that House, and this naturally shewed itself in acts of affection and regard to him. Lost almost as the public cause seemed to be, they were glad to find the representative for Westminster among the number of those true friends to liberty, who best served their country, and who were still determined to stand in the breach to resist the torrent of corruption and increasing influence, which threatened to bear down the constitution, and to destroy it. In order to do this, he, and those with whom he acted, had sacrificed their interests, they had sacrificed their ambition, they had sacrificed all views of greatness and emolument, they had sacrificed every thing that could gratify the mind of man, or fall within the wish of human pride, or vertisement to which he was then speaking, without making it the subject of any motion whatsoever. If the hon. gentleman really thought himself warranted to treat the resolutions of the Westminster committee seriously, why did he not complain of the paper to the House as a breach of privilege? If the hon. gentleman thought proper to adopt that mode of proceeding, he was ready to meet it on that ground, and to defend the resolution. If the hon. gentleman chose to make it the subject of another sort of process elsewhere, and to charge it as a libel, he would find that the Westminster committee were ready to take it up when so charged, and to defend the legality of their proceedings. The hon. gentleman had chosen to laugh at him, and to turn him into ridicule, un-human vanity. Let not gentlemen on der the character of Pisistratus. In what, he begged to know, had he ever shewn a desire to obtain illegal honours? In what Irad he attempted to set himself above the laws of his country, or to aim at receiving any other honours, than such honours as he was perfectly competent to receive? The hon. gentleman, after flourishing a great deal about his body-guard, and other matters of that sort, had talked of the Westminster committee's proceeding by and by to constitute him king of Westminster. The Westminster committee, he would tell the hon. gentleman, as well as the whole body of inhabitants of that most respectable city, wished for no other king, than the king now upon the throne: they loved that king, and they revered the constitution by which he reigned; and it was out of a foolish partiality to him, and because they rashly, perhaps, thought him the best qualified to support that king and that constitution, to maintain the glory of the one, and preserve the other in safety, that they had chosen him their representative in parliament, in the noblest and most spirited manner, in direct defiance of the avowed and unreservedly exercised influence of the crown. It was, perhaps, from a weak and an ill-founded partiality of opinion in favour of his abilities, that the electors of the city of Westminster had done him that honour; all that he could do in return was to declare, that his conduct should be an example of most sincere and perfect gratitude. It could not, however, surely be warrantably advanced, that from this circumstance he was imitating Pisistratus, or that he was endeavouring to obtain illegal honours. The electors of Westminster thought well of his efforts in [VOL. XXI.] the other side, on almost every one of whom places, pensions, titles, and rewards of every kind, were profusely heaped! then grudge either him or others the poor comfort of a little popular applause. Let them not complain that the people held his humble efforts to serve his country in some degree of estimation. And though they might, in the warmth of their zeal and affection, use a few imprudent words, for such he granted those words were, which composed the resolution of the Westminster committee read to the House by the hon. gentleman, let it not be said, that he was borne off his legs by popular honours, or that he was frantic with popular applause. Had he been anxious to court those honours, and to obtain that applause, opportunities had offered, which he should not have neglected. In the time of the tumults, when the people were madly riotous, had he uttered one word, or said a syllable in support of the Protestant association? On the contrary, had he not opposed it firmly, and been among the first to reprobate those lawless proceedings which began with insult to that and the other House of Parliament, and did not end till the public prisons, and private property, to an immense amount, had been burnt and destroyed. Again, when a measure was in agitation within those walls, which was particularly the object of opposition from those very persons, whom it was at that time known, he wished should become his constituents, had he with a view to court popular applause, meanly given up his opinion, and adopted that of those who had since chosen him their representative? On the other hand, was it not notorious to every gentleman [31] present, who had sat in the last parliament, that he stood up in his place, and firmly supported the measure, declaring at the same time, that he trusted it would be a proof to the electors, that if they chose him their representative, they would send to parliament a member who, at least, was sincere, and who was at all times determined to speak his real sentiments. After other instances adduced in proof, that the popular applause with which he had been honoured, was the voluntary gift of the people, and had not been sought after by him, either industriously or improperly, Mr. Fox took notice of the necessary freedom of debate, and said, that as it was the dearest and most inestimable privilege of a British senator, so was it the last right that he would abandon or give up; and here he must observe, that in his speech on the first day of the last session, in his speech on the first day of the present session, he had talked language, which however people might choose to construe it, was not, he would at all times maintain, in the least personal to any man