office, rather than the peril of their fituation. If they felt the cafe properly, they would fhrink from the bare mention of refponfibility, inftead of being eternally talking of it, which convinced him that they confidered refponfibility as a protection, and as another word for indemnity. The other evening, when the unclaimed dividends were under difcuffion, a declaration had been made by one of the Bank Directors, which appeared to him at the time to be most extraordinary. In mentioning that much might be loft to the Bank by forgeries, one of the Directors had obferved, that their cuflom was to let the perfons prefenting forged bills for payment have the money, and not prevent the commiffion of the crime, becaufe uniefs the felony were fuffered to be completed, they could not profecute, and make an example. Mr. Sheridan reafoned on the abfurdity of this practice, and compared it with that of letting a Minifter, by unwife measures, plunge the country into a depth of calamity, from which it could not be easily extricated, merely on the idea that fuch a Minifter might be made an example of afterwards. What would they think, if thofe who opposed the right honourable gentleman oppofite to him, faw him hurrying on the country to ruin, and, instead of refifting his deftructive measures, were to fay, "Stop awhile, we are aware that Minifters are

getting into a fine fcrape and then we fhall have the fatis"faction of making them an example." In both cafes, prevention, he maintained, would be preferable to punishment; and if the Bank forewent the hope of making an example, and presented the felony from being completed, they would do much better, and fave their money; and, in like manner, oppofition did their duty beft, in endeavouring to refcue their country from ruin, and their conflituents from taxes, by checking a Minifter's career in time. With regard to the motives of the war, Mr. Sheridan remarked, that he did not think them of great importance; but the grounds of it feemed to him to be fo extravagantly ridiculous, that he could not convey his fenfe of the arrogance of our interfering better, than by fuppofing that Ruffia had treated us fo at the end of the laft war, and letting the Houfe feel it as their own cafe. Suppofe, when we were making the peace, fhe had infifted on our giving up Negapatnam, in the Eaft Indies, to the Dutch. Extravagant as this might appear, it was not more so than our infifting on her reftoring Oczakow to the Porte. Suppose, then, that she had made a point of our refigning Negapatnam to the Dutch, meaning on her part to give it to Denmark, or fome other of her allies. What fhould we have faid to fuch a demand? The aufwer would have been, what has Ruffia to do with our poffeflions in the Eaft Indies? We fhould have repelled the demand, and treated

A. 1791.

the

it with contempt. Suppofe, in that cafe, the Empress had fent a fleet down the Channel, and burnt Hull, in its way to London, where, on her arrival, fhe was determined to enforce her negociations, by acting as an armed mediator.Should not we have thought that Ruffia acted moft arrogantly, and moft unwarrantably; and yet, her conduct in that cafe would not be more extraordinary than ours in the prefent inftance. Mr. Sheridan added, that he shrewdly fufpected that we were led on by our allies, and that the real caufe of the war was a Pruffian object in Poland. ever, that we went on with the war, and that, in the end, Suppose, howthe Emperor obtained what he wanted in Moldavia and Wallachia; the Emprefs what she wanted in Turkey; and Pruffia, Thorn and Dantzick; in that cafe, he would venture to predict, that the lot of England would be to pay piper, and that the expence which we might incur would be all that would fall to our fhare. Having ftated this, Mr. Sheridan now adverting to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, arraigned his conduct, and declared that he fhould not be afraid to go through his whole political life, and would undertake to prove, that most of his measures had been pregnant with mischief to the country. ing forward each, the right honourable gentleman had faid In the moment of bringto the House, "Give us your confidence; we are refpon"fible!" Confidence might not, Mr. Sheridan said, be always well applied. He afked, whether the right honourable gentleman recollected the very different profpects which we had been taught to turn our eyes to in this year? Did he recollect that this was the promifed Millenium! that halcyon year, in the spring of which we were to taste the sweets and bloffoms it was to produce? Did the right honourable gentleman reflect, that he had told them that they should not only have their income equal to their expenditure, but a clear million a year furplus to pay towards the diminution of the national debt, and a permanent peace establishment? Mr. Sheridan contrafted this with the actual ftate of the moment, the immediate profpect of another war, and the cer tainty of additional taxes. not bear the intolerable burdens under which they must then The people, he observed, would groan, unless the right honourable gentleman came fairly forward, and affigned a fatisfactory ground for going to war. There was not one gentleman in the Houfe who really faw a motive for it which he could reconcile to any reasonable idea, With regard to confidence, he declared that he should not give his confidence to Minifters to treat with foreign Courts, unless the first department of office, in which all our foreign negociations lay, were refcued from the hands of a perfon who, to an overcharged conceit of his own abilities, added

