rose to answer a question which had been put to him on a former night, whether he had any intention to submit a motion on the subject of the laws affecting the Roman Catholics. He now gave notice, that on Tuesday next he should move for a committee to take into consideration the penal laws affecting his majesty's Roman Catholic subjects. He wished to say, that the motion which he should have to make would not interfere with that of which his hon. friend (sir J. C. Hippisley) had given notice. As he should so soon have to bring the subject before the House, he should not now take up any of their time, but should present the petition of the Roman Catholics of Ireland.

The petition was brought up. On the motion that it be read,

begged to take that opportunity of asking the noble lord, whether the address of the Roman Catholics of Ireland to the Prince Regent, which he had delivered to lord Liverpool, had been presented to his royal highness? He also begged to know, whether his royal high-ness's ministers, in compliance with the request of the Roman Catholics in this address, intended to advise his royal highness to recommend their situation to the consideration of parliament?

replied, that the address had been presented to his royal highness, but that he was not prepared to say that ministers intended to advise his royal highness to make any recommendation of their situation to parliament.

said, that the motion of which he had given notice for tomorrow, was not calculated to interfere with that of his right hon. friend, but was, indeed, in concurrence with several objects which the petitioners had themselves in view. As it was unlikely the House would sit to-morrow, he would beg leave to postpone his motion until the 28th instant.

The Petition presented by Mr. Grattan was then read, setting forth:

" That, whilst the petitioners acknowledge with gratitude the many important relaxations of the penal laws which have taken place during his majesty's auspicious reign, they still have to regret the continuance of many severe disqualifications, and humbly submit that the repeal of the laws by which they are inflicted would eminently tend to give stability to the existing form of government and constitution, by at once removing every ground for alienation or apathy; that, in approaching the House with a view to the relief for which they pray, the petitioners rest their claim to that relief on the fact of their religious principles not being in their nature dangerous to the state, or to the continuance of the present form of government, whether civil or ecclesiastical, and rely on the wisdom and equity of the legislature, as the source from which they desire to obtain a repeal of the laws which now affect them; that it is their anxious wish that the great measure of Catholic emancipation shall be carried into effect under such circumstances as will render it satisfactory and unobjectionable to all classes of his majesty's subjects, inasmuch as, in the petitioners' estimation, the chief benefit to be derived from it is the union of persons of different religious descriptions in the bonds of concord and amity, and the removal of all jealousies and apprehensions, which being accomplished, all will be naturally led to co-operate in zealous and uniform endeavours to promote the general welfare; that, actuated with this impression, the petitioners feel themselves in duty bound to state their readiness to submit and conform to any regulations not incompatible with the principles of their religion, as they respect its faith and discipline, and not threatening danger to the purity and permanence of its exercise; and whilst the petitioners feel happy in stating that they fully rely on the liberality and justice of the legislature as a pledge of its not entertaining a wish to impose any arrangements thus incompatible, they feel equal satisfaction in the conviction that conciliatory adjustments may be settled fully satisfactory to the minds of his majesty's Protestant subjects, and yet perfectly consistent with the petitioners' principles both of faith and discipline; that the petitioners do not seek for any alteration in the principles of the British constitution as now settled, for, neither with regard to the maintenance of the succession to the Crown (as limited by act of parliament) in his majesty's family being Protestants, nor with a regard to a sincere support of the Protestant establishment in its temporal rights as fixed by law, do the principles of the Roman Catholic religion interpose any obstacle or impediment; that, with regard to the other leading features of the British constitution, it is too well known to need being now insisted on, that their origin is to be found at a period when Roman Catholic princes and Roman Catholic parliaments were intrusted with the guardianship of the public interest of a Roman Catholic people; that the petitioners, in the prosecution of an object which so naturally excites all their feelings, and occupies all their anxieties, earnestly desire, neither in act or expression, to leave room for jealousy on the part of their Protestant fellow-subjects; on the contrary, firmly attached to the principles of the constitution, and to British connexion, the, petitioners show that they wish to evince, by every part of their conduct, that whilst they are solicitous to attain that station in the constitution to which they feel it would be culpable not to aspire, they reject and reprobate all idea of party aggrandizement, and aspire solely to the common participation of personal privileges, which will identify their interests and feeling with those of their Protestant countrymen, and thus unite the entire body of his majesty's subjects in constant and cordial co-operation for the common benefit; the petitioners therefore, contemplating the attainment of this general co-operation, universal harmony, extinction of jealousy, and consequent benefit and improvement of the entire British empire, humbly solicit the House to take into its consideration the state of the laws now affecting his majesty's subjects professing the Roman Catholic religion, with a view to the repeal of all of them which do not relate to the succession to the Crown, or to the continuance of the Protestant church establishment."

Ordered to lie upon the table.

brought in the bill " for the Protection and Encouragement of Provident Institutions or Banks for Savings." The bill was read a first time, and on moving that it be read a second time the right hon. gentleman said he wished to explain the provisions which the Bill contained, as they related to a subject which had attracted attention in every part of the United Kingdom. The first provision authorized any bodies of individuals to enroll themselves as provident institutions or saving banks, and to make regulations for their better government, which were to be enrolled at the sessions; not for the purpose of giving the justices of the peace any control over these societies, but to ascertain the fact of their existence, and thus entitle them to claim the privileges which it was thought fit to bestow on them. The bill also authorized these societies to appoint their officers, and required that those persons who were entrusted with money should give security. It was also provided that the money belonging to these societies should have the preference over other claims in case of death or bankruptcy. He did not think it advisable that any other privileges should be granted to these societies, with respect to the recovery of money, for he did not wish that any inducement should be held out to them to trust their money on private securities, because it was known, with respect to Friendly Societies, that artful persons had got into the management for the purpose of obtaining loans of the money, after which it often happened that they became bankrupts, and the societies were defrauded. It was also provided, that depositors in these banks should not be prevented from applying for parish relief, but that the decision on their applications should be vested in the justices of peace, if any dispute occurred. In the case of depositors dying intestate, a distribution was to be made according to a specific provision made in the bill. In the transfer of stock to these societies, he proposed to-exempt them from the stamp duties, which was an encouragement to such institutions, which the House would not think excessive. The right hon. gentleman stated that applications had been made to him to incorporate with this measure some provisions with regard to certain societies for the encouragement of charitable loans. Of the principle and practice of these societies he cordially approved, and especially of the societies established at Edinburgh and Bath; but wishing to render this measure as simple as possible, he did not feel disposed to mix it with other matter. With respect to the progress of the bill, he proposed to move that it be read a second time on Friday next, and that upon being printed it should stand over for a fortnight, with a view to afford ample opportunity for its general diffusion. This interval he thought the more necessary, as the principle to which the bill referred was acted upon in Ireland as well as in other distant parts of the kingdom, and therefore all parties interested should have due time to consider its character and tendency.

cordially approved of the principle of the bill, but as so many societies were interested in this measure, a larger interval ought to be allowed than the right hon. gentleman proposed.

thought that Ireland was very much interested in this measure—much more so indeed than any other part of the United Kingdom. Such a measure was likely, in his judgment, to be peculiarly beneficial in Ireland, because in that country there were no poor laws, and unfortunately habits of providence were not very prevalent. Where indeed these habits appeared, they were discou- raged heretofore by the failure of individuals, in whose hands the labouring poor were induced to deposit their savings, with a view to make some provision for old age and infirmity. Therefore he hoped that government, from the facilities which it seemed disposed to afford to this measure, would authorize the collectors of the several counties to transfer as soon as possible to the public funds, any lodgments made according to this plan. Thus the people would be relieved from the apprehensions too often created from the lodgment of their money in private hands: for to grant the people public security for their funds, would be the most effectual mode of encouraging provident habits.

expressed his disinclination to hurry the bill, and his entire concurrence in the desire of the right hon. baronet, to provide ample security for the lodgments which the several subscribers to the saving banks might be induced to make, according to the principle of the bill.

The motion was then agreed to.

rose and spoke to the following effect:—

Mr. Speaker; I now rise, pursuant to my notice, after delays which did not proceed from me, to bring before the House a subject to which no man will deny a claim on its most serious consideration—the monies received or become payable by the Frenoh government to that of Great Britain at the close of the late war. It is important even with a mere view to the very subordinate consideration of their amount, which is nearly six millions sterling. Several peculiar circumstances which characterize these transactions, entitle them to jealous attention and minute scrutiny. But neither the pecuniary magnitude, nor any inferior peculiarities of these payments, are of the least moment compared with the constitutional question which they present, and on which I have thought it my duty to propose that the House shall now pronounce a decision. That question is, in Substance, whether these sums or any greater sums in similar circumstances, be a droit of the Crown? that is to say, whether they be at the disposal of the Crown, and may be dealt with by the sovereign as part of his personal income; and as such applied at his discretion to those objects of bounty, liberality, and magnificence for which an ample personal income is and ought to be vested in him; whether a king of England, at the conclusion of a successful war, may convert its successes into a new source of revenue to himself, and derive from them indefinite sums of money, neither granted by parliament, nor sanctioned by them, nor even necessarily known to them. Various answers may be and have been made to this question; but no man can doubt its importance. It is a question which lies near the vital organs of the British constitution. Whatever renders the Crown independent of parliament for revenue, must for so much diminish the power of this House, and impair the grand safeguard of liberty. It is obvious, on the coolest reflection, that the exclusive power of the House of Commons over the public purse is the bulwark of this constitution, and that nothing can be regarded as small or inconsiderable which touches it, which in the slightest degree or by the most remote analogy can endanger, or contract, or bring into question this fundamental principle. For it every struggle of the British nation has been made, from the statute of Tallage to the Stamp Act. By it alone the prerogative of the Crown has been subjected to parliament, and the freedom of the constitution has been established and secured. A new claim on money made on behalf of prerogative is, beyond all other regal pretensions, the just object of parliamentary jealousy. It must be the duty of a member of parliament not to suffer such a claim to pass without discussion, or silently to slide into a precedent for future times. It is his duty at least to question so alarming a power on its first appearance, and to examine with the utmost rigour the warrant by which it claims a title to enter into the law and to become a part of the constitution.

Before I proceed to the performance of that duty, I must be allowed to relieve the House from some apprehensions which on such a subject as the present are rather natural. In the first place, Sir, I am happy to say that I shall not be long;—and in the second place, I can perfectly deliver gentlemen from all fear of legal subtleties. Instead of recurring to such subtilties, I should rather protest against their application, and warn the House against their influence. It is fit that, in the courts of law, the most subtle distinctions should be respected, and that the authority of precedent should be main- tained, because it is thus only that the administration of justice is subjected to certain rules, and that the power of judges is prevented from becoming arbitrary, But this House is instituted, not to follow the example, but to watch over the proceedings of inferior courts. The House of Commons is composed chiefly of those who are not lawyers, in order that they may act on the plain and broad principles of reason and the constitution. It is their duty to inquire whether the result of legal subtilties be the fartherance of the ends of justice; and above all, to determine whether there be any reasonings or precedents received by other tribunals which may be dangerous to liberty. These are questions of far more importance than any discussions of mere law; and on them this House may decide with as much discernment as lawyers, and with much less prejudice. There are even occasions in which law itself, in order to be preserved, must be overruled by the great principles of justice and liberty, for which and by which it can alone exist.

