directly into the merits of the question, and rebellion, urging and working upon by professing a total ignorance of every the doubtful, confirming those of his own circumstance relative to the subject, but stamp, and endeavouring to seduce the what he had read in the Leyden Gazette, loyal; of whom, when he could not make or what he had learned in the course of proselytes, he threatened with fire and the present debate. He said he believed sword; at length he carried his threats it was the first time since the institution into execution, and that in the most merof parliament in this country, that a pro- ciless, bloody, and treacherous manner. position was submitted to either House, There were several persons of property in without a single document or scrap of his neighbourhood, who stood nearly in paper to support it; yet such was the the same predicament with himself; those motion of the present day. The noble as opportunity served, and circumstances duke stood in that predicament. He had answered, he soothed and threatened, and no one document to produce, but a kind was sometimes so successful as to bring of representation or letter, or state of facts, over to his opinions, under various preconveyed to him by one Bowman, an tences and misrepresentations, such as the obscure man, whom nobody knew, whom declining state of the British affairs in the noble duke himself confessed he did America, &c. Some, however, withstood not know; yet, upon such an authority as all his solicitations, and remained firm in this, their lordships, a sovereign power so their resolution of continuing peaceable, far as they undertook to act, were very and at least, neutral subjects to the British modestly called to go into a solemn en government. These he particularly markquiry. He, too, had received a lettered out as the fit objects of his vengeance, from the same Mr. Bowman, he believed and after giving notice, that he would on t least from some person who had assumed a certain day pay them a visit, determined that name, and he was led to believe it to be as good as his word. He accordwas the same man, because the narrative ingly doomed one of them to destruction, ransmitted to him, he could not then tell and collecting a body of rebels, surrounded whether in print or manuscript, seemed to his house, and laid a kind of siege to it. xactly correspond with that received by It, however, fortunately happened for the he noble duke. He was, nevertheless, devoted man, that he had notice given ree to declare, though the facts contained him just time enough to escape being herein had been correctly stated, that he murdered. From thence he and his banlid not think them worthy of his attention. ditti advanced into the country, and exerUnder these circumstances he begged cised unheard-of cruelties, marking their their lordships only to attend for a moment footsteps with destruction wherever they to what was proposed by the motion-no came; but it luckily happened on the ess than to address his Majesty for a whole very same day, while in the act of comlist or series of papers of the most impor- mitting these barbarous enormties, he was tant nature, none of them, as he conceived, surprized by a party of loyalists, and made calculated to throw any light on the con- prisoner. So much for the morality of demnation and execution of the rebel the case, and the public and private virHayne, but to treat unmercifully and un- tues of the rebel Hayne. He would now gratefully two very deserving officers. offer a word or two, as to the justice of his But he would now consider the question execution. He was no soldier, but he proposed by the noble duke, upon a pre- fancied he was not totally unequal to the sumption that the noble duke's documents task of comprehending an author, whose were as authentic as those of Mr. Bow- opinions were universally assented to by man, or any other of the friends of Hayne all civilized nations; and of course, would wish to represent them. What did whose writings were deemed the true this evidence or narrative amount to? but standard, by which persons in military that Hayne, a notorious rebel, being taken situations were to conduct themselves: he in arms, offered to submit upon getting a meant that learned man, Grotius, who had parole; that government, not choosing to written on the law of nations, necessarily trust solely to his parole, obliged him including the laws of war and open hoslikewise to take the oath of allegiance, tility, which are besides particularly laid and retire into the country to his patri- down in that celebrated work. Here his mony, but what was the conduct of this lordship quoted several passages from that man, thus treated and indulged? His em-author, and from Cocceius and Vattel, the ployment was that of fomenting faction two last of whom wrote much later than [VOL. XXII.] [SR] Grotius, in which it was clearly laid down, that all prisoners, as among common enemies, when taken in battle, are at the mercy of their captors, but that a more civilized and refined way of thinking had prevailed, by the accepting surrenders at discretion, or upon capitulation; which entitled the prisoner to his life, and to future release upon condition; but then it was allowed universally, and asserted without reserve, that a prisoner breaking his parole, forfeited all title to mercy a second time, and it was only necessary to prove his personal identity, to subject him to death instanter. The Duke of Richmond said he entertained a very high respect for the learned lord, but no man, be his pretensions ever so high, had a right to make use of indecent language, much less to endeavour to mislead the House by improper ideas pressed on their lordships' minds. The noble lord, had however, in his