flow operation of the principles of the French in that country indicated their probable short poffeffion of it.

any cordial co-operation, but to eat English meat, and to learn Englifh difcipline. If, as had been stated, general difcontent would produce fome change in the fituation of French affairs, and lead to a better order of things, the people of England were, by their fufferings and calamity, in a high road to its attainment. Mr. Sheridan next cenfured the delay in the failing of the Weft India armament, and the difafters encountered by the emigrants in their expeditions to Noirmontier and Poitou. British blood did not, indeed, flow in these expeditions; but British honour bled at every pore. A defperate effort was, he obferved, to be made for faving the iflands. In Martinique there was only one regiment of effective men, though the nominal force was fix regiments. He doubted the policy of extending our Weft India poffeffions, as draining this country of what it could leaft fpare,-men. Fifteen thoufand troops had been landed in St. Domingo, of which one thousand five hundred had been fent to Grenada; and of these, in four months, fourteen officers and four hundred men had been loft. They were packed in hofpitals, in the most deplorable fituations; and, by unaccountable negligence in the different departments, were deprived of the aid both of medicines and furgeons. From inattention in providing transports, ninety instead of forty were put on board each fhip. It was in vain, he said, to connect the poffibility of negotiation with any new occurrences: this pretext fhewed that the object of the contest was to restore the defpotifm of France. He called upon minifters, to difcover, like the king of Pruffia, what government the French armies obeyed, and to ne

The word fatisfaction, which had occurred fo early in the fpeech from the throne, excited the furprize of Mr. Sheridan. As the fpeech of the minifter, he profeffed his intention to exercise his right, as a member of parliament, to examine it freely. To be fatisfied with every thing, was esteemed a mark of piety and chriftian refignation; certainly, then, minifters were the most pious men in the world. They were fatisfied with the improvement of our fituation fince last year. It was ftated that a check had been received by the French in Italy; but it was forgotten that at that period the republicans had not penetrated into Italy. It was likewife faid, though only on the authority of a French newspaper, that the army on the Rhine had been forced to retire. The army, however, had not laft year croffed the Rhine, and now were only prevented from advancing to the Danube, and obliged to limit their progrefs on the German fide of the Rhine. The war with Holland might perhaps be confidered, by minifters, as an improvement of our fituation! The feceffions from the confederacy against France, and the progrefs from fcarcity, with which we were formerly threatened, to an acknowledged famine, might increase the fatisfaction of the minifter. From a review of the fpeeches made by his majefty at the opening of the two laft and of the prefent feffion, Mr. Sheridan inferred, that peace appeared more than ever at a diftance. He ridiculed the idea of the affiftance to be expected from the fleet of the emprefs, which came not to afford

gotiate

gotiate with that as he had done, as Spain had done, and as the elector of Hanover had done.

The declaration of Louis XVIII. was fupposed to be penned in this country, with the concurrence and under the direction of minifters. He thought those who advised his majefty to fpill the blood of this country for the restoration of defpotifm in France, were as great traitors to their country as the minifter of Charles II. who advised him to enter into the pay of that country. Leagues with the defpotic monarchs of France expelled the house of Stuart from this country: and indeed, could any league be more destructive to its interefts than one with the houfe of Bourbon, which had ever been the inveterate enemy of Great Britain, of its liberty, and its commerce? He could not, he said, move any amendment to an addrefs which he difapproved in toto, but would fecond one which embraced three points, firft, that the people fhould not be burthened with taxes to fupport the delufive views of minifters in the restoration of the monarchy of France, or till fome form of government fhould be eftablished which they may not imagine incapable of maintaining the accustomed relations of peace and amity-that a strict inquiry fhould be inftituted into the conduct of minifters in the profecution of the war-and that the moft fpeedy termination fhould be put to it, by declaring a willingness to treat with France.

Mr. Jenkinson confidered the present time as extremely improper for negotiation, and recapitulated the ufual arguments for the commencement of the war, the conduct of which was, he faid, to be defended by examining its effects

