nor sacrificed to the madness of ambition the interests of humanity.-The crimes of the war will all fall upon those who are the real authors of them; upon those governments which are so weak and so blinded, as to become subservient to the mercantile designs of a single nation, and to sell its gold and its intrigues, the blood and the industry of the nations who buy them, and the freedom of the seas, which is the property of the whole human race. Furthermore, there seems a strong disposition on the part of this emperor Paul, by sending his fleet to Constantinople, to attempt something against our good ally, and to plan the dismemberment of the weak and inefficient Ottoman government; which I at the same period, 8th of May, foretold. Prussia marching troops into and seizing Cuxhaven and Hamburgh; Denmark and Sweden ready to act with them. Amidst all these misfortunes, occasioned by the weak and miserable councils of his majesty's ministers, famine rages in the land, and foreign ports are shut against us, and foreign powers refuse us corn. All the powers of Europe are starving us into submission, as we threatened (aided by all the powers of Europe) to starve France into submission in 1793; and the war which was begun in the cause of morality and religion (which I support, and, if it should unfortunately relapse into that state, I will again), a war of the plain question, whether or not England shall continue her right to search neutral vessels? I further add, Sir, that religion seems returning in France.

Ministers say, "don't drive us to peace:" that is not the object I stand up for here this night; but ministers also say, when a letter lord Keith's) is asked for, why ask for this old letter-the subject is nothing new-it's worn out! When a motion is made for a committee to inquire into the state of the nation, they say, what has a long history of the war in 1761, on the finances, or the state of the country, to do with the present state of affairs? When an hon. friend of mine rising to reply on a most important motion, brought forward by him on a subject of reducing the consumption of oats by the cavalry, they count the house. When a motion for a separate peace is made that cannot be listened to; the true plan should be to move at once for a dismissal of his majesty's ministers. That's my intention, Sir, this night; and I take them only at their

word, let their be a change in his majesty's councils, and we drive the enemy to peace. As it appears that this terrible war cannot be settled by argument, I do not wish to recommend, God knows, any thing that has the least tendency to a ludicrous proposition; but I cannot forget having read how a long and tedious war was once settled between the Romans and Albans-Tullus and Metius Suffetius were to have settled it by a single combat; one declined, however. Now, Sir, as it appears that the chancellor of the exchequer and Buonaparte are the chief obstacles to peace, they might as well decide this war thus; but as one of them might decline, then I should recommend a tribe of Malta and a tribe of Lodi, (new peers and new made baronets are hardly of sufficient importance), to imitate the Horatii and Curatii, and finish this work of blood. But, Sir, finally, let us consider our unfortunate and desperate situation, and apply the true and only remedy. Dismiss his majesty's ministersthey ride on the popularity of our good king-they ride on it, and injure it by our counsels to promote the common carnage of the world-there they sit, not a tribe of Lodi, but a tribe of Molochs, besmeared with human blood and human sacrifice; they have deluged the world with blood, and (brutalized mankind. Under their further guidance, so help me God! I fear Turkey itself will become a perfect paradise to old England-they will make an heaven an hell. May God avert a famine! May God avert a revolution! Sir, I dread them both without a change of councils-May the king live for ever! I now move, "That an humble address be presented to his majesty, earnestly imploring his majesty, that, taking into his royal consideration the sufferings of his loyal and affectionate people, he will be graciously pleased no longer to listen to the counsels of his present ministers, who by, their profusion and extravagance, have brought their country to the brink of famine and ruin, and who, by their incapacity, have shown themselves unequal to conduct the war with effect, or enter into negotiations of peace with honour."

Mr. Nicholls said, he conceived the war to be the cause of the present high price of provisions, as he could account on no other principle for the circunstance of bread being sold in this country at 18d. while it was selling in France and the low

countries at 6d. the quartern loaf. But the "solid system of finance" of the right hon. gentleman easily accounted for this effect of the war. The war also had produced the northern confederacy, which threatened to deprive this country of the supplies expected from importation and to bring new enemies against it. The war and the system on which it had been conducted, had rendered us the abhorrence of every other country, even of the pettiest states in Germany, who accused us of having deluged their territories with blood and treasure. The obvious course, then was, to make peace, which we have it in our power to do. France must either be an armed or a trading and commercial nation; and, in his opinion, it would be more for the interests of this country that she were the latter than the former. There was room enough in the world for two great commercial and manufacturing nations, France and this country; and no evil would ensue to the latter, from the former becoming her rival.

