صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

CHAP. IV.

Free Negroes in the Island of Jamaica. - Hunted by Blood-Hounds. Motion) by Mr. Grey, in the House of Commons, for an Inquiry into the State of the Nation.-Negatived.-Farther Taxes. For paying the Interest of an additional Loan. -Mortality among the Troops fent against the French West-India Islands. Neglect and Distresses of the Troops. - Motion for Documents on these Subjects by Mr. Sheridan. Debates thereon. Mr. Sheridan's Motion agreed to.--Motion, in the House of Peers, for the Production of Papers respecting a Vote of Parliament, in 1783, recognizing the Neceffity of certain Public Reforms. Debates thereon. The Motion negatived. Report of the Committee of Supply on the Resolution for granting a. Subfidy to the King of Sardinia. - Conversation on that Subject. -Charges laid against Ministry, by Mr. Grey, as Ground of Impeach ment; and a Motion on that Subject.-Negatived.---Motions, in both Houses of Parliament, against the Continuation of the War. -Negatived.--Motion, by Mr. Wilberforce, for the Abolition of the Slave-Trade, on a

1

certain Day.-Negatived. The Seffion of Parliament closed by a Speech from the Throne

THE hoftilities against the free negroes, in the island of Jamaica, known by the denomination of maroons, had been carried on a long time without effect. The force employed against them amounted to five thousand men; but the difficulty of coming at their recefies, and frequently of discovering them, had fruftrated the repeated attempts of this force, though it had omitted nothing that valour and perseverance could fuggest: and yet, those maroons were but a handful of men, hardly confifting of fix hundred bearing arms. The improbability of compelling them to submit, by the usual methods of fighting, induced the government of Jamaica, as stated in our last volume, to have recourse to the mode adopted by the Spaniards in similar cases. It applied to the Spanish inhabitants of the island of Cuba, and obtained

from them a hundred blood-hounds, with twenty men, expert in the training and conducting of them. With this fupply, the military penetrated into the interior parts of the mountainous and woody country, occupied by the maroons, and compelled them to furrender. They were transported to the British provinces in North America.

Though, as afterwards fully appeared in the fubfequent feffion of parliament, the goverment of Jamaica had not incurred the guilt of either barbarity or breach of faith, yet an erroneous conviction, that the blood-hounds had been employed, not only to track out the maroons, but to tear and mangle them, excited a pretty general outcry. No degree of political expediency could justify the adoption of fuch a measure. Spanifla

Spanish cruelty, it was faid, afforded no precedent or excuse for English

men.

General Macleod brought this subject into the house of commons, on the twenty-fixth of February, and complained of the disgrace attending fuch a measure. He was anfwered, that it was a matter of neceffity, and not of choice; that the maroons maflacring, without mercy, every one that fell into their hands, they could be confidered in no other light than murderers, and deserved extermination by any means that could be employed to that purpose.

The general moved, however, on the twenty-first of March, for an address to the king, requesting he would direct the papers, concerning the maroon-war, to be laid before the house. He grounded his motion on a letter from Jamaica, stating the facts above-mentioned: he deScribed the maroons as a free people, proprietors of the country they inhabited. He mentioned it, as customary among the Spaniards, in Cuba, to feed their blood-hounds on human flesh, in order to render them ferocious: but could a British parliament, he said, connive at such atrocities, and encourage so inhuman a fpirit in British officers and foldiers?

Mr. Dundas replied, that the maroons had commenced hoftilities againft our people, at Jamaica, without any reafonable provocation, and had exercised great barbarities in profecuting them. It was their practice to fally forth from their fastnesses in the night, and to furprize the planters; multitudes of whom they maffacred: after which, they retreated to the woods and mountains, the paffes to which were

inacressible. In such circumstances our people could not be blamed for employing the necessary means to secure themselves, and to annoy fo ferocious an enemy. The motion, therefore, he said, was not fufficiently grounded, to comply with it, without an accurate inquiry into particulars. The mere rumour, however, he acknowledged, had induced ministry to fignify its disapprobation of fuch a measure to the government at Jamaica.

