of the Danish Navy and Arsenal of Copenhagen." The Resolution being read from the chair,

risque of the Danes drawing their army from in ordinary, and such as to indicate an apHolstein to Zealand, but the French army pearance of preparation for active "serof 40,000 men, under the command of mar- vice, but there was yet much to be done shal Bernadotte, then on the frontiers of that in the way of equipment. The noble lord province, made no secret of its destina- concluded with moving, "That the thanks tion. A considerable British force was of the house be given to lieut. general the already prepared for service on the conti- right hon. lord viscount Cathcart, knight nent; but it was necessary, in altering the of the most ancient order of the Thistle, destination, to make a material change in commander of his majesty's forces in the the equipment of this force, by furnishing north of Europe, for the judicious and deit with the means of carrying on a siege. cisive measures, which, after exhausting A large number of transports were col- every means of negotiation, were employlected, but their destination was to be al-ed by him for effectuating the surrender tered. An ordnance train, the largest ever sent from this country, was to be prepared and embarked. All these preparations were made between the 19th July, when his majesty's ministers, having shortly before received the information which determined them, took his majesty's pleasure as to the propriety of the expedition and issued their orders accordingly, to the 30th of the same month, when the expedition sailed, completely prepared and equipped in every matter essential to a fleet and army. It was certainly in a great measure owing to the exertions of the Transport and Victualling Boards, and the Board of Ordnance, that a British force of 25,000 men was assembled ready to act in the Baltic before the middle of August. Having thus pointed out the military merits of the enterprise, and the useful co-operation of the public boards, he submitted to the house, whether a great injustice would not be done if those merits were not acknowledged, whatever doubts some might entertain of the moral justice and good policy of the enterprise. He could not think of the magnitude of the result without being satisfied, that the service called for the acknowledgment of parliament. If the navy had not done so much as the army, yet he had no hesitation to say, that though it was not prudent to bring the men of war to act directly against the formidable defences of Copenhagen towards the sea, they had rendered the most important service in checking the small craft, that would otherwise have annoyed the flank of the British army, impeded its operations, and added much to the loss of men. Certainly, never was greater exertion displayed in the equipment of a navy, than was exhibited by the British seamen at Copenhagen, in fitting out 18 sail of the line, besides frigates and smaller vessels, in six weeks. It was true, these ships were in a higher state of servation than was usual for ships lying

pre

Mr. Windham, notwithstanding the distinction taken by the noble lord, felt himself under the disagreeable necessity of opposing the present motion; and if such had been his opinion before, certainly nothing that had been said by the noble lord could have the effect of altering his determination. It was unpleasant to object to a motion of this kind, because the party. principally interested was brought before the house by no fault of its own. It was unpleasant to object to what was asked in their name, though not by them. It was unpleasant also, because there was an idea that where praise was withheld there was an intention to cast blame. Certainly, here there was no room for any such construction as that, for he subscribed most heartily and chearfully to all that had been said of the meritorious conduct of the army and navy in all that had been done; they had done all that men ought to do. The moderation and temper with which they had conducted themselves, served to mitigate the harshness of the enterprise on which they were employed. It was certainly right to keep the merits of the army and navy distinct from the merits or demerits of ministers; and to separate the consideration of the orders from that of the execution. But it was not so easy to separate and keep distinct the nature and character of the service. The nature of the service was always one of the indispensable rules by which public gratitude was measured. In all military annals, there were instances of as great personal merit in the minutest actions, as in operations on the largest scale; in single ships, in luggers and schooners, in packets even, as there was lately a brilliant example, above all, in actions of boats. In all these cases there was as much courage, as much zeal, as much heroism, as much true contempt of

death as in the engagements of great fleets | the general exultation of the country, at and armies; yet these cases were not considered of sufficient magnitude to call for the thanks of parliament. It was also beyond a question, that there was greater merit in effecting a judicious retreat before a superior enemy, than in hazarding a battle under every prospect of defeat. The sanction of the approbation of parliament would be particularly called for in such a case to rescue merit from ignorant censure. Success was no criterion in point of justice, but in point of practice it was; and it was only as the emanation of national exultation, upon great success and great public service, that the thanks of parliament ought properly to be regarded. We should be able to say, 'this is a subject on which every heart gives a loose to joy; this is the expression of the general feeling, and the triumph is made manifest by the grateful acknowledgments of the legislature. But who could say that the present was a case in which every heart exulted? This was not a case similar to that in which British troops had conquered the conquerors of the world; where those who had assumed the title of invincible were met without any advantage of numbers, man to man, and yielded to the superiority of British prowess. That, indeed, was a triumph on which every British bosom exulted; that was a triumph worth fifty navies of Denmark. But this was not the feeling on which his majesty's ministers acted, any more than those selferected tribunals, formed probably at first upon good intentions, but threatening

