HOUSE OF COMMONS. Saturday, Feb. 15. Read a third Time, and paffed, the Bill to prevent the Transfer of Property in the Funds, or accepting any Bills of Exchange payable in France, &c. The Bill for raifing Eleven Millions on Annuities, for the support of the War, was ordered to be ingrofied, and to be read a third Time on Monday, if then ingrofied. The Annual Indemnity Bill paffed the Committee, and the Report was ordered to be received on Monday the 17th. The Bills for repealing Duties on Gloves, and on Births, Burials, and Christenings, paffed the Committee, and the Report was ordered to be received on Monday the 17th.-Adjourned. HOUSE OF LORDS. Several of the new Tax Bills were read a first and fecond Time. The French Finance Bill was brought up from the Commons, and read a first Time. IMPEACHMENT. Lord Thurlow informed their Lordships, that as he understood the Marquis of Cornwallis could not attend to give Evidence in the High Court of Chancery on the Trial of Warren Haftings, Efq. the Managers for the House of Commons wished to decline, and very properly, the further proceeding in the bufinefs, until Mr. Haftings had availed himself of the evidence of the Noble Marquis. In confequence of this, he obferved, that it was useless for their Lordships to proceed to Westminster Hall on Wednesday the 19th, as they would have to return in the fame manner they did on a former day. For thefe reafons his Lordfhip moved, That the Order for Wednefday fhould be difcharged, and that they do proceed further on the Trial of Warren Haftings on Monday the 24th. MOTION FOR PEACE. The Marquis of Lansdowne: "My Lords, I do affure your Lordships, that it is with no perfonal fatisfaction I rife to make the Motion which I now hold in my hand. I would have infinitely preferred to see it come from thofe whose information on the subject, and whofe influence in this Houfe, would have infured to it fuccefs. I would have particularly wished to have seen it in the hands of Minifters, because I am anxious only for the object, and have no perfonal feeling to gratify. I have deferred it, in hopes, at least, that it would have been taken up by fome Lord of more eminence, and of more confideration than myfelf; and I fhould have been happy to have feconded it, come from where it might, without any regard to party or faction. Happy I fhould have been, to have allowed to them all the merit, and all the gratitude, which it would have fixed in the breafts of their country; for, however high the tone and language of men may be for a moment, I am convinced that the true fentiment of the kingdom is in favour of peace, and that they who fhould be the means of obtaining that bleffing would cordially receive the thanks of every thinking man. I fay, then, my Lords, that I fhould have been ready to fupport whoever fhould have made the motion, and I have deferred it fo long only in hopes of feeing it in other hands. But, instead of this, feeing the immenfe preparations that are making for a continuance of the war, feeing the volume of engagements into which we have entered with foreign powers, the enormous arrangements that are making in every department, and the folemn declarations that we have made, and are daily making, of perfeverance, I do think it high time that your Lordships fhould deliberate for the moment, just to enquire into the caufe and the object of our purfuit. "I do not mean, my Lords, to exaggerate the calamities to which the war has given rife; I do not mean to excite any spirit of difcontent; I mean to draw your Lordships to a cool and temperate reflection on the crifis. I will endeavour to avoid every thing that looks like afperity of oblervation, ali harshness of language, all violence of debate; I will not for a moment detain you by any animadverfion on the conduct of the war; though, undoubtedly, if the war is to be perfifted in, its conduct muft undergo your fcrutiny; but it is my defire to confine myself to the present state of things, and to draw your Lordships' attention to this fingle fubject: What is the object of the war, and what are the means by which we hope to accomplish it? Though, undoubtedly, other Noble Lords would have been able to have entered into the confideration of this topic with more ability than myfelf, yet I truft, that you will pay attention to my facts, whatever indulgence you may give to my arguments and to my reafoning on them; for, my Lords, if ever there was a fubject that called for the deliberate attention of mankind, and particularly of your Lordships, as you involve by your decifion the fate of millions, it is the present. "I will not enlarge in the shape of declamation; I will not addrefs myself to your paffions; but what, my Lords, must be the feelings of a burthened nation, when they fee thirteen millions of money voted by their reprefentatives towards the continuance of this war, without even a fingle confideration being taken of the merits of the caufe? when they fee this done on the mere pretext of a French pamphlet! Such is the melancholy fact; for though Minifters have already, in the fhort fitting of the prefent Seffion, drawn this fum from the pockets of the people, all the grounds upon which they have gone, all the arguments they have used, all the explanations they have given to their country, are extracts from a French pamphlet. They have laid, indeed, bundles of papers upon the table, fubfidiary treaties with foreign States, which may be called bonds, judgments, and mortgages on the estate of every man in this country; but, without entering into any examination of the principles on which it is undertaken, or the object which is in view, other than a few comments on the pamphlet of M. Briffot. My Lords, the people of Great Britain are not likely to think the fentiments of a fingle individual, and that individual the member of a faction that was crushed at the time of the writing, a good ground for perpetuating the horrors of an unexplained war. The faction of Briffot was overthrown, as the prefent faction may be overthrown; and inflammatory pamphlets by the partifans of each fucceffive faction may furnish pretexts for the continuance of hoftilities, if fuch wretched pretexts are to be confidered as legitimate grounds of war. After two campaigns, the laft of which has been, in truth, the most difaftrous, both in the effufion of blood, and in the wafte of treasure, that the modern world has fuffered, it will not be unworthy of your Lordships to paufe for a moment, and, before you involve Europe in the horrors of a third, to enquire into the fuccefs of the paft. I fpeak the heartfelt fentiment of every man of every country, that the campaigns have been as unfortunate as to the object, as they have been melancholy in regard to the facrifice of blood and treafure. No pompous declaration can reconcile you to falfhood. Our failure is afcertained by mankind, and is a matter of history. It now comes therefore to be the question, whether the innumerable treaties that we have made are calculated to turn the