a half are required to cover the interest of the debt which the present war has created. No one year have the people yet borne the burthen of more than three millions, so that the dreadful weight of 72 millions annual burthen which they have not yet experienced, must be added to the pressure under which they already groan. It is a principle of the constitution of this country, that the people should, as early as possible, be apprized of the burthens which they must support. The present minister, in pursuance of this principle, used to boast as a particular merit, that he faced the difficulties we had to encounter, and never concealed the burthens which we had incurred; but how as he observed that principle which he boasted as the rule of his conduct? Upon this point I refer to the documents contained in the reports of the committees before the House. From the beginning of 1795, the Bank directors were frequent and earnest in their remonstrances to the chancellor of the exchequer; they reminded him of the advances which they had made to government, and his promises of payment. These representations were uniformly answered with promises, that the advances should be repaid. These promises were never performed, and new applications for fresh advances were made. The remonstrances of the Bank were despised, and the amount of their advances continued to increase. If the whole of the correspondence between the chancellor of the exchequer and the Bank, to the moment when it was compelled to stop payment, does not excite the indignation of the House, nothing which I can add can have any effect. It has ever been held as the best means of preserving and extending the public prosperity, to face our difficulties and to meet all our expenses; here, however, the object of the minister was, by a chain of perfidy and deceit, to disguise the amount of our expense, and to conceal the real burthens of the people. Money was applied to purposes different from those for which it was granted; provision was never made for the scale of expense which was employed, the Bank of ⚫ England was forced to stop payment; and public credit was exposed to utter ruin, to supply an expenditure which parliament had not sanctioned, and to support the mischievous schemes of ministers. Had the real object of the war been fairly avowed, or the expense of it fairly

stated, peace would, long ere now, have been concluded.-I come now to consider the internal state of the country. The laws which have been passed on pretence of preserving internal tranquillity will afford an additional proof of the pernicious system on which ministers have acted; laws which I hold to be disgraceful to a free government, repugnant to the constitution, and inconsistent with the principles of the Revolution

Lord Sydney called to order, and said, that such language ought not to be applied to laws which stood upon the Statute book.

The Duke of Bedford continued. The whole system of the present administration has been incompatible with good government. Let us look to Ireland. When I speak of that country, I know not in what terms of reprobation to express my abhorrence of the system which ministers have pursued. Earl Fitzwilliam is sent out as lord lieutenant, as was understood, upon the salutary plan of making those concessions which would satisfy the expectations of the people of Ireland; he was deceived by ministers and sacrificed to their old system. On a former occasion, when I stated that earl Fitzwilliam was best calculated for securing the happiness of that country, I was accused of throwing a reproach upon lord Camden. From the reports I have heard of that noble lord, with whom I am not personally acquainted, I am led to entertain as high an opinion of his private worth as I feel upon the experience of private friendship for the virtue and worth of his predecessor. But earl Fitzwilliam went out to carry into execution a system dear to the wishes of Irishmen. Lord Camden went out to direct a system far different, and avowedly hostile to those measures which the people of Ireland were led to expect, and on which their hearts were fixed. What has been the consequence of that system which ministers chose to employ? Every attempt to coerce has only spread more widely the spirit of discontent; their blind perseverance in coercion has heightened discontent into disaffection, and endangered the connexion of the two countries. Such are the effects which were predicted from the system which ministers chose to put in practice at a time when the utmost tranquillity was said to prevail. At home we have deeply to regret the events which have taken place under the conduct of ministers.

I

with the opinion which I feel of the public measures which have been pursued, and to rouse your lordships to a sense of the evils which it threatened to produce. In the course of these exertions, I have been subjected to the foulest misrepresentation. Such treatment has never deterred me from performing my duty. I have been told that to my indiscretion was owing the disturbance which lately broke out in the fleet. Had such an event actually been owing to any conduct of mine, I should have hid my head from the world, and buried myself and my name in oblivion. When such a charge was brought forward, I expected that some proof of it would have been attempted. Yet none of these insinuations have deterred me from doing my duty. I feel it to be the duty of every man to exert himself for the advantage of his country, if his efforts can be attended with the slightest hope of success. For four years, however, I have struggled to oppose a system which I conceive to be pregnant with so much disaster. Yet, after all the arguments I could employ, and all the illustrations which experience has afforded, I have not gained a single inch for the country. In these circumstances there is nothing left but to retire. In thus retiring I hope I shall not be accused of inconsistency, if, in the course of a week or a month, I should again return. Whenever I can indulge the hope of being useful, I shall return. In acting in this manner I may be accused of folly, but at least, I shall escape the charge of inconsistency. What I have now to propose I do not bring forward with any hope of its being carried. All I ask is, that your lordships will turn it in your minds-that you will reflect seriously upon the situation of the country-that you will try to devise some means of avoiding the complete ruin with which we are threatened. By the system that has hitherto been pursued I cannot hope that the impending destruction can be averted. Some other line of conduct must be adopted. What that new system shall be I am not so presumptuous as to decide: all I desire is, that you will put an end to that from which we have already suffered so much calamity, and from which we have yet so much to dread. I therefore

