upon speculation in no way connected, as former occasions, with the professed ob ject. Foes or neutrals, what is so probs ble or so plausible to be urged, by Jaco bins and others, as that these honourable gentlemen, who have no character for på cification, and have yet just as much their conduct merits, have fallen, as it were, upon this lucky question in good time to rouse the expiring energies of the country into new offers of lives and for. tunes, for an object that may seem nearer them than the further and dearer to people, clog the question, but that which is the very pith and marrow of the whole dispute, the right hon. gentleman has, by the restoration of the capture in the Texel, given up to the king of Prussia. Why? Because, safe from the attacks of the British navy, the king of Prussia has the means of injury in his turn. What does all this demonstrate, but that the right hon. gentleman is ready to give up every thing to force and nothing to reason. Instead of sparing the feeble, and pulling down the proud, he bows down to the mighty, and tramples upon the weak. With Denmark, vulnerable at all points, the right hon. gentleman will not even confer without a British fleet, but every thing is made a peace offering to the king of Prussia. prolongation of the war with France the great success of which its late ductor has, this night, so minutely detailed to you. con Now, Sir, let us proceed to consider this success. The right hon. gentleman My hon. friend has truly and wisely (Mr. Dundas) resists the motion, this said, that he was not called upon to dis- night, in a way which, though not wholly cuss the question in dispute as a general new from the same quarter, brings, with principle. Certainly not;-the bringing every repetition of the same argument it to the present issue is the very perfec- some fresh cause for astonishment. The tion of impolicy. "What!" answers assertion, that this war has been successthe right hon. gentleman, "were we to ful, is not made now by that right hon. give that up which lord Stormont pro- gentleman for the first time, it is true; tested against in the year 1780?" Who but then his recurrence to former, fre wanted him to give it up? Where lay quently urged, and as frequently refuted, the necessity of either admitting or re- reasonings, is compensated by something, jecting it? A cautious line of conduct quite untouched in past discussions. It had saved the question from public dis- now seems, that this war was undertaken cussion, and Europe from this new war. for the purpose of "conquering the coloThe greatest naval success cannot obtain nies and destroying the commerce of more real advantage for you than you France." The restoration of monarchy might have derived from prudence-whilst the overthrow of Jacobin principles failure, if you fail, would make your dis--the abasement of France and confingrace ten-fold. Granting you all that you look to from arms, are you a bit nearer your object? Suppose you separate Denmark from this confederacy humbled to the earth, admitting that she apologise for her conduct, is the pretension, therefore, at rest for ever? Do what you will, the claim will not be extinguished by the submission, but will revive with the means of enforcing it. Upon the whole of this business, what is the obvious inference, but that those who fancy some strange interest in this dreadful trade of war.-Seeing Jacobinism, and all their other pretexts for its duration, grown stale and disgusting-have manœuvered to associate with the national enthusiasm in favour of its navy, a point in which its real interests are but little involved; have endeavoured to draw from the public predilection for that service, so natural and so well deserved, perhaps the means of advancing some new plan or ing her to her ancient limits-the balance of power-the cause of law, order, and our holy religion-all these are gone by; and the splendid reveries, that were soothed by such contemplations, are fallen, alas! and sunk down to the cap ture of ships and of tropical settlements, In this view of things the right hon. gen tleman ventures to compare the success of the present with that of the seven years war, and finds great consolation in discovering, that even in that glorious contention there had been some reverses alluding particularly to Minorca and to Rochefort. With some portion of tri umph he refers to these misfortunes, and applies his discovery, in rather a singular manner, as an argument to the present question; for he gives you this piece of history as a reason against going into any inquiry regarding the failures of the present war. Most unluckily for the right hon. gen tleman, the very misfortunes to which he ties of his own expeditions, and asks, has adverted were instantly followed by" How the military plans can be all folly, inquiries in this House. It has been re- the naval all wisdom, both being advised served for the present war, though the by the same heads?" The question an. most disgraceful in its external, and the swers itself. It is in the nature of naval most wretched in its domestic conse- tactics, that a great deal depends upon quences, of any that this country ever the officers and men, upon wind and weawaged, to be the only war in which this ther; in land operations a good plan is House never saw any grounds for retros- almost every thing. Yet the merit of the pect or revision. All the collected ca- Admiralty is indisputable. It is true, lamities of all their predecessors, for ages, there are parts of the administration of do not equal, either in kind or number, earl Spencer (for whom my personal the exploits, during the present war, of respect is considerable), not free from the administration just retired from office; blame, particularly what related to the yet they are the only men ever possessed invasion of Ireland; but where the geneof the powers of government