House, it was impossible they could remain as they were.' He desired to know what was the true construction and meaning of that part of his majesty's speech then under consideration that mentioned the resolutions, but a declaration to that House, that matters must remain as they were? Mr. Fox dwelt on this for some minutes, and with great force of ridicule animadverted on all that had passed upon the subject, and especially on the language that had been held by the minister and Mr. Dundas, upon the propriety of the line of conduct that had been pursued, in first taking the sense of the Irish parliament in order to ascertain their expectations, before the English parliament were called upon to consider the subject. He urged the flat contradiction that the event of the business had given to all their predictions respecting its success, and stated in strong terms the mischief that he conceived the agitating the matter at all, had done, by disgusting the manufacturers of Great Britain, and teaching them that the House of Commons would disregard their petitions, stating their dread of the mischievous consequences to their several branches of manufacture, were the intended system carried into execution. As the best means of checking the evil, and preventing the effect of having ever entered into a discussion of points, which, he said, he was convinced ought never to have been disturbed or brought before the public, he advised the minister explicitly and unreservedly to declare his determination to abandon all further thought of attempting to carry a measure so odious and detestable in the eyes of the manufacturers and merchants of Great Britain and Ireland. He spoke of the manufacturers in terms of the highest respect, and declared he was satisfied that to their ingenuity and industry, and to their spirit and perseverance, the country owed that exaltation to the state of respect, character, consideration and prosperity, to which its trade, manufactures and commerce, had been raised in the eyes of all mankind. He took notice of the reasoning used by the secretary of state for Ireland in his celebrated letter to his constituents, in recommendation of the propositions, on the ground, that as the British manufacturers considered the grant of the propositions to Ireland to be highly injurious to their interests they must necessarily be advantageous in an equal proportion to the interests of the Irish manufacturers, as an argument perfectly sound and forcible in itself, but as as argument extremely humiliating to the British ministers, and which placed them in a very contemptible light.

After remarking upon this, and a variety of other facts and observations, Mr. Fox briefly recapitulated the heads of his speech, which he admitted was rather a series of reason

ing against what was out of the speech than against what was in it, and sat down with desiring an explanation of the two main points of the speech to which he had alluded, declaring, that if they were satisfactorily answered, he would give the House no more trouble on that day, though most of the topics he had touched upon, would, he observed, require a full discussion on a future occasion in the course of the session.

In reply to some observations which fell from Mr. Pitt,

Mr. Fox said, that he felt it difficult to avoid smiling at the absurdity of the right honourable gentleman's arguments respecting the accession of Hanover to the Germanic league, as it was obvious that the regency of Hanover ought neither to form laws nor enter into any treaties which might prove injurious to Great Britain; consequently it behoved the ministers of this country to have prevented their entering into any alliances which might involve serious consequences to the interests of England. If Hanover, through this mistaken policy, should sustain a detriment, it naturally followed that Great Britain must become her guarantee. Such was the drift of his argument; and he only had contended that ministers were not warranted, by any plea or pretended exigency whatever, to disable Great Britain from acting subsequently with the Emperor, provided that a co-operation of this nature should appear the most likely to advance the interests of the former. And, surely, the right honourable gentleman would not presume to run lengths to which no former ministers had dared to proceed, and disavow the fullest responsibility for all the counsels which he might give his royal master in his character of elector of Hanover. The right honourable gentleman seemed eager, Mr. Fox observed, to meet his arguments with unjustifiable misrepresentation; and therefore he must desire him to bear in mind, that when he said that he could speak more freely concerning our particular connections with foreign powers than if he were a minister, he did not-in fact, he could not-mean, even in the most distant manner, to drop the slightest intimation that he was more entitled than the right honourable gentleman to utter words, conveying an unpardonable tendency to wound the interests of this country. The fullest scope of his allusion was, that he felt himself warranted to mention France as the natural enemy of Great Britain, in terms more open and unguarded than those consistent with the reserve which, upon principles of decent policy, a minister either was or ought to be, under the necessity of maintaining.—The right honourable gentleman had been pleased to exercise his wonted ingenuity, by putting the case

of two private men engaged upon the settlement of an account, and tracing out the supposed absurdity of contending that they ought to be excluded from all power of giving it a previous discussion. Be the absurdity what it might, he would, with chearfulness, monopolize the whole, and still stedfastly and inviolably embrace his former argument, that in great questions requiring a settlement between two princes, two parliaments, or two powers, considerations and objects would arise of which the discussion could never prove allowable, except under the firmest assurances that both parties were ultimately determined to receive them with unequivocal assent.

