Speaker there but the present, how could he agree to thank the late Speaker for his conduct? On the first day of the session, a right hon. gentleman had declared in strong and clear language that sir Fletcher had made a speech to the throne, which was both ill-timed and improper. Not having heard any good arguments urged in contradiction of that assertion, he had given it credit, and for that reason had voted against sir Fletcher's taking the chair again. The decision of that day convinced him, that he had adopted the right opinion, and as sir Fletcher was then ousted, he was a little surprized to hear any gentleman rise and move, that the thanks of the House should be voted to him. He could not reconcile the vote of the first day, with the proposition now moved, and therefore should vote against the latter.

Lord Duncannon declared, that although he had not sat in the last parliament, he had heard of the speech, to which allusion had been made by the right hon. gentleman who made the motion, and by the two last speakers. That speech had met with his full approbation; he thought it did great credit to the late Speaker, whose conduct on that and other occasions merited the warmest thanks of the House; he therefore should vote for the motion.

Sir Francis Basset said, it was impossible for him, as a young member, to be competent to decide on the propriety of the present motion; he could not, therefore, make himself responsible for it, by voting in its support. If sir Fletcher merited the thanks of that House, he should have imagined the last parliament, who had witnessed his conduct, would have voted them. The last parliament had not done this, and from the vote of the first day, he could not suspect that the present parliament had any inclination to adopt such a proposition. He had voted with the majority on the first day of the session, because he was inclined to think it was a wise measure to choose a new Speaker. Not having sat in the former parliament, it was impossible for him to form an opinion, from his own knowledge of the late Speaker's conduct. He understood that 170 members were in the same predicament with himself; and therefore he thought it would neither be warrantable for them nor him to vote for the motion.

Mr. Steele said, the obvious reason why the last parliament had not come to a vote like that now proposed, was, on account

of the sudden dissolution of that parliament. Although he had not been in the last parliament, he had heard of the conduct of the late Speaker, and it bad met with his hearty approbation. The celebrated speech made by sir Fletcher, had been printed by order of the House, and was matter of public notoriety. That speech he approved, and he believed every man, who had the dignity of the Commons of England at heart, approved of it likewise. He should vote for the question.

General Smith supported the motion, and entered into a defence of the speech made by the late Speaker at the bar of the House of Lords, arguing upon the strict propriety of his admonishing his Majesty to dispose of the large sum the Commons had voted for the support of his civil list. The general also, as a just tribute of praise to sir Fletcher, stated to the House the great civility he had, on a former occasion, experienced at his hands, in the course of a transaction which had given them no small trouble.

Mr. Courtenay opposed the motion, and said, he must first take notice of the little share of argument produced in its support, which could, or ought to weigh with him and the other young members. The right hon. mover had drawn up the motion in general terms; he had, nevertheless, expressly declared, that he did not rest it on the speech at the bar of another House, which had so frequently been adverted to. He, for one, was very far from approving of that speech; how, then, was he to reconcile himself to a motion of a general tendency, which of course comprehended that part of the late Speaker's conduct, as well as every other? There was no exception in the words of the motion though the right hon. mover had taken such pains to except to it in his introductory argument. In his opinion there was in sir Fletcher's speech to the throne, something altogether unwarrantable. He knew not where to look for an example, unless he referred to city politics. In the records of London, it was to be found that a lord mayor, taking advantage of his official capacity, which brought him into the presence of his sovereign, had dared, with all the insolent gravity of magistracy, to address his sovereign with an extempore speech. The House well knew how that speech had been received in the city, and how the author of it had been thanked. A statue had been put up in Guildhall to his memory, with his figure standing in a posi

tion of oratory, and this speech in his hand.

"This live-long speech e'en Balaam's ass

might own,

"Fit for eternal record, cut in city stone." Was that House prepared to follow the example? Would they, the representatives of the British nation, go look for precedents on the other side Temple-bar? Would they build up the fame of a displaced Speaker, because, like a city mayor, he had insulted his sovereign-?

Mr. Townshend called the hon. gentleman to order. He said, as a young member, he was excusable, because it was not to be supposed, that he was acquainted with the rules of the House; but that he could not sit silent and hear the King's name used to influence debate within those walls. This error had been fallen into on the first day of the session, and he lamented that he had not then risen to call the right hon. gentleman who was disorderly to order.

The Speaker told the hon. gentleman who had used the name of the sovereign, that it was the first, the most important, and most sacred of all the orders of that House, never to use the name of the King in the course of argument, with a view to influence the freedom of debate, and begged him in future to attend punctiliously to this order.

