their possession of unparalleled power, no safety in their consciousness of unparalleled crimes, but in the violent predicament of war. Whatever might be his abhorrence of their enormities, he was ready to acknowledge that they possess great talents; talents more than sufficient to appretiate their own situation, and to keep them awake to the dangers which hang over it. The experiment had been tried; and the result had been such as to satisfy every unprejudiced man in Europe, that the French government is decidedly for war. The experiment had been fairly and fully tried; and the result is, that the British empire owes great obligations, both to the noble lord who gave the instructions, and to the noble lord who executed those instructions. They had gone to the utmost verge of concession, and yet they had never lost sight of the essential interests and honourable character of their country. In every step, they had blended extreme conciliation with unshaken dignity. The whole negotiation had been conducted with such wisdom, that we are in no degree engaged to revolt to any of its propositions; we are bound to nothing; the entire transaction is null and void; like to the address now proposed to their lordships by the noble secretary of state, it pledges neither parliament nor the nation to any specific offers or concessions in any circumstances that may hereafter arise. In some views of collateral policy it might be regretted that we had been obliged to publish possible arrangements involving the interests, and eventually affecting the attachment of some of our present dependencies: but on the whole he was willing to allow that the measure had been beneficial, in as far as it had satisfied the minds of many well-meaning men, whose benevolence led them to leave nothing untried that might by possibility put an end to the calamities of war. He would not enter into any remarks on the propositions made by our plenipotentiary. He would only observe, that specific overtures had been made on our part, and that those overtures had been accompanied by an offer, repeatedly urged, to enter into the consideration of any other propositions that the enemy might think more eligible. Such had been our overtures! Such had been our entreaties to obtain an unequivocal negotiation for peace! The whole had been put aside with scorn, and our plenipotentiary had been ordered to quit Paris in forty eight hours. Their lordships would here remark, that this insult had been accompanied by the avowal of a principle which purports to annex inseparably to France the conquered territories of our ally, though we had offered a full and generous compensation for them; and the same principle implies that we are to restore, without compensation, any French territories which we may have conquered, be. cause it is pretended that those possessions make a part of the indivisible republic, by her constitution or by her laws. To this strange doctrine had now been superadded the declaration, that the Directory would listen to no proposition contrary to the constitution, laws, or treaties, leav ing the world to conjecture or to discover what the purport and extent of those treaties might be. Such positions could never merit a serious refutation. They did not surprise him, because he always thought that our overtures would be rejected. If we had even offered to give up the Austrian Netherlands, some other extravagant and insulting claim would have been brought forward, to frustrate the negotiation and to prolong the war. He was not surprised at the failure of the negotiation, he had expected it. He was only puzzled to explain why the Directory had thought it expedient to precipitate the conclusion, and to tear off so abruptly the thin veil of moderation, which the distresses and wishes of the French provinces had forced them to assume.-To what, then, are we now to look? The answer was obvious. He felt the horrors of war, as powerfully as any one; but he felt also, that it was unmanly and useless to complain, when there is no remedy within the grasp or reach of our faculties. Were their lordships prepared to submit these kingdoms to the mandates of the French Directory, to the regicide rod of iron, to a visitation of anarchy and of all its train of rapine, massacres, confusion, and calamity? Were their lordships reduced to the dastardly and wretched hope, that we may maintain a precarious and insulated existence, by abandoning the Austrian Netherlands, by betraying the treaties which so justly attach us to the Emperor, to Por tugal, and to Russia, by renouncing all continental interests and connexions, and by exposing these islands to a long chain of pretended republics, but of mad democracies, stretching from the borders of Denmark to the foot of Italy?-To what, then, are we to look? To the necessity forced upon us to the continuance of the war, manfully and with redoubled energy; till our implacable enemy shall be brought to the position which alone can give to us an honourable and solid peace. And what is that position? He believed, with regard to the enemy, that it must be neither more nor less than a decided incapacity to maintain and prolong the war, and he was disposed to believe that such an incapacity was not far distant. He was aware that some persons might impatiently exclaim, that the downfall of the French finances had too long been predicted: that it had been looked for in vain week after week, month after month, and year after year. To such persons he would reply, that if the respective predicaments of the two countries were the reverse of what they happily are; if the navigation, commerce, and revenues of France were prosperous, and those of Great Britain involved in universal bankruptcy, still we should have no alternative as to our line of conduct the enemy has left us no choice between war and utter