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If the Bank had not confented to the new arrangement, was the balance never to be paid as the act of parliament pofitively directed ?"-The previous question at length releafed the minister from one of the most disagreeable dilemmas he had ever found himself in; and the resolutions of Mr. Grey were virtually rejected by a vast majority of 171 voices.

Nearly at the fame time the marquis of Lanfdown, actuated by the fame general views with Mr. Grey, moved the house of lords for the appointment of a committee to enquire into the ftate of the public expenditure. "Many reforms," his lordship faid, " had been clearly and ably pointed out in the reports of the commiffioners of accounts nominated during the late war, which had been neglected by the present minifters; and the time would fail him fhould he enumerate all the abufes which had been introduced and fanctioned by them. He was tired of inspecting that register of corruption, the RED BOOK. But, above all other abufes and innovations, his lordfhip deprecated that which he said swallowed up the reft-the power infidioufly acquired by the minifter of obtaining advances from the Bank to an unlimited amount. By a moft falutary regulation of the original act of king William, the Bank was reftricted within very narrow bounds. But this reftraint had been repealed by a clause so artfully inferted in a late act of parliament, that had it not been for the vigilance of a noble lord then prefent (the earl of Lauderdale), it would have paffed wholly unnoticed. In confequence of this repeal, the Bank might stretch their credit to government at pleafure; and the minifter, without confent of parliament, had an ample resource within his reach. His lordfhip wished to have it thoroughly afcertained, whether, and how far, the public expenses had increased beyond the supplies annually granted by parliament ?"-After a warm debate the motion was negatived by 104 to 12 voices only.

On

On the 10th of May an addrefs to the king was moved in both houses-by the earl of Guildford in the upper, by Mr. Fox in the lower houfe of parliament-drawn in terms of remarkable vigor and ability, and containing many striking and important though uncourtly and unwelcome truths. The address declared "That the duty incumbent upon parliament no longer permitted them to diffemble their deliberate opinion that the diftrefs, difficulty, and peril, to which this country is now subjected, have arifen from the misconduct of the king's minifters, and are likely to subsist and increase as long as the fame principles which have hitherto guided these ministers fhall continue to prevail in the councils of Great Britain.-It is painful to us," fay the supporters of this high-fpirited address, " to remind your majesty of the fituation of your dominions at the beginning of the war, and of the high degree of profperity to which the skill and industry of your majesty's subjects had, under the fafeguard of a free conftitution, raised the British empire, fince it can only fill your mind with the melancholy recollection of profperity abused, and of opportunities of fecuring permanent advantages wantonly rejected. Nor fhall we prefume to wound your majesty's benevolence, by dwelling on the fortunate confequences which might have arifen from the mediation of Great Britain between the

powers then at war, which might have enfured the permanence of our profperity while it preferved all Europe from the calamities which it has fince endured,-a mediation which this kingdom was so well fitted to carry on with vigor and dignity, by its power, its character, and the nature of its government, happily removed at an equal distance from the contending extremes of licentiousness and tyranny.---From this neutral and impartial fyftem of policy your majesty's minifters were induced to depart by certain measures of the French government, of which they complained as injurious and hoftile to this country. With what justice those complaints were made we are not now

called

called upon to determine, fince it cannot be pretended that the measures of France were of fuch a nature as to preclude the poffibility of adjustment by negotiation; and it is impoffible to deny that the power which shuts up the channel of accommodation must be the real aggreffor in war. To reject negotiation is to determine on hoftilities; and, whatever may have been the nature of the points in queftion between us and France, we cannot but pronounce the refufal of fuch an authorized communication with that country as might have amicably terminated the difpute to be the true and immediate cause of the rupture which followed.

