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the third was to be brought to a division, it should have his vote. He conceived

that ministers, by their own shewing, gave very little hopes of peace. He thought that it would be acting more consistently with the honour, the interest, and the dignity of the country, to enter into nego ciation now, that at any future period.

Latouche, R.
Leach, J.
Lyttleton, Hon. W.
Lloyd, J. M.
Madocks, W, A.
Macdonald, J.
Martin, H.
Marle, Hon. W.
Milbanke, Sir R.
Miller, Sir T.
Mosely, Sir O.
Ord, W.
Parnell, H.
Peirse, H,

Piggott, Sir A.
Russell, Lord W.
Scudamore, R. P.

Sheridan, Rt. h. R. B
Smith, J.
Stanley, Lord
Walpole, Hon. G.
Ward, Hon. J. W.
Wardell, G. L.
Wharton, J.

Whitbread, S.

Tellers.

Mahon, Viscount,
Smith, William

HOUSE OF LORDS.

Tuesday, March 1,

[OFFICES IN REVERSION BILL.] On the order of the day being read for the 2nd reading of this bill,

Mr. Sheridan did not agree with his hon. friend who had just sat down. He would vote for all the three propositions. He contended, that ministers had shewn an aversion to peace in two instances, and that they ought not to be trusted to reject a third offer. He was sorry to hear a great deal stated respecting commercial distress, from a very respectable quarter : but he was certain that the picture which had been drawn was greatly overcharged. He knew there was no such distress in the country; and if it did exist, he never would avow it for to hold such language was to capitulate at once. It had been said, to vote the third resolution would be to encourage petitions for peace. In his opinion it would completely put an end to them. As it did not appear that the dis-had existed in the former parliament had cussion could be terminated this night, he moved that the debate be adjourned until to-morrow.

Mr. Adam wished that his right hon. friend would withdraw his motion for adjournment. He declared that he would vote for all the three propositions.

Mr. Sheridan withdrew the motion of adjournment.

Mr. Whitbread replied; after which the house divided on each of the three Resolutions, which were all negatived. The following are the numbers which appeared on each division: 1st division, Ayes 70; Noes 210; 2d division Ayes 67; Noes 211; 3d division Ayes 58; Noes 217.

List of the Minority on the third Resolution,
Abercromby, Hon. J. Colborne, N. W. R.
Adam, W.
Craig, James
Anson, G.
Combe, II. C.
Antonie, W. L.
Creevey, T.
Aubrey, Sir John

Bradshaw, Hon. A. C.

Bewicke, C.

Biddulph, R. M.

Bouverie, Hon. G.

Brand, Hon, T.

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Dundas, Hon. C. I.."
Dundas, Hon. R. L.
Fergusson, R.

Greenhill, R.

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62

The Earl of Lauderdale called the attention of the house to those passages in the speeches of his majesty to parliament, on the 27th of April, and the 26th of June, expressing a desire that the inquiries, with a view to public economy, should be continued. The committee of finance which

been re-appointed in this case; which committee had recommended this measure His lordship adverted to the circumstance of this bill having been thrown out in the last session, when none of the ministers were present, except the noble and learned lord on the woolsack; and expressed a hope that, under all the circumstances in which this bill was again pressed on their lordships' attention, they would not now reject it.

Lord Arden opposed the bill, on the ground of its being a direct and unnecessary infringement on the king's preroga tive. He also objected to the resolution of the house of commons subsequent to he considered rather as a species of legisthe rejection of the bill last session, which lation. He was aware that his opposition to the bill was liable to much misrepresentation; but that should not deter him from performing what he conceived to be an act of public duty.

Earl Spencer was perfectly convinced of the purity of the motives which actuated the noble lord. He did not think this bill of any essential or vital importance; but under the circumstances in which it was before the house, he thought their lordships ought to pause before they again rejected it. He thought it rather tended to support the prerogative of the crown, than to infringe upon it.

The Lord Chancellor objected to the bill in its present shape, as wholly unfit to pass into a law, from the vague manner in which it was drawn up, and the general enactments which it contained. He was willing, however, to vote for the 2nd reading, if there was any prospect of so modifying it in the committee as to free it from those objections to which at present he thought it liable.

The Earl of Darnley supported the bill. Lord Auckland, from the unlimited enactments of the bill, was not prepared to assent to it.

The house then divided on the question, Contents 34 Proxies - - 35-69

Non-Contents 36

Majority

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

Wednesday, March 2.

25-61

-8

[LORD LAKE.-Lord Castlereagh, in call

Lord Hawkesbury wished the bill to go to a committee, on the grounds that it might be expedient to regulate the granting of offices in reversion, so as to preventing the attention of the house to the noabuses; and also to give time for the maturing of any plan of economy which it might be wished to propose, and which might, therefore, render it adviseable to suspend for a certain time the granting of offices in reversion, that in the mean while it might be ascertained whether there were any offices which it would be expedient to regulate or abolish.

