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ministration during the progrefs of the laft war, and animadverted upon the courfe they purfued for the defence of the country, &c. Their activity and wifdom he was ever ready to acknowledge; but he begged to abferve as to fome of the measures they adopted-ift, the plan as to the provifional cavalry was known to have completely failed; 2dly, the quotas proposed to be raised for the increase of the army and navy did not produce one-twelfth of the number calculated upon; 3dly, the militia were raifed by fupplementary to 92,000 men, and yet the right hon. Gentleman on the lower bench, who was then a minifter, now ftrongly objects to the increase of the militia, although they do not exceed 70,000. The fourth inftance he had to allude to was the project of railing men for rank-a project which the right hon. Gentleman himself at prefent fo loudly condemned-a- project which produced forty-feven battalions, from the whole of which not more than 7,500 men could. be procured, who The were engrafted on the old established regiments. officers of thofe battalions were put on half-pay, and had it not been for the judgment of his Royal Highness the Commander in Chief, who contrived to find employment for them, thofe officers, who amounted to no lefs than 2000, might have remained a dead. weight upon the country. Thofe different measures of the late Administration he mentioned only with a view to afk from them, who must recollect fuch fcenes as they themfelves were the principal actors, fome indulgence and confideration for their fuccellors in power, who had fo much greater difficulties to encounter in arranging the military defence of the country, and who had notwithstanding fucceeded in collecting and arraying an army little fhort of that which the country polletfed at the very highest period of preparation in the courfe of the laft war, and much beyond that which was in arms in the year 1798, peculiar, as the ftate of the empire in domestic and foreign concerns then was. He referred to those points and introduced this comparifon merely to thew that there was no failure of exertion on the part of the prefent Government, which he thought would be ftill more obvious, if Gentlemen would confider that, independently of the manner in which Government, had directed the zeal and patriotism of the people for the internal defence of the country, exclufive of the number of volunteers collected and difciplined, not less than two hundred thousand men had been raised for the army and navy within the space of one year. The right hon. Gentle

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man concluded with admitting that the bill before the Houfe was not free from objections; but yet he felt that those objections were not fo ftrong as to diffuade him from supporting a measure which promised to produce fuch falutary effects. Mr. Fox rofe to explain, not, he obferved, what he had faid that night, but what he had faid above eighteeen months ago. The reduction of the army, which he then recommended, was certainly not the refult of an expectation, or as the mode for preparing for war. The right hon. Gentleman, he admitted, had over-reached him in ftating that the peace which then exifted was likely to laft.

Mr. Francis-1 rife, Sir, for the fingle purpose of not suffering to pafs without notice a declaratión made by his Majetty's Chancellor of the Exchequer, the most extraordinary, the most unadvifed on his part, confidering his ftation and authority in this Houfe, and the leaft applicable to the fubject in debate, that I ever was witness to in the many years in which I have fat in Parliament. The general question between him and those who differ from him this night is, firft, whether the meafures of Government in preparing for a war with France which they ought to have foreseen, were fuch as entitled them to expect fuccefs in the prosecution of it; and then whether the plan, the direction, and the ope rations of the war have been fuch as, by fhewing that we poffeffed the force and the means of attacking the enemy with fuccefs, might raife our military reputation to a level with the efforts made by the country to furnish Minifters with a power fufficient for any enterprize, and thereby acce lerate the termination of the war by a fafe and honourable peace? On thefe queftions, the right hon. Gentleman affumes the affirmative. But how does he prove it? Why, Sir, when he ought to tell us in what manner he has prepared to attack France, how he proposes to conduct the war in Europe, what rational profpect he has of reducing a molt formidable enemy, who threatens us with a conteft for our existence, to reasonable terms, or of bringing the war to an early and safe conclufion; instead of anfwering thefe obvious questions, he carries us to the other fide of the globe, that is, as far as he can from the home queftion, and affures us that, by the latest advices from India, many brilliant, fplendid, and radiant victories have been obtained over the Mahrattas. Be it fo. What connection is there between thofe events and the prefent war in Europe? Can any thing be conceived more extravagant and abfurd than, when the question is, by what

