impracticable, from the prodigious increase of bufinefs in each. The fame objection lay to others. Never had the public fervice required more labour, and never indeed had more been exerted by the refpective incumbents in every office. The abolition of patent places, another fubject of complaint, could not be always affected with equity; but ftill they were in a gradual courfe of being abolished. Refpecting the fyftem of barracks, fo much reprobated; the old plan allowed them for twenty thoufand men, to which the new one had, for confiderations well founded, added others for fifteen thoufand more. The difficulty of a speedy adjustment of accounts, in time of war, was too well known to enlarge upon; but the afcertainment of all public expences occupied the attention of ministers to the fulleft extent which their magnitude would permit, and they had not the leaft apprehenfion of being found defective in their accounts. With regard to the bank, the power vested in it was clearly independent of minifters, and the affiftance it afforded to government was entirely optional. To the other obfervations of the marquis he made fuch replies as he thought juftificatory of minifterial meafures, and concluded by afferting, that when impartially reviewed, they would meet with certain approbation.

Thefe anfwers, to the marquis of Lanfdowne, were, by the earl of Lauderdale, reprefented as fallacious and unfounded. The immenfe amount of the debts, which miniftry left unfunded, fhewed their ill management and want of economy: the discount given occafionally on exchequer-notes was equally dif

creditable and alarming: the ac counts relating to the barracks were confufed and erroneous; and the reafons affigned for other meafures were vague and unfatisfactory.

The difference between the pecuniary fituation of this country, in 1783 and that in 1795, was circumftantially investigated by lord Aukland, in order to prove the fuperiority of our finances at the prefent day. The revenue was then two millions below the peace establishment, amounting to fifteen millions, but was now actually three millions four hundred thousand pounds above that establishment; and, by adding the two millions then deficient, was in reality five millions above it.

The lord chancellor, earl Spencer, and lord Hawkfbury, oppofed the motion, and it was farther fupported by lord Moira, and lord Guildford, who gave the house notice of his intention to move an inquiry into the state of the nation. The marquis of Lanfdowne's motion was rejected by one hundred and four votes against twelve.

The report of the committee of fupply upon the refolution, for granting a fubfidy of two hundred thoufand pounds to the king of Sardinia, was prefented to the houfe of commons on the third of May, when it was obferved, by Mr. Fox, that circumftances were no longer the fame refpecting that prince, as when that fubfidy was first voted. He was then to act against France with the coalition; but it was now underfood that he was about to forfake it, and to make a peace with the enemy. If fuch were the cafe, it was proper to know whether he thought himself at liberty to act in this manner, or whether indeed he were able to act otherwife, and mi

nifters

nifters had acceded to his defire for a feparate peace.

Mr. Pitt afferted, that lately the king of Sardinia, in circumftances of great difficulty, had confented to a fufpenfion of arms with the French, provided it were in conjunction with the emperor, but on no other terms: the emperor not confenting, the armiftice did not take place. The French had, in the mean time, offered him peace, if he would make a ceffion of their acquifitions in his country, and an alliance with them, but he had refufed their offers.

It was observed, by Mr. Francis, that the motives of action with that prince would originate in the preffures he was in. His fituation required him to confult the neceffity of his affairs, rather than the magnanimity of his difpofition; exclufively of which, hiftory had long fhewn, that no dependance could be placed on the stability of the princes of the houfe of Savoy. Mr. Pitt however being farther preffed upon this fubject, put an end to it by declining to reply.

-

Three days after this difcuffion Mr. Grey brought feveral heavy charges against minifters, and moved them to be fufficient grounds of impeachment. They had, he faid, violated the act of appropriation, the main pillar of the pecuniary privileges of parliament, by diverting the grants of money to other purposes than thofe for which they were voted, and they had endeavoured to fcreen themselves by fpurious accounts. He then detailed the particulars in proof of his accufation, adding, that if the neceffities of the times had compelled them to have recourfe to fuch methods for procuring money, they

ought, without difguifing the fact, to have applied to parliament for indemnity. The house of commons had, he faid, been notoriously faulty. in not fetting limits to the extraordinaries during the American war; and the committee appointed to examine and digeft the public accounts had particularly pointed out the ruinous confequences of fuch negligence. Mr. Pitt had cenfured it himself with peculiar feverity, but had nevertheless been more guilty than any of his predeceffors in the miniftry. So determined was the house to put a stop to these infractions of its rights, that it paffed, in 1784, a refolution, that should parliament be diffolved before the act of appropriation had paffed, to mifapply the money granted fhould be reputed a high misdemeanour. An act had also been paffed under the prefent minifter, to obviate the bad confequences of balances remaining with the paymafter-gene, ral, and to provide for the conftant pay of the army; but this act had been notoriously infringed; the pay mafter having actually in his hands a balance of eighty-three thoufand pounds. Mr. Grey, after mention ing other inftances of mifapplica tion, adverted to the difpofitionpaper, a fpecies of voucher firft ufed in the prodigal reign of Charles II. and established at the revolution, as an authentic document, to inform parliament in what manner the fupplies they had granted had been expended. This paper he confidered as a mere deception; its contents reprefented the fums voted by par liament, as iffued and applied conformably to its intent, which was contrary to truth. This he might be told was only a form; but the practice was in fact directly oppofite [F4]

to

to the regulations enacted by the legiflature, in order to preferve to itself the power over the national purfe, against the attempts of minifters to difpofe of the nation's money at their own difcretion. On thefe various premifes Mr. Grey founded no less than fifteen refolutions, the last of which fumming up the purport of the whole, ftated, "that, in the inftances mentioned, the king's minifters had been guilty of prefenting falfe accounts, calculated to mislead the judgement of the house, of a flagrant violation of various acts of parliament, and of a grofs mifapplication of the public money."