Earl Grosvenor approved of the bill in its present shape, and hoped that no compromise would take place, but that the bill would pass as it was.

The Earl of Westmoreland supported the 2nd reading on the same grounds as lord Hawkesbury. As to ministers not attending on the discussion of this bill last session, why did not noble lords on the other side attend that discussion; and why had not this bill, if it was so important, been sooner taken up by them?

Lord Redesdale objected to the bill altogether, and thought it incapable of any modification which could render it fit to be passed into a law.

Lord Holland deprecated that species of recriminatory observations, which could tend to no possible good. Noble lords on his side of the house had not previously taken up the bill, only because they did not wish to shew a want of candour towards ministers for the sake of catching at a little popularity. He could not help observing, that those noble lords who had opposed the bill in toto had acted with the greatest fairness. His lordship defended the vote of the house of commons, which, being merely for an humble address to his majesty to suspend the granting of offices in reversion until six weeks after the commencement of this session of parliament, he could not conceive liable to the objections of the noble and learned lord.

The Duke of Montrose opposed the bill in toto, thinking it incapable of any desirable modification.

tice respecting a Monument to be erected to the memory of lord Lake, which had been suspended by a notice, having a prior claim to the attention of the house, on a former night, did not mean to recur to that notice, or again to offer to the house the motion which was the subject of it. Having communicated with many persons devoted to the memory of Lord Lake, and participating in the high veneration in which he held the services of that gallant man, he found that it was the general wish of those persons to give way to the difficulties of parliamentary form that had arisen. The family of the noble lord, deeply penetrated with a sense of gratitude for the vote passed the other night, was willing to rest its claims on the public bounty there, than press a point upon which many of those who had voted in approbation of lord Lake's general merit and services, might be found in opposition. In this feeling he thought it his duty to concede; but he could not help lamenting, that parliament appeared to have laid it down as a principle, that the glorious testimony of a public monument was to be confined to the services of those who died in battle. Lord Howe's monument was the only exception to this rule, for that of lord Cornwallis's stood on entirely distinct ground. He admitted that the limitation to those who died in battle was a good and convenient general principle. But at the same time, when Monuments were held to be the most appropriate marks of public gratitude, as being at the same time most honourable to the deceased, and best calculated to excite emulation in the minds of posterity, it seemed to be a strange exclusion that prevented a lord Lake, a lord Rodney, and a lord Duncan, from being found among the illustrious heroes thus consecrated to fame, while many persons of much inferior rank and merit were so honoured. The distinction would never be

asked but for striking examples of merit and service, and the reward may safely be granted without the fear of deviating into abuse. It would certainly be no injury to those who fell in battle, to admit to a participation of this honour, those who had equally entitled themselves by victory, and who had no other bar to their claim but that of a greater interval of time between their service and their death. It was not the death but the service that was the proper object of reward.

HOUSE Of Lords.

Thursday, March 3.

which they afford extremely imperfect
and unsatisfactory.-That in a matter in
which both the honour and the interests
of our country are so deeply concerned.
we had hoped for the fullest explana-
tions. The principles of our constitu-
tion and the uniform practice of his ma-
jesty, and the sovereigns of his illustri-
ous house, require, that parliament should
be distinctly apprized of the true grounds
of entering into new wars, especially in
a situation of our country wholly un-
precedented. Had Denmark been a party
to any hostile confederacy against the rights
or interests of the British empire, our re-
sistance would have been necessary, and
[EXPEDITION TO COPENHAGEN.]-Earl our warfare legitimate. Under such cir-
Darnley rose to make his promised motion cumstances, we should only have had to re-
on this subject. His lordship took a re-gret, that the ports and arsenals of that
view of the principal circumstances con- country should so lightly have been aban-
nected with this expedition; and con-doned, when advantages so very inconsi-
tended, that the only ground on which it derable had been derived from their tem-
could be justified was actual necessity;porary occupation, and when by our conti-
which was not proved to exist by any do-nuing to hold them during the war, all real
cuments before the house, nor by mini-
sters, who, on the contrary, continually
shifted their ground of justification, and
had made out no case which, in his opi-
nion, was at all satisfactory. It had been
said, that an option was given to the prince
regent to deliver up the Danish fleet; but
could it be said to be an option, when it
was evident, that if he had delivered up
the fleet, Holstein and Jutland would im-
mediately have been seized by France?
This expedition, it had been said, was sent
to ward off danger from this country; but
how had that danger been prevented?
The danger was not of an invasion of this
country, but of the Baltic being shut
against us; and instead of precluding
this danger, the expedition had acce-
lerated it. Possession of Zealand had not
been retained, and Denmark had been
thrown completely into the arms of France.
The national character had, in his opinion,
been degraded, and the national honour
stained by this expedition; and what had we
gained? 16 ships of the line, which could
be of little service; and as to the stores, they
did not amount in value to the stores ex-
pended in the expedition; and the whole was
not equal to the expence of the expedition.
-The noble earl concluded with moving,
"That an humble Address be presented to
his majesty, submitting, That after atten-
tively considering all the public documents
before us concerning the late attack on
Copenhagen, and the war which it had
produced, we have found the information