On Mr. Dundas's afsuring the general that difpatches of this tenor had been fent, he withdrew his motion: not however till Mr. Sheridan expatiated on the subject, in answer to Mr. Barham, who had represented the maroons as rebels; but whom the former justified, in their resentment of the punishment inflicted upon one of their people, who ought, according to treaty, to have been delivered up to his countrymen, to be tried and punished by them for the mifdemeanour of which he had been guilty.

In the mean time, a report was daily gaining ground, that the plans of ninistry embraced such a multiplicity of objects, that new demands would shortly be made of means to carry them into execution. Their opponents thought it expedient, for that reason, to call the attention of the public to the fituation of the national finances, in order that a just idea might be formed of the conduct of minifters in this essential department. On the tenth of March, this subject was brought into the house of com mons, by Mr. Grey: who observed, that, in whatever circumstances the country might be placed, whether of war or of peace, the stricteft economy was become more difpenfible than ever. France would indubitably aim at the formation of a respectable marine, and fo would every power that could in any degree maintain its confideration at fea. Our inconteftible fuperiority on the ocean rendered us an object of univerfal envy and dread; and these were cogent motives with all the Europeans to feek for our depreffion: but they were no less urgent to induce this country to preferve that fuperiority, without which our internal fecurity was evidently precarious; but, had we been fufficiently attentive to the means of preferving it? Had we not lavished, with fcandalous profufion, immenfe fums, for which no adequate services had been performed? Seventy-feven millions had, in the course of the last three years, been added to the public debts; to pay the interest of which, taxes had been laid, amounting to two millións fix hundred thousand pounds. The expences of former wars, however great, did not equal those of the present; and yet those wars were more extensive and important in their object than the present. In the contest that loft us America minifterial profufion was notorious; the debt contracted did not, however, exceed fixty-three millions, notwithstanding the duration of that fatal quarrel was twice what this had now been; and we had all Europe to contend with. When the present war began, the minifter engaged, in a 'folemn manner, to obviate, by every possible means, extraordinarics of all kinds; but how had he kept his word? notwithflanding the most liberal grants that ever minifter had experienced, the extraordinaries of the navy amounted to thirteen millions seven

hundred thousand pournds, while the commerce of this country had fuffered more from the enemy than in any preceding quarrel; the extraordinaries of the army were nine millions. These were unconfcionable expences, as, notwithstanding the advance of price in all articles of public or private demand, they had not riten to fuch a height as to justify the difference between the cost of the present and of former wars. The extraordinaries of the nine years war, from the revolution to the peace of Ryfwick, in 1697, were twelve hundred thoufand pounds. Those of eleven years war, in the reign of queen Anne, were two millions. They did not together amount to one-half of the extraordinaries of the present year: the caufe of this increase of expence was not fo much the difference of price in necessary articles, many of which continued the fame in this respect as at that day, as the addition of unnecessary expences. The extraordinaries and the votes of credit, in 1778, 79, and 80, were less by three millions two hundred thousand pounds than the present: in the ordnance, the extraordinaries arose to near three millions. These augmentations in the national expences were obviously unconftitutional, as they were made without parliamentary fanction. The total of the money thus expended was upwards of thirtyone millions; and together with that voted by the parliament amounted to fixty-fix millions eight hundred thousand pounds. This immenfe fum had been expended in three years of an inglorious and ruinous war. Another unconftitutional proceeding, of a most alarming nature, was the erection of barracks. These were justly, by judge Blackstone, styled inland fortreffes, and were undeniably intended to separate the military from the civil classes, and to keep the latter in awe by means of the former. They had been erected too without confulting parliament, and had cost, since the year 1790, eleven hundred thousand pounds, and more was now demanded for their completion. Minifterial demands of loans from the bank were also become, of late, enormous, and intirely repugnant to the primitive motives of its institution, which were to assist the mercantile transactions of the kingdom, and to maintain its commercial credit: but it had, in many respects, degenerated into an engine of state: it was now near twelve millions in advance to government. Mr. Grey entered into other particulars, to shew the irregularity prevailing in the financial departments. He concluded by affirming, in confequence of farther details, that the national revenue fell short of the peace-establishment by two millions and a half, the latter being twentytwo millions, the former only nineteen millions five hundred thousand pounds. Thus we should be loaded with farther taxes to fupply that deficiency, even were a peace to enfue. On these premises, he moved that the house should refolve itself into a committee, to inquire into the state of the nation.