Let me not be called upon, then, to produce the statute or the adjudged case on which I arraign this new mode of filling the exchequer by prerogative. Whatever may have been said of late, I shall always consider that, to prove the tendency of a claim to be unconstitutional, is in the House of Commons the strongest of all legal arguments against it. It has been said, that "unconstitutional" can have no meaning if it be not synonymous with " illegal." But the assertion is false and pernicious. Every single statute has a general object and intention which may be defeated by acts which do not offend against the letter of any of its clauses. Every class of statutes relating to one subject has a more general scope and Spirit against which there may be many offences not prohibited in so many words in any one statute of the class. The most subordinate part of law, besides its literal provisions, has a spirit, an object, general principles, which extend beyond the letter, and without which the letter cannot be rightly understood. Shall not the same be said of that grand body of written and unwritten law relating to the powers of government, and the rights of the subject, called the constitution? As that which defeats the purpose without infringing the words of an act of parliament is justly said to be inconsistent with its spirit and principles, so acts are with equal propriety termed unconstitutional which resemble in their mischief acts already condemned as contrary to the constitution, which obstruct the attainment of its universally acknowledged ends, weaken the authority of its most useful principles, and of which the example, if consistently followed in all like cases, would leave no constitution remaining. It is by the condemnation of practices and pretensions which are unconstitutional without being, in the strict and narrow sense of the word, illegal, that the House of Commons has most often performed its high function of preserving liberty. Illegal practices may be checked by courts of law—unconstitutional claims can be resisted only by parliament. This House may, indeed, animadvert on a breach of law, bat only where that breach of law is in effect, or example dangerous to the constitution.

As I have promised to be short, I may also promise that I shall be dispassionate. I bring no charge against ministers: Iimpute to them no intention to violate the constitution. I merely desire to guard against the establishment of a precedent which may enable the Crown, in future times, to procure money without the vote or privity of parliament. On the most alarming part of the acts or attempts of ministers respecting this subject, I shall have little occasion to animadvert. But it never must be forgotten, that in the army estimate? originally laid before the House, an attempt was made of a nature without parallel since the revolution. To that part of it which related to our army in France, was subjoined a note in these words: " It is not proposed to submit to the House of Commons any vote on account of the charge contained in the above estimate." To say the least of this proceeding it was the most unadvised that any minister, without deliberate bad intentions, ever hazarded. This constitution has provided various means of check on that most unmanageable instrument of power—a standing army. Whether the union of all of them be an adequate security, may be doubted; but no man ever thought that all were more than enough. One of these controls is, the annual mutiny bill, which renders the means of maintaining discipline annually dependent on the pleasure of parliament. This check is held by the whole legislature. Another, and the only control exclusively vested in the House of Commons is, the annual grant of money for the support of the army. It is in its nature the most effectual: it is the privilege of the House of Commons alone. The constitution allows the other House to reject our votes of supply; but neither to alter their nature nor to increase their amount. It is the peculiar characteristic of the Commons House: it is that which forms our strength and our pride; it is that which has given us a preponderating authority over all measures of state. On this subject we have ever thought that the smallest dangers are to be guarded against with the utmost vigilance. No jealousy has here appeared unreasonable; no encroachments, however slender and unintentional, have been thought too harmless to be repelled. Such, Sir, has been our jealousy, and (I may add in justice) your jealousy, of this great privilege in our intercourse with the other House of parliament. What new term can be imagined adequate to the feelings with which we are bound to guard it as a control over a standing army? and what are we to think of the reverence for the constitution felt by those who, in this easy and familiar way, proposed to release an army of thirty thousand men from the strongest curb on armies provided by the constitution, and the only control over them exclusively vested in this House? It is, surely, very cautious language to say that such an attempt manisfested a very cold regard to public liberty, a disrespect, if not a contempt, of the privilege of parliament; that it throws a strong suspicion of unconstitutional principle over the men by whom it was attempted, and the measures of which it was to form a part. It has been most truly said, that at the revolution might was subjected to right. If this attempt had been successful, it would for so much have been a counter revolution. So far as it went it would have undone the chief good which the revolution did. Thirty thousand men would have been released from the control of the House of Commons, and with respect to that great portion of our army, would have been once more left to triumph over right. Thanks to my hon. friend's (Mr. C. W. Wynn) accustomed and hereditary zeal for the rights of parliament; so dangerous an attempt has been defeated. Ministers, whether from constitutional or from less pure motives, have yielded; the army in France is paid by grant of parliament; but the fact ought to be for ever remembered as a warning againt supine reliance in any ministers which, in this in- stance, would have betrayed the grand privilege of this House at the very point where it guards liberty and even civil government against military power.

There is one of the circumstances of these transactions which I shall lay out of the case, after a short statement of the fact. The House and the public certainly did conceive that the whole expense of the English army of occupation was to have been defrayed by the French government, and that the indemnity to be received by this country would be some what above four millions.—So it was ex pressed in the terms of the treaty—So it was argued by their advocates—So it was reasoned also by those men of enlarged and generous minds who, approving the treaty in general, lamented that it should be stained by this sordid stipulation; but it now appears that the whole is an illusion.—So inadequate to the actual charge of the British army is the sum paid by the king of France, that even with the addition of the whole pretended indemnity, it will, at the end of three years, leave a considerable balance to be paid by the people of this country for the maintenance of that army. The whole of this machinery is however liable to be destroyed in a moment by the unfortunate event of a new war. But great as that calamity will be to Europe, the duration of peace for five years is unhappily not a very probable event. At the end of the fourth year a small balance will accrue to this country. It is only at the expiration of the fifth year of peace, supposing the expense of the army not to increase and supposing no casual demand for temporary expenditure, that a sum of about half a million will come into the British exchequer. The payments are calculated with curious exactness. In the first years, while the continuance of peace is happily probable, England is made to pay a deficiency.—In proportion as the probability of continued peace diminishes, the balance in favour of England increases. Our burthen is in the years when payment is most certain—Our claims increase with the uncertainty of payment. The last balance, even in these favourable and improbable circum stances, can be scarcely considered as adequate to the chances of casual and unforeseen expense, or to the usual progress of profusion in military expenditure. But, excluding these almost inevitable demands, and granting that the government of France may continue punctual in its payment when on the very eve of regaining independence—the people of England will at that period receive half a million sterling as a compensation for all that they have done and suffered.—The word " indemnity" turns out to be a mockery. The whole money is a military contribution imposed upon that country to pay a foreign army. I do not wish to revive discussions about the principles or conditions of the treaty. It might be right or wrong to stipulate for indemnity: but it must be wrong to deceive the country by the expectation of a large indemnity, when it was known to ministers that no indemnity, or next to none, could ever be received. Ministers had discussed the preference of pecuniary to territorial indemnification night after night in parliament, while they were perfectly aware that probably no money, certainly none to be called compensation, could be paid.

I now come to the constitutional questions which are the main reason for bringing this discussion before the House. By the fifth article of the Minute of Conferences between the ministers of the allied powers at Paris, it was agreed that a sum of about a million sterling out of the general indemnity should be allotted to Great Britain, in consideration of the burthen of the war having been borne, and the city of Paris having been taken by the armies under the duke of Wellington and prince Blucher;—and that sum has been or is to be distributed to the British and allied army under the duke of Wellington's command. Now this agreement and the distribution under it must be understood in one of two ways: either it was a grant of money by foreign powers to the Crown of England on condition, (at least, in equity and honour) that the Crown should distribute it among the army;—or it was an absolute and unconditional gift of that money by these foreign powers to the Crown, which the sovereign might or might not have distributed among his army at his own pleasure. The first is evidently the true construction. If not, why was this million separated from the other four millions stipulated to be paid as indemnities to England? or why was it partly founded on the claims of the army as captors of Paris? No reason could be assigned for taking it out of the general fund of compensations—no reason could be given for its being joined with the mention of the capture of Paris—but that it was to be received by the Crown on the mere condition of bestowing it on the army. The army are the objects of this bounty. The Crown is only the channel by which it is conveyed. No body will venture to assert that the application of it to any other purpose would not be a breach of faith. It is therefore a donative from foreign powers to a British army. Foreign powers reward their valour. Foreign powers recompense their forbearance. Foreign princes pay them for the ransom of Paris. This ransom does not come from the vanquished enemy, but from allies; and the British Crown becomes its trustee to receive for its own army this great donative, the fruit of foreign liberality or of foreign equity. I conceive this transaction to be absolutely without example, and to be as degrading to the Crown as it is dangerous to the army, and humiliating to the nation. The first principle of the military policy of every great state is to render its armies inaccessible to all foreign influence. Foreign connexions,—dangerous in private subjects, detestable in public officers,—may produce instant destruction when they taint an army. The more we examine these transactions, the less traces we discover of that deep conviction which distinguishes wise statesmen, that in the management of an army no danger is to be treated as inconsiderable, and no jealousy as excessive. The chance may be small, the object of fear may be distant; but the magnitude of the evil makes up for the smallness of the risk. A very little probability of total destruction is a reasonable object of the utmost precaution. In this transaction we see the first example of what may turn the expectation and gratitude of British armies towards foreign princes. A principle of foreign attachments is planted in their breasts. If it ever reaches maturity, farewell to the spirit of the army, and to the secure independence of the kingdom. Even the smallest reason for preferring one foreign state to another is in an army a very serious evil. It is aggravated by the degradation of the Crown, in the eyes of its own army, into a trustee of foreign bounty. These things tend alike to lower the national feeling of the army, and the national pride of the people. I do not say that great impressions are, or can be made by any single act on the sentiments of the army and people of this kingdom—these are not the evils against which we have to guard in such a country as this. It is against the first approaches of danger, against the silent progress of evil, against the temper which views such advances with supine security, that it is our constant duty to struggle. It is sufficient that the example of a donative from foreign princes tends to introduce the poison of foreign attachments into our army. Ministers have done what they can to let in this mischief. We are bound to set a mark upon the act, and to do all that depends on us to shut it out for ever.

If it be contended that this sum of a million is an unconditional grant to the Crown, and that the grant to the army is a mere act of royal bounty, then it will fall to be discussed presently when I consider the question, whether sums of money granted by foreign states for national indemnification be disposable at the pleasure of the Crown. At present, I shall only observe, first, that on this principle nearly six millions have been received by the Crown under this treaty, which may be dealt with as personal income (no unimportant consideration); and, secondly, that the ministers will then have to explain another act almost equally alarming, though on very different grounds;—a largess from the Crown of England to a victorious British army:—nobody will, I dare say, deign to misrepresent me so grossly as to say that I argue against the claims of an army above praise and above reward. But why should not parliament have been left the grace of voting this or any other sum to that army? Why should they be weaned from that dependence on parliament which in some measure counterbalances the natural attachment of armies to a monarch? Would the reward be more grateful to this gallant army from the hands of foreign princes than from the thankful hearts of the parliament and people of England? The principle of our constitutional army is, that command, preferment, and honour come to it from the Crown; but the general principle is equally undisputed, that for all pecuniary remuneration it is made to depend on parliament. On this occasion I shall propose a resolution of censure upon what I think a deviation from those most important principles which guard the army against all chance of attachment to foreign princes, and against unbounded devotion even to the Crown of this kingdom.