whatever. As long as he had the honour to sit in that House, he would exercise that inestimable privilege of speaking freely upon public matters, both as to the conduct of men in public situations, and of measures any way connected with the public interest. He had spoken freely hitherto, whenever he had taken the liberty to rise in that House; and in spite of every attempt to prevent him, of every sort that could be suggested, he would continue to use and support the freedom of debate. He thought it necessary to say thus much, and to say it in the most express terms just then, because he foresaw, that in speaking to the subject which was presently to be taken into consideration, as the order of the day, when a supply for the support of the navy was to be proposed, he should have occasion to advert to the character of a person, who, if report was to be credited, and there could be found constituents sufficiently abandoned and lost to all sense of honour as to choose him their representative, was shortly to come among them. That person had been convicted by one court martial of having preferred a false and malicious accusation against his superior officer, and he had been tried for his own conduct by another court martial, who had neither acquitted him honourably, nor acquitted him unanimously. Those trials were matters of public notoriety, and therefore they were the fit subjects for parliamentary allusion, and for free discussion within those walls; to those trials he should have occasion to refer, in what he should have to say when the supply for the support of the navy came under debate; and as often as any matter relative to the navy was the topic of consideration, so often should he most undoubtedly speak of those trials, and the person to whom they had relation, without reserve. Nor had that gentleman, or any other gentleman, any right to complain of being personally insulted by what he should then say. If he were to prefer an indictment against any person accusing that person of a crime, none surely but the most wrong-headed man in the world would deem the hard words, which constitute the legal and technical phrases of the indictment, so many private affronts to him as a gentleman; the case was exactly the same as to his treating upon any public topic in that House. He owned, he was a little astonished to hear the hon. gentleman who spoke last, congratulate him upon his having, in consequence of the Westminster committee's resolution, an exclusive privilege of speaking personalities within those walls-he had already said, he never had spoken personalities-had he indulged himself with entering into a dissertation on economy, and the well-ordered arrangement of his private affairs, or talked of noble ancestry and noble vices, or alluded to his domestic virtues, and pointed all these things at any particular gentleman, he should have supposed, he might with reason have been accused of having dealt in personalities; but so long as he confined himself to public matters, and public matters only, he did not imagine the House would think that the character of being fond of personalities belonged exclusively to him. After gently touching on his affair, last session, with Mr. Adam, declaring it could never be alluded to without giving that hon. gentleman and himself great pain, and after many other remarks, struck out with all that wonderful quickness of conception, happy position, and force and poignancy of application, which generally distinguish the speeches of this gentleman; he concluded with declaring, that he was ready to defend the resolution of the Westminster Committee, though at the same time he was ready to confess, that he thought it imprudently drawn up, and that it contained words which had better not have been used on the occasion. Mr. Adam read in answer to what Mr. Fox had said of the resolutions not being personal to him, the following words of the last of those resolutions: Resolved, "That this committee being sensible, that the firm, constant, and intrepid performance of his duty, will probably render him, in common with other distinguished friends of liberty, the object of such attacks as he has already experienced, and to which every unprincipled partizan of power is invited by the certainty of reward." He then added, that every person, conjunctively and severally, of that committee, who approved of those words, was an infamous and base traducer of his character. Mr. Fitzpatrick rose to corroborate and confirm what his hon. friend (Mr. Fox) had said, relative to his not being present when the Westminster confmittee came to the resolution which had been so warmly complained of. He said he had the honour to belong to that committee, and a very great honour he thought it, because he was convinced, there were among the members of it, some of the first and most respectable characters in the kingdom; men as well read in the history of the British constitution, and as zealously attached to that constitution, as had lived in any period of the existence of this country. He declared, that he was absent, as well as his hon. friend, when the resolutions were proposed and carried; having, therefore, no hand in drawing them up, it was impossible for him to say what or whom the particular gentlemen who penned them had in their view at the time; he was sure, however, from the known honour of the committee, that their intention was a good and a warrantable one; he therefore thought it right to say, that the resolutions had his hearty consent. Mr. Adam said, in answer, that if either the hon. gentleman who spoke last, or any other person approved of, and assented to the words in question, as personally applied to him, that he meant to apply to him and them, every epithet he had men tioned. Mr. Fitzpatrick then said, that if the hon. gentleman chose to apply any part of the words used in the resolution to himself, he could not possibly help it. He must still approve of those resolutions, but he had not applied them to the hon. gentleman, neither had he said, they contained any thing immediately applicable to him, or which the hon. gentleman was entitled to apply to himself. They certainly had his consent; nor did he feel himself at all obliged to give his reasons why he consented to them. Sir James Lowther said, that the conversation had been a most extraordinary one, and that he did not understand the time of the House being taken up in that manner. