credit of this country? Let me ask what should be the conduct of a House of Commons towards him who is at least prima facie a culprit before them and the public, - who is certainly in the situation of an accused person? I think it is not difficult to answer these questions. If there are any who hear me who think that I say this from personal rivalship, they are welcome to charge me with it; they do not know my nature; those who do, will bring no such charge against me. If, however, to charge a criminal minister, in order that an inquiry may be made into his conduct, be a crime, then I am content to be called a great criminal. Let me ask, what is the credit of this nation, if a proclamation, dictated by a minister, is to set aside the provisions of solemn acts of parliament? Long, long experience has taught us, or should have taught us, that punctuality and good faith are the foundations of credit; that credit can have no existence independent of good faith. It has been said, more that once, that we are to trust to Providence in our affairs. It would be a miracle which I have never yet heard that Providence has performed towards man to give credit to those who have no faith. On the 27th of February 1797, for the first time since the Revolution, an act was done in the king's name which has struck at the foundation of the public credit of the country, by seizing the money belonging to individuals, deposited in the public treasury of the public creditor; and afterwards withholding and refusing payment of that money. What can now restore that public credit? Will any man say he knows the remedy for this? If it shall appear that ministers have acted prudently, according to the pressure of the case; that they acted wisely; that they have acted economically; that they looked forward to all the consequences, as far as human prudence could foresee-then I am willing to allow there is no man can blame them, however calamitous our condition may be. If they can shew, contrary to the prima facie evidence of the case, that they have not been to blame, they must be absolved; but that is no reason why we should not have a full inquiry into the matter: on the contrary, it is a very strong reason for such inquiry; and they themselves are deeply interested in having it instituted. But, if it should appear that this crisis has not been brought on without guilt on their part, it must be absolutely for the credit of the public that the truth of the matter should be made manifest to the world. If you shun this inquiry, what will be the consequence? I will suppose, for the sake of argument, that the whole of this measure is the result of inevitable necessity. I wish, then, to know what the public creditor is to think. He will deliberate thus: Although in the year 1797 the minister

struck unavoidably at the public credit, yet what happened in the House of Commons? That in pursuance of a full inquiry it was found to be an act of inevitable necessity, and could not have happened under any other plea? No; it passed upon the assertion of the minister that it was an act of necessity, and there was no inquiry; therefore some future minister may be wicked, although the present one is virtuous, and may take this as a precedent, and call that inevitable necessity, which, in truth, will be only an act of convenience to him, and under that pretext appropriate the property of the public creditor to the use of government; so that without a full inquiry into this matter, you can never restore confidence to the public creditor. On the other hand, if this is the result of the misconduct of the minister, you should declare it to be so, and by the punishment of the delinquent shew the public you take care of their affairs. These are the only two ways in which you can restore the confidence of the public creditor.

Let us now see what has been the conduct of the present minister in the course of this war, upon the subject of finance. Have any three months passed in which he has not produced some new expedient? And have they not every one of them, without a single exception, proved erroneous? Good God! Sir, let us look at the situation of this country! Year after year the minister has been amusing us with his ideas of the finances of France now on the verge, now in the gulph of bankruptcy! What computations upon their assignats and their mandats! They could not possibly continue. All perfectly true. But the misfortune is, that while he was thus amusing us, he has led us to the very same verge, aye, into the very same gulph. While he thus declaimed against the finances of France, and predicted truly as to the issue of those expedients, he fell miserably short of his conclusion, that these considerations would put an end to the energy of the French. Their rash expedients have not put an end to their energy; and, perhaps, these rash expedients will not make us a prey to a foreign invader. But, are we to follow their expedients on that account? By no means. We are not in the same relative situation with regard to the rest of the world. We dedend more upon our commercial credit than they do. The minister has conducted the war upon the hope, that we should be able to defeat the French by a contest of finance; and you now see the expedients to which we are driven. I am aware that I may be answered, that I propose my panacea,—an inquiry. I plead guilty to that charge; but my panacea has never been tried; the minister's opposition to it has been tried repeatedly; namely, confidence in him. The public have seen the effect of that opposition. All I ask is, that my remedv

may be tried; it can never be worse than his. We have for a long time had a confiding House of Commons. I want now an inquiring House of Commons. I say, that with a diligent, inquiring House of Commons, even although it should be an indifferent one with regard to talents, and with a minister of very ordinary capacity, we shall be able to do more for the service of the people of this country, than with a House of Commons composed of the best talents that ever adorned any senate, and a minister of the first abilities would be able to, if that House should implicitly confide in that minister. If, therefore, I have, in an uniform tone, called for inquiry, and the House has been as persevering, as certainly it hitherto has in confiding, it is not wonderful that we are in our present condition. I say, that without inquiry into the cause of our calamities, the public neither will nor ought to be satisfied. I say farther, that the House ought, for the sake of its credit with the public, to enter into a full inquiry upon this matter, for the authority of an inquiring is much greater than that of a confiding House of Commons.

