circumftance they fought bravely in the field, felt their loffes too feverely not to have regretted their court having been made the dupe of the cabinet of Verfailles, and nothing but their national attachment to the perfon of their prince, who has not forgot the treatment he received from this country when King of Naples, could have kept them ftill ready to purfue the purposes of the war; a time he trusted was near at hand, when they would find that what he had faid was well founded. But taking the confederacy in a general point of view, what does hiftory tell us has been the end of the greatest leagues that have been formed? Let us recollect the moft extraordinary confederacy that the page of the historian teems with, the powerful league of Cambray formed against the republic of Venice! Was Venice deftroyed? It is true the loft a part of her navigation advantage by the traffic of other countries being fent by a different paffage to Greece; but is fhe not now a refpectable power confidered as one of the European ftates? As refpectable as her fituation in Italy entitles her at any time to be. Let gentlemen recollect the alliance that was formed against the House of Bourbon! Louis XIV. found means to elude the defigns of it, and thence arofe the famous family compact! The prefent confederacy was a powerful one but though we were without an ally, we had obvious advantages, if we would agree among ourselves, and act with vigour and firmnefs. Sir Horace faid, he had in the laft Parliament fhewn himfelf no friend to minifters: he trusted therefore, that what he now faid, would be confidered by the whole House as his real fentiments. In purfuance of their impulfe it was, that he declared himself an advocate for the addrefs; and fo far was he from thinking that it said too much of the Houfe, he really felt that more was requifite. The American war began to wear a more promifing afpect than hitherto it had done, and the profecuting of it with vigour, was now more than ever, in his opinion, a neceffary and a wife measure. Our late fucceffes were truly glorious, and the conduct of our officers, particularly that of Lord Cornwallis, merited the higheft praife. He hoped, therefore, that the bare mention of It with applause in the present addrefs, would not be the only notice taken of it by the Houfe. He trufted that he should hear a motion foon for fomething specifically and fubftantially tending to fhew Lord Cornwallis the fenfe that House entertained of his fingular gallantry, judgment, and good conduct. It would not be fitting for him to be the propofer of what what he hinted at, but he would join most heartily in supporting any fuch propofition, let it come from what quarter it would. He concluded with observing, that to renounce the American war, would in his mind, be an act of political folly little short of madness; it would at the fame time, be an act of the greatest inhumanity, confidering the number of loyalifts who had flocked in to the King's ftandard, and who now relied on the British arms for protection. hend. Right Hon. T. Townshend obferved, that there was every Right Hon. year a new reafon for continuing the American war; firft, T. Tewnfwe were to fend troops to deliver the men of confequence and property from the tyranny of the mob; afterwards to deliver the lower ranks from the oppreffion of the upper, and the Congrefs; now we were called upon by Sir R. Sutton to deliver both from the captivity in which they were held by the French army. He was furprised to hear the league of Cambray cited by those who supported the adminiftration. He was afraid that the fimilitude of the fituation of Venice, at that period, to the present state of our affairs, was but too apparent. A number of powers, jarring in their interefts much more than thofe which were now leagued against us, attacked Venice: it is true, they foon quarrelled; but not till Venice was ruined. The name of the Venetian state remains, but its commerce; its dominions in Italy, are reduced, if not quite annihilated: and she may retain (to ufe Sir Horace Mann's expreffion) her proper rank among Italian states, but her weight, power, and confequence, were totally at an end. To fuch a fituation might we perhaps be reduced, and our enemies tell us that we held our proper rank among the states of Europe. He lamented our want of alliances, and could not rejoice at that compact ftate which others feemed fo much pleased with. He did not believe that what was done against Lewis XIV. would have been more eafily atchieved by attacking him without any allies at all. He declined entering into the reasons why Great Britain did not profit more from our fucceffes against the Houfe of Bourbon at that time, He lamented that we were to continue the American war, which he looked upon as the favourite object of the government. To that objeft all others were facrificed. They had fent young regiments under unexperienced officers to the Weft Indies, while our veterans were imployed in North America, He wished, therefore, for the amendment, because it prevented us from pledging ourselves to that ruinous measure precipitately, and hoped the House would not be drawn in, year after year, into the continuation of it. Mr. Pultney had blamed thofe who, delivering their opinions within doors against the American war, did the fame without doors likewife, which he looked upon as criminal; he wished to know what he thought of thofe, who spoke and voted for it within doors, and reprobated it abroad; he confidently believed, that if all voted against it in the Houfe, who condemned it out of it, we fhould have faved much blood and treafure, and have been in a much better condition than at prefent. Mr. Welbore Ellis complimented the young gentlemen who had moved and feconded the amendment, on their eloquence, but could not agree with them in thinking that the addrefs was in the leaft improper, or that it contained matter less fit for the Houfe to adopt on the prefent occafion than the propofed amendment; on the contrary, with all due deference to them, he faid, he thought they were pretty nearly alike in purport, only that the fame meaning was expreffed more handfomely, and in better terms, in the address, than it was in the amendment. In order to prove this to the fatisfaction