questioning Lord Howick was joined by Sir John Anstruther, of whom we will speak more particularly by-and-by; and this latter seemed very anxious to ascertain the precise time, and mode of proceeding of Lord Folkestone, whose answer was, in substance, this; that he pledged himself to bring forward no charge, except upon the subject of Lord Wellesley's conduct in Oude, which was the only part of his conduct that he had, as yet, fully made up his mind upon; that, with respect to the money charge, he certainly did not mean to bring that forward; that, as to the question of the Carnatic, he should leave that to the Right Honourable the Treasurer of the Navy, who had called for the proofs upon that subject in 1802, and who had solemnly pledged himself to the House and to the country to bring for ward and prosecute a charge thereon. This, after two intervening speakers, brought up Mr. Sheridan, who, in the paper of his bosom friend and brother place-man Mr. Perry of the Morning Chronicle, is reported to have said: " that the motion had his approbation, and he hoped that the noble mover would not consider his having declined to notice the allusion which he had thought proper to make to him as the cf"fect of any disrespectful inattention. The noble lord, in announcing his conditional notice, had expressed his hopes that the original mover of these papers would "succeed in his petition-[No, said Lord Folkestone; I stated that such was the hope of Mr. Faull]. Ob, that he had "such hopes (added Mr. Sheridan) was extremely probable. He was, no doubt, a very active canvasser and sanguine politician, but he must excuse me (said Mr. S.) "if I decline to sympathize in his hopes. (a laugh). But as to the noble lord, he aunounced his res«lution to pursue a dif"ferent course from that followed by his “hon, friend. Then of course he disapproved of his hon. friend's mode of proceeding. It was rather surprising that the noble lord did not, in the course of "the last, or the preceding sessions, advise "his hon. friend to abandon that mode. It was not quite so friendly not to have given the hint. But a word or two as to "the pledge to which the noble lord had 66 66 alluded. If that noble lord bad been "present, he might have heard him, two or three times, state distinctly, in that house, the reasons which produced the delay complained of, and also the grounds upon which he thought proper to decline bringing f estion. He, *howevo he had ever "forfeited the slightest pledge on this bu"siness. He denied any man even to catch "him tripping. All that he ever said, and "the grounds upon which he acted, he was "ready to repeat again, and upon that re"petition would confidently rest for the "justification of his conduct. Whenever "that conduct was fairly represented and "clearly understood, he could have no fear "of censure. He was now prepared to de"clare, that if any other person, whoever "that person might be, should bring for"ward this question, he would most dis"tinctly pledge himself to give that person "his most zealous, sincere, and strenuous "assistance-to exert as much of his hum"ble ability in favour of the motion, as if "it were actually brought forward by him"self."What truth there is in the speech, as thus published by the place-hunter Perry, we shall see presently; but we must first give the reply of Lord Folkestone, who did not, in spite of Mr. Sheridan's positive assertions, seem to have been shaken in his opinion.-His lordship replied, "that he would not enter into a controversy "with the Right Honourable Gentleman upon the subject of his former pledges. "But he recollected very accurately that the right hon. gent. did promise to bring this "question of the Carnatic before the house. "As to the grounds upon which he was "induced to abandon that question, he really was not apprised of them. He had "heard something of the right hon. gent's "unwillingness to excite unpleasant feel"ings among his colleagues in office-that "is, in plain English, that he was not willing to lose his place. The noble lord. was, however, glad to hear the right hon. "gent.'s pledge this evening. For his streLuous and sincere assistance, wherever he would be strenuous and sincere, would "be a most important acquisition indeed. "The noble lord repelled the idea that he σε was the substitute of Mr. Paull or any man; he was acting from a sense of duty, "and even the friends of lord Wellesley "ought to be obliged to him for the course "he was about to take, as it would afford "them an opportunity of vindicating his "character - and the character of their - ger to take up the matter, he would take it up. Thus pushed, and having, probably, failed in some object to be obtained by his forbearance, down he came, burning with a patriot flame and melting with humanity; and, towards the close of a speech, in which he seriously attacked Mr. Nicholl for presuming to entertain a suspicion of his motives, and in which he justly described the transactions in the Carnatic as the most tyrannical and abominable that the world had ever heard of, he made his pledge in the following words: "I shall be satisfied if mi"nisters (the Addingtons) will take up the matter, in such a way as to bring it to a "full and fair investigation; but, if they do 66 not, I PLEDGE myself to take it up in "such a way, that, if the government of Ir"dia has been guilty of the inordinate acts now charged upon them, the British na"tion, at least, shall be rescued from the suspicion of giving countenance to acts so flagrant and atrocious." Whereupon he moved for papers, which papers he very quietly suffered to lie unproduced until the very last day of the session of 1803, having, as the public will not fail to