Mr. Sheridan moved an amendment to Mr. Pitt's motion, by inserting after the word "House," the words, " and also to inquire into the causes which have produced the order of council, of the 26th instant." The question being put, that these words be there inserted, the House divided:

MR. HARRISON'S MOTION FOR THE REDUCTION OF USELESS PLACES, SINECURE OFFICES, &c.

March 13.

HIS day Mr. Harrison moved, "That the extent of the supplies

war, having caused so heavy an increase of taxes, it is the duty of this House to inquire, whether some relief to the burdens of the people, or provision for farther expence, may not be obtained by the reduction of useless places, sinecure offices, exorbitant fees, and other modes of retrenchment in the expenditure of the public money." The motion was supported by Lord William Russell, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Pollen, Mr. Bastard, Mr. Fox, and Mr. Tierney; and opposed by Mr. Pitt, Mr. Windham, Mr. Rose, Mr. Serjeant Adair, and Dr. Laurence.

Mr. Fox said, that having been personally alluded to in the course of the debate, and challenged to vindicate his consistency in supporting the present motion, with his conduct in 1782, he found himself called upon to make a few observations in his own defence. There were also a few general positions which the right honourable gentleman opposite to him (Mr. Windham) had laid down, on which he wished to make some remarks. The right honourable gentleman reprobated, in strong terms, the expedient of having recourse to the property of private individuals in time of public calamity. He admitted the principle in its full extent, and agreed with him, that any encroachment upon the rights of private property under pretence of public necessity, led to nothing short of a system of universal plunder and depredation. But, in the name of God, how was this general principle applicable to the present case? He had almost imagined that the right honourable gentleman was answering a speech containing some proposition to rob the Duke of Bedford of the property which his ancestors had received from Henry VIII., or to despoil the Duke of Grafton or the Duke of Richmond of the possessions which their forefathers had received from Charles II. The right honourable gentleman contended, that he had as good, or a better title to his salary as secretary at war, than he had to the rents of his paternal estates. This, Mr. Fox said, he would not admit; for if a motion was made in that House to address his majesty to remove the right honourable gentleman from his counsels - a motion for which he would certainly vote-it could not be argued, that he was guilty of the same injustice as if he addressed his majesty to deprive him of his landed property. And if the principle did not apply to his removal from office, it could not be applicable to a diminution of the income belonging to that office. There was no connection, then, between the general principle, and the instance to which it was attempted to be applied. The question was, whether, in the present calamitous state of the country, the emoluments of offices of every description ought not to be retrenched as much as possible for the good of the public? Upon this statement of the question, there was but little difficulty. But it was said, that he could not accede to the present proposition, because in 1782 he was as much pledged not to go farther than the limits of Mr. Burke's bill, as he was pledged to go that length. He asked the right honourable gentleman, whether he recollected the contents of Mr. Burke's bill? Was there not something in it about exchequer offices and crown lands? But it was well known, that it never had its full effect, and that the plan, on account of the short duration of what was commonly called

the coalition administration, was only partially executed. But supposing, for a moment, that it had been executed up to the full intention of its authors, was no allowance to be made for a change of times and circumstances? Had not a greater portion of influence been since created than was then destroyed? And if it was urged, that new offices were occasioned by the necessities of the times, why were not offices that were less necessary abolished in proportion to the new ones that were created? The right honourable gentleman asserted, that, as a pecuniary resource, all the saving which would arise from any retrenchment that could be made would be extremely trifling. The saving arising from Mr. Burke's bill also was trifling in amount. But the advantage was not to be calculated by merely a sum of 1,000l. or 100,000l., which might be directly saved. It ought to be recollected, that it might be the means of saving many millions to the public, and of preserving not only the independence of the House of Commons, but the independence of the country. The right honourable gentleman did not dispute the calamitous state of the country, but he looked at only one side of the calamity; he only looked at the extension of the French territory, forgetting altogether the situation of its internal credit. He forgot that it was the means of influence which were in the hands of ministers that had contributed to the enormous territorial aggrandizement of France; that had it not been for this influence, the Republic of France would not have had Brabant, would not have had Italy, and that the right honourable gentleman would not now have had reason to lament the extent of her dominions. To prove that ministerial influence obtained in the House of Commons, Mr. Fox appealed to the authority of Mr. Burke, in that passage of his Thoughts on a Regicide Peace where he intimates a suspicion, that the minority in the House of Commons, express the sense of the majority of the country. And to what was this to be ascribed? Was it not to the places, pensions, commissions, and all the various kinds of patronage of which ministers were in possession? It had been asked, whether he supposed that there were no other principles of public conduct but those that were founded upon corruption? He admitted that there were gentlemen who acted upon to-tally different principles; but he contended, that this was a very general and very powerful spring of action. This was a topic nearly connected with the exchequer offices, which, in his opinion, at the death of the present incumbents, ought to be entirely abolished. If he was asked, how he had come to change his opinion upon this subject since 1782, he would answer, that it was one of those topics on which a man might