The advocates of the ministry might say, the government of Greenwich-hospital was no great matter, and that it did not signify much. Those who were inclined to reason in this manner, were not aware of the consequences that would follow, nor the great inconveniences that suffering the present appointment to pass uncensured by that House would occasion. He did not like to make invidious allusions; but they had already an instance of the extreme difficulty of arguing against the bestowing of additional honours upon that man (lord G. Germain) who having been once declared unworthy of serving again, had been suffered to be invested with confidence and honour. How did any man know that the government of Greenwichhospital was the only situation into which sir H. Palliser would be brought? How did the House know that it was not the intention of ministers to give sir Hugh the command of one of our fleets? And then if the appointment was attempted to be animadverted upon, would not ministers be furnished with this strong answer to all objection? "You did not complain of the appointment of this gentleman to the government of Greenwich-hospital, it was at that time you should have objected, to object now is to persecute." It was for this reason that he thought it necessary at that moment to take the sense of the House on the first post of honour and profit given to sir Hugh Palliser. He said the principal object of his motion was the appointment of sir Hugh Palliser to the government of Greenwichhospital, which he considered as an insult on the honour of the navy, because what man who felt as a gentleman, could serve his country with that zeal and spirit, from which alone the navy of England had gained its great reputation, when a post of high honour and profit, which had hitherto always been bestowed on those officers whose fame was unsullied, and who had deserved best of their country, was given to a man convicted of having preferred a malicious and ill-founded accusation against his commanding officer? The appointment of sir Hugh to the government of Greenwich-hospital, under all the circumstances of it, was a measure of so much criminality, and at the same time was so glaringly iniquitous, that he knew not scarcely how to argue it, to give it a stronger impression on the minds of the House, than it must necessarily have of itself. It resembled one of those self-evident propositions, which bear the name of axioms in mathematics, on which nothing can be said to make them clearer than they are of themselves. The only mode of reasoning, therefore, that he could adopt, was to suppose objections, and then to oppose those objections with arguments. The last time the House debated upon the subject, the vice-admiral had read to the House a long speech prepared for the occasion, the main purport of which had been, as far as he was able to understand such parts of it as he had heard, to arraign the whole conduct of the court-martial that tried admiral Keppel, and in particular to impeach the sentence, and charge the court with violent injustice, in having declared the vice-admiral to have preferred a malicious and ill-founded accusation, the motives of the vice-admiral not having been submitted to their consideration. He had since enquired into the usage of courtsmartial, and he found it was their general practice, when they acquitted the person accused, to declare their opinion of the nature of the accusation. He would therefore first suppose a similar objection to be opposed to him now, and that it would be contended, that admiral Keppel's court-martial had passed an extrajudicial censure on sir Hugh, in declaring, that his accusation was malicious and ill-founded. In answer to this, he should assert, that they had an undoubted right to give their opinion upon the motives of the accusation, both from the nature of their jurisdiction, and the general usage of courts-martial. They had the best opportunity of learning those motives, because all the facts being before them, (the accusation specified formally, and all the evidence called in support of it, that the accuser thought proper to adduce;) they were perfectly competent to say, what the motives of the accuser were, and when, like sir Hugh Palliser, he scandalously failed in his proof, and there came, even from his own witnesses, the fullest refutation of his charges, courts martial were bound in justice to the honour of the officer accused, not only to acquit him, but to pronounce upon the motives of the accuser. This he asserted was no new doctrine; it was justified by long practice. He had brought with him two or three precedents, which would suffice to support what he said; innumerable precedents, it was well known, were to be found. The first case he should mention, was that of capt. Cotton, in 1766; in the sentence of whose court-martial, martial, composed of naval officers of the the accusation was declared to be ground- compro Keppel lation d Hugh's Greater Did not that the by moti nice, no What w ho com attempt. to obtain the imp ire wa= that the bonoura that the principle must see not only ed it a thought Kewise. with one Leppel e Spea dd to Let gentlemen consider the time and the manner in which the accusation was preferred by the vice admiral against