The reply, made by Mr. Pitt, ftated, that though minifters were bound faithfully to appropriate the public money to the purpofes fpecified, yet there were a multiplicity of cafes wherein that rule could not ftrictly be obferved. Services of the most critical importance, and the most imperious neceffity, often compelled them to deviate from the letter of the act of appropriation: but was that, or was any other, act to ftand in the way of material fervices due to the nation by those who were entrufted with its fafety and prefervation? Thefe deviations were founded on wife precedents, and fanctioned as juft, by long and repeated experience. Extraordinaries were the inevitable attendants of war, efpecially fuch an one as the prefent, which requiring unprecedented exertions, juftified unpre cedented methods of conducting it. Mr. Pitt adduced a number of facts to prove that he had acted conformably to the practice authorised in former wars. The very act of appropriation, he faid, evinced the propriety of extraordinaries, by

making good feveral millions expended under that head; and no objection was ever made to the principle itfelf. He vindicated, with great acutenefs, the different parts of his conduct in the adminiftration of the finances, and argued with great ability against the defects and mifconduct imputed to him.

The fpeech of Mr. Pitt was anfwered by Mr. Fox, who enforced and enlarged upon the arguments that had been urged by Mr. Grey. Mr. Steele replied in juftification of Mr. Pitt's maxims and measures, and clofed the debate by moving the previous queftion, which was carried by two hundred and nine to thirty-eight.

The tenth of May was remarkable for a motion made in each houfe against the continuation of the war, and for offering terms of peace. That in the house of lords was made by the earl of Guildford; that in the houfe of commons by Mr. Fox. The fame arguments, with little variation, were ufed by both fpeakers, that had fo often been urged in the preceding attempts of this nature, and met of courfe with much the fame answers. The only matter of novelty was, the conftruction put on Mr. Wickham's commiffion, to inform Mr. Barthelemy, the French minifter at Bafle, of the difpofition on the part of this country, to enter into a negociation for peace, and that minifter's reply to the British agent. Oppofition treated the application of the former as far from calculated to conciliate the French, while mini-" ftry afferted that it was fully fufficient to induce them to treat, had they been fincerely difpofed to meet us on equitable terms. This particular conftituted the principal

object

object of debate, and exercifed the abilities of both miniftry and oppofition: but after a long and animated conteft, the motion was negatived in the house of lords, by one hundred and ten against ten; and, in the house of commons, by two hundred and fixteen against fortytwo.

A repetition took place on the fame day in the house of lords, of the difcuffion upon the state of the revenue, the taxes, the imports and exports, and the other financial circumftances of the nation at the clofe of the American war, and at the prefent period. The earl of Moira combated the pofitions of lord Aukland in the preceding debate, and the latter exerted himself to maintain them. Numerous and intricate were the calculations on both fides. Lord Lauderdale zealously supported the earl of Moira, and entered into a great variety of particulars to prove the juftnefs of his researches and computations: herein he was feconded by the marquis of Lanfdowne, and oppofed by lords Coventry and Hawkesbury, who took much pains to reprefent the ftatements of lord Moira as erroneous.

The fame fubject was refumed, on the thirteenth, by lord Lauderdale, who difplayed great financial knowledge in his arrangement of the matter of debate. His fupporters were the marquis of Lanfdowne and the earl of Moira; and his opponents, lords Grenville, Hawkesbury, and Aukland. The inferences from the arguments and statements produced by the refpective parties were contradictory in the extreme; the one reprefenting the fituation of this country as replete with the most arduous difficul

ties, and almoft verging to ruin; and the other defcribing it as full of opulence and refources of every denomination, and able, with proper management, to encounter and furmount every obftacle, and to flourish with more luftre than ever.

Such were the moft material tranfactions of parliament during this feffion. An attempt was made, by Mr. Wilberforce, to enforce the decifion of the houfe, that the abolition of the flave-trade fhould take place on the first day of the year 1796, but his motion was negatived by a majority of four, and his fubfequent endeavours to regulate the flave-carrying trade, by the proportion of tonnage, was loft for want of numbers to constitute a house.

A bill for the relief of indigent curates paffed in their favour, after fome oppofition in the commons, on account of its originating in the houfe of lords. But a petition from the quakers to be relieved from imprisonment for non-payment of tythes, and for allowing their affirmation to be evidence in criminal as well as civil cafes was rejected by the lords, after paffing the commons. The humane effort made by lord Moira, in favour of perfons confined for debt, met with no better fuccefs.

The feffion closed, on the nineteenth of May, with the customary fpeech from the throne. It informed the houles of the intention to diffolve the prefent, and to call a new parliament. The happieft effects, it faid, had been experienced from the provifions made for repreffing fedition and civil tumult, and for reftraining the progrefs of principles fubverfive of all established government.

The

The commons were thanked, in a more particular manner, for the liberal fupplics they had granted, to meet the exigencies of the war. Peculiar notice was taken of the increafing refources, by which the country was enabled to fupport the great expences it required. The nature of the fyftem introduced into France had, the speech faid, afforded to that country, in the midft of its calamities, the means of exertion, beyond the exertion of any former time; but, under the preffure of the new and unprecedented difficulties, arifing from fuch a conteft,' the British conftitution had, by the counfels and conduct of parliament,

been preferved inviolate against the defigns of foreign and domestic enemies; the honour of the British name afferted; the rank and station held hitherto by this country in Europe, maintained and the decided fuperiority of its naval power, established in every quarter of the world.

Such were the principal paffages in the fpeech. It concluded with ftrong recommendations of unanimity and mutual confidence be tween the king and parliament, as beft promoting the true dignity of the crown, and the happiness of the fubject.

CHAP.