in this country, ral system has been judicious and proswho never even in a single instance yielded perous, it would be invidious to dwell to any inquiry, upon any part of the innu- upon a few errors. The right hon. gen. merable disgraces that have marked the tleman would incorporate these two last nine years. So unlucky is the right services, and is ready to take his share in hon. gentleman in the case of Minorca, the blame of the Admiralty, generously that every thing respecting that business commuting the glories of his own departmakes directly against him. To whatever ment for their miscarriages. Sir, every cause the loss of that island may be presumption is in favour of the Admiralty attributable, this House immediately in- every proof against him. Nobody asks quired into the cause. A person for about the merit of the Admiralty. It whose memory certainly I have the deep-speaks for itself. And equally obvious is est gratitude and love (lord Holland was the true character of the right hon gensecretary of state in 1755), then one of tleman's department. If all his expedithe king's ministers, far from resisting, as tions have been marked with discomfiture the right hon. gentleman resists, was the and disgrace; if the failure of some is agmost eager in insisting upon inquiry. gravated by circumstances too painful to Unlike the present times, the House of touch upon; if such armies, with the Commons then had not been tutored into courage they are known to possess, have that confidence in ministers which distin- produced only such effects-the inference guishes later periods; and the parlia- is glaring. It is but to name the entermentary inquiries that followed the fai- prizes-and the information, the skill, the lures to which the right hon. gentleman vigour, and the ability of those who alluded, so far from embarrassing the planned them, are as plain as demonstraoperations of government, or unnerving tion can make them. No man will ever the martial energies of the country, inquire about the wisdom that projected (those stale objections to the approved the expeditions to Quiberon, to Flanders, and happy practice of our ancestors), to St. Domingo, to Holland, to Ferrol, to were succeeded by a series of unex- Cadiz. These things are past all curioampled successes. Such is the hon. gen- sity. tleman's luck in his historical references. The right hon. gentleman has another Not one word that I have ever uttered, way of reconciling this House to his disor that ever came out of the lips of any asters. With a precision that is quite friend of mine on this side of the House, ludicrous, and a gravity of face which has tended, even in the most distant de- unless he were certain of his audience, gree, to slur or underrate the achieve- would excite a suspicion that he was ments of our fleets; and I will leave the mocking the House, he gives us the dates, House to judge whether any persons in to an hour, of the days on which his exit, or out of it, have dwelt with more rap- peditions sailed, when they landed, rethe triumphs of that branch of treated, or capitulated; sometimes it is the service than we have done. From the wind, sometimes the rain, and somethis, however, the right hon. gentleman times the frost, the snow, the cold, the strives to draw a defence of a nature truly heat; now it is too early, and then it is singular. He endeavours to intermingle too late;-and to this notable narrative with the glories of the navy the absurdi- the House listens, without once saying, ture upon our allies of this precious diversion, that about the very time that the English army was making that respectable retreat, the grand armies of our allies, under Hotze and Suwarrow, were beaten, dispersed, and routed, never more to rally or unite. Such was the hon. gentleman's "diversion" in Holland ! "Tell us of a single military enterprize | soldiers, and so signal was the benefit to in which you have succeeded; and if you cannot, give us some better reason than your own words to believe that you are blameless. Let us inquire into the facts, and judge for ourselves." The right hon. gentleman, with this mass of defeats before his eyes, has the hardihood to talk of the success of this war; and thinks the enumeration of islands and settlements, and a schedule of captured ships and frigates, will so blind the eyes and confound the understandings of men, as to divert them from the only proper consideration, the only rational test of comparative success, namely, the relative situation of the two countries in point of power. Of the word" diversion," the right hon. gentleman gives us, indeed a very curious illustration. Up to this moment, I believe no man ever understood any thing else by military diversion, but the drawing off, by means of a few, a larger number of your enemy, who might hurt you more in another quarter. The expedition to Holland, he tells us, had three objects in view-the capture of the fleet-giving the Dutch an opportunity of shaking off the yoke of France and making a diversion for our allies in Italy and on the Rhine. He asks," Is it nothing to have ten ships of the line added to our own navy, which otherwise would at this moment be a means of annoying us in the hands of our enemy?" Sir, in this, as in every other instance, the English navy did the duty assigned to it nobly; and if the capture of the Dutch fleet was a primary object of that memorable expedition, that object was accomplished without any necessity of hazarding any land experiments under the right hon. gentleman's auspices; for, in point of fact, the fleet revolted and surrendered before the landing on the Helder-point. With respect to the second object, namely, giving the Dutch an opportunity of shaking off the yoke of France, with what horror they received your proffered release from their bondage, and the execration with which they load your name, it is unnecessary