his hon. relation. Was it as soon as he came ashore after the 27th of July? No. The House knew it was not. When then? Why at a considerable distant period; and what were the circumstances? The vice admiral goes out a second voyage with admiral Keppel. He says not a word of his having any charge to make, but keeps his accusation in his own breast, and he tells us now, that he did not then make the charge, from motives of regard to his country. What, will he pretend that a feeling for the national welfare suffered him to sail a second time under the command of an officer, guilty in his mind of those five charges which he afterwards preferred against him? Was it a desire to promote the public good that induced him to suffer a man so criminal to keep the command? Ought he not rather, if he had any such feelings, to have made the charge the moment he set his foot on shore, and to have dragged that traitor, that coward, admiral Keppel, to immediate trial, and not have suffered him to enjoy a second opportunity of disgracing the British flag by his ignorance, his negligence, his cowardice, and his treachery? It was not, therefore, from a regard to the good of the service, or the good of his country, that the accusation was so long concealed, or that it was ever made. The fact was, the vice admiral never dreamt of making any charge till he thought recrimination necessary. When he heard that murmurs were stirring, and that his own conduct was questioned, then it was that he thought of charging his commanding officer as a criminal. Let the House remember the Hugh Palliser again? And had not another learned gentleman, now lord chief justice of the Common Pleas (lord Loughborough) pressed that the vice admiral's flag might remain with him till his death, that it might fly over his grave, since it never could again be hoisted at the masthead of any of his Majesty's ships? It was evident, therefore, that the crown lawyers at that time did not think the declaring the accusation to be a malicious and ill founded accusation, was an extrajudicial opinion. With regard to the right of reply upon his trial, which the vice admiral claimed, he should only say, that the right of reply was not essential justice, that even in criminal courts it was thought so invidious, that it was rarely claimed, and that in land courts martial it was never allowed. compromise that he offered to admiral | Keppel: a compromise which his hon. relation disdained to accept! What was sir Hugh's letter to admiral Keppel but a threatening letter? A letter of extortion? Did not this application sufficiently prove, that the vice admiral was neither actuated by motives of zeal for the good of the service, nor zeal for the good of his country? What was it short of the practice of a man who committed a highway robbery?-an attempt, not to obtain money indeed, but to obtain a certificate of character, through the impulse of fear? Here, surely, therefore was ground sufficient to pronounce, that the motives of the accuser were not honourable; and when it was considered that the charge was preferred on avowed principles of recrimination, every man must see that it originated in malice. But not only the court martial, who pronounced it a malicious and false accusation, thought it so, that House thought it so likewise, for they had voted their thanks, with one dissenting voice only, to admiral Keppel; and what was the language of the Speaker when he gave those thanks? Add to this, what had been the conduct of the vice admiral himself? Had he come down there immediately after the trial was over, and complained of the conduct of the court martial? No. He had acted a very different part. He had resigned his lieutenant-generalship of marines, he had resigned his government of Scarborough castle, he had resigned his seat at the Admiralty-board, and he had taken in exchange for them-what? The valuable office of steward of the Chiltern hundred! What was this but an acquiescence in the justice of the sentence, a tacit acknowledgment of the truth of the opinion pronounced upon the accusation, and a desire to retire from public notice, arising from a consciousness of criminality! Again, when he had made a motion to address his Majesty to take away sir Hugh's flag, a motion which he had afterwards been induced to withdraw from its being suggested, by his worthy friend (general Conway) that it looked like persecution, and that it would be sending the vice admiral down to his trial, under prejudices-what had at that time been the language of the House? What had a learned gentleman (Mr. Wallace) said, who he was glad to see was that day in his place? Had not that gentleman declared, he would move to impeach the minister who should venture to employ sir He added, that it was altogether unwarrantable for the vice admiral or for that House to question the conduct of admiral Keppel's court-martial, unless they set on foot a proper and impartial enquiry, and after absolving the members of the court-martial from their oaths of secrecy, and examined them at the bar, as to their sense of the accusation. Had any thing happened, he asked, since the sentence declaring that sir Hugh had preferred a malicious and ill-founded accusation was pronounced, to alter that general and well-founded