generally mentioned with respect to the right hon. gentleman who commenced this debate; it is said that he proposed this sentiment" The volunteers, and a speedy meeting with the enemy on our own shores." This toast, I understand, was proposed among a number of volunteer officers above six months ago, at a time when the volunteers, upon whom we are so much to rely for our security, could not be much acquainted with discipline, if, according to the right hon. gentleman's assertion, they are even now very defective in that respect. I am as ready as any man to pay a just compliment to the right hon. gentleman's active endeavours to promote the improvement of the volunteers. I acknowledge that his solicitude for their advancement and glory is considerable, and probably he wishes to remove any impediment in their way. His desire is, perhaps, that they should have a full opportunity of distinguishing themselves pursuant to the toast I have quoted. If such be his view, he certainly could not accomplish it by better means than by contriving to have the defence of our country committed to his favourite gun-boats, instead of men-of-war. Independently of the other objections I have offered to those gun-boats, there is one which occurs to me of too much strength to be omitted. If they were of the same kind as those of last war, any description of men would be good enough, or too good, for them; and if good men were required for them, they could not be had without deducting from the number necessary for our important shipping. Why then join with the corrupt band of detected peculators in censuring the admiralty for not paying all the attention which the right hon. gentleman desired to these gun-boats? A little consideration ought to be sufficient to prevent any man from complaining of that respectable board;-that board which is respectable in the estimation of all men but mistaken partisans, or fraudulent contractors ;-that board, which has had such numerous difficulties to encounter, all incurred by a solicitude to expose and punish fraud-to recover and to spare the public money. Has the right hon. gentleman read the five reports from the commissioners appointed to inquire into the abuses committed in the several branches of the naval department? If so, has he not there seen the foul corruption, the abominable artifice, with which the admiralty has had to struggle? Has the right hon. gentleman observed the frauds exposed in the second

report-the block and coopers' contracts, where £2,000 have been paid for work proved not to be worth £200. Has he read the description of the plunder practised on seamen by prize agents? and if so, can he—can any man who loves the friends of his country and virtue-refuse his gratitude and admiration to the first lord of the admiralty, who originated this inquiry-an inquiry which has irritated against him a host of enemies? they are enemies, however, which the noble lord must despise. It was but the prejudice of defeated vice against triumphant virtue. It could not disturb the noble lord's mind. While he was only assailed by those worms who had fed and fattened upon the corruption of the navy-while he had only to reckon as his foes those who had proved themselves hostile to honour and justice, who had enriched themselves on the spoils of their countrywhile such only were his enemies, the noble lord would proceed in his course of glory as he did in the victory on the memorable 14th of February, 1797, disdaining and declining to retaliate their attack; but when the right hon. author of the motion before the house becomes his assailant, the noble lord must feel surprised. Even that right hon. gentleman, however, cannot injure him. His fame stands too high-his character is too firmly established to be hurt by the assertions of any member; and I have no doubt that the noble lord will be ever found entitled to the applause and protection of his country. With regard to the right hon. gentleman's recommendation, that shipping should be built in the merchants' dock-yards, I shall only refer him to the ships mentioned by the hon. baronet, and also to the cases described in the reports of the commissioners of naval inquiry, particularly to the cases where it appeared that the persons who received payment for the ships built in merchants' yards, were clerks in the king's dock-yards. It is possible to suppose, that collusions did not exist in such cases as these? The right hon. gentleman has said, that "it is impossible during war to build any number of ships in the king's dock-yards, and that therefore a necessity arises of resorting to the merchants' yards." What a melancholy expression, that in those yards, where there were 3,200 men employed, nothing more than the repair of ships could be done! If so, then our surprise must be diminished, that a French fleet should have been permitted, in the course of the last war, to find its way to Ireland, where nothing but the

