JUNE 18.

ADDITIONAL FORCE BILL.

The chancellor of the exchequer moved that the bill be engrossed.

MR. SHERIDAN said, to the arguments, sir, which have been urged in support of the measure before the house, the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Addington) who has just sat down has given such a full and fair reply, that I do not think it necessary to enter into the subject as I had otherwise intended. The objections to this bill have been so forcibly maintained by that right hon. gentleman, and he has put the subject upon such fair and constitutional grounds, that I should decline to trouble the house upon this occasion, if it were not for the observations of my right hon. friend (Mr. Canning), who has not confined himself to the bill under consideration, but has thought proper to introduce matter not strictly relevant, but yet of infinitely more importance than the bill itself—I mean my right hon. friend's allusion to the degree of confidence to which the present administration is entitled. My right hon. friend stated, that he was not disposed to adulation towards his right hon. friend who sits near him (Mr. Pitt), and for whom, no doubt, he entertains the most sincere respect and regard. I hope he will do me the justice to think, that I am equally incapable of adulation towards my right hon. friend on the same bench with me (Mr. Fox). I certainly am no flatterer, although in point of attachment to my right hon. friend, I will not yield to that which my right hon. friend on the opposite side can or does profess to feel for his right hon. friend beside him; with this difference, however, on my part, that my attachment to my right hon. friend on this side of the house is of a much longer standing-that it is the first, the strongest, and the only political attachment of my life. But my right hon. friend disclaims adulation towards his friend, and, indeed, he seems to me to have had no occasion to do so, for he certainly did not deal in it; on the contrary, he has taken occasion to pronounce upon the conduct of his right hon. friend one of the bitterest satires that could be well imagined. My right hon. friend expresses his surprise, that we who oppose this bill can contrive to co-operate, and that we can avoid quarrelling when we get into the lobby; but is it not equally, if not more

a matter of surprise, that he can avoid quarrelling with some of his friends near him, to whom he has been so very lately in decided opposition, and particularly with the noble lord (Castlereagh) who appears now to have determined which of the "two strings" he should put to his bow? (A laugh.) If my right hon. friend will look at those about him, he will find that the compliments and censures which he meant for the right hon. gentleman on the lower bench (Mr. Addington), were applicable also to some of his present connections. Whatever praise or condemnation applies to the one, applies equally to the other, with this difference, that the compliment called forth by the retirement of the one from office, when the voice of parliament and the country called for it, is not deserved by the other, who still remains in power. Some part of the administration of the right hon. gentleman on the lower bench I most cordially approved, and his intentions in every instance I respected, because I firmly believed them to be pure and honourable. I esteemed the motives which actuated his public conduct, because I was certain of his disposition, whatever might be the sentiments of some of his colleagues, to govern the country upon the principles of the constitution. I know that his acceptance of office was a sacrifice, and I feel that his retirement from it was a triumph. But did my right hon. friend, I would ask him, mean it as a compliment to the right hon. gentleman, that immediately upon his retirement from office, he started into an open, manly, and systematic opposition; or did he mean it as an indirect sarcasm upon the conduct of his right hon. friend? Did my right hon. friend mean to say, that when the right hon. gentleman resigned his situation, he did not offer an insidious support to his successor; that he did not seat himself behind him for the purpose of availing himself of the first opportunity to push him out; that when a motion of impeachment was made against his successor, he did not attempt to suspend the judgment of the question, by the shabby, shallow pretext of moving the previous question? No! such has not been the conduct of the right hon. gentleman, and the line he has pursued will be entitled to commendation. What are we to think, what can my right hon. friend say of that course of proceeding which I have described? a course which had nothing manly, consistent, or direct about it. In this conduct, however, my right hon. friend did not participate, and

of course merits no part of the censure attached to it by every generous and liberal-minded man. My right hon. friend has given credit to the right hon. gentleman for retiring from office before he was forced out by actual opposition-for taking the hint from parliament. If he be serious in pronouncing this laudable, what can he think of the six members of the late cabinet who still continue in office, who consent to act with, and even subordinate to, the very right hon. gentleman who so lately treated them with contumely and contempt? If the behaviour of the one be manly, how are we to estimate the other? how are we to judge of the situation of that noble lord (Hawkesbury) whose conduct in office appears to have given such particular offence to my right hon. friend? But I derive some consolation from the language of my right hon. friend, for as he applauds so much the act of the right hon. gentleman, in having resigned his office when parliament and the country seemed to wish it, when he had in this house but a majority of 37, I have reason to hope, that as his right hon. friend had only a majority of 28 on a former evening, which majority will, I think, be reduced this night, my right hon. friend will recommend to him an imitation of the gallant and dignified conduct of the right hon. gentleman on the lower bench-that he will advise him not to persevere any farther with such a mean, decreasing majority, after having lost the confidence of all the independent part of parliament and the country. My right hon. friend, indeed, states that he would wish to see an administration formed upon a broader scale, and in this declaration I really believe him sincere. If he considers what his right hon. friend now is, and what he might have been, I am pretty sure that such must be his wish. I am also sure that my right hon. friend delivers his real sentiment when he states that he feels himself in a post of danger. I believe that he considers the administration to which he belongs as not at all likely to last; and I will go a step farther, I believe that neither himself nor his right hon. friend really think that it ought to last; for they must be aware that it is an arrangement which has excited discontent and complaint through every part of the country. It is an arrangement of such a nature that my right hon. friend thinks it necessary to offer something in the shape of an apology for the part he has taken in it. My right hon. friend has taken occasion, in some degree, to contrast his attachment to his

