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period of only four months, five more milliards; and at length the committee of finance had resolved to call in the whole assignats, and break the plates to pieces. The Convention had admitted the necessity of employing coin; which, however, it would be impossible for them to obtain. -But from this state of internal distress one good effect had resulted. The French had now approached much nearer to a state, in which they were capable of negociation. They were exhausted with their sufferings, and desirous of repose. They had begun to recognize certain principles, which afforded, at least, a ground of dependence for future negociation. They were about to adopt a new constitution, less exceptional than those which had preceded it. With a government so established, he had no hesitation to declare, that negociation might be entered into. A scarcity of grain, it was to be feared, existed in this country; yet it could little conduce to the happiness of the people to inform them that this calamity was occasioned by the war; more especially when the fact was the reverse. The disaster at Quiberon had not occasioned the scarcity of provision, as the grain which upon that occasion fell into the hands of the enemy, was not conveyed from this country, but consisted chiefly of the cargoes of some of the American ships, which had been seized on their way to France. He vindicated that expedition from the censures it had received. The bad success of it was to be ascribed to the treachery of emigrant corps; an event which ministers could not foresee. They had confided the selection to the emigrant officers; and to whom could they have confided it, with so much probability of its being wisely made? There was no man more desirous of peace than he was; and the speech afforded a reasonable expectation, that, when suitable terms were of fered, his majesty would not refuse them. The Marquis of Lansdown said, that nothing but a deep sense of duty compelled him to appear that day in the House, after having so repeatedly delivered his sentiments on the conduct and progress of the war. He delared, he had lately read over every line that he had spoken on the subject of the war, to be found in the publications of the times, and he did not find occasion to retract a single syllable. At its commencement it was a question whether the national honour should be preserved entire, whether Germany should be

endangered or Holland lost? His apprehensions on each of those topics had been realized; Holland was gone, Germany in danger, and our arms disgraced. These were facts that were obvious. He therefore, confessed his astonishment at finding that his majesty had been advised to declare his satisfaction at the improvement in the prospect of our affairs; but much as he was surprised at such a declaration, he had been not a little amused with the explanations given by the noble secretary of state. When he had formerly prophecied the consequences that would result from the conduct of our allies, his observations had been heard with impatience and disgust. When he presumed a little to doubt the security we had for the sums lavished on the king of Prussia, the noble secretary had been indignant that the honour of so good and so faithful an ally should be suspected, or that the zeal and steadiness of the king of Sardinia should be questioned. The noble secretary of state chose to forget all these circumstances, and even exulted in the national success, because the prophecies had not been completely fulfilled, and things were but half as bad as had been predicted. But what was our good fortune? Was it an improvement of our situation, that the French had got possession of Luxemburgh, of Dusseldorf, and Manheim? Was it an improvement that the elector of Bavaria, and most of our allies had made peace with the French? That the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, our faithful ally, no sooner received his arrears which he had contrived to get of the present ministers, although the successive administrations for thirty years together had refused to pay them, than he also left us, and made peace with the common enemy? With such facts as these staring him in the face, how many years of such improvement did the noble secretary of state think the nation would be able to bear?In the speech from the throne, there were some faint glimmerings of peace. The noble secretary trusted that the House would be too complaisant to interfere with ministers in the way in which peace was to be made. He owned he had little confidence in the future conduct of ministers, but on the present occasion he was disposed to take them at their word. If it was true that France was tired of the war and panted for peace, why did not ministers come down with a peace in their hands? If their boasts of improvement

contradicted by the best writers on the subject ancient and modern. What said Livy upon it? He told us of three things that constituted the sinews of war, good soldiers, good commanders, and good fortune, all of which the French possessed in an eminent degree. He therefore would oppose the opinion of Livy to that of general Montesquieu. Nothing in point of resources was beyond the reach of a revolutionary government, whereas regular governments had their limitations beyond which they could not go. The marquis ridiculed the idea of there being any dif

