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the establishment of a republic under France would exclude our trade in that country; and unless the king of Naples came boldly forward to resist the enemy, the whole of the north of Italy would be inaccessible to our manufactures. By commerce our nation had flourished; what then was to be our situation when every port into which our commodities had flowed, was to be shut against us? We might treat with the French directory, but what traffic could our merchants maintain with individuals destitute of property, or possessing it without security? The loss of Spain too was now certain; by whatever name it was distinguished (whether a monarchy or a republic, was now of little consequence) it was the tributary of France. Having thus reminded them of the principles on which the war was undertaken, his lordship moved, as an amendment, "that the house, impressed with the justice and necessity of the present war, would continue to give his majesty a vigorous support in asserting the general cause of his majesty and his allies, and in preserving the dignity of the crown."

The earl of Guildford expressed much satisfaction that a measure which might lead to the restoration of general tranquillity, had been considered as the leading feature of the address.

It was the same in his estimation, and, he believed, in that of every well-wisher to his country in this kingdom.

If the achievements of the archduke should operate, as he hoped they would, as means of rational negotiation, they ought to be regarded as omens of happiness to us and our ally; if, on the contrary, they should revive hopes formerly entertained, and cause the parties to

rise in their demands, and prolong this miserable and unavailing contest, they should be considered as evils of the first magnitude; they would be felt as such, not only by the people of the present day, but by their posterity for a length of time to come. There was one part of the address which he could not pass without a comment; that the tranquillity of the kingdom had remained undisturbed, and anarchy had been repressed by the wisdom and energy of the laws. It was with pleasure, his lordship said, that he could bear his testianony to this truth, that the tranquillity of the kingdom had remained undisturbed; he believed it was owing to the love the people bore to the laws of their country; but if, by the wisdom and energy of the laws, an allusion was intended to be made to the two extraordinary bills passed in the last parliament, it would be indeed unfounded. Those bills were held in abhorrence by the people, who at the same time held in the highest respect the known constitutional common law of the land. The noble earl concluded with his support of the present address, conceiving, he said, peace to be the greatest blessing the country could wish; but he did not mean, by so doing, to preclude himself from his right to inquire at any future period into the causes of the present calamitous contest, and the conduct of those who had plunged us into it.

Lord Grenville, after complimenting his noble friend who moved the address, totally differed from lord Guildford, who had asserted, this was a miserable and unavailing struggle: it was a struggle, he would maintain, that had already availed us; and though prospects of peace

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might be cut off, it would still be of the utmost avail to this country. With regard to bills, he differed from him also entirely, and was convinced they had contributed very greatly to preserve our internal tranquillity. Another noble earl had stated it as inconsistent with our principles to treat with any government in France but that of a monarchy. That the existence of a republic was an insuperable bar to negotiation, and that, monarchy was indispensable, was a calumny which ministers had every session found it necessary to contradict. They had believed, indeed, that the best issue to the contest would be the re-establishment of monarchy in France, but they had never pledged themselves to an opinion so extravagant, that without this object no peace could be obtained. It was strange the noble earl should infer from the opening of the negotiation that the worst terms would be concluded; they certainly were not prepared to admit in the enemy any power to dictate to our internal regulations, or the overthrow of the constitution; neither surely was it a consequence that our allies were to be abandoned; it certainly would be unbecoming in him to answer the questions that had been proposed. But what security could we have against an interference similar to that which had been practised in Sardinia?

The king of Sardinia was compelled to accept unworthy terms of peace; the difference of our situation, by exempting us from the necessity of the one, secured us from the ignominy of the other. If just and honourable terms were refus ed by the enemy, we were preparing to repel any other; and the power

of maintaining this determination was the best pledge for our obtaining honourable conditions.

The earl of Abington spoke against the address, and also against the bills passed in the last session of parliament. There were rights of the people which neither came from kings, lords, nor commons; and they could not take them away.

