content.

Peace, however, was now said to be near. Perhaps he thought it was near, but he did not think so on account of the message from the throne. He thought so because ministers felt the sense of the country to be declared against the war; because, however they might affect to misrepresent the feeling of the country in their speeches, they felt in their hearts, that there was not one man in the kingdom, the race of money-jobbers, contractors, and interested persons only excepted, who was not sick of the war, as well as of the miserable pretexts for carrying it on. He thought, therefore, that to fix ministers to the point, they should adopt the amendment, which contained a much more clear and specific declaration than that contained in the address. He knew thst it was a vulgar opinion, and surely it was the most vulgar of all vulgar opinions, that the proposers of a negociation, always stood the worst chance in that negociation. He wished to know one instance in which this had ever been the case. In the present circumstances of Great Britain and France, he thought the advantage was evidently on the side of the proposers. For in both countries there was an evident desire for peace in the great body of the people; so that it would be impossible for the executive government of either country to reject any proposals which might be made, if they were not altogether unreasonable. If, therefore, at this moment, we were to make proposals to France, if they were not grossly dishonourable, their committee of directory and council of ancients, would not dare to refuse them, because, by refusing them, they know that they would lose the confidence and respect of the people.

The right hon. gentleman had not thought it necessary to open his motion for the address, with any exposition of the reasons why the message had been

A rise in the funds that day of 5 or 6 per cent. He came therefore now to a material part of the present inquiry. Why had not the right hon. gentleman made known the substance of this message before, or at least why not stated his reasons in justification of doing it at this most suspicious moment? It had been the good practice till his time, of closing the loan only the day before it was opened to parliament. If the right hon. gentleman had made his loan in that way, he must acknowledge that with the words of this message in his pocket, he ought to have made terms materially different. If he had this message in his mind, and felt himself bound not to make an open loan, in what predicament did he stand? Messrs. Boyd and Co. very handsomely left it to him to propose the terms; then, with the knowledge of this intention, ought he not to have made a bargain upon the ground of the impression which this message was calculated to make? Were the circumstances of the country such, that he was bound to make the bargain a week before he opened it? Perhaps the suspicion was well founded, that his secret contract with the gentlemen, on account of bills coming due on the 10th of December, stipulated that the bargain should be made before that day. But he called upon every gentleman who heard him to say, if he could believe it possible, that any change could have happened so material as to justify the concealment of this intimation until after he had made his bargain, and then to bring it forth to swell the bonus to such a height; or, if any circumstances had arisen to justify the concealment then, and the intimation now, to say why the right hon. gentleman should not be called upon to state them. A loss had been suffered by the public of not less, on the meanest computation, than 150,000l. This had been put into the pockets of persons who talked loudly of their independence,

and of the disinterested support they gave to ministers. It was not his practice to impute any thing personally corrupt to the right hon. gentleman, and he did not impute to him any thing of the kind now; but he did think that, in decency and in duty, in regard to himself as well as to the country, he was called upon to explain this extraordinary transaction. It was a direct robbery upon the public of 5 or 6 per cent. upon the whole loan, if with the knowledge of his intention he made his bargain without a public declaration of the change that had taken place; and he must prove that he did not know of this change but a week before he declared it. The change however was now announced. He trusted the declaration would not have the fate of former declarations. He should rejoice in the day of peace, come when it would. When it did come, he should certainly be thankful; but he should by no means consider the restoration of peace as superseding the necessity of an inquiry into the origin, principle, and conduct of the war. For if this were neglected, it might establish a precedent upon which any minister might undertake a war without principle, conduct it with incapacity, and be acquitted of all his misdeeds immediately upon the patching up a peace. He trusted that with the return of peace, we should also have a return of the constitution. He should truly rejoice if, with the blessings of peace, we were also to have the next desirable blessing, that of freedom, of which we were about to be deprived. With regard to some persons in the cabinet, with whom he had been long in the habits of agreement and friendship, he knew not what effects peace was to produce upon them. They had differed upon the principles of the present war. If peace should put an end to the differences between them, and restore them to their former habits of thinking and acting he should undoubtedly see the day with peculiar sensibility. He owned, however, that he had very little expectation of such an event. However that might be, he should ill discharge his duty to his country, if he did not steadily resolve to do his utmost to bring ministers to a strict account for all the calamities that this war had engendered. He sat down, begging not to be understood as opposing the address, or disapproving of the sentiments is contained. He only wished that it had gone as far as the amendment

which had been proposed by his hon. friend.

