situation cannot be deemed a very hard one, nor can the power which yields him that protection, with any colour of reason, be accused of injustice or oppiession. But if ever there was a crisis in the affairs of a state, which might justify proceeding, on the ground of political necessity, that crisis had arrived, which endered the assumption of the Doaab, by the British government, indispensibly necessary; not merely for the prosperity, but for the actual salvation of the country, and of the British interests, as inseparably connected with that country. Let the unbiassed reader open the map of India, observe the situation of Coel, where the French Mahratta army was permanenly cantoned, and say, whether the governor-general, consistently with his duty to the India company, and to the Public, could have permitted that force to continue in the situation it occupied, without using every means in his power to effect, at least, such internal arrangements as might be best calculated to raise obstacles to its progress; and such could be accomplished only by the introduction of subordination and good government in Oude. But this reform, so desirable and necessary, was utterly hopeless, so long as the country remained under the management of the nabob's officers. In whatever light, therefore, this great measure of policy can be considered, whether as a requisite precaution for our own preservation, as an act of humanity to the inhabitants of the country, as a relief to the nabob, or as a fair and equitable bargain, equally advantageous to both parties, in every possible bearing, it is unquestionable; and, as a wise and politic measure, is justly entitled to the unqualified commendation which it received from the secret committee, the legitimate organ of the court of directors, a commendation pronounced on the most mature deliberation, and after the court had been in possession of the treaty, with a complete knowledge of every circumstance that led to it, for upwards of twelve months."

Mr. RYDER's SPEECH, (ON THE 26TH ULT.) AGAINST LORD HOWICK's AMENDMENT TO THE ADDRESS.

Mr. Ryder began by observing, that he had been particularly anxious to catch the speaker's eye, in order to set an honourable gentleman (Mr. W. Smith) right, who had charged the chancellor of the exchequer with having taken office, under Mr. Pitt, at a time when he had reason to believe it was the intention of Mr. Pitt to bring forward the catholic question. If the honourable gentleman had been a member in the last parliament, he would have known that that charge had been made before, and contradicted. The fact was, that, upou Mr. Pitt's proposing to his right honourable friend to continue attorney general, he had distinctly stated the necessity he should be under of opposing the catholic question, if ever it should be brought forward, and his apprehension that his opposition, while holding that situation, might be embarrassing to government; and, in point of fact, he did not accept the office till he had been assured that Mr. Pitt was so far from having any intention of agitating the question, that he should himself oppose it, if agitated by others. Mr. Ryder said he was glad to take the opportunity of answering the insinuations thrown out by the late ministers, in the course of the debate, particularly by the noble lord (Howick), as if their conduct, upon the catholic question, had been precisely the same with that of Mr. Pitt. So far from agreeing with them upon that point, he was persuaded, that, however gentlemen might differ in their opinion of the conduct of ministers; whether they approved or condemned it, at least they must all agree, that in every important feature of that transaction, their conduct had been directly the reverse, not of that which we believed Mr. Pitt would have adopted, under similar circumstances, but of that which we knew he had actually pursued. And what made the variance more extraordinary was, that this catholic question was not one upon which his majesty's late ministers differed with Mr. Pitt, but one upon the general substance of which, they were agreed. It was the opinion of Mr. Pitt, that, after the union with Ireland, a greater share of political power might be granted to the catholics, under such guards and restrictions, however, as would, in his judgment, rather add to, than dininish the security of the protestant establishment; but, when he found that that measure could not be proposed in parliament, with the consent of the king, he would not propose it all; he

never stated it to be a measure of indispensible necessity, and then (as in the late transaction, upon what principles had never been explained) consented to withdraw it, and yet remained in power. He did not cling to office; he did not wait to be dismissed; he voluntarily resigned; he never arraigned (and for the first time since the long parliament, in the reign of Charles I.) the personal conduct of his sovereign at the bar of parliament and of the country. On the contrary, with a magnanimity of mind, of which no trace could be found, in the conduct of his majesty's late ministers, he submitted to every species of misrepresentation and calumny, rather than give an explanation which might by possibility be construed into a reflection upon his royal master; and, when he found, at length, that his majesty's conscientious scruples were insurmountable, and the general sense of the country was against the measure, he declared, in his place, that while those impediments remained, he never would consent to agitate the question, much less propose it; because the agitation of the question, under those circumstances, instead of promoting harmony, would produce discord; and aggravate the mischiefs which he was desirous to remove. The contrast was as melancholy as it was complete. The event, however, had justified his prediction. The agitation had not promoted harmony, it had produced discord. But whatever heat, whatever mischief, had arisen from that discussion, (and no man deprecated that heat, and that mischief more sincerely) it had been owing to those who made the discussion necessary. He (Mr. Ryder) was not surprized, that when those who, by a wanton, uncalled-for, and unnecessary agitation of a question most interesting to the feelings of this people, found that they had excited a spirit of resentment against their measure, and against themselves, that those, who by so doing, had called forth that feeling, and the expression of those sentiments, should be anxious to ascribe to any thing but to their own precipitancy, absurdity, and folly, the resentment and indignation of which they were both the cause and the object.

