If the object he pursued was obtained, he was indifferent to what hand the benefit was owing But he contended, that the plans were effentially different; and the one made not to fupply, but to counteract the other.

The oppofition in general cried fhame on this manœuvre. They faid it was unfair and indecent; and that if it was not an abfolute violation of established parliamentary rules, according to the dead letter of recorded precedents, it, however, militated entirely against their fpirit; and that it was to tally fubverfive of that liberality of conduct, and propriety of behaviour, which it was fo neceffary and becoming for gentlemen to obferve, both in that houfe and without, in their commerce with each other. The various frictures paffed upon the plan, will appear in their place.

Mr. Burke's establishment bill, having been read the first time on the 23d of February, the author propofed the following Tuelday for the fecond reading. On this much altercation arofe; the minifter charging the minority with precipitating a measure not fufficiently confidered; they on the other hand accufing him of an in tention of delaying all reformation until the fupplies were granted, and then precipitately proroguing parliament, without any redrefs to fo many grievances. The minifter was called on to declare, whether he would oppose it on the fecond reading, or let it go to a committee. After great apparent irrefolution, he declared that he did not intend to oppose the bill in that ftage.

The bill being read the fecond time without oppofition, just 2d. after the minifter had announced the plan for his commiffion of accounts, Mr. Burke moved that it might be committed for the following day. This was oppofed, on the ground, that as it was neceffary all bills, and more especially thofe of great moment, fhould be proceeded through with caution and circumfpection, fo the ufage of parliament was, on that account, against the fending of bills directly from the fecond reading to a committee. If this was the rule in other cafes, how much more neceffary was it with respect to a bill of fuch magnitude, which took in fuch a variety of objects, and in the event of which fo great a number of individuals were interested, as the prefent, to proceed with the greatett caution; and to afford time for fully examining its parts, and duly confidering and weighing its general and particular confequences, before it was referred to a committee. An amendment was accordingly moved, by which the following Wednesday was to be fubftituted, in the place of the enfuing day.

This was dire&ly charged on the other fide to the procraftinating views of the minifter. It was not to be fuppofed, they faid, that the whole of the bill was to be immediately confidered; its parts were to be taken and treated feparately; and their number rendered it neceffary (if any thing ferious was intended to be done) to lofe no time in their proceeding. The first part to be investi. gated in the committee was the

fimple queftion, whether the office of third fecretary of ftate, other wife fecretary of ftate for the American colonies, was not an office altogether ufelefs, and as fuch ought to be abolished? Surely this was not a question that required fuch depth of thinking, as that there had not been already full time for its confideration.

The language which the minifter now held with respect to the bill of reform, did not feem much to correfpond with that he had ufed at the first motion for the bill. He probably thought he had gone too far. He coldly obferved, that as the bill confifted of a variety of allegations, aud was in fact a farrago of incidents, he fuppofed it would not be thought unreasonable, when it came before the committee, if he fhould then call for evidence in fupport of those facts, on which the propofitions were founded, as well as a clear account of the value of the favings to be made.

Mr. Burke treated with ridicule the idea of the noble lord, in requiring a kind of proof, which from its nature he, at the fame time, knew was impoffible to be given. I affert, faid he, that the third fecretary of state is ufe lefs, and how am I to prove it but by the notoriety of the fact? Will the deputy, the clerks, or even the fire-lighter, come to prove it? Did the noble lord mean, that he was to bring fuch evidence as was neceflary to determine quef tions of private property in a court of justice, in order to prove all thofe places to be ufelefs which he propofed to abolith? And was he alfo to bring fimilar evidence to prove, that the favings from

thofe reductions would amount precifely, without even the ufual exception for errors, to the exact fum which he had fuppofed or fiated? The idea is too ridiculous. It will be more manly and becoming in the noble lord, at once to avow his antipathy to every fpecies and degree of public

reform.

The queftion being put at 12 o'clock at night, in a very full houfe, Lord Beauchamp's amendment to the motion, for fubftituting the words "Wednesday next," in the place of "to-morrow," was carried upon a divifion by a majority of 35; the numbers being, for the amendment 230, to 195, who fupported the ori. ginal motion. The parties feemed willing to make a previous trial of their ftrength in thefe queftions, before they came to the main points; and the numbers in the minority, on a mere matter of time, was a thing very alarming to miniftry.

