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great naval officer (Commodore Keith Stuart) in this debate, would have amounted to 25 sail of the line. What accession the Spanish force would have received is not sufficiently known. It is enough for me to state, that the fleets of the Bourbons, and of Holland, would have doubled ours in our own seas. Should we have seized the intervals of their cruises, and poorly parade the channel for a few weeks, to tarnish again by flight the glories of the last campaign? or should we have dared to risk the existence of the kingdom itself, by engaging against such fearful odds?

"What were the feelings of every one who hears me (what were my own feelings it is impossible to describe), when that great man, Lord Howe, set sail with our only fleet, inferior to the enemy, and under the probability of an engagement on their own coast? My apprehensions, Sir, on this occasion were mixed with hope; I knew the superiority of British skill and courage might outweigh the inequality of numbers. But, Sir, in another quarter, and at the same instant of time, my apprehensions were unmixed with a ray of comfort. The Baltic fleet, almost as valuable as Gibraltar itself, for it contained all the materials of future war, was on its way to England, and twelve sail of the line had been sent out from the ports of Holland to intercept it; Gibraltar was relieved by a skill and courage that baffled superior numbers; and the Baltic fleet was, I know not how, miraculouslypreserved. One power, indeed, the honourable gentleman had omitted in his detail:-but the Dutch, Sir, had not been disarmed by the humiliating language of that gentleman's ministry: they were warmed into more active exertions, and were just beginning to feel their own strength; they were not only about to defend themselves with effect, but to lend ten sail to the fleets of France and Spain. Here, Sir, let us pause for a moment of serious and solemn consideration.

"Should the ministers have persevered from day to day to throw the desperate die, whose successes had won us only a barren though glorious safety; and whose failure, in a single cast, would sink us into hopeless ruin? However fondly the ideas of national expectation had diffused themselves amongst the people, the ministers, Sir, could entertain no rational hopes. Those columns of our strength, which many honourable gentle. men had raised with so much fancy, and decorated with so much

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invention, the ministers had surveyed with sober reason. sorry to say, we discovered the fabric of our naval superiority to be visionary and baseless.

"I shall next, with submission to the right honourable gentleman who presides in that department state, in a few words, the situation of our army. It is notorious to every gentleman who hears me, that new levies could scarcely be torn, on any terms, from this depopulated country. It is known to professional gentlemen, how great is the difference between the nominal and effective state of the service; and, astonishing as it may appear, after a careful enquiry, three thousand men were the utmost force that could have been safely sent from this country on any offensive duty. But I am told, Sir, the troops from New York would have supplied us with a force equal to the demands of every intended expedition. The foreign troops in that garrison we had no power to embark on any other than American service; and, in contradiction to the honourable gentleman who spoke last, and to that noble Lord whose language he affects to speak in this house, no transports-had been prepared, or could have been assembled, for their embarkation: Where, Sir, should they have directed their course, when they were at length embarked, but into the hazard of an enemy's fleet, which would have cruized with undisputed superiority in every part of the western world?

"No pressure of public accusation, nor heat of innocence in its own defence, shall ever tempt me to disclose a single circumstance which may tend to humiliate my country. What I am about to say, will betray no secret of state; it is known, for it is felt throughout the nation. There remains at this moment,. exclusive of the annual services, an unfunded debt of thirty millions. Taxes, Sir, the most flattering, have been tried; and, instead of revenue from themselves, have frequently produced a failure in others, with which they have been found to sympathise. But here, Sir, I am told by the honourable gentleman who spoke last, other nations would have felt an equal distress. Good God! to what a consequence does this honourable gentleman lead us! Should I, Sir, have dared to urge a continuance of the war, which endangered the bankruptcy of public faith-a bankruptcy which would have almost dissolved the bonds of government, and involved the state in the confusion of a general ruin-should I

have ventured to do this, because one of the adverse powers MIGHT have experienced an equal distress?

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"The honourable gentleman who spoke last, has amused the house with various statements on the different principles of uti possedetis,' and restitution. The principle of those statements is as false as it is unexpected from him. Did his great naval friend acquaint him with the respective values of Dominique and St. Lucia ?-that Lord, who, in his Majesty's counsels, had advised, and perhaps wisely, a preference of the former. The value of Dominique, Sir, was better known to our enemies, and the immense sums employed by them in fortifying that island, prove as well its present value, as their desire to retain it. That honourable gentleman has, on all occasions, spoken with approbation of the last peace. Was St. Lucia left in our hands by that peace, the terms of which we ourselves prescribed? or was St. Lucia really so impregnable as to endanger all our possessions at the commencement of the present war?