Mr. Courtenay apologized for mention ing the sovereign; and then called upon all who were, like himself, young members, to recollect what had passed on the first day of the session, when the scene was the most striking that perhaps ever was exhibited within those walls, and when the principal actor in that scene, the late Speaker, had given an example of heroic fortitude, equal to any that had ever been displayed by a Roman matron. He wished for the pencil of a West, or a Copley, to do it full justice. Being but a bad painter, he must have recourse to poetry, and recal the idea of that scene to the mind of the House, by stating, that it struck him as a strong resemblance of the scene which passed between Paulo Purganti and his wife. The late Speaker on the first day sat and heard the noble lord, who had moved the question of that day, and the right hon. seconder, anxious for his health, expressive of their care for his constitution, and thence desirous of removing the burden of business off his shoulders. The House heard the right hon. gentleman, the late Speaker, con[VOL. XXI.]

fess, that his constitution was impaired, that his faculties were injured, that he was much the worse for having sat so long in that chair, and yet afterwards when the right hon. gentleman's friends had expressed a desire of that gentleman's return to the chair, the right hon. gentleman had stood up, and like a Roman matron, despising the thorns with which the seat was filled, despising all fear of restless days, sleepless nights, and dull debates, declared himself again willing to undergo the punishment of sitting there. Thus the doctor in the tale, like the noble lord, was laborious in recommending patience to his wife, in giving her recipes for her health, but she, with Roman firmness, in spite of all advice, still urged her wishes and her resolution, till at length the doctor cried,

"I'll do it—but I give you warning:

"You'll die before to-morrow morningAnd then, like the right hon. gentleman on the first day of the session, Paulo Purganti's wife, in defiance of the threatened danger, replied,

"Let wanton wives by death be scar'd: "But, to my comfort, I'm prepar'd." Having raised a laugh by this allusion, he observed that what the right hon. gentleman had said respecting Mr. Grenville's Bill, and the conversation that had been held that day with regard to the Coventry election, was but an ill compliment to the House; for it was pretty plainly telling them, that were they not restrained by a positive act of parliament, they would have proceeded immediately to have declared Mr. Yeo and Mr. Holroyd duly elected. After urging this, he called upon the young members to recollect, that all who had voted with the majority on the first day of the session were bound in honour to vote against the present question.

Lord Mahon defended the motion, and said he did not, like other young members, approve of sir Fletcher's conduct upon hearsay; he drew his approbation of it from the records of the House, and from what appeared upon the Journals: that the Votes and Journals conveyed to those out of parliament, authentic proof of what passed within those walls; that therefore it was neither presumptuous nor unfair for him or others, who had not been in the last parliament, to form an opinion on the conduct of the late Speaker. He reprobated, in the strongest language, [3 L]

what had fallen from col. Onslow respecting the King's civil list, and said he never would sit silent in that House when he heard any hon. gentleman compare the grants of parliament to the crown, for any purpose whatever, with the private fortune of a private gentleman. He contended, that the House had itself come to a decided opinion upon the subject, and that a formal resolution stood upon the Journals, by which it was expressly declared, that the House had at all times an indisputable right to controul the expenditure of the King's civil list, as freely and as fully as the House had a right to controul any other part of the expenditure of the public revenue. This right, he asserted, was inherent in the constitution of parliament; it was essential to the rights and privileges of that House, and to the freedom of the people at large. He reprobated the idea of calling the House of Commons a great gentleman; no comparison of that kind, he said, would hold, and such comparisons ought never to pass unnoticed.

Sir George Savile complimented lord Mahon on the sentiments he had just expressed, and humorously declaring he rose as a young member, said, he could not but take notice of what his right hon. friend, who made the motion, had alleged, of his having shewn it in one form to one person, in another form to another, and in a third form to a third person; but that this, that, and the other mode of dressing it up would not do. He declared this description of dressing it up one way, and dressing it up another, made him for a moment look upon his right hon. friend as either a mantuamaker, a taylor, or a botcher, who having found it so extremely difficult to dress his child to the taste of some macaronies, fops, or capricios, had at last brought the babe before the House quite naked. The motion, he declared, struck him to be the most naked of the kind that ever was exhibited; he begged, therefore, to know, and he called upon his right hon. friend to say, who it was that this would not please, that would not please, nor the other would not please?

