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The question being put, after one o'clock in the morning, on the first member of the clause, for abolifhing the office of treasurer of the chamber, it was loft upon a divifion, by, the now, confiderable majority, of 211, to 18. The minority, upon this divifion, were publicly thanked by feveral of the county meetings. This fall of numbers was accounted for by fome late manœuvres of the court; by which fome of the country gentlemen who had ufually adhered to it, but who had on the popularity of this bill gone from it, now returned; and a fecond change became, manifest in feveral others.

Mr. Burke then declared his total indifference as to what became of the rest of the bill. He was, however, roufed into his wonted activity by his friend Mr. Fox, who urged the expediency of going through with the bill to the very laft; however little more they got for the people, than what they had already gained, it still would be worth the ftriving for. The mere abolition of the board of trade, even if nothing farther was done, he infifted, was worth the ftruggle; for as he was determined, and he hoped his honourable friend would join with him, in renewing the bill from feffion to feffion, until its purposes were obtained, fo they would have feven lefs of the enemy to fight againft on the next encounter. The fucceeding members of the claufe were accordingly gone through, and each received a negative without a divifion.

On the day following this debate, the minifter informed the house, that the Eaft India company not having made fuch propofals for the

renewal of their charter, as he had deemed fatisfactory, he should accordingly move the house, for the fpeaker to give them the three years notice ordained by act of par liament, previous to the diffolution of their charter, that the capital ftock or debt, of 4,200,000l. which the public owed to the company, fhould be fully paid, on the 5th of April 1783, agreeable to the power of redemption included in the faid act.

Mr. Fox, and Mr. Burke, oppofed the measure with wonderful fervour and animation. The firft asked the minister, whether he was not content with having loft America? Or was he determined, before he quitted his prefent fituation, to reduce the British empire to the confines of this island? Could he point out a fingle good, which his motion was capable of produc ing? Was he blind and infenfible to the evil and danger with which it was fraught? Why iffue an impotent threat, which he neither intended, nor was capable of carrying into execution? It was ridiculous, it was dangerous to threaten, when men dared not to perform what they threatened. Did he wish to behold the fcenes of anarchy, confufion, diftrefs, and ruin, which his idle threat might probably produce in the company's affairs and poffeffions in India? Did he think that house, would at this time of day, under the immediate preffure and bitter experience of paft rafhnefs and misconduct, wantonly hazard the ample revenues, the refources of power and wealth, which this country derived, from the trade and commerce of the Eaft India company? Suppofing even

that

that the noble lord was capable of carrying his threat into execution, and really intended it, was he ig. norant of the heavy lofs which the nation must sustain, in the mere article of paying off the capital, in the prefent ftate of the funds? Did he not know, that although the 4,200,000l. carried only three per cent. yet that he must pay it at par and that the three per cents being down at fixty in the market, the public muft neceffarily lose a clear forty per cent. on every hundred pound they paid off? If a new company was the object of his fpeculation, did he not know that the trade muft then be open? that he was difabled by law from rendering it exclufive? and that the prefent company would ftill retain their poffeffions, ftrong-holds, and fo many other of their prefent fuperior powers and advantages in the country, as must speedily ruin the new adventurers, if any could be found mad enough to become fuch?

Mr. Burke seemed unable to find words, to fill up the reprobation which he wished to beflow on the propofal. He faid it was more worthy of revellers intoxicated by liquor, than of statesmen in a fober fenate. He rejected the narrow idea of bargaining with the Eaft India company, as if we were treating with an enemy; and upon the wretched principle, that whatever was not fqueezed out in the bargain, was to be confidered as fo much loft. He threw the fpeculation of a new company into every point of ridicule. He was fure the minifter never seriously intended it. The thing could not be, as every man of business, and acquainted

with our affairs, must know and feel. He declared, that if it were poffible to adopt it, it would turn out a new Miffiffippi fcheme; and that it was worthy only, of fuch an unprincipled, abandoned, bubble projector as Law. He did not doubt but in this country, there would be found men weak and bad enough to bite at fuch a bubble; but he afferted, that it would burst with utter ruin to the adventurers. He reminded the house, that they had loft thirteen colonies, by the rapacity of the minifter, in endeavouring to obtain a great revenue from America; and he warned then not to throw, the Eaft after the Weft, by being again led into another revenue chace. That this would prove as idle as the former; for that no money, at leaft no immediate fupply, could be derived from those territorial poffeffions; which were a conftant bait to the avarice of the court, and perhaps of the public.

