lord expressed his regret, that there should be so little in the speech respecting the temporary policy as to Denmark, and nothing at all as to the permanent policy intended to be pursued towards Ireland. Mr. Bathurst admitted, that if it could be proved, that there were secret articles in the treaty of Tilsit hostile to this country, and his majesty had information of them, the justification of ministers would be complete. But it would be too much to take all this for granted on the bare assertion of ministers. It was singular, that while the arguments were suspended, we were called upon to come to an immediate conclusion. He contended, that all the danger that could arise from a communication of the particulars of the intelligence, had been incurred already. He was surprized that those who had examined whether Portugal could be defended against France, had not also inquired into the practicability of defending Zealand, and whether the Danes were able and disposed to defend themselves. He certainly thought that ministers were bound, in their justification, to shew a good cause, or produce some document or information which might lead the house to discover that there was good ground for the expedition to Copenhagen. Mr. Duckett spoke in favour of the address. If the occupation of Alexandria was justifiable, so was that of Denmark. The only difference was, not in the principle, but in the issue. The expedition to Alexandria had proved injudicious and disastrous, and that to Copenhagen wise and successful. Mr. Windham considered the Address, in that part which related to the Copenhagen expedition, without evidence to support the necessity of the measure, as one of the most outrageous proceedings that ever was attempted in parliament. Absolute necessity might justify any thing; but, as far as the evidence went, the effect of it was to shew, that no such necessity existed. There were two points of view in which this question was to be considered: first, the justice of it; and, secondly, supposing the thing to be just, the policy of it. It might be, that the proof of each was the same. By shewing the measure to be necessary, you would, at the same time, shew it to be just. But, the proofs required might be separate. There might be circumstances, which would, strictly speaking, give you a right to do what you have done, which yet would be very far from rendering such a step either prudent or advisable. Such, he was ready to maintain, was actually the case here. Whatever became of the question of right, on which he would agree to suspend his judgment till further information, he had no hesitation in pronouncing at the present moment, that the measure was wholly unwise and impolitic. He would suppose that the hon. gentlemen could make out a case of right; he would suppose further, what was a separate supposition, and still more remote from what he conceived to be the truth, that they could make out a clear case of right; that they could prove to a certainty, that if the fleet and stores had not been seized as they were, they would inevitably and speedily have fallen into the hands of Bonaparte: still, he should say, rather let him have them in the circumstances in which he must have taken them, than we in the circumstances in which we have taken them. This was his opinion, and this, he was persuaded, notwithstanding the flattering hopes indulged by the honourable seconder of the motion, would soon become the opinion of the greater part, if not of the whole, of the nation. They were now running riot,-those of them to whom the question of right and the effect on the national honour were objects of no concern-and were indulging in the contemplation of the plunder they had acquired; but this satisfaction would be of short duration; the time would soon come, when they would be called upon to pay the penalty of their misdeeds; when the stores would be used up, the ships be worn out or lost, and new stores and new ships have been supplied in their room to the arsenals and dock-yards of Denmark; and when they, the perpetrators of the acts in question, would be left only with the shame of what they had done, and the serious and lasting consequences, which that shame would bring along with it: "Then comes the reckoning, when the banquet's o'er, The dreadful reckoning, and men smile no more.” We had acted upon this occasion, from the impulse of a principle, often one of the most improvident and short-sighted, namely, that of fear; and had looked only to our temporary and partial, instead of to our general and permanent interest. Nothing could be more transitory than the advantages that we had gained; nothing more durable than the evils at the price of which these advantages had been pur chased. The objects themselves were not less disproportionate. We had got ships, and we had lost men: we had gained a navy, but we had lost a nation. Never more were we to look to the Danes for any thing but the most deep-rooted ill-will, the most inflamed and bitter enmity. What was of still more consequence than even the friendship or enmity of any people, however powerful, we should have lost the fair fame and character of the country. In all this we had been imitating that very conduct of the enemy, which, hitherto, it had been our constant and just object to expose and decry; our imitation, too, was just of a sort to give us a full share in the disgrace without any share in the benefit. We were increasing the power of Bonaparte instead of diminishing it. The course of proceeding in conducting the present business through the house was not less to be remarked on. We were to decide the question to night and argue the merits of it afterwards.