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country should send ambassadors to negociate. The French he was sure entertained no prejudices on so narrow ground. God only knew, what might be the consequence of pursuing the present measures till the next session, and therefore the sooner the negociation was set on foot the better. There remained one great topic in the Speech, on which he had not touched; he meant the high price of corn. The poor were actually starv

in our situation and of temporary success were founded, this was of all others the most favourable moment for negotiation. The empire could only be saved by peace, and it was of the utmost importance to preserve the empire entire. The French still kept possession of the German side of the Rhine, and the king of Prussia was to be dreaded. If peace were delayed, perhaps that wary monarch might avail himself of the circumstances of another campaign, and execute the projects, which he might possibly be meditating at this moment. In 1782, when a noble earl near him (lord Howe), had faced the com-ficulty in settling the ceremony of which bined fleets of France and Spain, so much to his own honour, and to the advantage of his country, the favourable opportunity was seized on, a negociation was instituted, by the means of which his majesty was enabled to come forward with that Speech, * which would remain a lasting glory to the annals of this country: so convinced was he of this, that no consideration upon earth could induce him to forego the share he had in these transactions. If ministers wished evering. He had heard a number of remeso much to negociate for peace, they said, they could not, and asked with whom are we to treat? Let them ask the elector of Hanover. He had found parties to treat with, and so might they, if they chose it. The old story of the exhausted state of the French finances had been brought forward. He wished ministers had paid some attention to the finances of this country. He begged to know, if the taxes of this year had proved productive? For if they failed, all was over. To attempt to make an impression on St. Domingo was not easy. There was little chance indeed of doing it, and lord Chatham knew it so well, that he never would attempt it. The language held out in the Speech, though rather more pacific than that of the last session, he was satisfied meant nothing more than a display of the dexterity of ministers in getting on with the war for another year. Last year, every thing was to be achieved by one decisive effort; now, the new order of things in France was relied on. The depreciation of assignats about which the noble secretary of state said so much, was not of the consequence that he seemed to imagine. It was clear that he inclined to the old exploded idea, of money being the sinews of war-an idea

*See Vol. 23, p. 204.

dies proposed, but only one appeared to him at all feasible. The remedy to which he alluded was to increase the wages of the

poor in proportion to the price of corn. It had been laid down, that a poor man could not maintain his family upon less than a bushel of wheat a week; the idea therefore was, that the price of a labouring man's wages should always be the amount of a price of a bushel of wheat. In Wiltshire, the price of labour was 7s. a week, whereas at present wheat was 14s. a bushel. In conversing with the poor on the subject, he had always endeavoured to make them easy, first by relieving them as far as he could, and next, by endeavouring to convince them that any attempts to procure relief by force would only add to the evil. In general he had succeeded, but there was one point which he found their understandings were not equal to, and that was, the bringing them to a sense that stopping the transit of corn, would only lead them into a scrape, and bring on new obstacles to their being relieved. All these distresses he must impute in a great measure, if not wholly, to the continuance of the war. The war also caused a dearth of other provisions; the poor, even in the midland and distant counties, could no longer supply themselves with bull beef, which they used to buy at 2d a pound,

all the cattle being bought up for government and driven to Portsmouth, there to be either slaughtered or shipped for the use of the army and navy. The restoration of peace was, in short, the only effectual remedy for all these grievances. Peace alone would restore that old English good humour, which the pressure of misery and want had for the present suspended. Upon these grounds the amendment should have his support.

The Earl of Mansfield said, he differed entirely from those noble lords who argued, that the scarcity of grain was produced by the war, unless they meant to assert, that the more people there were out of the country, consuming the grain of foreign powers, the greater the deficiency must be at home. He disapproved of the amendment. The moment the House adopted it, they would lay the axe to the root of negociation, and take away every possibility of peace. Even sir William Temple, if he were taken out of his grave, could not negociate peace under such an amendment. He never before heard that the not having money to pay large armies with, was the way to keep them faithful and steady. The noble marquis had asked, What said Livy? They had all read what Livy said on that subject; and he would ask noble lords whether they thought they could find a successful army without pay.

He argued on the uncertainty of the actual situation of France, and declined giving any opinion as to the permanency of the new constitution. He conjured them not to proceed too far in this dark and starless night, but to wait the dawn of returning day. If the amendment was entertained by the House, it ought to be followed up by a motion for the removal of ministers.

The Earl of Darnley said, he had in the former periods of the war, given his support and confidence to ministers, because he thought it a necessary war, and dreaded the introduction of French principles; from those alarms he was now relieved, and did not wish to see obstinacy in any part of the House against concluding a peace. He had long disapproved of the expedition against France, and particularly the last business of Quiberon, and was determined to take the first opportunity of stating that opinion in public. He was not perfectly satisfied with the amendment, because it painted our situation much worse than it

was; at the same time, there were parts of the address that he could not agree to. He knew not where to find our naval superiority since the glorious instance of the 1st of June last year, and as to our successes in the West Indies, he really did not know what they were.

