equipment of a formidable fleet; and the court of Madrid was at last convinced, that, unless some conceffions were made, an open rupture must ensue. The king of France, who dreaded nothing so much as a renewal of hoftilities with England, being apprized of the secret intrigues of the duke de Choiseul at the Spanish court, and highly dissatisfied also with the countenance given by the duke to the popular and patriotic party at home, sent that minister into exile, and made pressing instances with his catholic majesty to come to an amicable accommodation with Great Britain. In reply to the demand of disavowal made by England, the marquis de Grimaldi, the Spanish minifter, alleged, that as England well knew in what light the court of Madrid had ever viewed the settlement at Port Egmont, it could not be imagined that the king of Spain could really disapprove the conduct of the governor don Buccarelli. But as it was neither the interest nor inclination of Spain, to involve herself in a war with England, his catholic majesty was willing to make such conceffions as should be consistent with his honor and the welfare of his subjects: and that instructions had been transmitted to prince Maferano, his ambassador in London, for this purpose. Prince Maferano accordingly acquainted the English secretary of state, lord Weymouth, that the king of Spain had impowered him to disavow any particular orders given to M. de Buccarelli, and at the same time to say that he had acted agreeably to his general instructions and oath as governor;-that the islands should be restored; and that it was expected his Britannic majesty would on his part disavow captain Hunt's menace, which had prompted the governor to act as he had done. At this period, lord Weymouth resigned the seals of the southern department to lord Rochford, and a convention was soon after concluded on the terms proposed, but with a secret article or engagement annexed, that the islands VOL. I. should should be evacuated by England within a certain specified term. To this mode of accommodation lord Weymouth refused to accede, as injurious to the honor of Great Britain: but the condition not being known or suspected, it afforded at the time no public ground of objection; and when the evacuation of the ifslands actually took place three years afterwards, the quarrel being almost forgotten, and the attention of the public otherwise engaged, it passed off with flight and transient animadverfions. The earl of Halifax now took the feals of the northern department in the room of lord Rochford; lord Suffolk fucceeding lord Halifax as lord privy seal: and Sir Edward Hawke relinquished his feat at the head of the admiralty to the earl of Sandwich. Mr. George Grenville had departed this life November 13, being the first day of the present feffion; and many of his friends joining the administration, the majorities in both houses, notwithstanding the general unpopularity of the ministers, became very formidable. On the 22d of January 1771 the parliament met pursuant to their adjournment; and the declaration of the Spanish ambaffador, and the acceptance of lord Rochford, were laid before the house. Prince Maserano, after disavowing in the name of his Catholic majesty the violence used at port Egmont, and engaging formally for the restitution of the islands, declared, that his Catholic majesty confiders this reftitution as not affecting the question concerning the prior right of fovereignty of the islands. The admiffion of this reservation was heavily cenfured, as leaving the main question still in dispute, and furnishing Spain with a full juftification, should she immediately re-commence hoftilities, or at any future period that the may deem more favorable to the establishment of her claim. If the right of Great Britain to the islands in question were just and valid, it was affirmed, that no proper or adequate atonement had been made for the aggreffion committed by Spain: on the other An other hand, if the right of Great Britain could not be suftained, the impolicy of our conduct in forming this diftant fettlement could be equalled only by its injustice. address of thanks and approbation being moved, a violent debate ensued, and it was not carried without a long and. obstinate oppofition-nineteen peers entering their protest in the journals of the upper house against it. The laft. head or article of this proteft concludes with the following remarkable words :-" Any counter-claim or assertion whatever of his majesty's right of fovereignty has been studioufly avoided from the beginning to the accomplishment of this unhappy transaction, which, after the expence of millions, settles no contest, afferts no right, exacts no reparation, affords no security; but stands as a monument of reproach to the wisdom of the national councils, of dishonor to the essential dignity of his majesty's crown, and of difgrace to the hitherto untainted honor of the British flag. Upon the whole it must be acknowledged that Spain, in this transaction, notwithstanding her recent abasement, ne gotiated on at least equal terms with England: and, though precipitately to have involved the nation in a war for the sake of an object so infignificant and contemptible as the poffeffion of two or three barren rocks under a stormy sky, would have redounded little to the honor of the present administration, great and heavy cenfure neceffarily falls on the former minifter, Mr. Grenville, who, knowing the nature and extent of the claims of Spain, and the eventual probability of a rupture, would rashly risque so great a calamity for what at the best could be confidered only as a trivial, remote, and uncertain advantage. It would not indeed be difficult to turn into ridicule the extravagant pretenfions of Spain respecting the empire of Southern America, and the ideas entertained by her of British encroachment and ufurpation; but this certainly would be neither politic nor just on the part of Great Britain, who advances pretenfions in her own favor at least as chimerical and ridiculous: 2 diculous: and if Spain had attempted to form a settlement, or to establish a garrifon, in any part of the immense and frozen regions of Hudson's Bay, or the dismal wilds of Labradore, stretching to the Arctic Pole, the pride of Great Britain would have been no doubt equally alarmed, and her interests supposed equally endangered. Let us then at least ast confiftently, and respect those rights whether real or imaginary in others which we dare unblushingly to claim for ourselves. A remarkable bill was introduced into the house of commons, and passed into an act in the course of the present feffion, which, by the unanimous and zealous concurrence of all parties in its fupport, reflected much honor on the house. This was a bill for disfranchising a very large proportion of the freemen of the borough of New Shoreham, and for extending the right of voting to the contiguous hundreds. It appeared in evidence before the select committee, appointed under the Grenville act to try the merits of the late election for this place, that a great number of the freemen of the borough had formed themselves into a society under the name of the christian club. This chriftian club was in fact no better than a mart of venality. A junto was appointed to dispose of the borough to the highest bidder; and after the election was decided, the profits were shared equally amongst the whole. The attorney general was, in consequence of an address of the house to the king, ordered to prosecute the perfons composing the junto of this club, and who had diftinguished themselves as the peculiar agents of infamy on this occasion. The nation, angry and disgusted as they were, could not avoid applauding the spirit and constitutional tendency of this bill, which shewed that the house was neither inattentive nor insensible to the prefervation of its own dignity or the national honor. : Unfortunately about the fame time an incident occurred, which revived in an alarming degree the indignation and resentment of the people against their representatives. Though nothing can appear more reasonable than that the public at large should be furnished with all such means of information respecting the conduct of their representatives in parliament as may consist with the order and dignity of the house, it had been long a subject of complaint, that the speeches of the members were, in contempt of the resolutions of the house, regularly printed in the public papers; and several members of the house having formally stated that their speeches had been misrepresented in the report, although such misrepresentation, if of any real importance, might doubtless have been 'eafily corrected, a motion was made and carried, not indeed unanimoufly, that the printers Wheble and Thompson should appear to answer this complaint at the bar of the house. The printers taking no notice of this general summons, a second order was issued, and declared to be final. No more regard being paid to the second order than to the first, a motion was made, that Wheble and Thompson should be taken into the custody of the ferjeant at arms. The minority, who had objected to the original motion, now strongly urged that the present irritable temper of the public rendered it very improper for the house to commit itself by engaging in a doubtful and invidious conteft-that the executive authority of the house was restrained within very narrow limits and that the present moment was by no means favorable to the full exertion, and much less to the extension of it. The majority nevertheless vehemently insisted upon the neceffity of supporting the DIGNITY of the house, which, whenever paffion in any degree influences the determination, is generally facrificed by the very means adopted to preserve it, resentment |