Returned for Callington on Lady Orford’s interest, Acland made his first speech on 20 Feb. 1775 on North’s motion to allow the colonies to tax themselves:
I have supported Administration on every American step they have taken during the session, because I have approved them; and as long as I had continued to approve them, I should have continued to support them. But, Sir, I cannot approve this measure.
On 27 Feb.
That which is generosity, which is magnanimity after victory, is timidity and foul disgrace before it. There may be situations in which states may be found where they cannot, without certain ruin, acquiesce even in just claims; there are situations too, in which states may grant more than is asked, and give more than is desired, with honour, security, and advantage.
In the summer of 1775 he asked permission to raise a regiment. North, ‘convinced that the spirit which has been raised in the west has been almost entirely owing to Mr. Acland, and that some favour shown to him at present will be of considerable political use’, recommended it:
In moving the Address on 26 Oct. 1775 Acland said the issue was clear
Do gentlemen choose to acquiesce in the independence of America, or to enforce their submission to this country by vigorous measures ... I must maintain that it would have been better for this country that America had never been known, than that a great consolidated American Empire should exist independent of Britain.
On 22 Nov., in an altercation with Charles James Fox, he described himself as ‘no adventurer or place-hunter; he was a gentleman of independent fortune, who voted purely in conformity with his sentiments, without any sinister views whatever’.
In November 1775 he left to join his regiment in America, where he was twice wounded, and captured at Saratoga. ‘His behaviour’, wrote Burgoyne to Sir William Howe on 25 Oct. 1777, ‘has been that of a high-spirited soldier of fortune.’
He died 22 Nov. ‘by a fall on his head in a duel’.