tive to the motion of the hon. gentleman. He had been anxious that the question fhould be difcuffed by those who poffeffed great legal and conftitutional knowledge; but however that knowledge belonged to his hon. friend who had juft fat down, he was, he owned, surprised at the mode in which he had treated the fubject, to the difcuffion of which he feemed to have come for the firft time, and of which he appeared to have taken the moft antiquated view. He trufted the period was now arrived when the queftion was fully understood. When the hon. gentleman oppofite made his motion, he was by no means aware whether he intended that the measure propofed by him fhould be fupplemental to the civil fuit inftituted by order of the houfe, or whether it was to be a fubftitute for that proceeding. The explanation with which that hon. gentleman had followed the fpeech of his hon. friend behind him (Mr. Bond) fhewed that he meant the latter. In this cafe the civil fuit ought not only to be fufpended, but altogether abandoned. On the pofition of his hon. friend, that if new matter had been laid before the houfe new fteps ought to be taken, he was anxious to join iffue with him, fuppofing that his hon. friend of courfe meant new matter, not merely nominally fo, but fubftantial aggravated matter, fufficient to arreft the attention of the houfe, and to induce it to adopt that propofition, which, when the difcuffion took place on the relative advantages of a civil or a criminal proceeding, his hon. friend had thought it right to reject. Up to the prefent moment, every ftep taken by the houfe feemed clearly to indicate, that they relinquished all idea of criminal profecution. He was by no means defirous of tying the hon. gentleman oppofite (Mr. Fox) down to any opinions he had delivered; but certainly, on the fecond night of the debate on this fubject, that hon. gentleman had declared, that if Lord Melville were removed from his majefty's councils and prefence, he fhould confider all perfonal proceedings against him as concluded, and that there would then only remain to obtain pecuniary juftice for the country. But it was not on authority, however high and refpectable, that he withed to reft the merits of the cafe. He agreed perfectly with his hon. friend who had juft delivered his fentiments, that the house might come to certain refolutions with a view to a fubfequent impeachment or criminal profecution; but he put it to the candour of the hon. gentleman who moved those refolutions against Lord Melville, whether or not he had intimated any intention of this

nature,

1

He had not done fo; he had contented himfelf with dropping a hint that he would profecute further inquiry into that part of the tenth report, in which, as he faid, the chancellor of the exchequer was implicated, and that, on a future day, he would propofe that a civil fuit fhould be inftituted against Lord Melville, for the purpose of recovering from him any profits arifing from the use of the public money. By his fubfequent motion for an addrefs to his majefty to remove Lord Melville from his prefence and councils for ever, he evidently and avowedly looked for one punishment, and he would fcarcely violate the conftitution fo grofsly as at the fame time to have another in his view. The object of the addrefs was not confined to removal pending any criminal proceedings against the noble lord. No, on cool deliberation, after an interval of three weeks from the paffing of the refolutions, the hon. gentleman proposed that motion which was to difmifs Lord Melville from all places of truft and dignity for ever. Nothing could be more clear than that at that time all idea of criminal profecution was banished from the hon. gentleman's mind. Let us now confider the civil fuit, and the circumftances under which the felect committee had been appointed. Was it poffible to imagine, that if the house had entertained the moft diftant conception of the probability of deriving from the refearches of that committee matter on which it would be expedient to ground a criminal profecution, they would have voted the inftitution of a civil fuit, and have debarred the committee from investigating those points in the tenth report, on which alone the expediency of fuch criminal profecution could reft? Up to the appointment of that committee, therefore, it was evident that nothing could be farther from the contemplation of the house than the institution of any criminal proceeding against the noble lord. A new case must therefore be shewn, and irrefragable arguments adduced to incline the house now to adopt that from which they so recently abstained; otherwise the option between a civil and a criminal prosecution was no longer in their possession. Were this principle not to be adhered to, Lord Melville would be treated in a manner to which never had a British subject been before exposed; and his fate would remain on record as a monument of the inconsistent severity of parliament. Was there any new matter in the report of the select committee, and what was its import and value? In considering this part of the subject he wished to establish a distinction material to an accurate judg

ment.