opinion? The only event that had the least relation to it was the second trial. But had that removed the stigma? By no means. It did not even honourably nor unanimously acquit sir Hugh, but on the contrary, charged him in so many express words with a positive neglect of duty. And here, it would not be amiss to examine a little into the management of that court-martial. At the same time that he said this, he begged leave to be understood as meaning to speak, not to its conduct, but to its constitution. A distinction worth attending to: for whoever spoke to its conduct, arraigned and questioned the proceedings of the court, and consequently arraigned and questioned the justice and the honour of the officers; whereas they who spoke, as he meant to speak, to its constitution, merely examined the proceedings of those persons under whose influence and management the appointment of the court was settled. He was far from impeaching the sentence of that court-martial, though he could not help thinking there was strong ground for suspicion as to the man The second sentence, he said, confirmed the first; for who should be the man to prefer a malicious and ill-founded accusation against his commander, but an inferior officer, who had himself been guilty of a neglect of duty? From such a quarter only was it likely that such an accusation should arise. He who is conscious of guilt cannot bear the innocence of others; he tries to reduce other characters to his own level; and the history of mankind teaches us, that the highest, the most virtuous, the most glorious of men, are the most envied, the most hated, and the most liable to calumny, detraction, and malevolence. Hence the accusation against admiral Keppel, and hence the record of the vice admiral's malice! But even if the sentence of the second courtmartial had been as warm, as honourable and as unanimous as that which acquitted admiral Keppel, if it had placed the conduct of the vice admiral on the 27th of July in the most exalted point of view, still it would not have done away the declaration that he had preferred a malicious and ill-founded accusation against his commanding officer; and ner in which the court was instituted. | dition of the Formidable, and after that Mr. Fox then read over the names of the he was acquitted. So that the sentence officers who sat upon sir Hugh Palliser's of acquittal had neither the word "hocourt-martial, and shewed that capt. Dun- nourable," nor the word " unanimous" in can was by accident a member of it, that it, and even while it acquitted, fixed a a nephew of sir Hugh Palliser (who charge of criminality. might have had leave of absence) sat upon it, and that three of the other members were officers of the blue squadron, and if there had been guilt found, would have been implicated in that guilt. Upon the whole, there was, as he had observed, great ground for suspicion of manoeuvre and trick in the constitution of the court. The vice admiral's conduct also was liable to doubt; for in what manner had he settled his evidence and the witnesses, whose names he had given in? He had not, like admiral Keppel, desired that every officer in the fleet might be called, but had asked for particular persons, and for capt. Keith Stuart and another gentleman, whom he had never examined. These gentlemen, it was true, were examined by the judge advocate on the part of the crown, but they were not called by the vice admiral. Was it not, therefore, warrantable to suppose, that they were merely set down as witnesses to prevent their being judges? Admiral Keppel's conduct was the direct opposite. Fearless of danger, because conscious of innocence, he had acted in the most open, artless, and unreserved manner; nay, he had even himself put a question to each of his wit-though it might have excited his pity, to nesses, that none of his counsel, nor any one of his friends, would have ventured to have proposed for him to ask. The question he alluded to was the general question which he put to every witness, not what particular species of neglect and misconduct they observed in him on the 27th of July, but whether or no they saw any instance of negligence or misconduct in his behaviour the whole day? And yet notwithstanding the different conduct of the two admirals, and the different constitution of the courts that tried them, what had been the sentences? By the one, admiral Keppel had been honourably and unanimously acquitted, and his accuser pronounced a false and malicious accuser; by the other, sir Hugh Palliser was said to have behaved in an exemplary and meritorious manner in many instances, which directly implied that his conduct had been the reverse in some instances: he was then condemned as having been guilty of criminal neglect, in omitting to let the admiral know by the Fox frigate, the con be forced to know that true greatness of mind did not always accompany distinguished valour, and that a brave and gallant admiral should have given way to his passions, and have descended to the meanness of preferring a malicious and illfounded accusation against his commander, it would not have justified ministers in bestowing an office of distinguished rank, an office looked up to by the navy as the hope and prospect of honest ambition, on a