The house divided—ayes 140; noes 30. The report being brought up, and several clauses added, the bill, with the amendments, was ordered to be engrossed, and read a third time to-morrow, if then engrossed.

GAMEKEEPERS.

Mr. Pitt brought in a bill for enabling his Majesty to require the personal service of a body of men of the description therein mentioned, which was read a first time.

Mr. Sheridan said, he took it for granted that the bill just brought in was called the gamekeeper's bill. He trusted the chancellor of the exchequer would not press the second reading of it that night. He said he objected wholly to the principle of the bill, as being one totally unknown to the constitution of the country, and of the most dangerous tendency. He particularly wished country gentlemen to have an opportunity of looking into it; for his part, he should, in the strongest manner, oppose it, and should take the sense of the house upon it.

The second reading was deferred till the next day.

NOVEMBER 3.

GAMEKEEPERS.

The order of the day for the second reading of the act relative to gamekeepers being read, Mr. Pitt said that doubts hud been entertained with regard to this measure, and as the gamekeepers, if enrolled, were not intended to be trained, there was no particular reason for pressing the measure forward. He therefore proposed the discussion should be postponed until after the recess he then moved, "That instead of reading the bill now, it be read on the 25th of November.”

MR. SHERIDAN said, if he agreed to this motion, it must be from a conviction that the minister would never think of this bill again. If he did not think the minister had been better advised upon this subject than he was when he brought it forward, and that the house should hear no more of it, he should have moved that this bill be read this day nine months. If the minister would be frank upon the subject, and confess his error upon the matter, he would say nothing upon it; else he should make his motion now. The house had lately heard a good deal about recognizances. If the right hon. gentleman would enter into a cognizance that the house should hear no more of the subject he should be satisfied; otherwise he must proceed to show that the bill was a stigma on the good sense of the house and the nation; a bill of such pernicious and foul principles, he was confident he should persuade the house, if not the minister, to reject with indigna

tion. He had too much esteem for the good sense of the chancellor of the exchequer to believe he was the author of such a bill; somebody must have put into his hand, in the form of a bill, a bad translation of a German romance.

DECEMBER 14.

MR. FOX'S MOTION OF CENSURE ON MINISTERS FOR ADVANCING

MONEY TO THE EMPEROR WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF PARLIAMENT.

Mr. Fox concluded a long and brilliant speech with the following motion :— “That his Majesty's ministers, having authorized and directed at different times, without the consent, and during the sitting of parliament, the issue of various sums of money for the service of his Imperial Majesty, and also for the service of the army under the Prince of Conde, have acted contrary to their duty, and to the trust reposed in them, and have thereby violated the constitutional privileges of this house."

MR. SHERIDAN said, after the manner in which this subject has been debated to-night, I feel it impossible to give a silent vote. To the hon. gentleman behind me (Colonel Gascoigne) I readily yielded precedence, and felt the indulgence usually given to a new speaker, and I carefully abstained from giving any interruption which might add embarrassment to the diffidence natural upon such an occasion. I must confess, however, the speech of that hon. gentleman was not a little singular. He reposed with the utmost confidence upon the truth of my right hon. friend's assertion, that the conduct of ministers, in the matter before the house, was neither consistent with the principles of the constitution, nor supported by precedents in parliament. Impressed with this belief, he had come down to the house determined to commit the absurdity which he had reprobated so much in the conduct of the common hall of the city of London; for, he says, he came down resolved upon the belief he had taken up upon his authority, to vote in favour of the proposition of my right hon. friend. Though, upon the statement of my right hon. friend, he assumed that the conduct of ministers was defended by no precedent, since he has heard the artful representation and the eloquent speech of the right hon. gentleman-for dextrous in point of management, and eloquent in point of manner, it must be admitted to have been-the hon. gentleman has discovered that the sending of money to the emperor, without the consent of parliament,

is a practice not only justified by example, but interwoven with the very spirit of the constitution! It is, indeed, extraordinary that a member of parliament, whose duty it is to have some knowledge of the principles of the constitution and the usages of parliament, should confess he only knew the practice to be unconstitutional upon the assertion that it is unprecedented; and again, that he should so suddenly take it for granted that it is perfectly justifiable without waiting for any reply to what he has heard in its defence. The hon. gentleman, too, in a tone which, in another speaker would be considered as harsh, censures the conduct of my hon. friend (Mr. Combe), for acting agreeably to the instructions of his constituents, and thinks he would have been ready to support any proposition which came from the same quarter. But, while he thus blames my right hon. friend with no small degree of asperity, and without much appearance of diffidence, he says with triumph," I, too, come here to speak the sense of my constituents as well as my own opinion." When he came down, however, perfectly determined to support the proposition of my right hon. friend, how is he now so well acquainted with the sentiments of his constituents? By what means did he contrive to turn so soon the sentiments of his constituents to tally with his change of opinion, and by what new constitutional telegraph has he contrived to procure such rapid information? In truth, sir, I wish the hon. member joy of his conversion, and the minister joy of his convert.