to state. But in the third and grand point, that of a diversion in favour of our allies, there we did wonders. If Europe were searched, not a place could be found so well calculated for enabling a smaller to combat, a larger army as this selected spot. To this fatal neck of land did that right hon. gentleman devote 30,000 British But his unconquered mind was not yet subdued enough from military expedi tions. He proposed new sources of renown for those armies whose happy des tiny it was, to be at his disposal. Because he failed in the north, he was certain of success in the south; and, sure enough, he dispatches a formidable force under sir Ralph Abercrombie, to co-operate with the Austrians in Italy. This armament, delayed until any man of common sense must have seen its total inutility towards its professed object, arrives at Genoa, just in time-for what? to assist general Melas? No, but just in time to have e the earliest intelligence of his total ruin. It sails into the road of Genoa, to sail out again, and escapes into the Mediter ranean at the very time the Austrian garrison in that capital passes out to meet their defeated countrymen in the northernmost parts of Italy! But was this cooperation desired by the Austrians? No such wish was ever expressed or felt. The right hon. gentleman plainly enough lets us understand the direct contrary. And was it thus that British armies were accustomed to be treated in former wars? Was it in this way that prince Eugene acted to the duke of Marlborough? What, then, is the fact? but that the hitherto untarnished reputation of our arms has so suffered under the baneful mismanagement of his majesty's late ministers, that the co-operation of 20,000 Englishmen is so slighted by our allies, that they de precated their aid, and resolved to touch nothing belonging to us-but our guineas. Now, Sir, as to the delay of this expe dition to Italy, let me implore the atten tion of the House to the right hon. gen tleman's defence. With the same admirable minuteness, as to days and dates, he tells you that this grand scheme was determined upon on the 22nd of February. On the 23rd, he told it to the king. On the 24th he told it to the duke. On the 28th the duke told him something. The right hon. gentleman then reads two letters, the one from sir Charles Stuart, the other from the duke of York, in he arrange his measures; so little did he, in truth, trust to mere fortune, that if, against all probability, Marengo had been lost, that mighty genius bad so disposed his resources, that many a bloody battle must have been gained by his enemies before they could have made much impression upon the incomparable system of his operations in Italy last summer. I defy imbecility itself to string together a more motley pack of excuses than the right on. gentleman has laid before the House this night. "Amsterdam had been taken, if sir Ralph Abercrombie had landed on the 16th instead of the 27th of August-Sir Charles Stuart's dislike to the Russians protracted sir Ralph's departure for the Mediterranean-Ten thousand Irish militia were to come to England, and ten thousand English to go to Ireland-Some of the troops wanted their new coats, some their arms-One expedition sailed on the 8th of April, took shelter on the 13th, and resailed on the 24th-It was designed to assist the Austrians, but the Austrians would not be assisted-There was no plan or concert between the two courts-An accountcurrent with the seven years' war; took more ships than lord Chatham, and more islands-St. Domingo was unhealthy, and rather expensive; but it was a good market -This war has opened worlds of new markets-Returns, even to a man, of the new-raised corps at Gibraltar, Minorca, Malta, Portugal; and the total of your force, now and in 1797, with a most comfortable exactness-The history of England from 1755 to 1762-from Severndroog to the Havannah.—In a word, such a series of insulting puerilities as no House of Parliament was ever before entertained with under the name of a defence! So much, for the present, of the late secretary; and now to proceed to another view of the success of this war. support of this part of his defence. I have been called a new member this night; and new and raw, indeed, must I be, and wholly ignorant of the practice of this House, if I could hear, without reprobation, that which would have been scouted and spurned in the good times of the English constitution, when a spirit of just jealousy of its rights, and a proper sense of its independence, prevailed in this House, instead of a blind confidence in the executive government. In such times, no minister would have dared to have read to the House of Commons of England the garbled extracts, just as suited his own purpose, of letters from general officers, as an excuse for miscarriages, affecting in the nearest and dearest sense the honour and interests of the country. It is true that I have not been, for some time, in habits of intercourse with the illustrious person who is at the head of the army; but greatly indeed must he be changed from what I knew him, if he would not mark with his abhorrence this style of palliation. For what is it, and what does it prove?-that, if there were nothing more than we have heard, his royal highness ought to be instantly impeached. The national defence of England-its militia, is cut up by the roots; the general body of its officers is disgusted by the laws passed in 1799, which transferred to the line so large a proportion of its best disciplined men. These men, leaving the militia a mere skeleton, are incorporated with regular regiments, and embarked for Holland; and, seven months after their first embarkation to, and five months after their return from, that disastrous enterprise, their commander-in-chief informs the executive government, if we are to believe the right hon. gentleman, "that it will take full two months to discipline them into fitness for actual service!" Was there ever such a defence as this hazarded before an assembly of rational men! - "But, had the right hon. gentleman's expedition been able to sail sooner:""If the battle of Marengo had not been lost:"-" But!"