[10 had authority to assure them that the member, who I can assure this House was 600004. (which was the quantum he want- in the Alley on the Monday, selling of omed) should not be taken from their share, nium, though none appears in his or his but should be in addition to what they friends' names. Mr. Byng then read a list wrote for; Mr. Harman gave a plump of capital persons who sent in offers to the refusal, explained to him the nature amount of 3,487,000l. and who had not a of their dealings, which were open; tenth, several of them great losers in the that their list was visible to all includ- year 1778. He then read a list of uped in it, invisible to the minister, that wards of two millions, who received all or there might be no distinction shewn to nearly all they asked, among whom were any particular proprietor; that all bore Messrs. Muir and Atkinson 200,0001. oband were to share their equal propor- serving that he could scarce think this was tions; that they would have just ground all they had, as he found the names of of complaint, if they saw this requisition Messrs. Smith and Sill, attornies to Mr. granted entire to him, and the rest of the Atkinson, were set down for 67,000l. and Subscribers confined to their limited shares: which he knew was not for themselves. that it was at the will of the minister to Mr. Drummond's house is set down for give or not to give them any, but that 84,000l. the credit in which that house whatever the consequences might be, they stands made me consider that sum beneath would not recede from their rules. The my expectations; more particularly when tender of this house was for two millions; I find 500,000l. in the name of Mr. Dent, they were made frequently to believe on which 500,000l. I will not comment a they were to have a half, and some- moment. When houses of great credit times amused with a hint of more, but obtain a lumping sum, we well know that at last found themselves cut down to it is for themselves, and those that lodge 560,000. But, Sir, what must their sur- their money with them. When a list prise be, when they found that 500,000l. comes in the name of any banking only was for themselves, and notwith-house, they become a security for the standing their absolute refusal, 60,000l. payment, the public are no losers, but allotted to the gentleman. Sir, they im- so far I cannot help observing the mediately went to the gentleman's resi- evil tendency of a distinction between dence, complained to him of their treat- the different banking houses. Mr. ment, insisted on his going immediately Child's house received near two thirds of with them to the minister, fully determin- the tender they made; Mr. Drummond's ed to give up all rather than lose any part about five eighths, whilst those who lodged of the credit they had always preserved by their money in other houses, partake some their plain dealing. They went to the a tenth, and others a sixteenth; this is Treasury, where, after waiting several giving a wound to the credit of those hours, they at last obtained an inter- houses, for here government tell to the view with the noble lord, or his secre- public the superior advantages to be obtary, to whom they opened their resolu- tained by lodging their money with their tion; from him they received the fullest favourites. They turn the misfortunes of assurances that the 60,000l. should be se- the country to their private advantage; it parated, and an order sent to the Bank is a direction post to the house. But, Sir, accordingly. This favoured gentleman is with regard to the third list, that of Messrs. Mr. Paul Wentworth for whom this Drummond's clerks, might I request of my 60,000l. was so concealed will be a part of hon. friend to set me right, if I should offer my duty in some future stage to expose. any names that are really not truly what I He then remarked of the 240,000l. for state them to be. He then read the names Messrs. Crofts and Co. that he verily be of clerks, in whose names subscriptions lieved 40,000. only was for the house, stood to the amount of 438,000l. the remainder for concealed members of both Houses. I understand, Sir, that a member of this House waited on the confidential secretary of the Treasury, demanding such a quantum of the loan for himself and friends, and that their names should not appear; the secretary for some time resisted, but he gave way to the terrors of this menacing I find 10,000l. set down against Mr. Maddison's name. Mr. Maddison is broker to Messrs. Drummonds; from what I can learn, he is perfectly equal to such a subscription, but to each of his clerks is allotted 25,000.; to the clerk of Messrs. Cox and Mair 25,000l.: these are a few of the concealments that I have thought proper to produce: you will be able to detect more, and expose to the public the causes, why one million has been delivered over to men, who, conscious of the grounds on which they have obtained it, are under the obligation of being secreted; their names will not bear the light. But I beg to be understood, not to arraign the subscribers in general. Capital house, responsible and respectable, are the terms that mark many houses, in my list of observations; nor do I totally condemn all subscriptions standing in the names of members of parliament; bankers and monied men may aid a loan; but if I had applied for, and obtained any part of the loan, it would have been depreciated, as I must have sent the whole to market. How many do I see in the same situation with myself? It carries a double evil, the glutting the market, and making us instruments to favour a bad bargain; and that it has been a bad bargain, let the premium, not of a day, but the premium, that no management could reduce, shew. He then read the daily price of the omnium from the 8th to the 26th of March. It even rose under the pressure of every art; and the friends of the minister used every effort to lower the credit of the nation, in order to raise his. On the Monday I almost thought they would have effected it: Mr. Atkinson's