recollect, been coquetting with the Addington's, and sometimes sitting upon the Treasury Bench, during the interval. He says now, that he formally gave up the inquiry two years before he came into place. I recollect nothing of this; and, the only giving up of this que tion by him, that I believe ever was publicly made, was on the 22d of April last, in these words: "I retain my former sentiments 66 respecting the transactions in the Carna"tic; but, I have expressed, in confidenc`, 66 respecting the Carnatic, at the same "time, pledging himself to support any person who should bring it forward."It was the place-hunting crew in the stranger's gallery, doubtless, that exclaimed "hear! hear!" upon this occasion; for, was there ever an argument more fallacious, than that, if you impute improper motives to others, upon proof however clear, you yourself must be suspected of acting upon similar motives? Yes: it must have been the crew of the daily press, in the gallery, that cried "hear! hear! at an argument like this. But, as to the fact; the simple fact of Mr. Sheridan's forfeiting his pledge with respect to the Carnatic. I can count a score, at least, of other pledges, which he has forfeited to the public. Upon the question of the Irish Catholicks, or Parliamentary Reform, of the Pension List, of the India Bill, of the Sedition Bills; and upon many, many other questions, I will produce his pledges to the people, to the people from whom he stole that unmerited popularity, of which I had the honour in assisting to deprive him. But, for the present, let us content ourselves with the pledge upon the questioning it for the sake of keeping a place, broke of the Carnatic; a question which he took up in the spring of 1802. He was, even then, playing some selfish game about it; for he put off his motion for papers so often, and upon pretences so unsatisfactory, that, at last, Mr. Nicholl, gave notice, that if Mr. Sheridan delayed any lon 66 to the hon. gent. (Mr. Francis), the im"propriety of introducing any subject, that "would have a tendency to divide his Ma"jesty's ministers, at this important crisis. "A time may come, perhaps, when the subject may be taken up with advantage; but, I do not think, that the present mo"ment is a favourable one"Is this breaking a pledge, honest reader, or is it not? As to his having said, two years before, that he would not take up the question; first, I do not believe the fact; and, secondly, if the fact be true, all that he gains by it is, that he broke his pledge two years sconer than we thought of; and, instead of break it for the sake of getting a place to keep. At any rate the motive imputed to him by Lord Folkestone will, to every impartial man, appear to be the real motive, however it may be attempted to be disguised.—Mr. Wellesley Pole tock occasion to compliment Lord Folkestone upon the delicacy, with which he had introduced the subject, and to draw a contrast disadvantageous to the conduct of Mr. Paull; the manliness of which must be much admired, when we consider that he never threw out any imputations against Mr. Paull, when the latter was present to answer him. He now charges Mr. Paull with malevolence. It has been amply proved, that that gentleman's conduct could not be fairly ascribed to any improper motive; and, let it be observed, that, when both were in the House, Mr. Paull has, over and over again, called upon this Mr. Wellesley to show that any ground for a contrary suspicion existed; and never has the latter been able to answer such call. ——Mr. Wellesley Pole now asserts, that the charges against his relation of rapine, robbery, and murder, are wholly unsupported by proof; but, when the charge and the evidence were lying upon the table of the House, Lord Archibald Hamilton declared, that those charges were substantiated by the proof adduced. And, if this declaration was correct, will a mere resolution of disapprobation, on the part of the House, be adequate to the charges and proofs, upon which it will be founded? Will it " rescue," to use the words of Mr. Sheridan's pledge, "the British nation from the suspicion of giving countenance to such acts?"As to the contrast between the language of Lord Folkestone and that of Mr. Paull, at the introduction of the question, I appeal to the report of the debate (see Parl. Deb. April 22, 1805), whether Mr. Paull's language was not full as moderate as that of Lord Folkestone, not forgetting the important circumstance, that his conduct received the unqualified approbation of Mr. Windham and the Prince of Wales. The situation of Lord Folkestone is very different now from what Mr. Paull's was, at any stage of the proceedings. His lordship is to get papers unopposed; whereas Mr. Paull had to fight, inch by inch, for papers; and, in this contest, it was absolutely necessary, that he should insist upon the criminality of the acts, to prove which to the House these papers were wanted, and it was equally necessary for him to use such language as could alone convey an adequate idea of those acts. Mr. Whitbread is pleased to compliment my Lord Folkestone for having brought forward the question, and to say, that the country is indebted to him for it. In these sentiments no one joins with more cordiality than I do; but, when Mr. Whitbread was thanking his Lordship for having so nobly embarked in this "important and arduous undertaking," I would, had I been in the House, have asked him, whether the undertaking was more important now than it was when Mr. Paull embarked in it; and, I would have asked him, when, at what period, in 'what single instance, he ever lent his assistance to Mr. Paul, ever gave him the smallest encouragement to proceed, ever once said