But though I look upon all these as very important subjects of consideration, the great question in my judgment is cer- tainly that which respects the right of the Crown in the disposal of money granted by treaty as a national indemnity. It is hardly Worth while guarding against so poor a misrepresentation as that I am desirous of contracting the income of the Sovereign. I should rather suspect myself of an opposite excess. When the means of the people are considered, and the necessities of the state provided for, the personal income of the Sovereign ought to be ample for comfort, for splendour, and above all for bounty, in which he is to be liberally indulged as the best alleviation of the pain with which he must exercise the harsh duties which belong to his office. If they be too small, let them be increased, but publicly, and by the House of Commons, not clandestinely, not by the assertion of new prerogatives, dangerous to liberty and destructive of the importance of parliament. They have been claimed for the Crown as droits, that is, as being as much at the disposal of the Crown as that ungranted portion of prize of war is said to be, called droits of the Crown and droits of the admiralty. That appellation in the mouth of those who used it, imports that they may be dealt with by the sovereign as part of the revenue set apart for his personal enjoyment; that they may be applied, for instance, as gifts to his family, or for the construction or repair of buildings which are his private property, and not pertaining to and descending with the Crown. These are the purposes to which droits of the admiralty have been often and publicly applied. They are purposes to all of which it is certainly allowable, to some of which it is praise-worthy, to apply that personal revenue which is as much at the disposal of the King as a gentleman's private fortune is in his own power. But to call the money paid as indemnity, by the name of droits, is to assert that it is part of the King's personal income. This claim has not been made either lightly or by an inconsiderable person. The House will remember the surprise and alarm with which it was heard from the chancellor of the exchequer, a person of great personal and official authority on such a subject, a lawyer of eminence, conversant with the principles of law, and the usage of office relating to it, a judge of the highest fiscal court in the kingdom, the principal finance minister of the Crown in the House of Commons. This claim was made in parliament, not in the warmth of debate, but in a deliberate and elaborate statement of the national resources. It is very true, that he told us also of the intention of his royal highness to apply this fund to the public service. But it was evidently as an act of commendable liberality, of just consideration for the distress of the people and the exigencies of the state. It was not as matter of right. If it be accepted on such an explanation, it will become a precedent for the power. The recognition of the prerogative will be purchased by the bounty. Such an assertion made in such language to the House by a statesman, and a judge, ought of itself to be sufficient to raise this discussion. When the right hon. gentleman made this assertion, he rested it upon his own authority. He will doubtless now explain his reasons; I expect to hear those grounds of reason and law on which a prerogative, to me altogether new, is founded.

But the opinion of the chancellor of the exchequer, however weighty in itself and its circumstances is not the principal reason which calls on the House to determine the question which he has raised. The Crown has already exercised an act of ownership over a part of the sum granted as an indemnity, such as a gentleman might properly exercise over his private fortune. Whether that sum has been well or ill applied is nothing to my argument. It is enough that it has been expended on objects not of necessary public service, and without the privity of parliament. Neither is the amount in the least degree material to my present purpose. It is a payment made on a principle which extends to the whole, and which tends to establish a precedent which may hereafter govern any similar sums, however great. This payment, which is the main circumstance in the present case, I will shortly state. It is a sum of two hundred and fifty thousand francs paid to the chevalier Antonio Canova. Of this sum one hundred thousand francs were paid in October at Paris by a banker there, in consequence of directions from the noble lord opposite. That sum was ordered to be repaid to the banker, and the farther sum of one hundred and fifty thousand francs were directed to be paid to signor Canova in a letter from the secretary to the treasury, conveying the orders of the board to that effect to the commissary-general, on the 26th of December 1815. The concluding words of that letter direct the sum to be paid " out of any monies which may come into his (Mr. Drummond's) hands on account of the pecuniary indemnities payable by France to this country," or out of any other money in the military chest arising from the same service as he may deem most expedient. These words distinctly describe the fund out of which the payments to be made, and leave no doubt that it may be made out of the indemnity. The letter could have been written only after the treaty. It was in fact written two months after the treaty; and the fund from which it authorizes payment is created by the treaty. I shall not, therefore, needlessly embarrass the discussion by adverting here to the distinction, of which I am aware, between the payment made by France before the close of the war, and the payments stipulated by treaty. The letter from the treasury of the 26th of December applies to the latter, which is enough for the present argument. It is true that the noble lord gave signor Canova a credit on a banker in Paris for a hundred thousand francs a month before the treaty. But the letter from the treasury directs these advances to be reimbursed out of" the indemnity." The previous intercourse between the noble lord and his banker was a private transaction. The only official act of the British government relates to the monies payable as indemnity according to the treaty and to them alone. In a memorandum given to signor Canova on leaving London in December, he is informed that it is the intention of the British government to apply one hundred and fifty thousand franks towards defraying the expense of conveying to Rome the objects of ancient and modern art recovered from France; and 50,000 francs towards a monument " to be erected in Rome to the memory of the late cardinal d'York." By a letter from cardinal Gonsalvo to the noble lord of the 9th of March last, it appears that a hundred thousand francs was the sum originally intended to be contributed towards the conveyance of the works of art; that a hundred thousand more were added here for that purpose, and that the intention of bestowing fifty thousand on the cardinal d'York's monument probably originated in London.—If it were at all important to the argument, I might then lay out of my consideration the hundred thousand francs paid at Paris in October, and confine myself entirely to the hundred and fifty ordered by the treasury to be paid out of the indemnities. Reduced to this, the question seems to be extremely simple. It is, whether such a fund as the indemnities, may be applied to such purposes as a gift to the pope, and a monument to the cardinal of York? Both are clearly to be considered as acts of personal bounty in the sovereign. They cannot be regarded as expenses of the state, and indeed if they were, I should contend that the fund for defraying them ought to have been previously appropriated to the service by parliament. But some distinction might perhaps be made in favour of the larger part of the sum—that which is given to the pope, to aid in the conveyance of the works of the art. Without opposing generosity to policy it may be said, and indeed with truth, that it is politic in a great nation to be generous, and that the interest of the state might be well consulted by a judicious liberality to a venerable sovereign. I applaud the liberality of such sentiments, and I am far from denying that such expense might be justifiable on public grounds. But it is granted as an act of personal generosity. It is accepted with the gratitude due for such an act, and it is made to a prince with whom we are forbidden to maintain any correspondence, however exclusively political, by laws which we still suffer to disgrace our statute book. At all events, the contribution to the monument is an undisguised personal expense of the sovereign. What had been done by his majesty to relieve the distress of that eminent person when alive—what had been done also by his majesty for another accomplished person connected with the same unfortunate family—were most praiseworthy acts of generosity. But they were done by his majesty out of his own personal income, of which a part is doubtless granted to the sovereign in order that he may have an opportunity of doing such worthy acts. And I trust that I shall not be thought unfeeling if I confess, that I cannot look in the same light on a sum of public money employed in funeral honours to the last prince of a royal family who were declared by our ancestors unfit to reign over this kingdom. That they should be treated as princes in the relief of their distress;—that they should be treated as princes even to soothe their feelings in the courtesies of society—I most chearfully allow. Neither the place of my birth, nor the actions and sufferings of those from whom I am descended, dispose me to consider them with sternness. But I own, that to pay funeral honours to them in the name of the country or its sovereign, appears to me (to speak guardedly) a very ambiguous and questionable act.

Had it been done by the sovereign himself out of the proper funds of his own munificence I should have lamented so needless and ostentatious an approach to a recognition of some remaining royal character in the descendants of a family justly deposed by this nation. Defrayed out of the public revenue, I still more seriously regret that any thing should be done which seems to reflect on the most glorious acts of justice performed by our forefathers, to bring into question the legitimacy of their resistance to the Stuarts, and to throw a colour of rebellion over our great deliverance at the revolution.

These few observations are however more necessary to do justice to my feelings than to add strength to my argument. The contribution, be it judicious or otherwise, cannot be called a public expense. It is at best an expense of liberality and generosity. It has been defrayed out of the sums paid as indemnity to this country by treaty. Can money so arising be lawfully so applied. It was claimed in words by a great officer of the law and the state, as being part of the personal property of the sovereign. It has also been dealt with by the government as if it were part of such personal property. It has been claimed and treated as a droit, which in their sense, though not in mine, implies that it is at the king's disposal. It is doubly claimed—by acts as well as in words.

Now, Sir, I call for the authorities, the reason, and the usage which justify this claim. I wait to hear them. I have searched for them diligently, but I have hitherto found nothing. The burthen of proof must lie on those who claim the right for the Crown. I am bound to prove nothing, I may rest on my negative till those who affirm produce their proof. I assert nothing which is not universally admitted. The power of the Crown to dispose of such monies by the advice and consent of parliament cannot be questioned. On that point the gentlemen opposite must agree with me. So that it is plain that I, who affirm nothing to which they do not assent, have nothing to prove against them. But they assert something beyond this. They contend that the Crown has the same power without the advice and consent of parliament. This further claim I resist; and it is sufficient for me to put them on their proof.

I conceive, Sir, that in this negative I am in a situation more than usually favourable. I stand on the vantage ground of the constitution, and resist a claim which, to say the least, it is difficult to reconcile with its most important general principles. Will any man venture to deny that such a claim is not agreeable to the general principles of the constitution? Supply not issuing from parliament—prerogative a source of indefinite revenue;—Could the wit of man discover or imagine any two claims more repugnant to the British constitution? What more exact description could be given of benevolences, or of ship money? Carry them in practice as far as their principle extends, and the constitution will no longer exist. I am well aware that in every human system, especially in a government so complicated as ours, and formed by the course of circumstances in a long series of ages, there are anomalies which must be owned to have the character of law, though they be utterly irreconcileable with the general principles of the constitution. These irregularities are, I am ready to admit, often balanced by similar deviations on the opposite side, so that the last result, the just counterpoise of constitutional authority, is maintained.—The principles of the constitution and the spirit of the people, when they cannot prevent an encroachment in one quarter, have often gained a compensation in another. But it is never too much to say, that those who contend for the exception must always prove it, and that those who rely on the constitution need only allege it. Where is the proof? It is no ordinary evidence which can outweigh such principles as those now under our consideration—the exclusive right of this House to grant supply, and the danger of every prerogative which may be a source of independent revenue. It must be shown to be consistent with law, that kings of England may conclude treaties with foreign powers, and receive indefinite sums from these foreign powers under whatever names of indemnities, subsidies, or pensions, without the consent, or even knowledge, of parliament; that these treaties may be secret; and that the king may employ any sum, however large, granted by them to any purpose which he chooses. It must be contended that a king of Eng- land may make a treaty in order to obtain for himself six, twelve, or twenty millions sterling, to be applied to objects of which he alone is the judge. If that be constitutional law, it is at least clear that the law affords very easy methods of destroying the constitution: if that be law, we must hasten to make amends to the injured memory of Charles 2nd, and recall the condemnation which, for the last century, has been unanimously pronounced against him. If the opposite principle can be maintained, he did no more than he legally might do. We must no longer call his French treaties and his French pensions infamous: we must consider them as a legitimate resource against the parsimony of a disloyal parliament. We have lately read a very remarkable account of these treaties by a person who had a great share in them. In the life of James 2nd, by himself, which has just been published, we are told, that " The duchess of Portsmouth prevailed at last on the king to make her a grant of 10,000l. a-quarter out of his private French fund, his main support against the tyranny of parliament!" This, Sir, is not my language:—these opinions are not mine: they come from the mouth of James duke of York, an accomplice in the conspiracy. You see the light in which princes secretly view the exercise of your constitutional power. The dependance of the Crown on this House he calls " the tyranny of parliament:" the clandestine pension paid by Louis 14th he calls " his private French fund; his main support against the tyranny of parliament." To break faith, to forfeit honour, to betray public interest, to become the hireling of a foreign despot, are all matters of too little moment to be noticed by James, when they afford " support against the tyranny of parliament." This is more odious than foreign dependence; this is the constant object of his hatred and dread—the grand enemy of the monarchy. Few British princes, probably, have carried these dispositions so far: no other has been overheard in whispering these secret sentiments. But to this point all governments tend, and in it they must all terminate, unless they be resisted by that jealousy of the House of Commons, of which James 2nd owns their hatred.

