"Deprived of America, we must sink into a petty state, when compared to some of the great powers on the continent. Holding America in a state of unconstitutional subjection, we would shortly become slaves, or at least hold the mere shadow of our former liberties, at the will and pleasure of the crown, and its subordinate instruments. Having thus explained his present opinions and future apprehensions, he said, he would sit down with this open declaration, that he never would serve with any man, be his abilities what they might, who would either maintain it was right, or consent to acknowledge the independency of America."
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Prime Ministers of the United KingdomPoliticians from IrelandPeople from DublinUniversity of Oxford alumniWhig (British political party) politicians
Original Language: English
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Speech in the House of Lords (7 December 1778), quoted in The Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, Vol. XX. Comprising the Period from the Seventh of December 1778, to the Tenth of February 1780 (1814), column 40
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Petty%2C_2nd_Earl_of_Shelburne
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William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne
William Petty Fitzmaurice, 1st Marquess of Lansdowne KG PC (2 May 1737 – 7 May 1805; known as the Earl of Shelburne between 1761 and 1784, by which title he is generally known to history), was an Anglo-Irish Whig statesman who was the first home secretary in 1782 and then prime minister from 1782 to 1783 during the final months of the American War of Independence, in which he negotiated the Treaty of Paris with the United States. He succeeded in securing peaceful United Kingdom–United States rel
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