But it is said " we have preserved our constitution." How have we preserved it? So careful have ministers been of its preservation, that they are afraid to give us the use of it. They have considered it as some choice thing which ought to be put out of sight, and carefully locked up. I hope, sir, the constitution is only suspended, and that we shall yet see it in all its splendour; but, till that time comes, I can give no one any credit for his attentions to it. Sir, peace must be concluded, or it must be proved that the period of fraud, prevarication, and insincerity is over, and that a new system of things is about to commence. If I am asked "whether I expect that ministers will ever make peace with sincerity ?" I answer "No!" In some circumstances I can conceive that they may conclude a peace which might be preferable to this destructive war; and I believe that they will, ere long, be compelled to conclude one of some kind or other. But that they will ever be authors of a peace which will heal the wounds the war has inflicted, which will soothe national animosity, which will justify a reduction of our forces, which will render it possible to lighten the oppressive load of taxes-that they will make a peace of conciliation, I confess that I have no hope. I do not say that there is but one man in the kingdom capable of making a solid peace. God forbid! I believe that there are many. But I do not scruple to say that a solid peace can be concluded only upon the principles of that one man. Who that man is, it is needless for me to mention, and his principles are equally well known. All right to interfere with the internal concerns of other nations must be disclaimed; and, for commanding due respect to the constitution, we must trust to the good sense and loyalty of the people, and disdain the idea that jacobinism can make any impression upon England. That such a peace may produce the blessings and benefits which peace is calculated to confer, the rights of the people must be attended to-the constitution must be restored. Without national liberty, national happiness can neither be great in its degree, extensive in its sphere, or long in its duration. Those bonds which now slavishly bind down the inhabitants of this country, which break the spirit of the people, which render impossible the expression of the public voice, must all be completely removed. Till then, while war continues, our sufferings must be aggravated, and they will be but slightly alleviated even by the arrival of peace.

Mr. Sheridan concluded with moving, "That an humble address be presented to his Majesty, humbly to assure him that we have taken into our most serious consideration the papers relative to the negotiation for peace with France, and that the result of our reflections on this important subject, founded as well on due examination of the documents now referred to us, as on experience of the past conduct of most of his Majesty's allies, is an humble, but earnest desire, that his Majesty will omit no proper opportunity which may arise, consistently with the good faith ever preserved on the part of his Majesty, of entering into a separate negotiation with the government of France for a speedy and honourable peace; and farther to implore his Majesty not to sanction any new engagements which shall preclude such a mode of negotiation."

For the motion 35; against it 156.

MAY 14, 1802.

DEFINITIVE TREATY.

MR. SHERIDAN said, sir, at this late hour, (about two o'clock), it is with extreme reluctance I rise to address the house, and to trespass upon your time and patience. I shall not be singular to-night in the professions I make you of avoiding details: but, sir, in one respect my conduct will differ from that of any other gentleman who has addressed you. I will keep my word. If I feel repugnance to rise at so late an hour, I feel equally strange with respect to the unpopularity which I fear I must experience. It is natural to every person to have pleasure in voting in a majority, though to that pleasure, I believe, I have long been a stranger. Among the strange things we are continually witnessing, is the strange division of parties at present in this house. Sir, I have heard it said, that there are about twelve or thirteen different parties among us; nay, some carry the number much farther. Now I scarcely expect a single vote with me beyond that little circle of a constitutional party, who have for the last ten years been the objects of so much unqualified abuse; but those men who have so often been held up to public opprobrium, are the very same men whose every prediction has been fulfilled, and every fear realized. The discussion of this necessary, but disgraceful treaty of peace to-night, is a confirmation of the propriety of their political conduct during

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the whole course of the war. My friends must feel poignant shame and deep humiliation at the situation to which, by these terms, this country is reduced, but which they have laboured steadily to avert. Those who oppose this peace have been arraigned by the last speaker, as aiming at a censure on the issue of the negotiations, and on the ministers themselves. And certainly, sir, their object is to condemn the peace, and to cast a slur on the abilities of his Majesty's ministers. But, in this conduct of theirs, they have at least the merit of being consistent. I support the peace, because I feel confident no better terms, considering all circumstances, could be got. Their predecessors had taken care of that. They had left them no choice, but between an expensive, bloody, and fruitless war, and a perilous and hollow peace. They have chosen the best of the alternatives. Now," says the minister, "they who oppose me, depress the country." I thank these new oppositionists for their manly firmness in coming forward and opposing, upon their own principles, this degrading treaty. Let the people of this country be fully aware of all the circumstances of the peace. They have done their duty, then, in thus publicly discussing them. But a right hon. gentleman-not here this evening-an ex-minister too, suspects something more. If he has not altered his opinion since the preceding day, he suspects their motives. "They," says he, disapproved the treaty, and attack administration, because they wish to drive out ministers, and succeed to their places, and for that purpose they have formed a confederacy." Truly, sir, a heavy charge! But I must declare, that they have never veiled their opinions. Some of them especially, have been at all times very open, and I conceive that it would be high injustice to suspect them, upon slight grounds, of a dirty cabal to turn out the present ministers. Says the right hon. gentleman, " upon their principles, they would never have made peace." "Why so?" we have always said. It is now, therefore, confirmed, that a leading part of the late ministry acted upon such principles. But the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Dundas) the preceding day denounced their foul ambition, and their design to trip up the heels of their successors! Another great discovery is now made: these persons' principles were such as rendered a peace impossible, and yet the very men who say so, have just been thanking them all, as the saviours of the country!!! Can the right hon.

