Mr. Sheridan answered, it was true that the exchequer bills were voted in 1785, but they had not been added to the debt till 1786. The miserable quibble under which the fact was attempted to be concealed was this: in 1785 the Chancellor of the Exchequer obtained a vote for two millions of additional exchequer bills, one million only of which (he had said) it was probable would be wanted; but it would be proper to have the other million as a reserve, in case there should be occasion for it. One million of these bills was kept in reserve accordingly; they were unnecessarily issued in 1786, when the right honorable gentleman had resolved to bring forward his new plan of finances, and 700,0007. of them actually remained unissued when the report of the revenue committee was laid before the house.

Thus much, Mr. Sheridan added, that he felt himself obliged to remark, lest his silence should be construed into an admission of the right honorable gentleman's statement.

Mr. Steele observed, that the budget of 1786, and what then passed, had been so mis-stated and unfounded, that he could not sit quietly in his place and let it proceed without explanation. Mr. Steele then stated a narrative of what had fallen from the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1786, when the system of appropriating a million had been first adopted. The most essential part of this statement was, Mr. Steele's reminding the house, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had, in 1786, expressly said, that although he expected to find several extraordinary aids to enable him to go on with, yet that such extraordinary demands might occur, that he might have occasion for a loan of one or two millions: that he would put it off as long as he possibly could. That Mr. Steele said, was the fact, and therefore, there was no ground for charging his right honorable friend with any thing like a fallacy. Mr. Steele referred Mr. Sheridan and the house to the report of the Navy Board, on which the Revenue Committee of 1786 had built that part of their report, and thence they would see that the navy expenses had not increased beyond what might have been expected.

Mr. Sheridan declared, that he never heard any assertion with more astonishment than that of the

honorable gentleman who spoke last. He gave

him as much credit as his recollection of a speech, delivered four years ago, could entitle him to; but, without putting his memory against the honorable gentleman's, it was utterly impossible that the Chancellor of the Exchequer could have come to the house with a speech to contradict the report of his committee. He averred that in that report there was not an idea thrown out about the probability of a future loan. Was it to be concluded that the right honorable gentleman (Mr. Pitt) could so far forget his object, as to say to the house, that perhaps he might want a small sum of a million or two, for the purpose of paying off three millions of the national debt? The right honorable gentleman himself admitted the increase of the army to be a permanent expense. He believed the navy establishment could not be diminished with a due regard to the safety of the country; but on that subject it was not his intention to argue at present, if the right honorable gentleman did not oppose his motion for appointing a committee of the house, of a different complexion from the former. They could have the best information from Sir Charles Middleton. He added, that he would either on the morrow or on Monday move for some papers which were necessary to be submitted to that committee.

The Marquis of Graham imputed much of the misconception which appeared to have prevailed, to gentlemen confounding the statements of the two last years expenditure and income, with what the Committee of Finance in 1786 had reported would be the state of the income and expenditure at the end of the year 1790. The Marquis stated what the committee of 1786 had considered as likely to be the peace establishment at the end of the year 1790, and what had been the conduct of his right honorable friend at the time when the report was made. He animadverted on the novel idea of a committee constituted like that which an honorable gentleman (Mr. Sheridan) had described, of such as had neither been in office, nor had any expectation of being in office, nor desired to be in office. The members who were on that committee ought (the Marquis conceived) to be sworn previously to their sitting as committee-men, as to the extraordinary fact of their never desiring to be in office.

Mr. Sheridan observed, that he could not avoid admitting the pleasantry with which the noble marquis treated his proposition for an independent committee. Notwithstanding the noble marquis had humorously said, that the members nominated on such a committee should swear, that they did not wish to be in office; yet he had no doubt there were gentlemen in that house, who neither were in office, nor wished to be in office; and who were competent to the business in question. Did the noble marquis mean to intimate that there were no gentlemen in the house, excepting placemen, who were capable of examining and stating the resources and expenditure of the national finances? He did not say the same committee had wilfully deceived the public; but their conclusions certainly were not justified by experience; and therefore he thought himself at liberty, without meaning to throw the smallest imputation on any member of that committee, to move for a new inquiry into the state of the public ac

counts.

