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in which we were. As to the vote of thanks which the hon. Gentleman propofed, he had to obferve, that the hon. Gentleman had given up what he so much infifted on at first, the execution of the compulfory part of the measure of general defence, and that he was now gone into the other extreine and was entirely for volunteers. Against that principle, as it was now acted upon, he begged leave to enter his proteft. On the mere queftion of the vote of thanks he had nothing to fay, and therefore thould do no more than to pr. fs moft feriously the confideration of providing this force with arms; for without a proper attention to the state in which it was as to arms, no effectual aid could be expected from it. He confeffed he did not like the manner in which his hon. Friend (Colonel Craufurd) had been fneered at when he prefed this point the other night. He therefore chofe to take it up, and to prefs it again. When the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Sheridan) prefied for unanimity, he laid the foundation for a truce; and when he faid this was the last day of the Seffion, he withed Gentlemen to abstain from all reference to former differences of opinion, all charges against Miniters, and all party fentiments, and to abflain from urging thefe topics till the next meeting. He could not help thinking that the right hon. Gentleman was a little too particular in enumerating the points with refpect to which he wifhed this abftinence to be obferved:

Hæc commemoratio eft quafi exprobratio.

(A laugh.) He fhould fay a word on that fubject, by way of contrafting what the hon. Gentleman now faid with the manner in which he had acted on former occafions. Parliament was different from that clafs of men, where it was faid that the doctrine fhould be attended to, without regarding the practice. But he would allow the hon. Gentleman the benefit of the maxim He thought he remembered times of difficulty throughout the courfe of the laft ten or twelve years, in which he allowed nothing that he could call wrong to go by without cenfure, and without maintaining that it might fairly be attacked. The hon. Gentleman was not remifs in arraigning all meafures, and in raifing every fpecies of oppofition. The hon. Gentleman withed for unanimity, and in one fenfe he would have it. If unanimity was meant to apply to the defence of the country, there could be no doubt that this unanimity exifted. He should with to know what part of his conduct had embarrailed the public fervice, or

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given ground for the charge of factious oppofition; and when he and thofe Gentlemen who generally fat near him, were charged with fuch things, he withed the inftances to be cited. He had the fatisfaction to think that most of thofe measures on which he and his honourable friends took an active part, were rendered more perfect in their paffage towards the Houfe, and that he and his honourable Friends contributed to the improvement. He alfo difclaimed the charge of factious oppofition. He had not oppofed all things indifcriminately. He had never once oppofed a tax bill, though he knew Gentlemen in another oppofition, who, during the courte of ten years, never fuffered a tax bill to pafs without comment. If it was his object, or that of his friends, to give a factions oppofition, he fhould be forry they were fuch horrid bunglers as not to execute the defign better, by taking advantage of many opportunities of annoyance which they had futfered to go by. Now, when all were unanimous in the defence of the country, and every thing concerned with it, becaufe every man had his all at stake, and that brought the neceflity of that unanimity home, he fhould be forry to diffent from that unanimity, but that by this he confented to feal his approbation of whatever Minifters had done, or that he furrendered his right to cenfure and arraign them, he pofitively denied. It was a bad thing to have a government in which the country could not confide: if it was true that the prefent Government was fuch, thei country fhould know it." If it was untrue, the attempt to establish the belief would give room for the refutation, and thofe who attempted to give currency to the falfehood ought not to be pardoned; but if true, he would fay again, that the eyes of the country ought not to be fhut to it. It was worfe than all to have a weak Government and to confide in it, for then the country leaned on a broken reed, which would certainly let it down. When a government regulated itself by public opinion, the proper way to correct it was, to apply the correction through the public opinion to which it looked up fo much. He denied the principle, that because a government was under difficulties, it was therefore to be the more relied on. The increafe of danger naturally created unanimity. The rebellion in Ireland had created a unanimity of this kind, and a French invafion would create it ftill more. He, therefore, protefled against an unanimity which would go to preclude the right of cenfure; and when this was the last day of difcuflion, and there would be no other VOL. IV. 1802-3. opportunity

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opportunity till the next Seffion, he thought it his duty to avail himself of this right; and as the hon. Gentleman propofed to carry his restriction ftill further, and to abridge the liberty of fpeech out of doors during the vacation, as he propofed to lock him and his friends up in this manner, and to put the key in his pocket-(a laugh);-he thought it proper at leaft to fave their right, by his proteft, left it be confidered as entirely lapfed and furrendered by difufe. Having faid this, he had no objection that the motion fhould pafs, and the hon. Gentleman may, if he pleafed, go about as Master of the Ceremonic, making his bow to every one of the corps, and returning them thanks where they were not at all expected.