gentleman account for this inconsistency? I should think not; and yet he looks so confidently, I almost think he could. He thought I was cheering him, as if I did not suppose him a constant supporter of the war, and he assures the house "he was a steady friend to it !" But he has now found out that it was necessary to stop. Pray, why not have stopped a little sooner? Why not before you were so much exhausted? For instance, when Buonaparte made you an offer? Now, however, he finds the necessity of peace. But is this such a peace as will give us real repose? Consider your debt and taxes, and the necessity which seems to be at length coming upon us of keeping up a peace establishment unknown in this country. It is lamentable to see you all split into miserable parties, when your great enemy is uniting every possible means of extending his power! You are squabbling about the measuring of ribands and tapes, and the paltry revenues of Malta, when much greater objects are before you! The events of every day seem to call more and more for the expression of that public feeling, that the time will come when French encroachments and oppression must cease, and when the voice of this country must be clearly raised against their atrocious and tyrannical conduct! The right hon. gentleman says, "we have preserved our honour!" Honour depends more on the manner of doing a thing than on the thing itself. We had a great armament at the time of negotiation, but I don't hear that it carried any point whatever! "This," says he, "is a peace in which we relinquish nothing, and gain much!" Will any man of common sense undertake to prove that? I defy him to name the single object, ever varying, ever shifting, unrelinquished. What did we go to war for? Why, to prevent French aggrandizement. Have we done that? No. Then we were to rescue Holland! Is that accomplished or relinquished? No. Brabant was a sine qua non! Is it gained? No. Then come security and indemnity! Are they obtained? No. The late minister told us," that the example of a jacobin government in Europe, founded on the ruins of the holy altar and the tomb of a martyred monarch, was a spectacle so dreadful and infectious to Christendom, that we could never be safe while it existed, and could do nothing short of our very last effort for its destruction." Now, sir, let us see what we have got. What have we laid out for all these fine words, which at last gave way

to security and indemnity? Why, near 200,000 lives, and 300,000,000 of money! And we have gotten Ceylon and Trinidad. I propose, that, as we have given our heroes titles from the places where their laurels were won, our St. Vincents, Nelsons of the Nile, &c., so we should name Ceylon Security Island, Isle of Indemnity!!! Now, if we look at the state of Europe, we find the noble lord opposite has a most curious and convenient epithet, which he applies to what is rather a disagreeable object to him (Lord Hawkesbury). He talks of its being in an uncomfortable-Was it ?-Oh, no !-unsatisfactory state. Germany, Holland, Italy, they are all in an unsatisfactory state; and so I suppose is Switzerland, which now seems likely to undergo a division among her powerful and generous neighbours. That innocent and virtuous, suffering, venerable country, is now, I suppose, in an unsatisfactory state! But Great Britain is all this time far from languor. She is in a satisfactory state. However, a grave and learned gentleman (master of the rolls) tells us, for our comfort, notwithstanding all that has happened, "here we all are debating and doing business in all the old forms and customs of the house!" Pray now, could not this have happened, supposing we had never gone to war? I think he should have made that out before he congratulated us so warmly upon our present debate under all the old forms of the house. The minister, too, goes on according to old forms: he has his majorities, according to custom. Prussia can go on too in its old forms! Is this armed repose, this hollow peace, then, the fruit of our long and glorious war? A great deal too has been said to be gained by the disposition of France to lay aside jacobinism. But the grand consolation of all, is in looking to Buonaparte as the extirpator of jacobinism. The learned gentleman, however, states to this house, that it is the nature of jacobinism, if driven from any country, always to look with pride and ambition to a settlement in the place where it had birth, and to fix itself there. So now, this "child and champion of jacobinism," as he was styled, is to become a parricide. The child of sin is to destroy his mother! As this jacobinism is by the late minister stated to be a vice never to be eradicated from the bosom when it has once been implanted, all Europe will, doubtless, look to this great consul for its destruction. Indeed, he seems very desirous of extending his care to