elements offered to prevent a formidable French army from landing. If, however, the king's dock-yards are really so little useful, or rather so useless, they ought to be abolished altogether. A new system ought to be adopted. If they could only finish in these yards twenty-four sail of the line, fifteen frigates, and some few sloops, in the course of twenty years, although it is known that forty-five shipwrights can build a seventy-four in one yearas there are 3,200 shipwrights in those yards, and the expense, &c. could not be less in twenty years than £4,100,000 a sum equal to the building of the whole navy of England, it follows, of course, that it is bad policy to continue the maintenance of these dockyards. It is, besides, well known that the internal system of these yards is bad. There is no difference in the wages allowed to the workmen; the unskilful can earn as much as those of a different description. Thus emulation is prevented, and many advantages, of course, lost to the employers. The right hon. gentleman may answer this, and say, that although so many abuses have been detected by the commissioners of naval inquiry, still the system of the dock-yards is good: but I assert, and am prepared to maintain the assertion, that abuse pervades in every department of the system. Does the right hon. gentleman know of the frauds which the commissioners have found to have been committed in every article with which these yards are furnished, particularly blocks? From these abuses arise the necessity of advertising for contractors to build shipping; and as to correct them, to produce integrity and arrangement in all the departments of the navy, is, and has been, the great endeavour of the high character upon whom it appears to be the object of the motion before the house to fix an imputation, I shall vote against it with as much satisfaction as ever I gave a vote since I had the honour of a seat in this house; fully convinced that such a motion is only calculated to gratify the corrupt, to frown upon reform, and to assail the reputation of a gallant officer, whose claims to the gratitude of the country can only be equalled by the esteem and attachment he enjoys among all that are great and good.

JUNE 18.

ADDITIONAL FORCE BILL.

The chancellor of the exchequer moved that the bill be engrossed.

MR. SHERIDAN said, to the arguments, sir, which have been urged in support of the measure before the house, the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Addington) who has just sat down has given such a full and fair reply, that I do not think it necessary to enter into the subject as I had otherwise intended. The objections to this bill have been so forcibly maintained by that right hon. gentleman, and he has put the subject upon such fair and constitutional grounds, that I should decline to trouble the house upon this occasion, if it were not for the observations of my right hon. friend (Mr. Canning), who has not confined himself to the bill under consideration, but has thought proper to introduce matter not strictly relevant, but yet of infinitely more importance than the bill itself—I mean my right hon. friend's allusion to the degree of confidence to which the present administration is entitled. My right hon. friend stated, that he was not disposed to adulation towards his right hon. friend who sits near him (Mr. Pitt), and for whom, no doubt, he entertains the most sincere respect and regard. I hope he will do me the justice to think, that I am equally incapable of adulation towards my right hon. friend on the same bench with me (Mr. Fox). I certainly am no flatterer, although in point of attachment to my right hon. friend, I will not yield to that which my right hon. friend on the opposite side can or does profess to feel for his right hon. friend beside him; with this difference, however, on my part, that my attachment to my right hon. friend on this side of the house is of a much longer standing—that it is the first, the strongest, and the only political attachment of my life. But my right hon. friend disclaims adulation towards his friend, and, indeed, he seems to me to have had no occasion to do so, for he certainly did not deal in it; on the contrary, he has taken occasion to pronounce upon the conduct of his right hon. friend one of the bitterest satires that could be well imagined. My right hon. friend expresses his surprise, that we who oppose this bill can contrive to co-operate, and that we can avoid quarrelling when we get into the lobby; but is it not equally, if not more

a matter of surprise, that he can avoid quarrelling with some of his friends near him, to whom he has been so very lately in decided opposition, and particularly with the noble lord (Castlereagh) who appears now to have determined which of the "two strings" he should put to his bow? (A laugh.) If my right hon. friend will look at those about him, he will find that the compliments and censures which he meant for the right hon. gentleman on the lower bench (Mr. Addington), were applicable also to some of his present connections. Whatever praise or condemnation applies to the one, applies equally to the other, with this difference, that the compliment called forth by the retirement of the one from office, when the voice of parliament and the country called for it, is not deserved by the other, who still remains in power. Some part of the administration of the right hon. gentleman on the lower bench I most cordially approved, and his intentions in every instance I respected, because I firmly believed them to be pure and honourable. I esteemed the motives which actuated his public conduct, because I was certain of his disposition, whatever might be the sentiments of some of his colleagues, to govern the country upon the principles of the constitution. I know that his acceptance of office was a sacrifice, and I feel that his retirement from it was a triumph. But did my right hon. friend, I would ask him, mean it as a compliment to the right hon. gentleman, that immediately upon his retirement from office, he started into an open, manly, and systematic opposition; or did he mean it as an indirect sarcasm upon the conduct of his right hon. friend? Did my right hon. friend mean to say, that when the right hon. gentleman resigned his situation, he did not offer an insidious support to his successor; that he did not seat himself behind him for the purpose of availing himself of the first opportunity to push him out; that when a motion of impeachment was made against his successor, he did not attempt to suspend the judgment of the question, by the shabby, shallow pretext of moving the previous question? No! such has not been the conduct of the right hon. gentleman, and the line he has pursued will be entitled to commendation. What are we to think, what can my right hon. friend say of that course of proceeding which I have described? a course which had nothing manly, consistent, or direct about it. In this conduct,. however, my right hon. friend did not participate, and