It had, therefore, been represented, both in and out of that house, by the late ministers and their partizans, that the agitation which had existed, had been owing either to the besotted ignorance of bigotry, fit only for the dark ages, or to the desperate wickedness of factious politicians, or to the hypocritical sycophancy of court intrigue. The sentiments which had been excited by the conduct of the late ministers, were the natural sentiments of the English subject, attached to his king and to the constitution of his country; and to ascribe their creation to any other influence was an impotent effort to deceive the people, and to distract their attention from the true cause and the circumstances connected with it. It was the discussion of the question which had produced that agitation in the public mind; an agitation, which its success might perhaps have led into dangerous violence; but which, its defeat, he confidently trusted would tranquillize and compose.

But what right had the noble lord to impute this cry to his majesty's ministers? In his vehemence to make the charge, he seemed entirely to have forgotten upon what proofs it was to be founded. As long as the accusation, which was brought against them, was loose and indefinite, not warranted by any proof, unsupported by any evidence, but depending upon the mere assertion of political hostility, it could only be met by a denial as general, but as positive, as the charge.

There was only one discussion, in that house, upon the subject, upon the noble lord's moving for leave to bring in the bill. On that occasion, the present chancellor of the exchequer had taken the opportunity of delivering his sentiments shortly upon the subject, in his place, in the house, and he repeated the same opinion in his address to his constituents, when he offered himself to their choice.

Now, unless it was meant to contend that that short address, which contained nothing more than the expression of the same sentiments, which he had uniformly expressed, whenever the question of the catholic claims had been discussed, produced such miraculous effects all over the country, he knew of nothing which had been said or done, by any one of his majesty's ministers to give a colour for a pretext to justify the assertions of the noble lord. Oh but the speech of his right honourable friend! would the noble lord point out the passages in that speech which were calculated to excite a ferment in the country?

If a temperate remonstrance against the evils which were conscienciously felt as

ikely to arise from any measure proposed in parliament, was to be imputed to an ntention to excite popular commotion, to what a state were we reduced! what became of the freedom of speech in that house? what a death's blow to the first privilege of parliament! Were we to sit in silence to hear measures proposed which we thought objectionable, supported by principles going far beyond the measure itself, and justifying the most dangerous innovations, without daring to offer our sentiments upon them, lest the doing so, even with calmness and moderation, should be ascribed to an attempt to raise a cry? And who were those who took a lead in supporting that doctrine, and urging that charge? the very men whose whole political conduct had been little else than a continual attempt to raise a cry, whenever they thought there was a possibility of succeeding in it. How far their present doctrine was in unison with their former practice; whether they had been very scrupulous about the time or the occasion of pursuing their object; let those decide, who remember that, at the moment when a rebellion was raging in Ireland, those gentlemen thought it not inconsistent with their public duty to declare, in full parliament, that the rebellion itself, and all the miseries of Ireland, were owing, not to French intrigue, or to domestic treason, but to the abuses of government, and the corruption of the legislature of Ireland; though the intrigues and treasons were proved to be the main operative causes of those calamities, by the confession of the int.iguers and traitors themselves; to the loyalty and good principles of one of the most distinguished of whom, Mr. O'Connor, several of those gentlemen bore testimony at Maidstone. Mr. Ryder did not assert that they really meant to add fuel to those flames which were then desolating Ireland; but no man would deny, that, if they had such objects in view, they could not have adopted means better calculated to promote them.