Mr. Robson said, it was more necessary than ever that the conduct of ministers should come frequently under discussion, that the people, who paid the expenses incurred by their profusion, might know the system they pursued; that they might know that the taxes were paid by themselves and not by placemen, whose sine cures were unaffected by the war. He would venture to say that there was a dead majority of the House, who, being employed in some way or other under government paid nothing to the income tax. -[A call of Order.] He conceived that on such an occasion as this, where none of the ministers chose to reply to the charges brought against them, a member might be excused for bringing forward such an accusation, as, in his opinion it, was more than human nature could bear, for a gentleman of his principles to sit calmly in the House and hear nothing but silence on such a subject. [a laugh.] His object was, to prove the incapacity of ministers; and as there was a great resemblance between not only the cause and the origin, but the conduct and effect, of the American war and this, he would contrast the two, and prove that ministers had not taken instruction from the example which it held out to them. We began the American war by interfering in the government of America. We began this war by interfering in the government of France. We lost America, from refusing

to hear her overtures; and all the misfortunes of this war were owing to our refusal to listen to the overtures of Buonaparté, when we might have made an advantageous peace. We not only then lost the opportunity of treating, but we recruited the French armies; and our conduct in not ratifying the convention for the evacuation of Egypt, not only lost that country to us and our ally, but had endangered our territorial possessions in India. The last was the effect of lord Keith's letter to Kleber-the former was the effect of lord Grenville's letter to Buonaparté, which had also raised the Northern confederacy which he allowed we ought to resist, but which might never have existed if we had made peace with France. The conduct of this country to the emperor Paul certainly was not so bad; but if the Russian officer's letter to him from Holland, and the disappointment of his favourite views on Malta, were considered, there would be little difficulty in accounting for his hostility to this country, which had been displayed ever since the 9th of November last; and he would ask, if it was not strange that this country should have been maintaining his troops at an immense expense, and that too in a season of scarcity, in the islands of Jersey and Guernsey, and refitting and victualling his fleets, after our ambassador had been dismissed with ignominy from his court, and we were actually in a state of war with him? Ministers could not say that they had not been forewarned of the evils which this war had produced; they were, and that particularly by a right hon. gentleman (Mr. Fox), who, on account of his great abilities, he lamented had absented himself from that House, where it appeared that abilities were so much wanted-[a laugh.] This was no subject for laughter, though ministers seemed to choose rather to laugh than to defend their conduct from his attacks. Mr. Robson then argued, that the foolish and fruitless expeditions of this Summer had raised the price of provisions; that all the distresses of the country were owing to the mismanagement of ministers; that the war was continued merely on account of the hatred of Mr. Pitt and Buonaparté to each other; that when the difference took place between this country and Paul, we ought to have sent ambassadors to Pe tersburgh and Berlin: that continental connexions were the ruin of England, and that Mr. Pitt only came to the House to

get supplies, and to boast how much he had raised from the taxes, how much he had screwed from the country, and from people who were little able to pay it. The article of salt he instanced as showing the effect of the war on the necessary articles of life. Before the war it was 71.; now it was 221. and the original price was no more than 25s, This was an effect of the taxes imposed by the war, and prevented the people from making their own bacon, which was one of the ordinary articles of their subsistence. The House divided:

Debate on Mr. Nicholls's Motion for a Committee on the State of the Gold Coin.] Dec. 5. Mr. Nicholls said, that in the month of December 1796, he had thought it his duty to suggest to the House his reasons for supposing that the gold coin of this country had diminished in quantity. He had founded his reasons upon a paper which had been laid upon the table, purporting to be an account of the state of the gold coinage, for the twelve years previous to the year 1796. By that account, it appeared, that for the first ten years the coinage had amounted to 2,320,000l. a year, and for the last two years of that period, it had amounted to no more than 440,000l.; the inference he had drawn from that statement was, that if the coinage of 2,320,000/. had been kept up for ten years, without any sensible decrease, it was possible that the average coinage of 2,320,000l. was neces sary to keep up the quantity of coin to a given amount, whatever that amount might be; and consequently, that if, for the last two years, the coinage, was only 440,000l., the difference in the amount

