of all the naval events of the year 1781, | and asserted, that the whole was one continued series of proofs of the ignorance, incapacity, want of exertion, and want of prudence of ministers. His grace contradicted lord Sandwich's account of the British and French force, and declared that the noble lord had greatly misrepresented it. Viscount Stormont observed, that the question was divided into two parts, the irst of which was only then before them; but as the other was meant to follow, if he first succeeded, he should consider oth together. His lordship then went ato a discussion of the several calls upon ninisters to attend to very distinct and ifferent services in the year 1781. He aid, Gibraltar ought to be relieved at the me that the noble duke and other noble rds, who had supported the motion, had serted, that a larger naval force ought have been sent to America. That prerence of service was a matter of doubtful olitical expediency, and ministers could nly act, previous to any event taking lace, to the best of their judgment. So ng, therefore, in a crisis like that alluded , as ministers acted with a good intenon, and as matters then stood, with a rong probability that the measure they ad adopted, was the most fit for them to lopt under the circumstances that served a guide to their conduct, they appeared this mind by no means to merit censure; a the contrary, he was persuaded, they ere entitled to the approbation and lanks of their country. With regard to I. de Grasse's fleet, it was not possible or them to imagine, that so large a fleet ould leave so large a convoy, and proeed directly to America, in order to trike a capital blow at once, and capture he army under lord Cornwallis. Had ainisters been apprized of such an intenion, they would then have been highly riminal, had they not taken proper mea. ures to have prevented it. The Duke of Richmond noticed the oble viscount's expression, that to deermine which would have been the wisest tep to have taken, whether to have sent a arge force to oppose M. de Grasse, or to ave sent to relieve Gibraltar, was a matter f doubtful political expediency. His race declared his opinion was directly he reverse; he thought it was by no means a matter of doubtful political exediency; ministers ought, without hesition, to have sent to meet and oppose M. de Grasse, since they either did or ought to have known that he had sailed. And as to the noble lord's declaring, that they had no conception that the French would do so magnanimous a thing, as to collect their naval force, trust their fleet of transports, &c. to some degree of risk, and go to strike an important blow against our force in America, if ministers could acknowledge that they really had never thought it possible, he should think ten times more contemptibly of them than he ever imagined he should have done. His grace asked, why admiral Darby had not been ordered to detach from Gibraltar to the West Indies, after he had relieved the garrison? Even then it would not have been too late for some of our men of war to have arrived in the West Indies before M. de Grasse, whose fleet was encumbered with a large, heavy, and slow-sailing convoy. He spoke to a variety of naval events, particularly that of admiral Darby's going with his fleet off Cork, in order to be joined by the victuallers. Every naval man he had talked to on the subject, had expressed his surprize at admiral Darby's not having rendezvoused at Plymouth, and ordered the victuallers to have come to him there, or to have joined him at sea. His grace enumerated our losses, and particularly mentioned Minorca. He said, if ministers did not mean to relieve the garrison there, or could have done so, it would have been wise to have given it up. Nay, he would say more; after it was besieged, it would have been more humane and laudable, had they even sent out an order for general Murray to have surrendered it; it would have saved blood, and not have taught the army to despair of any the least care of them being taken by ministers. He applied to lord Sandwich, and asked him if he thought it honourable, nay, if he thought it honest to continue in his office, after he knew that 217 members of the House of Commons had expressed their strong disapprobation of his conduct? The noble lord knew, that one half of the people, at least, disapproved of him as a minister, and wished him out of office; he ought, therefore, to retire, and obey their inclinations. His grace concluded with earnestly entreating ministers not to trust too long to their majorities, but to comply with the wishes of the people in time. If they did not, he feared, the people would be provoked to enforce those wishes in starts and irregular sallies, in a manner that might lead to confusion, and do a great deal more harm than good. The question having been put, on the duke of Chandos's motion, the committee divided. Contents, 37; Not Contents, 72. bouring under the heavy censure compre- Debates in the Lords on the Advancement of Lord George Sackville Germain to the Peerage.] Feb. 7. The Marquis of Carmarthen rose and said, that he under-mission and instructions directed to obey, stood a person who had in his military character been publicly degraded, was shortly to be called up to that House. He did not mean to dispute the prerogative of the crown; but he thought the creating such a person a peer was a disgrace to the House. He felt so in his own breast, and he trusted every one of their lordships would be impressed with feelings of a similar nature. He called therefore upon the House for instruction and assistance; he knew not what sort of motion to frame, nor what step it would be regular to take, previous to the