We have already observed, that the Earl of Pembroke had, for the first time, voted in the oppofition. This conduct was foon followed by the removal of that nobleman from his office of lord lieutenant of the county of Wilts. So remark. able a concurrence of incident, and coming fo close upon that which related to the Marquis of Caermarthen, could not but excite notice and obfervation both within doors and without; and the matter was taken up by the Earl of Shelburne as an object of parliamentary enquiry, who accordingly fummoned the lords upon the occafion.

That nobleman opened the bufinefs by

March 6th.

Rating,

ftating, that the trouble he had given them on that day, was for purposes that equally concerned the honour, dignity, and independency of parliament, and the prefervation and fupport of the conftitution. It was to enquire into the cause of two noble lords near him being difmiffed their employments; to whom no charge of delinquency could poffibly be made, nor even was preténded; nor could any caufe be affigned but this fuggeftion, that one noble lord had declared the fide he fhould take on a queftion agitated in that houfe; and the other noble lord had abfolutely voted on it. These were the only crimes they had committed; and for the exercife of this common freedom, inherent in the conftitution, and belonging to every member of either houfe of parliament, they were difgraced in the face of their country.

The noble earl pointed out and enforced, with his ufual fharpnefs and energy, the fuppofed dangerous tendency of this mode of proceeding; more particularly at a time like the prefent, when, as he faid, every body felt and confeffed that the influence of the crown was carried to fuch an extreme, as affected every department, from the minifter to the loweft officer of excife. He then entered into a detail of the rife and power of the lords lieutenants of Counties; and endeavoured to thew, that the powers of that great office were, from its first inftitution, in a very confiderable degree independant of the crown; and that it was always confidered as preferving a fort of balance, between the rights of the people and the power of the prerogative. He ob

ferved that the conduct of the court with respect to those two noblemen was the more feriously alarming, as the feveral laws relative to the militia, which had been paffed fince the year 1752, had thrown that originally conftitutional means of national defence, almoft totally into the hands of the crown; fo that being thus warped from the proper nature and defign of the inftitution, there was fcarcely any thing left, but the public fpirit and independency of the lords lieutenants of the counties, to prevent its becoming a mere ftate engine of corruption; and its being even converted into a machine for the fubverfion of that conftitution which it had been created to preferve.

From the militia, the noble earl paffed by an eafy tranfition to the tate and government of the army; a ground, on which his early military knowledge and service afforded no fmall advantage. He particularly reprobated, with a foldierly vehemence, a regulation lately adopted in that school of war, called occafimal rank; this he reprefented, as being equally fcadalous in the practice, ruinous to the fervice in the effect, and humiliating and degrading to the army in its principle. Nothing, he faid, could operate fo directly and effectually towards breaking the heart of a foldier, and damping all military fpirit and ardour. Indeed the Duke of Richmond and he feemed to want words fufficiently to exprefs their deteftation of this novel, and, as they defcribed it, abominable practice. The whole order of things was reversed by it. All rank was trampled upon; all fubordination

was

was at an end. The high spirit of honour which characterizes a foldier; the emulation of rank, and the eagernefs for fame, which include his very exiftence, muft all perish before it.

The noble earl faid, that although their frequency, within the knowledge he fuppofed of all the lords, feemed to render it unneceffary to cite any inftances of the abufe, and that he would rather avoid defcending to particulars, yet, that it might not be thought he dealt merely in declamation, he would afk, what pretenfions a Mr. Fullarton had to be raised at once to the rank of a lieutenant-colonel, and to be appointed commandant of a regiment ? That gentlemen had never held any rank, nor ever been in the army before; he had been clerk to the noble lord now prefent in office, when on his late embaffy in France; where perhaps he might have acquitted himself very well with his pen, but never was acquainted with the use of the fword; yet this clerk in office, this commis, contrary to all military establishments, contrary to all the fpirit of the army, was now a lieutenantcolonel, and had the fuperiority in command over Lord Harrington, a young nobleman of the most active and enterprizing fpirit, who had fought his way, inch by inch, to command, and whofe high rank and great family connections ferved him in no other refpect, than to render his fervices to his country the more confpicuous.