-The right hon. gent. ridiculed the idea, that any credit was to be given to the present ministers for the step taken by the court of Portugal, when their own narrative stated the resolution to have been taken, and the purpose executed, in the absence of our minister, and without his knowledge. He should have thought that the right hon. gent. so prone to ridicule others, would have seen the ridicule that must redound upon himself, should he attempt to set up any such claim. The Chancellor of the Exchequer denied that ever his majesty's ministers had said they were in possession of the secret articles of the Treaty of Tilsit. The expression imputed to them was in his majesty's Declaration, in answer to the Manifesto of Russia, in which it was stated that it was. not unknown to his majesty, that secret articles had been agreed on in that Treaty, for either obliging this country to accept an ignominious and insecure peace, or forming a confederacy of all the naval powers of Europe against England, and more especially those of Denmark and Portugal. His majesty's ministers had a communication of the substance of those secret articles from the most unquestionable authority and, assured as they were of the truth of that communication, they would have incurred the deepest criminality and disgrace, had they waited until an evil had actually occurred so perilous to our naval superiority and very existence itself. In his mind the best criterion of the authenticity of the communication, and the conduct of government thereupon, was, to advert to the antecedent conduct of the present ruler of France, in seducing or forcing every other power on the continent into a confederacy with him against this country; and when we then considered his means of attacking Denmark with a powerful army in Holstein, was it not probable that he would avail himself of his power of oppressing Denmark, and possess himself of her ships, which, though they were now in our hands, and might decay in 20 years, would not have decayed in his hands before the opening of the spring, when, in all probability, they would have been employed in carrying troops for the invasion of Ireland. But, there was another proof which had since occurred to support the veracity of the intelligence respecting the secret articles at Tilsit, on which the government had acted towards Copenhagen; namely, the attack on Portugal, and the march of a French army for the invasion of that country, and the seizure of its fortresses and its fleet. The latter, however, was happily preserved by the measures adopted by government, founded upon one and the same communication; and would any man venture to say, that if this communication had not been promptly acted upon, that both those fleets would not have been this day in the possession of France? Mr. Sheridan rose and spoke as follows: I never entered this house, sir, with so little expectation of having occasion to trespass on its attention as I did this day; and until I heard the speech of the right hon. gentleman who has just sat down, I never felt the least disposition to obtrude upon its notice. But, sir, I would now, while that speech is yet tingling in our ears, and fresh in our memories, call the observation of this house to the pitiful, pettyfogging, quibbling justification set up by his majesty's minister, upon a proceeding in which the character and the renown of this country are so materially involved. Have his majesty's ministers any knowledge of the facts upon which they pretend to justify the proceedings against Copenhagen? Have they any authentic documents to shew to the house for their. vindication upon a transaction so outrageous and unprecedented? No, says the right hon. gentleman, we have not the contents of the secret articles at Tilsit, but we are in possession of the substance. : Sir, if they have the substance, why have | the sacred lips of his majesty, that he was they not produced it? If you produce the in possession of the proofs of a secret unarticle itself, you might certainly endanger derstanding and collusion between Russia your informant; but, by giving in the and Denmark to form a confederacy with substance, you expose him to no danger France against this country. But have his whatever. Sir, the right hon. gentleman majesty's ministers attempted to shew this has assumed, this day, a tone which ill by any proof, not even approaching to becomes the cause he has to defend he legal evidence? It was upon the relimocks our moderation; and he asks my ance that they could adduce such proof right hon. friend, "why don't you move that I was disposed to support them, bean amendment?" and he puts this, give cause I really did not imagine, that withme leave to say, rather in an insulting out the most irrefragable proofs of the tone; and talks to my right hon. friend necessity, they would have proceeded to (Mr. G. Ponsonby) of what he calls "the measures which otherwise must be concommencement of his career in leading an sidered a gross outrage upon every prinopposition." Sir, the right hon. gentle- ciple and feeling held sacred amongst man seems to have forgot the short time mankind: for had such proofs really exthat he himself has been a leader of the isted, I do not hesitate to say they would administration he now directs, or that he have been fully justified, in such a prois somewhat in his novitiate in a situation, ceeding, to keep the fleet of Denmark his fitness for which may require the test out of the grasp of the French ruler. In of some probationary years. It don't be- such a case self preservation is paramount come him, sir, to assume such a deport- to all other considerations. Fiat justitia ment towards my right hon. friend; but I ruat cœlum,' sir, is a principle I admire hope my right hon. friend will