man who stood recorded as a false and malicious accuser. From the appointment of this man to the government of Greenwich hospital, every thing dangerous to the public interest was to be apprehended. The of ficers of the navy in general would be disgusted, because they would see that honour and bravery combined were not the merits that were now thought worthy of reward, but that malice and infamy were strong claims with the present ministers. Discipline and subordination would cease, and the spirit of the navy would be broken; 3 honourable nor an unanimous acquittal; and lastly, that the promotion of a person, declared to have preferred a malicious and ill-founded accusation against his commander in chief, was a measure subversive of the discipline, and derogatory to the honour of the British navy. He then called upon the young members for their support, declaring that he made the appeal from a conviction that the highest sense of honour always glowed in youthful bosoms, and that they were most likely to act according to the dictates of their own hearts, without servilely embracing the opinions of other men. He then moved, "That the Appointment of sir Hugh Palliser to the government of Greenwich-hospital, who, by the sentence of a court-martial, is declared to have preferred a malicious and ill-founded accusation against his commander in chief, is a measure subversive of the discipline, and derogatory to the honour, of the British navy." thus would the great and only solid strength of this country be annihilated. Every inferior officer, conscious of his own guilt, would threaten his commander with a court-martial, and seeing that disobedience of orders was countenanced and rewarded, would neglect his duty, from the idea that he was sure of protection. What was it that had driven so many great and distinguished commanders from the service, but that they now found they could not serve with security to their honour. Why was not admiral Barrington employed? Admiral Barrington, confessedly a good officer, and a zealous lover of his country! Admiral Barrington, it was said, was willing to go out second in command, but would not accept of a chief command. Admiral Barrington had as much honest ambition as other officers, and he presumed admiral Barrington was as thirsty of honour; why then did admiral Barrington decline accepting a chief command? To what could it be imputed, but to his seeing that a commander in chief had spies set upon him, that he was not safe, that it lay in the power of his inferior officer to attack his honour, to attack his life, and to bring a malicious and illfounded accusation against him; and if it succeeded, his ruin was certain, at any rate his accuser would be protected and rewarded. How happened it, that one of ficer commanded the fleet the beginning of the last campaign, and as soon as he could know what he was about, resigned the command, and another was appointed? These were all matters that it was fair to suppose had their origin in the mischievous system of the present first lord of the Admiralty. He concluded with saying, that no man ought to be promoted, who had rendered himself unworthy of a rank in a profession so honourable as that of the British navy; and by enumerating the several heads of his speech, in order to remind the House of the grounds on which he rested his intended motion; these were, that it proceeded not from personal enmity; that the court-martial, who tried admiral Keppel, were perfectly competent to declare that sir Hugh had preferred a malicious and illfounded accusation; that the declaration was warranted by a variety of undeniable facts and circumstances; that sir Hugh had himself acquiesced in the justice of the sentence; that the House had acknowledged its truth; that the sentence of the second court-martial was neither an Lord North declared that he should not attempt to follow the hon. gentleman over the vast field of matter which he had introduced, supporting with a great deal of eloquence, as he always did, and he must give him leave to say, with a great deal of art, the motion which had just been read: a motion which carried upon the face of it, and must convey to all who saw or heard it, an idea that sir Hugh Palliser was declared to have preferred a malicious and ill-founded accusation against his commander-in-chief, by a court-martial before whom he had been tried on a charge of malice and falshood, and who were thence perfectly competent to pass such a sentence upon him. He thought it fair, therefore, even in that early part of his speech, to inform the hon. gentleman, that before he sat down, he should certainly move to amend the question, by introducing words tending to shew, that the court-martial which declared the accusation preferred against admiral Keppel malicious and ill-founded, were not appointed to try the accuser, nor had they heard him in his own defence. If it were necessary to make any motion stating the merits of the argument, certainly the whole truth ought to be told in that motion; whereas, as the motion stood, only one part of the truth was told, and that in such a manner, as to prejudice the viceadmiral in the minds of all who heard it. His lordship begged the House to observe, that the motion before them was not a |