Who that remembers the tendency of the language and conduct, which those gentlemen thought it became them to pursue, when the treason and sedition bills, (those necessary measures of precaution, to check the progress of revolutionary principles in this country) were in their passage through this house, their abuse of Mr. Pitt, of the administration of that day, most particularly of that distinguished member of it, the late secretary of state for the war department (Mr. Windham) whom they charged with a nefarious conspiracy to stifle the liberties of the country, and to erect a despotism upon the ruins of our free constitution. Who that recollected those times, and that crisis, in our history, but must admire the consistency of those gentlemen, who now gave you to understand that when a new and important measure was brought into parliament, relating to a subject which did not yield in interest or importance to any that was ever discussed in that house, any declaration, however temperate in its terms of an opinion, adverse to the measure they supported, was disgraceful, and scandalous, attributable only to factious motives, and calculated only to raise a cry? but if the noble lord persisted in his opinion; if he would debar others from the use of that privilege which he and his friends had so often abused, would he condescend to tell them what line they ought to have pursued? perhaps he would say they ought to have seceded. There indeed they should have had his authority to quote, his example to plead, in their justification; and if they had followed his advice, if they had abandoned their first parliamentary duty; if they had deserted their post in the hour of danger; if they had seceded, and if they had accompanied their secession by the patriotic declaration, that they seceded in order to prove to the country, that parliament did not speak the sense of the nation; if they had afterwards given vent to their political spleen, in inflamatory harangues, at public meetings, at clubs, and in taverns, the imitation would not have been less correct, or the resemblance less accurate.

He (Mr. Ryder) was equally surprised, not at the sorrow and the regret, but at the resentment which the friends of the noble lord, at the head of the late govern ment had shown at those indications of the popular sentiment which we had recently witnessed. Many of those who now heard him might remember the general indignation of the country at Mr. Fox's East India bill, and the violation of the rights of the East India company. That period had many striking features of resemblance with the present. The administration of that day was like the late administration, a most singular coalition of the most opposite political opinions.

They too were as confident in their own strength, as vain of their own abilities and as ostentatious in their promises as the late administration.

The indignation which Mr. Fox's East India bill produced, or, to use the phrase of the noble lord, that cry was so prevalent, and so powerful, that the firmest interests were compelled to yield to it, and many gentlemen lost their seats in that house, at the general election which immediately followed, on account of the support they had given to that measure.

If the rules of the house would permit it, he should be glad to appeal to the memory and candour of those very gentlemen, whether, in their speeches, and addresses to their constituents, upon that occasion, they did not exclaim against that cry, against the dissolution of parliament which took place, as now, during a session; whether they did not expatiate upon the interruption to public business which it occasioned ? upon the unconstitutional conduct of ministers, upon the wickedness of secret advisers, upon the mischiefs of the change which had taken place in his majesty's councils, with as much violence and asperity, and with as little effect, as has been produced by the addresses and advertisements, which have graced the columns of the daily press for the last two months, and which have been so faithfully repeated in the speech of the noble lord? It so happened that cry (to use the phrase of the noble lord) established the administration in which lord Grenville took so active and distinguished a part, and he (Mr. Ryder) never heard that that noble lord, or any of his friends, either at the time, or since, ever shewed the slightest displeasure either at the cry itself, or at the effects of it, or at those who were supposed to have taken the most forward part in raising it. On the contrary, the noble lord, and his triends, contended, and contended successfully, as his majesty's present ministers might now contend, he trusted with equal success, he was sure with equal sincerity, and upon still stronger grounds, that that, which were termed a cry, was nothing more or less than the true and genuine expression of the sentiments of the country, upon a great public question; that, however inconvenient the dissolution might be to individuals, and the public, inconveniences which, though much exaggerated, were still considerable; however much it was to be lamented, upon those grounds, yet that the state of parliament, and of parties, were such as to make it necessary for his majesty to appeal to the sense of the country, to decide between him and his late ministers, upon points of the highest national and constitutional importance; that it was a doctrine new and indefensible to argue that there was any thing unconstitutional in the advice given to his majesty, under such circumstances, to submit the exercise of his undoubted prerogative to the approbation of his people. Now, though it was easy to understand that there night be many personal motives, which might lead that noble lord, and his friends, to dislike the cry in one case, and to rejoice in it in the other; yet he was quite unable to comprehend by what mode of reasoning, by what rules of sound logic, or upon what principles of constitutional doctrine the noble lord and his friends, could defend the cry in one case, and condemn it in the other; unless indeed it was to be argued that the people ought to be alive to the charter of the East India company, but callous and indifferent to the interests of their religion, or to the conduct of the servants of the crown towards their king. But then the noble lord or the right hon. gentlemen say that the measure was withdrawn, the danger was over. But how withdrawn? It had been withdrawn with a distinct reservation on the part of his majesty's ministers to submit that, or any other measure respecting Ireland, which circumstances might require. Why that reservation ? Did it give them any new right which they had not before? Was it not, at all times, not only the right but the bounden duty of ministers to propose such measures as they think circumstances might require? Could any circumstances in their judgment more require the bringing forward such a measure, than those in which they had stated it to be a measure of indispensible necessity? Could any necessity be more imperious than that which was indispensible? Why then, was it not plain, though they found it expedient to withdraw it for the present, that they must have meant to re-produce that, or a similar measure, whenever they thought they could do it with any chance of success? And in their calculations of that chance, the opini ous of his majesty upon the subject did not appear to have told for much; sicne,

