1 into its hands and protection the feveral charters of this country. Sir, I beg thefe allufions may not pafs off unexplained; the cafe was this- After many cruel and fcandalous decifions in the courts against chartered companies, in a fit of defperation, the feveral corporations offered their charters to the Crown, as the only protection against this tyranny; and fhall I hear this cited by way of libelling addreffes of the people at this time? I believe in truth, Sir, the right honourable gentleman is furprised and exafperated at the manly fpirit of the people in these times, who will not wait till their charters are prostituted to the purposes of Minifters, and then feek relief by yielding them to the Crown; but who boldly refift the violation in the firft inftance, and who are as hardy in their refiftance, as the right honourable gentleman has been hardy in his attack. But, fays the right honourable gentleman, how fhould the people underftand the India bill? Do they know all the abufes in India? True, Sir, the people may not have read all your voluminous reports, neither, perhaps, have one half of the members of this House read them : but, Sir, they know that no abuses in India, that the very lofs of India, that the annihilation of India, could not compenfate for the ruin of this conftitution. The plain sense of this country could fee that objection to the India bill, which I could never perfuade the right honourable gentleman to advert to; they could fee, that it raised up a new power in this Conftitution, that it ftripped at once the Crown of its prerogative, and the people of their chartered rights, and that it created that right honourable gentleman to be the dictator of his King and his country. But, Sir, the right honourable gentleman ventures ftill to deny that the addresses have fufficiently marked what is the opinion of the people, and then he talks of battles at Reading, of battles at Hackney, and battles at Westminster. At Reading, Sir, I understand there was no battle; the country addreffed unanimously against the opinion and in the face of its members, although the honourable member (Major Hartley) affures you how he exerted his oratory to deprecate the addrefs. As for Hackney, I behold over against me a moft valiant chieftain, (Mr. Byng) who is juft returned from that field of Mars, whofe brow, indeed, is not, as before, adorned with the finile of victory, but from whofe mouth I doubt not we fhall hear a faithful, although, alas! Sir, a most lamentable hiftory of that unfortunate flight and defeat. Whether at Westminster it is fufficient proof of victory to fay, "The people would not even hear me ;" whether that right honourable gentle man, man, who once could charm the multitude into the moft ftill admiration of his eloquence, and into filent gratitude for his exertions in the caufe of freedom, and of his country; whether he, the Champion of the people, once emphatically named the Man of the people, is now content with the execrations of thofe multitudes, who once perhaps too much adored him; whether, in fhort, Sir, the fonorous voice of my noble friend was a hoft itself, or whether it might not have become a hoft by being joined to the voices of the hoft around him; all these are points I will not decide but fure I am, that the right honourable gentleman will not perfuade me, that the voice of the people is with him, if Westminster is his only example. There is one thing the right honourable gentleman proves merely by ftrong affirmations, to which, therefore, I can only oppofe affirmations as ftrong on my part: he fays, his late majorities have been compofed of men the moft independent in their principles, refpectable in their fituations, and honourable for their connections; I can only affirm as roundly in anfwer, that the minority is by no means inferior to them, in point either of principles, of refpectability, or of independence. Having thus difpofed of the people and of the minority in the Houfe of Commons, large as it certainly is, the right honourable gentleman proceeds next to difpofe of the majority in the Houfe of Lords, and he denies that they were refpectable. Sir, if the right honourable gentleman will trouble himself with this kind of calculation, I am not afraid to match the majority there against the minority, either on the fcore of independence, of property, of long hereditary honours, of knowledge of the law and the conftitution, or on the score of any thing that can give respect and dignity to peerage. And, Mr. Speaker, when I look near me, (looking at Mr. Pratt) when I fee near whom I an now ftanding, I am not afraid to place in the front of that battle, for at that battle the noble Peer whom I allude to, was not afraid to buckle on his old armour, and march forth, as if infpired with his youthful vigour, to the charge; I fay, Sir, I am not afraid to place foremost, at the head, and in the very front of that battle, that noble and illuftrious Peer, venerable as he is for his years, venerable for his abi lities, adored and venerated through this country on account of his veneration for this glorious Conftitution, high in rank and honour, poffeffing, as he does, in these tuinultuous times, an equanimity and dignity of mind that render him infinitely fuperior to that wretched party fpirit, with which the VOL. XIII. Dd world world may fancy us to be infected. But, Sir, I am cárried away too far; my warm admiration of the fubject has hurried me into expreffions, perhaps, not perfectly becoming the ftrictness of this debate. The point which I fhould particularly fpeak to, and the great fubject of contention between us, is, whether I fhall refign, in order afterwards to return into office; and the example of the noble Lord in the blue ribband is held out for my imitation; for he, it is faid, is willing to facrifice his perfonal pretenfions for the fake of unanimity-Good God! Mr. Speaker, can any thing that I have faid, fubject me to be branded with the imputation of preferring my perfonal fituation to the public happiness. Sir, I have declared again and again, only prove to me that there is any reasonable hope, fhew me but the most diftant profpect, that my refignation will at all contribute to restore peace and happiness to the country, and I will inftantly refign. But, Sir, I declare at the fame time, I will not be induced to refign as a preliminary to negociation. I will not abandon this fituation, in order to throw myself upon the mercy of that right honourable gentleman. He