pounds, whereas on examination it appeared that somewhat more than five hundred pounds was the real amount. The ninth report related to the receipt of stores in Plymouth dock, and though the matter was not sufficiently elucidated, enough was stated to shew that gross frauds had existed. On the tenth it was needless for him to enlarge, as it had sufficiently attracted the attention of the house and the public. The eleventh repor. he should not now insert, as it was to be the subject of a specific motion by an hon. and learned friend of his on no very distant day. He begged leave, however, in the mean time, to call the attention of the house to this report, as one of very high importance, as one which disclosed transac tions equally contrary to law and to fair constitutional principles, as were indeed calcu lated to give a vital stab to the credit and character of the country.-Having thus gone through the different reports, all of which evinced the most commendable dili gence and zeal, the hon. gentleman next specified what yet remained for examina tion. There still remained the proceedings of the navy board, the victualling, the transport, and the sick and hurt boards. Of the necessity of investigating this last board, no doubt could exist, alter what an hon. admiral (Markham) had said, that of all the boards hitherto unexplored, this was the mosť ments had been recommended. In all of thousand eight hundred and fifty-three them the ability, the diligence, the unconquerable fortitude of the commissioners had been eminently conspicuous. It would not be necessary for him to go into any detail, but it was proper just to give a sketch of what each of the reports contained. In the first report it was ascertained that in the offices in Jamaica connected with the navy, the public, through the negligence and fraud of one of the officers, sustained a loss of about thirty-six thousand pounds in bills, and upwards of one hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds from lavish waste, and other causes arising from the manner in which business was conducted. The second report referred to the mismanagement of the chest at Chatham, and displayed a scene of the most infamous peculation. The rewards allotted to our brave seamen for their meritorious exertions in defence of all that is dear to freemen, had been found to have been most shamefully misapplied. In many cases the harpies of agents had appropriated nearly thirty-four per cent. of what was intended to assuage the sufferings of those who had bled in the cause of their country. The necessity of entering an ap pearance once in three years, even from Ireland and the most distant parts of the island, only to ascertain whether veterans and invalids had grown younger, was properly exposed by the commissioners, and a suitable remedy had been provided. The grossly corrupt. The dock-yards abroad, third report was on the infamous over- too, opened a wide field for inquiry; he charges in the dock yards. The house and believed, in many cases, it would be found the public would form a pretty good idea that charges of nineteen shillings a ton were on the subject, when they were given to made, when four shillings and twopence understand that, in one article, there was a covered the whole expence. The ordnance charge of one thousand and forty pounds, department, also, would come in for its when before the commissioners it was found share of investigation; in many cases gross that thirty-four pounds was the fair price. frauds were committed, and there was one These evils had been sifted to the bottom, case where fifty thousand stand of arms were and the gross frauds of those who were fat-purchased, after surveyors, properly ap tening on the public would now happily be pointed, had declared them unfit for service. prevented. In the fifth report the evils of They had also to enquire how far the officers the sixpenny office, so essential to the pro- in the treasury knew of, or had any feeling per provision made for invalids in the navy, in this transaction; and, last of all, they had were fully exposed; and the sixth very to enquire into the expenditure and abuses? clearly shewed that vast sums were charged of the money which ought to be appro for work done in the dock yards, not one-priated for the benefit of Greenwich hos third of which was ever performed. The [pital, that noble, and beneficent asylum for commissioners stated a sum of nearly eight jour brave and gallant seamen, after they hundred thousand pounds, one third of have lost their limbs, exhausted their conwhich could not be accounted for in a satis-stitutions, or worn out the best part of their factory manner. In the seventh report a lives in the service of their king and councase was stated of the repairs of the Ama- try. If they have such material business ranthe, in Woolwich dock-yard, where the still to perform, which cannot be done withexpence had been carried as high as three out a continuation of that zeal, firmness, ability, and fortitude, which they have exerted on every former occasion; after the slurs and insinuations which have been thrown out against their conduct, it became peculiarly incumbent on the house to convince them on the present occasion that, in continuing them in the performance of those arduous duties they had yet to sustain, they might depend upon receiving every encouragement and support which the house could give them. Reform, he said, was a thing which, on all occasions, had been most odious; but at present there was