The minifter denied that his motion was a threat or a menace. It was meant merely as putting in a legal claim in behalf of the public, to the reverfion of a right which undoubtedly belonged to them; and at that moment of time, when it was efpecially neceffary that the claim fhould be formally made. Gentlemen did not feem to recollect, that by the lapfe only of a few days, with refpect to the notice, the company would neceffarily gain, and the public unavoidably lofe, a year's poffeffion of thofe advantages, which, by the ftipulations of the law that founded the agreement, were to revert to the latter at the conclufion of three years; leaving it in the option of the public, on receiving proper fatisfaction from the com

pany,

pany, to grant, by a new charter, a renewal of their leafe. This was all that the motion tended to. It precluded no propofitions which might hereafter be made by the company, nor it laid no restraint on parliament from accepting of any which it approved. It merely went to prevent a year of the public right to the reverfion of the company's trade from flipping away without any compensation.

1 In answer to thofe gentlemen on the other fide, who faid that the company would laugh at the notice, because they muft know that it could not be feriously intended; he fhould in the first place obferve, that it would be the Eaft India company's own fault, if the notice was carried into execution. But he would not have these gentlemen carry away the idea, that if the prefent company broke up and divided their ftock, the public would, as a neceffary confequence, lofe the revenues arising from the trade, or from the territorial acquifitions in India. He trufted there were means of fecuring both the one and the other. He did not wish to break with the prefent company; he did not defire to drive them to a diffolution; but the company ought not to imagine that the public lay at their mercy. The public had a right to look for great refources from the company, and from the territorial acquifitions in India. The company, as it was now established, he acknowledged was the beft medium of drawing home the revenues from the Indies; but if the company were fo unreasonable and fo thoughtless, as not to come to a fair bargain with the public, a new company might be formed, and fuch

measures adopted, as would prevent or remedy the evils threatened to the revenue.

Mr. Burke having moved the previous queftion on the minister's motion, it was rejected on a divifion, by a majority of 142, to 68. The main question being then put, for the fpeaker to give notice to the Eaft India company, of the payment in three years of their capital stock, it was carried without a divifion.

On the laft day of fitting before the receis, upon bringing up the report from the committee of ways and means, of the new and very heavy taxes, which were then to be laid on, a faint, and perhaps illjudged attempt, was made by a few gentlemen in oppofition, to defer receiving the report, until the petitions of the people of England were heard, and their grievances redressed. A motion was accordingly framed, for poftponing the report, until the 7th of April; and notwithstanding the appearance of the house, and other infallible indications of the event, was unaccountably pufhed to a divifion; when it was rejected by a majority of 145, to 37.

During these scenes of continued and doubtful warfare in the House of Commons, fome tacit ceffation of hoftility seemed to prevail in that of the Lords; the only public question that was brought forward, being a motion of the Earl of Effingham, on the 10th of March, for a lift of all places, penfions, and employments, whether for a term of years, for life, during pleasure, or good behaviour, held by the members of that house. It would not have been eafy to have found

any.

any new ground of debate upon this fubject. Much of the ground taken upon a former motion of the Earl of Shelburne's, which excluded lords who held places or penfions under government, from fitting in the propofed committee of accounts, was now trodden again by both parties. The fame inju rious cenfure was now faid to be thrown upon the honour of the houfe by the prefent motion, which had been before charged to the former, in fuppofing that places, penfions, or emoluments, could poffibly in

fluence the public conduct of any of its noble members. And arguments fimilar to those which we have already feen, were used on the other fide, to fhew the futility or abfurdity of that idea. In the course of the debate, fome ftrictures which were paffed on the confiitution of the Scotch peerage, excited fome degree of warmth; nor did even the right reverend bench of bishops, pafs entirely fcot-free.-The motion was rejected upon a divifion, by a majority of 51 to 24.

CHA P. VIII.