But, to proceed to the real question which is the subject of consideration, before any new propositions are offered, since there are already before the house motions so very different from each other, as must necessarily embrace every variety of opinion. One hon. gentleman (Mr. Bragge), who moved the amendment, is determined to turn every expression of censure into a testimony of approbation. The hon. gentleman behind me (Mr. Nicholls) does not approve of the measures of ministers upon this occasion; but he does not wish to shock the ears of the right hon. gentleman, who is so little pleased to hear his faults displayed, and to see his errors recorded with any bill of indemnity or any implication of censure. He wishes to have a bill enacting that a similar application of the vote of credit shall not in future be made. To this last proposal, I confess, I least of all can agree. I consider it to be a libel upon the constitution—a libel upon our ancestors-to

say it requires the provision of new acts of parliament to declare that the money which the house of commons voted for the purpose of defraying unforeseen charges, and answering a particular species of expenditure, should not be applied to purposes for which it obviously was not intended. The great argument which has converted so many gentlemen, and has had so great weight with the worthy magistrates-(who doubtless felt a just reluctance to condemn unheard, especially a minister to whom they owed so many jobs)—the great argument which has produced such distinguished conversions, and such speedy conviction, is this—that the measure at first deemed so reprehensible, is justified by precedent. It is, however, not a little extraordinary that while precedent so powerfully induces conviction, while it so totally changes the complexion of the measure, it is not to be permitted to pass as an additional corroboration of the practice, nor as an example for future imitation. With all these precedents to which they refer, and which they so readily admit, they do not venture to add the present. It is not to be drawn in precedent. In reality, while they admit the cases which have been urged in justification, they say that the present instance is so superlatively wicked, so scandalous, so dangerous, so fatal in its operation, that it must not be established. It is a stretch beyond all future example, which it is not proper to repeat; it is a rare and singular instance which future parliaments are not to sanction, nor future parliaments to practice.

With regard to the sense of the people collected at common halls, which has been treated so superciliously, I would ask when a meeting is regularly convened for a specific purpose, and their sentiments are properly expressed, why they should not be entitled to respect? The assertions of the worthy alderman (Curtis) that the common hall in the city of London was not regularly conducted, is an unfair reflection upon the chief magistrate, who, had he been a member of the house, would have very emphatically answered such a charge. But if the complaint of the worthy alderman proves anything, it proves that, in the city of London, such was the general disapprobation which the conduct of ministers has excited, that the result of the meeting was obvious; that he might have heard it from the first person he met in the street. I don't know, indeed, by whom the information of the probable result was given to the worthy alderman, whether by

his correspondent, Mr. Massinghi, or the communicative hairdresser. As to the regularity in the calling of the meeting, I am informed that one person-whether properly or improperly, but certainly inconsistently with custom-had not indeed signed the requisition himself, but gave authority for that purpose. But to return to the real point before the house: I cannot help regarding it as a curious circumstance, that so many gentlemen appear to have come down predetermined to support the opinion they had originally adopted. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Bragge) seems to have had his mind previously made up, and his proposition previously arranged. He does not seem to have been aware that a great part of the sums sent abroad were remitted to the army of Conde, to which his motion does not at all refer. The amendment is wholly silent upon this part of the motion of my right hon. friend. What is this but an implied censure upon the trans_ action, so far as it relates to the Prince of Conde? If it rescues from censure that part which concerns the emperor, it leaves the other to stand upon the journals with the brand which is implied, from its being passed over without notice, while the other is held up to approbation. This disposal of the money is likewise stated by the right hon. gentleman to be a justifiable use of this vote of credit, though, in reality, part of the money was contained in the army extraordinaries, to which the defence does not apply. The point, indeed, is of the utmost importance, and the decision which the house shall pronounce upon its merit, is of equal consequence to maintain the dignity of its privileges and the respect of the constitution. My right hon. friend, in employing that copiousness of argument and the power of eloquence which belongs to him, felt the necessity of bringing forward every consideration that could induce the house, in circumstances like the present, to agree to any vote of censure. He entered into a detail, which, not the subject, but the dispositions of the house, demanded. Nor is it wonderful that the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Pitt) swerved so frequently from the point of the question, and endeavoured to fix the attention of the house upon what tended to mislead their judgment. With deference, however, to the example of my right hon. friend, I cannot help thinking that the real question lies within a narrow compass. It is the particular pride and the unrivalled glory of the British constitution, that its characters are so clear, so precise,