such a host of contractors, jobber, and other descriptions of persons, who were used to derive advantage from the improvident expenditure of the public money, that the outcry against the commissioners, and the resistance made to their efforts for the public service, were such as had never been experienced at any antecedent period. On these considerations, he thought, that if any material objection were brought by the right hon. gent, or others, against the vote of thanks he was about to move, the house ought not by any means to encourage the idea of their re-appointment to the same commission. But, if there were no such objections, it was the duty of the house to stand forward, and to say, with that com-appointed to examine into great public manding force which should be heard from one end of the kingdom to the other, that these commissioners' have hitherto nobly and honourably executed the high and important trust reposed in them by the house; and that in what they have hereafter to do, the house will chearfully support them to the utmost extent of their power. He would not, therefore, detain the house any longer than to read his motion, which he did accordingly to the following purport: the commissioners should be thanked now for their past services, he should not oppose. the proposition; but he could not help thinking that there existed no precedents for such a mode of proceeding. The precedent of the vote of thanks given to the commissioners of accounts did not apply, because these commissioners had not only given in a number of reports; but the reports had been fully canvassed by a com mittee of the house. That committee had reported on the statements which the reports contained, and it was on this that the vote of thanks was grounded. In this case, however, only one report had been minutely considered, and therefore he put it to the house, whether the vote of thanks would not be much fuller and much more compre hensive, if it were given after the reports were fully considered and digested. This. he put to the consideration of members, though, as he had already declared, hẹ should not press for any division of the house on the subject. As to the call which the hon. member had made on him for a clear statement of his objections to certain parts of the conduct of the commissioners, he felt it necessary to make a few observations. He fully admitted, that commissioners abuses, ought to exhibit a proper degree of firmness as well as zeal; but there was a mode of exhibiting that, which was at all times to be attended to. The truth was to be got at by all possible means, but the cha racter of individuals should be as little as possible precluded from a fair opportunity of full discussion or subsequent vindication. In several cases a prejudice was created against individuals, before the report was fairly before the legislature, and therefore That it appears to this house, that the he thought, that any surmises to the preju Commissioners appointed by an act of the dice of individuals which had transpired. be 43d of the king, to enquire into the irregu- fore the reports were completed, were not larities and abuses committed by persons to be justified. He objected also, that the employed in the several naval departments, reports were drawn up and presented, with have, as far as appears from their reports out allowing individuals accused to justify hitherto made, exerted themselves with their conduct, or indeed fully to understand great diligence, ability, and fortitude, and in what light the report would place their. that the whole of their conduct, in the exe-character. The commissioners had a right cution of the arduous duties intrusted to to use every means to come at the truth; them, is intitled to the approbation and but then it was surely not inconsistent with thanks of this house."-The motion being the most rigid inquiry to call on individuals put from the chair, to explain their own evidence. It appeared that those commissioners refused the oppor tunity of explanation to several persons whose names were mentioned, whose cha racters were affected by their reports; and it was equally apparent, that had such op, portunity been afforded, the characters of commissioners, and if so it certainly ought such men would not have suffered. This to have been stated. If the fact were so, was particularly the case of the comptroller the house would judge whether any charge of the navy, who stood charged in one of attached to the navy board, and whether the reports on the table, with having, con- the commissioners acted fairly in attempting trary to his duty, applied money voted for to impute it. When they reported the fact the navy, to other services, without the respecting the price of stores in the West knowledge of the first lord of the admiralty. Indies, and undertook to ascribe that evil to Upon this head, it was now obvious to the navy board, they ought certainly, in every man, indeed a recent conversation in fairness, to have annexed to that report any that house had made it so, that if the request communication they had received from that of sir A. Hammond to the commissioners, board in vindication of its conduct, particu to be allowed to explain, had been granted, farly such a material communication as that the impression would have never gone abroad he had alluded to. The commissioners respecting that officer, which the premature might say that they had not received this report of the commissioners had created. communication at all. He could only