The amendment was negatived without a division, and the original address agreed to. On the following day, when the report of the address was brought up,

Mr. Fox rose. He said, that as the observations which he should beg leave to make, bore an affinity to his remarks on the preceding day, they would all lie within a narrow compass. Recent in the memory of the House were his two questions to the right honourable the chancellor of the exchequer. To one of these he had given a precise and clear answer; to the other he had not spoken in terms equally unambiguous; and as that was a question of infinite importance to the interests of the country, it was his duty to endeavour, if possible, to obtain such an answer as should remove all doubt and difficulty. What he alluded to was, the particular degree in which ministers held Great Britain to be committed, as to any future consequences that might arise from the effect of the league entered into by the Elector of Hanover with the Elector of Saxony, the King of Prussia and other Germanic princes. He was aware, that the right honourable gentleman at the head of his majesty's councils had disclaimed all responsibility for the wisdom and policy of the measure, had stated it to be a separate and distinct transaction from any British concern, and had declared that Great Britain was not committed as to her future conduct, should the league be productive of disturbances in the empire, in which her interests might call her into action. If this was really and truly the case, and Great Britain was not affected at all by the league, the more clearly it was known to that House, to the public, and to all Europe, the better; because, however well we understood the distinction between Great Britain and the electorate of Hanover, as separate states, it was not a very easy matter to teach foreign powers to understand the same discrimination. A variety of possible cases existed in which it would be almost out of the power of this country to adhere

to any such distinction in practice, however clearly it might be defined in theory. It might, hereafter, happen that circumstances would make it an essential policy in Great Britain to join the court of Vienna, and to proceed in counteraction of the league. In that case, as all treaties were offensive in their effect, though nominally defensive, a war between the parties to the league and its opponents might probably arise. Granting the likelihood of such a war, could the British troops act against those of Hanover? Or, to make the case stronger, and yet to put a possible case, suppose the Elector of Hanover were to head his troops in person, (and they were all aware that it was not a new thing for an Elector of Hanover to take the command in the field,) who would say that the British army could be directed to act hostilely against troops led by their sovereign in the character of Elector of Hanover? The supposition teemed with the grossest absurdity, and it was to shew the extraordinary predicament into which the Elector of Hanover's becoming a party to a league of the nature in question, and without the advice of a minister responsible for his conduct to that House, might draw Great Britain, and involve its interests, that he brought forward such unaccountable cases. One historical example would strengthen the argument which he had used, and prove beyond all doubt the mischiefs to which this country was liable to become exposed, by considering herself as wholly independent of the interests of Hanover. The case to which he alluded, was that of George the First, who, by his treaty with Denmark for the sale of Bremen and Verden, drew down upon him the vengeance of Sweden; and the consequence was, that this country had been threatened with an invasion, the most alarming, and the most dangerous to the liberties of Englishmen, of any it ever had occasion to expect. General Stanhope, at that time the minister of the crown, had, when the treaty was first heard of, come down to that House, and used precisely the same sort of language as that uttered by the right honourable the chancellor of the exchequer on the preceding day. He had talked of the separate and distinct. interests of Great Britain and Hanover, and had said, that the British parliament had nothing to do with the conduct of his majesty respecting his electoral dominions. But what was the consequence? The very next year, General Stanhope, who held this language, came down to the House, and urged the expences which his majesty had incurred on account of his purchase as a plea for calling for additional supplies. If the matter were not now fully and clearly ascertained, so that foreign powers, as well as that House, might be certain that Great Britain was not committed as to any part which her

policy might dictate to her as most advisable to pursue hereafter, in the case of a war in Germany, the right honourable gentleman, who had on the foregoing day disclaimed all responsibility for the wisdom and policy of the measure in question, might come down to the House, on a subsequent occasion, and make that very measure, respecting which the British parliament was excluded from all inquiry and control, the ground of an application for additional supplies. Mr. Fox concluded, by observing, that he never spoke concerning a point of state with less reluctance, persuaded that, on the present occasion, he neither divulged a secret, nor gave the slightest wound to the security and interests of the nation.

MR. BURKE'S ACCUSATION OF MR. HASTINGS.

February 17.

On the first day of this session, Mr. Burke was called upon by

Major Scott, the agent of the late Governor-general of Bengal, to produce the criminal charges against Mr. Hastings in such a shape as might enable parliament to enter into a full discussion of his conduct, and come to a final decision upon it. On Friday, the 17th of February, Mr. Burke brought this subject before the House of Commons: after desiring the clerk to read the 44th and 45th resolutions of censure and recal of Mr. Hastings, moved by Mr. Dundas on the 29th of May 1782, he said that he entirely agreed in opinion with the friends of that gentleman, that the resolution which had been read should not be suffered to remain a mere calumny on the page of their journals; at the same time he lamented that the solemn business of the day should have devolved upon him by the natural death of some, by the political death of others, and in some instances by a death to duty and to principle. It would doubtless, he said, have come forward with much more weight and effect in the hands of the right honourable gentleman who had induced the House to adopt those resolutions, or in those of another gentleman, who had taken an active part in the select committee, and then enjoyed a confidential post in the Indian department, the secretary of the board of controul; but as he could not perceive any intentions of the kind in either of those members, and as he had been personally called upon, in a manner highly honourable to the party interested in the proceeding, but in a manner which rendered it impossible for him not to do his duty, he should endeavour to the best of his power to support the credit and dignity of the House, to enforce its intentions, and give vigour and effect to a sentence passed four years ago; and he trusted that he should receive that protection, that fair and