From the effect of this principle on our liberties, let me pass to consider its tendency, if you admit it on our foreign policy. What, in that case, is to hinder bad ministers from advising future kings to en- rich themselves by infamous treaties of peace, and to purchase the means of pleasure or of corruption by the cession of territories the most important to the security or commerce of the nation? What disgraceful scenes may future negociations exhibit. Instead of estimating the strength and safety bestowed by a West Indian conquest on our ancient possessions, or the advantage of a maritime position in India to our dominions in that country, we might have a negociation turned into an auction of fortresses and a sale of islands. Half a million for Martinique! Half a million for the Cape of Good Hope! At every peace the king might be bribed to betray his subjects by the surrender of what their valour had won, and their interest required to be kept. We know from the authority of lord Bacon, that Henry 7th declared war where he had resolved never to fire a gun, in order to obtain money under false pretences from parliament. We know from the authority of James 2nd, that there have been kings who cherished their wages from foreign courts as a bulwark against their people. What kings of England did once, kings of England may do again. We have already gone far to tempt our kings to unjust war, by almost deciding that they may appropriate twenty or thirty millions of prize taken in warfare, called droits of the admiralty. Your determination against me this evening, would tempt them to disgraceful peace, by declaring that they may sell the conquests of the state for money to be applied as their own virtues or vices may dictate.

It will probably be said, that ministers are responsible for the exercise of this like every other power of the Crown. Wherever a power is proved to be legal, responsibility is doubtless our safeguard against its dangers; wherever the creation of a new power is shown to be absolutely necessary, there also we must content ourselves with such security as the responsibility of ministers may afford. But we must not speak of responsibility till either the legality or the necessity of the power be first made out. Responsibility is no reason either for recognizing or for granting political power; it is only a security of a certain value against the abuse of an authority which legal evidence proves to exist, or urgent danger renders it necessary to create. Necessity, in this case, cannot be urged, both because it never can be presumed to exist, and because we are not now discussing whether it be fit to vest certain rights in the Crown, but whether they exist there already. There is no more good reason for the Crown to doubt the liberality of parliament in the application of foreign grants than of supplies raised at home. The presumption must be, that whatever is sought to be withdrawn from the disposal of parliament is meant to be applied to purposes which parliament would not approve.

And here, Sir, I conceive that I am in strictness entitled to stop till I hear some proof attempted on behalf of the pretension which I call on the House to condemn. I have shown from the nature of the case that the burthen of proof lies on the gentlemen opposite. I have shown that the burthen lies heavily, because the claim to be maintained would be an exception from the first principles of the constitution. I shall now venture to go farther by showing that there is no want of arguments and authorities of a more special nature against this prerogative. The first arises from the object and terms of this treaty. Like all other treaties it professes to stipulate for indemnity for past and security against future wrong. The object of security is provided for in this treaty by the military occupation of the Northern frontier of France. The indemnity is obtained partly by cession of territory, partly by the payment of money. In the preamble " the pecuniary part of the indemnity" is particularly distinguished from the territorial. Both together constitute the whole indemnity as the one is increased the other is diminished; so that if less money had been paid, more territory would have been ceded supposing the whole indemnity to continue the same. If France could not pay, or if the allies would not receive money, there must have been an equivalent cession of territory. France paid money in order to avoid cession, the money was the ransom of towns or provinces. If, for example, there had been no pecuniary indemnity promised to Great Britain, it is manifest that the principle of the treaty would have required a large cession of territory. Suppose, for the purpose of illustration, the cession of Cherburgh or Dunkirk, the cession of the Isle of France to us, or the cession of Guadaloupe to a weaker power. Then it follows, that the pecuniary indemnity is the price of these ports in the channel or stations in the American and Indian Seas. If the Crown may apply the price of cessions to its own purposes, it is evident that it may and in effect does sell the territories themselves. If the four millions of indemnity has become the property of the Crown, it is clear, beyond the possibility of contradiction, that the King has sold at that price all the territories which the payment of that sum has redeemed. If the King may take money for himself, in consideration of his not requiring territory to be ceded which may be advantageous to the state, he may on the same principle take money for the restoration of conquests already made. He may sell in like manner what has become a part of the British dominions. The sale of Dunkirk may be renewed circuitously, which was long ago directly condemned. In mentioning the sale of Dunkirk, I do not regard that act as a precedent which I have to encounter. I consider its condemnation as a decisive authority in support of my principle. It was reprobated at the time; it has been justly censured ever since. But what here is sufficient, it formed the subject of the eleventh article of the impeachment voted by this House against the earl of Clarendon: " That he advised and effected the sale of Dunkirk to the French king, being part of his Majesty's dominions," and it is stated not as a constituent part of the offence, but as an aggravation " for no greater value than the ammunition and artillery, &c. were worth." Mr. Vaughan, afterwards the lord chief justice, a great lawyer, the friend of Seldon and Hale, describes the offence as high treason, which I mention only as an example of the indignation inspired by such transactions which transported this eminent lawyer beyond the boundaries of law. Lord Clarendon tells us, that the King had at the time declared, " That no part of the money should be applied to any ordinary occasion, but preserved for some pressing accident, as an insurrection or the like;" but this promised good husbandry, which might have been much more mischievous than profusion, did not prevent the impeachment. And it deserves particular notice, that this condemnation of the sale of Dunkirk occurred before the regular habit of a parliamentary appropriation to specific services had been adopted; when the Crown defrayed the whole expense of the government out of the general revenue, without rendering any account of its particular distribution, unless either upon a charge against a minister or as a reason for a demand of farther aid. Though nobody will, I presume, venture to quote the treaty of Peequigny as a precedent, yet I must shortly point it out as a warning. You remember that one of the conditions of peace obtained by the art of Louis 11th from Edward 4th was, the payment of fifty thousand crowns by the year to the English monarch, which our historians call a tribute, but Philip de Commines more honestly names a pension. The first consequence of this scandalous bargain was, the seizure of Burgundy by France; two years after Edward was tempted by this bribe to desert the House of Burgundy, the natural allies of England; and the exposure of the Netherlands to the ambition of France disturbed the tranquillity of Europe for three centuries. The statesmen and courtiers of England followed the example of their monarch, and from that time till the reign of Henry 8th thought themselves authorized almost openly to become pensioners of the court of France. The narrative in Commines, an actor in the transaction, sufficiently indicates the dishonour incurred by it in the eyes of foreign nations.

Another reason against this claim which seems to me quite conclusive, arises from the very nature of an indemnity. An indemnity is a compensation to a people for the expense of blood and treasure. If there be any thing which is the exclusive property of a people, it is that which is expressly granted to compensate for their losses and sufferings. The state has suffered the wrong; the state must receive the compensation. The sovereign can never blend his personal claims with this most purely national of all properties. It is an indemnity—to indemnify whom? Not surely the king. He has lost nothing but as the representative of the public—it is to indemnify the people who defrayed the expense of war—the people who fought and who bled. The king, as he conducts the business of the state with foreign nations, must indeed receive all payments from them; but in the receipt of an indemnity he can only be the hand of the state. He must receive them as a trustee for the public [Observing some signs of assent from the right hon. judge of the court of admiralty]. I rejoice that I see some marks of assent to this position from a person of the highest authority in the House. For the purpose of the present motion this is perfectly sufficient; and, indeed, as I have observed more than once, for that purpose alone I might have contented myself with standing on a negative till I was driven from my position by reasoning on the other side. But for the sake of a great constitutional question, I shall venture to produce positive evidence, as I think it against the claims of prerogative. I shall endeavour to show that it is condemned by approved usage, as well as by constitutional principle. The instances of this usage I shall select only from the period which followed the Revolution, not only because it is the purest time of our government, but particularly because that glorious event, among its other benefits and blessings, was the era of a new system in the history of our finance. Anciently while our kings defrayed their expenses from their own revenues, with occasional aids from parliament, there arc but few traces of parliamentary interference in appropriating public money to particular objects. Afterwards, when the kings of England were reduced by a happy poverty to that dependence on the Commons which preserved the British constitution, they were still considered as contracting to defray the whole expense of the state on condition of their receiving a certain gross annual revenue. They were allowed to apportion it according to their own judgment, unless where the appearance of great abuse called for investigation, rather for the punishment of delinquents, than for the better regulation of the expenditure. Attempts to improve this practice were made at various times under the princes of the house of Stuart. It was not until the glorious era of the Revolution, that the system was established of appropriating all parliamentary grants, by the authority of parliament, to services previously approved by parliament, which gave reality and energy to all the ancient constitutional principles, respecting the power of the purse, created a constant and irresistible control over the public expenditure in this House, and ought to be regarded as the most important reform in the practice of the British constitution which has been effected in modern times. Since that happy period, every part of public law and parliamentary usage on the subject of finance, is consistent and intelligible. We have only to open the Journals of this House to comprehend the constitution. Let me now appeal to them. The House will recollect, that at the period of the peace of Utrecht, the supply of negro slaves to Spanish America, was one of the advantages granted to this country. Queen Anne had, it seems, meant to retain, for her share, a fourth part of the profits of that traffic, on the iniquity of which the eyes of Europe were not then opened. We learn from the anecdotes of those times, that it was her majesty's intention to bestow her fourth in equal portions, on two persons, now indeed of very unequal fame, a great minister and a court favourite, lord Bolingbroke and Mrs. Masham, of whom the latter was probably then the more powerful person. As soon as the House of Commons, then sufficiently zealous for the politics of the court, learned this reservation, they immediately proceeded to resist it on behalf of the public. On the 9th of June 1714, I find the following entry on your Journals:

June 9, 1714. " Resolved, that an humble address be presented to her majesty, that she will be graciously pleased out of her great goodness to her people to give directions, that the fourth part of the assiento trade reserved to her majesty by the 28th article of the assiento contract, as also all such other benefits or advantages arising from the assiento trade or the licences relating thereto, or from any duties or profits reserved to his Catholic majesty as her majesty may be entitled to by virtue of any subsequent agreement or assignment from the king of Spain to her majesty; may be disposed of for the use of the public, and towards discharging the debts of the nation.