conception, offended in both instances. He said, that those who seemed desirous to promote an enquiry into the execution of colonel Hayne, had treated those very deserving officers, lord Rawdon and colonel Balfour, most unmercifully and ungratefully. These epithets could be intended for none but him, and he must say, in point of propriety and decorum, that it was a freedom in debate by no means justifiable, and highly unbefitting the learned lord who made use of it. He must confess he sensibly felt its force, and it was a language he should never pass over without taking special notice of. But the principle or political maxim, coupled with this very severe expression, had still a worse tendency. What was it? That an officer, who by his services had merited the esteem of his country, was not to be called to account for his subsequent conduct; but that he, who, from public motives should promote an enquiry into it, would act most unmercifully and ungratefully. Now he thought, without entering into the merits of lord Rawdon and his colleague, that this was a most dangerous maxim to inculcate in that House. Lord Huntingdon rose to state a few facts which had come to his knowledge through the officers just returned from America, whom he had seen, and which their lordships might wish to know. He said that lord Cornwallis had called on him, and given him authority to declare, that lord Rawdon had acted in respect to colonel Hayne exactly as he should have done himself, had he been in Charlestown at the time, and that he had executed several persons taken in arms, after having broken their parole, upon whom the same sort of court of enquiry had sat, as was convened and sat on the case of colonel Hayne. He added, that the noble ear told him, though he could easily delegate a power to hold courts-martial, he could not delegate a power to confirm their sentences. After this, his lordship explained to the House that a court of enquiry, while a coun try was under martial law, was not by any means a court to try regularly; it wa neither a court-martial nor a court of jus tice, but was merely conducted on the principle, that with regard to those taken in arms after being out upon parole, or under protection, all that was deemed a cessary, was to identify their person which was executed in the following ma ner; the delinquents were collected at certain place, and such as came under the foregoing description, were instantly p to death; and great numbers of person suffered agreeably to this rule, witho any legal or civil proofs, regular enquiry or trial whatever. With regard to colo Hayne, he was informed by officers whe knew the facts, that he had, on the cap tulation of Charlestown, asked for his pa role; that he had been denied it; that be then took the oaths; during the period, he raised an insurrection, and put himse at the head of 200 horse. That not fr from him lived Mr. Creighton, an Irishman, who had been forced by the rebe either to supply them with provisions, or to lose his property, but who had likewis come in on the capitulation of Charles town, and recovered his estate, making it, as it certainly was, a matter of some merit, that he had never been in arms against the British government, but had merely supplied the rebels with provisions. Colone! Hayne sent to this Mr. Creighton, desiring him to break his parole; Creighton re fused, and then Hayne sent him word, if he did not break his parole, and join him, he would come and hang him up at his own door. Creighton still refused, and it was merely on the notice of a friend, given him but a short time before Hayne's ar rival, that by secretly getting off through a corn field, a private way to Charlestown, he escaped with his life. Hayne arrived soon after at Creighton's, did him considerable damage, and proceeded to a house, which Creighton had fitted up as a tavern, and which he had let to lieutenant Waugh. Haynes killed Mr. Waugh, and took all the people in his house prisoners, and in the midst of the night, was himself taken by colonel Frazer, at the head of a body of provincials, which were originally infantry, but which had been mounted by subscription. The Earl of Effingham.-My lords; I did not imagine I should have troubled your lordships again on any American question; that subject I relinquished, as soon as the fate of the last motion I made in this House was determined. But I conider the present motion, as rather tending o clear my country of an aspersion, which, f submitted to, would render it odious to he whole civilized world, than a mere question concerning the particular transction which gave rise to it. I should ave had nothing to add to what the noble uke stated, when he opened the business, ut from the information I have received om the very lords who oppose the moon. When his grace began, he very andidly told the House, that he had no ther grounds than a letter he had reeived from a Mr. Bowman, stating that ■ American officer, of high rank, had een put to death, with some circumtances of wantonness and cruelty, withut having been heard in his defence, ontrary to all law, and even humanity. His grace stated, that all might be false; ut he contended that it was our duty to etect the falsehood of such an injurious eport, that the world might see, we could ot bear the suspicion of being such bararians; or if, on enquiry, it should unappily be found true, we ought, in vinlication of the national honour, to trace ut, and punish the authors of such an utrage. This reasoning would have been ufficiently conclusive to me, for establishng the propriety of his grace's motion, or the papers therein called for; unless ny of the King's ministers had officially leclared the rumour of the transaction alse; but judge, my lords, of my