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means you can attack or repel the moft formidable military power that ever exifted in Europe, to anfwer it by faying that a British army has completely defeated an Indian army in the neighbourhood of Delhi? But perhaps the right hon. Gentleman has fome perfonal fhare in these transactions, and a right to fome part of the merit and the honour of the fuccefs. Then he must have given the orders which produced the war. In that cafe the war against the Mahratias must have originated in England. No fuch thing. He knows literally nothing of it, but what he has been able to pick up from a few straggling gazettes, printed at Madras, and copied from others printed at Calcutta, which by mere accident have found their way to England, and a letter from Bombay. From the fountain head he has heard nothing. From Lord Wellesley, whose conduct he extols, he never has received a fingle line of information on the fubject. I have faid that fuch declarations, without knowledge, particularly in a perfon in his ftation, are very unadvifed, and liable to ferious objections. While the very queftion of the wifdem, the policy, the right and the juftice of this war is depending, about all which his Majefty's Minifters are juft as much in the dark as I am; while Parliament is waiting with anxiety for the very materials, by which alone their judgment on the whole merits of the war can be determined, and when perhaps this House, upon receiving that complete information, if ever it fhould come, which we ought to have received long ago, may be obliged to condemn the whole tranfaction; the right hon. Gentleman invades and prejudges that queftion, which ought to have been left untouched, as I have always moft ftudioufly and cautiously left it, and open to the free and unbiaffed examination of Parliament. To that examination, fooner or later, it must be fubmitted. But the right hon. Gentleman, if I understand him right, profeffes to expect that thefe fucceffes in India will have fome favourable effect upon our military or political operations in Europe, and poffibly contribute to accelerate the termination of the war. If he does not think fo, his mention of thofe events is nothing to the prefent purpose. Now, Sir, I am of opinion that, if they have any effect at all, which I very much doubt, it will be to our dif advantage, I mean as to war and peace in Europe; because it will furnish Bonaparte with an argument, which the neutral powers in all appearance will be ready enough to liften to. They have hitherto fhewn no fign of a difpofition to take part with us against France, or even to affift us with their me

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diation. But when we ourfelves tell them, in a triumphant tone, that our armies have obtained victories in India, from which we expect to become matters of that empire, what will they conclude, but that the English are governed by the fame fpirit of infatiable avarice and ambition with which we reproach Bonaparte; that they have no interest in our quarrel but to fee it continued; and that the reft of the world has no chance of peace, of happinefs, or of fafety, but in the weakness to which the dangerous power both of France and England may finally be reduced by the continuance of the prefent war?

The Chancellor of the Exchequer explained, that he alluded to the late events in India, only as military achievements.

Dr. Laurence reviewed the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman oppofite, and the conduct of his Majefty's Minif ters both before and fince the commencement of hoftilities. He vindicated the parliamentary conduct of his right hon. Friend, and infifted that the wifdom of his obfervations was fully established by the conduct of his Majefty's Minifters in adopting them, though they were not difpofed to acknowledge the obligation at the fame time that they took the benefit of them. The Learned Gentleman contended, that the militia of Ireland were fworn particularly for the defence of that country, and could not without a violation of faith be brought from it. He then adverted to the capture of the French iflands, infifting that there had been no difplay of gallantry on the occafion, except in the trifling operation at St. Lucia, b cause there had been no force there capable of refiftance'; and noticed the inutility of fuch conquefts, which would be given up at the conclufion of a peace, as had been done in the cafe of Demerara, Effequibo, &c. after many millions of Engli capital fhould be expended in improving. In taking this view of the cafe, the learned Member was proceeding to comment on fome obfervations that had fallen on a former occafion from an hon. General oppofite (General Maitland), respecting the policy of taking poffeffion of the enemy's colonial territories at the commencement of a war, though it fhould be only to keep poffeffion of them pending hoftilities, when he was called to order by

General Maitland, who appealed to the candour and feelings of the Houfe, whether it was regular to advert to what had fallen from a Member on a former occafion, when that Member would be, by the forms of the iloufe, precluded from replying?

Mr. Fox agreed with his honourable Friend, that it was not strictly orderly.

Dr. Laurence continued, and infifted that no benefit was to be derived from the poffeffion of the islands, if after much British capital fhould be expended on them they were to be given up in the end. The learned Gentleman obferved upon the different conftitutions of the militia force of Ireland and of Great Britain, and concluded by juftifying the refolutions to which the hon. Baronet (Sir John Newport) had alluded, and affuring the hon. Member that any hopes of reciprocal service which he might have conceived from the laft refolution, were not well founded.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in explanation, stated, that provifional orders had been fent out to the West Indies in the early part of March, founded on information that the enemy meant to reinforce one or two islands, to prevent the landing of troops in thofe iflands, and that the orders for the actual commencement of hoftilities had been fent out on the 16th of May, the day of his Majefty's Meffage commu nicating the refult of the negotiation.

Mr. Serjeant Best defended the conduct of his Majesty's Minifters; he could not perceive what inference was to be drawn, with refpect to the question before the Houfe, from the confiderations that had been urged relative to the commencement and profecution of the war. If the war had not been commenced, the Houfe would, perhaps, not have been at this time deliberating as a Parliament, and he infifted that the question concerning the war had been fanctioned by the authority of the Legislature, and the approbation of the public. He denied the pofition that no glory had been acquired in the prefent war, Was it no glory, he asked, that whilst the Continent was crouching beneath the power of France, this country had been enabled to withstand the gigantic efforts made by its inveterate foe, and aimed at its existence? Was it no glory that in the fecond year of the war, they were confidering a measure which was to enable us to augment our difpofable force, for the purpale of adopting a fyftem of attack against our enemies? Was it a fault of his Majefty's Go vernment that valuable poffeffions had been acquired without bloodthed? The question was not now to withdraw any of the force from Ireland, but to augment the difpofable force in the empire. He contended, that the militia might as conftitutionally be fent from Ireland to Great Britain, inafmuch as the union made both countries one kingdom, and the fer vice of the militia ought to be co-extenfive with the liants VOL. II. 1803-4.

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