to become in the end a most serious mischief to the country,-who while they think but little of Battles of Maida, the sources only of national glory, know no bounds to their exultation on any measures which promise to open a source of commercial speculation; who set themselves up, not merely as the rivals, but as the opponents, of the king's tribunals; who acquit where those condemn; who cry up to the skies those whom the others have pronounced to be offenders; who set at nought the rules by which his majesty means his service to be governed; who teach an officer to say, no matter what 'my profession thinks or what the king's courts decide, I have other resources to trust to, I have other cards in hand; King loses, Knave wins;' If I am a culprit at Portsmouth, I may still be what is much better, a hero at Lloyds.' The noble lord was, no doubt, thoroughly satisfied of

the success of the expedition; but the pain he afterwards expressed himself to have felt arrested his assertion, and did more justice to his disposition and principles. If pain was to make part of the sensations excited, the joy could not be very complete. It was not in fact, nor ought to be, that unmixed effusion which we witness in the country on any of those occasions which really and truly and as it were by acclamation, call forth the thanks of this house, but that sort of sober, chastised, subdued joy, if joy was to be felt at all, which a father would feel on hearing that his son's life was safe, but saved by an operation which was to leave him a sufferer and a cripple all the rest of his days. It was not in this state of mind, nor for successes of this description, that a nation indulged in public rejoicings, or poured forth its acknowledgments to those by whom these successes had been obtained, however meritorious, individually, their conduct might have been. National thanks implied national rejoicing; and national rejoicing did not belong to the present occasion. It was on this principle that he heard with pain and disgust the firing of the Park and Tower guns, on the day when the news arrived. It was a call for exultation on an occasion, where sorrow for the necessity of using force, and sympathy for the sufferings brought upon the Danes, was in the mouths of his majesty's ministers, and in the hearts of the British people. It was not merely a want of propriety that was to be complained of in such an injudicious demonstration, but want of policy, as we might yet have to suffer a severe penalty from the wrath of an exasperated people. However strikingly meritorious, therefore, the conduct of the army and navy might have been, they must have been content, on this as on so many other occasions, to remain without that last and highest reward, the thanks of this house. If neither the practice nor policy of the country would admit of such reward being given in the present instance, if according to the practice, generally, if not invariably observed, such an expression of the public gratitude would imply sentiments, which the country neither did nor ought to feel, and which it would be in the highest degree injurious both to its character and to its interests, to be supposed to feel, the army and navy could not complain, though a reward was with

a

held, which they themselves must be con- | falling, ships exploding, actions yard-arm and yard-arm, we must have had nothing but men employed in rolling tar barrels, or working cranes, packages of hemp, lighters and wherries with spars in tow; a scene, in short, for Tower wharf or the West India docks.--The noble lord said, ithad not been judged prudent to bring the British fleet to act against the batteries of Copen

scious of having equally deserved, as far as their own merit was concerned, thousand instances where yet it was never at all in their contemplation. All this, supposing the service to be of as high a character as he had been hitherto willing to take for granted; but he was prepared to go the length of saying, that as a mere military and naval proceeding, the ser-hagen, and that was the reason why the vice was not one entitled to the thanks of the house. The army and navy did all they could; but what was done did not deserve the thanks of the house. The noble lord was checked at times in the merit he was dealing out to the army and navy, lest he should take too much from himself and his colleagues: on the other hand, he did not well know how to praise himself and them, without cutting up the foundation of what he was to say of the two services. He was at a loss whether to take it in meal or in malt. Then the noble lord seemed to think the glory belonged to the transport and victualling boards, and thus while these boards did the service the army and navy were thanked. The fitting out and bringing away ships was certainly a service, but it was a service of labour, such as might be performed at Portsmouth or Plymouth, as well as at Copenhagen. At this rate, public thanks and rewards might be given at one end of an expedition as well as at the other, at the out-fit not less than at the conclusion. Yet he had never heard of a commissioner of a dock-yard who had been made a peer; nor of a master attendant who had a red ribband. In other cases, the titles of the honoured commanders had been taken from the scene of action; such were the titles of earl St. Vincent, lord Nelson of the Nile, and lord Duncan of Camperdown. Was a similar reference to be made in the case in question, the title might perhaps be appropriate enough, Copenhagen seeming to signify, according to its etymology, "the harbour of merchants and traders," but he did not conceive that any one would be much disposed to contend, that the assumption would be very desirable in the present instance. A yet stronger criterion was the omission of what had been usual on all occasions to which this pretended to be similar, the striking a medal to commemorate the service. In the name of ridicule and common sense, what would have been the emblems that such a medal must have contained? Instead of masts