" Resolved, nemine contradicente, that an humble address be presented to her majesty, that the revenues of the island of Minorca, and the rents of the houses at Gibraltar, may be applied towards the maintenance and support of the several garrisons in those places."

" To this address an answer was made on the 22nd of the same month, which together with the proceedings to which it gave rise, I shall now read to the House:

tt June 22, 1714. " Answer; that her majesty gave to the South-sea company the assiento or contract she obtained from the catholic king, for importing negroes into the Spanish West Indies; and her majesty has since thought it necessary for their further encouragement and for removing difficulties in the carrying on that beneficial trade to grant them the fourth part in the said contract reserved to herself; her majesty being of opinion, that the encouragement of trade will best enable her subjects to discharge the debts of the nation: as to the other reservations of an inferior nature which may have been under negotiation; if they are obtained her majesty will make such disposition of them as she shall judge proper for her service.

" That the revenues of the island of Minorca and the rents of the houses of Gibraltar might be applied towards the maintenance and support of the several garrisons of those places; and that her majesty was pleased to say, that a survey has been taken, by her majesty's direction, of the island of Minorca, in order to make the possession thereof beneficial to this kingdom; and her majesty will take care that the revenues of Minorca and the rents of the houses at Gibraltar shall be applied for the public service:

"A motion being made, and the question being put, that an humble address be presented to her majesty to return the humble thanks of this House, for the encouragement which she has given to trade by granting to the South-Sea company the fourth part of the assiento contract, reserved to her majesty in order to their immediate carrying on that trade; and to assure her majesty, that this House will entirely acquiesce in all such dispositions of the future advantages which her majesty shall obtain, as she shall think proper for the benefit and increase of trade.

" The House divided.

" The yeas go forth.

" So it was resolved in the affirmative."

Now here I conceive that we have a full and applicable precedent. A certain portion of money granted by treaty is reserved by the Crown for its own disposal. A tory House of Commons protest against the claim. With all the forms of due civility and respect, but substantially as an assertion of right, they demand that the money should be applied to a specific public service. The revenue of Minorca, and even the rents of houses at Gibraltar, they unanimously claimed as public money, and destined to its proper application. Will it be said that this was merely an applica- tion to the favour of the queen? I hop any one who ventures so to describe it, will be pleased to produce a similar instance of a parliamentary application to the Crown, for the application of part of its acknowledged personal revenue in aid of the public service. I must also call on them to explain the queen's answer. It contains no saving of her right, no insinuation that the grant was matter of bounty, no protestation against the act being drawn into precedent. It is a simple assurance that the produce of the assiento had in fact been applied as the House desired. It contains an express promise to apply the revenues of Gibraltar and Minorca as they pointed out. Nothing can be more decisive than the admissions in the context of that promise. The island of Minorca is to be made not lucrative to the Crown, but " beneficial to the kingdom." The absence of all objections to the principle of parliamentary interference is, in the queen's message, rendered more conspicuous by a little peevish and ambiguous pretension; with respect to " reservations of an inferior nature," of which the queen says " she will make such disposition as she shall judge proper for her service." The House answer " that they will acquiesce" in such disposal of these inferior advantages " as she shall think proper for the benefit and increase of trade." The word " acquiesce" is, I conceive, of itself decisive of this question. It is clear that they, who say that they acquiesce, must have thought that they had a right to refuse their acquiescence. A word of such distinct import, so guarded, and in intercourse with the sovereign so unusually high, could not have been employed without design, nor chosen for any other purpose than that of asserting their right. But even the acquiescence was not undistinguishing. Before they acquiesce in the queen's intentions, respecting the disposal of monies to accrue in future, they choose to limit the natural import of the language of her answer. They do not acquiesce in such disposal " as she shall judge proper for her service," but in such " as she shall think proper for the benefit and increase of trade," that is, in such an application as she had made of the assiento, which the House had already approved. Even this address was approved by no great majority. A minority of one hundred and thirty-nine under sir Robert Walpole and Mr. Pulteney, long afterwards celebrated opponents, but then contending at a most critical moment, for the preservation of liberty, were dissatisfied with the address, evidently because they did not think it a sufficient condemnation of any claim of the Crown, however ambiguous, to the slightest pecuniary advantage arising by treaty. The subsequent history of the assiento is well known, and in the conventions between Great Britain and Spain in 1739 and 1750,—it is stipulated, that his Britannic majesty shall receive certain sums in one case " for the satisfaction of the demands of British subjects on the crown of Spain," and in the other for the South Sea company. In like manner, the treaty with the United States of America in 1794, and the convention with the same republic in 1802, specify the class of British subjects on account of whom his majesty receives the sums of money therein stipulated.

The only remaining parliamentary precedent which I shall cite, is both peculiarly applicable and eminently entitled to respect. It is to be found in our journals in the months of January and March, 1765, and relates to a composition offered by France for the maintenance of the French prisoners of war during the seven years war. On the 15th of January, 1765, Mr. Grenville, then chancellor of the exchequer, brought down the following message from the throne:—

Jan. 15, 1765. " His majesty having received from the ambassador of the most christian king, a declaration made by order of his court, containing a proposal for the more speedy settlement of the accounts concerning the subsistence and maintenance of prisoners of war, and for the discharge of the balance clue thereon, is desirous, as the parliament is now sitting, to know the sense of his faithful Commons before he takes his final resolution upon this subject: and has therefore ordered a copy of the above-mentioned declaration, together with the accounts referred to therein, to be laid before the House of Commons."

To this the House returned the following answer, on the 2lst of the same month, advising the king to accept the composition offered by the government of France.

Jan. 21, 1765. " Resolved, nemine contradicente, That an humble address be presented to his majesty, to return the unfeigned thanks of this House, for his most gracious message; and to represent to his majesty, that having taken into our consideration the state and nature of the accounts communicated to this House by his majesty, and the difficulties and delay which must necessarily attend a complete liquidation of them; we are humbly of opinion that it will be most advisable for his majesty to accept the proposal contained in the declaration made by the French ambassador, for the more speedy satisfaction of his majesty's demands upon account of the subsistence and maintenance of the French prisoners of war."

On the 22nd of March, in the same year, the convention of France, and the following certificate was laid before the House, conformably to the advice which they had given.

March 22, 1765. "Certificate of the money paid into the receipt of his majesty's exchequer, by William lord viscount Barrington, in part of the sum due from the French king, for the maintenance of the late French prisoners of war.

" These are to certify, that the money paid into the receipt of his majesty's exchequer by the right hon. William lord viscount Barrington received by him of the French ambassador, in part of six hundred and seventy thousand pounds due from the French king, for the maintenance of the late French prisoners of war, amounts to the sum of one hundred and seventy-six thousand pounds. LINCOLN." Nothing, I think, can be more decisive than this case. Every thing was regularly transacted, in the common course of business, as if the right of parliament over monies thus accruing, was an acknowledged part of the ordinary system of office. The Crown makes no reservation of right. The minister makes no display, of the liberality. The House returns no thanks as for an act of unexpected bounty and extraordinary grace. Every matter relating to this sum of money was as much submitted to the House, as if it had been granted by themselves. They were consulted with respect to the amount of the composition. Their determination was carried into execution. The money was paid into the exchequer, and consequently, without the necessity of express words, taken as a matter of course to be the money of the public; and a certificate of the payment was immediately communicated to the House of Commons. Lord Barrington, then treasurer of the navy, receives it from the French minister, be- cause the maintenance of prisoners had been in his department, and lord Lincoln, the teller of the exchequer, attests its payment there. This measure was adopted in the administration of Mr. Grenville, a man equally acquainted with the principles of the constitution, and with the usage of office—long conversant with the practice of the exchequer, and though of unsuspected attachment to public liberty, utterly incapable of doing any act as a minister, which might create an unobserved precedent, or even presumption against a prerogative of the Crown. This justice I feel to be particularly due to him i from me, because I disapprove and lament the leading measure of his administration. And I should have done injustice to the precedent which I consider as of such respectable authority, if I had not reminded the House of the character of the minister who conducted it.

"Exchequer the 19th day of March 1765."

Though I have found no other parliamentary proceedings directly relating to this question since the revolution, there are a whole series of statutes which seem to me to establish the same principle. I mean, all the statutes during the present reign, for the payment of a pecuniary indemnity by the East India company, when their commercial monopoly has been renewed, and when their occupancy of the territories and possessions in India has been continued. On every one of these renewals some such valuable consideration was required from the company as the price of their trade and dominion. What part of them have been actually paid, is a question which does not affect the present argument. The statute of the 7th of George 3rd, chap. 57, which I believe is the earliest of this sort, is thus intituled, " An act for establishing an agreement of contra payment of the annual sum of 400,000l. by the East India company, in respect of the territorial acquisitions and revenues lately obtained in the East Indies." The preamble recites, " that the company have offered to pay, for the benefit of the public," this sum;—and it farther states the public advantage of such an agreement, " in regard of the said territorial acquisitions and revenues." The first section enacts that they shall make such payment. The second that " the territorial acquisitions shall remain in possession of the company during the said term of two years," and the third, that if the company are dispossessed of any part of the territorial acquisitions," a proportionable abatement shall be made in the annual payment. The ninth of George 3rd, chap. 20 continues the agreement for live years, during which "the territorial acquisitions are to remain in possession of the company;" and the third section directs, " that the monies paid into the receipt of his majesty's exchequer in pursuance of this act shall be there reserved to be disposed and appropriated by parliament" I shall only quote one more of these statutes;—it is the 21st George 1st, chap. 65, of which the rubric is almost sufficient for my purpose; it is intituled " An act"—for—" the payment of 400,000l. for the use of the public in discharge of all claims and demands of the public in repect of the territorial acquisitions, &c."

The preamble recites," that the company are willing that the public should participate with them in the profits arising from the territorial acquisitions" and offer to pay 400,000l. " into his majesty's exchequer in discharge of the claims of the public. The first section enacts, that this payment shall be made into the receipt of his majesty's exchequer for the use of the public;" and that if there be failure, the money may be recovered for his majesty's use:" the ninth and tenth sections also direct payments to be made " into his majesty's exchequer for the use of the public " and the eleventh section directs the parts of revenue reserved for the use of the public to be paid into the " receipt of his majesty's exchequer, for his majesty's use."

The House must have already gone before me to the conclusion from the language and provisions of these statutes. It is a universal principle of law that all conquests made by subjects in war, become vested in the state. By our law the king in this case exercises the rights of the state. The territories acquired by the East India company, agreeably to these principles, were annexed to the Crown. The administration of these territories was, indeed, left to the company, on the real or supposed grounds of public utility. But they were required to make an annual compensation for the territory which they occupied. To whom? To the king? no otherwise than as a mere formality—expressly for the use of the public. Here then is the broad principle. All money paid for territory is paid for the use of the public. It matters not whether it be for the temporary occupation as in India, or for the perpetual redemption as in the French indemnities. In both cases alike the king receives, the I king recovers if there be failure: but he receives and recovers for the state, and on account of the people whose trustee and steward he is. Compensation for Indian territory is declared to be disposable by parliament. I desire only to apply the same principle to french territory. I am unable to discover any shadow of distinction. These statutes also put to flight all the petty technical sophistry which may be founded on the mere phraseology of law. If it be said that these monies pertain to the king beeause they are ceded to him, because they are paid into his exchequer, because he is to compel their reimbursement if it be withheld; I answer that in all these points, the French indemnity precisely resembles the Indian. The last is even in one place said to be for the " use of his majesty;" but it is nevertheless clearly shown, and indeed expressly pronounced, to be, " for the use of the public," and at the disposal of parliament.