The motion passed in the affirmative; but a most singular protest was entered on the journals by earl Fitzwilliam, the substance of which was as follows:

Dissentient. First. Because, by this address, unamended as it stands, the sanction of the lords is given to measures as ill judged with regard to their object as they are derogatory from the dignity of the crown. Solicitations for peace must increase the arrogance and ferocity of the enemy of all nations; they must fortify and fix the authority of an odious government over an enslaved people; they must impair the confidence of other powers in the mag nanimity of the British councils, and inevitably tend to break the spring of that energy which in former times has characterized this high-minded nation.

Second. Because no peace can be bad with the usurped power now exercising authority in France: the methods by which they obtained it, the policy by which they hold it, and the maxims they have adopted, openly professed, and uniformly acted on, towards the destruction of all governments not formed on their model, and subservient to their domination.

Third. Because the idea that this kingdom is competent to defend itself, after the subjugation of all Europe, is presumptuous in the extreme, and contrary to the

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policy both of state and commerce by which Great Britain hitherto has flourished.

Fourth. Because while the common enemy exercises his power over the several states in the manner we have seen, it is impossible long to preserve our trade or our naval power; this hostile system seizes on the keys of the dominions of these powers, forces them, without any particular quarrel, into direct hostility with this kingdom, insomuch that there is no harbour which we can enter without his permission, either in a commercial or naval character.

Fifth. Because no security can be hoped for in our colonies and plantations whilst this usurped power should continue thus disposed and thus constituted. The new system leaves our colonies equally endangered in peace as in war; it is therefore that all ancient establish ments are essentially at war for the sake of self preservation.

Sixth. Because it has been declared from the throne, and adopted by parliament, that there was no way to obtain peace but through the ancient government long established in France. That government has been solemnly recognized, and assistance and protection as solemnly promised to those Frenchmen who should exert themselves in its restoration.

Seventh. Because the example of the great change in the moral and political world, made by the usurpation, is, by the present procedure, confirmed in all its force. It is the first successful example in history of the subversion of the government of a great country, by the corruption of mercenary ar mies, to the destruction of the whole proprietory body of the na. tion

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Eighth. Because our eagerness in suing for peace may induce the enemy to believe we are unable to continue the war; which, in the event of an actual peace, will tempt them to renew that conduct which brought on the present war; neither shall we have the usual securities for peace: they do not acknowledge the obligation of law; they have not the same interest or sentiment in the conservation of peace which have hitherto influenced other governments; nor shall we be better able to resist their hostile attempts after a peace than at the present hour. If we remain armed, we cannot reap the ordinary advantages of it in economy; if we disarm, we shall be subject to be driven into new wars, under every circumstance of disadvantage.

Ninth. Because they frankly tell us, that it is not our interest to make peace, for they regard it only as an opportunity of preparing fresh means for the annihilation of our naval power. They do not conceal that it will be their object to wrest from us our maritime preponderancy, to re-establish what they call the freedom of the seas, and to carry to the highest degree of pros perity those nations which they state to be our rivals, which they charge us with unjustly attacking when we can no longer dupe, and which they contemplate as furnishing resources for our future humiliation and destruction: they falsely assert, that the English nation supports with impatience the continuance of the war, and has extorted his majesty's overtures for peace by complaints and reproaches: they studiously disjoin the English nation from its sovereign.

Tenth. Because having acted throughout the course of this mo

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mentous contest upon the principles herein expressed, and having fully considered, examined, and weighed the arguments offered to induce a dereliction of them, conscientiously adhering to, and firmly abiding by them, I thus record them in justification of my own conduct, and in discharge of the duty I owe to my king, my country, and the general interests of civil society.

We have imerted this extraordinary protest in the body of our historical detail, contrary to our usual practice, not only because of the ability with which it is drawn up, but because it contains a close and well-digested summary of the arguments for the continuation of the present war. Notwithstanding the singularity of its contents, it is undoubtedly a very able state paper, and throws much light on the present aspect of European politics. It is supposed by some to have been the production of an eminent literary character lately deceased.