"Nor can we forbear to remark that the pretences under which your majesty's minifters then haughtily refused fuch authorized communication have been fufficiently exposed by their own conduct in since submitting to a similar intercourse with the fame government,

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"The mifguided policy which thus rendered the war inevitable appears to have actuated your majesty's ministers in their determination to continue it at all hazards. the fame time we cannot but observe that the obstinacy with which they have adhered to their desperate system is not more remarkable than their verfatility in the pretexts upon which they have juftified it. At one period the ftrength, at another the weakness, of the enemy, have been urged as motives for continuing the war; the fucceffes as well as the defeats of the allies have contributed only to prolong the conteft; and hope and defpair have equally ferved to involve us still deeper in the horrors of war, and to entail upon us an endless train of calamities.

"After the original profeffed objects had been obtained by the expulfion of the French armies from the territories of Holland and the Auftrian Netherlands we find your majefty's minifters, influenced either by arrogance or by infatuated ambition, and the vain hope of conquefts which, if realized, could never compenfate to the nation for the blood and treasure by which they must be obtained, reject

ing unheard the overtures made by the Executive Council of France, at a period when circumstances were fo eminently favorable to your majefty and your allies, that there is every reason to fuppofe that a negotiation commenced at fuch a juncture must have terminated in an honorable and advantageous peace; to the profpects arifing from fuch an opportunity they preferred a blind and obftinate perfeverance in a war which could scarce have any remaining object but the unjustifiable purpose of impofing upon France a government difapproved of by the inhabitants of that country; and fuch was the infatuation of thefe minifters, that, far from being able to frame a wife and comprehenfive fyftem of policy, they even rejected the few advantages that belonged to their own unfortunate scheme. The general existence of a defign to interpofe in the internal government was too manifest not to rouze into active hoftility the national zeal of that people; but their particular projects were too equivocal to attract the confidence or procure the co-operation of thofe Frenchmen who were dif affected to the government of their country. The nature of these plans was too clear not to provoke formidable enemies, but their extent was too ambiguous to conciliate ufeful friends.

"We beg leave further to reprefent to your majesty that, at fubfequent periods, your minifters have fuffered the most favorable opportunities to efcape of obtaining an honorable and advantageous pacification. They did not avail themselves, as it was their duty to have done, of the unbroken ftrength of the general confederacy which had been formed against France for the purpose of giving effect to overtures for negotiation. They faw the feceffion of feveral powerful states from that confederacy, they suffered it to diffolve without an effort for the attainment of a general pacification. They loaded their country with the odium of having engaged in a combination charged with the most queftionable and unjuftifiable views, without

availing

war.

availing themselves of that combination for procuring favorable conditions of peace. That, from this fatal neglect, the progrefs of hoftilities has only served to establish the evils which might certainly have been avoided by negotiation, but which are now confirmed by the events of the We have felt that the unjustifiable and impracticable attempt to establish royalty in France by force has only proved fatal to its unfortunate supporters. We have seen with regret the subjugation of Holland, and the aggrandizement of the French republic; and we have to lament the alteration in the state of Europe, not only from the fucceffes of the French, but from the formidable acquifitions of fome of the allied powers on the side of Poland— acquifitions alarming from their magnitude, but still more fo from the manner in which they have been made; thus fatally learning that the war has tended alone to establish the very evils for the prevention of which it was avowedly undertaken.

"On a review of so many inftances of grofs and flagrant misconduct, proceeding from the fame pernicious principles, and directed with incorrigible obftinacy to the fame mifchievous ends, we deem ourselves bound, in duty to your majefty and to our conftituents, to declare that we fee no rational hope of redeeming the affairs of the kingdom, but by the adoption of a system radically and fundamentally different from that which has produced our prefent calamities.

"Unless your majefty's minifters fhall, from a real conviction of past errors, appear inclined to regulate their conduct upon fuch a fyftem, we can neither give any credit to the fincerity of their professions of a wish for peace, nor repofe any confidence in them for conducting a negotiation to a profperous iffue. Odious as they are to an enemy, who will ftill believe them fecretly to cherish those unprincipled and chimerical projects which they have been compelled in public to disavow, contemptible in the eyes

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