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Adam) had once before risen and taken up words of a general import, in a wrong sense; and supposing they applied to him personally, had expressed himself in a warm and angry manner, contrary to the rules of the House. This altercation was put an end to, by the order of the day being loudly called for. Proceedings in the Lords on the Quarrel between the Duke of Grafton and the Earl of Pomfret.] Nov. 3. The Lord Chancellor rose and said, a rumour had reached his ears of an insult having been offered, and a farther insult threatened, to one of their lordships; that the whole of the report was so uniformly consonant, that a!though it was impossible for the House to take up the matter in its present stage, or for him to suggest to their lordships what would be the proceedings which might possibly be necessary, when the facts were formally before the House, yet he had thought it incumbent on him to rise, not to inform, but to remind their lordships, that such a rumour had prevailed, and to state that it was their duty to take some step in relation to the rumour, which to their wisdom should seem most likely to rescue the House from so great an indignity as it would unavoidably sustain, if an insult was permitted to be offered to the person of any one peer. He had only to add, that if, by accident, any of the noble lords present were in possession of certain facts stated in the rumour, or of any letters tending to shew what those facts were, it would be an act of duty, on their parts, and of obligation to the House, to communicate the same to their lordships. The Earl of Jersey said, a correspondence tending to the most serious consequences had taken place between two noble peers, which, unless immediate steps were taken, might be fatal to one or both of the parties. His lordship was then called upon for their names; he replied," the duke of Grafton and lord Pomfret." The Lord Chancellor believed the first step to be taken, was, to direct the two | members to attend in their places on a certain day. He then moved, "That the duke of Grafton and the earl of Pomfret do attend this House in their places on Monday next;" which was agreed to. Nov. 6. The order for the attendance of the duke of Grafton and lord Pomfret being read, The Lord Chancellor observed, that a noble earl had stated in his place on Friday, that a noble duke and a noble earl, members of that House, had had a correspondence which from its complexion and tendency was likely to be productive of very fatal consequences. Upon this information the order now read was made by the House, and as he perceived that in compliance with that order both the lords were in their places, and as it was impossible for the House to proceed further in the business without being informed of the circumstances alluded to, it was expected that the noble lords, or either of them, would state to the House, as members, how far they were respectively concerned. imported, that his lordship was waiting for him with a case of pistols and a sword, and demanded satisfaction; the cause of which demand was, that the noble duke, to whom the letter was directed, had provided for and protected a servant of his, one Langstaff, lately discharged; and concluded with positively demanding immediate satisfaction. His grace, as soon as the letter was read, professed he never was so astonished in his life. He had never till that instant so much as heard of Langstaff's name, and had continued always to live upon the most friendly terms with the noble earl, from their earliest acquaintance; and he could affirm, as the great God was his judge, he neither directly nor indirectly had any hand in providing for Langstaff. Surprised at the extraordinary tenor of the letter, but conscious of his own innocence, he immediately wrote the noble lord an answer. The answer was read, and was to the following purport: that he knew nothing whatever of the supposed ground of offence; professed his high esteem for his lordship; begged that the The Duke of Grafton then rose, and noble earl would either on receipt come begged leave to inform their lordships, to Euston, or when a friend of his, who that he was there in his place in conse- was then at church, should return, be quence of their lordships' order; that he would send him to wait on the noble lord thought it his duty to obey the orders of to explain the matter to him, and convince the House at all times, and upon all occa-him that there was not the most distant sions, for which reason, with the permis- colour for the displeasure he had conceived sion of the House, he should proceed to against him. give a faithful account of what passed, as far as came within his knowledge. He should avoid detail as much as possible, and omit every circumstance which was not supported by facts. He should just observe, that the noble earl near him and he had never any disagreement whatever; that he always entertained a high respect and esteem for his lordship; and that of course, what had recently happened seemed to him the more unaccountable. To his utter astonishment, on Sunday fortnight, the 22d ult. early in the morning, at his seat of Euston-hall in Suffolk, he received the following letter, which he begged to be indulged so far as that the clerk might read it. He said, it was a letter signed Pomfret ; and it having been offered, lord Pomfret acknowledged it to be his hand-writing. He said the letter was delivered to him as coming