ships were not more actively employed; then came the commissioners of victualling, then the extraordinary preparation to prevent the Danes from being prepared to meet us with adequate resistance, then the great amount of the Danish preparations, and then the merit of the Transport Board. Thus, what the noble lord gave with one hand he took away with the other. Government sent a force sufficient to render resistance unavailing; and in this principle they were right; then came the difficulties to be conquered and the resistance which it was such a merit to have overcame. Then the noble lord said a force had been collected which was sufficient to render success difficult and doubtful, and this laid the foundation for a compliment to the skill of the commander. It was not to be doubted, that the zeal of the Danish inhabitants led them to do every thing that could be expected from them: but they were not a force of such a description, as an officer bred to regular warfare would take credit to himself for having overcome. He thought it a thing to be deprecated that in the midst of the services every day passing, any glory should be taken from the reduction of Copenhagen. The fact was, the city was reduced by the distress brought on it by the bombardment. He did not condemn the bombardment as a means of reducing the town, if the town was to be reduced, but he did not think it a foundation on which to build a structure of glory.-On these grounds, considering the question as entirely distinct from the conduct of his majesty's ministers, he did not think the service deserving the thanks of the house. To bestow such a reward where it was not deserved, was to undervalue and degrade the reward itself. It would have the effect of diminishing the estimation of it, where it had been already given, and to sink the ambition to seek it in future. He again lamented the marks of exultation so improperly displayed, by way of contrast, he supposed, to the actual sorrow that prevailed. He also lamented,

nours, and apparently increased severity in punishment, which, in former times, were devised to cast an additional horror on crimes. But the nature of the stratagem would be canvassed and exposed, and the public would join him in thinking such distinction a shame rather than an honour. It would be like the case of a worthy baronet (sir Brooke Watson) late a member of that house, who having to go in the citypageant on lord mayor's day, and being asked what he intended to do with his wooden leg, answered, with great good humour, that he meant to gild it. While there seemed, in fact, a sort of propriety, that in the midst of so much splendour

dinary wooden leg, it would on the other hand have been supremely ludicrous, to set off ostentatiously what it must be wished to conceal, to decorate a defect, to attract attention and notice to what could be regarded only with regret and pain. This was exactly, however, what his majesty's ministers were doing? They were gilding their wooden leg, and exposing it to public mockery, by endeavouring to get a false honour for themselves, at the expence of the hon. commanders. The service performed was not such as to merit the honour or the thanks: and therefore, he, acting on the same principle on which he declined moving a vote of thanks for the capture of the Cape of Good Hope, protested against the misapplication of a most sacred trust, which ought never to be exercised without the greatest circumspection, and which would be soon destroyed if exercised inconsiderately or improperly.

however high his personal respect for the individuals, the grant of the peerage to lord Cathcart and lord Gambier. He had the pleasure of knowing and living in some degree on terms of friendly intercourse with both, and had a high esteem for their characters, both in their profession and out of it. Lord Cathcart was a soldier, the son of a soldier, and the father of soldiers, and had served meritoriously in the army ever since the American war; and lord Gambier, though but little employed for many years in active service at sea, was remembered as a sharer in the memorable victory of lord Howe on the 1st of June, and as having contrived to distinguish himself, so far as a single cap-nothing so plain should appear as an ortain could, in that distinguished action. Still he thought the services performed by them on this occasion did not warrant that exertion of the prerogative in their favour, and he highly blamed his majesty's ministers for advising their sovereign to grant these honours, and for proposing these thanks. If any thing should be kept distinct from party feeling, it was the granting of these naval and military rewards, without any other motive than the consideration of mere military merit. Would the honours bestowed on these officers acquit the noble lord of the censure that would attach to the nature of the expedition? Would it not rather be concluded, that being granted with that view, they only served to aggravate the greater and weightier offence which had been already committed? This sort of grant was an instance of the worst species of ministerial corruption, in as much as it went to the destruction of that fund of honorary rewards, in which the poorest man in the country, if the case were properly explained to him, or even without any explanation, on the pure impulse of feeling, would be sensible that his interest was more materially involved and affected, than in the most wasteful expenditure of the produce of the taxes. A pension if unworthily bestowed on one, would remain a recompence of no less value for another; but a title of honour, or a vote of thanks, would sink in value, both as to the past and the future, upon every misapplication that the granting of either was subjected to. The house was now called upon by lavishing rewards to cast a false lustre on an act of doubtful justice and policy; it was hoped that this vote would have an effect, not unlike, in its principle though opposite in its operation, to those forfeitures of ho