-"If!"-Why, Sir, I do not know what degree of fortune there may be in this battle or in that; but I believe the right hon. gentleman never was more mistaken than he would find himself even in the event of Buonaparte's defeat at Marengo. Such were the precautions of that fruitful mind: so well did The late chancellor of the exchequer tells us that he forbears going over the military exploits, only because his right hon. friend has put those things in the clearest light. He is equally positive as to the success of the war; but not to usurp upon his truly fortunate colleague, he has his own peculiar instances to detail, of prosperity, of comfort, and of multiplied happiness-all flowing in upon the country from his own more immediate department. Quite scandalised at my hon. friend's statement of the magnitude of the national debt in consequence of this war, the right him had not convinced us of the fondness with which he can survey every act of his own. The repetition of his delusions deludes even himself. He has indulged so much in these fatal reveries, that he appears to have become his own bubble, and almost to mistake for realities the phantasms of his bewildered wits. Let him ask any of the members from Yorkshire and Lancashire, what the state is of the manufacturers in those countries; even those (looking at Mr. Wilberforce) of whom I may not think the best, will not venture to deny the starving, dis tracted condition of those great and populous districts. These, Sir, are some of the internal hon. gentleman pares down its amount since 1793 to the trifle of 160 millions; and how?-by a mode surprisingly curious indeed. First, he cuts out the 56 millions, for which the income-tax is mortgaged; and next, he desires you to forget all that the sale of the land-tax has already purchased, or may yet redeem. Alas, Sir! there is not a gentleman in this House who would rejoice more than myself, if the income-tax could be set down for nothing; and I cannot help admiring that insensibility under which the right hon. gentleman passes over a grinding impost that has ripped open the private concerns, and reduced the necessary comforts, of every man in England. The extinction of debt from the sale of the land-tax car-effects of this war, which both the right ries its own evil in its tail; and we might hon. gentlemen venture to compare with as well rejoice at our prosperity from that former contentions against France. We measure, as a private man would from have taken more, they tell us, than even paying his debts by bringing his estate to in the seven years' war; and therefore this2 the hammer. The debts in so far may be surpasses that in success. Good God! paid; but the estate is gone for ever. Sir, what an effect does a confidence in The right hon. gentleman must think his the votes of this House produce upon the audience are children, when he attempts understandings of men of abilities! To to cajole them by such a play upon words. talk of this war, and that of the sevent In reality, what is the state of the years! "We have destroyed the comcountry upon this point? From such a population as that of Great Britain, near forty millions sterling are annually wrung: to this add ten millions more for the poorrates. The right hon. gentleman has esti mated the landed rental of England at 25 millions. Thus, then, we pay, yearly, double the produce of the whole rental of the country, in rates and taxes; a sum approaching very nearly the whole income of the country. Was any nation ever before in such circumstances? If nothing else were stated but this undisputed fact, is it not, of itself, a crying reason for inquiry? As to the sinking-fund, let it be always remembered that its effects, highly beneficial as they are, must depend upon the revenue keeping its level. If the revenue fails, the charm of the sinkingfund vanishes into nothing. This, Sir, is the true picture of our financial condition as a state; and the condition of the people is strictly answerable to it. One-sixth of all the souls in England are supported by charity; and the plight of a great proportion of those who contribute to their maintenance is but little better than that of the paupers whom they succour. How the right hon. gentleman has nerves to sustain him in venturing to talk of the happiness of this country, would be incomprehensible, if our long experience of merce of France-we have taken their islands," say you-but these I say were not the objects of the war. If you have destroyed the commerce of France you have destroyed it at the expense of near 300 millions of debt. If you have taken the French islands, you have made a bootless capture; for you are ready enough to restore them as the price of peace. You have taken islands-but you have, at the same time, laid the house of Austria prostrate at the feet of triumphant France. Have you restored monarchy ?—Its very hopes are entombed for ever. Have you destroyed Jacobinism, as you call it?Your resistance has made it stronger than ever. Have you reduced the power France ?-France is aggrandized beyond the wildest dreams of former ambition. Have you driven her within her ancient frontiers?-She has enlarged herself to the Rhine and to the Alps, and added five millions to her population in the centre of Europe. You had all the great states of Europe for your allies against France What is become of them?-all that you have not ruined, are your deter mined enemies. Where are the neutral powers? Every one of them leagued with this very France for your destruc tion. Could all this be chance? No, Sir; it is the true succession of effect to of |