with the full knowledge of his majesty's determination, clearly and distinctly expressed at the time, and upon the subject, that beyond giving his consent to the extension of the Irish act of 1793 to this country, he would not go one step further, they did, nevertheless, immediately introduce into parliament a measure of a more general and extensive nature.

There was another point of resemblance between the times to which Mr. Ryder. had alluded and the present. Those expressions of the popular opinion, which the Foxite part of the late administration condemned both in 1784 and in 1807, which the Grenville part of the government extolled in 1784, and condemned in 1807, had this in common: that these sentiments of disgust and indignation were in both cases not confined, as the noble lord would have it supposed, to the lower and more uninformed part of the community, but they had spread as widely, and operated as powerfully, amongst the higher and more reflecting orders of the state: amongst those, who were so little likely to be under the influence of prejudice and passion as the audience he had then the honour to address. The late ministers had contrived to place themselves in a singular predicament. They could not justify their own conduct without censuring their king. They could not condemn the conduct of their successors, without involving the great majority of every class and description of their fellow subjects in the same charge, as accomplices or dupes to the same system of delusion and imposture. The noble lord had more than once insinuated that, because his majesty's present ministers were supposed to differ in opinion upon the merits of the catholic question itself, they had therefore only united for the purposes of ambition. What a charge was there brought by himself, against him- ̧ self and the late ministers! for they had it upon the authority of one of the members of that cabinet, and, till the speech which they had just heard it was never made a ground of accusation against them, that there was as fundamental

a difference in the late cabinet, upon that subject, as any that could exist amongst his majesty's present ministers; that that difference of opinion was known and avowed at the formation of the late government, and yet neither lord Grenville, nor Mr. Fox, nor any other member of that cabinet, conceived that difference was any obstacle against their uniting in the same administration.

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Indeed, but for the speech of the noble lord, he (Mr. Ryder) should have hended that a difference of opinion, upon the merits of any measure, might be perfectly consistent with a complete union of sentiment on the impolicy of discussing it at any particular period. If the noble lord could not understand that distinction; he would beg leave to refer him to himself, to his own friends, the late ministers, to explain it the principle which he condemned was that upon which, in that instance, they acted themselves; for, wishing as they told the house they did, that the prayer of the catholic petition should be granted, they likewise told the house that they used all their influence to prevent its being brought forward, because they thought the time inconvenient for the discussion.

But then this concurrence in opinion which in the late ministers was right and laudable, in the present ministers was new, unprincipled, and merely to serve the political purposes of the moment. That supposition might be refuted not by assertion merely, but by reference to their former conduct; for whatever differences there might be upon the merits of the question, it so happened that it was now above two years ago, since they concurred not only with each other, but with the great majorities in both houses of parliament, some of them by their speeches, and all by their votes, in refusing to agitate the question.

But then upon the same subject of inconsistency, it was triumphantly asked, how could those who agreed to the act of 1804, object to the bill of the noble lord ? (bord Howick.) What was the act of 1804? it was an act enabling his majesty to grant any commissions in the army to foreign Catholics during the war, and it was to expire in one year after its termination. And yet this temporary act enabling foreign catholic's, persons who, from the very circumstance of their being foreigners," were without connection, without means of influence, without the shadow of po litical, or any other power, to propagate their religious tenets, to hold commissions in the army, was compared to a permanent act, opening for ever, all com missions in the navy, as well as the army, to all the catholic and all the protestant