broker gave the turn by selling 100,000.; and the confidential friends sold likewise, the confidential friends without names, those who held under concealment. On the Tuesday Mr. Atkinson's broker sold another 100,000l. and the same game was continued; but on the Thursday, finding every trial insufficient, they were even reduced to the necessity of entreaties, and they called on subscribers to sell, in order that the premium might be lowered before this day. As the noble lord had served them, so ought they in their turn to serve him. This was the language of the ministerial runners. But, Sir, such was the extravagancy of the terms, that the sale of between six and seven millions could not bring it down to the wished-for level. Thus has the purse of this country been delivered over to a few, who have not had even the decency to preserve appearances. No rule to guide, but the will of individuals. No time was judged necessary, hourly alterations made; captain Laird obtained 10,000l. of the loan, who only arrived a few days before the noble lord opened his budget; but captain Laird is the friend of Mr. Atkinson: nor will you wonder at alterations made a few days before, when I am able to inform you, that alterations were made after the budget was opened. After the premium of 9 per cent. was given, the list was retained in their hands for three days, for the purpose of making these scandalous, I had almost said felonious alterations. Sir, I have now done. If I am not able to prove what I have advanced, I shall hold myself culpable to the House, to the public, and still more so to myself. I do therefore call on the noble lord, if he wishes to retain the character of an honest man, that he will not blink this matter: let us go into the inquiry, and if I prove not my assertions, I am a calumniator; if I do, then let the noble lord make some atonement to the public, at least by a confession that he has been deceived, and that he will guard himself in future against such deceivers. What I ask is for the public, not as matter of favour but of right. Let not this House, let not the representatives of the people, become parties to, and give sanction to concealment, by a vote for concealing the dark transactions of an exorbitant and corrupt loan. Earl Nugent opposed the motion, and declared it to be highly improper, dangerous, and unnecessary. All that had fallen from the two hon. gentlemen was of little or no importance. Čould they prove, or had they attempted even to insinuate, that the persons, among whom the noble lord had distributed his loan, were not responsible, or that they had not made the deposit? It was not by the distribution of a loan, but by the terms of it, and the responsibility of the subscribers, that the public could be affected. The noble lord had taken care of the two latter objects, and in the former he had undoubted discretion. The noble lord insisted much on the regard which the House ought to have to the necessities of the public. In all inquiries of this sort, they ought ever to be guided in the exercise of their power by their discretion. There were times in which it would not be safe in the House of Commons to persecute the minister for the bargains which he made, as there might be more lost by the calling the transaction to account, than there was by the occasional, and perhaps the unavoidable extravagance of the bargain. This had always been the wisdom of the House, and he trusted, that it ever would be so. But gentlemen said, that partiality was visible in the distribution of the loan. Was that scribe to the public loans; or that it was inconsistent with the duty which they owed to their constituents. The noble lord did not think that there was any injustice done to those who had lost in 1778, or in other unprofitable years, that they had none now. He did not think that any regular mode of division could be adopted without great danger and great alarm to public credit. To establish any fixed rules, whereby the distribution of the loan might be determined, and particularly to pass it into a law, that those who have been losers in one loan should have large shares in another, would lead to the doctrine of making the loans a monopoly. Upon the whole then, the noble lord entirely disapproved of the motion. a novelty? It ever was, and ever would be the case, that ministers would do more for their friends than their enemies: `ministers bad done it in former administrations; they had done it now; and ministers would continue so to do to the end of time. The hon. gentleman who spoke last, had said the other day, that he had a list of responsible persons different from the real subscribers at present, who would have taken the whole loan upon better terms for the public than those which had been granted. If that were so, he should have thought that list would have found its way to the noble lord for a share of the present loan. He had once had the honour himself to propose a loan in that House, for the duke of Devonshire, and he remembered that sir John Barnard disapproved of the terms of it, and thought them not sufficiently advantageous for the public. Mr. Beckford, at the same time, said, he could produce a list of responsible men, who would take a loan for the sum then wanted, on better terms for the public, but even sir John had disapproved of the proposal, declaring that after a minister had made a bargain, though parliament had undoubtedly a right of controul, it would be an unadvisable measure to alter the terms. And upon what had sir John founded his idea? Upon a conviction, which he stated to the House at the time, that it would hurt public credit. It would be a rub in the way of future loans, and would throw difficulties in the way of the minister in subsequent years, which might be dangerous, if not fatal to the state. This was the reason of prudence which had always governed the House in regard to loans. Undoubtedly they had the power of controul, but in better times than these they exercised it with discretion. Gentlemen