Both these statutes and the measure of Mr. Grenville's administration, have the peculiar advantage of being subsequent to the civil list act, passed at the commencement of the present reign. On questions relating to droits of admiralty, it has been said, that as the Crown, in that act, expressly surrendered many other sources of revenue, without any surrender of these droits, it must be taken to have preserved its right to them. This, I own, is not my view of the subject. In the constitutional interpretation of a statute which is to regulate the relations of the king to his people, I think such a construction illiberal and unreasonable. The true construction I think rather to be, that the king in consideration of the civil list, then established, relinquishes all branches of his former revenue not expressly reserved. This is more particularly reasonable in these cases of ungranted booty. When the expenses of war were defrayed by the Crown from its patrimonial revenue, it seemed just that in the Crown also all the profits of war should vest. But now that the expenses of war are defrayed by the public, it is of the very same reason just that the profits of war should fall to the public also. It often, however, happens that a disposition of law may be preserved by usage, by adjudged cases, by statutes, and by other authorities which are legally irresistible long after its ancient and only reason has ceased to exist.

Those who on this or similar reasoning find themselves precluded from treating the droits of admiralty as purely public property, will feel no such difficulty respecting pecuniary indemnity for territory. The case under Mr. Grenville and the statutes respecting India, both since the civil list act, manifest the sense of parliament, that pecuniary indemnities never were held to be in the Crown in any manner, or to any extent, otherwise than as an accountable trustee for the public. There is no adverse usage, or decisions to embarrass our constitutional principles on the subject of indemnities. At least I know of none—and if any be produced on the other side I will tell them what usage will alone satisfy me. It must be founded on many instances, derived from good times, generally known, openly discussed, at length recognized by competent authority. It must not be drawn from a stigmatized transaction like the sale of Dunkirk;—it must not be dependent on the maxims of tyrannical times, or on a disgraceful confederacy of the king with the judges against the nation like the claim of ship money—it must not rest on the private opinion of a lawyer, like that of sir Edward Northey, about aliens, cited some nights ago. It would not be sufficient to quote any clandestine practice of office, however long, in the best times, and under the best men. Such a practice had not been powerful enough to save general warrants from condemnation!—I am bound to confess, Sir, that I cannot conclude with the common profession of candour, that if I am in error, I shall rejoice that I am convinced of it. On the contrary, I shall deeply deplore the discovery of so great a defect in the constitution, and of so weak a point in the most important defences of public liberty. I may still, however, have one cause for rejoicing. If the constitution be really so exposed—if the law be adverse to the principles for which I have contended, I trust that the House as soon as so enormous an evil is disclosed to them, will apply all their faculties to the discovery of a remedy.

The hon. and learned gentleman then moved the following Resolutions:

1. " That it appears to this House, that a sum of 700,000l. sterling has been paid by France to this country since the month of October 1815, in lieu of the revenue of the districts occupied by the British army, and for the equipments of the said army.

2. " That it appears to this House that, by the fourth article of the definitive treaty of peace signed at Paris on the 20th day of November 1815, and by conventions between the allied powers bearing date on the same day, the share of Great Britain in the pecuniary part of the indemnity due from France to the allies was fixed at the sum of 4,166,666l. sterling, payable by instalments in five years, out of which there have been already paid by France 208,333l. sterling.

3. " That it appears to this House, that the sum contributed by the king of France, agreeably to the said treaty, for the pay and expense of the British army of occupation, is so inadequate to its actual charge that, even with the addition of the money received as indemnity, it will leave, at the end of three years, a considerable balance to be paid by Great Britain, and that it depends on the contingency of the continuance of peace for five years, whether at the end of that period this country shall receive half a million instead of four millions, held out by the treaty as a pecuniary compensation for the services and sufferings of the British nation.

"4. " That it appears to this House, that, by the 5th article of a minute of conferences between the ministers of the allied powers at Paris, it is agreed that a sum nearly equivalent to 1,004,000l. sterling shall be allotted to Great Britain in consideration of the burthen of the war having been borne, and the city of Paris having been taken, by the armies under the duke of Wellington and prince Blucher; being in substance a donative from the allied sovereigns to a British army, in which the Crown of Great Britain is made a trustee to distribute the bounty of foreign princes among his majesty's troops.

"5. " That it appears to this House, that all the monies hitherto received from France have been paid into the military chest of the British army of occupation, except two sums amounting to nearly 10,500l. sterling, out of the sums paid by France as indemnity, which, agreeably to the letter of the lords commissioners of his majesty's treasury of the 26th day of December 1815, were paid to the chevalier Antonio Canova, towards the erection of a monument to the late cardinal of York at Rome, and to assist in defraying the charge of conveying the works of art restored to the pope from Paris to that city.

"6. " That the application of any part of monies granted by treaty as a national indemnity, to other purposes than those of public service, without the privity and advice of parliament, avowedly made upon principles which extend to the whole of these sums, and to all future grants of a like nature, appears to this House not to be warranted by any approved usage of this realm, and if drawn into precedent to have a tendency to impair the value of the exclusive privilege of the Commons House of Parliament to grant supplies to the Crown."

The question being put upon the first Resolution,

rose. He said, that the hon. and learned gentleman who had just sat down, having repeatedly appealed to him in the course of his speech, he felt himself called upon to reply as shortly as possible to the arguments on which the hon. and learned gentleman supported the resolutions now before the House. It seemed to be admitted by the hon. and learned gentleman, that in point of strict law all that had been done was perfectly justifiable, as he had dextrously abstained from entering into the law upon the subject. He had rested his argument intirely on what he called constitutional grounds, and it was impossible not to remark the dexterity with which he had avoided a question capable of being brought to a distinct decision by reference to legal authorities and precedents of former practice, to involve himself in references of vague and obscure analogy to what he chose to consider as principles of the constitution. In the stricter and more precise view which he (the chancellor of the exchequer), wished to take of the case, it was important to distinguish between the different questions which arose out of it. The hon. and learned gentleman did not sufficiently attend to the distinction between the contributions paid by France before the treaty of peace, and those to the payment of which she was now bound by the treaty. As to the payments made before the treaty, they were to be considered as booty of war. He could view them in no other light than as a ransom paid by the king of France for the rescue of certain provinces from those charges which, by the ordinary laws of war, might have been imposed upon them by the allied army. At all times it had been allowed that contributions levied from conquered provinces, jure belli, belong to the sovereign; and therefore it appeared to him clear that whatever sums were raised in France during the war, or in consequence of contributions imposed before the signature of the treaty of peace, were at the disposal of the crown as booty, subject to that responsibility which the ministers of the Crown always owe for the just and wise application of its revenues. As to that part of the subject which related to the payments to be made by France during the stay of the allied armies in France, in pursuance of the treaty of peace, the question was different. The hon. and learned gentleman had insisted very much on the payment of the two small sums, for the expense of carrying the works of art from Paris to Rome, and for a monument to the last surviving heir of the house of Stuart. It was certainly true, with respect to these sums, that the treasury minute stated that these two sums were to be paid out of the military chest; but it was quite evident that it alluded to what was paid before the signature of the treaty; because they were paid before any sum could possibly be received pursuant to the treaty. This explanation consequently relieved the transaction as to any ambiguity with respect to the fund from which these sums were to be taken. Therefore the argument of the hon. and learned gentleman, as applied to this part of the subject, in so far as it went against the strict legality of the application of the grant, must entirely fail.

The hon. and learned gentleman had stated, that he (the chancellor of the exchequer) contended that the whole sums payable, or paid, both before and after the signature of the treaty, were alike droits of the Crown, and applicable as the sovereign might please to direct. For his own part, he utterly denied this. He had used no such argument. On the contrary, early in the session, he had informed the House, that the Prince Regent had directed all the sums received from France to be applied to the public service, and would direct all future sums so to be applied. He had never said, nor meant to say, that those sums to be paid in consequence of the treaty, in any sense of the word, were droits of the Crown. In a war such as that in which the country had been engaged, and terminated by such a peace, there might be a great difficulty to find any precedent which would be exactly analogous with respect to the application of such a sum as that paid before the treaty, though he had no doubt, upon consideration, of the legal principles and authorities which seemed to him to govern the question, that they were to be considered as booty disposable by the Crown. But as to the sums paid after the treaty of peace, there could be no doubt entertained that the sovereign received these sums in right of the nation, and subject at the same time to the terms of the treaty under which they are paid [Hear, hear!]. Unquestionably the sum was paid to the nation in consideration of the losses sustained by it during the war, and it was the duty of the sovereign to see it applied to the national service. As to this, he could only assure the House, that the application of these sums to the public service was as much intended as in the case of any supply voted by parliament during the war. Questions might arise as to whether it would be more advantageous to lay out this money in rebuilding fortresses destroyed during the war; in restoring a district laid waste; or whether to relieve the public from the contribution of new sums to the service of the state. But in whatever way applied, still it was for the public service, and as an indemnity to the public.

Thus far, then, a great part of the subject was disposed of. But as to the application of these sums, the hon. and learned gentleman had raised several questions on which it would be necessary to say a few words. First, the hon. and learned gentleman supposed that the sum was inadequate to the support of the army. Whether the payment was adequate or not, in a constitutional point of view, was of no importance. But even if it was not adequate, as far as it would go it could not be applied in any better way than in defraying part of the expenses of maintaining the army. All that had been said upon this was, that it appeared from the most correct estimates that the income derived from the contributions would be equal to the expenditure. It appeared by the accounts upon the table, that about 600,000l. sterling would be received for the year 1816; but in the course of the ensuing year more than 1,500,000l. in different instalments, under the head of indemnity and allowances for the expenses of the army. At the end of the five years there would be an estimated surplus of 500,000l. sterling, after defraying the whole expense of the army of observation, and the intended donation to the troops engaged in the battle of Waterloo, and the capture of Paris. On this branch of the subject he would insist no farther. A more material part was that which related to the sum alleged by the hon. and learned gentleman to be given as a donation by foreign powers to the British army. If it had been intended that this sum should be a gift from foreign powers to the army, he admitted it might be matter of great jealousy to the House. But it was only necessary to look over the convention, to see that this supposition was very remote from the truth. In consequence of the extraordinary exertions made by the British and Prussian troops, somewhat more than 1,000,000l. was appropriated by the several powers, to be reserved out of the contributions not as a gift to the armies of Great. Britain and Prussia but to the nations as represented by their respective sovereigns. Therefore, if the armies of Great Britain and Prussia got any sum, they would owe it entirely to the bounty of their own sovereigns. The sum was not taken by the governments of Prussia or of Great Britain with any pledge to grant it to the army, whatever their intentions might be on this subject. The hon. and learned gentleman had stated, that the case of this money was perfectly unlike donations of booty in former times; but it was not easy to discover on what principle the hon. and learned gentleman discriminated between these two cases. It was certainly true that the sum now in question was very large, but however large, it was not greater than had been obtained by the army at the capture of St. Eustatia and of Java. Indeed he would say, as to this, that there never was a case in which such a grant was more hardly earned, nor in which (comparing the circumstances) it was more moderate.