that the undertaking was of any importance at all, ever paid Mr. Paul a single compliment upon the many proofs of his integrity and perseverance, until, at the Westminster election, he found it convenient so to do, in order to recover some little matter of his lost popularity. It was at Westminster, it was at the hustings of Covent Garden, whither, observe, too, he was brought by Mr Paull, that Samuel Whitbread was taught the importance of the proceedings against Lord Wellesley; and, he may rest assured, that the people, who were his teachers upon that occasion, will not be satisfied by a mere resolution of disapprobation upon the Oude charge only, without obtaining even a sight of the money charge, showing how millions upon millions of English taxes have been expended in India, and how far we owe our oppressions at home to that expenditure. From the merit of my Lord Folkestone, whom I have always considered as one of the soundest men, both in head and in heart, that this kingdom affords. I am, I trust, one of the last to endeavour to detract; but, I am sure, his lordship's justice will make him set very little value upon any compliment paid him at the expence of Mr. Paull, had it not been for whose exertions, for whose integrity and perseverance, assailed as they were from all quarters, his lordship and the public would, to this hour, have been in almost total darkness as to the deeds of Lord Wellesley, who would, in all probability, have been, at this moment, a lead ng member of the cabinet. We owe to Mr. Paul, not only a knowledge, and now a thorough knowledge, of the condact of Lord Wellesley, but also of the conduct of the East India Company, and of those complicated concerns (before involved in mystery), through the means of which this suffering country has long been deprived of the fruit of its labour; insomuch, that, when we are now called upon for taxes to support the East India Company, we know how to reason; we know what answer to give; we know how to judge of the con duct and the motives of our rulers. For all this, and for much more, we are indebted to Mr. Paull, towards whom I, for my part, entertain my full share of public gratitude; and, it is not an indiscreet expression, uttered, or written, in a moment of haste or of warmth, that will ever create in me a lukewariness as to any public enterprise in which he may be engaged.There is a Sir John Anstruther, who appears, from the report of the debate upon Lord Folkestone's motion, to have been extremely zealous in the cause of Lord Wellesley. This gentleman has lately returned from being Chief Justice of India, where he had a salary of £7,000. a year, and, after having resided at Calcutta seven years upon this salary, he has, upon his retirement, had a pension of £3,000. a year settled upon him for life by the East India Company, which pension, as well as the former salary, we, the people of England, have paid, and shall continue to pay. This gentleman was one of the leaders of the prosecution against Mr. Hastings! He has, I understand, been lately appointed by Lord Grenville, judge or the causes that come before the Privy Council, to which is affixed a sary of £1,500. a year; and, I have heard, that this place is to be made a patent one for him; that is to say, we are to have the honour to pay him this salary for his life certain! Who would not, for such a purpose, give up, at Mr Sheridan's call, the necessaries of life?" What base dog is there, who would grudge to mortgage his last acre, or sell the shirt off his back rather than leave this salary unpaid? CONTINENTAL WAR. I have this morning been reading some dozen columns of foreign intelligence, and some half dozen of newspaper comments thereon; and the conclusion, in my mind, is, that the reports communicated to the ministers, and published by them, on Saturday last, respecting the batles in Poland, are totally false; and, that the French accounts of the operations in that "If we decountry are substantially true. "ceive ourselves the truth is not in us;" and, surely, never were there poor wretches, who deceived themselves so grossly as we of this newspaper nation have done for these eighteen months past. Seventeen times have we (not I, however) believed the Emperor Napoleon to be completely overthrown; twice have we believed, that he himself was mortally wounded; and once, that his army were dead with the dysentery! His men are like Mr. Bays's: they rise up and fight after they are dead. I cautioned Mr. Perry against placing any very great reliance upon his favourite ally, the dysentery; for, I was apprehensive, that it would not, in a French army, operate as it did in the Brunswicker's army in Champagne. I perceive, however, through all the exultation of the Morning Chronicle, a consciousness that the government news is false. I see the say, sense and reason of Mr. Spankie endeavour- My VIth Letter to the Electors of Westminster was ready; but, the two following letters, upon important subjects, now under the consideration of parliament, compel me to put off the publication of it for another week. MILITARY FORCE. (Concluded from p. 126) Had the French been at liberty to employ any considerable part of their regular force against these insurgents, they would have been very soon subdued. As to what M. S. states about the Romans having no army in pay till after the siege of Veü, it proves nothing at all. The Roman troops, I believe, until the siege of Vei returned home during the winter, but except during that interval they were constantly ia the field, and more inured to the hardships and perils of war than the troops with whom they had to contend, and, consequently, they vanquished them. M. S. remarks, that