perdition. It was surely gratifying in such an extremity to contemplate the unexhausted vigour of our own resources, and the cxtreme distress of our antagonist. nisters had substituted assertions instead of arguments. Upon a review of the papers he was decidedly of opinion, that ministers were not sincere in the proposed negotiation for peace. Before the renewal of the negotiation, they ought to have satisfied themselves that the French Directory had departed from the principle they avowed, when they refused to treat with Mr. Wickham. In his opinion, ministers had acted on a principle of augmenting the power of great states, at the expense of the weaker. Such, was their idea of remunerative justice! By consenting to such a principle, Europe would sink into a miserable labyrinth of despotic arrogance. Earl Spencer said, that the question was simply this, whether any country wishing to maintain its independence could go on with a negotiation on the plan adopted by the French Directory? He denied the charge of insincerity on the part of ministers. They had perse vered in their attempts to restore peace, notwithstanding all the obstacles which the enemy threw in the way. The objects for which the war had been carried on, were, to secure the important interests of this country, to restore tranquillity to Eu rope, and to provide for the maintenance of that tranquillity; and though the Directory had put a violent end to that negotiation, the views of his majesty's ministers still continued the same. He could not, he said, admit that lord Malmesbury in his conversation with M. Delacroix, had proposed any ultimatum. The last note of the Directory was actually the beginning of the negotiation on their part; and what was their proposal? "You shall accept the basis of our new formed constitution, which ingrafts a conquered country into an integral part of our territories." Were the laws and constitution of France to be paramount to the laws of Europe? The principle advanced by France would go to subvert all the established laws of nations. Thus, whilst the Directory Lord Hay said, that the conduct of the were requiring an ultimatum from us, enemy, in the course of this negotiation, they were, in fact, giving one themselves. had been insolent in the extreme, and The question now for consideration was, such as ought to be resisted. Nothing whether this country, by relinquishing therefore remained but for this country the farther prosecution of the war, would to exert its vigour; and he trusted there give up every thing valuable to its interwould be found in it, sufficient zeal to ests; every principle of good faith prosecute the war, rather than submit to towards its allies; and abandon what had dishonourable conditions of peace. hitherto been reckoned the public law of The Duke of Bedford insisted that mi- Europe. By adhering to one consistent Earl Fitzwilliam insisted that the enemy had given no encouragemet for open ing the late negotiation. They had never retracted the inadmissible principle advanced in the note to Mr. Wickham, nor the offensive decree of November 1792, encouraging the people of other countries to rise up against their established governments. No circumstance had occurred to convince him that their former dangerous principles, did not now exist in all their force. He insisted that there could be no safety in fraternizing with such people, and illustrated his argument by referring to the conduct of France towards Genoa, Tuscany, &c. He said he should, after the present motion was disposed of, move another amendment, in which he should endeavour to rally the House back to its former principles. rope. principle, he did not despair of bringing | barred the door of negotiation against us. our enemies to a better sense of what Was the House prepared to send up this they owed to themselves, and to Eu- amendment to the throne in preference to declaring that they would not submit to a proud and arrogant enemy? Would they not rather show that their spirit was equal to the occasion, until such time as the enemy was brought to discover a better feeling? Having been personally appealed to, to say whether bankruptcies were not daily increasing, he must declare to their lordships, that he knew the reverse to be the fact. In the present year, the number was more than one-fifth less than the average of the last twelve years. Up to December this year, the number was less than 800, whereas the average number of the last twelve years was about 1,040. The wealth of the country was also increasing; this he inferred from the surplus of monies. brought into the treasury of the court of chancery, amounting to 960,000l., of which he computed about a clear surplus of 800,000l. of actual wealth saved during the current year. At no period were the manufactories more flourishing than at present, nor was there any year in which the quantity of English goods exported was greater. Our national wealth and prosperity were immense. Subscriptions to the loan of 18 millions had been sent up to a large amount from various country towns, even after the loan was filled up. Let this be fairly contrasted with the state of France as given by the Directory themselves. He insisted that at no former period of our history, when negotiations were broken off, did those who opposed the ministry ever think of bringing for. ward a motion like the thing which he then held in hand. The Lord Chancellor rose to call their lordships attention to the form and purport of the amendment. He verily believed a similar instance could not be produced, of an amendment brought forward at the important crisis of a negotiation for peace abruptly put an end to (no matter how) and that circumstance communicated to parliament from the throne, the apparent object of which amendment was to declare that the House was determined to withhold their