The address to his majesty was moved in the commons by lord Morpeth. He said, whatever the opinions might have been respecting the origin of the war, it must give the gentlemen of that house satisfaction to concur in a motion which had for its end an honourable peace; they must rejoice that the period was arrived in which a negotiation might be entered into; that there now existed in France a government which might be safely treated with, and that a passport had been obtained for a minister from this country to proceed to Paris. He hoped the negotiation would terminate favourably; but he also hoped we should show, whilst we were desirous of peace, that we were in a state to continue the contest, and could, if necessary, re

double our efforts for the prosecution of war. He observed, that our resources were adeqnate for this purpose; our exports for the last year had exceeded by two millions sterling the amount of the last, and commercial pros perity had risen to a high degree during a period of war: he concluded by moving an address, to assure his majesty, that they reflected with satisfaction on the state of commerce in this country, on the continuance of our internal tranquillity, on the happy effects of the wisdom and energy of our laws in repressing anarchy, and that be might at all times rely on his commons for such supplies as might be necessary for the service of the year, and on the support of his parliament for those exertions directed to defeat the designs of the enemy.

Sir W. Lowther, in a short speech, seconded the address.

Mr. Fox, declining to give a silent vote, lest it might be subject to misconstruction, said, that his majesty had at length been advised to do what it had been his lot to advise his majesty's ministers to do the last three years, namely, to open a negotiation. But however he might lament that this measure had not been taken before a hundred millions were spent, and thousands of lives lost, in this cruel contest, yet it had his warm approbation now that it had been adopted: that he could not recollect, much less retaliate, the personal invectives against himself, the insinuations that an attempt to negotiate with such a people was a degradation to the dignity of Great Britain; that it was to sue for peace, and lay his majesty's crown at their feet.

There were some expressions, however,

protest against the whole of the assertion. He never had been convinced that there had been any persons in this country worth attention, desirous of anarchy and confusion; nor could laws, which were calculated to excite terror and abhorrence, produce tranquillity. Such laws might produce a false quiet, which he considered as a real alarm: could we rejoice in such tranquillity where discussion was to be stifled, and men were to brood in secret over the grievances which they felt? No: such a tranquillity alarmed him more than tumult; it was a tranquillity which every man who loved freedom ought to see with pain, every man who loved order, with terror.

however, of which he should take notice: and first, that every endeavour had been used to open a negotiation. Now, unless these words alluded to the endeavours made since the close of the last year, he should animadvert upon the ministers for their former want of endeavours to bring it about. He much approved of their having left out in the speech the words to which they were so bigoted before, of the war being undertaken for the cause of humanity and religion: -neither had they come forward with their constant and unfounded phrase that it was necessary; they had acted wisely in abstaining from intemperate language, when they were to negotiate for peace. But there were other parts of the speech which demanded explanation: such as the flourishing state of our trade and commerce, by which our resources are said to be adequate to the crisis in which we are involved; he must hesitate in giving credit to an assertion so little supported by the public appearance of things; when he looked at the price of the funds of the country, the state of the transferable securities of government, the monstrous discount on the enormous quantities of paper which they have issued, with the schemes to relieve the pecuniary embarrassments of trade, he was led to think our resources were in a less favourable situation than the ministers had chosen to represent them; nor could he with-hold some remarks upon the tranquillity of the country in which we are made to rejoice: a sentiment, indeed, in which he concurred, for tranquillity was at all times desirable; but when he heard it ascribed to the wisdom and energy of the laws passed in the last session of the last parliament, he entered his most solemn

To the constitution no man could feel a stronger attachment than himself: but he would not sport with the word; he would not use it without explaining it: his attachment was to the constitution under which he was born, under which he was bred; not to that of the last parliament, which did more to maim and disfigure the ancient constitution of England than any former parliament which ever sat within those walls. To the protection of the ancient constitution alone he ascribed that tranquillity which the country enjoyed. He would not join in this insinuation of praise upon those abominable laws, nor attribute to them effects which he believed inapplicable; and, much as he wished for general approbation of the endeavours to procure peace to this country, he should think it purchased at too dear a rate if coupled with approbation of these abhorrent laws. It was his duty, he thought, to say so much, that his vote might not be misinterpreted into acquiescence in this part of the address. The whole

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