Lords, subvert the constitution of Parliament, and overturn the dearest rights of the people. To prove this, he desired the clerk to turn to the Journals in the reign of Charles 2, when some attempts were made to introduce a new plan of government. It was at the time that sir Hencage Finch, afterwards earl of Nottingham, was chancellor and perhaps there was not an argument in the power of man which spoke stronger against the principle of the Bill now moved to be committed, than the order then entered upon the Journals of the House. It stated, that any bill brought into Parliament, which connected with a money-bill, any matter in itself abstracted from that money-bill, and which was tacked thereto for the purpose of gaining an assent to the one, because the other claimed the necessity of an assent, was unconstitutional, and subversive of the rights of the people. The noble earl dwelt on this point, in order that, as the present Bill purported to raise money by new taxes, at the same that it wore the double appearance of a consolidation of the customs and excise, and a reciprocal commercial treaty with France, Spain, and Portugal, it was in fact a direct negative to all the precedents on the Journals, and a disdainful want of respect to the wisdom of those Parliaments to whom Great Britain stands indebted for all that she now possesses. His opinion therefore was, that the subject should be divided, that the Treaty with France should be one thing, the consolidation of the duties another, and the new tax a third matter. He should for these reasons oppose the commitment; and if that was carried, he meant to offer two motions to the House. He begged that this opposition should not be considered as arising from any party motives; it sprang from a real regard to the constitution, whose free existence must be materially injured if the present Bill passed into a law.

Lord Sydney was as anxious to preserve the different privileges of the two Houses as any noble lord could be; but he begged leave to differ very materially from the noble earl who had spoken last, as that noble earl had certainly mis-stated the constituent parts of the Bill before their lordships. He admitted the Bill involved a prodigious variety of articles, but those articles were by no means dissimilar or heterogeneous. They were all directed to one end, and subject to one arrangement.

He stated the several duties comprehended under one bill. The old duties were simplified for the sake both of rendering the business of the customs more convenient, and improving the revenue. The only duties which had any appearance of novelty, were those on timber. The Treaty necessarily came under the same arrangement, as most of the French articles would now be imported on the same terms with those from other countries. So that, in fact, he was totally at a loss to see any inconsistency or incongruity in the Bill, and therefore hoped it would be committed.

Lord Porchester, observed, that he expected something from the noble lord in reply to what had been advanced by the noble earl who spoke second in the debate. But such was the barrenness of argument, and the total want of justice, that ministry refused to support their own measures. The matter now before the House, was so plain in itself, that ingenuity could not baffle it even by sophistry. The Bill was a direct attack upon the constitution, and an open declaration to their lordships, that in future they were to be considered as cyphers in the Legislature. What else could be the result of a bill which openly tacked to a political matter, a money consideration, merely for the purpose of insulting their lordships with this threat, " If you refuse what we send as to the new duties on timber, &c. you then refuse the Commercial Treaty." This he conceived to be a very high offence to the Constitution, and something not far from a declared opinion of ministry, that the House of Lords was a cypher.

The Earl of Hopetoun did not see the Bill in the light of a money bill; much less did he apprehend the numerous bad consequences which the noble lords figured from its passing into a law in its present form. It did not, in his opinion, affect n any degree the privileges of their lordships. He should, therefore, vote for its being committed.

Lord Walsingham defended the Bill on principles of expediency, convenience, and necessity. He begged their lordships to consider the tendency of the several articles of which the Bill consisted. They were all intimately connected with the revenue, and calculated either to secure or improve it. Besides, there would be no other way of preventing two books of rates; and, considering the confusion which had formerly distinguished the business of

the customs, he trusted their lordships and the public would think this no trivial object.

Viscount Stormont was extremely concerned to observe so much want of attention and of respect in ministers to the privileges of Parliament, as the Bill now on the table indicated them to possess. He trembled for the consequences of the debate. He was afraid it would leave a precedent behind it of the most fatal tendency. It was not merely for a parliamentary form that they were contending, but a constitutional principle, and a principle the wisdom and utility of which were manifest. To argue that this Bill was not complicated and heterogeneous, was to argue in a way very loose indeed: for what could be more opposite than the internal regulation of duties, and the final arrangement of a great external contract? Surely if these things had been huddled together by chance, they ought not to be defended by argument. Taking it in a no more hostile way than that they had been all confounded in the same Bill, merely to save time, or to save labour, were they, merely for the sake of a convenience, to sacrifice a principle? The Constitution was involved in the question; for the standing order of the House stated, that the annexing any foreign matter to a Bill of aid or supply was an unparliamentary proceeding, and destructive of an essential principle of the Constitution. It was certain that the most enlightened of our ancestors thought it so essential to prevent the House of Commons from mixing with Bills of supply any other matter, that innumerable precedents occurred in the journals, of the spirit and determination of the House in rejecting Bills under that imputation. In a speech of Lord Chancellor Northington, he said that the mixture of any matter incongruous ought to dispose the Lords at all times to reject any Bill of supply so presented to them. He professed his astonishment that the noble and learned lord on the woolsack, whose vigilance and zeal in maintaining the dignity of the House he had ever remarked with pleasure, should on this occasion be supine and indifferent.