Lord Grenville said, that when the present constitution of France should be ac tually accepted by the people, his majesty's ministers would have no objection to conclude a peace, on safe and honourable terms.

The Duke of Grafton said, that he approved highly of the amendment. It was wrong to call it stipultaing for negociation, when it was notorious that peace was absolutely necessary. This country, from a continuance of a ruinous war, conducted by the most distracted councils, was so shaken that nothing but peace could restore it. In this assertion he was fairly warranted by the accumulation of the national debt; for when the interest of that debt became equal to the rents, the country must be in an alarming situation indeed. The burthen of taxes, if no more were laid on, was immense. Many, he allowed, were judiciously chosen, but yet there were some that fell very heavy upon the poor: there were two, for instance, generally supposed to affect the rich only, but if examined, they would be found to bear upon the middle class, and those of very slender incomes; among others, the tax on wine, which had been carried, in his opinion, far too high. A country curate with 407. a year, allowing only a gill of port wine a day, would have to pay 31. of taxes; and from the tax on malt, a labouring peasant must pay the same sum of 31. per annum, for his allowance of three pints of ale per day. In this situation, what had we to look at on the other side of the picture? Nothing but a prosperous and well protected commerce could enable this country to wade through the difficulties into which she was plunged. If it was said that our commerce had met with much protection during the present war, two recent captures would be a sufficient answer to the assertion. An immediate peace, every Englishman must wish to see carried into effect. He dreaded nothing more than the daily infringements upon the laws and constitution of the country, by the frequent introduction of military force, and he reminded the House of the noble exertions of chief justice Holt, who always recom、

mended, and succeeded himself in quell-lies that had given satisfaction to his maing riots without calling in military force. jesty? Was the conduct of the elector Miserable indeed would be the state of of Hanover satisfactory to the king of that country in which the execution of the Great Britain, or was it in the situation of laws depended on the military! He ad- Corsica that he considered an improvevised ministers not to think too lightly of ment of our situation? It had been conthe opinion of the people. The Ameri- fidently asserted that our gaols for prican war ought to be a sufficient warning soners of war had been opened in order to on that head. What must the people recruit men for the late expedition to think of the enormous increase of sinecure France: he would ask them where they places, pensions, and lucrative appoint- had recruited M. de Puisaye, the comments? What must they think, when manding officer of that operation? They they see both men and money expended said they were not responsible for the horin a manner unprecedented? Spain, rid catastrophe of that expedition; on Prussia, and Hanover having concluded what principles they founded that asserpeace, where was the interest that Eng- tion he knew not, for surely to select a land had in continuing the war? He was man as a commander, who had never in any therefore decidedly for the amendment. military service reached a higher rank than The Earl of Lauderdale said, that they that of a captain, snd to place him over a had been witnesses that night to most ex- number of the most distinguished veterans, traordinary vindications on the part of the and to do this in opposition to all the reministry. The noble secretary of state monstrances that were made by men of had forgotten all the pledges which he had the first character, was an act for which last year given-all the promises he had ministers ought to be responsible. He made, and all the prospects he had held had no confidence in the equivocal sort out. He forgot what mighty things the of promise which the present speech gave Emperor was to accomplish for us, in re- to the country. With the eternal theme turn for our loan-he forgot what Spain of assignats he would not embarrass himwas to do what Sardinia-what the Ger- self. The inferences drawn from their deman powers. He forgot all this, but he preciation were, he believed, founded in remembered exactly how many evils had false reasoning. If assignats were extinct, been predicted, and because they had not the French would not be beaten. The been all fulfilled, our situation was im- wealth of a nation consisted in three matproved; and this was the ground for the ters-their stock, their labour, and their extraordinary satisfaction which his ma- soil. Say, that the first of these was exjesty had expressed. It was in vain that tinguished, the two others would remain, he endeavoured to discover the sources of and they had all seen what a people could this satisfaction. It could not be in our accomplish with these two left, when the triumphs, for we had met only with disas- first was gone. America had given a meter and defeat; nor could it be in the in-morable instance of it, and France had ternal condition of this country, since the lamentable scarcity of provisions was most properly recommended by his majesty to the serious consideration of the House. Our naval superiority was made a subject of boast; and the noble secretary had said, that never in our history had this superiority been so decided. Did he forget the history of the year when his present majesty came to the throne, when in his Speech he said, that the small remnant of the French navy had been blocked up in their ports during the whole of the summer? It could not be said that this was the case now; very recent experience had shown the contrary, and the little protection given to our trade did not prove that our superiority had been directed with so much skill and vigour as to make it useful. Was it the conduct of our al