state It was not a little remarkable with reference to the house what he had been informed. to this point, that although lord St. Vincent It had been also told to him that one of the was applied to by the commissioners for ex-commissioners of the navy, Mr. Gambier, planation respecting the Stone Expedition, was examined before the naval commis which it was now quite clear was fully sioners, and some of his answers were inacknown to that noble lord, no opportunity of curately taken down by those commissioners explanation would be granted to sir Andrew These inaccuracies were printed and corHammond, notwithstanding his special re-rected, and yet in the appendix to the request. There was another part of the con- port, the inaccuracies remain without the duct of those commissioners of rather doubt- corrections. The same complaint was made ful propriety, if indeed it could be at all with respect to the testimony of a principal said to come within any notion of propriety. clerk to the navy board. This clerk made It was that which in the eighth report, al- a memorandum of all his answers-several luded to the conduct of grand jury. A of them were found to be incorrectly noted person was charged with stealing casks at by those commissioners-such incorrectPlymouth, and a bill of indictment was pre- nesses, upon being pointed out by the ferred against him. This bill was thrown clerk, were admitted and corrected. Still out by the grand jury, and the solicitor who the omission appears in the appendix. Now was employed to conduct the prosecution, those corrections which are omitted are all wrote to the victualling office to say that the stated to be material to form a fair judgment grand jury was tampered with. Upon the of the conduct of the navy board, and, if authority of this letter those commissioners so, their omission cannot induce a conclu thought proper to publish such a statement in sion favourable to the character of the comthe eighth report. Was it right to throw out missioners to whom the motion before the such an insinuation as this to the public, and house referred. Indeed, if the facts were particularly upon such grounds? Was it well founded, which he laid before the discreet, was it fair, to charge a respectable house precisely in the manner they were body of men with perjury? for the charge mentioned to him; if these commissioners amounted to nothing less. Those commis-suppressed any documents with which they sioners were also accused of having impro-were furnished, and which were at all ne perly alledged that the high price of stores cessary to enable parliament and the counwhich was complained of in the West In- try to decide upon the characters of men dies, was owing to the neglect of the navy whom their reports affected, he would leave board to send out stores for the service of it to the house to judge of the propriety of our fleets in that quarter in due time, ac-adopting a vote of unqualified thanks to cording to their duty. Now it appeared such a commission. With such information that the navy board had not omitted to at- before him, however, he hoped the house tend to their duty in this case. For they had sent out two ships in proper time laden with stores, which ships were lost, and to that loss was attributable the high price of stores which was complained of. This fact was, he understood, communicated to the would feel satisfied that the exception he had thought it his duty to make to these commissioners did not rest on light grounds; that there was nothing in it so warm, intemperate and unjust as some gentlemen seemed to imagine. At all events, it could scarcely be denied, that previous to a vote of indiscriminate, approbation, each of the points he had stated should be distinctly and minutely inquired into, and each of the reports before the house fully examined. Still, notwithstanding this impression upon his mind, he would leave it to the feelings of the house to take whatever course it might think proper, but he would not himself press any particular motion. conduct of this commission in the first re- Mr. For then rose, He animadverted on the several charges which had been advanced by the right hon. gent. who spoke last against the commissioners of naval enquiry. As to the first, which regarded what the right hon. gent. professed to consider the premature publication of any of the subjects referred to in the several reports from this commission-he could not deem it any fair ground of accusation against the commissioners; for it did not appear that they had designedly given publicity to the rumours referred to. Besides, indeed, whether such things were kept secret or not in the way desired by the right hon. gent. appeared to him to be a matter scarcely worth notice, As to the case of the comptroller of the navy board and his alledged misappropriation of the money entrusted to his care, the right hon. gent. seemed to think that if opportunity for explanation had been afforded that comptroller, as well as to lord St. Vincent, much confusion would have been ayoided, as appeared in a part of the noble lord's evidence in the eleventh report. Now, for his part, he saw no such confusion. Even without the explanation recently offered to the house on this point, he really thought that nothing could be clearer from the context of the evidence, and from a fair consideration of Lord St. Vincent's answers to the two questions which were lately the subject of discussion, than that the noble lord was ignorant of the money matters which formed