He declared that he had voted for the Commercial Treaty ; but as soon as he had heard the Address moved, he considered it as pledging the House most unconstitutionally, and he voted against it.

Mr. Fox said, that he thanked the right hon. gentleman for having put him in mind of the Irish propositions, which he had accidentally passed over before. The Address, in that case, he contended, was in no sort similar to the Address lately voted. In the case of the Irish propositions, the Parliament of England and Ireland were in the situation of negociators, and the Crown was a sort of mediator between both. He hoped not to be deemed pedantic, when he used diplomatic allusions; but as they would best express his meaning, he would, for once, adopt them. He conceived the original Irish propositions to be a project for a treaty on the part of Ireland, and those resolutions sent over by the Parliament of Great Britain might be deemed a counter project for a treaty, the Crown being a medium of communication. The Address, therefore, had necessarily, in that case, been extremely different from the late Address. Indeed, so different as not to be in any sort capable of being drawn into comparison with it. That Address could go to nothing, since the British Parliament could not stir a step farther till they heard more from Ireland. Having explained the irrelevancy of the case of the Address to the Crown upon the Irish propositions, he would hasten to the other Irish precedent, that of 1782, relative to the repeal of the 6th of George I.; and here he could not help remarking, that, for the sake of enjoying the triumph of some pleasantry at his expense, which, no doubt, the right hon. gentleman thought too good to lose an opportunity of exhibiting, the right hon. gentleman had fixed an expression upon him which he had not used, by saying, that these were the worst of times. But, the right hon. gentleman by such means was enabled to pursue his play upon words, and to talk of precedents in the best of times, and the next best of times but one; an expression he had likewise never used. [The Chancellor of the Exchequer said across the table, That was my mistake, and I stated it to be so.] Mr. Fox said, Oh, then, the right hon. gentleman made a mistake on purpose to fix another pleasantry upon me. It matters not, let us proceed to the precedent. The resolutions of 1782 were never carried by

an address to the Crown, but were merely resolutions of their own, which made a very essential difference in the nature of the two cases. Indeed, to give the case of 1782 the smallest appearance of being a case in point, the right hon. gentleman had found it necessary to abandon the Journals of the English House of Commons, and have recourse to the Journals of the Irish House of Commons. The right hon. gentleman had dwelt a good deal on the irregularity of the duke of Portland's mode of treating for a new constitution, and contended that what might be highly unjustifiable in a minister when the constitution of Ireland was settled, was of a different complexion as matters then stood. The right hon. gentleman had pointed this part of his argument personally at him, forgetting in the first place that he had not at any time been very much in the habit of finding fault with that administration, and that a noble marquis (for whom the right hon. gentleman used to profess strong sentiments of respect and regard, however altered those sentiments might now be), had an equal share in the measure with himself. He had no objection, however, to take the whole of the responsibility upon himself; and if the whole transaction had been to do over again, and he were asked if he would act the same part and instruct the Lord-lieutenant in the same manner, he would answer, he certainly would, under the same circumstances; for, he considered Ireland as then making out her declaration of right, which was to form the basis of the new constitution she was treating for He instanced as a parallel case, the conduct of the Convention Parliament, while they were holding out their declaration of right as the terms of their treaty with the future sovereigns, William and Mary.

Mr. Pitt was glad the right hon. gentleman was, at last, willing to state the Irish propositions, and the British resolutions upon them, as a project for a treaty and a counter project: with that description of the business he was perfectly contented, and hoped the right hon. gentleman would remember, that he was himself the author of that character of the business. He insisted upon it, that the case of 1782 was in point, and declared that the right hon. gentleman had been so far from defending his own argument, that he had even been glad to defend a noble marquis whom, on most occasions, he had

been eager to abuse and to attack. With regard to that noble marquis, in many parts of his conduct, he thought no character more entitled to his respect and his esteem; and in one great and signal instance he was entitled to the thanks of the House and the gratitude of his country. After this tribute of praise to lord Lansdowne, Mr. Pitt entered into the precedent of 1782, declaring his opinion of it to be, that it was extremely irregular at the least, and a more violent deviation from the forms of Parliament than the Address lately voted, which was supported by precedent, which did not pledge the House in any degree, but, on the contrary, did no more than assure his Majesty, how far they had proceeded in compliance with his royal recommendation from the Throne. He stated the history of the precedent of 1782, and denied that the parallel between the conduct of the Convention Parliament and the conduct of the Parliament of Ireland were analogous; observing, that Ireland had, in 1782, a complete legislature of King, Lords, and Commons, and might just as well have done by bill, regularly and formally, what it did by resolution and address. He must remind the right hon. gentleman, that at that time he and the noble marquis had, as it were, run a race with each other, who should be the first to get the resolutions passed in both Houses, and communicate them to the Parliament of Ireland.

