present, he thought personal feelings ought to have nothing to do with public men. The salvation of their country should be their first object. He hoped that, notwithstanding what had passed, the country would still have the services of the noble marquis and the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Canning). As to the measures which might be necessary to be pursued, if the war in the Peninsula was to be carried on, he was for carrying it forward on an extended scale.

Mr. D. Giddy apologised for occupying the attention of the House. He did not deny the right of Parliament to interfere, but the controuling power it possessed ought to be exercised only in extreme cases, and no further than circumstances required. He should vote against the original Resolution, as well as against the Amendments, because their object was to appoint an Administration in an illegal, inconvenient, and unconstitutional manner, thereby setting a precedent bad in the first instance, and which might ultimately be found most injurious. Gentlemen had laid much stress upon the re-appointment of Ministers after the former Resolution of the House declaring them incompetent, not recollecting that only one day's notice had been given of the motion, and that if certain circumstances had not occurred, the majority would in all probability have been in opposition to the vote-(Hear, hear!) He deprecated very severely the publication of the correspondence that had taken place during the negociation; he could not reconcile to himself the easy manner in which the oath of a Privy Councillor had been disposed of, by which the party swore to divulge none of the proceedings of the Council. It was true that these letters were not proceedings of the Council, but they were the foundation of proceedings in the Council (Hear!) He concurred with the noble lord (Milton), that the country was in a deteriorated state, but its condition was not comparatively worse than that of surrounding nations.

Mr. Tighe insisted that if Lords Grey and Grenville had accepted the office without demanding the removal of the great officers of the Household, the Government of Great Britain would indeed have been consigned to a desperate and noxious oligarchy-Hear, hear!) It had been said, and truly, that the Constitution knew nothing of secret influence-but, unfortunately, recent experience had shewn that it prevailed in the highest quarter to a most dangerous extent, thwarting and over-ruling measures calculated for the

benefit of the State. The same influence had been secretly at work during the greater part of the reign of his Majesty it had precipitated the nation into the American warit had drawn down upon our heads calamities which might have been easily averted, and had now reduced us to the verge of bankruptcy. Perhaps at this moment it was more than usually active, and was supported with more than usual solicitude: it formed the Cabinet of the Prince, who ruled the Cabinet of the State, over which no power had controul: when the Parliament had destroyed the Cabinet of the State, the Sovereign might retreat to his own secret Cabinet, and there, as in a citadel, hold out against his besieging subjects-Hear, hear!) Should Parliament sanction such a principle, the Constitution would receive a wound that would soon prove fatal to its existence. Allowing that it belonged to the Crown to appoint its own servants, did it not follow as a matter of course that those Ministers should be adequate to their duties? and if such men were not selected, would it be denied that it was the duty of the House to interpose, to take care ne quid Respublica detrimenti caperet? What was the present Government, if indeed that might be so called which had not the ability to rule ? The last Administration was composed out of the relics and dregs of the Government of Mr. Pitt, which, when voted incapable, wisely relinquished offices. Secret influence restored them, and Mr. Perceval was placed at their head: after his death the House of Commons again declared them incapable, they again prudently resigned, and again secret influence restored them-(Hear, hear!) What confidence was the country to repose in these relics of relics, these dregs of dregs, this rump of a rump of an Administration? (Hear, and laughter.) A gentleman under the gallery (Mr. Montague) had expressed with reluctance his regret, that the influence of Government was no longer to be employed against the Roman Catholics. Doubtless the loss of the able support and disinterested vote of the honourable Member would be sincerely regretted by Ministers in their present state of infirmity; but what did the statement of the noble lord (Castlereagh), on which this dissent was founded, amount to? to nothing less than a confession, that if the influence of Government were employed, they could effectually resist any motion, even one which interested four millions of subjects, and which was supported by the general voice of all reasoning beings-(hear, hear!) Such an

assertion was the greatest insult that could be offered to the nation, altho' the noble lord had made it with a tone and air of condescension, as if it had been a matter of favour and kindness. Recollecting the nature of the motion which the honourable gentleman (Mr. Wortley) had before submitted to and carried in the House, on the 21st of May, and recollecting the effect, or rather the no effect, that had been produced by it, he was not a little surprised that he should this day come forward to throw cold water upon the Address he had previously suggested-(hear !)-because, surely, if the interference of Parliament were before required, it was now doubly necessary, since the country had witnessed the ill-disposition to succeed with which the negociations had been authorised. We were now reduced to such a condition, that the most dreadful events might be expected, if the House did not, in a firm and becoming tone, address the individual exercising the Sovereign authority. For his own part he was convinced that the Prince Regent would do much better for the country if he were to appoint one man Dictator without controul, than to patch up an Administration of shreds and pieces, scarcely worth the picking up, from one party and from another, which might with greater ease be torn asunder and destroyed than it was fastened together-hear, hear !) The Sovereign was not reduced to this miserable extremity from a deficiency of persons of talent and honour fit to guide, the helm of state, even in these tempestuous seas; such men were ready and willing to afford their assistancé, but the baneful secret influence, of which not only he, but the whole nation, complained, interposed itself between the country and its salvation.