support to his majesty in the continuance of the war. Could any gloomy imagination suppose such an amendment could be adopted? What would be the effect of it in this country, and throughout Europe? He insisted that the amendment in detail was no other than an exaggeration of the power of the enemy, encouraging to them, and depressing to the interests of this country. The inference to be drawn from it was, that this country must submit to whatever terms the enemy chose to impose; it tended to humble the nation before the Executive Directory, and to invite them to put their feet upon our necks. He denied that the memorial presented to the French Directory was of a sophistical nature; for what, he would ask, could contain a more ingenious declaration of what England was disposed to surrender, and what to demand in behalf of her allies? But, whatever might be the relative value of the compensation proposed, they had never, in fact, been brought under discussion. The proposals of England were numerous and liberal: though France had made no conquests we proposed to surrender back all the conquests made from that power, only on condition of her making suitable returns of the conquests made from the Emperor. The government of France had made no reply to the memorial which had been presented: the question of reciprocal compensations had never been fairly discussed; instead of this, they required an ultimatum within twenty four hours; and, in the act of doing so, they recall the very basis of the negotiation, to which the had previously agreed. Their whole conduct and language discovered a determination to avoid all discussion. Thus had the go-1-8. vernment of France barred and double 23-86. [VOL. XXXII.] [5 D] from us, The Earl of Abingdon said, he had supported ministers as long as he could, with due regard to what he owed to his country; but in the last negotiation, he did not believe they had been sincere; and had the French Directory been willing to trust them, they would, in his opinion, have concluded merely a hollow truce, a peace rotten at the foundation. He thought the conduct of the French Directory open and manly, while that of our ministers was very much the contrary. The question being put, whether the said words shall be there inserted, the House divided: Contents, 7; Proxies, Not Contents, 63; Proxies, Earl Fitzwilliam then rose to move his promised amendment. After a brief review of the transactions of the war, the noble earl moved to insert after the word "Message" at the end of the first paragraph of the address, the following words: "That, not doubting a secure, permanent, and honourable peace, to have been ever his majesty's object and anxious desire in this as in every other war, we are however, convinced, by the beginning, progress, and events of the late negotiation, that no future attempt of a similar kind on our part can be wise, decorous, and safe, until the common enemy shall have abandoned his hostile disposition to all other states by ceasing to place his own internal regulations above the public law of Europe, to insist that all others shall, in all cases, sacrifice the faith of their alliances, and the protection of their ancient and dearest interests, to the maintenance of his treaties, and the gratification of his ambition: and for ever to appeal to the people against their own lawful government:-That our present experience only induces us more steadily to renew our former adherence to his majesty's royal declaration of his great and beneficent views, in October 1793, which he was graciously pleased to communicate to us at the opening of the following sestion in January 1794:-That we shall never consider the possessors of the power in France (under whatever name or external form of government that power may be exercised) as capable of maintaining the ordinary relations of peace and amity, until they shall have disclaimed in conduct, no less than in words, that system, which, having emanated from the original principle of the French revolution, still continues to operate in a more dangerous, because in a more specious form, and which in its address to his majesty, in January 1794, this House described as a system disposing arbitrarily of the lives and property of a numerous people, violating every restraint of justice, humanity, and religion, equally incompatible with the happiness of that country, and with the tranquillity of all other nations. "That we now, as then, entreat his majesty to be persuaded that in all our deliberations we shall bear in mind the true grounds and origin of the war, that we shall ever remember with just indignation, the attack made on his majesty and his allies, & grounded on principles which tend to destroy all property to subvert the laws and religion of every civilised nation, and to introduce universally a wild and destructive system of rapine, anarchy, and impiety, and that we shall ever, on our parts, persevere with union and vigour in our exertions, still more than ever sensible, that, by discontinuing or relaxing our efforts, we could hardly procure even a short interval of delusive repose, and could certainly never obtain either security or peace." The amendment was shortly opposed by earl Spencer and lord Grenville; after which, the question being put, "Whether the said words shall be there inserted," it was resolved in the negative. The motion for an address was then agreed to. Debate in the Commons on the Quakers' Relief Bill.] Feb. 24, 1797. The order of the day being read for going into a committee on this bill, and the question being put, "That the Speaker do now leave the chair," Sir W. Scott stated his objections to the farther progress of the bill. He was no enemy to toleration, but by toleration he meant that kind of toleration which, as it affected religious opinions, was not inconsistent with the civil