in 1685. The fact, however, was, that the prohibition of the woollens of England continued for 19 years; and he begged the House to recollect, that what had happened might happen again. The House had, within these few days, been favoured with the accounts of the quantity and value of that great volume of commerce, which they might venture to pronounce to be the most beneficial and important of any which they now possessed. They were permitted to see the magnitude of the stake which they risked, and the sum of the advantages which were in peril and jeopardy, in the present state of things. The balance was now stated to be 500,000l. and more in our favour; it certainly had been more favourable; it seemed rising and advancing. Since the Treaty, this nation had received between forty and fifty millions on the balance of trade with that nation. It was of the most essential importance to the landed interest, and the general industry of the nation, that this treaty should be preserved by the performance of the condition on our part. No advantages to be received from France could compensate the loss of such a trade. On Monday next, if the committee came to resolutions to reduce the duties on French wines to 45/. per ton, and did not at the same time reduce the duty on Portugal wines one third part lower, it would be a dangerous tendency to the extinction of this great Treaty. If an act of parliament passed, without authorizing the usual reduction, he feared the prohibition of woollens in Portugal would follow as an inevitable consequence.

Mr. Beaufoy said:-If I did not misunderstand the right hon. gentleman who opened this debate, his motion proceeded upon an idea that it is impossible for the Legislature to determine how far the Commercial Treaty with Paris is or is not consistent with the essential interests of the kingdom, till they have the means of ascertaining what will be the probable effects of that Treaty upon the conduct of the Court of Portugal. He thinks it impossible even to conjecture how far the Treaty will prove beneficial or otherwise, unless we are informed, in the first place, what price is to be paid by England to France, as the condition of the advantages she expects to receive; and that information, he imagines, cannot be obtained until we know whether the sacrifice of the commercial intercourse that subsists between this country and Por[VOL. XXVI.]

tugal is or is not to be the consequence of the bargain.-Now, if I shall be able to. prove, that the merits of the Treaty with France are entirely independent of our commercial connexion with Portugal; if I shall be able to prove, that whether Portugal shall renew or renounce the stipulations of the Methuen Treaty, an esta-i blished commerce with France will in either case be advantageous to Britain, then it will follow, upon his own ground, that his motion is founded upon no necessity; that it has no political advantage in view; and that being made pending a negociation with Portugal, it ought, by the established customs of the House, to be instantly rejected.-Before I proceed to state any reasons for thinking that the propriety of the Commercial Treaty with France is independent of the measures that Portugal may think proper to pursue, it will be necessary to advert to the nature of the French Treaty. That Treaty the right hon. gentleman has considered as being equally new to the conmmercial principles, and to the experience of the kingdom; and imagines that the first question that will arise is-Shall the established maxims by which this country has risen to commercial greatness be made the sacrifice of a rash and inconsiderate experiment? Now, the fact undoubtedly is, that a commerce with France, which he considers as so completely new, has existed for many years, and does exist at this very hour; I say not by compact or in law, but in practice and in fact. The first question therefore that arises is. not, Shall we establish a new and untried commerce with France, but-Shall the commerce which already exists between the two kingdoms, give employment to the vessels of the smuggler, or to those of the fair and respectable merchant? Shall the trade be carried on inconveniently and circuitously, by the way of Austrian Flanders and of Dunkirk; or shall it be carried on, with every commercial advantage, directly to the ports of France? Shall the manufactures of this country be objects of confiscation or of protection to the French laws? Shall the burthens to which the trade is at this time subjected, continue to exist as the price of insurance and as premiums to the smuggler; or shall they be paid as duties to government, and form an important part of the revenues of the state? Shall the productions of British industry find a market in Paris alone, from which, in consequence of the extent of the city, [2 B]

