motion, if the House was disposed to attend with temper to the discussion.

Mr. Whitbread meant not to object to the withdrawing of the noble lord's motion, but to urge to the House the propriety, from personal consideration for the Speaker, of abstaining from any course by which the fatigues to which he was subjected might be increased.

The motion of the adjournment was withdrawn; and Mr. Hibbert again rose and stated, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had told the House, that if his resolution should be carried, they might vote either for the. removal of the Duke of York, or for his continuance in office. Now, he would ask, whether, if the House should vote that the Duke of York was not guilty of corruption, or of participation in corruption, or of connivance at corruption, it would be open to the House to vote for the removal of his Royal Highness. He hoped that the honourable baronet would withdraw his amendment, and meet the resolution of the right honourable gentleman with a direct negative; but if the amendment should be pressed, he should feel it his duty to oppose it.

Mr. Ellison, after the exhausted state of the House, felt himself unwilling to offer himself to the House; but he had an important duty to perform, and he should endeavour to do it in a few words. He was sorry to differ from those with whom he could not agree upon this occasion, but he had a bounden duty to perform, and must perform it faithfully. It had been said, that the House could not come to any conclusion, as the evidence had not been taken upon oath; but he would contend, that the House was bound to form its opinion upon the evidence that had been laid before it. The conviction upon his mind was, that there was no ground for a charge of personal corruption against the Duke of York, though he thought him completely guilty of connivance. He defied any man to lay his hand upon his heart and say, that there was not evidence of this connivance in the course of the proceedings. The testimony may be as little as they might please entitled to credit; but if corroborated by little circumstances travelling up step by step, there was not a person in the kingdom who would not think it the best evidence, upon which a man might be convicted and hanged. If the evidence was not to be taken, then they had spent the last six weeks in a most

१

foolish way. It was his opinion that they were bound to take the evidence as it was, and to come to some decision upon it. The argument founded upon an assertion, that the whole proceedings was to be attributed to Jacobins, was a weak one. Such an argument was calculated to do mischief, by exciting what does not exist. It was like "talk of the devil and he will appear." It was the duty of that House to proceed against great names, if they should be found to have committed great wrongs. He was attached to the throne, and loved his sovereign as a father; but thought that the best way of supporting the throne was by calling those to account, whom the people did not wish to pull down because they are princes, but whom the people wished to make act as princes. Having attended diligently to all the proceedings, and maturely weighed all the evidence, the result of the whole was a grave and substantial conviction upon his mind, that his Royal Highness was not guilty of corruption, though he felt it impossible to acquit his Royal Highness of connivance.

Mr. Sumner should not vote for the amendment of the honourable baronet, as he was not prepared to go the length of stating, that there were grounds for charging corruption upon his Royal Highness. It had been his intention, if he could have obtained a hearing earlier, to have proposed as an amendment, to separate the propositions of the resolution respecting corruption and connivance. The situation in which they were placed was painful, but it would be some mitigation of that pain, if these two points were separated. He should with pleasure vote for the acquittal of the Duke of York of all personal corruption, though he could not of connivance. He thought that Mrs. Clarke had dealt out to the House many falschoods, but she had also told them many grave truths; and upon these truths it was, that he could not think that the Duke of York was wholly ignorant of the corrupt practices which were passing.

Mr. Wilberforce had but a few words to offer. The honourable baronet appeared to him not to have suffi ciently attended to what had fallen from his honourable friend (Mr. Bankes) relative to the amendment, which he took that opportunity of conjuring him to withdraw. The honourable baronet's amendment was calculated to give the public a false notion of the opinion of the House of Commons. It was unfair-it was cruel to place gen

tlemen, who might by an amendment separate the original resolution, so as to be able to vote for the part in which they concurred, and to negative that which they disapproved of. The motion of the honourable baronet placed him and those who thought with him in a very distressing situation, and he therefore conjured him again to withdraw his amendment.

