A HARBINGER OF THE REVOLUTION 115 



not prove destructive to its great object, and would there- 

 fore move it as only temporary, and would permit particu- 

 lar persons to be excepted, on certificates from the governor 

 of their good behaviour, or upon their taking a test of 

 acknowledgment of the rights of Parliament." x 



The motion of Lord North and his defense of the measure 

 called forth a spirited discussion. The defenders of the 

 bill who came forward to the support of the ministry based 

 their arguments on the fact that rebellion already existed 

 in Massachusetts, on the spirit that continued to prevail 

 in the colonies, on the evident purpose of the colonists to 

 ruin the British merchants and manufacturers and to 

 starve all the West Indies, and because the colonies had 

 prohibited trade with the mother country. 



For the opponents, Dunning was of opinion that the 

 Americans had a right to the banks of Newfoundland, that 

 there was no rebellion in Massachusetts, but even if so, he 

 failed to see why New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Con- 

 necticut should be punished for acts of another province. 

 He declared that "the ministry were the best authors for 

 a receipt to make rebellion.' 



Governor Johnstone said that the measure was absurd 

 and cruel, that the project to starve a whole people, ex- 

 cept such as the governor should think proper to favor, 

 was inhuman; the God of nature had given these fisheries 

 to New England and not to Old England; his long ex- 

 perience in the British navy had taught him that it was a 

 constant practice of the service for the British cruisers to 

 spare the fishing craft of an enemy's coast, thinking it 

 savage and barbarous to deprive the miserable inhabitants 

 of the seacoast of their daily food and the means of procur- 

 ing it. 



Sir George Saville ridiculed the bill as a measure that 

 would deprive one province of its subsistence because, 



i Sabine, p. 140. 



