimed and weakened its treasure lavished and mifpent, its honors faded, and its conduct the laughing-stock of Europe; our nation in a manner without allies or friends, except fuch as we have hired to destroy our fellow subjects, and to ravage a country in which we once claimed an invaluable share.-Forbearing as well the forward promises as the superficial humbleness of phrafe in ufe on these occafions, I make it a folemn duty to lay before you, without disguise or palliation, the present state of your concerns, as they appear to me, and the gloomy profpect which lies before us. Some have been accused of exaggerating the public misfortunes-nay, of having endeavoured to help forward the mischief, that they might afterwards 1 |