at the biddings, and that it was a part of their duty to the general security of the credit of the country, to give intimation, if there was any reason to doubt the responsibility of any of the bidders. In obedience to the sense of the directors he refused to receive the biddings of a house (Strange and Dashwood) particularly connected with persons for whom he had the highest regard; but no such regard could ever influence him to depart from the system which his duty to his country dictated. In November 1798, the circumstances which led to a doubt of the ultimate solvency of the house of Boyd came to the knowledge of Mr. Thornton. It was not till 1799 that Mr. Thornton thought it necessary to communicate them to him, and in April, 1799, he acted upon the information, by not allowing that house to bid. It was a part of the duty of the governors of the bank to give this information. If they did not give it before, was he to blame for not having acted as if had received it? He knew the general fact of the difficulty of raising money on the most undeniable securities. He knew that it was felt by houses as solvent as the bank of England. If under all these circumstances the house required atonement from him for having acted as he did, there was no atonement it could require that he would not be ready to give, rather than have the consciousness of having failed in what he conceived a most imperative duty. If the house in its justice should think his conduct free from blame, direct or implied, the house would acquit him without reserve. If it should be thought that he was blameless, but that the constitution wanted security against the misuse of the precedent, he was ready to conform to whatever the house thought necessary in this sense also. If he had not come down to the house to call for a bill of indemnity, he stated before the committee the impropriety of the disclosure of the circumstances of the transaction in the first instance. That disclosure could not take place for a long time, without involving the destruction of the house. When the failure of the house did take place in the end of the year 1799, or the spring of 1800, between three and four years after the transaction, he confessed it did not occar to him as a necessary part of his duty to bring forward the whole of the business to the house merely to obtain an act of indemnity. The transaction did not so dwell upon his mind. If it had been a business on which he felt a sense of compunction, a thing that haunted his mind in the way the hon. gentleman seemed to think it should (a laugh), he would have undoubtedly seized the first opportu

nity to set such uneasy sensations at rest. But with all the pressing considerations that bore upon his mind amidst the important and unprecedented events of the year 1800, he had never once adverted to this matter as a thing which required such a measure. Whether he was right or wrong in this, he confessed it most freely. Now there was another view of the question; but if at the present time it were necessary to keep the same reserve for the preservation of the credit of the house of Boyd, no danger that could menace him would induce him to violate the secrecy so imposed.-There were other parts of the hon. gentleman's speech which called for some observation, but he would not then advert to them. He placed himself at the mercy of the house, and was ready to abide by whatever decision its justice should dictate:

Mr. Henry Lascelles did not think it necessary to occupy the time of the house by going at length into the discussion after what had been so satisfactorily stated by the right hon. gentleman who had just sat down. Having sat on the committee, which he had attended every day, he had thought it his duty, when resolutions of censure were given notice of, to enter his protest against any such proceeding; and that had brought him into the situation in which he then stood. He was happy to find that the tone and manner of the hon. gentleman was very different from what he had adopted on a former night. On that occasion, the hon. gentleman had insinuated that the right hon. gentleman had been acquainted with the misapplication of the public money, and the hon. gentleman who sat near him (Mr. Fox) had, towards the close of the debate on the 8th of April, insinuated that the right hon. gentle nan was implicated, by an observation which he made, that the country was governed by a disgraced administration. The tone and manner of the honourable gentleman this night was such as suited the evidence. Any thing that had been brought out before the committee was owing to the hon. gentleman, who called for every witness that had been examined, and put every question on the examination. It was but justice to say too, that no impediment had been made to the production of any books or papers that were called for. There was no member of the committee that did not do justice to the ability of the hon. gentleman. In the course of his speech he had adverted to the testimony of Mr. Raikes, on which ground, however, he did not bring forward any resolution.. The communication of that gentleman was extra-official, and after having made it, it was extraordinary that he

had

had not given himself the trouble of examining the act, or its provisions, which, by his evidence, it appeared he had never seen or heard of. The next point to which the hon. gentleman had alluded, was the case of Mr. Jellicoe. On a consideration of all the circumstances of this case, he saw nothing, and he stated it conscientiously, in the evidence, to require such resolutions as those proposed by the hon. gentleman. The next part was that relating to the forty thou sand pounds. The speech of the right honourable gentleman (Mr. Pitt), was nothing but a recapitulation of the evidence, as all the witnesses had borne evidence to the state of public credit at the time, and the impossibility of converting the securities possessed by Messrs. Boyd and Benfield into money. As to what had been said of a bill of indemnity, after a lapse of four years, the right hon. gentleman could not have thought it necessary, and if he had seen occasion for it, he might not at that time have encountered as much jealousy as in the present instance. It was unnecessary for him to add more, as he thought the right hon. gentleman had said enough to satisfy the house and the country. Under these impressions, therefore, he should move the previous question on the resolutions of the hon. gentleman, in order afterwards, if the house should agree to his motion, to propose other resolutions in their stead. The hon. member then read his first resolution, which in purport was that the advance of the forty thousand pounds, to Messrs. Boyd and Benfield, was made for the purpose of averting consequences that might have been injurious to the credit of the country.On the question being put,