and of its not being a walled town, they cannot be excluded; or shall they find an authorized admission into every port of the French kingdom? Shall the market for British manufactures be the capital alone, or shall it be the whole country of France?-Such being the questions that arise upon the late Commercial Treaty, let us next consider in what respects these questions can be affected by the conduct of the Court of Portugal. Portugal, it is evident, will either renew the stipulations of the Methuen Treaty, or will decline the commerce with England which that Treaty establishes: should she renew the conditions of the Treaty, then it will follow, that as Britain has reserved the right, and unquestionably possesses the means, of fulfilling the conditions of the compact, no possible injury can have arisen from the agreement lately established with France. That Britain does possess the means of discharging such engagements as the renewal of the Methuen Treaty would impose, will be evident to every man who considers that France is not the natural rival of Portugal in her trading connexion with this country. Perfectly well I know, that, by regulations and restraints, Britain might give to the wines of France a decided advantage in her markets; but equally sure I am, that, if things are left to their natural course, the wines of France and the wines of Portugal will equally find a sufficient market in the consumption of this country. Thus it appears, that if Portugal shall be willing to renew her ancient engagements with England, no possible injury can arise to her interest from our legalizing the trade with France but were it even admitted, that the trade with France essentially interferes with the commerce of Portugal; yet, even in that case, it is evident that the injury she sustains is not the consequence of the legality, but of the existence of the trade; for, if the trade between France and England actually exists, its receiving the sanction of the law, and being established by compact, can add but little to the grievance. Hence it necessarily follows, that if Portugal shall refuse to renew her commercial engagements with Britain, the late Treaty with France, however it may be made the pretext, can never be considered as the reason of her conduct: for as Portugal can have received no injury, can have sustained no wrong, it necessarily follows, that she can have no just reason to com

plain. Shall, then, the mere pretext of a foreign Court be considered by the Legislature of Britain as a reason for their departure from that line of conduct which their interest obviously prescribes? Shall Britain abandon her views, in consequence not of the rights, not of the equitable claims, not of the fair and reasonable requests of an ally, but in consequence of extravagant proposals, in consequence of unreasonable demands, in consequence of perverse and unfriendly requisitions? To such attempts to impose upon her reason, what ought to be her reply?. Undoubtedly she will answer, that the best maxim for the conduct of a nation, the maxim which best suits her own dignity, and the friendship she owes to her allies, is that of justice to herself, and of justice to the rest of the world. But, like the right hon. gentleman, I have too much confidence in the common sense of mankind, too firm a reliance on their regard for their obvious interests, to suppose that Portugal can adopt such inverted maxims of policy as those upon which she must evidently act if she renounces her commercial connexion with Britain. Is it possible that she can relinquish her trade to the only country that furnishes a market for her wines, and that is able to send her in return the various articles she wants? A country that supplies her with necessaries in exchange for articles of merely luxurious use; a country, whose manufactures, in defiance of restraint, have found a market in every part of the world; a country whose woollens have so decidedly the advantage over those of every other, that when the American agent, a few years since, was expressly ordered to purchase woollens in France for the use of the continental army, the performance of the condition was found so impossible, that he was under the necessity of having recourse to Holland for the English cloths with which the shops of that country are always full.-But if, after all, it were possible to suppose that Portugal would subject her trade with this country to the severest restraints, and that for a time the diminution of our exports to that kingdom might follow, what better mode of balancing the evil could be found, than that of fostering the growth and encouraging the increase of our trade in a different and much better direction? I trust the arguments I have already urged are sufficient to show that the motion is founded upon no public necessity, supported by no

public consideration, and applicable to no one beneficial use.

Mr. Pitt said, that the right hon. baronet who seconded the motion had manifested so much official and political knowledge, and was so well acquainted with the proceedings of Parliament on questions like the present, that he had anticipated him in his principal argument against the motion; and he should almost be satisfied barely to repeat what the right hon. baronet had said, as a sufficient justification for giving his negative to the question before the House. All that the right hon. baronet had said relative to the danger and impropriety of publishing the different documents; all that he had said of the constant usage of that House, to decline any interference with such subjects; were conclusive and substantial reasons to induce him to oppose, to the utmost of his power, any attempt to bring forward an account of the communication between our Court and that of Lisbon, on subjects connected with any treaty now depending, or likely to be set on foot between the two countries. But the right hon. baronet had made a most notable distinction, by which he hoped to reconcile the difficulties which his new arguments threw in his way; this was the distinction between a political and a commercial treaty. He had stated, that to a commercial treaty, which was to stipulate for some alteration of duties, it was necessary to obtain the consent of Parliament; whereas, to the conclusion of a treaty purely political, the Crown itself was of its own authority fully competent. From this consideration he had concluded that although in the latter cases Parliament had no right to interfere, they having no power whatsoever to prevent the ratification of such treaties, yet, as in the latter case the Treaty was to undergo the judgment and consideration of Parliament, before it could be concluded, Parliament had, therefore, during the pendency of such treaty, a right to demand such information as it might think necessary towards enabling them to judge upon its merits; or, in other words, the right hon. baronet had argued, that because the consent of Parliament was absolutely necessary to the ratification of the Treaty, it was for that reason right and proper that Parliament should have access to all possible information while the Treaty was yet in agitation: whereas there was nothing more clear, than that the power which Parliament enjoyed of revising and approv