Mr. Sheridan begged leave to call to the recollection of Mr. Pitt, that he (Mr. S.) had on a former occasion charged him with having not only brought in a bill differing in the vital part of the system, in the permanency of it, from the resolutions grounded on the Irish propositions, but had asserted, that the Secretary in Ireland had also brought in a bill there, differing as much from the English bill; and that the Chancellor of the Exchequer of Ireland had laid great stress in his argument on the circumstance, that the Irish Bill did so essentially differ from the Bill sent over from England. The right hon. gentleman had formerly said, he no longer should consider himself as useful to his country, if he could not carry the measure respecting Ireland through. Mr. Sheridan ridiculed some words which, he declared he had taken down, as the reason assigned by the right hon. gentleman in justification of the Address; viz. that such a visionary and abominable style

of argument had been taken by Opposition against the Commercial Treaty, that it became necessary, as soon as possible, to carry the Resolutions up to the Throne with an Address, in order to convince the people that Parliament was not swayed by such sort of argument. The considerable majority the Treaty had been carried by, might sufficiently have operated to show, that however forcible the arguments of his right hon. friend had intrinsically been, they had not been allowed to have much weight within those walls: since, however, so new a reason to justify an address had been stated, he would advise the right hon. gentleman, another time, not to rest the justification of his address upon a casual intimation in the course of his speech, but to confess the fact, and to declare it in express words in the preamble of the Address itself. He should not therefore wonder to see very shortly an address beginning thus: "Whereas the right hon. Charles James Fox has used certain abominable arguments of a nature tending to convince the public of the fallacy of the measures now pursuing," &c. &c.-Mr. Sheridan now begged leave to notice what the right hon. gentleman had said of minorities, and declared that the right hon. gentleman had been in the only situation in a minority, that could make a man's voting in a minority contemptible; viz. the holding his office as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and nevertheless voting in a minority such a situation was not only contemptible, but unconstitutional; besides, it proved that, great even as his respect for majorities, and ardent as his love of them was, his love of office was greater, since the fact established, beyond all possibility of contradiction, that possession of office was his first of all objects.- Mr. Sheridan at length returned to the immediate question, which he particularly pressed upon the House, instancing the general mode of proceeding throughout the business; and in particular the blending the French Treaty and the consolidation of duties, in one bill, as unanswerable proofs that it was right to come to some general resolution in order to guard the constitution against dangerous and unnecessary innovation; for the Address could not forward the carrying the Treaty into effect a single day, because it could neither open our ports to French ships, lower the duties, nor in any degree smooth the way to the opening of a commercial intercourse: such a resolution could not, in the first

instance, be denied to be true, and if that were universally admitted, could any one time be assigned as a more fit moment for putting it upon their Journals, than immediately after their having voted an unconstitutional address to the Crown, and after the contradictory conduct of the right hon. gentleman, who had, in the early progress of the business, argued as if it were right to pledge the House, and had asked what reason could be assigned, why it should not be pledged after having so far considered the Resolutions, and approved of them? But finding that such doctrines shackled his favourite majority; and that it was likely to diminish, he had in a late debate changed his note, and at an advanced time of the night, in a most equivocal speech, argued that the Address only pledged those who were prepared to be pledged, but that it did not pledge gentlemen who did not choose to admit they were pledged. This sort of doubleedged speech ought to be fixed to some certain standard, and the Resolution that his right hon. friend had moved, would have that effect.

The Attorney General declared, that he meant not to go into the wide field of argument that had been taken on topics wholly foreign to the subject under consideration. With regard to the marquis of Lansdowne, if any part of his public conduct had been called in question, he was persuaded his right hon. friend would have stood up and done the noble marquis justice; but when such groundless insinuations, such distant hints to his prejudice, such attempts, at it were, to whisper away the noble marquis's character, were made, no man would think it became him to rise, and by entering into a serious defence, in effect countenance what ought only to be treated with contempt: for his own part, he felt very great respect for the noble marquis; he had been exceedingly obliged by him when he had done him the honour to call him, in an humble station indeed, into that administration of which the noble marquis was at the head; and as the noble marquis had done his country the most signal service that any one minister had of late years conferred upon it, whenever that part of his conduct was called in question, he would think it his duty to rise and do him all the justice which he desired. Having said this, Mr. Attorney contended that the hon. gentleman had not made out that the Address did pledge the House, and had asked, when would be [VOL. XXVI.]

the fit time for voting the present Resolutions, if that were not the fit moment? The fit moment would be, when ministers should, hereafter, use the Address as an argument to induce gentlemen to vote without deliberation, and pretend that it pledged them to vote for the Bill or Bills without discussion of any kind-that was the only moment when the Resolutions would be justifiable, because the words of the amendment would in that case be made out, and it would then be necessary. There was, indeed, one other time when it would also be fit to vote such Resolutions, and that was, when any attempt should be made in another place to use the Address unconstitutionally, and there to cite it, as pledging future votes and precluding deliberation.