disgrace falling upon the peerage, to mark their sense of the circumstance; and in doing this, he solemnly protested he was actuated by no motive of a political or a personal nature; he sincerely pitied the individual who laboured under such a heavy load of stigma, as in his mind was contained in the sentence in question, a copy of which he held in his hand. It was on that account, and that only, that he thought it a dishonour to the peerage to have such a person made a member of it. If the sentence had been altered upon a revision of the facts that came out on the trial, and done away, as much too severe; in short, if the marked disgrace it affixed on the person made the subject of it, was removed in any way whatever, he should think all objection removed instantly, but while the sentence remained in full force, he could not but conceive it to be an ample reason for their lordships coming to some resolution, expressive of their opinion upon it. This feeling struck his mind, as soon as he heard the report, and he had communicated it only to one man living, though he had that morning conversed with noble lords, then in the House, on other topics; so conscious was he that the bare mention of it would be sufficient to induce every one of their lordships to feel, as men jealous of their honour must necessarily feel on such an occasion.-Finding no peer rise immediately, his lordship got up again and moved, "That it is derogatory to the honour of this House, that any person la as commander in chief, according to the rules of war; and it is the farther opinion of this Court, that the said lord George Sackville is, and he is hereby adjudged, unfit to serve his Majesty in any military capacity whatever.' Which sentence ha Majesty has been pleased to confirm. ' is his Majesty's pleasure, that the abo sentence be given out in public order that officers, being convinced, that ther high birth nor great employmen can shelter offences of such a natura and, that seeing they are subject to ce 'sures much worse than death, to a ma who has any sense of honour, they may avoid the fatal consequence arising from disobedience of orders,'-should be re commended to the crown to be raised u the dignity of a peerage." The Lord Chancellor left the woolsack, and informed the House, that he felt it t be his duty to state to their lordships, that it would be, in his mind, altogether ine gular and disorderly, even to put such motion, as that which he held in his haud The motion turned altogether upon a face, by no means before the House, and sure it would be extremely hard, and very consistent with their lordships' usual libe rality and candour, to annex so severe i censure, as the censure of that House, to a sentence supposed to have passed on a certain person therein named, at a partcular given time, but to all which fact, viz. the demerits of the party that called upon him such a sentence, to the sitting! of the court-martial, to their having clared such a judgment, and to the other matters stated in the supposed circular order, the House was at that moment, in point of parliamentary form, utter strai gers. Having stated this, his lordship submitted it to the noble lord, whether it was such a motion as he in his cooler con sideration would wish to have inserted on the Journals? Lord Denbigh objected to the motion, as very extraordinary, and altogether w precedented. His lordship stated, that the court-martial was held when a parti 1 cular complexion of politics prevailed in the cabinet; that only four years after wards, when a different administration came in, the noble lord aimed at by the present motion was, at the desire of that administration, restored to his seat in the privy council, an evident proof that the ministry of that day (the chiefs of whom were now in opposition) thought the noble lord's advice of great importance to the state. He had since been distinguished is a minister worthy of his sovereign's conidence. The crown undoubtedly had a ight to bestow the honours of the peerage sit thought proper, and conceiving the notion to be altogether unnecessary, he hould conclude with moving to adjourn. The Earl of Abingdon said, the person ho was the subject of the motion, had een the greatest criminal this country ver knew. He had not only disobeyed e orders of his commander in chief, hen in a military capacity, but he had een infinitely more guilty in his civil situaon of late years. He had been the auor of all the calamities of the war, and ll the distresses which Great Britain now roaned under. It was to his blood-thirstiess, his weakness, his wickedness, and his ismanagement, that the war had been rosecuted at so large a waste of blood and easure, and with such a miserable repetion of ill success. He, therefore, ought ot to be suffered to come into that House, nd contaminate the peerage. The Duke of Richmond said, certainly he noble earl had a right to move the question of adjournment upon the motion; ut if the ministry suffered a matter of so nuch importance to be got rid of in that nanner, they would act more contemptily than even he could have thought them capable of. He was astonished at their silence on a motion of that kind, and still nore at their acquiescing in the motion of adjournment. Was he the person in question, made the subject of the motion, he should think himself extremely ill used, and complain loudly of such treatment. For God's sake, bad not ministers a single word to say in defence of their colleague? Were they so much at variance with each other, that when a matter of this kind came on, they neither dared meet the motion with defiance, nor attempt to palliate the imputed guilt of their brother minister? Would it not be