ing or rejecting the Treaty, was a circumstance that rendered any superintendence on their part in the forming of the Treaty absolutely unnecessary-and the examination of papers relative to the negociation between the two Courts, which might ultimately terminate in a treaty, and the debating upon them, or coming to any resolutions concerning them, was evidently such an interference as amounted to the taking an active part in the formation of the Treaty.-With respect to the right hon. gentleman who made the motion, he should look upon him as having met a full refutation, generally, as to the object of the motion itself, by the arguments of the right hon. baronet, were it not that the ingenuity with which he had delivered his sentiments certainly entitled him to a particular answer. In no instance was this ingenuity so eminently conspicuous as in the colour which he had given to those palpable fallacies and glaring contradictions of which his speech had been wholly compounded.

He should enumerate a few of these extraordinary instances of the right hon. gentleman's logical talents, by which he was enabled to draw from the same set of premises two different and contradictory conclusions. The right hon, gentleman had divided his argument into different heads; the first had related to the period which had been chosen for the conclusion of the several treaties. This the right hon. gentleman had considered in three ways; observing that there were three different periods, as referring to the French Treaty, in which that of Portugal might have been concluded: the first, and that which he had stated to be in his opinion the best, was before any treaty whatever with France had been signed. Whether the right hon. gentleman was correct in his idea, that this was the most proper period, was a question which could now only be considered as implying a censure or acquittal of Government, because the period was already passed-for the treaty had been signed. The period which the right hon. gentleman had stated as the next best, though still, he said in some degree objectionable, was after the final conclusion of the treaty, and its ratification by Parliament: but between these two periods there was an intermediate period, which was, as the right hon. gentleman had represented, the most improper of all; the period between the signature of the Treaty and its being finally carried into effect by act of parliament. But, to what end did

the right hon. gentlemen apply those observations? He had made use of them as a part of an argument, and which was to persuade the House to fix a period for the forming a treaty with Portugal, while the French Treaty was in the very situation which was of all others, in his own opinion, the most favourable to such a negociation -and to bring the Treaty with Portugal to a conclusion before they proceeded to confirm the present Treaty with France, laying themselves thereby under a necessity of coming to the French discussion when the treaty with Portugal was in that state, which the right hon. gentleman had himself laboured to prove was not the state most favourable to the consideration of another treaty. Thus he would, out of two different periods, which remained for the consideration of the Treaty with Por tugal, choose the worst; and for the conclusion of the French Treaty he would choose that which he had described as only the second best. The second part of the right hon. gentleman's argument tended to show, that we were going to conclude a treaty with France, by which our advantages were to be exactly defined and circumscribed by the terms of the Treaty, and of course could receive no addition or improvement; whereas the advantages to be derived by France, might hereafter meet with a very considerable increase, by our declining to make use of the reserve provided for in the seventh article of the Treaty, relating to our trade with Portugal; by which means France having a full equivalent for every advantage we might enjoy from the Treaty, had over and above the chance of a farther advantage, for which we could demand no equivalent in our turn. To this he should answer, that in discussing the French Treaty we were only to take into consideration the provisions actually contained in that Treaty, and the advantages respectively provided by it in favour of each country. Any accidental benefits accruing to France hereafter by new arrangements, or by the occurrence of circumstances which did not already exist, were totally out of the question, in considering those regulations and stipulations that were actually to take place. The idea of stipulating for additional concessions on the part of France, in order to countervail such eventual benefits as might arise to that country from any future changes which we might make in our commercial intercourse with other nations, was perfectly in

compatible with all systems of practical politics, and, if carried into effect, would render every sort and species of negociation tedious, difficult, and complicated beyond measure; for he would take upon him to say, that should Great Britain at any time prohibit the trade of any nation, with which she always traded, such prohibition would unquestionably, to a certain degree, operate in favour of every other nation on earth with which we should continue to trade in the articles so

