"I would sell my shirt off my back to assist in proper measures, properly and wisely conducted; _but I would not part with a single shilling to the present ministers_. Their plans are founded in destruction and disgrace. It is, my Lords, a ruinous and destructive war; it is full of danger; it teems with disgrace, and must end in ruin.... If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms!--never!--never!--never!" The Duke of Richmond, in the Lords, on the same occasion, returned to the charge in a similar spirit. "Can we too soon put a stop to such a scene of carnage? My Lords, I know that what I am going to say is not fashionable language; but a time will come when every one of us must account to God for his actions, and how can we justify causing so many innocent lives to be lost?" In the Commons, December 5, 1777, Mr. Hartley, the constant friend of America, brought forward a motion:-- "That it is unbecoming the wisdom and prudence of Parliament to proceed any farther in the support of this fruitless, expensive, and destructive war, more especially without any specific terms of accommodation declared." The Marquis of Rockingham, in the Lords, February 16, 1778, exclaimed:-- "He was determined to serve his country _by making peace at any rate_." At last, in the Lords, March 23, 1778, the Duke of Richmond brought forward a motion for the withdrawal of the forces from America. The same question was presented again in the Commons, November 27, 1780, on a motion to thank General Clinton and others for their military services in America, when Mr. Wilkes laid down the true rule. "I think it my duty to oppose this motion, because in my idea every part of it conveys an approbation of the American War,--a war unfounded in principle, and fatal in its consequences to this country.... _Sir, I will not thank for victories which only tend to protract a destructive war...._ As I reprobate the want of principle in the origin of the American War, I the more lament all the spirited exertions of valor and the wisdom of conduct which in a good cause I should warmly applaud. Thinking as I do, I see more matter of grief than of triumph, of bewailing than thanksgiving, in this civil contest, and the deluge of blood which has overflowed America.... I deeply lament that the lustre of such splendid victories is obscured and darkened by the want of a good cause, without which no war, in the eye of truth and reason, before God or man, can be justified." Mr. Fox followed in similar strain.