Lord Hawkesbury observed, that the regulation of the House with respect to complex money bills was perfectly sound and wise. The standing order was founded in the best policy, and he was persuaded their lordships would constantly preserve their privileges. But he must observe,

that after looking through the Journals of the House for precedents, he found that the protests had been entered against bills of supply for the service of the year, and not against money bills of the nature of the present, where the money was a diminutive object, and came in, not as a matter of supply, but collaterally as a branch of a system. He enumerated the several protests on the Journals on this head, and contended, that the Bill now before the House was by no means of the kind which excited the jealousy of the House, or on which they thought it necessary to show the exercise of their right. He stated the reasons for coupling the several subjects together: though different, they were connected. The book of rates was to be made out, and to the complete arrangement of that book the junction of the measures was required. He answered the arguments that had been thrown out respecting the reduction of Portugal and Spanish wines, and concluded with a comparison of the miserable and shattered condition of France, as recently exemplified in the dismission of her ministers on account of the clamours against them, with the flourishing state of England, where, in proposing means for the simplification of the duties, and the collection of the revenue, though the debt was so large, and the taxes so heavy, there was a spirit that made us harmonize in the means, and an ability that made us sustain the task.

Lord Loughborough could not sit silent, he said, under the very strange and very new doctrines thrown out by the noble lord who spoke last, on the difference between bills of supply and mere money bills. It was a novelty of the most alarming kind, and went to the destruction of the constitutional principle on which the standing order was founded. He contended, that their dignity was annihilated and their use in the Legislature at an end, if they were not at liberty to use their discretion whenever the House of Commons chose to insert a clause about money in any bill that they wished to rescue from the danger of déliberation. He asserted, that the subjects in the Bill before them were most opposite in their nature, and that the argument that they had the most distant connexion with one another could not be sustained even for a single moment.

The Lord Chancellor observed, that no one peer could feel more sensibly than he did the necessity of supporting the dignity

and the privileges of the House. It was his most fervent wish to preserve their rights in the most sacred purity, and he thought no one thing was more essential to their true importance than the right of preventing any money bill from coming before them coupled with other matter. But the present bill was certainly not of the quality that could excite the alarm of the House. He argued against the idea of its being a money bill in any respect, any more than they would call a turnpike or a canal bill, a money bill.

Earl Stanhope, without meaning any thing hostile to the present minister, must deliver his solemn opinion against the doctrine of the noble lord lately come into that assembly. It was a doctrine which struck at the root of the constitution, and which demolished a privilege not appertaining to the House in their own right, or for their own honour, but as a sacred deposit in their hands as trustees for the people.

The question was then put on the commitment: Contents, 70; Not-contents, 29.

Debate in the Commons on the Articles of Charge against Mr. Hastings-Revenues of Bengal.] April 19. The House, according to order, resolved itself into a committee of the whole House, to consider further of the several Articles of Charge of High Crimes and Misdemeanors against Warren Hastings, esq. late Governor-general of Bengal; Mr. St. John in the Chair.

Mr. Francis rose, for the purpose of opening the Charge respecting the Bengal Revenues, and spoke as follows:

It is not possible, Sir, for any man to address this House with greater reason than I have to solicit their indulgence. I thoroughly feel the importance of the charge, which I have undertaken to lay before you; but, I fear it will have nothing else to recommend it. Other gentlemen, who have taken part in the impeachment of Mr. Hastings, with a great superiority of abilities, have had the advantage of selecting the objects, by which their own minds were most affected, or which were likely to make the deepest impression upon yours. The field is fertile enough to furnish materials and employment for talents of every sort. My hon. friends, who have preceded me, had their choice of lively animated guilt, of prominent, audacious violence, of bold exalted treachery, or of direct and pal[VOL. XXVI.]

pable corruption. The task, reserved for me, is attended with every discourage-. ment. I am to call you to the performance of a duty, which offers to you no recompence, unless it be in the reflection of having performed it. The subject of the present charge is dull and intricate, and you will find it involved in a studied obscurity. Mr. Hastings, in every other part of his conduct, comes directly into view, and is open to pursuit. The collection and management of the revenues of distant kingdoms, disposed of for years without inquiry or account, is a perfect labyrinth, in which, though you are sure that fraud, oppression, and embezzlement have taken shelter, it is hardly in the power of human patience to follow and detect them. I have exerted my utmost industry to possess myself of the subject, and to enable me to make it intelligible to the House. It deserves your consideration, but it will require your attention. Since we assume the right of making laws for nations, with whom we are connected by nothing but the power we have over them, we should endeavour to qualify ourselves for the office we assume. people of India will not dispute the right, if we exercise the power with justice. But to govern nations justly without a thorough knowledge of their situation, or to obtain that knowledge without labour, is impossible.