now seemed offended that members should subscribe to the loan: the language of opposition in former days was very different; for then the complaint was, that the members in opposition did not get as great a share of the loan, as those in the administration: but no one at tempted then to say that members of parliament ought not to subscribe at all. He recollected very well, that on the occasion which he had mentioned, when he proposed a loan, the only complaint was, that gentlemen in opposition had scrip given to them with a very sparing hand, while it was dealt out plentifully to those who supported administration. It was quite a new doctrine, that members ought not to sub Mr. Adam opposed the motion, as illtimed and improper. He disclaimed, and recommended it to every individual on that side of the House, properly to resent those false aspersions thrown on their characters by gentlemen in opposition, who scrupled not to say they were corrupted by the profits of a subscription, and that the minister had squandered the public treasure to overturn the independency of parliament. Such calumny had been adopted without doors; it had of late got within those walls; nay, it had even found its way elsewhere, and made its appearance in a late protest, which had been entered on the Journals of another House, which he could not but regard as a very extraor dinary production indeed. Was it candid to impute to those, who took the side of government, a worse impulse than gentlemen who opposed government would submit to have imputed to themselves? There was scarcely one gentleman on the other side of the House, who had not, at one time of his life or other, been connected with an administration. When they had been so situated, did they consider themselves as acting dishonourably in participating in the honours, rewards, and emoluments of government? Surely he was using a constitutional language, when he said, that there was no disgrace in receiving such rewards, no dishonour in supporting measures after those rewards were received, as long as those measures appeared to be calculated to serve the country. He trusted that there would always be found enough of fortitude, in those who supported government, to resist such attacks; the imputations that were thrown upon them, of acting under the corruption of influence, ought to be cleared away, and he trusted they would have spirit enough to maintain, | said, was not the fact. The losers in 1778 that the fair and honourable emoluments claimed no preference. They did not of government were no improper seducers conceive that they had a right, much less of the human mind. The name of Wil- an exclusive right: all that they said was, liam Adam, which stood in that list, was that the supporters of government, having not his. He had no part nor share in the been losers in one bargain, had good realoan, either in his own, or in any other per- son to expect, that when they offered their son's name. But, he said, if he had been assistance again, they had at least equal a subscriber, he should not have considered pretensions with those who had no such it as any imputation or disgrace. He said recommendation. And when they found, further, that before gentlemen talked so themselves rejected and overlocked, they loudly of members of parliament having sought for the causes a little further than been bribed by the profitable terms of the the mere arbitrary act of refusal, and susloan, to agree to it, when proposed in the pected that the manifest partiality was House, it became them to recollect, that founded in corrupt and bad motives. What those terms were not made by members of was the fact stated? That the refusals were parliament, but the monied men of the given to men of known probity, of high mercity, the directors of the Bank, of the cantile character, of great property. The India house, and other great companies. hon. gentleman who spoke last had asked, The hon. gentleman said, that in judging "Were members to be the only men exof the terms of the bargain, it was necessary cluded from giving their support to governto look back to the time, the circumstances, ment, and deriving the advantages peculiar and the prospect of affairs, when that bar- to their abilities and professions as mergain was made. He averred, that the chants?" He was ready to admit in arguminister had made the best terms he could, ment, that they ought not to be excluded. in the situation in which he stood. The What then? Their exclusion had nothing price of the stocks at the time when the to say to the present question, which was loan was in agitation, their price since, merely directed to the terms of the loan, the state of affairs, all contributed to prove, and the distribution of it among persons that the minister had it not in his power as well without as within that House. If to make better terms for the public. As the loan was too high, in the first instance, to the charge of partiality, it might pro- that was a good ground of accusation against duce very pernicious consequences to call the noble lord. If it was too high, merely upon the noble lord to assign his reasons for the purpose of a corrupt or partial disfor having given more to one house than tribution, in order to create an undue into another; and the credit of many houses fluence, the noble lord would appear would be shaken, if, in his own vindication, doubly culpable; for it would amount to the minister should say, that he had given this: that the noble lord had committed a to every banker who had applied just as crime of a very black nature, for still a much as he thought the house should be worse purpose. The hon. gentleman alable to pay. This might be the ruin of luded to the Protest entered on the Jourseveral families; and as the committee nals of the other House. Whether the moved for, might give a deadly blow to na- facts and reasons stated in that Protest tional credit, he should give his negative were well or ill-founded, was not for him to the motion. This he should do for to say in his place in that House. many reasons, but principally because to be that as it might, he was clearly of opienquire into private characters would be nion, that the conduct of the noble lords an inquisitorial tyranny; and oppression who signed it was highly commendable; to individuals was injurious to the public. they spoke the language of honest men, Mr. T. Townshend rose principally to urged by a call of duty; and he could not take notice of some observations that had suppress his astonishment at hearing such fallen from the noble lord and the hon. a stile of animadversion resorted to upon gentleman. The noble lord had said, that such an occasion.