the conclufion of the peace, no confideration whatever fhall induce you to depart from the true interefts of these your kingdoms, and from the honour and dignity of your

crown.

Your majefty may be affured that your faithful commons, will chearfully grant fuch fupplies as the nature and extent of the feveral fervices fhall be found to require; firmly relying on your majefty's wifdom and juftice, that they will be applied with the ftri&teft ceconomy, and in fuch a manner as may moft effectually anfwer the great ends for which they fhall be granted.

We do with great truth affure your majefty, that it is our most earnest defire, that this firft parliament convened by your royal authority, may, by their conduct, give

your majefty a happy proof of the zeal, the loyalty, and the affection of your people.

Senfible of the difficult crifis in which we are affembled, we are determined to concur, with the greatest firmness and unanimity, in whatever may contribute to the welfare, may tend to defeat the views and expectations of our enemies, and may convince the world that there are no difficulties which your majesty's wisdom and perfeverance, with the affiftance of your parliament, cannot fur

mount.

His majesty's answer, Gentlemen, I Return you my hearty thanks for this very dutiful and affectionate addrefs. The early proofs of your moft cordial attachment to me and my family, upon the occafion of my marriage, and the particular regard and attention which you express for the

queen, in a manner that fo nearly concerns her, cannot but give me most fenfible fatisfaction. The affurances of your fteady and vigorous fupport, must add the greatest weight to my endeavours for the public good; and will be the farest means of bringing the war in which we are engaged, to fuch a conclufion as is the conflant object of my wishes; and will most effectually provide for the honour, happiness, and fecurity of my king doms.

The Speech of his excellency George Dunk, earl of Halifax, lord licutenant general and general gover nor of Ireland, to both boufes of parliament, at Dublin, October 22, 1761.

My lords and gentlemen,

jefty's cominands, to meet his firft parliament in Ireland: I obey them with intire fatisfaction, from an affurance that your deliberations will be influenced by the fame principles of loyalty and affection to your fovereign, and of zeal for the profperity of your country, which have fo long diftinguished the parliaments of this kingdom.

Have the honour of his ma

The lofs of our late moft gracious fovereign, at a time when not only the fecurity of his own dominions, but the welfare of Europe, feemed fo effentially to depend on the continuance of his life, must have affected you in the most sensible

of his predeceffors have ever poffeffed in the most fortunate periods of their reign

This parliament happily commences with the acceffion of a king bred under the influence and formed by the example of a prince, who uniformly tempered prerogative with law; and whofe glory it was, in the exercife of his power, to protect the rights and liberties of his people.

You can be no ftranger to his majefty's most gracious declaration, that the prefervation of the conftitution in church and state, and the inforcing a due obedience to the laws (not more neceffary to his own authority than to the liberties of his people) fhall be the first and conftant object of his care. And I have it particularly in command to declare to you, that his fubjects of this kingdom are fully and in every refpect comprehended in these af furances.

His majefty's wife choice of a royal confort, eminent for her perfonal virtues and endowments, and defcended from an houfe fo illuftrious for its attachment to the proteftant caufe, difplays in the cleareft light his paternal care, not only to preferve to us, but tranfmit unimpaired to our pofterity, the bleffings of his reign, liberty, and pure religion.

When I confider the fecurity of our prefent, and the profpect of our future happiness; and when I fee you animated, as I am perfuaded you are, with every fentiment which loyalty and gratitude can infpire; I affure myfelf of a feffion of parliament, that will be ftinguished by its uninterrupted harmony, and by its effective zeal for the fupport

of the honour and dignity of the crown. Such difpofitions fteadily adhered to, cannot fail, under his majefty's paternal influence, to preferve you an happy, and to establish you an opulent and a flourishing people.

Gentlemen of the house of commons,

I have ordered the proper officers to lay before you the feveral accounts and eftimates: from which you will be enabled to judge of the provifions neceffary to be made for the fupport of his majesty's government, and for your own fecurity. The means of making these provifions, (which, I hope, will be expeditioufly adjusted) I doubt not will, on your part, be fuch as fhall be moft fuitable to the circumstances of this country; on mine, you may depend upon the utmoft frugality.