danger from that quarter might have been
effectually averted.-But we cannot doubt,
that Denmark, instead of engaging in hostile
leagues, had resolved still to maintain her
neutrality. This fact is proved even by
the imperfect documents which have been
laid before us, and is confirmed by the
proclamation issed by his majesty's com-
manders immediately before the attack.—
Certainly Denmark was no party, nor does
it appear that she was privy to any confe-
deracy hostile to this country. We are
not even satisfied that such a league did
really exist. The conclusion of any se-
cret articles at Tilsit affecting the rights
or interests of the British empire appears
to have been uniformly denied both by
Russia and France.-The correspondence
of his majesty's secretary of state, and the
dates of the transactions themselves, prove
that his majesty's ministers could not be
in possession of any such articles when the
attack was ordered against Copenhagen;
and it has been distinctly admitted in this
house, that they have not yet obtained a
copy of them. The king's ambassador at
Petersburgh, in an official note, rested the
defence of the measure not on any hostile
purposes either of Denmark or of Russia,
but solely on the designs which it was said
the French government had long since
been known to entertain.-His majesty's
ministers not only forbore to advise such
measures as would have been necessary to
repel any real hostility of Russia: but
they actually solicited the mediation of

1

that power; to extinguish a war, and her | peared that there was abundant cause to guaranty to defeat projects in which it is commend, instead of censuring the conduct now pretended they knew her to have been of ministers with respect to the Copenhagen a principal and contracting party.-Alle-expedition. The noble lord then took a gations thus inconsistent with each other, survey of all the circumstances which had and contrary to admitted facts, weaken, in- marked the transaction, and concluded stead of supporting the cause to which they with reading a Resolution of approbation, are applied. With respect to the alledged which it was his intention to move, if the necessity of the case, we beg leave to Address moved by the noble earl should assure his majesty, that we cannot think so be negatived. meanly of the power and resources of his empire, of the spirit of his people, or of the valour and discipline of his fleets and armies, as to admit that such an act could have been required for any purpose of self-preservation. Any temporary advantages which the possession of such ships and stores as were taken at Copenhagen can afford, are already much more than counterbalanced by the other consequences of a measure which appears not less objectionable in policy than in principle. That measure has augmented the number of our enemies; it has countenanced the injurious representations circulated throughout Europe respecting our principles and designs; and has inflamed against us the warmest passions of neutral and of friendly nations. But it has above all shaken our own persuasion of the justice of our cause: a sentiment which had hitherto supported us through all our difficulties, commanding the respect of other powers, and encouraging us in an humble but confident reliance on the ultimate protection and blessing of Providence. Unwilling as we are even yet to pronounce definitively on a subject the full knowledge of which has been so pertinaciously withheld from us, and reluctant as we must ever be to admit conclusions unfavourable to the justice of those councils by which his majesty's conduct has been actuated, we are yet compelled on such an occasion to speak to his majesty the language of truth. And we must therefore, with all humility, and with the most unfeigned and heartfelt sorrow, represent, that in a case which above all others required the clearest proof, every presumption is against us, and that no particle of evidence has yet been adduced by which our national character can be vindicated from the guilt of an unprovoked and premeditated violation of that good faith, justice and humanity which have hitherto been at once the glory and the safeguard of the British empire.'

Lord Eliot rose to oppose the Address. So far from any fair ground existing in support of such an address, to him it ap

Lord Holland highly regretted the degree of national dishonour that had been brought upon the country by the shameful conduct of ministers, in sending a large armed force to attack the territories, and seize the shipping of a neutral power. It was unaccountably strange, that ministers should still persist in asserting the necessity of that odious measure in order to frustrate the secret articles of the treaty of Tilsit, of which ministers pretended to have known the substance. We were publicly challenged by the enemy to produce the least evidence of the assertions which ministers had put into the sacred mouth of his majesty: yet we were totally incapable of supporting them by the least shadow of evidence. The noble lord said, he detested to hear the plea of necessity and self-preservation urged in our defence. It was particularly calculated to instil into the British people passions and opinions subversive of that liberality and generosity that distinguished our ancestors. Had France even got possession of the 16 Danish ships, the acquisition could not materially injure this country, or increase our alarms of invasion, whilst we should have been secure of the friendship and attachment of the Danish people, and their indignation at the French for forcing them to abandon their esteemed neutrality, and become a party in an unnatural war. Without possessing the hearts of the Danish people, Buonaparte could do us little injury through their means; whilst under their present circumstances, they must be filled with the utmost resentment by our unparalleled outrage. His lordship then entreated the house to vindicate the tarnished honour of the country, and shew to the nation, to Europe, and to the world their abhorrence of so flagrant a breach of the laws of civilized nations.