tide of misfortune, and to fecure to us the rational hopes of fuccefs in the campaign that is to come. "I have no hesitation in faying, that, as far as my feeble judgment can determine, we have no more probalility of fuccefs now than before. If we are to draw wifdom from the experience of ages, your Lordships will not difdain the teftimonies that have been borne, by the ableft generals that the world ever faw, against the line of war in which we are involved. From the illuftrious Duke of Marlborough down to General Lloyd, the last officer who has written on the fubject, the opinion of all the men of great military talents of Europe has been, that an attempt to penetrate France through its garrifoned frontiers is impracticable; and that it is madness so to attack it. This is the uniform, unanimous opinion of military men; and this opinion has been, moft unfortunately for the Allies, verified by the fate of the two laft campaigns. Let us fee what was the line of the war: The first attack was made by the line of Champagne; the fecond by Lifle; the third by Strafbourg; and thefe three attacks have been made under men of the greatest talents, and the greatest military fame in in Europe. Of the Duke of Brunswick it was impoffible for him to fpeak in terms of panegyric too lofty: his retreat had subjected him to the moft cruel reflections: it is attributed to his want of management; whereas, I can take upon me, my Lords, to fay, on the concurring evidence of every military man with whom I have converfed, that his retreat from Champagne was highly honourable to his military talents. It was the natural result of an attempt to penetrate the Kingdom of France; and you fee that the fame fate has followed the other two. Did Clairfait fare better at Lifle? Has Cobourg fared better? Has Wurmfer fared better? All thefe officers, the highest in reputation, all bred in the best military fchools of Europe, have had the fame fortune. I forbear to go further, for reafons that will be obvious to your Lordships; but I might purfue the queftion without any hazard of finding an exception in any of the other attempts that have been made by other Commanders; and we are now beginning a third campaign after this melancholy experience. But it feems a new officer, of middle rank, (we imagine he alluded to Colonel Mack,) has formed a new plan, upon which all the Cabinets of Europe reft their hopes, and upon which we are again to hazard the lives of our fellow-creatures. My Lords, I will not affect to dispute with the cabinets of Europe on the queftion of the new project fuggefted by this diftinguifhed officer, in whom they affect to have fuch confidence. Genius is undoubtedly not confined to any rank; and I have found, in the courfe of the experience that I have had in the military profeffion, many inftances of high and meritorious fervices performed by officers of the middle ranks. It certainly, however, is a received opinion in the military science, that the proper fphere of their fervice is in operations, under the main defign, where vigour and rapidity of execution were required. All the received doctrines of the military fchool affign to long experience the province of defign. It is not certainly a novel thing to find in the military profeflion, as we find in every other profeffion, men of fuch zeal and warmth as to form the most fanguine plans, to undertake the moft improbable adventures. What malady was there ever found fo great but fome phyfician would be found to undertake your cure? What cafe was there ever fo abstruse and intricate, but fome lawyer would promife to bring you through? I am not therefore fo much astonished that we should find an officer fuggefting a new plan (Colonel Mack's new project) as to fee the credulous avidity with which it is embraced, and the implicit confidence that is given to it. It is furely of confequence to your Lordships to look back to the only rational ground upon which any eftimate of fuccefs can be made the experience that we have had already. We are told that we have had fuccefs; Flanders has been faved? let us enquire into the fact: Flanders was was loft by one battle, and regained by another. If this experience is good for any thing, it ought to teach you that the fate of Flanders depends upon a fingle battle, and that it may be loft by the next which fhall happen. A little of the fecret history of the laft campaign would alfo fhew you, that the lofs of Flanders to the French, was the refult of the animofities of private faction, which, there as well as here, first gave Dumourier the afcendant over one party, and fubjected him to the triumph of another. To the animofities of these factions may be attributed their failure by the defection of Dumourier. But the refult of these animofities has at length given to the government of France more formidable power than ever was maintained by any state; and you ought to look at the confequences which are likely to follow from your keeping up in France the tone and paffion which they at prefent poffefs. You will run the hazard of establishing in the center of Europe a Military Republic: You will cherish and confirm a fpirit that it will be impoffible for Europe afterwards to extinguish. You give a new turn to their thoughts; a new pursuit, a new genius, a new character to the people. "Lord Bolingbroke fays in his works, that all the Spanish statesmen with whom he converfed, faid of Philip, that they would have been able to have made him a good Spaniard, but for the provocation which he met with, and which confirmed him French. Thus if we perfevere to goad, to attack, and to hunt the French, we fhall only confirm, never to be rooted out, a Military Republic in the very heart of Europe. And do not let us proudly conceive that our combination will make us formidable, because it is opposed to a single people, when we sharpen talents by irrafcibility, when we inflame the natural energies of the foul, when we call forth and aroufe every faculty of nature; while every individual man becomes a god, the confequences are not to be calculated by the arithmetic of common events. And fuch has ever been the experience of ages. Great moments have always produced great men and great actions. The time of conflict is the time in which Nature feems to delight in her grandest productions. From the Grecian Republic down even to our modern hiftory, the most refplendent powers of man have been fhewn in the times of the greatest imminence. The prefent, therefore, is a fchool for Frenchmen; every youth devotes himself to the caufe of liberty; and thus actively engaged on the grand fcene, all the powers of his foul take a warlike direction; it becomes a fashion, and the whole of the rifing generation are educated in the military art. Not, my Lords, as our youth are educated to the military art, as one only of the profeffions in which they may individually rife to eminence or diftinction; but the enthufiafm of war enters into the heart only from the enthufiafm of liberty; and the whole country |