You will take into your confideration the feveral incidental charges of the military establishment, as it now ftands, of which exact estimates cannot be formed; and alfo that a large fum will be wanted for the effectual repair of the barracks; a work which cannot be delayed.

I muft obferve to you, that notwithstanding the authority given by the vote of credit of the last parliament, the fum of two hundred thoufand pounds only has been raised; a circumftance of ceconomy which cannot fail to give you fatisfaction.

My lords and gentlemen,

The improvement of your natural advantages ought to be the object of your moft ferious attention. Agriculture, the fureft fupport of every ftate, deferves at all times your higheft regard, to the end that, through your wisdom, the skill and induftry of the inha

bitants

bitants of this country may fully correfpond with the bounty of providence in their favour.

To encourage, regulate, and improve, which will of courfe extend, your manufactures and commerce, will, I am fure, be your continual care. Your linen trade has long been the object of publick encouragement; but much ftill remains to carry to its full extent a manufacture, for which there is fo large a demand; which is fo various in its branches; and which, with due attention, might be rendered as confiderable a fource of wealth to the whole, as it is now to part of this kingdom.

There is no object more worthy our attention, than our Proteftant charter schools. Notwithstanding the peaceable demeanour of the Papists in this kingdom, it must always be your duty, and your intereft, to divert from error, by every effectual, though gentle method, the deluded followers of a blind religion. And these inftitutions merit your fupport and protection, not only as fchools of religion, but as feminaries of useful arts and virtuous industry.

Let me now, in the most earnest manner recommend to you, that, after fo many honourable events abroad, and fo many joyful events at home, neither jealoufies nor diftruft, neither public heats, nor private animofities, may may difturb that tranquillity which is defirable at all times, and at this feafon is peculiarly neceffary to your welfare.

As to what regards myfelf, you

truth affure you, that I fhall in no degree fulfil the intentions, nor merit the approbation, of my royal mafter, but by studying the peace and welfare of the kingdom which his majesty hath committed to my care.

I am fenfible the fituation, in which I am placed, is as arduous as it is important: but I bring with me the cleareft intentions for your fervice. To maintain the honour, and to promote the service of the crown, are duties from which I will never depart: to forward the profperity, and to preferve the conftitution of this country, are objects of which I never will lofe fight. And there is nothing I more fincerely wish, than that the interefts of both kingdoms may be as thoroughly understood, as they are infeparably connected. There is no point I fhall more diligently labour. And I muft now affure you at the opening of my administration (what the progrefs of it will, I hope, demonftrate) that I have no end or ambition, but to be able to reprefent, in the warmest manner, to his majefty, the zeal and unanimity of his fubjects in this kingdom, and to carry with me, on my return into the royal prefence, the good opinion, the affection, the hearts of the people of Ireland.

A short view of the cause and condu of the war, and a negotiation for a peace, as reprefented by the French in their Hiftorical Memorial, pub libed by authority.

but follicitous, to contribute whatever my authority, my credit, or my experience can furnish for these falutary purposes. And I can with

France and England, had at firft America only for its object; but a confiderable part of Europe has been fince involved in it.

The

The limits of Acadia and Canada, which by the treaty of Aix la Chapelle, were left to the difcuffion of commiffaries to be named by the two potentates, were made a pretence by England for commencing hoftilities, and for taking two French fhips, the Alcide and the Lys, at the very time when the duke de Mirepoix, the French ambaffador, in the midst of peace, and under the fanction of the law of nations was treating at London to prevent a rupture.

This act of violence was an indignity to France, which her honour obliged her to repel by force. If England had intended only to eftablish the poffeffions of the two crowns in North America upon a firm footing, fhe would, as France has done, have endeavoured to prevent the powers of the continent from taking part in a war that was wholly foreign to them; on the contrary, the endeavoured to renew the famous league which was formed against Lewis XIV. upon the acceffion of Philip V. to the throne of Spain, and to perfuade all the courts of Europe that they were as much interefted in the limits of Acadia, as in the fucceffion of the Spanish monarchy.