See vol. 32, p. 1389,

of the coinage, compared with the preceding years, was 2,278,000l.; but he had submitted to the House, that the deficiency of the gold coin was actually 3,376,000l. and he had supported his assertion by reference to the difference in price of gold coined and uncoined. The price of gold coined was at that time 31. 17s. 10d. per ounce; but gold of the same standard, uncoined, was worth 47. 2s. per ounce. Government, therefore, would have lost considerably by coining: that was one material cause of the deficiency; but the relative prices of gold coined and uncoined rendered it an article of gain to the Jews by melting: no doubt, then, a vast deficiency had been produced by the Jews melting the coin. Upon this reasoning he had moved, that the governors of the Bank should attend the committee of supply upon the subject; his motion had failed; it had been negatived without an answer. He had again thought it his duty to bring the subject before the House, because he considered the danger greater than it had been at the period to which he had alluded. In the years 1797 and 1798, the average coinage had been greater than the two preceding years; a coinage of about 5,000,000l. had, in some measure, supplied the deficiency of those years; but in the year 1799, there had been a coinage of only 449,000l. and in the course of the last year, of no more than 189,000l.; the deficiency of coin, in four years, he computed at 7,500,000l.; this deficiency was augmented by melting the coin, and by exportation; for at this moment there was no trade so profitable as that of melting gold. Merchants too, found it necessary, in consequence of the exchange against this country, to export gold, in order to avoid the necessity of drawing bills upon the country. The exchange against this country was 1-6th more at the present moment, than in the year 1796; it was therefore impossible to prevent the gold from being sent abroad; the scarcity of coin was also greatly increased by the bounties on the importation of coin, and by foreign subsidies. The Bank could not coin while gold remained at its present price. During this year, the diminution, from the Bank's not coining, from melting, and from exportation, had been more sensibly felt than in any former year. Such was the state of the ountry. What security had the people of this country, that there would not be

as complete a disappearance of the gold coin, and as great a circulation of paper money, as there had been in France in the year 1791? The House, then, ought to have some person to look to, in order to avert such an evil. The conduct of so important a concern ought not to be left in the hands of his majesty's ministers, or of the Bank Directors. True it was, the Bank Directors had remonstrated against those measures of ministers to which the reduction was owing; but they had, ne. vertheless, always obeyed them. It was to the measures of ministers that the stoppage of the Bank was to be attributed. On that stoppage was built the minister's "solid system of finance," which had doubled the price of every necessary of life, introduced bankruptcy and beggary into the country, and annihilated public credit. An eminent writer of our own, Mr. Hume, about forty years ago, had warned the country against the consequences of frequent wars; he had compared a country's going to war, oppressed with the weight of taxes, loans, and subsidies, to a game at tennis in a china shop; let it be remembered, that the china of France was destroyed; a great part of ours still remained, and care ought to be taken to preserve it, by avoiding that system which had ruined France. He thought it his duty to move that a committee be appointed to inquire into the state of the coinage, and to report their opinion to the House. He observed, that all political writers considered the coinage as the criterion of the quantity of gold in a country; if the Mint had not gold to feed the market, there evidently must be a deficiency. If it was urged, that the inquiry he wished for would be dangerous, he had only to say, he had no objection to its being a secret committee; but he saw no danger in an open committee. Should it appear that the Bank had plenty of gold, no harm whatever could result from the inquiry-if the contrary, that would form an additional reason why the country should not go on with the war. The governor of the Bank had stated, that there was no danger whatever to be apprehended from the subsidies sent abroad. He thought he was a bold man in making such a declaration, considering the circumstances of the country: but whether the fact was so or not, it was the duty of parliament to superintend the sending money out of the country, and to be satisfied it was not at

tended with danger. What security was there that the diminution of gold and the increase of paper would not produce the same effects as they had done in France? The expenses of government must have been greater since the quartern loaf had been 1s. 6d. than when it was only 6d. Besides, the increase of paper money was attended with an evil impossible to be remedied- he meant forgery. Forgeries of the small notes in particular had made most alarming progress, and the practices of our own government against France and America showed the impossibility of resisting the effects of forgery; they had been encouraged by government, and even our courts of justice had said that to depreciate the credit of an enemy by forging its paper-money was a moral act. How were we sure the attempts of France would not produce the same effect in this country as our attempts had produced in France? Great as the general distress of the country was, he dreaded the still greater calamity of public bankruptcy. Who was prepared to say what might be the consequence of a deficiency of seven millions in the coinage of the country; and if the House suffered things to go on in the same way, what security was there against its total diminution? He concluded by moving, "That a committee be appointed to examine into the State of the Gold Coin, and to report the same, with their opinion thereupon to the House."