wiser to debate the motion, than pitifully to move an adjournment? He was most heartily ashamed of the conduct of ministers that day. Viscount Stormont said, he knew not that the noble lord in question stood in need of any defence. With regard to the present motion, it clearly trenched upon the prerogative of the crown; it trenched upon a right inherent in the sovereign, which even the noble marquis, who made the motion, had felt himself obliged to confess was indisputable. He knew of no disqualification for the peerage short of legal disability; and therefore, when any other was attempted to be urged within those walls, he should consider it as an unconstitutional attack on the prerogative, and should always be of opinion that a mo tion for adjournment was the proper way of getting rid of it. The Marquis of Carmarthen said, he had drawn up the motion hastily, and therefore it might possibly be liable to the charge of incorrectness. He begged, that their lordships would recollect, that he had desired their assistance. With regard to the argument of the noble lord in the green ribbon, that nothing short of legal disability ought to excite the alarm of the House, perhaps the noble lord was not aware how far that argument went. It was rather ludicrous to adduce such an instance, but according to the same mode of reasoning, the King's chimney-sweeper might be made a peer, and undoubtedly the right to create such a peer was inherent in the prerogative of the crown; ought such a creation therefore to take place? Undoubtedly, the noble earl had a right to move the question of adjournment, but this he would assure their lordships, ministers should not get rid of his motion that way, for he was determined to make it from day to day, till something satisfactory was done upon it. The Earl of Abingdon declared, since legal disability was all that would do to prevent the House from being tainted with the admission of such a member, if he was sent up there, he would do his business, as he had, in his own house, ample materials to make the ground-work of an impeachment, and which he would certainly produce, if the person in question attempted to come among them. The earl declared, he hoped there were those in the House, who were ready to run to their master, and give him an account of what had passed that day upon the subject. If they gave him a true account, probably the effect would be, a rescue of the House from the contamination they were threatened with. The Earl of Shelburne said, it gave him extreme pain to take any part in the present debate, and the more so, because very early in life, before he was of an age to be a member of either House of Parliament, and before he knew enough of the world, to discover of how very little importance to mankind it was, that so insignificant an individual as he was, made one of the number of society, he had suffered many professional injuries from the person who was the subject of the debate. Smarting with a sense of those injuries at the time, a sort of enmity had taken place between him and the person in question; from the moment, however, that he saw the sentence of the court-martial, and the orders which had been read to the House, and which now made a part of the motion, he called upon God Almighty to witness, that he had neither privately nor publicly, directly nor indirectly, in thought, word, or deed, done that person the smallest injury, or bore hard upon him on any occasion whatever. Indeed, his moderation in that respect had more than once been noticed to him by his friends, and he had experienced opportunities of explaining to those, who put the matter to him, the reasons of his conduct. He hoped therefore, that what he should now say, would not be imputed to the latent seeds of an old hatred of twenty years standing; solemnly protesting, every spark of that animosity was extinguished. He said, however unpopular the opinion might be, he had not the smallest objection to the King's being his own minister. He did not know, but the King's having an opinion of his own, and feeling his interest in the management of the affairs of the realm, might be better for the general weal than his remaing a type of a mere king of Mahrattas. For fear their lordships might not know what a king of Mahrattas was, from not having lately read so much of the history of India, its government, and its customs, as he had done, he would inform their lordships, that a king of the Mahrattas was a mere no minal monarch; he had his pechaw, a cabinet who were efficient, and who, to all intents and purposes, held and directed the reins of government, while they kept the king locked up, and in pretty nearly a state of ideotism. He declared, in every moment of his life, he had ever endeavoured to treat his Majesty with that profound respect due to his person, and with that reverence so infinitely due to his situation. His loyalty had remained the firmest principle in his bosom, and in all situations, and on all occasions, he had studiously kept the duty of a faithful and respectful subject in view. He migh therefore, he hoped, be permitted, with out charge of the smallest indecency, t say, that when the prerogative was exer cised to its fullest extent, he wished to God to see the parliament free. A high toned prerogative prince, and a servile corrupt parliament, was the strongest symptom of despotism and tyranny. He could not, therefore, but anxiously wish to see a perfect representation of the people, and when that happy time arrived he should be grounded in entertaining reasonable expectation of better prospects It had been imagined, that the House Peers had it not in their power to righ itself against the extraordinary