were conducted. In a negotiation where In a negotiation where you conciliate a little, and say you will conciliate no more, and then do grant morewhen a board of admiralty is asked for and refused, and then a board of admiralty goes down; then there is nothing that can be conceded as a grace which will be received as one, and nothing held out as a menace which will operate and be received as a menace. In alluding to the proposition which he meant to have submitted to the house, it was his intention to have moved for the appointment of a commission, composed of men of all parties and descriptions, who might, in their proceedings, have been empowered to examine the claims of the seamen, to have acceded to those that appeared just and well founded, and to have rejected those which were improper in their nature, and imprudent and dangerous to grant. Thus a commission, formed in the way which he wished, would have come at once to a definitive conclusion, by expressly stating, "We have gone thus far in agreeing to your demands, and will go no farther; any more concessions we conceive to be both dangerous and unjust." Though he sincerely deplored that the proposition had not been carried into execution, he was ready to admit that it was now become useless. The fatal perseverance in the mutiny had placed the country in the situation described by the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Pitt), and no person could feel more indignation against the foul incendiaries who had caused it, than himself. He was at first induced to think, that the mutineers had acted under the impulse of momentary delusion and mistake; but their subsequent and continued conduct convinced him that something more than delusion operated on their minds, and that a rooted spirit of disobedience had taken the place of those manly and loyal sentiments with which they had been, on former occasions, constantly animated. If there was, indeed, a rot in the wooden walls of old England, our decay could not be very distant. The question, as it evidently appeared in his view, was not about this or that concession, but whether the country should be laid prostrate at the feet of France? It was, in fact, a matter of no moment, whether it was laid prostrate at the feet of monarchical or republican France, for still the event would be equally fatal— equally destructive. The national commerce would necessarily prove the great object of the enemy's vengeance, and those mistaken men, who might be instrumental in producing so dreadful a crisis, would suffer most essentially in their dearest interests. Having said thus much with respect to the first part of the address, he felt himself called on to declare, that he could not give his consent to the latter part of it, for he was convinced, unless the house would make a necessary distinction between giving their firm and decided support to the executive government, against both foreign and domestic enemies, and identifying the present ministers with the government of the country, nothing solid or beneficial could be done for the public safety. He could not abstain from charging his Majesty's ministers with having produced, by their weak and imprudent conduct, the calamities in which the nation was involved, although he perfectly agreed with them in expressing his indignation on the subject under discussion; and when he came to consider the manner in which the treason and sedition bills were announced, somewhat of an equal pledge with the present was pressed upon the house. He was, consequently, justified in expressing his reluctance to assent to that part of the address which respected the intention of the criminal code, on the same grounds as he objected to pledge himself to agree to the two bills which had passed. He should consider himself bound to look with a very jealous eye on any measure of the legislature, which went to increase the number of sanguinary penal laws. It was necessary, first, to inquire and ascertain whether the present laws were deficient for the attainment of the ends proposed in the address; and he could not but recollect, with great regret, that an act somewhat similar in its nature to that proposed by the right hon. gentleman, had been passed in another country. If the bill went, therefore, to extend the sanguinary code of penal laws, without strong and sufficient grounds, he should consider himself warranted in withholding his assent to that part of the address, for that mode of legislation had been continually and systematically increased under the present adminstration: and what was to him a most important consideration, it had uniformly produced the very evil which it was intended to prevent. It was not requisite for him to reason at any length in support of that opinion, since facts daily confirmed it. He would ask, was not the present mutiny a proof that the spirit of sedition had increased, notwithstanding the bills which had been introduced by his Majesty's ministers? They had also thought proper to adopt another remedy, which was conceived to be effectual. They had established the system of barracks, on which millions of the public money had been expended, and the house was then told, that such a system would keep the soldiers out of the way of seduction, and prevent them from being exposed to the intrigues of the emissaries of faction. The house was also told, that if the people could not be made dumb, the soldiers should be made deaf. There was, he maintained, no proof whatever before the house to show there was any deficiency in the existing laws to provide for the evil complained of; and until that proof was fairly made out, gentlemen could not, with any degree of consistency, pledge themselves to give their support to the bill. Knowing from experience, that the moment the legislature agreed to increase the code of sanguinary penal laws, they would also agree to increase the evil intended to be remedied, he could not give his assent to that part of the address. But as the right hon. gentleman wished so very much for unanimity in parliament, on a subject, he was ready