Mr. Secretary Dundas asked, whether any human being could give the gentlemen opposite credit for their professions of anxiety for a peace, when they proposed an amendment to the address, which they knew must be against the sense of the majority of the House? Was such an amendment calculated to accelerate the blessings of peace: or was it intended to serve the purposes of a party? If ministers were tied down by the authoritative injunction of parliament to make a peace, with what success could they treat? They must say to the enemy, we wish to negociate, and we hope you will grant us favourable terms, but whether you do or not, we must make some peace or other. What terms the enemy would grant, in a treaty commenc ed under such circumstances, he would leave the House to determine. All that he contended for was, that as ministers were responsible for the advice they gave his majesty, their judgment should be left unfettered. If this argument was just, did it not apply strongly against the present amendment, the necessary effect of which would be to bind up the hands of the executive power, and to throw the country at the mercy of France? There was one mode of debating, which gentlemen opposite uniformly made use of, and against which he desired most seriously to protest. In the course of a debate they brought forward some misrepresentation, either of the arguments or of the intentions of administration, and having once introduced the misrepresentation they never gave it up. It was of no use to deny their assertions-it was of no use to refute their arguments; for in every succeeding debate, the charge was renewed with as much boldness as if it had never been contradicted. One of these misrepresentations was, that ministers had commenced and carried on the war, for the purpose of restoring the ancient despotism of France. In vain had ministers denied the charge; it was still pressed upon them and even now, when they thought the government of France was safely to be treated with, they were accused of having given up the grounds upon which they commenced the war, and of having totally changed their system. As far as related to himself, he declared it as his opinion, that it would be happier for France and for Europe, if we had now to

treat with a monarchy instead of the present form of government. But did any one expression ever fall from ministers which conveyed an intention of continuing the war until the monarchy of France was restored? Therefore, there was no change of opinion, no dereliction of system, to be imputed to government.-Another charge was, that ministers in objecting to treat with France, had been governed in that determination merely by the form of government which, at the time, prevailed in France, without taking into consideration the general posture of affairs. Of the injustice of this accusation he hoped to convince the House in a few words. When the right hon. gentleman made his motion for peace last year, were not existing circumstances a stronger reason against commencing a negociation than the form of government which now existed? The French were then successful on the Continent, and they became immediately possessed of all the coast. He begged to observe here, that the instant the French became possessed of Holland, the idea occurred to him of getting possession of the Cape of Good Hope. Whether government would, under any circumstances, give up that valuable acquisition, was a point upon which he should not give an opinion, except merely to say, that it would not be given up without an ample compensation. He appealed to the recollection of every gentleman, whether, at the time of which he was speaking, the whole country was not in a state of alarm; the circumstances which were expected to result from the French becoming possessed of Holland, being serious indeed? They were not at that time debating as they were now, whether it would not be expedient to decrease the number of our forces? No, all was apprehension; the whole eastern coast of the kingdom was in a state of panic. He thanked God most solemnly, that there did exist such a panic, because the result of it was, that increase of our navy, which had placed us above the reach of danger. But was there any kind of comparison between our situation then and now? At that time, from the great success of the French arms, their Republic seemed not only to be indivisible, but invincible. Had we made peace then, even if we had obtained tolerable terms, at all events France would have retained her power; and, what was perhaps still worse, they would have retained the pride