the Continent has been ruined in despight of standing armies. But what inference does he mean to draw from this? Not surely that the continental powers would have made a more successful struggle, if they had been defended by a more irregular rout of force. This is such a blind perversion of history, that he who seriously resorts to it appears to me tɔ be quite beyond the reach of argument. Does it follow, that because one regular army beats another regular army, that, therefore, it would have been successfully opposed by an irregular force. It would, one should imagine, be more conformable, both to sound logic and to common rense, to argue a fortiori against irregular troops. As to pensions and sinecure places, I am not aware that there is any sort of connection between that subject, and the propriety of raising and maintaining a regular force. That there may be too many pensions and sinecure places I can readily believe; but, at the same time, I do not see that any great reformation will be produced in this respect, until a reformation take place in the selfish principles of human nature. There are not, I suppose, mora sinecure places, nor are they more unworthily bestowed at present, than at any former period; and, although the great majority of mankind are always ready to practise every sort of fawning servility for a place, it does not follow that all those who accept of places are of that description. There are, indeed, in all parties a sort of underlings, who consider attachment to party as a sort of sordid speculation, which brings them in possession of emolument and influence when their party is in power; and it is in the fond hope of those halycon days, that they patiently suffer a proscription from power and profit, until a revolution in the state shall happen favourable to their wishes. Against these sort of people you need not rail. Even if you were to prevail so far as to awaken them from their golden slumber, they would only reply to you in the words of the Jew Unless you rail the scal from off the bond B.Jan. 9, 1807. SUGAR TRADE. SIR,In my last letter (p. 24) I made it appear, not only that the money returns from Sugar estates for a long time past, had not kept pace with those derived from any other employment of our capital and industry, but, that what little success had taken place within the last 30 years in the price of sugar, was greatly insufficient to defray the addition to the direct charges alone affecting the article which had been incurred during the former period. On this head, therefore, I shall not give you much further trouble. I will, however, remind you, that the mere customs on sugar have been augmented more than four-fold since the commencement of the American war. They were then 6s. 8d. they are now 27s. per cwt. In the last session of parliament a contingent addition of 35. per cwt. (making the aggregate 30s.) was enacted, to take place in case the average price of the commodity should be 50s. per cwt. This tax, indeed, has not yet operated, Buonaparte's measures for the exclusion of British sugar from the Continent, having kept the average price of that article far enough below 50s. per cwt. The present price is about 37s. Thus this intended tax (which as I recollect was taken as likely to produce an annual revenue of 300,0001.) has not hitherto yielded one single farthing to the Exchequer. I do indeed, hope from the considerate justice of the present administration, that the act for imposing it will be repealed; for, in addition to its actual inefficiency, it is demonstrably of the most oppressive and cruel tendency. A crop of sugar, more than almost any other produce of the south, is liable to be damaged by unfas vourable seasons; modò sol nimius, modò corripit imber. A very wet or a very dry season (calamities the frequency and intensity of which in tropical climates can scarcely be imagined by those, who have not witnessed them) will take off more than ninetenths from the expected produce of a field of sugar canes. By the fundamental laws of God and nature, all other cultivators of the earth are enabled, when the quantity of the r crops is diminished, to derive some alleviation of their distress from an enhanced price. This is the ordinance of our bounteous Creator, always dealing out his chastisements with mercy, and tempering his very curses. This is that beneficent course of things which we call nature, in all cases consistent with the will, and conducive to the purposes of that Great Being, by whose wisdom it was decreed, and by whose power it is upheld. This corrective dispensation in the case of the sugar grower, Mr. Pitt thought fit to thwart; and with the unfeeling undistinguishing rapacity of a financier, he so diminished the drawbacks on the exportation of British plantation sugar, (thereby at the same time giving our rivals an advantage in every foreign market) and, consequently, so impeded the sale of it in years of failing precluded from the possibility of obtaining crops, that the unhappy planter is effectually that increase of price, which alone could afford him any-it would at best be a very inadequate-compensation, for the diminution in quantity of the produce of his land. Now, it is manifest, that the tendency of the 3s. contingent duty which I have mentioned, precisely the same, so far as the sugar planter is concerned, with that of the wicked diminution of the drawbacks effected by Mr. Pitt. Its tendency plainly is to keep the price of sugar below that point, to which without this unnatural and cruel interference it would rise, in alleviation of the calamity of a deficient crop. So far as the consumers are affected, the operation of this tax (if it ever |