rights of property. It was not enough that religious opinions should be sincere, in order to give them a claim to protection; for if they injured the civil rights of others, they could have no such pretensions. If civil inconveniences arose from certain religious opinions, they ought to fall upon the holders of those opinions. The opinions held by the Quakers were of such a nature as to affect the civil rights of property, and therefore he considered them as unworthy of legislative indulgence. It was erroneous to suppose that tithes were a species of property merely ecclesiastical. A lage proportion of tithe property was in lay hands under the title of lay appropriations. But the Quakers refused to pay tithes to the appropriator, as well as to the clergyman, though the property had been in his possession for more than 300 years, a period` much longer than the persuasion upon which they acted had been in existence. How, then, did the case stand of this tithe property, which was more ancient and more strictly guarded by the legislature than any other? This was the very property of which the opinion of the Quaker led him to rob the possessor. No matter whether religion was or was not the foundation of his opinion, no religion could sanction civil injustice. Did it not sound odd, that a man should take a farm and get an allowance from the landlord for what he was to pay in tithes, and, by way of putting this allowance in his pocket, plead that his conscience would not permit him to employ it for the purposes for which it was intended? Could such a conduct be reconciled with any standard of justice, or was any act entertaining such principles worthy of being patronized by the legislature? He submitted it, therefore, to the wisdom of the House, whether, on account of such absurd fancies, if they were not something worse, they would venture to change the regulations of civil property? The preamble of the bill pretended that it was brought in for the relief of the Quakers from imprisonment. Here the learned gentleman desired that the 7th and 8th of William 3rd might be read. Which being done, he observed, that so far from its being the intention of this statute to relieve the Quakers from the persecution of other men, as had been insinuated, it was meant to relieve other men from the persecution of the Quakers; for if any man withheld from him what was his due, that man was his persecutor; and though he did it from religious motives, still his conduct was persecution. He asked, whether it was proper to sanction a violation of the rights of property upon the ground of private opinion, on whatever foundation that opinion might rest? He cautioned the House of stamping such a procedure with their authority at a time when it was so fashionable to hold out wild and dangerous opinions respecting property. Who knew but the next step might be a refusal to pay rent? There were some texts of scripture which might be wrested in favour of this opinion; nay, they might even go so far as to hold it irreligious to pay their debts, because they owed no man any thing but love. He had seen a number of pamphlets, in which all men of property were pelted with texts of scripture, and represented as monopolizers, who ought to share what they possessed with those who had not had such a liberal share of the good things of fortune dealt out to them. Such opinions were justly considered as worthy only of derision; but that they admitted of as good a de fence as those upon which the Quakers professed to act. If the Quakers pleaded sincerity in their own behalf, so might the partizans of the levelling system; or if the levellers were accused of interested views in wishing to despoil others of their property, so might the Quakers, who refused to pay that property to which others were entitled. He wished the legislature therefore, seriously to reflect before they sanctioned fancies which might be productive of great evils. He reminded the House also of the ground upon which their indulgence was claimed, not because of other religious opinions held by the Quakers, not because they held it unlawful to wear a button on their hats, or to use the second person plural, but because they deemed it improper to pay tithes. If the principle of the indulgence was once admitted, others might claim the benefit of it, and the sect of anti-tithe christians would soon become the most numerous and flourishing in the kingdom.--The learned gentleman next adverted to the other ground on which Mr. Serjeant Adair had defended the principle of the bill, namely, that it would facilitate the recovery of tithes. And here he could not but remark a striking inconsistency in the defence; for if the Quakers really held it unlawful to pay tithes, how came they to apply for a bill, the object of which was to facilitate the recovery of them? The argument stood thus: the Quakers considered themselves as unjustifiable in paying tithes, except they were compelled; the House was therefore desired to accommodate the mode of compulsion to their wishes. He then put the case either way-that they did pay tithes at present without compulsion, or that they did not. If they did not, their refusal was a persecution of the holder of tithes, and the remedy ought to be a prompt and efficacious one, other wise the tithe-holder would be an owner, not of property but of suits. The fact, however, he believed to be notoriously otherwise, and that the Quaker at present paid tithes, not from actual compulsion, but under the apprehension of compulsion. Since this was the case, why should the remedy be placed at a greater distance, and thus rendered less prompt and less efficacious? For what was the remedy that was proposed?-To take the penalty off the person of the Quaker, and to put it upon his property by sequestration. To this mode there were strong objections. |