The hon. and learned gentleman had, after dismissing what he called his constitutional objections, cited precedents, and there were two of these on which he principally stood. As to the precedent of 1714, respecting the address of the House on the subject of the assiento treaty—(and here he could not but express his surprise that the hon. and learned gentleman should have mentioned that contract without expressing the horror which every good man must feel at recollecting, that it was a contract by which this country reserved to itself a participation in the profits, of an extensive slave trade),—the House had certainly, on that occasion sent an address to the Crown; but what was the nature of that address? An address praying that the money might be employed for the public service, and in discharge of the debts of the nation. Now, if the sum had been one to which the House of Commons considered itself as strictly entitled, they would not have been contented with agreeing to such an address, but would have voted a censure upon the minister who had advised the Crown to dispose of it without the consent of parliament. And the queen's answer too, by stating how she had applied the money showed that her majesty conceived that she had a right to apply the money in the way she thought fit for the public service. And as to the smaller sums mentioned in the address, the reply of the queen was still more guarded, it being that " her majesty would apply them in the way she should judge most beneficial for her service." This precedent then instead of proving any thing for the argument of the hon. and learned gentleman, proved no more than that the House had interfered to prevent any misapplication or abuse in the exercise of the right of the Crown. The other precedent quoted by the hon. and learned gentleman was still less applicable: it related to the arrangements made at the peace of 1763, respecting the balance for the maintenance of prisoners of war between this country and France. This country had a claim to the amount of 900,000l. and agreed to accept 700,000l. as a full compensation—not as an indemnity—not as a contribution—not as a ransom—but as a strict settlement of account between the two nations. There was no doubt how the money was to be applied, because it was in fact a mere repayment of the parliamentary money expended in the maintenance of prisoners. Nothing, therefore, in that case could be more constitutional than the conduct of Mr. Grenville, in bringing down a message to parliament upon the subject. This was unquestionably an excellent constitutional precedent, but really in the present case it was quite inapplicable. [Hear, hear!] As to the other precedent quoted respecting the territorial privileges of the East India Company, the hon. and learned gentleman had been as little successful. The hon. and learned gentleman admitted that the territory belonged to the Crown; but then the charter of the East India company comprehended much more than the mere regulations with respect to ter- ritory; it contained a vast variety of privileges which parliament allowed and confirmed to that company, and it was therefore certainly to parliament that the pecuniary compensation for these privileges belonged.

Nothing, therefore, could be more irrelevant than the whole of the cases cited by the hon. and learned gentleman; and of this, indeed, he had himself seemed sensible, by deprecating all quotations and authorities on such a question. The great dependence of the hon. and learned gentleman was on the constitutional principle of the dependence of the Crown upon parliament for money; and going upon this principle, he affected a great alarm at all sums received by the Crown unless through parliament, as tending to make the Crown independent on parliament for supplies. What, then, was the amount of the sum in the present case on which the hon. and learned gentleman founded his apprehensions? It was truly upon the sum of 5,000,000l. to be received by the Crown within five years! But last year parliament had all at once, by a vote of credit, placed at the disposal of the Crown 6,000,000l. to be expended within one year. The hon. and learned gentleman then asserted, that it was to be feared, that future ministers, acting upon the present case as a precedent, might sell for money the territorial acquisitions of the country. On this point, he could only say, that if such a minister should ever exist, he must be the basest of mankind. But then, in estimating the weight of such a fear, it was not to be forgotten that it was no easy thing to force a foreign country to raise those contributions by which only money could be paid to hostile powers. Such instances had rarely occurred in history, and scarcely ever in modern times, till that most extraordinary and eventful period in which we were lately placed. There could be nothing like the cases mentioned by the hon. and learned gentleman which had occurred in the reign of Charles 2nd, which were private stipulations; but these must be on the face of a treaty, and then it would be subject to the control of parliament, which could make it completely ineffectual. In the present case, the British army in France was as completely under the control of parliament as ever; it was supplied by vote from the House—the mutiny bill was passed for its regulation—it was under rigorous discipline—in short, it was as completely under the control of parliament as any British army had ever been. As to the allusion made by the hon. and learned gentleman to the sale of Dunkirk, it was to be observed, that that was a transaction which had not taken place at the conclusion of a treaty of peace, but during profound peace. He, however, entirely concurred with the hon. and learned gentleman in condemning that transaction as infamous and disgraceful to the government. He admitted, that in all cases like the present, the sovereign received the money only as the steward of the nation; and that, under general powers, the sovereign must apply it, subject to the control of parliament; and that the Crown was bound to account for the whole sum received. In point of application, the case resembled the surplus of a parliamentary grant, which of course was accounted for to parliament. The sovereign, in all transactions with foreign states, represented the nation, and acted as its trustee; as such, declares war, makes peace, and enters into treaties. This prerogative, like all others, and amongst the rest, like the privileges of parliament, might be abused. But then the power was not to be refused, because its abuse was possible. It was for parliament, in its wisdom, to watch; and, in its justice, to punish any deviation from its due exercise. As in the present case there was no such deviation, he must meet the motion of the hon. and learned gentleman, by moving the previous question.

observed, that the sole object of his hon. and learned friend had been to establish certain principles which it now appeared were fully conceded by his majesty's ministers. The proposition maintained in his hon. and learned friend's admirable speech was the ground assumed by the right hon. gentleman, namely, that the funds in question were not received in right of the Crown, but for the purpose of being applied to the service of the public. This admission narrowed the question very considerably, and brought them to the consideration of what was the best practical use which could be made of it. The right hon. gentleman had talked of the statement made by ministers of their intentions; but a statement in debate was no statement at all to the House, and could be made satisfactorily by no other means than by a message from the throne. This was the course pursued by Mr. Pitt, when he informed parliament of the intention of the Crown to apply a million of the proceeds of the Dutch prizes to the service of the year. The right hon. gentleman assured them that all this money would be properly applied; but was not this rather an irregular mode of proceeding. Would it not be much better to have it paid into the exchequer, and again granted out by parliament? Here was a sum of five millions paid in time of peace as an indemnity to this country, and locked up in the chest of the military paymaster. Was it not too much to trust to the discretion of an individual whom the House did not know, that he would expend all this money to the advantage of the country? He was not aware that the whole amount was to be reserved for military purposes; he had understood that it was partly to be regarded as national indemnity. The noble lord had on a former occasion taken great credit to himself for extracting this indemnity from prostrate and degraded France; and now the result was, that the whole was to be consumed by a British army placed on the frontiers to keep the Bourbons on the throne. This was truly not a very consoling reflexion to a nation boutiquiere, as we had been called. The peace had been termed a triumphant one, but the triumph was only in arms: it belonged not to the noble lord in any degree; at least he was not aware that the noble lord had ever taken up the sword. He was no great admirer of the sort of candour which had been exhibited on the other side in the course of the debate, because it seemed to him to proceed from a consciousness that they had no other ground to stand on, and to have been extorted from them by the object of his hon. and learned friend's motion. The erection of a monument to cardinal York, the expense of which was defrayed out of this money, tended to increase his suspicions, and to prove the necessity of preventing misconstruction in future. With all his admiration of the noble lord's powers of countenance, he did not believe the noble lord could have assumed gravity enough to have come down to the House, and recommend such a vote. He should have thought it a sufficient monument to the cardinal's memory that he was one of a family which had been driven from the throne of a realm which they had misgoverned. When he was told, however, that the money was all applied to military purposes, he had a right to say, here is a part of it otherwise applied. A sum of two millions, it appeared, was to be divided between the English and Prussian armies, by the surrender of their respective shares by Austria and Russia. He was perfectly ready to admit that our army at Waterloo had well merited the gratitude of their country, but it was rather hard on those who had had an equal share of service, but did not happen to be present in that particular engagement, that they should be excluded from an equal share. In every point of view the money ought to have been first sent to the exchequer. They were told, indeed, that the sovereign was here acting in the character of a steward. Suppose, then, a steward were to write to his principal, acquainting him that he had received 10,000l. on his account, and that he would inform him of its application as soon as he had expended it, which he was in the fair way of doing, would not the principal be disposed to say, " It is true you may employ it in the purchase of ploughs and harrows, and other very necessary articles, but I would rather manage these transactions myself." Viewing, therefore, the course that had been pursued, though not with suspicion, yet with jealousy, he should certainly support the resolutions of his hon. and learned friend.

thought it impossible that a clearer and more satisfactory explanation could have been produced than that given by his right hon. friend the chancellor of the exchequer to the House. No greater tribute could be paid to its merits than the attempt to answer it made by the right hon. gentleman opposite, who had flown off entirely from the question. As to the application of the money, the subject had already been amply discussed when the treaties were laid before parliament, and had received its approbation. The army grants had been already voted, and the amount of those sums would be deducted from the supplies to be produced for the service of the year. They had not been detailed in the ways and means, because they were not levied from the people, but the vote of supplies would be lessened in proportion to their amount. He repeated his former statement respecting the reasons which had induced the Prince Regent to join in the erection of a monument to Cardinal York. The sum, however applied to that purpose had not been taken out of the funds intended for the public service, but out of those which remained distinctly under the power of the Crown. As to the relinquishment by Russia and Austria of their respective shares, it was in order that the armies who had fought the battles should be properly remunerated out of a regular contribution, instead of the irregular one imposed on Paris by marshal Blucher, at the arrival of the English and Prussian armies at that capital. But the troops could not receive these sums before they had come into the hands of the Crown; and it was well understood, that they could only be applied to the public service.

thought the House much indebted to his hon. and learned friend for having so ably brought this subject under its consideration. He had no doubt, from what fell from ministers at the commencement of the session, that it was their intention to claim the whole as the property of the Crown. They had, however, found their original view to be inaccurate, and were at length compelled to embrace a more constitutional doctrine. He admired the revolution as much as any man, but a great deal had been done by parliament and the people before that event. In 1674 or 1676, in the reign of Charles 2nd, himself, the House of Commons voted, that they were the only branch of the legislature which could originate or apply grants of money. The spirit was already in existence which at length, on finding that no faith could be placed in the reigning family, expelled from the throne the Stuarts, whose best monument was to be found in the history of their country. No writer had contributed so much to a misapprehension of the true character of the English government, prior to the Revolution, as Mr. Hume, who was undoubtedly a fine writer, but whose speculations on that subject were equally ignorant and shallow.

