These bills met with great opposition in Parliament, and excited a long and stormy debate. The question assumed the distinct form of a proposition to dismember the British empire, by allowing the American colonies to withdraw as independent states. This proposition was affirmatively supported as the only sure means of detaching the colonies from France, the ancient enemy of England. The Earl of Chatham (William Pitt) vehemently opposed it. Though a warm friend of the Americans, he could not bear the thought of their separation from the mother country, and, with all the strength of his eloquence, he denounced the proposition. On the 7th of April, the debates on the question ran high, [[1778]] and Chatham became greatly excited. Sickness and age had broken his physical strength, but the fire of his intellect burned as clear as ever. He came into the House of Lords, that day, wrapped in flannel, and leaning upon two friends; and when he arose to speak, at the conclusion of a speech by Lord Weymouth, he leaned upon crutches. "I thank God," he said, with a trembling voice, "that I have been enabled to come here this day to perform my duty, and to speak on a subject which has so deeply impressed my mind. I am old and infirm; I have one foot, more than one foot, in the grave; I am risen from my bed to stand up in the cause of my country; perhaps never again to speak in this House." A deep and solemn silence pervaded the assembly as he uttered these words; gradually his voice assumed its wonted strength and harmony, and with all the power and beauty of the oratory of his best days, he addressed the House. "My lords," he continued, "I rejoice that the grave has not closed upon me; that I am still alive to lift up my voice against the dismemberment of this ancient and most noble monarchy. Pressed down as I am by the hand of infirmity, I am little able to assist my country in this most perilous juncture; but, my lords, while I have sense and memory, I will never consent to deprive the royal offspring of the house of Brunswick, the heirs of the Princess Sophia, of their fairest inheritance. Where is the man that will dare to advise such a measure? My lords, his majesty succeeded to an empire as great in extent as its reputation was unsullied, Shall we tarnish the luster of this nation by an ignominious surrender of its rights and fairest possessions? Shall this great kingdom, that has survived, whole and entire, the Danish depredations, the Scottish inroads, and the Norman conquest--that has stood the threatened invasion of the Spanish Armada--now fall prostrate before the house of Bourbon? Surely, my lords, this nation is no longer what it was! Shall a people that, fifteen years ago, were the terror of the world, now stoop so low as to tell their ancient, inveterate enemy, 'Take all we have, only give us peace?' It is impossible! I wage war with no man or set of men. I wish for none of their employments; nor