ment. It was between the charge of profit obtained from the public money actually proved against Lord Melville, and that of which only suspicion existed. He intreated the house to recollect the circumstances known to them prior to the appointment of the committee, and those with which they had subsequently become acquainted. It was known in the former period, that considerable sums of the public money issued for naval services had been appropriated to purposes not naval. Nay, the impression was stronger than it was now, for the house then knew that 60,000l. had been diverted in this manner, but they did not know that 40,000l. of it had been applied in a way which did infinite credit to those concerned in the application; and yet having negatived a proposition to enter into criminal proceedings at that time, they are now "called on to accede to it when the circumstances are so much less flagrant, nor was the house ignorant at the time he allud-ed to, that the public money had been withdrawn by Trotter from the bank with Lord Melville's knowledge. The hon. gentleman had laid much stress on the refusal of the noble lord to explain what was done with the 10,000l. for which he was in advance prior to the paymastership of Trotter, and had insisted that because he would not explain that transaction, it must necessarily have been one from which he had derived personal advantage; but surely it must occur to that hon. gentleman and to the house, that in times like those through which we have lately passed, money might be applied in secret services, the disclosure of which to a single individual, might endanger the life and honour of those who had placed implicit confidence in the good faith of a minister. His hon. friend had expressed a doubt whether or not this money had been ever repaid; but if he would examine the evidence of Trotter, he would find that point completely ascertained. He says, that not only that sum, but every sum since advanced to Lord Melville had been punctually replaced. With regard to the extent of the danger with which the constitution was threatened by this species of transaction, let it be considered that if any one does apply the public money to any object not immediately regular, he expects to be repaid from some legal quarter; if not, he must lose the money; and the house surely need be under no alarm that any individual would thus dispose of his private property for the purposes of corruption. Now, though the noble lord at the time when he withdrew this sum of 10,0col. was not in any official situation as a minister, yet, with respect to Scotland, he was, to all intents, a confidential

servant

servant of the crown. It had been supposed that this money was devoted to his own emolument, but of this the mode in which he described his apprehensions to Trotter on his first coming into the paymastership was a sufficient refutation. It was the language of a man who had advanced public money for public services, and who was fearful that the result would be detrimental to himself. With regard to the other sum, with the employment of which for private advantage before his acquaintance with Mr. Trotter, Lord Melville had been charged, it was precisely the sum on which no indictment could possibly be framed. What was the situation of Lord Melville at that time? This sum was part of the balances of his first, and the first part of his second treasurership, to which the act of parliament did not apply. He allowed that the noble lord was bound not to derive any advantage from those balances, but he was by no means restrained by the resolutions of the commissioners of accounts, or by the recent increase of salary, from keeping them where he chose. Besides, if Lord Melville had been so dead to all sense of honour, or so willing to risk the shipwreck of his character as he had been represented, would he have been satisfied with keeping this 10,000l. in his hands? Would he not rather have retained the whole of the balances, amounting to fifty-six thousand pounds? If the noble lord had allowed himself to make use with such facility of the public money, or if he had connived, in the way in which he had been accused of doing, in the free use of such money by Trotter, is it cre dible that he would have borrowed from him the sum of ten thousand pounds on interest? Would he not rather, if his relations with Trotter were such as had been described, have felt entitled to demand that he should feed his wants? It was far from his intention to say, that Lord Melville had not permitted a breach of the law, or that he had not, in his opinion, allowed considerable mismanagement to exist in his office; but there was a wide difference between this accusation of irregular and not perfectly warrantable conduct, and a delinquency of the most sordid and base nature that could attach to man. With respect to the money drawn from the mixed fund, he allowed it was a fair object of jealousy, and he thought a civil procedure necessary to ascertain the compo sition of that fund. But surely his hon. friend, versed as he was in the laws and constitution of the country, would not contend that a criminal court could take cognizance of this money, until it was proved to be public property, which VOL. III. 1805.

Kk

could

could only be done by a civil suit. At present it could only be argued upon as matter of suspicion, and not established by proof. Deducting ten thousand pounds, which was, under other circumstances, the sum on which suspicion arises, leaves forty-six thousand pounds. He allowed, that previous to the report of the select committee, with the exception of Trotter's account current, the house was not in possession of any evidence explanatory of the application of that sum, but on looking at it, the sum of twenty-two or twenty-three thousand pounds borrowed for Lord Melville by Trotter, on interest, must be deducted. It was not until he was hard pressed, that Trotter acknowledged in the committee, that he was himself the lender of this sum. The hon. gentleman had urged against the noble lord that in his statement the preceding evening he had not mentioned either the lender of this money or the security on which it was deposited. The reason that he had not done so was obvious, He considered the whole as a private transaction, but it did not follow that there was no ostensible lender. It was not a sum from which Lord Melville had derived any personal advantage, but for which he paid to Mr. Trotter the same interest that he would have done to any other member of the community. The sum was thus brought down to less than twenty-five thousand pounds; of this the subscription to the loyalty loan amounted to ten thousand pounds, the security for which remained in the hands of Trotter, and the interest of which discharged the interest of the sum advanced for it. Thus was this gross sum for which Lord Melville stood accountable, reduced to that at which it was on the last vote of the house of commons on the subject, namely, between ten and fifteen thousand pounds. In the whole of this transaction therefore, as developed by the select committee, nothing new, or more culpable than what was formerly known, had been discovered; and was it within the sphere of possibility that Lord Melville should sacrifice even his self-estimation, supposing that the affair should never be unveiled, for such a trifling consideration? It was not probable that at any one period he was in possession of more than five or six thousand pounds.. But stating it at the utmost, supposing it to be fifteen thousand pounds, the annual value of which was seven hundred and fifty pounds, what motive could such a man, possessed of such a character, vested with such power as that noble lord, have to embark in such a wieked and barefaced transaction, for so paltry a sum? With respect to the payment of navy bills at Coutts's, it was a subject of general

notoriety;