right hon. friend at the head of administration, with my attachment to my right hon. friend beside me; but there is this difference between us, that I can never follow the same line as that which my right hon. friend has dore this night, to excuse his acceptance of a high office under the administration of his right hon. friend. I do not feel it necessary to enter into any justification of my attachment to my right hon. friend; for, although I do not find him holding one of the first offices in the government, I find him surrounded with honour; although I do not find him leading a cabinet, I see him followed by all that is independent in the rank, character, consequence, and population of the country. I see him restored to the friendship of all those good and great men from whom he has, though he never ought to have been separated, or rather I see those personages restored to him. In a word, I have the happiness to observe the public character of my right hon. friend placed on a more exalted eminence than it ever before stood on. An attachment to him, therefore, it cannot be any other than a source of the most gratifying pride to reflect upon. My right hon. friend, in the course of the justification which he has attempted for his conduct in co-operating with his right hon. friend, has dwelt a good deal upon the happy event of the removal of what he termed the late ministers, but my right hon. friend seemed to forget that that removal was far from being complete. To be sure, some of those with whom my right hon. friend professed to have been dissatisfied, were removed. was dissatisfied with the conduct of the department for foreign affairs, and therefore out goes Lord Hawkesbury; and sorry I am to perceive that that noble lord has put the seal to his own condemnation; being charged with mismanagement and incapacity, he consents to be degraded in order to make room for another noble lord, who certainly has yet to prove his ability, who has at least no experience to recommend him. This removal must no doubt be a source of much mortification to those who may be intimately connected with the noble lord: but this alone was not enough to satisfy my right hon. friend and to reconcile him to the administration. He disliked the admiralty, and therefore that silly, incapable person, Earl St. Vincent, is removed; and his place is filled by that tried, experienced seaman, Lord Melville (a laugh). In the office of the war minister also, my right hon. friend saw good ground for complaint, and therefore

He

the noble lord (Hobart) who held that situation, is superseded by a noble lord who gallantly resigned the government of Ireland, because it was a time of war and trouble, and much disturbance was apprehended in that country. Under such circumstances, it is no wonder that my right hon. friend should express his regret that his right hon. friend has not better support; for all those being dismissed for detected, acknowledged incapacity, according to the language of my right hon. friend, of whom his right hon. friend spoke in such lofty terms of praise, none remain in office, but those six of whom his right hon. friend did not think worth while to utter one word in the way of commendation. But of the right hon. gentleman's praise much does not seem to be thought, and therefore it is, perhaps, that we have had no panegyric pronounced upon the qualifications of the persons just introduced into his cabinet. After the perfect knowledge of human nature which the right hon. gentleman has manifested, particularly in the expedition to Holland, and the representation with respect to some of the late ministers, his opinions of mankind do not appear to be held in any estimation, and therefore, no doubt, it is that the house has not heard one word from the right hon. gentleman as to the merits of his new colleagues. I dare say that this silence was in consequence of a previous stipulation. They most probably said to the right hon. gentleman, "You may give us ribands, titles, pensions, places, or anything you like, but a character: do, for God's sake, save our names from the peril of your praise-for, if you praise us, both you and we shall be laughed at." My right hon. friend has frequently said," Away with the cant of not men but measures, for it is a frivolous notion, as it is not the harness, but the horses which draw the carriage;" but I would ask my right hon. friend, what is to become of the harness and carriage with such horses as his right hon. friend has now engaged? There are six of them that are old, and six new-a double set to be sure. The former are part of that " slow-paced, lumpish, awkward collection," upon which my right hon. friend so severely commented in the discussion of Colonel Patten's motion. They of course can be of no use, and so the six new nags will have to draw not only the carriage, but those six heavy cast-off blacks along with it. (A laugh.) Now, if in such a situation my right hon. friend does not feel himself embarrassed, and anxious for the release of his