stretches of prerogative. The supposition w founded in error. An author, whose works he had read some years since, the chief of which was a book upon the peer« age, written by lord chancellor West pretty clearly evinced to his mind, that there were latent powers belonging to the House of Lords, which if called forth by sufficient occasion, and duly and spiritedy exercised, were equal to the correcting of any abuses of the prerogative that might be attempted. A noble earl had termed the present a very extraordinary motion. Good God! were not these very extraordinary times? Who would have owned himself so gloomy in his ideas some year ago, as to have acknowledged, that he even imagined it possible, that a day would have arrived, when that House should have resolved to institute an enquiry into the cause of the surrender of a second army into the hands of the Ame ricans, and that it should have been a matter of doubt and debate in that House, whether they ought or ought not to admit a motion to pass in its original form, be cause some of the words seemed to carry in them a recognition of the independence of America! No man, the wisest that ever existed, would have pretended to have foreseen a possibility of two such events happening in the course of one day? His lordship took notice of its havng been said, that lord George Germain was restored to the privy council by the Rockingham administration. He declared he had not been a member of that admiistration, though he was free to say, it vas composed of able and honest men. When he agreed to take a situation soon fterwards, he excepted to the measure lluded to. A noble earl, now no more, ith whom he had been in the habits of ving on terms of great familiarity, had xcepted to the measure likewise, and he erfectly recollected, that when it was ressed upon the noble earl to pursue the erson now alluded to in the House of ommons, and to make his expulsion a onsequence of his disgrace, the noble arl, with that wisdom and sagacity that er marked his conduct, refused to do ), and that for the wisest reasons. He membered, that the noble earl, on being esired by a person of great authority to aforce the weight of government against e noble lord, refused to do so for very od reasons; he was answered in these ords: "Well, Sir, I wish you much joy the company you choose to keep. The reason why the earl refused to aim le vengeance of government against the arty in question, was no other than the onsideration that the noble lord repreented a family borough, and their lordips well knew what family boroughs ere. Had the party been expelled the louse, the earl wisely argued, how was e to know that he might not be chosen nd rechosen again and again, in spite of epeated expulsions? His lordship said, here was an essential difference between he person in question being allowed to it in the other House, and being suffered o come up there. There was a great istinction surely between the one House nd the other, however the other House night entertain a different idea. In its eal constitutional point of view, no man hought more highly of the House of Commons than he did; it was then a ruly respectable, a truly useful branch of he legislature; but when sunk into coruption; when it became the mere creaare of the minister, and affected to be a ind of septennial nobility, without the eal dignity, and a lesser aristocracy with ut the means, the situation, and the real ersonal interest in the state, it became an object of public contempt, and an instrument of public danger. With regard to the person now designed to be created a peer, he called upon the learned adviser of the crown, and asked, why, when it was first thought of to make that person a secretary of state, those who had held such a strong language of "Kill them, or they'll kill you;" and who had declared, "We had passed the Rubicon," before any other person knew we were seriously at war with America, had not acted in conformity to their high-sounding tone, and made their actions accompany their words? why they had not behaved like men of integrity, and gone to the sovereign, and advised him honestly and wisely, to employ those men only as instruments in the planning, direction, conduct, and execution of an attempt of such infinite importance, as an attempt to recover America, who were the most unexceptionable in every respect, both here and in America, and the most likely to prove successful instruments in the greatest work this nation ever took in hand. In appointing the noble lord to the secretaryof-state-ship, and intrusting him with the management of the war, they in a manner began the war with the grossest insult to America that could possibly have been devised. The House divided on the question of adjournment. Contents 61; Proxies 14; Total 75. Feb. 18. The Marquis of Carmarthen rose to make a motion, respecting the creation of lord George Germain a peer of that House. The marquis began with saying, that no gentleman could be more anxious to preserve the prerogative of the crown, than himself; yet, he must entreat their lordships to consider, that the honour and purity of the House, were all that served to convey to the world in general, that idea of weight, importance, and dignity, which they had hitherto held, and which he heartily hoped, their lordships would ever continue to preserve in the eyes of all mankind. From the noble lord who was the object of his motion, he was ready to acknowledge, he had received civilities, while he was himself about the court, in a particular situation, although he had never lived with him on terms of very great intimacy. He should now proceed to state a motion, tending to censure those of his Majesty's |