a new election; it was understood that he meant to keep his motion for an early attempt on the maiden affections of the new parliament; but why then did he not apply to this new parliament? Instead of doing so, he has the audacity to say, "I felt myself bound to keep my promise pledged to the emperor for farther remittances." But was this a declaration fit to make to that house or the country, when the money was to be taken from the pockets of a British parliament? And, was a vote of thanks now to be moved for what was deserving the most severe reprobation? Mr. Sheridan considered this as a new process of smuggling money out of the kingdom; as a fraud likewise on the subscribers to the new loan; because it was not till after the subscription to the new loan, that it came out that there was a sum of £1,200,000 minus of the specie of this country. Mr. Sheridan concluded with observing, that there was only one point which he should notice, and that was the argumentum ad hominem which the right hon. gentleman used against his right hon. friend. But with what ill grace did this come from him, whose whole ministerial conduct had been one continued attack upon the liberties of his country! Were it possible that his venerable and illustrious father could look down upon the three last years of his history, to see him sit to applaud his confidential friends in reviling the sacred institution of juries, and that one of the most illustrious pensioners of the crown had not even been rebuked for saying, "that courts of justice were become nothing more than schools for sedition ;" to see him covering the whole face of the country with barracks and bastilles, without even submitting the expense of their erection as a question to parliament; to see the whole country under military government, and the people placed under the subjection of the bayonet; while, as if this were not sufficient, their mouths were shut up, and themselves prevented from meeting to consult on their grievances; and proceeding in his climax of constitutional violence, wresting from them, one after another, all their rights, till he came at last to take out of the hands of the representatives the guardian disposal of their money? When he recollected the means by which that right hon. gentleman came into power, the arts by which he had retained it, and the contempt with which he had treated the house of commons, and the disregard of its declared opinion which he had shown, how could it be thought

that he would resign himself to its judgment with that submission which the conclusion of his speech bespoke? No credit could be given to that idle rhodomontade, that unmeaning cant of resignation. Of all the ministers that ever directed the affairs of this country, the right hon. gentleman was the man who had employed in his administration the worst of means, and entailed upon his country the greatest of evils. If two motives could be assigned for his conduct; if it could be said on the one hand that he might be guided by views of power and sentiments of ambition, or by feelings of patriotism and virtue, he should not hesitate to ascribe the former to a minister whose whole life had marked the same total disregard for the one, as implicit devotion to the other.

An amendment was moved by Mr. Bragge, justifying the conduct of ministers on the plea of special necessity. The house divided on Mr. Fox's motion—ayes 81; noes 285. The amendment was then put and carried.

DECEMBER 16.

GENERAL FITZPATRICK'S MOTION RELATIVE TO GENERAL LA FAYETTE, &c.

The following motion was made by General Fitzpatrick at the conclusion of a long speech abounding with eloquence and the most pathetic appeals to the feelings of the house" That an humble address be presented to his Majesty, to represent to his Majesty, that it appears to this house that the detention of General La Fayette, Bureau de Pusy, and Latour Maubourgh, in the prison of his Majesty's ally, the Emperor of Germany, is highly injurious to his Imperial Majesty and to the common cause of the allies, and humbly to implore his Majesty to intercede in such manner as to his wisdom shall seem most proper for the deliverance of these unfortunate persons."

MR. SHERIDAN.-Sir, I rise with the utmost readiness and satisfaction to second the motion which has just been made. But I will not for a moment prevent you from stating the question to the house, nor will I risk the chance of weakening the impression made upon the understanding and feelings of the house, by adding anything to what has been so forcibly and eloquently advanced by my hon. friend, till I hear what can possibly be urged in opposition to that irresistible appeal which he has made to the justice and humanity of a British legislature.

Mr. Wilberforce moved as an amendment, that in the room of the words of the original motion be substituted the following:-" That an humble address be presented to his Majesty on the propriety of his Majesty's using his good offices with

his ally the Emperor of Germany, for the liberation of General La Fayette, and Messieurs Latour Maubourg, and Bureau de Pusy." The amendment being regularly proposed, and the question being put upon it,

