was in the result negatived by two hundred and thirtythree "oices to one hundred and thirty-four.

On the 6th of December a resolution of censure on the ministers was moved in the house of commons by the earl of Upper Ofsory, relative to the affairs of Ireland. This nobleman possessed large property in that kingdom, and was moreover diftinguished by a general candor and liberality of conduct, which gave peculiar weight to his present animadversions. His lordship observed, " that the ministers seemed totally to have abandoned the government of that country to chance. They neither felt for its distresses, nor provided against its resentments: the present state of Ireland, his lordship said, was truly alarming and seemed to portend a sudden dissolution of the constitutional connection which had so long subsisted between the two countries. To the shameful inattention and criminal neglect of the ministry, who might in the early stages of the miseries of that kingdom have granted the Irish nation substantial relief, was the present spirit of resistance wholly imputable. To what had the conduct of ministers led ? Either to an unreserved acquiefcence in every propofition which Ireland in her present distempered state might think proper to demand, or the horrible alternative of a civil war while engaged in the present unequal contest with France, Spain, and America." This motion was powerfully supported by Mr. Fox, Mr. Burke, and Mr. Dunning, a lawyer and speaker of great eminence both in the house and at the bar; and oppofed in an elaborate speech by lord North, who declared his intention to bring forward certain resolutions respecting Ireland in a few days. It was negatived by one hundred and feventy-three voices to one hundred. A similar motion of censure in the house of peers by the earl of Shelburne was negatived by eighty-two to thirtyseven voices. In the course of the debate which arose on this occafion, the late lord president Gower afferted his entire

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entire conviction that the censure now moved had a just and adequate foundation. "He had presided," his lordship faid, " fome years at the council table, where HE HAD SEEN SUCH THINGS PASS, THAT NO MAN OF HONOR OR CONSCIENCE COULD ANY LONGER SIT THERE.

The times were fuch as called upon every man to speak out; fincerity and activity in our councils could alone restore energy and effect to our government." On the day previously fixed lord North brought forward his propofitions respecting Ireland, which were substantially the fame with those originally moved by lord Nugent, in the feffion of 1778, but accompanied with feveral additional conceffions, particularly the very important one that Ireland fhould be allowed the free exportation of her woollens. These resolutions paffed unanimously, and were received in Ireland not only with fatisfaction but exultation, from the flattering and delusive expectation of deriving from them an effectual and immediate relief to her diftreffes.

The attention of the public in England was not a little attracted by the estimates of the army and navy, which were about this time laid before parliament. Eighty-five thousand men had been at an early period of the feffion voted for the fea service, and before the recess the secretary at war moved, " that one hundred and eleven thoufand men be voted for the land service, exclufive of militia, amounting with the additional volun teer companies to forty-two thousand. The foreign troops in British pay were calculated at twenty-four thoufand, and the artillery at fix thousand. The entire aggregate of this formidable force, therefore, fell little fhort of two hundred and feventy thousand men, without including the troops serving upon the Irish or Indian establishments. To fupport this vast force twelve millions were raised by way of loan, in addition to the permanent means of fupply; and those who most deplored the incredible credible and enormous folly which had reduced the nation to a situation so critical and dangerous, could not but view with pleasure and astonishment the power, the riches, and the spirit, now displayed in defence of all that was dear and valuable to a free and independent people. The opposition in parliament had been for fome time past gradually acquiring strength; and the nation at large, notwithstanding their original predilection for the war, began at length to be feriously alarmed at the magnitude of the contest, and the prodigious and ruinous expence with which it was attended. The undifguised and unexampled profufion which pervaded every department of government, could not but strike the most careless obferver; and, on a sudden, OECONOMY became the prevailing and popular cry throughout the kingdom.

Early in the new year, 1780, public meetings, were convened in most of the principal counties, and petitions to parliament were framed, with the laudable and express view of establishing a system founded upon principles of strict and disinterested frugality. The county of York, with great propriety and effect, took the lead on this occasion. In their petition to the house of commons they earnestly requested, " that, before any new burdens were laid upon this country, effectual measures might be taken by that house to enquire into and correct the gross abuses in the expenditure of the public money; to reduce all exorbitant emoluments; to refcind and abolish all finecure places and unmerited penfions; and to appropriate the produce to the necessities of the state in such manner as to the wisdom of parliament should feem meet." This petition was presented to the house on the 8th of February, 1780, by fir George Savile, member for the county, who stated, " that it was figned by above eight thousand freeholders. This petition, he faid, had been procured by no underhand arts or public canvas; it was first moved in a meeting of fix hundred gentlemen; and there was, he believed, more property in the hall where it was agreed to, than was contained within the walls of the house of commons. It was a petition, he said, to which the administration would not DARE to refuse a hearing, however the arts of ministerial artifice and finesse might be employed to defeat the purpose of it." A number of other petitions of similiar import being presented, Mr. Burke at length brought forward a specific plan of reform, professedly aiming at two grand objects: " first, the reduction of the national expenditure; second, the diminution of regal influence-that influence which took away all vigor from our arms, wisdom from our councils, and every shadow of authority and credit from the most venerable parts of the constitution." -To effect these purposes, Mr. Burke moved for leave to bring in certain bills for the better regulation of his majesty's civil establishments, for the sale of forest and other crown lands, for more perfectly uniting to the crown the principality of Wales, the counties palatine of Chester and Lancaster, and the duchy of Cornwall. But these bills, after a violent conflict, in the course of which the minister was more than once left in a minority, were finally loft.

A notice given by col. Barré of an intention to move for the appointment of a select committee to inspect the public accounts, seemed, however, to meet with univerfal approbation. It was for that reason, therefore, artfully and unfairly taken up by the minister himself, who abruptly brought in a bill, contrary to the remonstrances of col. Barré, and the concurring resentment of a large proportion of the house, for instituting a commission of accounts, confifting of perfons not members of the house of This was deemed unparliamentary, and in strong language opposed as an abdication of the rights and privileges of the house. But it passed into a law by a confiderable majority; and the successive reports of the commiffioners appointed in virtue of this act, form, by their accuracy,

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accuracy, ability, and impartiality, the best reply to the various objections urged against it.

The house of peers in the mean time were far from being indolent or inattentive spectators of the interesting scenes now paffing. On the very day that the petition of the county of York was presented to the house of commons, the earl of Shelburne moved in the house of peers, " for the appointment of a committee of members of both houses of parliament, poffefsfing neither employments nor pensions, to examine into the public expenditure, and the mode of accounting for the fame." This motion was supported by his lordship in a very able speech, in which he declared " that the great point to which his wishes tended, and to effect which his motion was chiefly framed, was to annihilate that undue influence operating upon both houses of parliament, which, if not eradicated, would prove the destruction of this country." To restore to parliament its constitutional independence, and to place government upon it's true foundations, wisdom, justice, and public virtue, was, the noble earl said, his most earnest desire, and this could not be effected without kriking at the root of parliamentary corruption. Exclufive of this great and primary object, his lordship shewed, that the most shameful waste of the public money bad taken place in every branch of the national expenditure. To fupport a most ruinous and disgraceful war, a wicked, bloody, and unjust war! the minister had bor. rowed year after year upon fictitious and unproductive taxes, and anticipated the produce of the finking fund to answer his own views. Solely intent upon BORROWING, he appeared to have lost sight of every idea of decreafing the debt. It was the uncontrouled poffeffion of the public purse which created that corrupt and dangerous influence in parliament, of which such fatal use had been made; which put into the minister's hands the means of delufion, which served to fortify him in his mad career, and