Parliament went to consider the main point, and not the more or the less, which must depend upon hazard; and was rather a subject of private consideration, and of speculation out of doors, than of parliamentary cognizance.

considerations. First, it may be said, that more might have been obtained. It was the most difficult point possible to ascertain this in any negociation. Every body had their own ideas, their own methods of carrying on a negociation; which might have been right, or more or less successful, according to circumstances. He was free to own, that what floated in his mind was something of this sort; to have admitted article for article, all manufactures, where the first materials were equally attainable, any momentary superiority under such circumstances being of no account in negociation. Some unreciprocal articles remained on both sides; wine, brandy, vinegar, and oil, on the side of France; coals, lead, and tin, on ours. Theirs are luxuries, which we can get elsewhere; ours are necessaries, which they cannot get elsewhere to equal advantage; we had consequently a right to expect an equivalent for both. There was, besides, the political tendency of the Treaty, in doing away prejudices, &c. which manifestly in the end tended to double the force of France, by putting her at ease; compensation, therefore, was due for three points; and he frankly owned, what occurred in his mind, was, first, to get some advantage in point of navigation, and to have said something of this sort to France-In proportion as we give you land, you must give us sea.

Secondly, something might have been decided in the case of India; for which a great deal might have been said in a reasonable way, which he should not then enter into, nor go at present farther, than to say, that he heard with great concern, that a treaty had been so far advanced, as to have been settled on our side, and happily rejected through some private interest of theirs, which militated against every principle of politics, commerce, and finance, without obtaining one advantage to this country in lieu, and which seemed calculated to overturn the whole policy upon which the preliminary articles were founded. But whether these ideas were right, being the floatings of his own private mind, or whether they were attainable, it was impossible to say. He liked the expression of the duke of Marlborough, who said, when he heard persons finding fault, "I find many very ready to say what I ought to have done when a battle is over; but I wish some of these persons would come and tell me what I ought to do before the battle." Besides, the function of [VOL. XXVI.].

There was a third query respecting Portugal, to which the answer appeared, he thought, very simple. That under this Treaty we had no disagreements, full scope being left to fulfil the very letter of all the engagements we had with Portugal. These abuses were treated as trifling; but it must be by noble lords who had never read the account of them, or heard it stated. He had himself great reason to know the contrary. When he was Secretary of State in 1767, they were then so enormous, that he changed the minister on that account, and sent a relation of his own as consul general, instead of sending him as envoy elsewhere, being determined to get them redressed. He was shocked, however, to find the subject kept dormant, till he came again into office in 1782, when they were to be resumed with the disadvantages attending Count D'Oyeras' death. In his conscience he believed, from what he knew of that slow, though respectable Court, and our mode of proceeding hitherto at home, that nothing short of this Treaty would redress them. It was inconceivable to any body, who had been much in great affairs, to think that one department should, for thirty years together, be making the strongest representation that words could dictate, and another department be loading the same country with fresh indulgences unasked. Such was the case in England of the Secretary of State and the Treasury; the latter of whom even in the last year, as their last regulation, gave a half advantage to Portugal instead of a third. Under these circumstances, it was not surprising that Portugal should feel its way, and break through one privilege after another: first, by attacking our residence in Brazil; secondly, our advantages stipulated in regard to our navigation; thirdly, embarrassing the residence of our merchants at Lisbon; fourthly, taxing our woollens without regard to the express words of the Methuen convention; and, fifthly, taxing the very wines of their own growth, finding their monoply so confirmed, that the tax was sure to be more than repaid to the Portuguese grower by the British consumer, their whole export consisting in a manner in wines. Ap[20]

plying all this, it was not supposeable that Portugal could in a moment leave this country in earnest. They had managed well hitherto, by a succession of able ministers, which they kept here well instructed for the purpose; such as count D'Oyeras, too well known to be mentioned; M. Mello, now Secretary of State in Portugal; and M. de Pinto, the supposed successor to that post; and a more respectable one could not be. But the Court of Portugal-for whom he desired to be understood to speak with high respect and esteem, as well as for the country at large, which had been the parent of such great men, and such important enterprises-the Court of Portugal was in its senses. Their market was valuable to us; but there were more nations in Europe that wove woollens than drank Portugal wine; and though he was free to acknowledge the harbour of Lisbon was of use to us when at war with France and Spain, yet, without boasting of what had passed, we were rather of more importance to Portugal, under circumstances which he did not see might not occur again but he did not wish to dwell upon these points; the interests were reciprocal, and he wished them to be considered as such.