upon the fentiments of the people in the interior, or by the preffure of an external force effecting a change in their temper and inclinations. The latter of thefe objects had fucceeded; and the principles of the new conftitution had fixed civil liberty upon much more reafonable foundations than it flood at the commencement of the war. Should it be reduced to practice, the objections to the fluctuating nature of their government would be removed. That we had fucceeded in repelling the dangers which threatened us, was certain. The fucceffes of the war had excited various royalift infurrections; and from thefe one of three alternatives was to have been expected,-either that the enemy would have been unable to oppose the allies,-that a counter revolution would have been effected, or that a civil war would have burft forth. Unfortunately, however, the fyftem of terror under Robespierre took place: but that this gained ground in confequence of the war, he ftrenuously denied. It tended to abridge that fyftem, and the miferies it produced in France. The determination of the French to retain Holland, was, he thought, an infuperable obftacle to an immediate peace; and the remedy for her enormous acquifitions was to endeavour in another quarter to obtain fomething to change or to compenfate. A few months might place us in a fituation to treat with greater advantage. At the beginning of the war, he had equally wifhed and expected the restoration of the emigrants, and of the monarchy of France; and this he thought, if attainable, a fair fubject of war, but believed it was not. In the courfe of his fpeech, Mr. Jenkinfon entered into a defence of his former affertions respecting

fpecting the march to Paris," which had been attacked by Mr. Sheridan, and did not think the overthrow of the French government fo chimerical as had been inferred: the defeat of the scheme was in a great part attributable to the want of fidelity and exertion in the allies.

General Tarleton confidered the fpeech of his majefty, and the arguments that had taken place upon it, as far from fatisfactory. Little confolation arofe, he thought, to us, from the prevention of the invafion of Italy. The troops lately employed against Spain would probably now be directed against Italy. He cenfured his imperial majefly for neglecting to fortify Luxemburg. As a military man, he in dulged very faint hopes of the Weft-India expedition, and thought it as easy to fubdue the united ftates of America as St. Domingo. He pointedly blamed the conduct of the expedition to Quiberon, and the minifters, if they had any part in the weakness and infamy of that tranfaction. The prefent fcarcity was attributed by the general in a great degree to the lofs which agricultural employments fuftained from the millions of men who were now engaged in war, particularly in Brabant, on the borders of the Rhine, and in the fertile fields of Poland. Our late allies, the king of Spain and prince of Heffe Caffel, had left us to ruin France by ourfelves. To effect this, we muft ruin ourfelves. (6 Away, then," faid the general, "with fophiftry! away with delufion! away with all the agents of a corrupt and profligate adminiftration!" A juftly incenfed enemy would not probably give terms when we chofe to demand them; perhaps might not even confent to the measures we propofe: we muft

adopt a new fyftem, appoint new minifters, and adopt an energy fuitable to our embarrassments.

Mr. Fox cenfured the fpeech, and the minifters by whom it was written. It was not, he said, enough that they fhould for three years perfift in a war for miferable fpeculation, add one hundred millions of debt to the capital, load the people with four millions per annum of permanent taxes, and make them feel all the miseries of fcarcity, but they must be infulted by the falsehood of being told "their fituation was improved." How improved? It could not be fhewn from the fucceffes of the Austrian army. After the loan voted to the emperor, and the pretences upon which it was granted, the people were told that it was an improvement of their fituation, that the French had been recently obliged to retreat from pofts of which they were not in poffeffion at the time of the guarantee. Was it an improvement, that they had extended their dominions beyond the Rhine, had got Manheim, and over-run the greater part of the Palatinate? Was it becaufe the French had not overrun Italy, that our fituation was improved? Mr. Fox fpoke in ftrong terms of the lofty difdain with which he had been treated the preceding feffions, on occafion of his predictions refpecting the fcarcity of grain. When another gentleman (Mr. Huffey), at a later period, and upon certain information, ufed the fame forcible diffuafive against war, he was rebuked for a fuggeftion which was treated as unfounded in fact. Was the verification of thofe warnings an improvement? The fufferings of the poor he stated to be extreme. Oh! but France was reduced to unparalleled diftrefs, and this was our

com

comfort! He would not quarrel about words; but he muft notice the ftrange logic, "that the people of this country were to be told that this unparalleled diftrefs of the French was owing to the war, whereas the diftrefes in England had nothing to do with it." The depreciation of paper currency in France had been, he faid, the inceffant story with which the parliament and the people had been deluded from the beginning of the war. Two years ago, the affignats were faid to be at a discount of So per cent. and this appeared to be tantamount to extinction; but when experience and practice were regarded, when the example of Ame rica was referred to, an enlightened statesman would hefitate before he prefumed to delude his country by building upon fuch an hypothefis. Accordingly, France had added another leffon to that of America. France, which was reduced to such a state of weakness as to be an eafy prey, France, who in June laft, was faid to be gafping in her laft agonies, France, fince the date of this expiring agony, had made the moft brilliant campaign that the hiftory of mankind exhibited. Such agonies excited his fears: and furely no man of common fenfe, after fuch an iffue to this kind of reafoning, would again calculate upon fuccefs from the depreciation of their paper. Another argument ufed was, that the French were fo deftitute of provifions, as to be obliged to unload the fhips at Breft to fupply Paris with bread. But what must be their feelings of a 'caufe in which they had engaged, that could, under fuch a preffure of fcarcity, roufe them to fuch exertions? From a minute inveftigation of the fpeech, Mr. Fox obferved that it held out to the coun