Mr. Bearcroft said, that he had not heard any argument that appeared to be decisive in favour of the motion. A great deal had been said about pledging: he had hoped to have heard the word pledging' defined and explained. If the House would give him leave, he would endeavour to define it. He took pledging to mean the binding down a person to the performance of some specific act. Did the Address pledge the House in any such manner? He conceived, that it did not, nor any thing like it. His Majesty, in his Speech from the Throne, had signified to the House that he had concluded a commercial treaty with France, and his Majesty stated the reasons which had governed his conduct in that particular, and recommended it to the House to take the proper steps for carrying the Treaty into effect. That House, in consequence of this recommendation, and on principles of respect and duty to the Crown, had taken it into their serious consideration. They had discussed the principle of the Treaty, examined every article of it, and deliberately debated the whole for six days together, and having come to certain resolutions confirming the various articles of the tariff, they had voted an address, thanking his Majesty for having made the Treaty, declaring that they coincided in sentiment respecting its probable advantages, and avowing their resolution to take the proper steps for carrying the Treaty into effect. This appeared to him to be the proper proceeding of the House in that stage of the business, and by no means liable, in fair construction, to be considered as amounting to a pledge upon the House, depriving it of its deliberative powers, or [2X]

vent the party to be impeached, from quitting the kingdom, disposing of his property, alienating any sums of money, or taking any other step to evade the ends of justice. Mr. Burke said, that one circumstance which pointed out this, or some such proceeding, as absolutely necessary, was his having heard, that within a short time one of the gentlemen from India, against whom some proceedings of a serious nature would be proposed to be instituted, had sold out of the public funds very considerable sums of his property.

Major Scott observed, that as the right hon. gentleman had made no motion relative to the impeachment, he should reserve what he had to say on that subject until it came regularly before the House; but as he had mentioned a circumstance which might be misunderstood by the House, he begged to say a few words by way of explanation. The right hon. gentleman had said, that a considerable sum of money had lately been sold out of the public funds; it was true, he did not say that any of the stock belonged to Mr. Hastings, yet he was afraid the House, without an explanation, might so understand it. The major then declared, upon his honour, that he was confident he knew much more of the state of Mr. Hastings's private fortune than he did himself; and he assured the right hon. gentleman and the House, that Mr. Hastings had not sold out a shilling of stock from any fund; that he had but 2,000%. in the funds; that the remainder of his fortune was upon mortgages, on one estate in Shropshire, and on another in Kent, besides a set of bills upon the EastIndia Company. The whole of Mr. Hastings's fortune, taken together, the major avowed upon his honour, did not exceed 50,000l.

charges? The principle adopted by the House in the commencement of the business, was, that they should proceed separately to vote such articles as seemed to them to contain impeachable matter, not holding themselves bound to vote the impeachment itself upon any one, or any given number of such articles, but reserving a discretion to itself, of taking the whole body of the charges so found by them into one general consideration, and determining upon such general view,

whether on the whole there was sufficient ground for sending up an impeachment. In pursuance of this principle, the object for gentlemen to turn in their minds, prefatory to their vote on the proposed motion, would be, whether the articles already voted by the House, were in themselves sufficient to justify an impeachment.

Mr. Burke declared, that he had not insinuated that Mr. Hastings had sold out any part of his property. The person to whom he had alluded, was sir Elijah Impey; but he begged to have it remembered, that he had barely stated to the House, that he had heard so: he was not bound, therefore, to prove the fact. With respect to the impeachment of Mr. Hastings, he certainly did not mean to abandon the articles that remained to be investigated, nor to rest the impeachment solely on the finding of the committee of inquiry, that there was matter of charge in the two articles already examined. The rest of the charges contained facts of a nature highly criminal, and he had little doubt but that the greater part of them would be established to the conviction of the committee: if, however, no one of the remaining articles should be determined to contain matter of charge, he should nevertheless think, that there was ample ground for impeachment in the two articles already decided. But what he had said, was, not that he should do either of the things already alluded to, but that if the House should be of opinion with him to proceed with the impeachment, that then he should lodge the charge with the House of Lords, accompanying it with a notice, that the Commons were preparing the articles.