Mr. Townshend, laughing, said, he did not expect to have been called upon for such an explanation by his hon. friend, but that he was not ashamed to acknowledge the fact; that wishing the thanks of the House should be voted unanimously to the late Speaker, he had endeavoured

to make it palatable to the Treasury bench, being too old a member not to know the weight of that bench in that House; that it was to satisfy them, and make the motion acceptable to their taste, that he had dressed and redressed it as he had described. Having stated this, he took notice of the objections made to it, and said, he was perfectly content if the motion was to be lost, that the loss of it should go out to the world on these two points: the one, that the speech of sir Fletcher Norton at the bar of the House of Lords, during the existence of the last parliament, was deemed an unpardonable offence by ministers; the other, that as a punishment for sir Fletcher's, conduct, ministers were determined to oust him, and had ousted him accordingly on the first day of the session of the present parliament.

Mr. Rigby said, that he made no scruple to declare, that he disliked the services of sir Fletcher Norton. Sir Fletcher, he thought, had acted wisely and well during the former part of the time in which he had filled the chair of the House; perhaps a day would come when sir Fletcher would repent his not having uniformly pursued that conduct. He contended that the motion was without an example. Mr. Onslow had been thanked by a living parliament as a prelude to another motion, for an address to his Majesty to reward him. Was that meant to be the example to be copied? If it were not, the present motion was nonsense.

Mr. Fox replied to Mr. Rigby and Mr. Courtenay, asking if those gentlemen meant to state it, the one as an historical fact, that sir Fletcher had flown in the King's face; the other, as a recital of a well-known transaction, that he had insulted the King? He ridiculed, in poignant terms, Mr. Rigby's expression of a doubt, whether a day might not arrive when sir Fletcher would repent of having changed his conduct, and taken a decisive part in support of the people against the influence of the crown. Mr. Fox also seconded lord Mahon's idea of the civil list of the King being as much subject to the controul of parliament as any other part of the public revenue. He said, the public had a right to have the justice of the country supported out of the civil list; to have the great offices of state provided for from that branch of the royal revenue; and to look for a proper and a becoming establishment for the prince of Wales. He paid the prince's understanding the

highest compliments, and, as it were, pinned the noble lord in the blue ribbon down to his promise of last year, that the houshold of the prince should be provided for without any farther call upon the public. Mr. Fox was profuse in ironical compliments to lord North, and pressed the noble lord not to trust himself alone with opposition upon the present question, but as he had a right to be suspicious of their having some design or other to attempt to change his principles and take away his senses, (which the weakness left upon his mind as well as body, by his late illness, might possibly enable them to do) to bring a good company of his old friends and acquaintance with him into the lobby.

The Earl of Surrey said, he must vote for the motion, which was no more than justice to the man who had worn out his constitution in the service of his country. His lordship wondered, he said, that justice had not been insisted upon by the speakers in favour of the motion. The House divided:

Coventry Election.] Nov. 21. Lord Beauchamp rose to make a motion of which he had given notice yesterday, "That the Speaker do issue his warrant to the clerk of the crown, to make out a new writ for the election of two citizens to serve in this present parliament for the city of Coventry:" a motion which he should have made in the usual course of business without saying any thing in support of it, if he had not been led to expect that it would receive much opposition. There was not any complaint brought against the burgesses of Coventry; they were innocent; why, then, should they be punished by a temporary disfranchisement? It had been said, that the burgesses of Hindon had been disfranchised for a time. True, but they deserved that punishment. It was the great object of Mr. Grenville's Bill to reduce trials of contested elections to fixed and regular laws, that nothing might depend on faction, and for that end, that as little as possible might rest in the discretion of the House. But if we should now refuse to send a writ for the election of members

for Coventry; if we should violate the law in one instance, we might soon do it in another, and that Bill, with all its good effects, would fall to the ground. That very discretionary power of issuing or not issuing writs of election, for which an hon. gentleman had contended last night, was in the reign of king James, in times of less liberty than the present, looked upon with jealousy, and exclaimed against as an infringement of freedom. Sir Francis Goodwin had refused to submit to that discretionary power which was then usurped by the crown; and was the usurpation on the liberties of the people less, though it was made by a number of men instead of one? And if the people have a right to be represented, they had a right to be represented always, and all delays of giving them an opportunity of chusing their representatives was injustice. The following was a maxim in Magna Charta,

