was damped. I was going now to India, but I remember I promised to avoid detail. I must keep my word. There was some northern logic here last night-something specious-a kind of northern lights-pretty enough to look at, but not very useful, about our possessions having a better security in India without than with our enemy's recognition of our rights. This, I confess, I cannot understand. The right hon. gentleman asks, “whether they would have been justified in breaking off the treaty ?" That's a question between him and those who like the preliminaries; but it is otherwise with those who like neither. The secretary at war (Mr. Yorke) has said, "Buonaparte will look at us with a soldier's eye." I think he will with that of a statesman! Now the city militia, and some other corps, are disbanded, it is not exactly a spectacle for a soldier's eye. One cannot walk along the streets without hearing doubts expressed of the nature and security of the peace! And the next great inquiry is, "Pray who is minister now?" Is there, then, an interior and an exterior prime minister?-one who appears to the world, and another secret, irresponsible, directing minister? Certainly, in several respects I have given my testimony in behalf of the present ministers. In nothing more than for making the best peace, perhaps, they could, after their predecessors had left them in such a deplorable situation. But the present ministers continue to identify themselves with the former. They have ministerially supported a refusal to inquire into the state of the country; just as they were about to take the government they have passed an indemnity bill, and since that a security bill, in a resolution of thanks; and these are the only indemnity and security required!!! The ex-ministers are quite separate and distinct, and yet they and the new ministers are all honourable friends! What is the meaning of this mysterious connection? Why don't the minister defend his peace as the only good grounds of defence? Does he hold that situation only to make peace, and leave it for his predecessor? Do they bargain for support on one side of talent, and on the other of power? No minister of this country ever condescended to act under such an incomprehensible connection, and to receive such equivocal support! Part of the case is clear. If the late minister attacks the treaty, the present would turn round and say, "You brought me into a situation of necessity-you compelled me to sign a disgraceful

treaty-you had been arrogant, and I have put up with indignity -Buonaparte, by his minister, Otto, would laugh at me!—this work is yours-you placed us in this sad dilemma! The minister takes no strong ground of defence: I won't say he dare not take it. There he sits to receive the attack of the new confederacy, who are not great in numbers, but in talents. The ex-minister is mounted on a kind of hill-fort to fire down on the assailants, but the garrison is all manned with deserters from the principles of the war! I should like to support the present minister on fair ground; but what is he? a sort of outside passenger, or rather a man leading the horses round a corner, while reins, whip, and all, are in the hands of the coachman on the box! (Looks at Mr. Pitt's elevated seat, three or four benches above that of the treasury.) Why not have an union of the two ministers, or, at least, some intelligible connection? When the ex-minister quitted office, almost all the subordinate ministers kept their places! How was it that the whole family did not move together? Had he only one covered waggon to carry friends and goods? Or has he left directions behind him that they may know where to call? I remember a fable of Aristophanes': it is translated from Greek into decent English. I mention this for the country gentlemen. It is of a man that sat so long on a seat (about as long, perhaps, as the ex-minister did on the treasury-bench) that he grew to it. When Hercules pulled him off he left all the sitting part of the man behind him! The house can take the allusion. This is not a noble, manly kind of coalition between these gentlemen. Of that ex-minister I would just say, that no man admires his splendid talents more than I do. If ever there was a man formed and fitted by nature to benefit his country, and to give it lustre, he is such a man. He has no low, little, mean, petty vices. He has too much good sense, taste, and talent to set his mind upon ribands, stars, titles, and other appendages and idols of rank. He is of a nature not at all suited to be the creature or tool of any court.-(Mr. Pitt bowed repeatedly.)-But while I thus say of him no more than I think his character and great talents deserve, I must tell him how grossly he has misapplied them in the politics of this country; I must tell him again how he has augmented our national debt and of the lives he lost in this war. I must tell him he has done more against the privileges of the people, increased more the

power of the crown, and injured more the constitution of his country than any minister I can mention. Of the resignation of the late ministry, I don't believe one word of what is said about catholic emancipation. I could as soon believe it was because they had discovered the longitude. If they did go out on that ground, they were certainly at liberty so to do. But, after they quitted their situations, they circulated a paper in Ireland, attributing the failure of an indispensable measure to resistance in a certain quarter, and that quarter was their sovereign, and directing the Irish catholics to look to them for hope of relief. If this was short of high treason, how far short of it I cannot define. If, however, that measure was necessary to carrying on hostilities, we have certainly done right so far in making this peace.