Third

Army eftimates. Debates on the fubject of the new corps. Divifion. Question carried. Confideration of the petitions. Great debates in the Committee. Part taken by the Speaker. Amendment to the motion, propofed and agreed to. Mr. Dunning's amended motion, carried, upon a divifion, in a very full house. Second motion, agreed to. motion, by Mr. T. Pitt, agreed to. Houfe refumed. Mr. Fox's 20tion, for immediately receiving the report from the committee, oppofed but carried. Refolutions, reported, received, and confirmed by the House. Mr. L'unning's motion (on a following day) in the committee, for fecuring the independence of parliament, agreed to. Second motion, for dif qualifying perfons holding certain offices, from fitting in that houfe, carried, upon a divifion, by a majority of two only. Mr. Crewe's bill, for excluding revenue officers from voting on the election of members of parliament, rejected, on a divifion. Great debates in the House of Lords, upon the fecond reading of the contractors bill. The bill rejected, upon à divifion, by a confiderable majority. Proteft. Confequences of the Speaker's illness. Pofiponed motion of Mr. Dunning's, for an addrefs, ta prevent diffolving the parliament, or proroguing the prefent feffion, until proper meafures fhould be taken for correcting the evils complained of in the petitions of the people, brings out lorg debates; but is rejected by a confiderable majority, in an exceedingly full house. Disorder upon Mr. Fox's rifing to speak, after the divifion. Nature of his Speech, Reply, by the minister. Great debates upon the claufe in Mr. Burke's efablishment bill, for abolishing the office of the Great Wardrobe, Sc, Claufe rejected upon a divifion. Succeeding claufe, for abolishing the Board of Works, rejected upon a divifion. Debates upon the minifter's bill for a commiffion of accounts. Clofe divifion upon a question in the committee. Bill at length paffed. Debates on Colonel Barre's motions, relative to the extraordinaries of the army. First motion rejected, upon a divifion, by a great majority. Succeeding refolutions rejected. General

Conway's

Conway's bill, for restoring peace with America, difpofed of, upon a divifion, by a motion for the order of the day. Motion tending to an enquiry, into any requifition made by the civil magiftrate, for the attendance of the military, upon the late meeting of the electors of Westminster. Various claufes of Mr. Burke's eftablishment bill, rejected, upon, or without divifions. Recorder of London's motion in behalf of the petitioners, rejected upon a divifion. Mr. Dunning's motion, in the committee of the whole house on the confideration of the petitions, for reporting their own two refolutions of the 10th of April, fet afide, by a motion for the chairman to quit the chair, which was carried upon a divifion. Meeting of the Proteftant affo ciation in St. George's Fields. Subfequent riots, mifchiefs, and conflagrations. Refolutions, conduct, and adjournment of both houses. Lord George Gordon committed to the Tower. Speech from the throne, on the meeting of parliament after the late diforders. Addreffes. Refolutions in the Houfe of Commons, for quieting the minds of well-meaning, but ill-informed perfons. Bill paffes the House of Commons, for the fecurity of the Proteftans religion. Is laid by in the House of Lords. Speech from the throne. Prorogation.

N the fecond day after the recefs, the army estimates being laid before the Houfe of Commons, and a motion made for their reference to a committee, much warm debate, as had been expected, and in fome degree announced, arofe upon the fubject of the new levies, and of the innovations with refpect to rank and promotion, which were charged by the oppofition to have taken place in the army.

April 5th. ON

Sir Philip Jennings Clerke, firft brought forward the bufinefs of the Cinque Ports regiment, which the minister, as Lord Warden of those ports, had raised, in a great meafure, if not entirely, at his own expence; and to the command of which his fon, who had not before held any military command, was appointed. This regiment was covered, as well by the circumftances which attended its being raised, as by the declaration of Colonel North himself, in his place, and in his first parliamentary speech, (a circumftance which

always draws a particular degree of complacency and attention from the house) that he neither received any pay, nor was entitled to any future rank, fo that the trouble and expence, along with the honour and pleasure of ferving his country in a time of difficulty and danger, was all that he could poffibly derive from the command. But what particularly faved this corps and appointment from farther animadverfion, was, its being ftated by the minifter himself, to be only a regiment of what is called fencible men; a term before unknown in the military affairs of England, but which is applied in Scotland to a fpecies of militia, (particularly the loyal clansof Argylefhire, who were origi nally retained by government as a check upon their difaffected neighbours) whofe terms of enlistment extend no father than to the immediate defence of their country.

But the debate was kept up afterwards, with refpect to other

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