shown, in the last campaign, that the depreciation of her paper took nothing from her vigour, nor from her exertions. With regard to what the ministers now called a favourable crisis in France, it was a crisis as productive of blood as any of the periods of the revolution that went before it; and this led him to distrust their declarations. If all our hopes of peace depended on the success of the new constitution, he saw no prospect of a speedy termination to our calamities. The scar. city of corn every man must deeply lament, because every man must feel for the pinching distresses of the poor, but he greatly feared the evil could not be remedied by legislative means, and it was mischievous and dangerous to hold out any remedy for an evil without the certainty of its effect. It was only, in his

mind, by a peace, that a speedy and suretion to the coast of France; but he asremedy would be found for it. The im- sured them, that if the ships employed becility of administration had been mani- in that expedition had not been sent there, fested in every department; it was there- they would have been sent elsewhere, for fore incumbent on their lordships to in they could not have been engaged upon quire into the mismanagement of our af- the Mediterrannean station. The noble fairs. Even the conduct of the navy, earl had laid great stress on the selection with our boasted superiority, was not ex- of M. de Puisaye for that expedition. empt from this uniform incapacity, a fact He requested the noble earl to recollect established past contradiction, by the that M. de Puisaye had been at the head mortifying event of our trade having suf- of a considerable party in France, whose fered in two of our most opulent convoys. object was the restoration of monarchy. But ministers were actuated by such he- Being the chief of that party, all commuterogeneous passions, that it was impossi- nication with it from this country was ble to expect from them attention to the through him. Without him there was a conduct of our national affairs. Some of much less prospect of a junction with his them came into power, avowedly to watch party. It was true, that many persons the friends of Brissot in that House, and had perished in that expedition; but it of course they had not time for other du- was a melancholy event which could not ties, He believed if an appeal were made be avoided in war, and was attributable to their own hearts, they could not one to another unfortunate cause.-He agreed of them conscientiously declare that he with the noble earl, that it was both danhad discharged his duty to his country. gerous and mischievous to hold out any remedy for an evil without the certainty of its effect. He left noble lords to judge of the prudence of a positive assertion, that to accede to the amendment, was the only way to reduce the price of corn. Such a declaration certainly had a mischievous tendency.

Earl Spencer said, he did not deny that many unfavourable circumstances had happened in the course of the last campaign; yet he thought, upon the whole, our situation was not so bad as might have been expected. He had always been an advocate for a vigorous prosecution of the war; and if there was now a nearer prospect of attaining the chief ob. ject of it, a permanent and honourable peace, he should be blameable at such an important crisis to relax. Whatever is the prospect, it is the duty of ministers to maintain the character and dignity of the country, which would be sacrificed by the conditions suggested by the noble duke. What did the noble duke propose? That no other indemnity should be stipulated for than the tranquillity of the nation, or in other words, peace. Ministers, on the contrary, had always required an indemnity for the expenses of the war, and the people would consequently expect it from them. How, then, could they continue to insist upon indemnification, when, if the amendment be adopted, they must accept peace singly and separately from all other considerations, for the House would have declared they wished for no other?-With regard to the loss of two of our convoys, if, in the course of a war like the present, it should happen that traders are intercepted, no man could wonder at it; indeed it would be wonderful, if they were not. Some noble lords had said, that the loss of these traders, were owing to the expedi$

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The Lord Chancellor rose to say a few words on the subject of the high price of corn. He could not but be sorry that the noble marquis whose great weight in the country gave considerable authority to every thing he said, had mentioned the raising the wages of labouring men to the average price of a bushel of wheat per week, as a means of relief which met with his sanction. He next noticed what had fallen from the duke of Grafton respecting the hard situation of a country curate who could not afford himself a gill of wine, or a pint of ale a day, without being at the expense of 31. per annum. new duty on wine had certainly been created by the war, and it was one of the burthens which curates, if they chose to drink wine, must bear as well as the rest of his majesty's subjects; but it was to be recollected that wine was a luxury. With regard to the pint of ale, the argument was not applicable to the war, as no new tax had been imposed on malt or beer since the war commenced. With regard to the noble duke's expression, that the laws of the country were obliged to be executed by the military, there was no wish in government to call in the aid of the military, where the civil power had

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