Mr. Sheridan concluded with stating, that he considered it fair to those who had entertained the sentiments he did, of the rise and progress of the war, to record the real grounds on which we approve of a peace, the terms of which are so inadequate and so in secure. Supposing that Mr. Wyndham's motion would be rejected, he had framed his in such a manner as to come as an amendment to Lord Hawkesbury's; and, according to the precedent of the other, might make it in the shape of a resolution, by leaving out all the words of the address but that, and then proceed :

"It is the opinion of this house, that the omission of various opportunities of negotiating a peace with advantage to this country; and more especially the rejection of the overtures made by the Chief Consul of France, in January, 1800, appears to this house to have led to a state of affairs, which rendered peace so necessary, as to justify the important and painful sacrifices which his Majesty has been advised to make for the attainment thereof."

Mr. Sheridan's amendment was negatived without a division.

MAY 24.

BULL BAITING.

The second reading of the bill for abolishing Bull Baiting was read. MR. SHERIDAN observed, that he should most probably have given a silent vote, were it not for some points in the speech of the hon. gentleman who had just sat down (Mr. Frankland).

He had previously attended to the speech of the right hon. gentleman who was so decided an opponent of the measure, and he could not help admiring the ingenuity, talents, and address which he had displayed in a speech which he thought well calculated to produce an effect on the imagination; but, perhaps, of all the speeches he ever heard, it was the least calculated to produce solid conviction. With respect to the support he received from the hon. gentleman who spoke last, he was at first rather dubious of it, and were it not for the animation of his manner, he really should have thought that he intended to follow the ironical line adopted by an hon. friend of his (Mr. S.) under the gallery-a great deal of what had been said, might be reduced to a short question, which, for the sake of illustration, he would put in the metaphorical language of an hon. gentleman under the gallery, who said, "as the higher orders of the people had their Billington, the lower orders should have their bull-baiting." Another member declared, as an argument against the bill, that through the means of bull-baiting, he raised more men for his Majesty in Lancashire, and also more subjects in the way of increasing the population, than by any other means he knew. This might be an admirable argument to influence a recruiting serjeant, but that any one should think, that it could have an effect on a grave and deliberating assembly of legislators, more especially, when it produced effects which involved considerations of vice and profligacy on the part of women, was to him a little extraordinary. In some countries the disgraceful practice in question did not prevail, but that the measure could operate with respect to the country to which that hon. gentleman referred, either in relation to the excellent breed of bulls, or the sources of increased population alluded to, was a little questionable. All of the topics in the right hon. gentleman's (Mr. Wyndham) speech, however, he should have occasion to allude to; and first, with respect to the idea, that such subjects were unworthy the attention of the legislature. After warmly animadverting on what he had said respecting the estimation and progress of private bills in that house, Mr. Sheridan proceeded to express his surprise, that if the right hon. gentleman thought the subject so low, so trifling, as to be utterly unworthy of the interference of the legislature, he should have deemed it necessary to oppose the bill in a very long and elaborate speech, a speech which, in his

mind, had rather been prepared for the occasion; in more points than one of it, the lamp was to be smelt; it possessed a climax of quotation, from modern as well as ancient authors. Xenophon, Virgil, Milton, and other writers, were copiously referred to. All this matter too, was well arranged. If the right hon. gentleman deemed the subject trifling, and unworthy of attention, why take all that trouble about it? Or if the right hon. gentleman had displayed so much ability and address, or made so great a figure in eloquence, while decrying the definitive treaty, he should not, most probably, have been in so small a minority. "What," it was exclaimed, "would Europe say, if, at such a juncture, we occupied ourselves in such discussions ?" With respect to the right hon. gentleman's mode of considering as well as treating this question, he felt for him—he felt for the state of his mind, and for that irritation of which it must be susceptible in contemplating the return of peace, and he must allow for his feelings on the cessation of hostilities in every part of Europe; in which view it would appear, as if he wished to make some compensation to himself, in fomenting a war between the bulls and the dogs. It was rather extraordinary, that though the right hon. gentleman denied the subject to be of importance, yet he considered the measure to proceed from the combined effects of jacobinism and methodism, to overturn the constitution of the country; and another gentleman seemed to be of opinion, that if the lower order of the people were not indulged in the joyous and jovial practice of bull-baiting, the constitution must eventually be overturned. Another point respected the amusements of the lower orders of the people. With respect to these, nothing could give him greater pleasure, than that they could be effectually revised and reduced to a salutary system, founded on just and rational principles. He would bring to the right hon. gentleman's recollection a circumstance relative to this point, namely, a society which was some time ago established, in which an hon. general, since dead (Burgoyne), was a leading member, and in which they both were concerned; the object of which was to revive the practice of the genuine old English sports and amusements; in this plan, however, it was expressly set forth, that the barbarous practice of bull-baiting was not to be included. In regard to the argument held out, that if this custom was suppressed, we should