Mr. Brand declined entering at all upon the merits of the service, in which that part of the army and navy had been employed, to which it was proposed to vote the thanks of the house, but he deprecated the coming to a resolution, which would preclude the house from afterwards coming to a decision upon the policy of the expedition. One of the grounds on which the expedition was justified, was the alleged weakness of Denmark to defend herself had she been attacked by France, and he conceived, that it would be altogether inconsistent to pass a vote of thanks for a service which derived its principal importance from the degree of resistance which those employed in it had to encounter.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, that the motion now before the house, would by no means have the effect pre

tended by the hon. gent., and that it neither entered into the contemplation of his noble friend, who proposed, nor of the right hon. gent. who opposed the resolution, that it in any way pledged the house to an opinion upon the merit or demerit of those who planned the expedition. He wished that that right hon. gent. had so discussed the question immediately before the house, as not at least to afford strong grounds of suspicion, that his mind was very much prejudiced upon the question not now before them. He would not however, be tempted by any thing that had fallen from the right hon. gent. to transgress the limits of the present question, not even to reply to the charge, that ministers had planned the expedition from no other than the paltry motive of keeping their places; the solidity and justice of which he should leave with the cool judgment of the house, and the cool judgment of the right hon. gent. himself. What he

parison of what it would have been had they battered and stormed the town, in which case, perhaps the right hon. gent. would have had no objection to their receiving the thanks of parliament. For his part, he conceived that their conduct was highly meritorious for its temper and moderation. At the same time, they had taken care not to hazard the object they had in view. The right hon. gent. appeared also to think, that nothing had been done by the navy, and that if the thanks of the house were voted to the army, at least they ought not to be voted to the navy. Could a single instance be found of a conjunct expedition, in which because one description of force did only all that it could do, the thanks of parliament where withheld from it? Even when the navy had only landed the troops in Egypt, for instance, in which although the navy certainly made excellent arrangements for the disembarkation of the army, meant now to observe was, that the rea- yet by the latter the victory was won, for soning of the rt. hon. gent., if corroborated which the thanks of parliament were voted by the decision of the house, would be to both. He hoped the house would make extremely prejudicial to the public ser- no distinction between the services. He vice. He seemed to be of opinion that no hoped the house would separate the preservice was entitled to the thanks of parlia- sent question from the question of the ment, except it was the cause of a gene- policy of the measure. He hoped the ral and triumphant feeling, compleatly house would not refuse their thanks to the unmixed with any regret, and that there officers engaged in this expedition, because could be no merit, under any circumstan- they had executed a painful and heartces, either in a retreat or defeat, to entitle breaking duty. (A cry of hear! hear!) it to such an honour. He begged leave, He repeated, that it certainly was a painin opposition to this doctrine, to remind ful and heart-breaking duty. He had never the right hon. gent. that adm. Cornwallis contemplated the subject, either before or received the thanks of the house for the since the expedition had taken effect, but judgment and bravery which he displayed as a most painful duty. Still, however, it in presence of a superior force, when no was a duty. It had been performed with engagement, and consequently no victory, as little injury to the power attacked. took place. The thanks of the house had as possible. The question was, whether also been voted to the governors of Ma- the house would refuse their approbation dras and Bombay, for their activity into officers, who had rendered a most imforwarding the views of the governor gene-portant service to the nation, by diminishral of Bengal. When lord Hood took ing that force, which, but for their expossession of Corsica, unaccompanied with ertions, would probably, ere this, have any of the circumstances which the right been joined with the enemy in the invahon. gent. had contended were necessary sion of this country. to the establishment of such a claim, he had received the same mark of approbation. The very circumstance of the service in question being painful to the feelings of those employed in it, he considered as an additional reason why it should not pass unrewarded, and if any thing more than another could add to the merit of the officers employed in the expedition against Copenhagen, it was their having obtained a cheap and bloodless victory, in comVOL. X.

Mr. Tierney said, the only distinct. ground which had been stated, which he could understand, was, that our army and navy had been sent on a most painful duty, and had conducted themselves with all possible moderation. He was not at all inclined to dispute this statement; but he did not think this was exactly that sort of merit which was to be rewarded by peerages, and the highest honours which the state had to bestow. Was it supposed that N