from the noble earl, who, he understood from the bearer, was waiting for an answer at the inn at the park-gate. The letter was then handed to the clerk, and read by him. It In what he had done hitherto, his grace said, he had consulted no one, but as soon as his friend returned, he imparted the whole matter to him, and they both went to the inn to enquire for the noble lord; but when they came there, could get no account of any such person. He had himself perceived a chaise at a distance, and went to the place where he had seen it, and enquiring at a cottage near which the chaise stood, was informed that as soon as the servant went back to the chaise, orders were given to the driver to turn the horses the other way, and it instantly drove off. In the evening of the same day he received a letter dated from Barton-mills, 5 o'clock, which was likewise handed to, and read by the clerk. This letter, after passing some handsome compliments on the noble duke's public conduct, and professing himself perfectly satisfied with his grace's conduct, proceeded to state the grounds of his suspicion, and of course his motives for writing the letter delivered in the morning. It observed that Langstaff | ship, denying every thing respecting Langhad been his game-keeper, and that he staff, of which his lordship had been inhad discharged him; that Langstaff vowed formed, so far as the same respected his vengeance on his being dismissed from his grace. He remained at Euston till Wedservice; that he had lately caused him to nesday last, and arrived in town on Fribe apprehended, and brought before two day, when, about five o'clock in the aftermagistrates on suspicion, and that one noon, he received a third letter from the Smyth, his grace's huntsman, had inte- noble earl. rested himself in Langstaff's behalf before the magistrates, saying that Langstaff was under his grace's protection, who had lately provided for him in the excise; and that in consequence of his grace's name, and the influence annexed to it, Langstaff had been set at liberty. His causes of complaint against Langstaff were then stated; and he concluded his letter by testifying his perfect satisfaction, provided the noble duke would insist that Smyth should disavow having any authority from his grace for making use of his name. This letter being read, his grace said, by the time it reached him, his huntsman had come from Whittlebury-forest, in Northamptonshire, and informed him, that Mr. Smyth was to set off on Monday, the next day, with the dogs and hunters for Euston. This being a distance of ninety miles, he concluded, that Mr. Smyth would not reach Euston till Wednesday evening; he did not therefore lose a minute's time, but instantly wrote a note, and dispatched a servant with it to Barton-mills, where, he presumed, the noble earl might have rested for the evening, desiring the servant however to bring back the note if he should not find lord Pomfret there. The servant accordingly did so, and learnt, that the horses which drew the carriage were Barton-mills horses, but that the noble lord had gone back to the last post. In this note he stated the circumstance of his expecting Mr. Smyth at Euston the ensuing Wednesday, and of his taking the earliest opportunity, after Mr. Smyth's arrival, of causing him to write a letter to the noble earl, containing a true state of the transaction, and of course informing his lordship that he knew nothing at all of Langstaff, and if any one had made use of his name in the affair, it wastotally without any authority from him. So the matter rested. His grace said, that on this note being returned to him by the servant he sent with it to Barton-mills, he transmitted it, by the general post, to his lordship at Euston, near Northampton. On the arrival of Mr. Smyth at Euston, he imparted to him what had passed, and Mr. Smyth immediately wrote to his lord This letter was likewise read by the clerk, and after declaring that his resentments had returned, charged his grace, in the foulest and most unbecoming language, with cowardice; gave no credit to his repeated assertions; and accused him with acting basely. After the several letters were read, his grace expressed himself in very moderate terms, and with a candour and generosity that did him great honour. As soon as his grace sat down, The Earl of Pomfret rose. His lordship opposed strongly the reading of the last letter, but was called three or four times to order by the Chancellor. His general defence, though consisting of a great variety of particulars, may be thus shortly comprised: that he had a gamekeeper, one Langstaff, who being disappointed of being made his steward, conceived the worst intentions against himself, family, and house, denouncing destruction against them all: that before he quitted his service, he endeavoured to carry some of his threats into execution, particularly against one of his sons, whom he endeavoured to allure to the stables, and knock on the head with some deadly weapon, under pretence that the horse or horses had kicked him. That before he left his service, he had frequently and loudly denounced those threats: that he had a fine colt ripped open, and his entrails let out, by this man that he had him apprehended, upon suspicion of the felony, and let him go, on condition that he would keep out of Towcester and its neighbourhood: that he was induced to take this step, merely on the account of the safety of his own person, his wife, and children, all of whom, he feared, would fall by the hands of this assassin, and his house and furniture be destroyed by fire. That, for the benefit of the air, he and his family removed to a place near town, for which he was indebted to his Majes ty's goodness, where he remained till he returned to his seat in Northamptonshire on the 12th of October, where he confessed he was equally filled with alarm and indignation, on being informed that Langstaff was returned in the capacity of an as |