Lord Henry Petty thought that it was right for those, who felt it necessary to state the reasons upon which they voted, to do so before the first division. Whatever differences of opinion might exist on other subjects, he was sure there could be in that House but one sentiment of attachment towards the illustrious family upon the throne, upon every principle, every memory, and every hope of liberty hereafter in these realms. It was with extreme anxiety that he dissented from the proposition of the right honourable gentleman: it was painful to him to be compelled to give a negative, where it would be most gratifying to him to give his support. It was to explain the grounds upon which he was induced to give his negative to the proposition of the right honourable gentleman that he had risen. The proceeding upon the subject under consideration had been repeatedly described by the right honourable gentleman and others, but most erroneously as a judicial proceeding. This was an opinion inconsistent with parliamentary usage, and not authorized by the forms, the practice, or the constitution of parliament. It was absolutely impossible for that House to resort to any juridical proceeding, or to bring this question to a juridical decision. If in the opinion he gave he was in error, it was the error of the constitution, which had not supplied the House with the same requisites or the same shackles as other courts of justice-which had not subjected them to the same consequences of a verdict, that it might affect the life or property of a fellow-subject. He had said thus much in order to bring the House to the consideration of this question with the same deliberate, cool, and considerate attention to the matter submitted to them, as belongs to a judge or a jury. But having said this, he would contend that his duty as a member of parliament was not to punish an individual, but to watch over and guard the public safety. In this view, he contended, that the object of the proceeding then before the House was not to

punish the Duke of York, but to save and protect the public from the consequences of the abuses which the Duke of York may have permitted in his department, and which were the subject of inquiry. This was the ground of his negative, because, looking to the whole of the proceedings, and considering the evidence which had been laid before them, he could lay his hand upon his heart and say, that he could not find in that evidence any thing to warrant him in saying that the Duke of York had not connived at the abuses into which the House had been inquiring. As to the character of the evidence, he agreed with his learned friend (Mr. Bur ton) that it was loose; but loose as it was, it was capable of being sifted as well as any other evidence. That evidence, however, had been so supported, as to entitle it to credit, and he confessed the manner in which it was supported appeared to his mind greatly to strengthen the whole nass; because, in every instance, where it admitted of being supported by documents, it had received that sup'port, and in no one instance had it been contradicted by a document. He had listened with attention to the able and ingenious defence, which had been made by the right honourable gentleman (the Chancellor of the Exchequer); and the parts which appeared so ingenious in themselves, when taken together, were contradictory to each other. When the right honourable gentleman com imented on the note respecting Major Tonyn's case, and argued against the credibility of Miss Taylor's evidence, he shewed his ingenuity in endeavouring to establish the fact of a conspiracy. At first, he did not consider the note of much consequence, and contended that it might have been written by the Duke of York with very innocent intentions. But when he wanted to establish the conspiracy, he endeavoured to shew that the note was forged, and by shewing the means that in such an event would be placed within the reach of the conspirators, at the same time that so little use was made of them, established in his mind the strongest proof that the note was not forgery. He agreed with his right honourable friend as to the distinction which he took between different degrees of connivance, and was ready to contend, that corruption or deliberate connivance was not the same as blind connivance or resisted inquiry. This latter species of connivance was not equally criminal, but it was such as to

require the removal of any public officer. (Hear, Hear!) Having stated that to be his opinion of connivance, how, he would ask, could he vote for the resolution acquitting his Royal Highness both of personal corruption and connivance, when there was not a tittle of evidence that could bear him out as to the latter? Those who could pursue a contrary course might be said, in the language of a moral poet, to

"Gulp down whole reasons in a lump,

"And come to short conclusions at a jump."

What would be the situation of the House if they should vote the resolution of the right honourable gentleman ? Why this that whilst they had a conviction of his connivance at abuses, the highest officer in the state would still continue in his situation. (Hear, hear!) Was it right that his Royal Highness should continue as Com mander-in-chief, whilst it was proved that such practices had passed before him? If the Duke of York ever reflected at all, which he sincerely believed he never had done, he would have put a stop to such corrupt practices. He would never have lent himself to such a case as the recommendation of a doctor of divinity from Ireland, or committed himself with respect to General Clavering, or Major Tonyn; the thing was absolutely impossible. He agreed with his right honourable friend, that a blindness and an indisposition to make themselves acquainted with unplea sant truths were the characteristics of many men in high office. Therefore he should not vote for the resolution. The right honourable gentleman now asserted, that there were no grounds for further proceedings if his resolution should be agreed to; but if there were no grounds for further proceeding, what was to become of the necessity the House was under, according to his argument, to come to a direct decision, aye or no, guilty or not guilty, unless that the House was only to be allowed to find for the acquittal? He was aware that the right honourable gentleman had frequently changed his votes, not that he would impute to him the design of catching thereby a few more votes, but that it had arisen from accidental changes in his opinions. It was impossible for him to vote for the resolution, and it would be improper for the House to vote any words of equivocal or ambiguous meaning. The public expected that they should do their duty fairly and openly, and the