take a lesson as much as any man. But if I am from his suggestion and propose an amend- to maintain this principle towards a ment, for which it is not yet too late, and power who refuses all adherence to it, the amendment I would suggest would be and if I am, in that spirit, to look tamely to leave out of the address the whole of on, while my enemy seizes from a dethe paragraph which relates to Denmark; fenceless power a fleet which I am satisas, after what I have heard this night, Ified he is determined to employ in direct have strong objections to go to a decision upon that part of the Address until I see fuller information before the house. I do declare, sir, that I entered the house this night with a strong disposition to support his majesty's ministers in the specific measure respecting Copenhagen, because I took for granted they were ready to lay before parliament the most irrefragable proofs of imperious necessity to justify the proceeding. But, sir, from what I have heard, my disposition is materially altered. I heard a young and eloquent member (the mover) in his speech this night, assert that the mind of the country was made up on the subject. I own my mind was made up to a certain degree, because I hoped ministers would not have suffered themselves to be so critically involved, if they could not prove the absolute necessity under which they felt themselves obliged to resort to this strong measure for the defence of their country; and therefore, sir, if they can prove that necessity, to justify the proceeding against Denmark, I shall be perfectly ready to give them on this occasion my most cordial support. But how is the house to say the measure was justifiable? We have it, indeed, from But hostility against me; I say that to adhere deracy in the North of Europe highly hos- | ceeding against Copenhagen, the crow tile to this country, and to which Denmark is a party. Now, who made the treaty of Tilsit with France? Not Denmark, but your late ally the emperor of Russia. Do you attack Russia? No! no! you pass by the principal, and you attack the supposed accessary: you bombard his capital, you send your bomboats and rockets to fire his city and massacre its inhabitants; you seize his fleets; you plunder his arsenals; and after you have compleated this outrage, which nothing but the most imperious necessity could justify, what do you then do? Why, you apply to the emperor of Russia, the principal in this hostile confederacy, only to mediate with Denmark (an accessary bullied and seduced by his influence) for a peace with you. Why did you not attack the principal? Why not proceed against Cronstadt, and seize the fleet and arsenal? Why did you not seize on the Russian fleet in the Mediterranean? Why suffer three Russian ships of the line to sail through your squadrons unmolested? How did you learn the contents of the Secret Treaty at Tilsit? Was the emperor of Russia your informant? For he only was privy to it, as one of the confederating parties; and yet it is this very emperor of Russia, and no body else, to whom you send an ambassador in order to coax him to an interference with Denmark for the restoration of peace with you, after the outrage you have precipitated upon that country. If your information was not true, your attack on Copenhagen can never be justified, and if the Treaty of Tilsit was the source and origin of this hostile confederacy, I assert that his majesty's ministers deserve impeachment for not having attacked the principal as well as the accessary.I shall next advert to another point highly important to the character of this country, namely the necessity for the attack of our arms on Copenhagen, which I was informed his majesty's ministers would be fully able to justify, but for which they certainly as yet have offered nothing like justification. I have heard from authority to which I am disposed to attach strong credit, that the emperor of Russia had taken every pains to persuade the prince of Denmark to join the confederacy against this country, but that he peremptorily refused, and declared that nothing should induce him to violate his neutrality. I have heard a gentleman on whose veracity I can rely, say, that at the very time our expedition was pro prince was in Holstein with thirty tho sand Danish troops and forty thousa militia, ready to defend Holstein again Bonaparte; and determined' to perseve to the last man, rather than be induc to violate his neutrality. Now, sir, it said that if Buonaparte was in Holstei he must next, as a thing of course, ha taken possession of Zealand, but if I a rightly informed, nothing was so near an impossibility as that the Fren could have taken possession of Zealan if the prince was determined to fight f its security, sustained by the assistance might have afforded him. It is next sai that by the attack on Copenhagen we ha gained an important advantage, in the po session' of a Fleet, which must otherwi have fallen into the possession of the Frenc Why, sir, I am ready to excuse his maj ministers most completely upon this subjec if they will prove to me that Denmark w unable to defend Holstein. I say the are bound to make out their case by son such proof, or they have no right to ca on this house to sanction their conduct.But it is asked, what have you got? a what have you lost? and it has be fairly stated in answer, that we have got t ships, but they have got the men; th we have got the Body, and our enem the Soul, of the Danish navy. Yet f this, the honour of the country is ta nished, and the crime aggravated, by tl refusal of ministers to lay any informatio before parliament to justify the outrag But it is said, forsooth, that by this cap ture of the Danish Fleet, you have pr vented the invasion