surprise, when I found all the arguments made use of to put off the enquiry, directly tending to prove the truth of the report, with all the horrid circumstances attending it. The first noble lord who opposed the motion, told your lordships, that Mr. Bowman was at New-York, at the time of the transaction: from hence we are to understand, that Mr. Bowman is not only a person sufficiently worthy the noble lord's attention, to make him take notice of his goings and comings, but also, we are informed that his lordship knows the fact of colonel Hayne's execution, and of the time when it happened. Another circumstance, of some importance, we are indebted for the knowledge of, to the learned lord on the woolsack; that is to say, that Mr. Bowman (who, by the bye, appears to be a person well known to his lordship also) took his account from the Philadelphia newspaper: this circumstance might, at first sight, invalidate the strength of Mr. Bowman's evidence ; but, if attended to at all, will wonderfully confirm the fact in question; for in the first place, the learned lord must have compared that paper with Bowman's account. In the next place, we see in Bowman's account, that colonel Hayne, when he found his murder resolved on, desired an account to be transmitted to the delegates of the province. Thirdly, we all know that Congress have usually printed in the Philadelphia Gazette, whatever accounts they thought proper to give to the public. And lastly, nothing is more likely than for a person at New-York to conclude that, whether an account so conveyed was in reality true or false, it would be sure to find credit in so many parts of Europe, as to make it a matter of conse quence to us, to prevent the nation from being stigmatized, as a people wholly regardless of the rights of humanity, and the rules of civilized countries. In this light I cannot help applauding Mr. Bowman, for having sent the earliest account he could, to so many persons of rank and character, as he now appears to have done, and thinking the enquiry highly requisite. A circumstance, which I think your lordships must deem of still greater consequence, has been communicated by the noble lord who spoke last, who professedly rose to defend his relation, and to acquaint your lordships with some matters, which he deemed fit for your lordships to be acquainted with. The sum of his lordship's information has been, that the country alluded to was under martial law; that this same martial law vested prodigious authority in the commanding officers, and that the usual administration of this martial law had been of the most easy and compendious kind, having had no other rule to confine it, than the appointing a court of enquiry, consisting of three officers of the Provincial Loyalists, who looked over the prisoners at any time brought in by the King's forces; and whoever was, by this new-contrived court, declared to have broken parole, was immediately or in his own character, with any hostile de sign whatever. That spies are allowed ta be hanged with very little ceremony, is very true; but still they are heard in their own defence, and what, between humsnity and policy, do oftener escape death that if formally tried by a court martial Another material mistake of the learned lord's is, that if col. Hayne had been pro dered for execution. My lords, I have tius never wrote one word about prisoners heard it reckoned a curiosity in Denmark, on parole: he never heard of such that they once possessed a code of laws in thing. It is a very modern civility, introone octavo volume: with what humiliation duced into some countries only. And it must that, and all other countries submit is more resembling what we call bail, than to the wisdom of this new system of juris- any thing else: and whoever runs away prudence, wherein the whole body of this from it may be more closely confined; but municipal law might be written in the not put to death, by any rule I ever compass of a silver penny.-My lords, I heard. Another circumstance I mus do not know that any one attacked the mention, is, that the learned lord has, I character of lord Rawdon; on the con- dare say without any design to mislead, trary, I am myself persuaded, that if the drawn a comparison between the situation papers moved for, should shew he had any of an officer breaking his parole and a hand in the transaction, they will at the spy. My lords, the cases are totally un same time shew, he acted not so much ac-like. A spy is one who enters any works, cording to his own judgment, as to his or posts, in a pretended character, which orders. Much has been said of the cha- entitles him to protection; and thus mast racter of colonel Hayne, as if he had de-essentially differs from an officer coming served whatever punishment had been inflicted on him. Now, my lords, I shall only contend, that if colonel Hayne had been the worst man that ever lived, still he should be proved guilty of some specific crime, before he is put to death: and we ought to remember, in justice to him, that, notwithstanding he has been painted in such dark colours this day, yet one virtue, at least, was allowed him, by our com-ceeded against, as having taken the oaths manders in America, that of humanity. I wish he had had the opportunity to have returned the compliment. If this improvement upon the jus gentium had rested solely on the authority of the noble lord, I should have left it to refute itself, as I think it would have done, by its manifest repugnancy to the common rights of mankind, and the consideration of the noble lord's being under no particular profes-blished, all crimes are to be tried by sional obligation to render himself master court martial. What particular autho of the subject. But in the present case, rity, as