of the Houfe, he went into an examination of the address paragraph by paragraph, commenting on each elaborately, and arguing as he went on, that nothing more was faid than the occafion required. He owned nothing could be more true than that it was highly incumbent on the Houfe to take care that what they carried up to the throne fhould not contain any thing like a pledge to obferve any particular line of conduct; he had examined the addrefs minutely, and he never in his life saw an address more cautiously worded, or more fuitable to the purpose. If the amendment were adopted, all that his Majefty had faid from the throne, excepting only his information of the increase of the royal family, would, contrary to the conftant ufage of Parliament, remain unnoticed. Would gentlemen fay, it was right for that Houfe to hold a fullen filence on our late fucceffes in America? Would it be handfome to Lord Cornwallis, or to the other officers who, under that gallant commander's orders, had acquitted themselves fo much to the credit of themselves and to the effential fervices of their country, to withhold their due praise? or did gentlemen imagine, if the eyes of all Europe were turned on the proceedings of that House (as had been truly obferved) that it would have a good effect upon the minds of the foreign printes and power, to fee the British Parliament juft at that moment wanting in profeffions of zeal to his Majesty, or of joy at the late fignal fucceffes of his Majesty's arms in America! Surely a moment's recollection would teach gentlemen to think differently, and to convince them of the propriety of unanimously agreeing to the addrefs. In one part of it, the House returned his Majefty thanks for the bleffing of his government. In all his experience, for the many years he had fat in that House, he had never known fuch a matter rejected, and yet if the amendment were carried, all that part of the addrefs would be omitted. Another matter which ftruck him very forcibly, feemed to have made little or no impreffion on the gentlemen who had moved and feconded the amendment, and that was, that as the addrefs containing due praises to the officers in America had been moved and feconded, the rejection of such an address would ipfo facto amount to a cenfure upon thofe officers, and would have that effect in the eyes of all Europe. Would gentlemen then say, they were prepared to pafs a fenfure on the conduct of Lord Cornwallis and Colonel Tarleton? Would they even refuse to thank them for that conduct? Upon these and other confiderations, he trusted the honourable gentleman, who moved the amendment, would not make it a question, or take the sense of the House upon it, but would agree with him in voting for the addrefs, which certainly did not bind the Houfe to purfue the war in any particular manner; that was a future confideration, and as it muft of neceffity be governed by events as yet unknown, it would be time enough to difcufs and refolve upon it, when time had brought those events to light. General Smith fpoke warmly against the addrefs. He con- General tended that the American war was ruinous to this country, Smith. and maintained the reverse of the affertion of Mr. Pultney, who had faid we were in a better fituation now than we had ever been in, refpecting America, fince the fatal convention of Saratoga. The General afferted, that we were in circumftances infinitely worse at present than at that unfortunate period. The millions we had fince spent upon the war, would, he was well affured, have built and equipped 40 fail of the line. He declared that every military man knew, from the affair at Trenton, that all attempts to fubdue America were fo many fruitlefs proftitutions of blood and treasure, for that the matter was altogether impracticable. He therefore wifh ed ed the House to tell his Majefty, they would go on with the American war no farther, but would give every poffible fupport to his arms, when directed against their proper object,— the House of Bourbon. Mr. Fox rofe juft as the queftion was about to be put; and, in a speech of very confideral length, went over the whole ground of complaint which had been urged, or could be urged, by oppofition against the King's fervants, as well respecting the conduct of the American war, as with regard to a great variety of other topics." He began with obferving, that the amendment moved and feconded by his two honourable friends, had been very ably fupported by them; and that no answer whatever, at leaft nothing like an argument, had been advanced against it: The best thing had been attempted to be urged in fupport of the addrefs, was what had fallen from the right hon. gentleman over the way [Mr. Ellis,] viz. that it was fomething like the amendment. That, however, certainly was not a fufficient reason to induce the House to prefer the addrefs to the amendment, if the House meant to convince the people at large that they were governed by reason and fair argument, and not by private motives, and that undue influence, which the laft Parliament, almoft in its last moments, had declared to have "increased, that it was increafing, and that it ought to be diminished." The addrefs, he faid, it was true, did not directly pledge the Houfe to go on with the American war, but confidered altogether, it amounted pretty nearly to that idea. Minifters had thought proper to word it differently from the addrefs come to by the other House last Wednesday. The Lords in their address, had exprefly declared their readi nefs to go on with the war. Minifters had fhewn fo much deference to that House, that they had not in the address which had been then read, pledged the Houfe directly; but then gentlemen would obferve, that in a fubfequent paragraph, the matter was brought in; and upon the whole, there was fufficient cause for fufpicion and distrust, sufficient cause to fear that Minifters meant to plunge this country deeper in ruin, than they had already funk it, by a continuence of that mad war! With regard to the King's fpeech, which for the fake of freedom of debate, was properly termed the fpeech of the Minifter, was there in it one gleam of comfort, one hope, or the leaft profpect of better conduct in the King's fervants? Did it not begin with affuring Parliament that his Majefty |