were

The pofitions of Mr. Grey were controverted by Mr. Jenkinson, who maintained, that the commercial fitnation of Great Britain, notwithstanding the weight of fo great a war, was more profperous than at any antecedent periods. The average of exports, during the three last years of peace, the most flourish

ing ever known in this country, was twenty-two millions five hundred and eighty-five thousand pounds; and the same average for the last three years of war was twenty-four millions four hundred and fifty-three thousand. The advantage in the borrowing of money, at present, was ene and a half per cent. greater than during the American war. At the close of the war in 1748 the national debt was eighty millions, in 1762 one hundred and forty: but had the present system, of appropriating a million annually to the extinction of that debt, been fortunately adopted at the first of these periods, that heavy load would now have been totally thrown off the nation. The expenditure of this war was, doubtlefs, immenfe; but the exertions, to which it was applied, were of no less magnitude. Never was the energy of this country so aftonifhingly difplayed, nor its resources fo wonderfully proved: our fleets and armies were in a far fuperior condition, both as to numbers and equipment, to those maintained in the American war. It was unfair to complain of increating expences. The augmentation of price in all the articles of life and focial intercourse, added, of confequence, the fame proportion of increase in mi litary expences; nor ought the fubfidies to our allies to be, reputed extravagant, confidering their utility to the common cause, by enabling these to act much more effectuall against the foe, than if they were left to their fole exertions. The pressures of the enemy shewed how wifely the treafures of this country had been employed in ftrengthen. ing the power of his continental adverfaries, while our fuccesses at fea had reduced him to the lowest ftate state of debility he had ever experienced on that element: it was, therefore, neither just nor prudent to represent this country as distressed, and its minifters as unworthy of confidence, and incapable of discharging their duty. They had shewn themselves adequate to the various tasks impofed on them by the arduous contingencies of the war, and had not merited the aspersions so repeatedly caft upon them. There had been a time when far greater stretches of ministerial power were beheld without complaint. In the reigns of George I. and II. fuch was the implicit truft of the times in their integrity, that millions had paffed through their hands for fecret services, of which an explanation was not required. Hence it appears, that, the vigilance of parliament in former days, however exalted above that of the present, was, in truth, not to be compared with that anxious and groundless jealousy with which the opponents to miniftry watched over all its proceedings, in order to discover how they could render them fufpicious to the public. On these grounds, he confidered the motion as illfounded, and deserving no fupport from those who viewed the conduct of minifters impartially, and with a determination to liften without pre-, judice to what they allege in their defence, as well as to the imputations and furmises laid to their charge.

Mr. Curwen, Mr. Robinson, and Mr. Martin, supported the motion; Mr. Steele opposed it, and stated the extraordinaries to be much lower than reprefented by Mr. Grey. The expence of the barracks had not, he affirmed, exceeded fix hundred and ten thousand pounds, and one

hundred and fifty thousand would fuffice to complete them: but Mr. Grey infifted on the accuracy of his own statements, and particularly reprobated the misapplication of the money appropriated by parliament to specific purposes; a practice, he observed, so unconstitutional, that it had been condemned, in terms of the greatest severity, even fo long ago as the reign of queen Anne, ori so flight an occafion as the applying of fix thousand pounds to the ufe of the army, instead of the navy, for which it had been intended. His motion, however, was negatived by another for the order of the day, which was carried by two hundred and seven votes, against forty-five.

The plans formed by miniftry were so extenfive, and the determination, to carry them into the speedieft execution, founded upon so sanguine a hope of fuccess, that the supplies already granted not appearing fufficient, parliament was again reforted to for the raifing an additional fupply, and the fanction of another loan. A circumstance so new and extraordinary excited universal aftonishment: two budgets and two loans in the fame feffion, to use the common phrafe, were a novelty, in the political fyftem of this country, of an alarming nature, and which the maxims of good economy did not appear to warrant in the difficult position in which it now ftood.

Mr. Pitt was duly fenfible of the repugnance to fo unprecedented a measure. After apologising for the neceffity that compelled him to adopt it, and expressing his confidence that the resources of the country would render it much lighter on trial than it seemed in the ap prehenfion of many, he proceeded

to

« السابقةمتابعة »