shortly replied. He congratulated the House on the language now held, respecting indemnities by the chancellor of the exchequer, and he could only appeal to the recollection of the House, whether it was not diametrically opposite to the doctrine maintained on that subject at the opening of the session. Then, the word " droits" was applied equally to all the monies payable by France. Now, the chancellor of the exchequer reprehended those who did not distinguish between different parts of them as regulated by opposite principles, Now, the indemnity at least is admitted to be for the use of the public, and at the disposal of parliament. Then, credit was taken for the liberality with which government granted the whole sums (not excluding the indemnity) for the exigencies of public service. Still however, he (sir James) must congratulate himself on having obtained his object. He had obtained a disavowal of dangerous pretensions which he might now hope would never again raise their head. One singular inconsistency ran through the speech of the right hon. gentleman; while he adopted the same conclusion with him (sir James) he rejected all the premises from which it was inferred. He agreed that the indemnity was public money; but not on grounds of constitutional principle. These were vague and obscure; not because it would be mischievous to hold otherwise, for the sum was too paltry (only five or six millions) ever to be dangerous—not on the authority of precedents, for those which had cited, were condemned as inapplicable if not adverse. The reason and authority were rejected, and no others offered in their stead. The chancellor of the exchequer was indignant, that he should be supposed to doubt the public claim to the indemnity. But as the case now stood, his opinion of that claim rested neither on authority nor argument. He had employed his speech in cutting away the foundations of his opinion—all that remained for him (sir James) to do was to vindicate the chancellor of the exchequer's opinion, in which he was happy to concur, against his arguments, which it was fortunate might be so shortly answered. The precedent of 1714, the chancellor of the exchequer thought almost adverse. And why? Because if the money had been regarded as public money, the House of Commons would have proceeded criminally against the minister who had misapplied it. But the truth was, the House knew nothing of its application; they knew only that it was reserved for the Crown in the convention, and without waiting to see whether the liberality of the Crown would bestow it on the public, they immediately desired that it might be applied to a specific service. The right hon. gentleman in this part of the argument, fell into a flagrant inconsistency. According to his own principles this evening, money granted as a compensation by treaty, whether by allies or enemies, was received by the Crown merely as trustee for the public. And yet he contended that the House of Commons of 1714 thought otherwise. He (sir James) was happy to replace that precedent as a part of the foundation of the opinion common to him with the right hon. gentleman, which that gentleman had unadvisedly endeavoured to remove. The case of 1765 is no precedent. Why? Because the money for the maintenance of French prisoners having been voted by parliament, the mode pursued in that case, was the proper form for the reimbursement of a parliamentary grant. A composition paid for the maintenance of prisoners was accounted for to parliament, because parliament had maintained the prisoners. And precisely in the same way ought not the compensation for the expenses of war to be placed at the disposal of the parliament which had defrayed these expenses? The One was a reimbursement for one branch of the expense of war, which had been paid by parliament—the other for any part of the same expenses which had been defrayed in the same manner? There was absolutely no difference but in the magnitude. And in order to distinguish the cases, the right hon. gentleman must discover a principle which requires, that a small indemnity should be received for the public, and a great indemnity should be at the disposal of the Crown.—The right hon. gentleman had objected to the case of the East Indian statutes—that there the money was placed at the disposal of parliament; because the statutes related not only to territory, but to other objects, such as commercial monopoly, which parliament only could establish. But this assertion was made in defiance of the statutes themselves; in every one of them the payment is expressly made in consideration of the territorial possessions; it has no concern with commerce, and no dependance on it; it was never required during that long period, when the company was exclusively a commercial body, and carried on a commerce much more lucrative than they have enjoyed since they became great sovereigns. The occupation is to last during the payment. If the revenues of the territory be lessened, the payment is in that proportion to be abated. It was therefore solely a compensation for territory; and as such it was received by the king only for the use of the public.

Fluctuating and indistinct as the language of the right hon. gentleman had been, his principles must have led to a condemnation of his acts, if he had not stated these acts in a manner not justified by the documents before the House. He had not pretended that the conveyance of the works of art, or the tomb of the cardinal of York, were objects of public service. Neither had he ventured to maintain, that the produce of the indemnity could be applied to any other than to objects of public service. He was therefore reduced to the necessity of asserting, that these expenses had not been defrayed from the indemnities. But it was only necessary once more to refer to the letter from the Treasury of the 26th of December, in which they are expressly directed to be paid out of the indemnities paid by France under the late treaties.—All farther argument on this point was useless.

On the whole he conceived that he had established a right in the public, and a violation of that right by the government. The first was admitted; and the second was he thought demonstrated. After the admission of the first, he considered the object of his motion as attained, and was more indifferent about its issue in point of form: but, pursuing to the last his task of vindicating the chancellor of the exchequer against his own inconsistencies, he should rather choose to see that right hon. gentleman's principles preserved by these Resolutions on the Records of the House, than abandoned to those chances of oblivion or misconception, to which they were liable in their present state.

The previous question was then put on the several resolutions separately, and carried without a division.

rose for the purpose of moving that an inquiry be instituted into the mode of managing the estates belonging to Greenwich-hospital. A variety of papers had, he said, been produced to parliament, which showed how much of the gross revenue of these estates came into the coffers of the hospital; and it appeared to him that the amount was much smaller than it ought to be, and than it would be under proper management. In confirmation of this, the hon. baronet stated, from the papers which he held in his hand, that, under the head of repairs, rebuilding, fences, &c. a sum of 54,000l. had been laid out on these estates during the last five years, while the gross receipts of the whole were scarcely 40,000. a-year. During the same period, notwithstanding this large outlay, the increase of the gross receipt was only 1,196l. a-year. From the papers it also appeared that the net receipts into the coffers of the hospital formed only between a fourth and a third of the gross produce for the last five years. This was the same as if a gentleman worth 10,000l. a-year in landed property should receive from it an annual income of only 2,700l. It besides appeared that the gross receipts arising from the woods had been, for the last eight years, only 21,000. while the expenditure upon them had been 30,000l.; so that, by their woods, the hospital, instead of gaining, had actually lost 9,000. The law expenses incurred seemed also enormous. This branch of expenditure alone had increased from 700l. to 2,400l. in the course of eight years. The hon. baronet next proceeded to observe, that it was the general opinion in Northumberland and Durham, where these estates lay, that they were corruptly managed. One of the commissioners for their management, the report ran, was a partner in a timber-yard, and hence it had happened that 4,000l. had been spent on foreign timber for repairs, though the hospital had timber enough of its own. It was also the general opinion in that part of the country, that of the two commissioners of management one was unnecessary, and the other obtained his appointment through parliamentary interest. On all these grounds he hoped that an inquiry would be instituted. The House had done a great deal this session towards retrenchment in the public expenditure, and he trusted that they would now adopt the necessary measures for preventing future dilapidations in this important branch of what must be considered as public revenue. He concluded with moving. " That a committee be appointed to inquire into the causes of the difference between the gross and net receipts of the estates of Greenwich hospital, in the counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Durham, as that difference appears by the accounts of those estates which have been laid upon the table of the House, and that the committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records."

contended, that the mere statement of a large sum having been expended on these estates made no primâ facie ease to prove the existence of abuses, particularly if it could be shown that the effect of this outlay had been an increase of the revenue. When he stated that, within these five years, no less than 16,000 acres belonging to these estates had been enclosed, and 10,000 acres converted from pasture to arable, he thought he had said enough to account in some degree for the money which had been expended. The fact was, that, in consequence of the system of improvement that had been followed for years past, the rental had nearly doubled. In 1805 it was only 23,000l., and now it was 43,000l. He would ask whether this was not a pretty good return for the sums laid out. They were in fact an expense laid out advisedly, and on the recommendation of Mr. Harrison, a respectable surveyor, who viewed them in 1805. The effect of the system of draining, fencing, and enclosing, adopted from that period, had been, as he had already stated, to raise the rental from 23,000l. to 43,000l. a year. The hon. baronet stated, that the hospital had lost 9,000. by its woods alone; but then it was to be considered that it had now 4,000 acres of plantation instead of 2,000; and this could not be effected without considerable present expense, though likely to be attended with future profit. The hon. baronet had said, that very large sums of money had been expended in of law charges. Admitting this to be true, they had been expended in the recovery of rights; and he thought he might state, without the least fear of contradiction, that there was hardly a contest in which the hospital had not been successful. The hon. baronet had said, that one of the receivers was perfectly unnecessary. It could be hardly possible, however, that a single one could be adequate to the discharge of the various duties; and he apprehended that the hon. baronet was not aware of the extent of the business to be transacted. But then it was stated, that this gentleman had been chosen merely on account of parliamentary interest. On the contrary, he had always heard that he was recommended by lord St. Vincent, and that he had discharged the duties of his office in the most beneficial manner. It was asserted, that a brother of the other receiver held a farm under Greenwich hospital; but this farm was taken before the appointment, and therefore no favour could have been shown to him. The farms were always let to the highest bidder. From these circumstances, it would appear that the hon. baronet had made a most invidious statement. The sums which had been expended were no doubt very large; but they had been expended in what was conceived to be a very good speculation, and the propriety of the measure had been proved in all the re-lettings of the estate. Last year, a survey of the property had been made by some of the directors, who reported that they were perfectly satisfied. Conceiving, therefore, that there was not the slightest ground for the motion, he should certainly vote against it.

thought there had been a very gross abuse of the rights and interests of the hospital. He would venture to state, that, with respect to the Greenwich hospital estates, and every other estate in the kingdom, land could not be let at the same price which it had produced last year. In common justice to the landed gentlemen of the county of Northumberland, he thought it right to say, that every one had found it necessary to make a reduction of his rental. In his opinion, the expenditure of the hospital in purchasing and enclosing land could never be repaid under any circumstances whatever. A select committee, however, would have an opportunity of inquiring into the revenue of the hospital, and of ascertaining whether the monies had been usefully laid out. He considered that the public interest would be much benefitted by the sale of the estates, and that no one step could lead to that measure but the report of a committee of that House. With respect to the individuals who had managed the estate, he would not offer a single observation against them: they might have lessened the revenue of the hospital, but he believed it had been from an erroneous idea, and not from any improper motives.

said, there was but one point on which the two hon. baronets agreed, namely, that the estates of Greenwich hospital ought to be sold. In 1805 a committee had been appointed to inquire into the improvements that Were recommended, and to form an estimate of the profits that might be expected to result in different years. It was calculated that, in 1813 and 1814 the expenses would be diminished, and the profits increased. In 1815, the income was very considerably improved, and although the rents of farms had fallen in almost every part of the country, yet, upon the whole rental of 43,000l. there would not be a defalcation of 1,500l. a year. This was a tolerably good proof that the estates had been well managed. In point of fact, the rent-roll had been doubled within the last eleven years. Under these circumstances, he thought the hon. baronet had not made out any case of misconduct against the directors of this estate.

said, that if the manager of an estate had not conducted it to the best advantage, it was a sufficient case to inquire into his conduct, although he had not received any bribe, or been influenced by any pecuniary motives.

rose to explain. He did not attribute to the managers of the estate any unworthy motives, but he conceived that, under erroneous ideas, they had laid out more money on the estate than it could ever repay.

said, that the directors seldom attended the court, and the property was not likely to be so well conducted as by being in the hands of those who had nothing else to do. He thought, however, that if this enormous estate were sold, the public would derive very considerable advantages. The expenses attending it were now more than quintuple what they were in 1815. By selling this estate, and the Golden Vale estate, in the island of Jamaica, the directors would have a large sum of money which they must every day stand in need of.

could not conceive what reasons hon. gentlemen had for selling the estates belonging to the hospital. If the lands were sold, the hospital might as well, upon the same principle, be sold with it. With respect to the directors, of whom he had the honour to be one, the House might be assured that they were not of that vacillating description which had been conceived; there were some sturdy fellows among them who could and would attend to the interests of the public.

briefly replied, when the House divided: