Colonel Craufurd moved, that there be laid before the house a weekly return of the men raised under the additional force act, from the 5th of April, to the latest day the account can be made up to.-Ordered.. Mr. Jas. Fitzgerald moved, that there be laid before the house an account of the Irish debt redeemed in England, up to the 5th of February last.-Ordered. The expiring laws bill, the corn laws continuance bill, the loyalty loan bill, the lottery bill, and the Irish militia bill, were severally read the second time, and ordered to be committed the next day.-Adjourned. HOUSE OF LORDS. TUESDAY, JUNE II. Counsel were heard by their lordships in a committee of privilege, relative to the Rous peerage. The army pay regulation bill, West Indies free-port bill, public accounts audit bill, and Lingham's divorce bill, went through a committee. On the motion of Lord Walsingham, the proceedings respecting Mr. Justice Fox were ordered to be resumed the next day at half past two, in a committee of the whole house.Adjourned. HOUSE OF COMMONS. TUESDAY, JUNE II. IMPEACHMENT OF LORD MELVILLE. After some routine business had been dispatched, The Speaker rose and addressed the house in nearly the following terms:-I have to acquaint the house that I have received a letter referring to certain proceedings here, signed Melville, dated June the 11th, at Wimbledon, and directed to me, for the purpose of being communicated to the house. The contents of this letter are these: "Sir-Having observed, in the votes of the house of com"mons, that a committee has been appointed to consider of the "tenth report of the commissioners of naval inquiry, and hav❝ing obtained a copy of a report which that committee has "submitted to the house of commons, I take the liberty of "requesting that the house will allow me to be admitted and "heard on the subject of those reports." Mr. Robert Dundas then observed, that in consequence af VOL. III. 1805. Y the the notice which he had formerly given, he would move that Lord Viscount Melville be admitted into the house to be heard in his own defence according to his request. The question was put and carried in the affirmative without a dissenting voice. The Speaker ordered the serjeant at arms to attend with ́ the mace at the door, and to inform Lord Melville that he might come in. His lordship, who was in waiting, immediately entered, and advanced within the bar, where there was a chair placed for his reception. The Speaker said "There is a chair for your lordship to repose on." After sitting down for a few moments, Lord Melville rose, and spoke as follows:-Hitherto every attempt I have made to be heard in explanation or vindication of my own conduct and character, brought in question by the tenth report of the commissioners of naval inquiry, has been in vain ;and, therefore, it is my earliest duty to make my acknowledgments to this house, for that privilege having been at last conceded to me. Under these circumstances, it might be unbecoming in me, in this place, to call in question the justice of any of your proceedings which have already taken place. If, therefore, before making any observations on the report now produced by your own committee, I offer some preliminary considerations, it is only from an anxious hope of being able to satisfy you, that whatever considerations may have guided the wisdom of the house in their past proceedings, it is essential to the cads of justice, that before deciding on this report, now in my hands, you should give a patient and dispassionate hearing to the considerations I wish to offer. I shall, therefore, begin by shortly stating the different modes in which I have attempted to obtain this indulgence. I was examined by the commissioners of naval inquiry, without the knowledge of the objects of investigation, and while they were in possession of the whole of Mr. Trotter's accounts with Messrs. Coutts and Co. It is on the items scattered throughout the pages of those accounts, that their observations on my conduct are made, and from which their conclusions are chiefly drawn; but, when I was before them, not one item of those accounts was shewn to me, or explanation asked concerning any one of them. fact, the first time I ever saw them, or knew that such accounts existed, was when I read them in the tenth report. I am bound to suppose the commissioners conceived a re serve of this nature to be necessary to the objects they had prescribed to themselves in pursuing the inquiry entrusted to them. I shall not, at present, stop to examine into the justice of that mode of proceeding. I mean barely to notice the fact, in illustration of the assertion I have made; that this is the first moment I have been permitted, in any shape, to offer any explanation on the subject of those resolutions which have been enrolled on the journals of this house, and from thence have found their way to the foot of the throne. With the same view, I allude to my letter, of the 28th of March last, to the commissioners, after the report made its appearance, and of which, and their answer, the following are copies. Gentlemen, Admiralty, 28th March, 1805: Having read your tenth report, and observing particularly the following paragraph in the 141st page; "However the apprehension of disclosing delicate and "confidential transactions of government might operate with "Lord Melville in withholding information respecting advances "to other departments, we do not perceive how that appre"hension can at all account for his refusing to state, whether "he derived any profit or advantage from the use or employ"ment of money issued for the services of the navy. If his "lordship had received into his hands such monies as were "advanced by him to other departments, and had replaced "them as soon as they were repaid, he could not have derived "any profit or advantage from such transactions, however repugnant they might be to the provisions of the legislature "for the safe custody of the public money:" I think it necessary to state the following observations, in order to place, in their just view, the grounds on which I declined answering your questions, and which you appear not to have accurately understood. When you first called upon me for information, I stated to vou, that I had not materials on which I could frame such an account as you required me at that time to prepare; and in a communication with Mr. Trotter, before my examination on the 5th of November last, I learnt, for the first time, that in the accounts which he had kept respecting my private concerns, he had so blended his own private monies with what he had in his hands of public money, that it was impossible for him to ascertain with precision, whether the advances which he had occasion to make to me in the course of his running Y 2 private private account with me, were made from the one or from the other of the aggregate sums which constituted his balance with the house of Messrs. Coutts. This circumstance, which I understood Mr. Trotter had himself distinctly communicated to you, made it impossible for me to return any other answer than I did to the general question which you put to me, "Whether Mr. Trotter had applied any of the money issued for carrying on the current "service of the navy, for my benefit or advantage?" and to this circumstance I uniformly referred in my answers to other questions respecting the manner in which Mr. Trotter applied the money in his hands. When you put the question to me, "Whether I did direct "or authorize Mr. Trotter to lay out or apply, or cause to be "laid out or applied, any of the money issued for carrying on "the current service of the navy, to my benefit or advantage?" my answer was, "To the best of my recollection I never "did." That answer I now repeat. Had you proceeded to inquire whether I had ever any understanding, expressed or implied, with Mr. Trotter, respecting any participation of advantages derived from the custody of the public money; or whether I at any time knowingly derived any advantage to myself from any advances of public money; I should have had no hesitation in declaring, as I now do declare, that there never was any such understanding, nor any thing like it, between Mr. Trotter and myself; that I never knowingly derived any such advantage; and that, whatever emolument accrued to Mr. Trotter in the conduct of the pecuniary concerns of the office, was, so far as I am informed, exclusively his own. With respect to any advances which Mr. Trotter might make on my private account, I considered myself as debtor to him alone, and as standing, with regard to them, in no other predicament than I should have done with any other man of business, who might be in occasional advance to me in the general management of my concerns entrusted to him. It is impossible for me to ascertain, from any documents or vouchers in my hands, or now existing, what the extent of these advances may have been at any particular period. The accounts which you have inserted in your report, I never saw, till I saw them in the report itself. They are no accounts of mine, nor am I a party to them. They contain a variety of sums issued nominally to me, which never came into my hands, and they give no credit for the various suins received by Mr. Trotter Trotter on my private account, from my salary as treasurer of the navy, and from other sources of income, of which he was in the receipt; nor do they take any notice of the securi ties of which he was in possession, for the repayment of any balance at any time due to him from my private funds. With respect to the sums of naval money advanced to me, and applied to other services, I do not feel it necessary to make any additional observations; except to declare, that all those sums were returned to the fund from which they were taken; having in no instance been withdrawn from it for any purpose of private emolument or advantage. Before I conclude, I wish to correct an inaccuracy which I observe in one part of my evidence.--In appendix, No. 7, page 192, the question is put to me, " Did you derive any profit or "advantage from the use or employment of public money is" sued for carrying on the current service of the navy, between "the 19th of August 1782 and the 30th of April 1783, or "between the 1st of February 1784 and the 31st December 1785, during which periods you held the office of treasurer "of the navy?" which question I there answer by a reference to an answer given to a similar question put to me before. This answer is inaccurate, in so far as it contains a reference to Mr. Trotter's mode of blending his funds in his private -account with Messrs. Coutts. Mr. Trotter was not paymaster till the year 1786. The circumstances, therefore, relative to Mr. Trotter's account, which precluded my returning an answer to your former question, do not apply to the periods specified in that last mentioned. And I can, therefore, have no difficulty in declaring, that during those periods I did not derive any advantage from the use or employment of money issued for carrying on the service of the navy. Having stated these facts, it is almost unnecessary for me to add, that I am ready, at any time, to verify them by my oath. I am, gentlemen, Your most obedient, humble servant, Commissioners of Naval Inquiry. ༈ * Office of Naval Inquiry, My Lord, Great George-street, 2d April, 1805. We have received your lordship's letter of the 28th of last month; by which you intimate that we appear not to have accurately understood the grounds on which you declined an swering |