The Chancellor of the Exchequer rose, just to make a single observation. He wished to know whether this was a case in which it was proper for him to withdraw. The resolutions proposed contained nothing, and the hon. gentleman who proposed them, had disclaimed any intention of moving them with a view to criminate him. But upon referring to a former case, when resolutions of a criminating tendency had been proposed, he observed an entry made, that the member, after concluding what he had to say in his defence, withdrew. It was for the house to determine whether the present was a case in which he should adopt a similar course.( genera" cry of no! no!)

Mr. Speaker stated, that it would be for the house in its wisdom to decide, but as the resolutions were not of a crimiVOL. III. 1805. nating

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nating nature, it was his opinion that the case was not such as to require the right hon. member to withdraw.

Mr. Fox, in reference to the observation of the right hon. gentleman, said it was undoubtedly for himself to consider whether it would be proper to retire; but it did not appear to him that there was any thing in the resolutions proposed by his hon. friend of such a criminating nature, with respect to the right hon. gentleman, as to bring his case within the precedent alluded to. Before he entered into the subject of the debate, he begged leave to advert to what had fallen from the hon. gentleman under the gallery (Mr. Lascelles). That hon. gentleman had stated that his hon. friend had materially altered his tone since the first time this transaction was brought under the view of the house, and the honourable gentleman took occasion to repeat some words that were used by him at the close of the debate on the 8th of April. Certainly he did say at that time, after the resolutions which the house had passed, that the country was then under "a disgraced administration," and he expressed his hope and wish, that, while in that situation, no public business should be proceeded upon. But then his observation applied to Lord Melville, who, notwithstanding the criminating vote of the house, formed an essential part of the administration. If the hon. gentleman meant to insinuate that the right hon. gentleman, whose conduct was now the subject of debate, was condemned before he was heard, or before any inquiry into his conduct took place, he could assure the hon. gentleman that, with respect to him, the insinuation was totally unfounded; or, if he would infer that any such disposition at all existed, he begged for himself to be excused from the inference. Neither he nor his hon. friend, the mover of the resolution before the house, ever did in any speech, directly or indirectly, insinuate what would be the result of the inquiry before the select committee. Indeed, in point of fact, none of the gentlemen on his side of the house ever did hint that the right hon. gentleman was at all involved in the misconduct of Lord Melville. The connection. first appeared from the statement of the right honourable gentleman himself, with respect to the forty thousand pounds; and undoubtedly from that moment the right hon. gentleman was justly said to be implicated in the delinquency of violating the law. But he never was considered to be criminal in any degree beyond that which his own avowal naturally implied; and he assured the right hon. gentleman that he

should

should feel as sincerely sorry as any man in that house if it had appeared, from the result of the inquiry, that the right hon. gentleman was guilty to the same degree as Lord Melville. However much he might have differed from the right hon. gentleman in the course of his political life, however he might have thought his general conduct deserving of blame, however he might think him blamable in this instance, yet he should feel uneasy and unhappy had it turned out, after the rank and station which the right hon. gentleman had so long held, after the opposition even which he himself had felt it his duty to give him, that the right hon. gentleman was personally corrupt. For himself, he could declare, that he never entertained such an opinion of him, and he was happy that the result of the inquiry did not justify the adoption of even a sentiment of suspicion on that ground. Although he had frequently condemned the public conduct of the right hon. gentleman, although he had on many occasions uttered sentiments respecting him which he would have felt it treason against his country and his conscience to suppress, still he never expressed a suspicion that the right hon. gentleman was capable of personal corruption, nor did he ever entertain such a suspicion. However he might charge him with that species of corruption that attaches to general neglect of duty, his mind entirely acquitted that right hon. gentleman of that kind of sordid corruption alluded to by the honourable gentleman under the gallery. But yet in the case under consideration of the house, another question arose. The right hon. gentleman appeared to him, on the first mention of the transaction, with regard to Lord Melville, not to have paid a proper deference and attention to law, when he was informed of its violation by Mr. Raikes. When information of that nature was communicated to him by any person whatever holding that office, which, in foreign countries, is denominated superintendant of the finances," it was justly thought incumbent on him to have instituted an inquiry into the circumstances, and to have put a stop to the evil complained of. From the report of the committee it appeared that the right hon. gentleman had made inquiry, and however unwilling he might feel to aggravate the case of Lord Melville, who was now ordered for trial, he could not help observing, that he did not think it possible that such an answer could have been given to such an inquiry. The right hon. gentleman's reliance on that answer, from the nature of the situation held by Lord Melville, and the connection subsisting between him and the right hon. gentleman, could not Rr 2 fairly