-The hon. gentleman if the losers in the loan of 1778 were con- said, that former administrations were as sidered as intitled to a share in the present partial to their friends as the present; that subscription, it would amount in fact to a it was natural that those who supported monopoly, and establish a doctrine highly government should be partakers of its prejudicial and injurious, that those who favours; that there was nothing that dislose in one year have a right and claim to tinguished the present from those admia preference in another loan. This, he nistrations in which several gentlemen on But 2 his side of the House had been favoured. | a former debate. by the noble lord in the To this he would just observe, that loans, blue ribbon himself; beside this, there ar subscriptions, were never reckoned was the great variety of important facts among the means of gratification, by the stated by his hon. friend, and which he administrations to which he alluded. But, had pledged himself to prove. He was said the hon. gentleman, it is an illiberal not now to be told, that the bargain was aspersion upon character, to say, that irrevocable; the motion was silent on that places or pensions, douceurs or contracts, subject; it only was directed to an enare among the corrupt seducers of the quiry. He would suppose, for argument human heart. To be sure, it would be sake, that the loan was not a bad one, bighly illiberal to suspect, that a member under the several circumstances which of parliament should be seduced by the might come out in the course of the engood things of this life! It would be an quiry. He would suppose, on the same aspersion of the most unjustifiable nature! ground, that the distribution was such as What! a member of parliament! the dig- ought to have been made; but the quesnity of whose situation, and the obliga- tion, as it presented itself in its present tions of whose trust ought to raise him to shape, was not, whether the whole was a en elevation of rank among his species, fair, honourable transaction, a good barsuperior to all the little frailties and pas- gain for the public, and wisely and equisions of the heart—to suspect him of de- tably portioned out, or shared; but simpendence and servility, would be a libel ply this; whether the enormous profit on on the human race! And yet, if there was the loan, connected with the strong facts a gentleman to be found, whose conduct stated by his hon. friend, bore such a in that House had been marked by an prima facie appearance of corruption and acrimonious opposition to the measures of partiality, as to render it the duty of that the minister in the outset, and a con- House to enquire into the suspicious cirdescending approbation of them in the cumstances and facts so stated? In that end-who had been distinguished by being light, he hoped the House would consider the greatest enemy of the minister, while it; and in that light only could it be fairly he professed to be the friend; and of mak- or regularly argued. ing arguments of pretended panegyric operate as censure and satire; and from whose animadversion and reprehension the noble lord was remarked particularly to shrink: when it was observed, that such a gentleman in a critical moment abandoned, without even the formality of a reason, the friends and the principles which he had maintained, and became one of the most zealous and active partizans of that government which he previously reprobated; when it was observed, that he placed himself immediately behind the Treasury-bench, whispered the minister, and became his avowed champion; and when they saw this gentleman rewarded with a place, people could not avoid suspecting that there was something like in fluence in a thousand or twelve hundred a year; and that it was corruption, and not principle, that had converted the enemy into the friend of the minister. Such suspicions, he thought, might be entertained, without any great degree of illiberality, and without any great degree of injustice. If he understood the object of the motion right, it was for an enquiry, and the grounds on which it was applied for, were the notorious extravagance of the loan, which indeed had been acknowledged, in [VOL. XXII.] Mr. Adam said, he must be stupid and senseless, not to see what every gentleman must have seen, that the hon. gentleman had alluded to him in the course of his speech. He defied that hon. gentleman, however, or any other, to impute any charge of being under undue influence to him. When he first came into that House, he came in just of age, perfectly independent and perfectly unconnected. He opposed the minister as long as he thought the American war pursued for unjust purposes; but when the question changed, when the sole object was the maintaining the rights of the British legislature, and the preventing the independence of America, the question met with his entire approbation; but even now, if the noble lord's measures should appear to him more likely to do harm than good, he would as steadily oppose him. With regard to the place he held, it was bestowed upon him unasked, and unsought for; and so far was he from any interest in the question of the day, he had neither directly nor indirectly a share in the loan. Sir Richard Sutton said, that by going into the enquiry, it was evident the House would go into this dangerous and perse[C] |