Circumstances have occurred which never happened before. The first appearances of these events I do not mean to impute to ministers.-I allude to the disturbances which have lately taken place in the navy. I am aware that the subject is a delicate one, but its importance forces itself on our attention. Although we have no authentic documents upon this subject, the papers which have been circulated, contain facts of which there can be no doubt. When the mutiny first broke out, the sailors made demands, many of which, in the opinion of every one, were reasonable; others not. So far it is known that certain requests were made; to these the Admiralty made offers, which were rejected. The Admiralty then raised their offers, and the agreement was concluded. What was given, however, is thought to be reasonable, but the conduct of ministers in offering less than they afterwards granted shows that they thought this more than was reasonable. Are you then, after the examples of incapacity, which they have manifested, and the evils their measures have produced, determined to devote your country to destruction, by leaving its affairs to the conduct of men who have involved you in such complicated calamities?—I trust I have said enough to show that to the conduct of ministers we owe a great part of the calamities under which the country now suffers. I am desirous, however, to mark distinctly the grounds on which the motion proceeds. It is not merely the situation of the country, but it is the system by which the country has been governed which the motion aims to remedy: without a new line of conduct, without a new system of government, we cannot hope that things will continue upon their present footing. Various considerations present themselves upon this subject, and many changes are felt to be necessary. The most salutary of these is a change in the representation of the people. But even these changes must be nugatory without others more important. Without retrenchment and economy in every department, without correcting the abuses which prevail, and fairly looking at our situation, we cannot expect that co-operation of the country which is necessary to give effect to the vigorous measures required to extricate us from our present state of difficulty and danger.-There is only one point remaining. For four years I have endeavoured to impress the House

move:

"That an humble Address be presented to his majesty, to remind his ma jesty that his dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords spiritual and temporal in partia

loss, however, to conceive any reason for the delay which took place between the promise which was made to the seamen by the lords of the Admiralty, and the delay of the execution of their engagement. Upon this ground, he had a heavy charge to bring against ministers, confident as he was, that had the execution of the engagement immediately succeeded the promise, there would not have been a second mutiny on board the fleet.-The next point to which he came, was one of a very distressing nature, namely, the situation of Ireland. Upon this subject he had but one opinion, which was, that if there was not a complete emancipation of the Catholics, a redress of the grievances of the Protestants, a parliamentary reform, and a total change of men, that country would either be involved in civil war, or undergo a revolution, and thus another republic be added to the list of those which the wise conduct of ministers had already established in all parts of Europe. And if a revolution was to take place in Ireland, no man could doubt, but that it would soon be followed by an event of a similar nature in this country. This was as clear to him as the relation between any effect and its cause. He thought that a parliamentary reform might prevent much mischief, and an eminent statesman (Mr. Fox), in his inimitable argument in favour of the measure, might have added, in support of it, the name of lord Bacon, to those of Montesquieu and Machiavel. Having said thus much upon the state of the country, he put it to their lordships, by what means it had been reduced to that situation? Was it not by the conduct of ministers? And would they trust to those men to extricate them from their difficulties, who had brought them into the dilemma? Did they think, that having descended so low, they had virtue enough to ascend that steep and rugged path which led to restoration and prosperity? He entertained no such opinion. As well might he think, that the beautiful earth which they inhabited, and through which the most perfect symmetry prevailed, was formed according to the system of the Epicureans, by an infinity of atoms. Ministers had shown their total inability to manage the concerns of a great empire. The confidence which parliament had placed in them had been betrayed; and for parliament to continue that confidence in spite of experience, would be to betray the trust vested in it by the country.

If the address which had been moved by the noble duke was rejected, he should have the satisfaction of having done his duty in opposing it. Finding, however, all his efforts to be unavailing, he should not trouble them any longer with his attendance in that House, but should retire to fortify his own mind against approaching dangers, and to inculcate in the minds of a large family, patience and resignation to the lot which might befal them. He reminded their lordships, that it was the most beautiful part of wisdom to ac knowledge error, and recommended it to them to meet him upon that ground. He assured them, that he felt much greater comfort than all the wealth this world could confer, in the consciousness of having done his duty, in endeavouring to prevent the evil which he foresaw would tend to shake the throne and to subvert the constitution. He should consider himself as bound to lay before his sovereign the reasons for his conduct, in that closet where, he was free to declare, never one word had dropped from his lips which did not come from his heart.

The Earl of Romney asserted, that the war had always been both just and necessary; that so far from its being an unsuccessful or disastrous war, it had been exactly the reverse; and that the valour of Englishmen had never been more conspicuously displayed than in the course of it. He was convinced that the language of despondency, which had been so often resorted to in that House, had been of the greatest detriment to the cause of this country. Looking upon the war in the light he did, he could not think of voting for the Address. One passage of it alladed to the " oppressed people of Ireland." These words he thought very wrong. What would be said by the people of Ireland, if this address was voted, and it thereby got abroad, that this House thought the people of Ireland an oppressed people? This was not the time for removing ministers. If the country was wounded in its vitals, as represented, it did not signify whether it fell under this or another administration. He was of opinion, that the mutiny was owing to French gold, and that it would one day be proved to be so. If the sailors were not true to their country, our situation was desperate indeed; but if they were, then we might defy the combined attack of every nation upon earth.

The Earl of Guilford said, that we had