In confequence of the firft hoftilities, which happened in 1755, the king of France pacified his neighbours, reftrained his allies, and gave all the powers to underftand that his fole view was to reftrain the English within due limits, and that they ought to regard the differences about America with the most impartial neutrality.

England took advantage of this pacific conduct, the knew that the emprefs queen of Hungary might

difappoint it, and the made no doubt of bringing that princess into all her views; but the empress rejected her propofals from the fame principles of equity as those from which France acted, and chofe rather to run the risk of an unjust war, which was the natural and forefeen confequence of the treaty between England and Pruffia.

France and the emprefs queen entered into an alliance purely de fenfive, on the firft of May, 1756, which was prior to the king of Pruffia's invafion of Saxony, and they hoped this alliance would have prevented a war on the continent of Europe, but they were disappointed; for England having now armed the king of Pruffia, he immediately indulged his paffion for war, which inability only had reftrained before, by the invasion of Saxony, and the attack of Bohemia.

From this time two diftinct wars fubfifted; one between France and England, which, in the beginning, had nothing in common with the war in Germany; and the other between Pruffia and the empress queen, in which England was interested as an ally of Pruffia, and France, as guarantee of the treaty of Weftphalia, and as ally of the court of Vienna by the defenfive treaty of the first of May.

France, in all the engagements fhe was conftrained to make with the confederate powers, was care ful not to blend the differences of America with thofe of Europe, and as fhe was defirous to restore publick tranquillity, he judged it unproper to blend interefts fo diftant and complicated, by treating

of

of them jointly in a negotiation for a general peace.

France went yet farther, and with a view to prevent a direct land war in Europe, fhe propofed the neutrality of Hanover, in the year 1757, but his late majesty refufed the propofition, and fent his fon, the duke of Cumberland, into his German dominions, who, at the head of an army compofed entirely of Germans, was ordered to oppose the march of the forces, which France, in pursuance of her engagements, fhould fend to her al lies, who were attacked in their dominions.

This army finished the campaign of 1757, with the capitulation of Clofter-Seven, to which the duke of Cumberland confented: but the English, notwithstanding, broke this capitulation within a few months, upon a pretence that the army which capitulated belonged to the elector; but that the army which broke the capitulation, though it was the fame army, was from that time to be confidered as belonging to the king of England; thus the army commanded by prince Ferdinand is become an English army: the elector of Hanover, the duke of Brunswick, and the landgrave of Heffe, their forces and their countries have been blended together in the cause of England, fo that the hoftilities in Weftphalia, and lower Saxony, have had, and still have the fame object as the hoftilities in America, Afia, and Africa, viz. the difputes concerning the limits of Acadia and Canada.

France being from this time

obliged to fupport a war both by fea and land against England, has afforded no farther fuccour of troops to her allies to carry on the war, but has only undertaken to preferve for the emprefs queen, the places on the Lower Rhine, which were conquered from the king of Pruffia in her name. The war in Weftphalia, therefore, is not carried on for the intereft of the allies of France, but is purely English, and is carried on only be+ cause the army of England in that part, defends the poffeffions of Eng land, and her allies.

Thus, the war of France with England, is, in its origin, diftinct from the war of the empress with Pruffia; yet, there is now a connection between the two wars, arifing from the common engagement between France and Auftria, not to make a separate peace with the common enemy, but by mutual confent. This engagement was abfolutely neceffary for the fecurity both of Auftria and France, for it would be dangerous to France for the king of Pruffia to join his forces with thofe of prince Ferdinand against her, and to the empress for thefe forces to join against her, and the princes of the empire in alliance with France.

The year 1758 produced no event which might give room for a negotiation of peace, yet France made ufe of the mediation of Denmark, to inform England of her perfeverance in the pacific difpofition which the had before difcovered; but the answer of England was haughty and negative, and de

stroyed