the

the rashness which always muft attend inexperience, and placed in the hands of a man familiar with foreign Courts, and poffeffed of dexterity and fimplicity fufficient to enable him to difcharge the duties of the office with skill and with fuccefs. By dexterity, he fan, he did not mean that cunning which another perfon mi took for craft, and that craft for wildom; he meant dexterity to discover and ward off the devices and intrigues of foreign Minifters, and others; and fimplicity to follow the straight-forward path of open manliness and plain dealing himself. He declared that he would leave it to the Houfe to make the application of this contraft, but unlefs a department of fo much importance, confidering the prefent fituation of foreign Courts, were placed in fuch hands, it was impoffible for him to give confidence at fuch a time to Minifters; nor had they, in fact, any right to expect it from him, who had uniformly and openly refifted the right honourable gentleman's meatures.

Mr. Sheridan next turned his attention to the conduct of the right honourable gentleman oppofite him, refpecting Holland in 1787, for which praite had, on all hands, been candidly allowed him. He declared that if the question were put to him, and he were asked if, as a fingle measure, he rejoiced at it? he fhould, without hefitation, anfwer, that he did not; because he never could rejoice at feeing the stock of liberty diminished, and, by our interference, that noble republic was again reduced to the miferable state of vaffalage under which fhe had fo long groaned; but, when he confidered that it was probable at the time that Holland would have become a province to France (though subsequent events had fince proved that it could not have been the confequence) he was ready to join in commending the conduct of the right. honourable gentleman on that occafion. But if it were true, that the recovering our connection with Holland was nothing more than a part of a fyftem, and that the fortress of Oczakow were to be traced from the canal at Amfterdam, he should reprobate it in the strongest terms; he would fairly declare, however, that h did not believe that the right honourable gentleman had entertained an idea of any fuch fyftem at the time. He fufpected that the right honourable gentleman's measures had carried him much farther than he had ever intended to go, and that the pretence of its having been a part of a predeterminate fyftem, was nothing more than a falvo affumed for the purpofe of covering the extraordinary conduct of the right honourable gentleman. Mr. Sheridan here defcanted on the chance of our next year, having fresh prefs warrants iffued, and being called upon to arm, in confequence of our having formed an alliance between Poland and Pruffia, He went through a fummary of what had paffed in the diffe

rent

Mr.