to the holding court martial, andį two of his Majesty's ministers have approving their sentence, may be vested stepped forth, and laid down some doc- in any particular officers in America, ! trines, so contrary to what I take for know not; and that is the very reason I truth, that I feel myself under an obliga- wish to have the papers now moved for, tion to make some observations upon them.brought before the House. The rumour The noble lord in the green ribbon has asserted, that it is a known rule, that a prisoner of war, having broken his parole, has thereby forfeited his life; and is to be executed like a spy, without any other form than what may suffice to identify his person. This I will venture to deny ever to have been laid down in any book of authority, or ever practised in civilized countries. The learned lord, indeed, in confirming this doctrine, has quoted Grotius; I wish his lordship had been more explicit; for it is with great diffidence I can oppose my knowledge of Grotius to his lordship; and yet I am clear that Gro of allegiance, there was no court could try him: but I think the law is otherwise for I imagine his lordship must himself have put the great seal to a commission enabling the governor of Gibraltar to try every crime by a court martial which might here be tried at the Old Bailey: and the Mutiny Act expressly declares, that where no civil jurisdiction is esta on which the motion was founded, has been so confirmed, in most of its circumstances, by the ministers themselves, as to justify me in pronouncing the proceeding in question, very indecent and irregular, and of a dangerous tendency to the inte rests of my country. For this reason, 1 wish an enquiry into the fact, and its premoters; I most heartily give, therefore, my vote for the motion. The House divided: Contents, 25; Nee Contents, 73. Debate in the Lords on the Surrender of the British Army under the Command * of Earl Cornwallis at York Town.] Feb. 4. Feb. 7. The order of the day being ad, He appealed to their lordships on the broad ground of justice, of that national justice which every man in this country had a right to demand, and which it was their lordships peculiar business to administer. He would mention a circumstance or two, if any were wanted, which would probably ensure success to the proposi tion he was about to move; the first was, that of the noble viscount in the green ribbon, who asserted without reserve, that the calamity at York-town was a signal and a fatal one, and if the authors of that calamity could be discovered, and their criminality fairly brought home to them, that man, be his rank, pretensions, or services ever so high or conspicuous, would deserve to be brought to immediate and condign punishment. A noble lord in high office, in his opinion spoke in still an higher and more peremptory tone, (lord Hillsborough) for he affirmed in that House, not very long since, that an enquiry ought to be instituted into the cause The Duke of Chandos said, he did not of the loss of the army under earl Cornean to embarrass ministers, collectively wallis, and that it would most certainly be individually: he had no ill-will to any instituted. His grace then moved, “That e of them in his private capacity; nor a committee of the whole House be aphis public capacity was farther inte- pointed on Monday next, to enquire into sted in their removal, than as he ima- the causes of the calamitous loss of the ned the public might be benefitted by army commanded by lieutenant general e same. The motion which it was his earl Cornwallis, and made prisoners by tention to submit to their lordships, was the United States of America, and the proposition that would necessarily em- troops of France, at York-town and Glou ace a variety of objects, and include incester, in the province of Pennsylvania." an enquiry into the conduct of many ersons of rank and authority in the ate. It would, in the first instance, go > an immediate enquiry into the surrener of lord Cornwallis and the British my at York-town and Gloucester. The vereign, parliament, and the nation at rge, were entitled to be satisfied, as ell upon the general principles of the ilure of the war as the disastrous ccidents which had happened. The capare of two British armies, of consierable strength and number, was a cirumstance, he believed, unknown to have aken place during the course of any one var in the modern annals of mankind; but he meant to confine himself at present merely to the disaster at York-town. He should not have presumed to have troubled their lordships upon speculative reasoning, mere general rumours, or personal considerations. He should with equal care endeavour to avoid those subjects which were so apt to mix themselves in the discussion of all political questions. Viscount Stormont said, whatever part he might hereafter take in respect of the objects of the enquiry, he nevertheless must oppose any motion which amounted to a recognition of the independency of America. He thought it fit, therefore, thus early, to apprize the noble duke, that if his motion was pressed in its present form, he would take the sense of the House upon it. It would, as he apprehended, amount to a recognition of American independence, he meant the concluding words, which stated, that lord Cornwallis and his army had surrendered to the United States of America. The Duke of Chandos replied, that he believed the noble viscount had mistaken the sense of his motion. It was not an assertion of any right of independency, or any other right he knew of; for the whole of the motion, but the mere form, was no more than a correct transcript from one of the articles signed between lord Cornwallis, as commander in chief of the Bri tish forces, and general Washington, |