try even lefs hopes of peace than his majefty's fpeech the preceding year. At no period of the revoIution might it not have been equally faid, "that it would produce confequences highly important to the interefts of Europe" Mr. Fox noticed the annual attempts he had made to induce a negotiation, and defired to know whether our perverfe continuance in the proud de'nial that it was a proper time to negotiate, had bettered our fituation? On the contrary, he faid, the practicability of peace upon fafe and honourable terms had become more hopelefs. He hoped the gentleman who admitted the restoration of the emigrants and of the house of Bourbon to be hopeless, and that minifters were convinced that it was prudent to calculate the value of an object, and not to purfue it, however defirable, beyond the rational hope of obtainment, fpoke from authority. If the difatters of the war had produced this conviction in minifters, however he lamented the calamity which produced this restoration to reason, he fhould think our fituation improv ed. The expedition to Quiberon was, he fuppofed, one cause of this conviction. Mr. Fox, with an uncommon glow of expreffion and energy of manner, reprobated this ill-fated expedition, and the savage barbarity of denying to the gallant and dying Sombreuil the confolation of publishing his letter. Yet, in defiance of this leffon, he observed, another expedition was framed to l'Ifle Dieu, which, if carried into effect in the fame manner as the firft, would have been equally dif aftrous. He pointedly noticed the inconfiftency of minifters in fummoning Belleifle to furrender in the name of Louis XVIII. Had Belleifle or Noirmontier yielded to this fummons,

fummons, we must have landed and taken poffeffie of them in the name of Louis XVIII. and pledged ourfelves to restore him to his rights, which would have reduced us to the alternative of abandoning the prince and his followers with infamy, or of profecuting his caufe with defpair, as this was a hopeless caufe. He ridiculed with much force the arguments fupported by the diffe. rent fpeakers in the debate in favour of the war. They were, he faid, theories which might fuit well for a literary or political difputant, and be amusing in a club-room or a pamphlet: but for a man to undertake the office of a statefman, and to bring fuch theories into practice, was an outrage, not only upon common fenfe, but upon moral duty. Mr. Fox commented upon the extreme folly of entering into a war against opinions. He contended, that, at every moment from the commencement of the war to the prefent time, minifters might have negotiated upon better terms with the French than they now could, and that our relative fituation had been gradually growing worse. He pointed out feveral periods when, according to the language held out by minifters, it might have been prudent and confiftent to treat, Yet, when a motion was made for this purpose on the 26th of Janu ary laft, which it was not convenient directly to oppofe, an amendment was moved, that they were ready to enter into a negotiation whenever a government was efta blifhed capable of maintaining the accustomed relations of amity and peace. Was negotiation offered when fuch a government appeared: It was proved that France did maintain fuch relations, fince Pruffia, Spain, many of the states of Germany, and even the elector of Ha

nover, had made peace with her. Mr. Fox ridiculed the idea of waiting to treat till there was fome experience of the new constitution of France, fince experience had proved that neither the changes of men nor of conftitutions affected the engagements they had formed with foreign countries. It was, he faid, idle to talk of the theory of a conftitution being a dependance for the obfervance of a treaty: if a rational treaty was made, and it was the intereft of the parties to keep it, that was the only true and wife dependance for the continuance of peace. The offer of negotiation, he thought, ought to come from us, as having made declarations which stood in the way of negotiation. This was neither the time nor the place to fettle the terms of peace. The terms in every negotiation must certainly depend upon the relative fituation of the parties: but he could not admit of the eternal evasion, that one year we were too high to treat, another year we were too low; and thus war was prolonged without one calculation, whether the expence of continuing it for one year was not more than the difference of terms to be expected between a good and bad relative fituation. We were now left with one ally, and that ally must be bribed to continue. Adverting to the apprehended scarcity, Mr. Fox faid it was an infult upon common fenfe to urge that war and military expeditions did not in their nature aggravate fcarcity. The quantity of increafed confumption, without taking into account the quantities damaged and loft, was immenfe, Had government, pursuing the example of France, unloaded the tranfperts that were fent to Quiberon, they would have done more towards alleviating the scarcity than

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