560 
that necéssity would, besides their com- 
mittees of cortespondeénce then subsisting, 
teach them other means of moving ind 
of acting together; that they would pro- 
bably have at their head some of the 
wisest and of the ablest of ‘their coun- 
try; that the influence of our governors 
and.of our other civil officers woald shrink 
to nothing ; nor our own authority pro- 
bably extend further than where it was 
enforced by our own troops; that our 
very soldiery would desire and endeavout 
to leave us, and go over to the Ameri- 
cans. Has one word of jabhithis fallen to. 
the ground? Oris there almost a single 
sentence of it, which is not now become 
a matter of fact? ' 
“Te was further set forth, that no im- 
mediate impression upon the town of 
Boston, or possession taken of it by a 
fleet or'an army,would carry the command 
of all that continent, or force them to 
submit to measures so universally against 
their bent and inclinations; but that on 
the contrary the most strénuous and most 
vigorous exertions were from that whole 
people to be expected, in support of their 
common liberties and properties. May 
I call on our ministers,” and demand 
whether they are not themselves sensible | 
by this time of all these things?” 
The writer concludes with the following 
emphatic paragraph, “ It is not owing 
to a-want of information, to a want of 
understanding, to a want of sense, and 
a knowledge of the importance or the 
inmprudence of our American measures, 
if some people of property, of capacity, 
of independence, seem to sleep supinely 
while a rock isready to fall and to crush 
their country. There isin public con- 
‘cerns an abjyectness which obtains and 
daily increases among Us, and that in a 
rank of men where it ought feast to pre- 
vail, and to whom others are entitled to 
look up in atime of danger or of diffi- 
culty. The rise and the beginning of this 
might readily be peinted out; it was not 
first of this reign: but these men may 
truly be told, ‘that there is no support 
for themselves but in the stability of all; 
that their private fortunes and possessions 
will, in the common destruction, most 
inevitably go to wreck and to ruin with 
the rest: ‘the cloud from the Atlantic 
threatens them as weil as the merchant 
and the manufacturer, the farmer, and 
the labourer. “But we seem not to re- 
member that we are born Britons ; that 
governments are instituted for the good 
of the governed, and for that only ; that 
we hav¢ in our immediate personal and » 
Memotrs of the late Lord Rokeby. 
[Jaly ty 
collective capacity, an inherent right to 
sigmfy our sentiments of the nationat 
Tasted asst to those who contrive, govern, 
and direct them; that the concern therein 
of many is upon the comparison much as: 
considerable, one for one, as their owns, 
but that of all united and taken together, 
almost as the ovean to a drop of water 5 
that we are then, and not a flock of sheep 
ioe to. follow our fellow, because he 
happ peiis to bear a bell about his neck. 
“The wr riter has thrown | ‘oat these things 
from a sincere and an earnest. desire of 
the general safety ‘and welfare; he 
heartily hopes that the seed is sown in 
good ground, ‘and that it will bear fruit 
for the b eee of the whole! But i. 
after all, the hand of fate is upon this 
nation ; ‘itt e period approachesin which 
we are doo red to. perish; if there is at 
once an incurable Seschiees in Our coun. 
cils, and _a boundless obsequiousness in 
our proper ‘guardians and protectors ; 
if the constitution is forgotten, and men 
of weight and of effect abandon their 
country, I must say that His will be done, 
who governs both individuals and com- 
munities! I trust, nevertheless, that 
_ these words will not be so lost, but that 
they shall at least preserve one private: 
person” from the chatge and the con- 
sciousness of having scrupled to speak 
“freely and plainly his opinion of the dan- 
gers, and the but too probable ruin im- 
pending over the country.” 
In 1776, Mr. R. published, * A furs . 
ther Examination of our Ameriean Mea- 
sures, and of the Reasons and Principles 
on which they are founded,” bute 
In the next. year ICs lie | brought 
forth another pam pileh ebtit le, Peace 
the best Policy; or, Meedcethans ts 
“Appearance of a “Foreign wan He. 
present State of Me) Home, and. 
the Commission. for grant ing I hiciigete 
America.” * 8v0. | 
‘In 1778, when he a 
“65th” year, | he was ar 
only; but in ie “i gs 
his father died, at ane 
bourhood of Baa 
‘84; and be came into’ poss: 
paternal estates in the n rt 
Yorkshire, a and on the for : 
ham. It was only in the preced ing 
February, that Mrs. Montagu menti- 
oned her father in the following words = 
‘« | suppose you know there was a report 
of my father’s death. I had promised to 
introduce the dowager Duchess of Beau- 
fort to the French ambassadress on Wed- 
nesday night; so, though the weather was _ 
terrible, 