of Ireland. By th way, this is the first notice, that, in th course of this discussion, his majesty's m nisters have deigned to take of that cour try, which, from their professions at th close of the last session, I should have ex pected to find a prominent feature in th speech from the throne. But, instead an act of the grossest outrage and injustic against Denmark, to prevent the dange you apprehend from an invasion of Irelan and for which you are so much alarme why have you not taken the stronger an more obvious mode of securing to your selves that country, by resorting to mea sures of conciliation and justice, rather tha by an attack on the territory of a suspect ed foe. In God's name, if you would se cure the British empire, if you would mak peace with Buonaparte, first make peac with Ireland, by conciliating the affed had no power to injure or even resist them; and they have thus put it into the mouth of every Frenchman to retort upon them the charge of all those enormities with which we have accused France. The French ruler may say to his majesty's ministers, "you may talk about my having seized the duke D'Enghien on a neutral frontier and put him to death. But I answer, it was an act of violence necessary to my own defence, surrounded on all sides as I was, at home and abroad, by nations and partisans conspiring for my destruction. But you, who had nothing to fear from Denmark, a distant, peaceable, unoffensive, neutral nation ; you have wantonly violated her neutrality; you have attacked her unawares; you have bombarded her capital, you have thrown bombs, shells, and rockets to set fire to the habitations of her peaceable citizens, and you have deluged their public streets with the blood of their murdered wives and children, whose mutilated bodies have been left unburied, on purpose to excite new rage, horror, and indignation against the British nation and name.' There is this great difference between the situation of the heads of the government in the British and French nations: the ruler of France has been raised by his own efforts to the situation in which he is placed, and was surrounded on all sides by enemies confederated for the subversion of his government, and the destruction of his life. But will any man say the head of the British government feels any apprehensions of such atrocities; that our gracious monarch has any thing to fear from conspiracy, against the safety of his sacred person, or the security of his crown? The ruler of France may plead, in the jealousy, hatred, and assassinating spirit of his enemies, an excuse for his atrocities, which the rulers of this country cannot offer; our government has no charge to apprehend, our beloved monarch no lurking danger to fear. Another topic, sir, to which I have to advert, is that of the late tions of the Irish people, and you will then have a security for your defence infinitely superiour to what any of this sort can afford you. First protect and conciliate, and then you may firmly confide in the population of that country without any necessity for seizing on the fleets of your real or supposed enemies to guard her against invasion.-But, sir, beside the attainment of ships which we did not want, what are the other advantages we have reaped from this expedition? I understand they consist of hemp and timber taken from the Danish arsenals, adequate to one month's supply for the British navy; and for which, beside the expence and the odium of the capture, the country will still have to pay at the highest rate of valuation according to the market price of those commodities. But, sir, is this all ?— No: for the country, I understand, has paid still a much dearer price; for in consequence of the avidity for conveying those prizes to British ports, so completely has our commercial marine in the Baltic been abandoned and exposed, that the enemy has actually captured more of those very stores from you than you have taken of him, and this on board of five or six and fifty British vessels in the Baltic trade, which have fallen into his hands since the departure of the British fleet from the Copenhagen expedition. Let us therefore, sir, put all the advantages we have obtained in the scale against the moral justice we have violated, and the dignity of character we have lost by this adventure, and ask, if it is such a proceeding as entitles his majesty's ministers, who planned the enterprize, to the approbation and thanks of this house. In the language of his majesty's ministers and their supporters, every hour teems with abuse of the present ruler of France, and every day brings forth some new accusation against Buonaparte, as an usurper, a tyrant, a murderer, a plunderer, and every thing atrocious and abominable; and I am sorry to observe, sir, this language echoed through the pub-petitions for peace, brought forward in a lic prints of this country, the editors of which are sensible men, and would not, I am sure, persevere in such abuse, if they were not encouraged to it. It is, however, something to the character of that ruler, that towards the enemies who have left the power of doing him injury, he has acted with humanity. But British rulers have lost all character for humanity or national honour, by the attack upon a peaceable and defenceless nation, which great manufacturing country. But, sir, I cannot, as some gentlemen have done, impute those petitions to a factious spirit, or to any wish of urging his majesty's ministers to a premature, humiliating, or dishonourable peace;, but merely to impress them with a state of the distresses they sustained under the continuance of a war which has the effect of excluding their manufactures from all the markets in continental Europe. I know, sir, that |