rent Courts of Stockholm and Madrid, during the administration of Mr. Pitt, and imputed blame to him on the events of each. He also faid, that among other evil confequences of the pernicious fyftem arifing out of the treaty with Pruffa, it had faftened on us a concern with the Germanic league, and that we should be lugged in as parties to the measure. He declaimed against the fyftem, and faid, let us call it any thing but a fyftem of peace; let us fay it is a fyftem of ambition, of vain glory, to fee the offspring of the immortal Chatham, intriguing in all the Courts of Europe, and fetting himself up as the great pofture mafter of the balance of power, as poffeffing an exclufive right to be the umpire of all, and to weigh out in patent scales of his own, the quantity of dominion that each Power fhall poffefs. Was not the right honourable gentleman eftablishing a princip'e which would make it the inte reft of all India to act against us? Was he not attempting to ftand forward as fuch a peace-maker as the peace of all Europe would make it neceffary to exterminate? Mr. Sheridan mentioned the conduct of Mr. Elliot in Sweden, and having ftated what had paffed there, he referred the Houfe to the fpeeches of His Majefty, which had all told them, that our Court had continued to receive the ftrongeft affurances from foreign Powers, that there was no danger of our tranquillity being likely to be disturbed; and he defired them to compare what had happened from time to time. With regard to the revolution in France, he did not mean to go into the difcuffion of that fubject; his opinion upon it remained fixed, and would continue the fame; but there was one point which all mankind agreed in rejoicing at, as a confequence of the French revolution; and this was, that he could no longer go about intriguing, and f tting the rest of the Courts of Europe at enmity with each other. Were we, he fked, wiling to take up the little, bufy, tattling fpirit of intrigue, that worst part of the character of France, and run about producing fresh wars and fiefh difturbances. He had not thought that any thing could have induced him to lament the lofs of French enmity; but if fuch was to be the cafe, he thould do fo most feriously. He had hoped that what had happened in France would have ferved as an useful leffon, and that we fhould have had leifure to have improved by flu-lying it.

Mr. Ryder, in explanation, ftated, that the confidence Ryder. which he contended for, as abfolutely and indifpenfably requifite to be granted to a Minifter, was a conftitutional confidence, to enable him to conduct all foreign negociations of peace and war; and not as reprefented by the honourable gentleman who fpoke lafi,

Mr.

Mr. Dundas profeffed himfelf unwilling to trefpafs on the Dundas. time of the Houfe; but his right honourable friend (Mr. Pitt)

having been called upon fo loudly, to do that which it would be criminal in him to accede to, he felt himself bound to fay a few words, in reply to the vast variety of observations made by the last honourable gentleman on the other fide of the Houfe; nor was he, for another reafon, defirous of entering into a debate in the prefent moment, because it would be dangerous to the prefent negociation to divulge the fecrets of it, for the purpofe of gratifying thofe gentlemen who have with much zeal and earneftnefs required it, and with much labour endeavoured to justify their requifition. He was not deterred by all the pomp of declamation, or powers of eloquence, which the right honourable gentleman had difplayed, from fupporting the arguments of the prefent day against the unjuft and unconftitutional demand made from His Majefty's Minifters, at a time when privacy was moft to be defired, for the real and fubftantial advantage of the country. He therefore felt it his duty not to depart from the eftablished rules laid down for the conduct of Minifters, on fimilar occafions; from rules which the wifeft Councils had never deferted.— While he was ready to allow the great ability and powerful eloquence of the honourable gentleman, he could not help obferving, that it was fraught with the most inflammatory declamation against the conduct of men to whom he had given his moft unequivocal approbation. He had condemned the confidence given Minifters, on the prefent, as on all fimilar occafions, as dangerous: he had contended that the high privileges of this Houfe, to know the particulars of this negociation, were wrefted from them. He had afferted, and a bold affertion it was, that no one circumftance of the cause of our prefent armament had been communicated to the Houfe; and all fuch affertions were fupported by a train of the most fallacious arguments ever urged in that House. Therefore, if the Houfe was inclined, inftead of moving the previous question, to attend to a dry addrefs to their underftandings, instead of a gilded addrefs to their paffions, he was confident he fhould fatisfy them of the fallacy of thofe affertions, and alfo convince them, that the question first moved was premature, and improper to be brought before them. Mr. Dundas next adverted to the feveral fpeeches of His Majefty, mentioning the exifting difturbances between the Ottomans and Ruffians, and particularly the meflage from His Majesty, communicating, that thofe difturbances had arifen to fo alarming an height, as to render his mediation to effect a peace abfolutely requifite, and to which mediation the Houfe had acquiefced. For the purpofe of giving vigour and effect to this mediation, the Houfe had alfo agreed, as would appear by the papers on the table, to an increase of our naval force, and this mediation had been stated to the Houfe as

by