Mr.G. Johnstone and Mr. Grattan rose at the same time; the former persisted and obtained possession of the House. He began by asserting that the history of the country, from the Revolution to the end of the reign of George the Second, proved decisively, that an alteration of the Household establishment had never taken place with a change of Ministry.. With respect to secret influence, on which the last speaker had dwelt so much, he thought that, even among the most vulgar, the idea had long been exploded that secret influence existed during the reign of the King, and that the cry had been found to originate in the voices of those who, having been turned out of office, complained that it was not accomplished by the mere volition of the Sovereign. It had been maintained that Lord Bute for VOL. III.-1812.

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many years exercised this secret influence, but the fact was now fully contradicted, and Mr. Pitt and Lord Grenville had had opportunities that it was at all times destitute of foundation. He held in his band a list of the Household of the Kings of England from the Restoration to the present time, which he would read, with the permission of the House-signs of impatience). He would only refer to it, and it would plainly appear that the statement with which he set out was corroborated. The Duke of Ormond was Lord Steward from 1660 to the Revolution, and from that time till 1707 it was held by the Duke of Devonshire. The Duke of Grafton occupied the office of Lord Chamberlain from 1724 to 1747, and for the same period no change had been made in the department of the Lord Steward. The same Master of the Horse continued during the whole reign of William III. In the present King's reign Lord Talbot was Lord Steward from 1761 to 1781, and the Duke of Montague was Master of the Horse from 1781 to 1790. During all these periods many changes of Ministers had taken place, and party animosities ran remarkably high. He admitted that during the reign of George III. the alteration had been more frequent, but it arose from a natural delicacy which induced the high Officers of the Household, from attachment to their parties, to resign their situations on a change of Ministers. With respect to the influence of the King in the Cabinet, gentlemen seemed to have forgotten that when Lord North was compelled to retire in 1782, so much attention was paid to the feelings of the Sovereign, that he was permitted to nominate Lord Thurlow as a Member of the Cabinet, while the parties of Shelburne and Rocking ham introduced five Members each. In the present instance, however, common decency seemed to require that the removal of the Household should not be insisted upon. It was impossible for the House not to have heard more than insinuations of influence exercised over the Prince Regent from another quarter, which, if it had existed, would indeed have reflected disgrace upon his Royal Highness. Although no man of common sense countenanced such unfounded and malignant calumnies, yet they were sedulously employed-greedily caught at for party purposes-(hear, hear!)-and it would have been giving an undue countenance to these reports, if the principal Officers of the Household had been driven from their situations. He (Mr. Johnstone) was sorry to find that he had been deceived in

the characters of Lords Grey and Grenville; he had given them credit (however mistaken their views) at least for patriotism. Recent transactions had dispelled this pleasing illusion, for it now appeared, that notwithstanding they strenuously insisted that their measures, and their's only, could preserve the nation from destruction, yet because they could not have all the offices of the Household, as well as all the offices of the State-(No, no! from the Opposition)-they refused to effect the salvation of the country-(hear, hear! from Ministers). He conceived the inference to be incontrovertible, that they had forfeited all claim to the title of disinterested patriots. They contended that concessions to the Catholics were required to preserve the integrity, and perhaps the existence of the empire; they knew that by accepting office they could grant those concessions, and yet they refused to place themselves in situations where they were able so materially to benefit their country. He should have imagined that it was their bounden duty to have accepted the proposal made to them, even with all the mighty disadvantages, and the great obloquy to which they would have been subjected by the continuance of the Household in its present state. A noble lord (Milton) had said, that any arrangement would have been preferable to that now adopted. If the noble lord could point out any practical mode of forming a more efficient Administration, even though Lord Moira should be Prime Minister, and the Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread) should be Chancellor of the Exchequer, he (Mr. Johnstone) would give it his assistance-(a laugh)-because in the present times he deemed it his duty to support any Government. The honourable Member then entered into a vindication of Lord Sidmouth's Administration, and quoted an opinion of the late Sir W. Pulteney, that the union of two such men as Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox, was calculated to endanger the monarchial part of the constitution. It was universally admitted that the finance had been managed with great ability and success under that Government, and as to its leading Member hay. ing been, as stated, twice convicted of incapacity, the fact was, that they acted with great modesty in both instances, and went out, which it was impossible for them to avoid(a laugh.) Mr. Fox and Lord Grenville were then tried, and what was this but an experiment, and how had that experiment succeeded? Would their warmest friends venture to say that their character as statesmen stood as high