with which their successes inspired them. Were the Austrians at that time as successful as they have since been in repelling the enemy? Had Manheim surrendered, with a garrison of 9,000 men? The object of Great Britain was not to effect any particular form of government in France, but so to reduce their power, as to give a fair probability that any peace we might make should be permanent. That we had failed in some of our objects, he was ready to admit; but that the individuals employed, or that the nation had suffered any thing like disgrace he utterly denied. He would venture to assert without the hazard of contradiction, that taking into consideration the objects for which we had contended, and the nature of the enemy with whom we had to contend, this had been upon the whole a most successful war. The three objects which any statesman at the commencement of a war would wish us to attain, viz. Martinique, Cape Nicola Mole, and the Cape of Good Hope were every one in our possession. Added to these, we had succeeded in destroying the commerce of our rival, and in ruining their marine.-But the right hon. gentleman had contended, that, from the distressed state in which the French were last year, they must have been anxious for peace. So far from that assertion being true, this was the very first moment, during the whole course of the war, in which the enemy had shown any symptoms of a desire for peace. As a proof of this, he referred to the uniform language held by the Convention. He desired the House to remember the declarations of the government of France, when they made peace with Prussia. The principal motive they assigned for making peace with that monarch was, that they might turn their whole force to the destruction of England. The House must remember their declaration that the new Carthage on the banks of the Thames must be overturned. This was not the language of the Convention alone; it was heard with transport by the whole nation! nay, so general was the persuasion that that object would be accomplished, that their soldiers and sailors had filled their pockets, in imagination, with the wealth of London.-Another argument advanced by the right hon. gentleman was, that the circumstance of France having declared war against us was no proof that they were the aggressors; and that, on the contrary, we had provoked

the war. He was ready to admit, that it might happen that the party who first declared war were not the aggressors, but was that true with respect to the present war? Had not the French for some months previous to the declaration of war, been guilty of the most unprovoked aggression, from the time of the retreat of the duke of Brunswick? They hardly attempted to conceal their hostile views against the constitution of England? It was then said we might negociate. We did negociate. And what was the result? How did they explain this famous decree of the 19th November? They would not interfere in the internal concern of any any other country, unless the general sense of the people was against their go vernment, and they were invited by the majority, to give their assistance! But who were to be the judges of this general will? The French! This was all that could be obtained by negociation.-The gentlemen opposite appeared to him to talk of a peace with too much certainty. The message did not hold out an immediate promise of a peace; it only said, that we were ready to negociate, upon fair and honourable terms. He thought it necessary to say thus much, in order that he might not be accused of an attempt to delude the House and the country, if unfortunately they should not be able to attain the object they all wished. The right hon. gentleman said, that ministers represented the danger arising from seditious societies here, to be greater or less, just as it suited their argument. He had no objection to confess, that he thought the danger less now than at the latter end of 1792.-And why? Not because they had renounced their principles; not because they had decreased in numbers: but because the people had recovered from the infatuation under which they laboured, with respect to French doctrines; because the people were more upon their guard against the machinations of the disaffected; and because government had opposed bulwarks against any farther attempts they might make. He concluded with congratulating the House and the country, that we had, by courage and perseverance, arrived at that point in which we might look for a peace equally compatible with our security and our honour.

Mr. Sheridan's amendment was negatived without a division. The Address was then agreed to.

Debate in the Lords on the King's Message respecting a Negociation for Peace with France.] Dec. 10. The order of the day being read,

Lord Grenville said, he had no doubt of the disposition of their lordships to give every assistance to his majesty, conformable to the sentiments contained in his most gracious message, for the purpose of procuring a peace on safe and honourable terms. As upon this subject there could not be any difference of opinion, he should not think it necessary to do more than move an Address in answer, without entering into any argument to show the propriety of such a measure. He accordingly moved an address, similar to that which was yesterday moved in the Commons by Mr. Pitt.

The Marquis of Lansdown declared, that the great measure of peace had been long uppermost in his mind. That he might not lie under the necessity of opposing a measure which was calculated to produce so desirable an object, he would not dwell on the conduct of the war, though he remained firm in his belief that it originated in aggression on our part. Since the days of cardinal Alberoni, a design of such frantic absurdity as the object of it embraced, had never been attempted. He would not dwell on the uniform misconduct of ministers, nor the disasters which, with a few exceptions, had attended us both by land and sea. There was a time when the energy of parliament would have been exerted in inquiring into the conduct of ministers; but that energy, since the Revolution, had been gradually declining, till at present, it was entirely extinguished. If their lordships had recourse to their Journals, they would find, that from the Revolution, down to the American war, such inquiries were never refused. For the restoration of this energy, a reform in parliament was the only application that would be effectual; but this he would not press till peace produced a period proper for its agitation. Peace was the object nearest his heart, as necessary to the happiness of the people, and the safety of the country. It was a jewel which he was, at all events, desirous to secure. If he was asked, how he would obtain it, he would explain by saying, if he had a servant who robbed him of a valuable diamond, his first care would be to recover it before he accused him of ingratitude, or punished him for his crime.

Peace