Mr. Sheridan observed, that it was not his practice to obtrude himself upon the attention of the house, after a subject had been fully discussed by his friends, nor would he have troubled them now, since so little, and that little worse than nothing, had been advanced in opposition to the eloquent and pathetic speech of his hon. friend, had not they been brought into a situation of difficulty, in consequence of the amendment which had been proposed. The hon. gentleman, he believed, had suggested the amendment (at least he gave him credit for the motive) from a wish to render the motion more palatable to the house; and it certainly had met the entire approbation of one hon. gentleman (Mr. Wyndham), who had previously showed signs of being desirous to speak, but who had remained apparently quite at his ease since the amendment had been proposed. While he was congratulating himself, however, upon the acquisition of the influence, the authority, and, what was not the least consideration, of that hon. gentleman, he was concerned to find that it had made them lose the vote of a learned gentleman (the master of the rolls). [Here there was a cry of "No! No!"] He hoped, how- ever, that the motion would not be got rid of by a quibble, but that they would come to a fair and intelligible issue; and that conceiving it, as they must, to be an affair in which it was disgraceful for our ally, the emperor, to act, and in which it was disgraceful for the government of Great Britain not to interfere, they would, in a bold and manly way, vote an address to his Majesty immediately, to use his influence with the court of Vienna in behalf of the unfortunate persons who were the subject of this evening's debate. An hon. gentleman asked, "if we were prepared to break off our alliance with the emperor if our intercessions failed of success?" In the first place, there was no reason to anticipate a failure before the attempt was made; and, in the next place, the failure of the attempt by no means implied the necessity of breaking off the alliance. With respect to the precedent of Mr. Asgill, which had been disputed, the objection was not well founded; for, though the application originated in the queen, it came immediately from the King of France. And, in the present instance, he was of opinion that it would be

infinitely to the honour of those admirable feelings which our own illustrious queen was well known to possess, were she voluntarily to interfere in behalf of those amiable, but unfortunate persons, who are now languishing in hopeless captivity in the dungeons of Olmutz. The gentlemen on the other side of the house seemed to triumph in the silence of the hon. gentleman (Mr. Wyndham); and the reason, he firmly believed, was this: that he might draw aside the mysterious veil from this cruel, barbarous, and vindictive proceedings, with that manly and generous indiscretion by which the house knew his character to be marked. When he rose first, his right hon. friend (Mr. Pitt) put him aside, intimating to him, "My nothing will be better than your something; my quibbles are better than your sophistry; and if I say nothing to the purpose, at least I will not betray any secret that ought to be concealed." In fact, Mr. Sheridan believed, that Mr. Wyndham's tongue was bound by the same cause as the emperor's hands; and the house knew pretty well who was the gaoler. As a friend to freedom, he would rejoice when General La Fayette recovered his liberty; and as an old friend of Mr. Wyndham, he would feel no small satisfaction when he recovered his speech. He was sure also that he would not find the house like the adder, which is deaf to the voice of the charmer. He really wished that some other gentleman in his Majesty's councils had come forward; he hoped, at least, that an amendment would be proposed, that the discussions should not be confined in future to one side of the house, excepting in cases of special necessity. The right hon. gentleman seemed to feel very acutely upon the subject; the house, however, would not give him credit for the reality of those feelings, when they recollected that three years ago he condemned the proceedings against La Fayette as worthy of the execration of mankind, if the facts alleged were true; and now he came forward, affecting still to doubt of their truth, not having taken any measure to ascertain whether they were real or fabulous. He had laid down a general principle about jurisprudence, which he endeavoured to apply to the case of La Fayette, as if that unfortunate person had been imprisoned for a criminal offence, and had not been a prisoner of war. He could see no other motive for the unprecedented rigour which had been employed against that exalted character, than that which was sug

gested from his being a moderate and steady friend to liberty; a motive which was not so likely to influence the ministers of any government in Europe, as the present ministers of his Britannic Majesty-ministers who, on all occasions, had shown themselves the enemies of every species of reform, the patrons of every abuse, and whose uniform system it had been to extinguish the spirit of liberty, both in this and in other countries. The right hon. gentleman argued, that we had no right to interfere; and that if we did interfere, we were uncertain of success. With respect to the success likely to attend our interference, that could not be ascertained till an application was made. Besides, if it was a disgraceful affair, had we no interest in the character of the emperor? Were we not engaged in a common cause with him, for the attainment of a common object. It was one of the charges recorded against Mr. Hastings, that he had suffered allies in India to commit an act which disgraced the British name. But why had he recourse to India? Had not the right hon. gentleman compelled the King of Naples and the states of Genoa (vide Debrett's State Papers) to take a part against France? He referred to his own authentic papers upon the subject. For the character of General La Fayette he had the highest veneration. He believed him to be a man of high and inflexible honour, and that he might vie with the brightest characters in the English history. To the spirit of a Hampden he united the loyalty of a Falkland. Had Louis XVI. not fallen a sacrifice to the fury of a mob rendered desperate by the abuses and corruptions of the old government, which had bred up the race of sanguinary monsters who perpetrated the atrocious act; and had General La Fayette returned to Paris, upon the restoration of tranquillity, to get the reward of his conduct; if the king had thrown him, his wife, and her daughters into a dungeon, there was not a humane man in Europe would not have said that he ill deserved to re-ascend his throne, and that he ought to have his crown torn from his head. Yet this was the conduct which the governments in Europe had pursued to those unfortunate persons, to their eternal shame and disgrace. What added to the cruelty of the punishment, was the helplessness of the victim. He was not in a situation, when he was taken, to be demanded back by the government of France: but, had those foul insinuations been true, by which his character was attempted