the gravamen of the charge against the comptroller of the navy. But the right hon. gent, asked why was not this comptroller examined by the commissioners toucing this charge, as well as the earl of St. Vincent? He would tell that right hon. gent. that the comptroller of the navy was examined, and that he defended himself fron answering questions under the 5th clause. After having done so, then he would put it to the right hon. gent. whether, if he himself were one of those commissioners, he would propose to examine again him or any man who so acted? With respect to the statements of the right hon. gent. as to the It was. rious battles he had fought abroad, he had scarcely in any of them a more difficult task to perform, than in originating this commission, which had to maintain itself in almost every stage of its progress against the operation of power, influence, and authority. With a degree of fortitude and perseverance that would be at any time laudable, but which in their peculiar circumstance was extraordinary, they pursued delinquency through all the obstructions of high office, and against all the frowns of power; and they succeeded in detecting and exposing the criminality of one of the principal officers of the crown. citude he had shewn to vindicate his cha racter from the imputations thrown upon it by the report alluded to. At the suggestion of a right hon. friend of his (Mr. Rose) he meant to have followed the precedent of the 10th of queen Anne, where an imputation of a similar nature was thrown upon a member of the victualling board, by the report of the committee of that house. It was his intention to move, that the report under consideration should be referred to a committee, and some proceeding taken respect ing it, that should afford him an opportunity of vindicating his character. This course he was prevented from following by lord The Chancellor of the Exchequer stated, St. Vincent, who told him upon an interthat the navy board had not tamely sub- view, that it was for his lordship, and no hitted to the imputations cast upon their other person to recommend, when the reports characters by the first report, as the hon. of the naval commission should be taken into gent. imagined. For, according to a me- the consideration of parliament, as that com morial presented to the house on the 5th of mission had been originally proposed by April, on this subject, from the comptroller him. The hon. baronet remonstrated with of the navy, it appeared, that immediately his lordship on the obloquy to which his after the publication of the report alluded character must be subject in the interim, to, the hon. baronet intimated his wish to and appealed strongly to his sense of justice; these commissioners, that he should be ex- but in vain, lord St. Vincent would not conamined afresh, in order to do away, what sent. His right hon. friend (Mr. Rose) also he conceived, unfounded aspersions on his waited on his lordship, but was equally uncharacter, but this the commissioners de- successful. Advised, however, by his right clined. The hon. baronet then drew up a hon. friend and others; and considering his memorial to that house, which he meant to own situation in the navy, he declined enpresent; but, deeming it-his duty, he wait- tering into hostilities with the noble lord. ed on lord St. Vincent, to apprize him of He waited in confidence of a full acquittal his intention, and to know his lordship's of his reputation, whenever those reports pleasure. Lord St. Vincent disapproved of should be brought before parliament. Since the intention, and stated, that he should con- lord St. Vincent's retirement from the adsider any such proceeding as a personal af-miralty board, he was given to understand front to himself. The comptroller thought it his duty to conform to the noble lord's desire, and to that was attributable the kind of acquiescence the hon. gent. who had just sat down, alluded to. Mr. For observed that, even supposing all this statement to be correct, it did not account for the silence of the comptroller of the navy, since lord St. Vincent retired from office. Why not seek the removal of that obloquy, of which he complained, under the lord of the admiralty who succeeded lord St. Vincent? He could not, however, help saying, that this comptroller, in suffering from such a motive as the right hon. gent. had described, so deep a stigma so long to attach to his reputation, betrayed a very criminal complaisance to earl St. Vin cent. that it was intended to establish a commission of revision, and before that commission, he hoped to establish the injustice of the charges propagated against him. That there might be some irregularities under a department so wide and extensive, as that over which the navy board presided, he was prepared to admit; but he could assure the house, that there was nothing for which the members of that board were more anxious, than a full and fair examination of every part of their conduct, particularly that to which the report of the naval commissioners alluded; all he asked for that board was this, that until such full and fair examination should take place, the house and the country would suspend their judgment upon the charges against them. Mr. Rose corroborated that part of the Sir Andrew Snape Hanımond confirmed speech of the hon. baronet, who had just sat the statement of the chancellor of the ex-down, which referred to himself. With chequer, as to the early disposition and soli-respect to the motion before the house, he |