these difficulties, and set him free from all restraint that the threat of a hostile invasion, and the preparations carrying on to execute it, would make indispensable great levies of troops in France, and must necessarily invest with the command Bonaparte, as the military chief, in whose talents the nation could best confide; and that when once he was placed at the head of a great military force which he could lead to victory and conquest, he would scorn all domestic parties that the most extraordinary expedient that ever was thought of for preventing the French from becoming a military nation, was to force them reluctantly into a war: that in determining on the expediency of war, we must consider our means and our resources; and that with the present exhausted state of our resources, the most sanguine could hardly hope that we should be able to supply the expenditure necessary for carrying it on for a period of more than two years that if peace would afford France time to recruit her strength, and put herself in a formidable state of military preparation, it should be recollected that it would afford the same advantage to the Allies, who seemed to stand in still greater need of it: that if the union of the Allies was not to be depended on in time of peace, how much less could any reliance be placed on it during the various occurrences of war, which were continually opening new situations to work upon their hopes or their fears, and to seduce them from their alliance? Best's May 9th, Tu. I stated in the House of Commons Sergeant my reasons for objecting to a Bill which Sergeant Insolvent Debtors' Best has brought in to alter Lord Redesdale's Insolvent Debtors' Act. The objects of the Sergeant's Bill are two: 1st, To compel debtors, after they have been imprisoned a certain time in execution, to deliver in, upon oath, an account of all their property, and of all the debts they owe, and to compel an assignment of all their property for the benefit of their creditors, and to punish a refusal to give in such an account, or the giving a false account, with transportation for seven years as a felony; and, 2dly, To extend the term of imprisonment of those who take the benefit of the Act beyond three months (the period at which they are now entitled to the benefit of it) to longer periods, proportioned to the amount of the dividends their estate may pay. With respect to the first of these objects, although I highly approved of the compelling the application of a debtor's property against his will to the payment of his debts, yet I greatly disapproved of the modes by which this was to be accomplished. To begin by imprisoning a man for three months; then to oblige him to account upon oath for all his property; to hold out to him temptations to commit perjury, and, if he refuse to expose himself to such temptation, to punish him with the same severity as thieves and highway robbers, according to the mode in which the criminal law is usually administered, are now exposed to, appeared to me to be unjustifiable. I thought it too as impolitic as it was unjustifiable. The excessive severity of the law would prevent the execution of it, as was already the case with the Bankrupt Laws and with the Lords' Act, in which there was a provision exactly to the same effect as the one now proposed, but which had not (except in some very rare instances) been carried into execution. As to the second object of the Bill, I could not understand on what principle the length of a debtor's imprisonment was to be proportioned not to his good or bad conduct, but to his inability to pay his debts; so that the severity of his punishment should increase according to the extent of his misfortunes. I took this opportunity of stating these objections; but at the instance of Sergeant Best, the further consideration of the Bill was postponed. 13th, Sat. Went, out of town with Anne and my children, to pass the Whitsun holidays with Mr. Nash, at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Park. 18th, Th. Returned to town. Taxes on law pro 22d, Mon. I objected in the House of Commons to the new very heavy stamp duties proposed ceedings. to be laid on law proceedings in Scotland. with Aus tria, Russia, and Prus sia against Bonaparte. 25th, Th. The Prince's message communicating Treaty to the House of Commons the treaties he has entered into with Russia, Austria, and Prussia, at Vienna, on the 25th of March last, was taken into consideration by the House to-day, and an address voted approving of the treaties. Lord George Cavendish moved an amendment, expressing disapprobation of the stipulation in the treaties, by which the parties "engage not to lay down their arms until Bonaparte shall have been rendered un The Bill was afterwards postponed from time to time; but was never read a second time; and on the 7th June, Sergeant Best stated that he should proceed no farther with it, but bring in another Bill in the next Session. Grattan and Plunket. Lord able to create disturbance, and to renew his attempts for possessing himself of the supreme power in France." The amendment was rejected by a majority of 331 against 92. After Lord Castlereagh had opened the subject and moved the address, the whole debate was carried on by members of the Opposition; Grattan, Plunket, Lord Milton, and Charles Williams Wynn having supported the address, and declared their entire approbation of the war. That Grattan and Plunket should state their reasons for differing from the great majority of those with whom they have concurred in opinion on all public matters for many years back cannot surprise one; but that they should take extraordinary pains, and exert all their eloquence, to show how much their former friends are, in their opinion, in the wrong, is not very easy to be accounted for. In the House of Lords, two days ago, on the same question, Lord Grenville supported the Ministers. Erskine, who has lately accepted a green riband from the Regent, voted with the Ministers, but did not speak. One might have expected, however, that he would have explained how it happened that his opinions now were so different from those which he entertained during the last war, and which he published in a pamphlet that had great celebrity. This pamphlet I remember his carrying with him to Paris after the peace of Amiens, and giving to a number of persons there, telling every one of them that there had been still later editions than that which he gave them, and which was the twenty-sixth', or some other 1 It appears from notes made by Sir S. Romilly at the time, that it great number, for I do not recollect exactly which it was. sidies to 26th, Fri. On the question of subsidizing the The subAllies, I voted against it, and in a minority of only the Allies. seventeen.' Most of the Opposition (I know not why) would not give themselves the trouble of attending. A Bill has been brought into the House to enable the Crown to call out the militia. It has been brought in as a matter about which so little consideration was necessary, that the Bill was not even ordered to be printed, till I moved the printing of it. The Bill, as brought in, enacts, that it shall be lawful for His Majesty, under the present circumstances, at any time after the passing of the Act, and before a day to be named, to draw out and embody the whole or any part of the militia. If passed in this form, the Act must have left it entirely at the discretion of the Crown to keep the militia embodied as long as it should think proper; for who could say when the present circumstances had so far altered that it could be affirmed that the occasion of calling out the militia had ceased? I proposed therefore in the committee to insert, instead of the words "under the present circumstances," the following words: "in the present situation of the country, there being the prospect of an immediate war with France," and Lord Castlereagh adopted these words; so that they now stand in the Bill. was the thirty-third edition, and that Lord Erskine stated that five editions had been published since. - ED. 1 The number in favour of the motion was 160.—ED. Bill to King to embody the enable the militia. |