calls me now a mere nominal Minifter, the mere puppet of fecret influence. Sir, it is because I will not become a mere nominal Minifter of his creation; it is becaufe I difdain to become the puppet of that right honourable gentleman that I will not refign; neither fhall his contemptuous expreffions provoke me to refignation; my own honour and reputation I never will refign; that I am now ftanding on the rotten ground of fecret influence, I will not allow; neither will I quit this ground, in order to put myself, as he calls it, under the protection of that right honourable gentleman, in order to accept of my nomination at his hands, and in order to become a poor felf-condemned, helpless, unprofitable Minifter in his train, a Minifter, perhaps fome way ferviceable to that right honourable gentleman, but totally unferviceable to my King and to my country. If I have, indeed, fubmitted to become the puppet and minion of the Crown, why fhould that right honourable gentleman condefcend to receive me into his hand? But it seems, Sir, that I have too much of the perfonal confidence of my Sovereign, and that I muft refign, in order to return into Adminiftration, having only an equal fhare of it with others. But, Sir, the right honourable gentleman knows that my appointment would, in that cafe, be only as a piece of parchment. Admit that I have more than my fhare of the King's 'con confidence, yet how is my being out of office two days to make any diminution of that confidence? The right honourable gentleman, therefore, every moment contradicts his own principles, and he knows that if I were first to refign, in the forlorn hope of returning as an efficient Minifter into Adminiftration, I fhould become the mere sport and ridicule of my opponents; nay, and forfeit also the good opinion of those by whofe independent fupport I am now honoured; for when I fhall have facrificed my reputation for that fupport which I am told fhall arife to me from that right honourable gentleman's protection, when I fhall have bartered my honour for his great connections, what fhall I become but the flave, of his connections; the fport and tool of a party, for a while, perhaps the Minister appointed by that party, but no longer useful to my country, or myself independent. The right honourable gentleman tells you, Sir, that he means not to stop the supplies again to-night, but that he shall only postpone them occafionally. He has stopped them once, because the King did not liften to the voice of his Commons, he now ceafes to ftop them though the fame caufe does not cease to exift. Now, Sir, what is all this. but a mere useless bravado, a bravado calculated to alarm the country, but totally ineffectual for the object of which it was intended-I grant, indeed, with him, that if all the money deftined to pay the public creditors is voted, one great part of the mischief is avoided. But, Sir, let not this Houfe think it a small thing to ftop the money for all public fervices, let us not think that while fuch prodigious fums of money flow into the public coffers, without being fuffered to flow out again, the circulation of wealth in the country will not be stopped, nor the public credit affected. It has been faid indeed," how is it poffible that Parliament should trust public money in the hands of thofe in whom they have exprefsly declared they cannot confide?" Is there any thing then in my character fo flagitious, am I the chief Minister of the Treafury fo fufpected of alienating the public money to my own, or to any indecent purposes, that I am not to be trufted with the ordinary iffues? (fome gentlemen cried no, no,) Mr. Pitt replied, why, then, Sir, if they renounce the imputation let them renounce the argument. By what I am now going to fay, perhaps I may fubject myself to the invidious imputation of being the Minifter and friend of prerogative; but, Sir, notwithstanding thofe terms of obloquy with which I am affailed, I will Dd 2 not not fhrink from avowing myself the friend of the King's juft prerogative. Prerogative, Sir, has been justly called a part of the rights of the people, and fure I am it is a part of their rights, which the people were never more difpofed to defend, of which they never were more jealous than at this hour, Grant only this, that this Houfe has a negative in the appointment of Minifters, and you tranfplant the executive power into this Houfe. Sir, Í fhall call upon gentlemen to fpeak out, let them not come to refolution after refolution, without ever stating the grounds on which they act; for there is nothing more dangerous among mixed powers than that one branch of the Legislature fhould attack another by means of hints and auxiliary arguments, urged only in debate, without daring to avow the direct grounds on which you go, and without stating in plain terms on the face of your refolutions, what are your motives, and what are your principles which lead you to come to fuch refolutions. Above all, Sir, let this House beware of fuffering any individual to involve his own cause and to interweave his own interefts in the refolutions of the House of Commons. The dignity of the House is for ever appealed to; let us beware that it is not the dignity of any fet of men, let us beware that perfonal prejudices have no fhare in deciding these great conftitutional questions. The right honourable gentleman is poffeffed of those enchanting arts whereby he can give grace to deformity; he holds before your eyes a beautiful and delufive image; he pushes it forward to your obfervation, but as fure as you embrace it, the pleafing vifion will vanish away, and this fair phantom of liberty will be fucceeded by anarchy, confufion, and ruin to this Conftitution, For in truth, Sir, if the constitutional independence of the Crown is thus reduced to the very verge of annihilation, where is the boafted equipoife of this Conftitution? Where is that balance among the three branches of the Legiflature which our ancestors have mea fured out to each with fo much precifion? Where is the independence nay where even is the fafety of any one prerogative of the Crown, or even of the Crown itself, if its prerogative of naming Minifters is to be ufurped by this House, or if, (which is precifely the fame thing) its nomination of them is to be negatived by us without stating any one ground of diftruft in the men, and without fuffer, ing ourselves to have any experience of their measures? Dreadful, therefore, as the conflict is, my confcience, my duty, |