nulli negabitur justitia, nulli differetur.' Why should the House depart from a fixed order? What had happened? Riots and tumults. Riots and tumults happened in an election at Brentford. The officers, whose duty it was to keep order, represented to the House, that they were not able to keep peace, and they asked the advice and assistance of the House. The House advised them to get a sufficient number of constables, and to preserve the peace by all possible means. This was a case exactly in point. It was said, that the election could not go on at Coventry without the aid of the House; but what aid could the House give to the officers who were to preside at the ensuing election at Coventry that they were not already in possession of? Besides, the officers to preside at the future were not the same who presided at the last election. His lordship considered the petition from sir T. Halifax and Mr. Rogers as mere allegations, until the facts they alleged should be proved. He adverted to the inconveniences that would flow from giving credit to mere affirmation of this kind. He was yet at liberty to consider the petition in the light of the effects of the smart of disappointment. The delay proposed was an injury to the inhabitants of that great trading city, the inhabitants of which would be in a ferment until th election should be over; and the loss arising from their dissipation and idleness was loss to the public. His lordship concluded with making his motion.

a

Mr. Fox gave the noble lord credit for

the ingenuity and industry with which he had supported so bad a cause. These qualities evidently exerted, betrayed however the weakness of the cause that needed their aid. The noble lord, practising an useful art, endeavoured to drown an unpopular and unjust proposition, by shading and confounding it with ideas just and popular. He talked of Magna Charta, of jealousy, of discretionary power, of the resistance made to discretionary power in former reigns. Good God, Sir, who would imagine that the noble lord was defending an intention to issue out a writ for the immediate election of members for Coventry? Who would not imagine, that he was supporting a motion to defer that election until it could be made with freedom? The freedom of election, the independency and privileges of the House of Commons could not be any where lodged so safely as in their own hands, in their own discretion. Are the facts alleged by the petitioners mere allegations? Is the noble lord willing to bring that matter to a trial? Mr. Fox made a distinction between mere report, vague rumour and random affirmations, and allegations contained in a petition to the House. The petition from Coventry was before the House, and the House must decide upon it. The question then I was, whether they ought not to decide upon it, before issuing out a writ for a new election? Oh! but said the noble lord, a delay would be injustice to the electors of Coventry, who ought not to be unrepresented, no, not for a week. But it was better to be unrepresented for a fortnight than to be unrepresented for a whole parliament; for at present, a free election at Coventry could not take place. The merits of the petition might soon be determined, and it would be unjust to issue out the writ before that should be done. He contended farther, that should a new election be ordered, in the present circumstances, for Coventry, that would be an encouragement of riots and tumults; for then it would be said, let us try the effects of violence; if it succeeds, it is well; if not, we have an equal chance with our competitors afterwards.

Mr. Macdonald said, that for the last reason which the hon. gentleman had adduced for his being against the motion, he I would be for it. Without mentioning names or conjectures, he thought it very probable that some one of the parties in Coventry wished for a delay, and their wishes would be gratified, by refusing at

If

| the present time to issue out the writ now moved for. The rioters, or sham rioters, might have been employed on purpose to occasion a delay, and he would not forward the intentions of their abettors. to find out the causes of the riots and their aiders and abettors, were so easy a matter, if the cause could be so easily decided as the hon. gentleman imagined, then it was a bad argument in his mouth, that the attendance of the petitioners and their witnesses at the bar of the House would materially injure their election. For a few witnesses only, it should seem, would be necessary; but for his part he thought the trial might not be over during this session.

Debate in the Commons on the Vote of Thanks to General Clinton, Earl Cornwallis, &c.] Nov. 27. Mr. Coke rose to make the motion of which he had given notice, for the thanks of the House to earl Cornwallis, for the important services he had done to his country. At the time he had given that notice he did not recollect the propriety of giving thanks at the same time to general sir Henry Clinton, for the signal services performed by him. He now wished to comprehend him in the vote of thanks which he was about to move. The first thing he had done, after he received the command of the army, was to march the troops from Philadelphia to New-York; a retreat which was universally allowed to be the finest thing performed, during the present war, and if there had been any precedent for thanking a general for even an able retreat, sir Henry was, doubtless, entitled, and certainly would have received, the thanks of the House upon that occasion, There were particular circumstances, which made it ineligible to offer the thanks of the House to sir Henry on the reduc tion of Charles-town. Those circumstances no longer existed. Gentlemen on every side of the House bore testimony to the excellent conduct and gallant bra. very of lord Cornwallis; nor would it be denied, he presumed, that the same qualities were possessed in an eminent degree