"It would be needless for me to remind the honourable gentleman who spoke last, of any declaration he had made in a preceding session: professions from him so antiquated and obsolete would have but little weight in this house. But I will venture to require consistency for a single week; and shall only remind him of his declaration in Monday's debate-that this peace was preferable to a continuance of the war! Will he then criminate his Majesty's ministers by the present motion, for preferring what he would have preferred; or, how will he presume to prove that, if better terms could have been obtained, it was less their interest than their duty to have obtained them?

"Was this peace, Sir, concluded with the same indecent levity that the honourable gentlemen would proceed to its condemnation? Many days and nights were laboriously employed by his Majesty's ministers in such extensive negociations; many doubts were well weighed and removed; and weeks and months of solemn discussion gave birth to that peace, which we are required to destroy without examination;-that peace, the positive ultimatum of France, and to which, I solemnly assure the public, there was no other alternative but a continuation of the war.

"Could the ministers thus, surrounded with scenes of ruin, affect to dictate the terms of peace? And are these articles seri

ously compared with the Peace of Paris? There was indeed a time when Great Britain might have met her enemies on other conditions. And if an imagination, warmed with the power and glory of this country, could have directed any member of his Majesty's councils from a painful inspection of the truth, I might, I hope, without presumption, have been entitled to that indulgence. I feel, Sir, at this instant, how much I had been animated in my childhood by a recital of England's victories :— I was taught, Sir, by one whose memory I shall ever revere, that at the close of a war, far different indeed from this, she had dictated the terms of peace to submissive nations. This, in which I place something more than common interest, was the memorable era of England's glory. But that era is past: she is under the awful and mortifying necessity of employing a language that corresponds with her true condition. The visions of her power and pre-eminence are passed away.

"We have acknowledged American Independence-that, Sir, was a needless form: the incapacity of the noble Lord who conducted our affairs; the events of war, and even a voice of this house, had already granted what it was impossible to withhold. "We have ceded Florida-we have obtained Providence and the Bahama islands.

We have ceded an extent of fishery on the coast of Newfoundland-we have established an exclusive right to the most valuable banks.

"We have restored St. Lucia, and given up Tobago-we have regained Grenada, Dominica, St. Kitts, Nevis, and Monserrat; and we have rescued Jamaica from her impending danger. In Africa we have ceded Goree, the grave of our countrymen; and we possess Senegambia, the best and most healthy settlement. "In Europe we relinquished Minorca, kept up at an immense and useless expense in peace, and never tenable in war.

“We have likevise permitted his most Christian Majesty to repair his harbour of Dunkirk-the humiliating clause for its destruction was inserted, Sir, after other wars than the past. But the immense expense attending its repairs will still render this indulgence useless: add to this, that Dunkirk was first an object of our jealousy, when ships were constructed far inferior to their present draught. That harbour, at the commencement of the

war, admitted ships of a single deck; no act or expense will enable it to receive a fleet of the line.

"In the East Indies, where alone we had power to obtain this peace, we have restored what was useless to ourselves, and scarcely tenable in a continuance of the war.

"We have abandoned the unhappy royalists to their implacable enemies.-Little, Sir, are those unhappy men befriended by such a language in this house; nor shall we give much assistance to their cause, or add stability to the reciprocal confidence of the two states, if we already impute to Congress a violence and injustice, which decency forbids us to suspect. Would a continuation of the war have been justified on the single principle of assisting these unfortunate men, or would a continuation of the war, if so justified, have procured for them a more certain indemnity? Their hopes must have been rendered desperate indeed by the additional distresses of Britain-those hopes which are now revived by the timely aid of peace and reconciliation.

"These are the ruinous conditions to which this country engaged with four powerful states; and, exhausted in all its resources, thought fit to subscribe for the dissolution of that alliance, and the immediate enjoyment of peace. Let us examine what is left, with a manly and determined courage; let us strengthen ourselves against inveterate enemies, and reconciliate our ancient friends. The misfortunes of individuals and of kingdoms, that are laid open and examined with true wisdom, are more than half redressed; and to this great object should be directed all the virtues and abilities of this house. Let us feel our calamitieslet us bear them too like men.

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But, Sir, I fear I have too long engaged your attention to no real purpose, and that the public safety is this day risked without a blush by the malice and disappointment of a faction. The honourable gentleman who spoke last has declared, with that sort of consistency which marks his conduct, because he is prevented from prosecuting the Noble Lord (North) to the satisfaction of public justice, he will heartily embrace him as a friend.' So readily does he reconcile extremes, and love the man whom he wished to prosecute! With the same spirit, Sir, I suppose he will cherish the peace too-because he abhors it.

"But I will not hesitate to surmise, from the obvious com

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