The

Before I enter on the task allotted to me, I have some preliminary explanations to offer to the committee, to which I must request their attention for a few minutes. Considering the relation in which I have stood to Mr. Hastings, it is very necessary that the active part I have taken against him should be fairly and completely accounted for. I am, at all times, anxious to stand clear in the opinion of this House and of the public; but, on this day, I owe it to the trust reposed in me, to take care that the public service may not suffer by any imputations thrown upon myself. There is a generous disposition in the hu man mind, though not strictly c nsistent with justice, to mix the motives of the accuser with the merits of the accusation. We are apt to take part, perhaps without perceiving it, even in favour of acknowledged guilt, if we see the prosecution of it promoted and inflamed by personal malignity or revenge. He, therefore, who accuses another, is generally expected to begin with defending himself. I, for my part, am compelled to take this course. I [3 N]

feel and know, that I lose weight as an accuser, because I am suspected to be an enemy. Sir, I do not mean to admit, that the two characters are incompatible, or that one should be a disqualification for the other. But I do assert, and I hope I shall be able to satisfy the House, that in me they are not united. How the suspicion has been propagated against me, how the opinion of a careless, ill-informed public may be prejudiced on any subject, how a character of the most exalted virtue, or of the basest depravity, may be made for any man, are things well known to every one, who knows any thing of this town. A multitude of voices employed about one person and repeating the same falsehoods; a multitude of pens, or even the same pen, under a variety of signatures, incessantly practising on the public credulity, are sufficient, for a time,

*

* Mr. Francis here alluded to the following Account, which appeared in the Morning Herald, of April 5, 1787;"The reporters of last Monday's debate in a certain assembly stated the following Declaration, as made that day by major Scott on the subject of the 7000l., which he said he had expended in the service of Mr. Hastings, viz.

EXTRACT.

He (the Major) said, that if the fortune of Mr. Hastings had been impaired by bribes bestowed in this kingdom, the expenditure must have been through his hands; but he could declare, on the contrary, that the greatest bribe he had ever bestowed was upon the editor of the Morning Herald, who ⚫ had since repaid him with the continuance of abuse, though his sole offence had been, that he paid on that occasion the full amount of what had been demanded. He could also plead the merit of having expended, on the account of Mr. Hastings, upwards of 7000l. in procuring intelligence, and forwarding dispatches to India.'

"The gentleman who was editor of this paper at the period to which the above declaration alludes, thinks it incumbent upon him to refute so illiberal and groundless a charge.

"What may have been major Scott's transactions in the various printing-offices of the metropolis, to which his active zeal for his employer has so repeatedly transported him, the writer of this article neither knows nor cares; nor will he dispute, but that the unfortunate Governor-general of Bengal may find himself minus 7000/., or that in a bustle of such complicated agency, major Scott may accidentally have charged that sum for the secret service of the Morning Herald, which, upon recollection, will be found to have been

to raise or to ruin the reputation of any individual. He who is rich enough to purchase the press, has in a great degree the command of the opinions of this country. Beyond the limits of this town, who knows any thing of public men, or of public affairs, but what is gathered from the newspapers? I need not tell you that no pains or expense have been spared, to traduce my character in particular. I was known to have opposed Mr. Hastings in almost every act of his government; of course I must be his enemy. It was known that my language concerning him had never varied, that I was still his accuser in England as I had been in Bengal, and that I had never relaxed in my endeavours to bring him to justice; of course I was implacable. The premises are true; but, do they warrant the conclusion? If they do, I am instantly the

more prudentially applied. All the writer will contend is, that he never had the most remote correspondence, directly or indirectly, with major Scott, or any of his connexions, in the course of his life. That, to the best of his recollection, he never beheld the person of the major, till he saw him on Tuesday last upon his legs in the House of Commons, and consequently that the bribe alluded to must have been administered under the lulling influence of an opium contract, when the receiver's mind could not possibly be impressed with a due sense of the obligation.

"With respect to the abuse, as stated by the major, it is an expression almost too vague for a reply. If to have been represented in his true official character, as traducing agent to Mr. Hastings, or to have had the mortification of finding a small share of his own wide-spreading invectives recoil upon himself, by what he deems an abusive return,' the major may possibly have experienced it. The editor is free to confess, that he did once interfere with major Scott's newspaper system, and that in a manner which may probably have provoked his resentment, viz. in preventing the continuation of his oriential correspondence through the channel of the Morning Herald, as objectionable for its uninteresting prolixity, but more so on the score of its increasing personality!

"The pecuniary transactions between major Scott and the Morning Herald office, the following account current, extracted from the books, and attested upon oath, will fully explain. Involving a detail, which, but for the unexampled conduct of major Scott, must always have remained confidential, it is painful to be compelled to lay such a statement before the public; but for this, amidst various other insinuations, major Scott alone must be responsible to his ill-fated employer."