Such promotions, it was faid, fo contrary to the military rules of every other country in Europe, as well as of this, was fufficient to drive every man of honour and VOL. XXIII.

spirit from the fervice, to diffeminate dangerous difcontents, jealoufy, and ill-will throughout the whole army, and to deter our young nobility and gentry of weight and fortune, from following the natural bent of their genius, in attempting to ferve their country. For who would devote his time, his fortune, or his life to a fervice, where he faw a clerk from behind his defk, fuddenly raised by minifterial caprice, and put over the heads of more than a thousand officers; many of whom were of long and tried service, of established merit in their profeffion, and had been bred up to the art of war from their earliest youth?

The Earl of Shelburne closed a fpeech of confiderable length, full of matter and of energy, with a motion to the following purport :Whereas the Marquis of Carmarthen was difmiffed from his employment of the lieutenancy of the Eaft Riding of the county of York, on the morning of that day when his opinion to fupport with his vote a motion that was made in the houfe on the 8th of February laft was well known; and whereas the Earl of Pembroke was likewife difmiffed from his lieutenancy of the county of Wilts, foon after he gave his vote on the fame queftion, which office of lieutenant has been at all times important, but moft peculiarly fo under the prefent conftitution of the militia. And whereas no caufe has been fuggefted or communicated to either of the faid noble lords for fuch difmiffion, this houfe therefore hath every ground to believe, that the fame had reference to their conduct in parliament.

And it was therefore moved, [1] that

tat an humble addrefs be prefented to his majefty, to defire he will be graciously pleafed to acquaint this houfe, whether he has been advised, and by whom, to difmifs the faid two noble lords, or either of them, from their faid employments, for their conduct in parliament.

The Marquis of Carmarthen obferved, that the motion was of fuch a nature, that he could not in delicacy fupport it with his vote; but that he nevertheless heartily approved of it, as he hoped it would afford the means of enabling him to fatisfy his enquiring county, as to the cause of his being difplaced from acting as their lord licutenant; for he trusted he should now hear from the mouth of fome of the king's confidential fervants, the reafon of his being difmiffed from that office. He flattered himfelf, that his removal was not occafioned by any abufe of the power annexed to his office; and he was happy in finding that he had not given any offence to the people of the county of York, either as lieutenant, or by the vote he had given; for he had received several letters from many of the moft refpectable gentlemen in that county, containing a full approbation of his conduct in parliament.

The Earl of Pembroke explained the nature of his difmiffion, which he attributed entirely to advice; as at that audience, at which he refigned the office of lord of the bed-chamber, he had experienced the fame gracious reception from his fovereign which he had ever been wont to do. He obferved, that his family had been lord lieutenants of the county of Wilts, ever fince the office had been firft

known in England; and he was happy to find that his conduct had been fuch upon all occafions, as to meet the full approbation of his county.

That nobleman, who had ferved early, long, and with credit in the laft war, joined in reprobating, in terms of exceeding feverity, the late promotions, as well as the innovations in general which were introduced in the government of the army. He faid, that he detefted from his heart the means made ufe of to obtain rank, contrary to the established rules of fervice; and he affirmed, that the ar my in which fuch things were permitted, muft either moulder away fo as to be worth nothing, or else become a dangerous engine in the hands of government.,

The difcretion of the crown in the appointment and removal of its officers, was the principal ground of argument taken on the other fide in oppofition to the motion. That the crown was fully endued with this power would not be de nied; and any attempt to circumfcribe it, muft be confidered as a direct and violent entrenchment on the royal prerogative. The propofed addrefs would, therefore, not militate lefs with the principles of right, than with all the rules of propriety, and of refpect to his majefty; nor indeed could the meafure be fupported upon any better ground of precedent, than what was drawn from the conduct of the long parliament. A conduct which no lord on any fide of the house could wish to purfue.

That the power of the crown might in fome inftances be imprudently exercifed, was allowed. Every power, however modified,

or