Lord Boringdon defended the expedition, and contended that, after the battle of Friedland, it was evident that Denmark was unable to defend the neutrality, and must make her election between England and France; and that it was also evident

1

from her previous conduct that her incli-
nations were with France.-The house di-
vided :
Contents
Non-contents 56

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26 Proxies 25— 51

54-110

Majority -59 Whilst strangers were excluded there was a short conversation on the motion of lord Eliot, for an Address to his majesty, stating," That this house, considering the Declarations laid before them by his majesty's command; the state to which the Continent was reduced, in consequence of the negociations and peace of Tilsit; the avowed declaration of the French government to exclude the British flag from every port of Europe, and to combine all the powers of the continent in a general confederacy against the maritime rights and political existence of G. Britain; most highly approve the prompt and vigorous measures which were adopted by his majesty's ministers, for the purpose of removing out of the reach of his majesty's enemies the fleet and naval resources of Denmark."The house then divided:

64 Proxies

Contents 61-125 Non-contents 29 Proxies 28-.57

Majority -

FARD.]-Sir J. Newport rose, pursuant to notice, to move, "That there be laid before this house, a Copy of the patent by which John Giffard, esq. has been recently appointed to the office of Accomptant General of the customs in Ireland, together with a statement of the manner in which the vacancy of the said office took place.

Sir A. Wellesley was of opinion, that the hon. baronet ought to have laid some parliamentary ground for the production of these Papers. He should have shewn, either that the person appointed to the office was an improper person to be appointed, or that he had been incapable of executing the duties of it, and therefore unfit to be appointed.

Sir J. Newport had abstained from enter. ing into the discussion more at length, in order to save the time of the house, but he would undertake to shew, if the papers should be granted, both that the former dismissal of Mr. Giffard was right and proper; and that consequently, he was not a fit person to be advanced to the office he now held.

Sir A. Wellesley stated, that the gentleman to whom the hon, bart. alluded had -68 been an old servant of the crown, and had [PROTEST AGAINST THE REJECTION OF never been dismissed for any reason officiTHE ADDRESS PROPOSED BY LORD DARN-ally stated. He undoubtedly held opiniLEY.] Dissentient; For the reasons which ons upon the subject of the Catholics, in are assigned in the proposed Address to common with the majority of the inhabihis majesty; and which we are desirous tants of the united empire, and though he of recording as a memorial of our senti- might have urged these opinions indisments on a measure which has, as we fear, creetly, at a time when the subject was fixed an indelible stigma on the honour of under the consideration of parliament, our country." (Signed by the peers whose that was not a reason why he should be names appear to the following protest.) perpetually excluded from office, office of which he had been deprived yield. ed him 700l. per annum, whilst that to which he had been since appointed produced only 6001. As no ground had been laid for the motion, he could see no use in producing the papers called for.

[PROTEST AGAINST THE RESOLUTION PROPOSED BY LORD ELIOT.] "Dissentient; Because we hold it highly unbecoming for this house to pass a Vote of Approbation of ministers, without any proof of the allegations adduced by those ministers in their own cause, upon so momentous a proceeding. (Signed,) Wm. Frederick (duke of Gloucester,) Vassall Holland, Derby, Spencer, Ponsonby, Rawdon (earl Moira,) Essex, Clifton, (earl of Darnley,) Stafford, Crewe, Jersey, Bedford, Grenville, Albemarle, Carysfort, Sidmouth, Grey, Ponsonby, (Besborough,) St. John, Hutchinson, King, Breadalbane, Fitz-william, Lauderdale, Ailsa, Erskine, Suffolk and Berkshire, Auckland, Buckinghamshire."

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

Thursday, March 3.

The

Mr. Croker thought that the dismissal of Mr. Giffard was, if not an arbitrary, at least an indiscreet act upon the part of the Irish government, and that the restoration of that gentleman to office was a mere act of justice. Mr. G. was not apprised of the disapprobation felt by government at the line of conduct he was pursuing, until after he had made his motion as a corpor rator of the city of Dublin. In making that motion for a petition to parliament, he was exercising a constitutional right, and certainly the gentlemen opposite, who, on every occasion, professed themselves

[MOTION, RESPECTING MR. JOHN GIE- friends to the right of petitioning, would

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