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Fourthly, the acknowledgment of the neutral code found in the Treaty was another matter of particular discussion. He was totally astonished at seeing such an article, and knew not how it could come into the imagination of persons who had the least acquaintance with the law of nations, or of the interest of England in particular, or the history of the five last years. It was a subject that had been repeatedly examined, discussed, and decided; it was positively refused to Russia, even in a moment when we were under the necessity of doing, what he hoped we should never be again, of courting her alliance, or that of any other power. He considered it as one of the most material points gained in the late treaty of peace; the putting an end to the Dutch pretensions in regard to it. It was not his business, but he flattered himself, the more the preliminaries were examined into, the more it would appear that this and other omissions were more important than many stipulations might have been. He did not choose to quote particular things that passed in the negociation; but he was authorized, he thought, in giving it as his opinion and conjecture, that it was a point

the French would never have insisted upon. He would not admit, that by the preliminiaries ministers were bound, in drawing the articles of the Commercial Treaty with France, to copy the Commercial Treaty of Utrecht. Less antiquated language, and articles more simplified, and drawn in a modern style, would have been better; and instead of any thing that should countenance this novel doctrine, brought forward in Europe by the Northern Courts, he should rather have expected that the claims under it might have been jointly extinguished by France and us. It was sufficiently notorious, that it was not the interest of either country to suffer new marines to start up and grow too powerful. Hitherto, at least, these were politics that seemed to govern the Court of France relative to Russia; however the generosity and affections of England might have induced her to act otherwise. In fact, the neutral code struck at the distinguishing fort of England, that power which more particularly belonged to her. As to the plea that it would signify nothing, and was futile to urge the common interest we had in this with France, because France and England were always to be at war together, he could not accede to it, as it was contrary to all the reasonings respecting the dispositions of France, that at least he had gone upon, in justifying the present Treaty, as tending to peace with France. Heartily concerned therefore as he was, that the article appeared in the Treaty, he hoped that no mention would dare to be made of it in another, without the advice and sanction of Parliament.

A fifth circumstance respected Russia. Though he could never agree with many lords, who supposed that it ought to be a consequence of this Treaty, that France was to sacrifice its political interest to ours, up and down Europe, wherever they might clash, as posssbly they might do in Holland and elsewhere, or that she must forbear making commercial treaties that might be advantageous to her, as with America; yet he must own, that he thought it scarcely fair in France, the moment she had concluded with us, to go and purchase a commercial alliance with Russia, with the sacrifice of a point which she knew we had refused to Russia, and which was so directly repugnant to our fundamental interests. It made him lament still more, that this situation was not foreseen as it ought to have been, and

provided against, if possible, by our negociators in the French Treaty.

The articles of the Treaty were open to a sixth remark; as one of them (the seventh) appeared totally unintelligible; a mere jumble of words, without the possibility of drawing any meaning from them, and least of all, that given by ministers; he hoped therefore to hear some better explanation than had hitherto been given of the sense of those very obscure words.

Ireland made the seventh and last article he should touch upon. It appeared scarcely credible that we had no settlement either made or in view with France; it was idle to talk of the Irish propositions having been made and rejected, and that therefore nothing was to be done. If this language had been used, he hoped never to hear it again; it was much too humoursome to use towards a great country. If Ireland was an independent country, ministers were bound to treat the public and parliament of Ireland as they would those of Great Britain. If a minister were to tell the public and parliament of Great Britain, that they did not know their own interest and must abide the consequence, he must be looked upon as infatuated. He hoped therefore something would be done without delay, as it was inconceivable that Ireland ought to receive any favours from France greater than those shown her by Great Britain. He trusted the old propositions would be simplified, and passed without delay, and without being mixed with any point of politics, particularly with that to which the sense of Ireland proved so totally averse; namely, obliging her to adopt implicitly all our farther acts of trade.

As for the danger that would attend the capital, which would be lodged in France in case of war, it was sufficient to answer that the French were not a nation of Moroqueens and Algerines. As for the Hovering Acts, he did not feel it incumbent upon him at least to be very anxious respecting them, as he hoped to see the day when they would be rendered almost totally unnecessary, by the trade being made still freer than it was left by the present Treaty. But there was one capital objection, which, in most discussions on this occasion, came in aid of all other objections; namely, that we should rue the consequence; and it would be seen that France would flourish, and we should suffer by the present Treaty. Whether