Lord Hawkesbury said, that the hon. gentleman had laid no grounds before the House to induce them to agree to the motion, nor had he stated any beneficial effect that could result from its adoption. It was not necessary, on the present occasion, to enter into a discussion of the question, how far the coin of the country was a criterion of its wealth. He was ready to admit, that the coinage of this year had been very small indeed, but that arose from an obvious cause, namely, that the balance of trade had been against us, The same thing happened in 1795 and 1796, owing to a scarcity of provisions which then existed, more particularly in the article of corn. This scarcity ren. dered it necessary that a large importation should take place, the necessary consequence of which was, that large sums of money were sent out of the country. The same cause produced the same effect now. It was also true, that the subsidies paid by this country operated to a certain ex

any inconvenience being felt from the want of gold coin, it was not the case; and even if it was, it could not be remedied: we must wait till the balance of trade turned in our favour. There appeared then to him not the slightest ground for the apprehension which the hon. gentleman seemed to entertain; for when the Bank discontinued its payments in specie, persons were permitted to deposit any quantity of coin in the Bank, with permission to draw a certain amount again specie; but, in point of fact, a very small part of it was ever drawn out. Upon these grounds he should oppose the motion.

tent; but the effect they had was but small. In 1797 and 1798, when there was no necessity for importing provisions, there was a great influx of bullion into the country, and the coinage in those years, particularly the latter, was very great; and he had no doubt that the coinage would have continued, if it had not been | for the scarcity which had taken place, and which rendered it again necessary to send out great sums of money for grain. The House must then see, that the causes were merely temporary; and when the cause ceased, the complaint would exist no longer. But if the coinage of the country was a proof of its wealth, it never was richer than in 1797; and yet in 1796 the hon. gentleman made a similar complaint to that which he had now submitted to the House. The hon. gentleman had not stated, indeed, it was impossible to state, that it was owing to a declension of our commerce; for it was admitted on all sides, that the trade of this country never was in so flourishing a condition as it was at present. If the object of the hon. gentleman's motion was to keep the gold coin in the country, he must know that there was no legislative measure that could effect it when the balance of trade was against us. There was a law against exporting gold coin, and it always appeared to him to be an unwise law; for the fact was, that if gold could not be exported in coin, it would be melted down, and then exported. If then, under the present circumstances it was necessary to send large sums of money out of the country, it was impossible that the result of the proposed inquiry could lead to any beneficial or practical conclusion. When the balance of trade was in our favour, there had always been a large importation of bullion and a great coinage; and on the other hand, when the balance was against us, the coinage was small. The only point which he wished to press upon the House was, that it arose from temporary causes, and that when they ceased, things would fall into their usual channel. The rate of exchange was at present undoubtedly against us, and might, he would admit, create some embarrassments; but if it did not arise from any permanent cause, it would have this good effect, that it would operate as a bounty upon the exportation of our manufactures. On the contrary, when the exchange was in our favour, it did undoubtedly operate as an increased price upon our exports. As to

Mr. Tierney supported the motion. The noble lord seemed to have misunderstood the object of his hon. friend; which was, not an inquiry so much with a view to the present, as to prevent future mischief. He therefore thought the House and the country obliged to his hon. friend for bringing forward his motion now, rather than waiting until the danger was inevitable. For his own part, he knew of no evil so dangerous to a commercial country, as the disappearance of its coin, and the substitution of a paper currency; one obvious and alarming ill consequence already in this country, was, the enormous extent of forgeries, particularly of notes for small sums; insomuch, that when coin should be restored to circulation, and small notes be called in, those forgeries must produce the most deplorable consequences. The noble lord had offered no reason why the House should not investigate the subject. In the directors of the Bank at this day, the country had not, in his opinion, the same faithful guardians that they had previous to the substitution of paper for gold. When he had, on a former occasion, complained of the three millions of foreign subsidies, he was thought a peevish and troublesome medler, and was told, that though we had expended such a sum in one month, we might have it back, through commercial channels in the next. But the fallacy of this opinion showed, that all men, even a chancellor of the exchequer, might err in their conjectures. The Bank Directors, on this first attempt to export the coin of the country, resisted such a measure of the minister with a laudable and becoming spirit. But from the moment the issue of gold was stopped, and liberty given them for the complete substitution of paper, there was no further impedi