prohibited. And were we to suspend every treaty of commerce, until we should be able to ascertain the possible effects of every fresh arrangement we might hereafter think proper to make with other countries, it would be impossible ever to hope for the conclusion of any treaty whatsoever. Besides, it was not to be supposed that we should adopt such measures as would throw any very considerable advantage into the scale of France, without a fresh stipulation for some adequate equivalent for ourselves.-But he hoped there would be no occasion for any such new arrangement with France; as he relied upon the good faith, the ancient friendship, and the good sense of the Court of Portugal, that she would make satisfaction for those violations of the Methuen Treaty, of which this country had so long and so justly complained. Those infractions were, as the right hon. gentleman had stated them, the alterations of the duties in the new book of rates, and her refusal to admit the woollen manufactures of Ireland on the English duties, which he looked upon the Court of Lisbon as bound to do by the Methuen Treaty, and which surely the footing upon which they stood with this country, amply entitled our Government to expect as a concession, even though they were not entitled to demand it as a right.-The right hon. gentleman had not the least occasion to feel himself so extremely uneasy under the apprehension that the conclusion of the French Treaty would necessarily put an end to the Methuen Treaty; for he would state to the House how that might be avoided-which was, by coming to a resolution in the committee, that the duty on French wines should be reduced to the present duty paid by Portugal wine, and that such reduction should take place on a certain specified day; and then in the mean time coming to a vote for the proper reduction of the duty on Portugal wine, to take place on or before

deration of the Treaty with France.] Feb. 12. Mr. Alderman Newnham presented a Petition from the several manufacturers whose names are thereunto subscribed, | from their General Chamber of Manufacturers of Great Britain; setting forth,

"That the petitioners, duly impressed with the serious and awful importance of the Treaty of Commerce now pending with France, beg leave to represent that the said Treaty, involving a vast complication of detail, affecting a variety of the greatest interests, and comprehending a prodigious change in the commercial system of this country, is an object of the most momentous consideration; and that the petitioners, after the most careful investigation which such sources of information as they have been able to consult hitherto have afforded them, are not capable of forming any certain judgment of a Treaty fraught with such magnitude, novelty, and variety of matter, and cannot but be seriously alarmed at hearing, that the House has determined to come to a decisive vote upon the said Treaty this day; and that the petitioners, remembering with gratitude the favour and indulgence which they experienced from the House on a former occasion, and the providential effects which were then universally allowed to have resulted from delay, humbly conceive that they have at present still stronger reasons to request time for the purposes of inquiry and deliberation, before the House shall come to any resolution which may be decisive upon this great measure: and therefore imploring the House to postpone the adoption of any such resolution, for the important reasons above stated, and for such time as to the House shall seem meet."

the same day. Thus, in no part of the right hon. gentleman's argument was he well founded, but had built the whole upon mis-statement and obvious fallacies. He had blended the French and Portugal Treaty, and taken it for granted that the one was naturally dependent upon the other; and under colour of this misapprehension, he had complained of the respective periods that had been adopted for considering and concluding upon them. And, besides, as far as it applied to the date of the French negociation, it went to overturn that sound maxim of policy, always to reserve in our own hands a resource, in case of disagreement with those with whom we negociate. In the present instance, we had acted by that maxim, inasmuch as before we had opened our negociations for the remedy of our complaints against Portugal, we had shewn that Court, that we could do without her, by having formed such a connexion with France, as would make it eligible for us to transfer to that country, should she reject them, those advantages which she at present enjoyed. The right hon. gentleman had farther attempted to mislead the House, by endeavouring to confound and implicate the advantages already secured to France by the Treaty, with those that we might hereafter have it in our power to bestow upon her, by forbearing to put in force the reserve made in that treaty in favour of Portugal.With respect to the difficulty which the right hon. gentleman had suggested concerning the Spanish wines, he was glad to have an opportunity of clearing it up, which he could do from the terms of the the Treaty themselves. The right hon. gentleman had expressed his apprehension that the Treaty bound this country to the maintaining a duty on Spanish wine at all future times, adequate to that which France, under the provisions of the Treaty, was to pay, notwithstanding the reduction of the duty on Portugal wines :-but this was by no means the case, for if we should hereafter, in such an event think proper to reduce the duty on Spanish wine to the same proportion with the reduced duty on Portugal wine, as it now bore to the present duty, we were amply at liberty to

do so.

The motion was negatived without a division.

Petition from the General Chamber of Manufacturers for postponing the Consi

On the motion, that the Petition do lie on the table,

Mr. Pitt said, that in, his opinion the Petition was not so pregnant with interesting matter as to induce the House to waver, for a single moment, in their determination to investigate the nature and the merits of the Treaty. Why had this Petition been deferred so long? The Chamber had enjoyed ample time for going fully into the discussion of the subject, and for procuring all the lights which they might require. However respectable the signatures to the petition might appear, he could not conceive that parliamentary proceedings ought to stop in their course, because certain individuals had not hitherto made up their minds