to confess, of the most serious importance, he should not, for his part, interrupt this unanimity, and would, therefore, for the present, decline giving any vote at all. The address was agreed to nem. con. DECEMBER 14. INCREASED ASSESSMENT OF TAXES. Mr. Pitt moved, "That the bill for raising a sum for the supplies of the year, by an increased assessment of taxes, be read a second time." MR. SHERIDAN said--Sir, when any stranger, or person who has been a long time absent, first enters a house of any establishment, it is the ordinary custom for the master of the house to do the ceremonies of the place, and welcome him on his arrival with some expression of pleasure or politeness, as a mark of hospitality. In this house, I know, sir, there can be no -but if there were any, I am sure it is not the hon. gentleman (Mr. Yorke), who has taken upon himself, with such officious kindness, to act that part, and hail, with compliments so truly worthy of himself, the arrival of my right hon. friend (Mr. Fox) and myself. I cannot help thanking the hon. gentleman for his politeness, though I must acknowledge my gratitude would be of a warmer kind, if the hon. gentleman master - had not, under form of predicting, taken upon him to prescribe what ought to be our conduct now that we have come. Whether we were or were not right in absenting ourselves, is a question, which, as was well remarked in a certain daily paper (The Morning Chronicle), cannot very properly come before the house, but is to rest with our consciences and feelings, and to be canvassed only by ourselves and our constituents. However, sir, when we did come down last Tuesday, with full expectation to find a full senate arrayed, anxiously hearing the discussion of this very important and momentous question, with the right hon. gentleman and his faithful friends and colleagues seated in their places, I found, not less to my surprise than disappointment, that only thirty-six members were then present, and that the house and the business was to be adjourned till a future day, for want of a sufficient number to constitute a house. The less, therefore, that is said upon gentlemen's absenting themselves, the better; I will, therefore, drop the sorry subject, and apply myself to superior matter. My hon. friend (Mr. Nicholls) has been rebuked for introducing the question, whether the war was undertaken from necessity; and the noble lord who has taken upon himself the task of rebuking him, has said, that if any one differed from the opinion respecting the expediency and necessity of the war, which had been so unanimously declared by the house, or chose to give an opinion in contradiction to the unanimous resolutions of the house, he would have done it better by introducing it in the shape of a new question. Now, without disputing the noble lord's authority in this particular rule, I must take the liberty of denying the propriety of his application of it; for, according to my notions of the long-established privileges of the House of Commons of England, it is one of their leading rights, whenever they give and grant, to revise every part of the conduct of the ministers to whom they have entrusted, or are about to entrust, the disposal and expenditure of the public treasure. And, if this privilege exists in us, shall we, sir, be debarred of it by the management of his Majesty's ministers, coming forward on the first day of the session, and, with a trick, entrapping the house into an address unanimously declaratory of their approbation of those very ministers? I fancy not; for, if there be a time when, more than at any other, the good sense and feeling of the people ought to be appealed to, it is when we put our hands into their pockets. I will not now, sir, enter into a discussion of the question, whether the war was just, wise, or necessary; or unnecessary, impolitic, and wicked; for I hope to see the day, and that not a very distant one, when it will undergo full consideration-but in the meantime I hope it will not, on the other side, be insisted that peace is unattainable, and that we shall, on our part, be prevented from objecting that the war was unnecessary. An hon. gentleman on the other side has put the question, whether we will rather carry this measure through the house, and submit to its provisions, or leave it to the French to tear the money from our pockets? If, indeed, sir, this were the truth, and this the only alternative, I do hope, and I most sincerely believe, there is not a man in this house, or in this country, let the minister be who he might, that would hesitate to support him in the prosecution of the war with purse, hand, and heart. If there be any who might refuse, in such a cause, to expend the last shilling of his property, and shed the last drop of his blood, he is not to be found among those who, from the beginning, have opposed the war, as equally absurd and unjust. If France looks for friends and abettors here, they must look among the slaves who bow to power, and barter their principles for their private advantage, and not among the real friends of freedom. But here, sir, let me be indulged in a few observations respecting the sincerity of his Majesty's ministers in their attempts at negotiation. For my part, when I look at the heap of papers that have been laid before the house on that subject, I can discover nothing in them but a trial of diplomatic skill-a contest of dexterity, who should best succeed in avoiding the imputation of duplicity, and most speciously impose on the credulity, and frustrate the expectations of Europe. Indeed, it is my opinion, that both parties were equally indisposed to peace. But admitting that such was the disposition of the French governmentadmitting that the French directory have behaved insultingly towards our ambassador-admitting that the whole of the French nation entertain an inveterate hatred and rancorous hostility against us, and that they are all actuated by the same hostile resolution at aiming at our destruction; must I, therefore, submit to the inference, that because pacific offers have been made |