The Marquis of Graham defended his animadversions on the committee, by urging the extreme novelty of the formation of such a committee; and he considered the proposition of such a committee as an indirect imputation on gentlemen in office;—the obvious inference being, that they would abuse the trust which might be reposed in them by the house, and report what they did not believe to be the fact. Such an imputation the Marquis considered as derogatory to the dignity of the house: and he declared that he felt it to be injurious to himself.

Mr. Sheridan protested that he meant nothing coarse or personal, and denied that it was a novel thing to have such a committee. As a proof of this, he mentioned a committee which had been appointed during the American war, and consisted chiefly of country gentlemen. He did not like to have such another committee as that of 1786, because, though he did not mean to charge them with having done so intentionally, he was of opinion they had deceived the house and the public. With regard to a committee of gentlemen in office, Mr.

Sheridan thought they were liable to be less careful in their inquiry after the truth, from a natural wish to find the most favorable side of the question to be the fact, than any other set of gentlemen.

The question was at length put, and the resolutions read a second time, and agreed to. Mr. Pitt gave notice of his intention to move the house on the 15th to go into a committee, to consider the duties payable on tobacco.

Mr. Sheridan wished to know whether it was Mr. Pitt's intention on that day, to move any final resolution on the subject. He really thought that in a question of so much importance, at least as much previous notice should have been given to the merchants and manufacturers of tobacco, has had been given to the dealers in wine, when it was put under the regulation of the excise laws.

Mr. Pitt answered, that it was his intention, on the 15th, to state the grounds on which the proposition he had to bring forward was founded; and afterwards to move the committee to agree to it.

JUNE 19.

REVOLUTION COMMEMORATION BILL.

Mr. SHERIDAN observed, that an honorable baronet (Sir William Dolben) disapproved of mixing politics with religion; and another honorable member's objection was, that there was already a commemoration of the Revolution, in what he called the Liturgy. This appeared rather a curious objection. With respect to keeping politics out of the church, he owned, that in one view it should be so ; but, would it be an unfit thing for the church to acknowledge that obligation, which no man disputed to be very great and serious? He thought that if there was any one point which did the greatest honor to the church, it was the church's having been the chief cause of producing that very Revolution on which the bill went to establish the commemoration. The only objection which he had heard

against the bill, that was of any weight, was that of taking a day of the week for the commemoration, and making a new holiday; but as the honorable gentleman, who brought in the bill, had expressed himself willing to wave that point, and to take either the Sunday before the 5th of November, or` the Sunday nearest to the 16th of December, no ground for opposition remained.

JUNE 24.

TOBACCO REGULATION Bill.

The order of the day for the second reading of this bill having been read, it was afterwards moved " that the bill be committed.”

Mr. SHERIDAN observed, that he should not so far trespass upon the patience of the house as needlessly to prolong the debate, if that could be called a debate, where objections only were offered from one side, and not one word of answer was given on the other. He rose merely to make a single remark, which was, that if the bill was committed for the next day, whatever time might have been given to the tobacco traders and manufacturers to comprehend the clauses of the bill, parliamentary speaking, no time had been allowed to the members of that house to understand it. The bill had been brought in only two days ago, and printed for delivery that day; it consisted of one hundred and twenty-five pages, and no gentleman could, at a glance, comprehend the various bearings of a bill so important in its nature, and so complicated and extensive in its detail.-Before it came into a committee, the members of that house had a right to consider it, in all its parts, to consult the manufacturers in person, and to acquire a competent knowledge of the entire subject. The right honorable gentleman had boasted of his having seen and conversed with the tobacco manufacturers of Scotland, London, and other places. If he thought such communications absolutely neces