The Secretary at War confeffed himfelf unable to follow the hon. Gentleman through all the detail into which he had entered, relative to the fuperiority of regular troops, and the inconvenience that might arife from the employment of a loofe irregular mafs, in conjunction with them, by its becoming an incumbrance in their operations, every fyllable of which was irrelevant to the motion which had been submitted to the House. But he could not overlook the obfervation of the right hon. Gentleman, with regard to the fyftem pursued by his Majefty's Government, which he had flated to be erroneous. No perfon could appreciate that fyftem, unless he were in the fecret of his Majefly's Ministers, and as the right hon. Gentleman had admitted himfelf ignorant of the precife fyftem they meant to adopt, fuch a' charge must come with a bad grace from him. He was himfelt free to acknowledge, that it was intended to give every encouragement to voluntary service, as well fuch as had been found be neficial during the laft war, as of the defcription specified in the late bill. He was not one of those who accused the right hon Gentleman with depreciating the militia and volunteers; becaufe, though fome heated and unguarded expreffions had escaped him in the warmth of debate, the right hon. Gentleman had fhewn by his explanations, that his obfervations applied to a force of either defcription only as to a force that was not regular. But whatever respect he entertained for the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman, he could not but lament that he employed the whole weight of his authority to decry, though not to oppofe, the meafures which his Majefty's Ministers thought it advifeable to adopt ; and he was of opiuion that Minifters had a right to complain, that the right hon. Gentleman when he had a feat in the

Cabinet,

Cabinet, and was convinced of the magnitude of the danger to which the country was expofed, had not made known his fentiments, nor brought forward the neceffary measures for its fecurity. The volunteer fyftem, though it had in his opinion been carried to too great an extent during the last war, he looked on as a falutary one; but as to the charge of the right hon. Gentleman, that it was the intention of his Majefty's' Minifters to convert the force to be raised by the general levy into a volunteer force; he was at a lofs to know where he could have formed any just foundation for it. If there were any instances in which that fhould be the cafe, he would himself undertake to thew, that the circumstances of the district required fuch a modification. In fome districts it would be neceffary to form the men into regiments or battalions, in others into independent companies; and in others again it would be expedient not to form them into companies at all; fo that it would be impoffible to act upon any general principle; and arrangements fhould be made with reference to the local circumstances of the districts, and to the dangers to which they fhould be expofed. Having faid this, he fhould hope that no general criticism should be entered into, with refpect to the conduct of his Majesty's Minifters, who were undoubtedly fubject to a heavy and ferious refponfibility, but who were not treated with all the fairness and candour in certain quarters, which they had a right to expect; yet he trufted the Houfe would be difpofed to do them juftice, and fufpend its judgment until their conduct and measures could be fairly eftimated on their merits. The right hon. Gentleman had amufed himself and the Houfe with his fallies of wit, but he was furprised to hear him affert gravely, that the bill for the general levy had created much fufs and confufion in carrying it into execution, *but had not yet produced a single man, at a time too when there was a great and augmenting force every where visible in the country, which in a fhort time would be fufficient to place it completely out of danger. If the right hon. Gentleman had looked round him, even in the city of London, he might have obferved that a confiderable augmentation of force had already taken place, which was every day increafing, as well there as in the other parts of the kingdom. He acknowledged himfelf incapable of ftating, with certainty, the number of volunteers in the whole kingdom, but he was fure he could not be mistaken in computing them to amount, at this moment, to between one hundred and one hundred and

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and fifty thousand. He thould join inoft heartily in the prefent motion for a vote of thanks, becaufe he was of opinion, that it would contribute greatly to excite farther exertions and, that there was no honeft man who would not concur with the hon. Gentleman who had made it. Though he could not admit that it had been brought forward prematurely, he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Windham) altogether, as to the facredness of the thanks of that Hufe. He felt that at fo momentous a crifis as the prefent, when fo much would depend on the zeal, fpirit, and exertions of every individual, the Houfe thould relax a little from its rigid obfervance of forms, and not be too precife in adverting to precedents. The right hon. Gentleman feemed to him not to be aware, that, at the end of last war, the thanks of the Houfe had been voted to the volunteer corps, and though that had been at the end of a war, no greater energy, courage, or exertion, had been difplayed than on the prefent occafion. The right hon Gentleman faid, he had no objection to a vote of thanks of the Houfe to the volunteers of Ireland, who, the right hon. Gentleman affirmed, had faved the capital. As to this circumflance, he thould firft fay that the Government of Ireland had not been furprifed, nor had the volunteers faved the capital. They had acted with three or four regiments compofing the garrifon of Dublin, and for their gallant conduct in conjunction with thefe troops were entitled to every praise. He should not purfue this fubject further; but he could not have listened to the affertion, that the volunteers alone had faved the capital of Ireland, without giving it the moft pofitive contradiction.

Mr. Charles Dundas declared that on no man could more fincerely vote for the motion of the hon. Member than he fhould, because he thought the fpirit of the country ought to be cherished. He rofe merely to reply to fome obfervations which had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman oppofite, relative to the provifional cavalry. He had himself the honour to command one of thofe regiments, for which alone he could answer, and which had been reviewed by a General fent for the purpofe from the War-office, whofe report had been highly favourable, and when he mentioned General Garth, he referred to a military authority that would ftand high with the Houfe. He therefore challenged the right hon. Gentleman to produce any report of any military man that could give fanction to the obfervations he had indulged