in future France or we should flourish most, it was difficult to say. If we continued under a perpetual fluctuation of administrations, and in consequence of systems, as we had done for many years past, and France continued under one system and one administration; if we continued in our system of corruption, and considered it as the only means of government, and she followed the measures which it was reported she was about proposing, to root it up, aided by the determination of the King to discountenance it wherever it appeared, and where it could be so much as traced to have happened ever so far back, marking the parties with his highest displeasure; if they took the part of great measures, and we pursued little ones, there was no doubt which country must flourish and which decline. But he was not afraid to say, knowing the natural liberality and benevolence of English minds, that he should think it the duty of every man, of every citizen, to rejoice in the prosperity even of a foreign country, produced by such fair and honourable means. If any man had the misfortune to find he could not govern his own family, or free it of the corruption and vice that prevailed in it, he must be base indeed if he repined at seeing a neighbouring family virtuous, well ordered, and happy in its children, its fortune, and servants. The same reason applied in the strongest manner to the two countries; and he would venture to prophesy, if this country declined, it would not be on account of this Treaty; and whoever voted for it, would find no difficulty in accounting for such decline by some of the causes he mentioned. Prejudices might attribute it to a wrong cause; but it behoved every man to set the public right whenever the time came." If we went on rotting in our corruption, and sacrificing the army, the church, and the state, to the paltry purpose of procuring a majority in both Houses, abusing each other, talking of a coalition and such stuff and nonsonse, we could neither expect to be prosperous, wealthy, nor powerful. Under these convictions, he was strongly for the Treaty, persuaded that the principle carried transcendent benefit with it, whatever opinion he might have as to some of its particular clauses; he should therefore certainly vote for the resolution.

Viscount Townshend assigned his reasons for thinking that Cherbourg would

not prove of the service to France that she might expect. He compared Cherbourg with Dunkirk, and contended, that there was an essential difference between a deep-water harbour, and a harbour formed by projecting points, which an enemy can cruize across, and command as she passes. He expressed himself at any rate adverse to his Majesty's ministers remonstrating with the Court of France on that subject just at present, as the doing so would frustrate the completion of the Commercial Treaty, which, he was happy to know, was likely to be well received in Ireland.

The Committee divided on the first Resolution:-Contents, 81; Not-Contents,

35.

The chairman reported progress, and asked leave to sit again.

March 2. Their lordships went again into the Committee, when the remaining Resolutions were agreed to, and ordered to be reported on the 5th.

March 5. The Resolutions and Address were reported. On the motion for agreeing with the Committee in the first Resolution,

The Duke of Manchester entered into the discussion of the merits of the Treaty. He said, that he was fully convinced that on mature examination it would be found, that even in its most favourable points it was highly objectionable. There was no part of it, however, in which it was so censurable, as in the article by which we yielded to the doctrine of the neutral code, and gave up the advantageous distinction which we held in the great article of navigation. Having done it in this instance, it was impossible that we could retain it with other Powers; nay, we must insult other Powers to whom we had refused the advantage, by giving it up in this manner to a nation with whom at least we had had no former connexion, and to whom we certainly owed no obligation. In the the present day of politeness it would not be permitted him to harbour even jealousy of the French nation, much less must he venture to offend their nice ears by calling them either treacherous or hostile: they must no longer be termed the natural enemy of England; he would not, for his own part, assume a tone offensive to this new-fashioned delicacy; but he must be permitted to say, without touching on the civility due from one nation to another,

that we had no great reason for trusting implicitly to the French councils. All their former proceedings manifested their direct hostility to England. He would only instance their conduct in the last war, when they, without the shadow of a pretence, broke the profound peace that subsisted between the two nations; and at the very moment when they were making the loudest professions of friendship, entered into a treaty with America, and aimed the most destructive blow at the power, dominion, and prosperity of England. We must shut our eyes, ears, and understandings to every thing, to believe that the ministers of France always meant honestly what they professed. An anecdote which occurred to him when in Paris, was a strong proof that they did not even themselves think that they were to be trusted. In a transaction which he had with the great minister who was now no more, and who was in private life as honest a man as he ever met with-when he showed some distrust of what M. de Vergennes said, he made use of these remarkable words: " Je ne parle pas comme ministre, mais comme gentilhomme; à cet égard comptez sur mon honneur-I do not speak as a minister, but as a gentleman, and therefore you may trust to my honour." He desired to know, if since the peace the conduct of France had been such as to inspire us with confidence in her professions. A noble marquis (of Lansdowne) observed on a former day, that the sovereign whom we ought most to distrust, was he who should maintain a large army in time of peace. To this he must be permitted to answer, that being as we were an island, depending on our marine, we had nothing to dread from a sovereign who merely possessed a monstrous army, unless he also possessed a powerful fleet: the enemy whom we had to dread, was the sovereign who decreased his army to advance his maritime strength; and such was the monarch of France. It was a fact, that ever since the peace they had been pursuing the most vigorous means to increase their navy: the peace was hardly concluded before a council was convened to inquire into the state of the navy; and then orders were rapidly issued for the most strenuous efforts in the parts most advantageous for the service. They had hunted in every corner of the world for materials. They had made contracts for ship timber in all the northern states of Europe, in America, and even in Asia: