LOAN.

Mr. Smith moved," That a committee be appointed to inquire into the circumstances of the negotiation of the late loan." Mr. Dundas adverted to an expression which was uttered by Mr. Smith, with respect to Lord North: he wished to know, if he seriously imputed corruption to that nobleman? Mr. Smith professed that he did not mean the slightest reference to that nobleman, but the transaction was notorious during his administration, that probably through his agents, a loan was made the medium of influencing a majority of the members of the house.

Mr. Sheridan observed, personal corruption never had been urged against the noble lord, though it had always been understood that he made the loans the means of influencing a majority. This was a parliamentary accusation against him; and it had not only been urged, but proved. If the right hon. gentleman disputed this assertion, he would refer him to the journals, where he would find that a committee of inquiry had been appointed; that the lists of the subscribers to the loan were produced and examined; and it was proved the loan had been dealt and sold out to members of parliament. The right hon. gentleman took fire at the imputation on the noble lord; but he rather attributed his zeal to his solicitude, lest an inference should be drawn from the conduct of that noble lord, as an insinuation against the present ministers. It had been the uniform practice of the house, indeed, to acquit the right hon. gentleman opposite of personal corruption in the negotiation of this loan; but he knew no reason why he was to do so, nor why he was to assume that he was not liable to as foul an imputation for the foul distributions of the present loan, as the noble lord was for that foul loan which he took fire at. They are two distinct things, to say the minister has no part of the bonus himself, and to say he has not contrived to make a distribution to others. He knew that in 1783, when he was secretary of the treasury, that Lord John Cavendish put out the loan into the hands of his enemies, instead of his friends, because he was determined to act upon the purest principles, by which means he was disappointed in his instalments, and made a bad loan for the public; and a charge was, nevertheless, brought against him, insinuating that he had been governed by corrupt motives. Mr. Sheridan said, when he saw the loan now made, replete with falsehood, trick, and connivance, he knew no reason why he was not to suspect the ministers of having acted improperly. He hoped the inquiry was not to be made by an upstairs

committee, or a committee of the right hon. gentleman's own selection; but a committee of the whole house; and he thought it would not be a free inquiry, if it were otherwise; for if any management or selection were made, he would not think the right hon. gentleman really serious in his declarations. He wished to follow up the precedent of that loan which had been alluded to under the administration of Lord North, whom he owned he could not consider as a model of perfect purity, though he acknowledged his good humour, urbanity, and private worth. In the list produced on that occasion, the bankers were the first subscribers, as now; though the noble lord in the blue riband, as Mr. Pitt on the present occasion had done, professed he knew nothing of the distribution. After them came a variety of subaltern agents; and he asked whether the right hon. gentleman could not look around him, and point out who were the subaltern agents in the present loan? He must think them children, if he pretended to the contrary. There were many who had £10,000 shares each with cent. per cent. profit; and if he denied it, his political tutor would tell him it was trifling with the house. He hoped, therefore, a motion would be made, first for the lists of the contractors and then for the subordinate lists of the bankers; here he begged leave to state some facts as he received them, from rumour, though he believed them to have been raised upon a sure foundation. The Lord Mayor-whom he was happy to see in his place, as, if the statement was false he might contradict it, was said to have two millions of the loan. Now it was to be remarked, that his lordship had formerly admitted the assembly of his constituents in the common hall of the city of London to be fair and legal, and he understood from the sense of the majority, his lordship promised to oppose the bills; but, when the subsequent meeting of the bankers and loan-mongers was held, his lordship retracted his former opinion, and considered this meeting of the bankers was the criterion for him to go by. On these grounds he thought he had a right to fasten a suspicion on the distribution of the loan. He conceived much irrelevant matter had been introduced in the course of the discussion; but observed, it was not a light matter for the house simply to consider whether the right hon. gentleman did or did not know, on the 25th of November, whether the French were already in possession of that order of things, which could justify

a negotiation for peace? Could any human being in the shape of a politician, or with the name of a statesman, and holding his head up as the ruler of a kingdom, solemnly affirm he did not know that circumstance?

Now was it asserted that the rapid decay of the finances of France, and the victories of the Austrians had produced the rise of stock; yet, at the opening of the budget, the right hon. gentleman declared that the French were not only on the verge, but in the very gulf of bankruptcy, and thus by sinking "lower than the lowest deep" he lost himself. This argument was consequently against himself; for, while he pretended that France was on the eve of a revolution, he came forward with another proposition, that the order of things in that country was favourable for a treaty. If he had heard such drivelling nonsense in any one of the sixpenny societies, which the right hon. gentleman had abolished, he should have treated it as the inconsistency of one of the most vulgar and most confused minds. The right hon. gentleman had taken care to win away the deliberation of the house from a fair examination of the case, by his two and sixpenny and three and fourpenny schemes, which as usual, he rendered as complicated as possible. Mr. Sheridan, therefore, begged leave to recal the attention of the house to the main argument, by asking whether it was a fact, after having waged war, and carried it on for four years, to establish a certain form of government in France, and where of course it must be inferred that ministers constantly watched every change, that the right hon. gentleman had not made some estimate on the probable duration of the present government when he bargained for the loan? One might have supposed from his declarations, the present council of five hundred did not elect themselves; and that four out of the five members of the council of the ancients, had not imbrued their hands in the blood of their sovereign. Yet, the reverse was the fact. Adverting to that situation, therefore, which the right hon. gentleman had so long and so unfortunately held, the house was first to determine whether he could not, and ought not to have bargained better for the public by accelerating his Majesty's message, or by postponing the loan, and getting a vote of credit for two millions? He thought there was a variety of matters connected with it, such as related to Mr. Morgan, &c. all important in themselves, but comparatively little to this con

sideration; and, unless the right hon. gentleman could acquit himself of the imputation, he considered there were grounds for a serious suspicion ;-if he was not guilty himself of personal corruption, he had at least, through the means of particular agents, used one of the most pernicious of bribes which was resorted to in the most corrupt of governments.

The motion was carried without a division.

FEBRUARY 21, 1796.

VOTE OF CREDIT BILL.

The order of the day was read for the third reading of this bill. Mr. Grey moved "That it be postponed till that day three weeks.”

MR. SHERIDAN remarked, that it tended to destroy the power of the house of commons over the public purse, as well as the jealousy which, in all cases of public expenditure, they should be cautious to preserve. It was the peculiar privilege of that house, always to vote the money for the public services upon estimates which were to be calculated as nearly as possible to the several demands of the several departments; and in cases of war and emergency at the end of a session, to provide for any extraordinary incident by a vote of credit. He observed, the right hon. gentleman had very studiously passed over one objection of his hon. friend, who made the motion for delay, which was the magnitude of the present demand, when compared with what had been the case under former administrations. Till the right hon. gentleman introduced the practice, a vote of credit never exceeded the sum of one million; and if he goes on doubling at this rate, unnoticed and unchecked, why may he not next year, if the war continues, come down for five millions at once. He understood that the right hon. gentleman made no manner of distinction between the money granted by a vote of credit, and that granted upon the estimates for the common current expenses of the year. In this case the estimates are no longer of any use, since there is no certainty of appropriation. By the laws of his country, the right hon. gentleman, and every other minister, was bound not to apply the money voted upon any specific estimate to any other purpose, and constitutionally he could not do it. Yet, according to his own account, he puts all the money into one purse, and makes use of it as occasion needs. Now, to show how opposite such a mode of proceeding is to the very plea upon

which the money was required, he desired the preamble to the bill to be read. This being done, Mr. Sheridan observed, upon that plea it was to defray some unforeseen expenses. He owned the delay of the bill might create much inconvenience, but that inconvenience was the lesser evil of the two, and he was, therefore, resolved to take the sense of the house upon it.

The house then divided-for Mr. Grey's motion 25; against it 102. The bill was then read a third time and passed.

EXPEDITION TO THE WEST INDIES.

Mr. Sheridan gave notice that, soon after his hon. friend had made his motion concerning the expenses of the war, he should specifically move for an inquiry into the conduct of the expedition to the West Indies. Upon a former occasion the right hon. gentleman had invited it, and expressed himself ready to meet it, and he hoped the house was not so benumbed by despair and disappointment, as to suffer an affair so replete with disaster and disgrace to pass unnoticed.

FEBRUARY 26.

MR. WILLIAM SMITH'S MOTION RESPECTING THE LOAN.

The first resolution being put, viz. “That it appears to this house that the principle of making loans for the public service by free and open competition uniformly professed by the chancellor of the exchequer, has been very generally recognized as affording the fairest prospect of public advantage." To this an amendment was proposed by Mr. Sylvester Douglas, "That it appears to this house, that the principle of making loans for the public service by competition, which was introduced, and has in general been acted upon, by the present chancellor of the exchequer, has been productive in many instances of great public advantage; but that this principle could not be applied in its full extent, to the bargain for the late loan, consistently with the peculiar circumstances of the case, and with that attention to the equitable claims of individuals which ought always to be shown in transactions with them on behalf of the public."

MR. SHERIDAN said that, oppressed as he was by a severe cold, he should not have intruded upon the patience of the house, but for something which was said, in the course of the debate, by the hon. and learned gentleman who moved the amendment; his expressions were so pointedly directed to him that he could not sit totally silent, although he was hardly able to speak. The hon. gentleman, in authoritative phrase declared, that he gave him (Mr. Sheridan) an opportunity of retracting what he had said on