other Council, but that which we ftill call the Privy Council, and of that Council there was always a Committee appointed to confider and take care of foreign affairs; but the Resolutions of that Committee were not carried into execution, till they were approved of by the Privy Council: In that Council there then fat feveral great Officers, fuch as the Lord High Treafurer, the Lord High Admiral, and others, who by their birth and quality, as well as by the importance of the posts they enjoyed, added weight and dignity to the Council of which they were Members; but thefe high offices are now split into Commiffions, and fometimes granted to men who have neither birth, quality, nor character; which is not done for the fake of dispatching business (for every one knows, the whole business of the nation, or office, is now chiefly directed by one, in the fame manner it was formerly) but for the fake of multiplying falaries and gaining votes. This has very much derogated from the honor of that Affembly, and is, I believe, the chief cause of their power being now almoft entirely ufurped and exercifed by what is called the Cabinet Council; but even what we now call the Cabinet Council, has not always the power and influence they seem to have; for when any one Minister happens to get the fole direction of all public affairs, the other Members of the Cabinet Council, or at least the majority of them, ferve only to give a fort of authority to what the Minister has been pleased to refolve on.

Duke of Argyle, Dec. 8, 1740.

IN Queen Elizabeth's time, though the war against Spain began in 1585, and lasted till that Queen's death in 1603, which was seventeen years, yet in all that time there were but three or four expeditions of confequence undertaken against the enemy, either in Spain, or in the Indies; and though the private adventurers got fometimes a rich booty, yet the nation never reaped an advantage, nor kept poffeffion of any one place they had the good fortune to take. Again, in Oliver Cromwell's

time, though the war against Spain began in 1654, and continued till his death in 1658, yet no one expedition was undertaken, or, I believe, so much as thought of, against any one of the dominions of Spain, except that one expedition by which the war begun, and by which we got and kept the Island of Jamaica.

The Lord Chancellor, Dec. 8, 1740,

MY LORDS, I must think it very unlucky in any one, that argues in favor of our conduct in the present war, to mention Queen Elizabeth or Oliver Cromwell; both of them began war against Spain in a very different manner from what we have now done. Queen Elizabeth began the war, by fending an army into the Low Countries, to affist them in throwing off the yoke of Spain; at the fame time she sent a squadron, with land forces on board, to the West-Indies, not with fimple or ambiguous orders for making reprifals, but exprefs orders to attack the Spanish fettlements; and accordingly they took and plundered St. Jago, one of the Cape Verd iflands, as alfo most part of the island of St. Domingo, the town of Carthagena, and the towns of St. Antonio and St. Helena in Florida. The very next year after the return of this fleet, fhe fent another under the fame Admiral, Drake, to the coaft of Spain, which did not lie to be stared at off of any of their ports, but entered the harbour of Cadiz and the river of Lisbon, and burnt a great number of fhips and though the Admiral had no land forces on board, yet he landed at feveral places upon the coast of Spain, and ravaged the whole country round. At the fame time fhe fent Cavendish to the South-Seas, where he ravaged the whole coaft of Chili and Peru, and returned to England with a booty vaftly. rich. The year following was the year of the Spanish Armada, the fate of which I need not relate. The next year, with the affiftance of fome private adventurers, fhe fent a fleet and army against Spain itself, where they landed at feveral places, beat an army that was fent against them, and might have got a great

booty,

booty, if they had not amused themselves with restoring the dethroned King of Portugal. The four or five years next following, that great Queen was chiefly employed in affisting Henry the IVth of France against the Spaniards and his own rebellious fubjects; and in the year 1596, a new fleet and army was fent against Spain under the Earl of Effex, who took the city of Cadiz, burnt or took all the ships in the harbour, and after having done the Spaniards an infinite deal of service, rèturned to England with a moft inconfiderable booty.

Besides thefe, my Lord, there were feveral other expeditions of less note undertaken against Spain in that reign; and if we' did not, in that time, keep poffeffion of any of the places we took from the enemy in the Weft-Indies, it was because we did not then fo much know the value of fettlements in that part of the world. But if Queen Elizabeth did not push the war against Spain with fo much vigor as fhe might have done, there were two reasons for it, which do not now subsist. In the first place, our trade, which was then in its infancy, fuffered but very little by the war, and we were yearly getting great riches by plundering the enemy at sea or land; and in the next place, that gracious Queen was extremely shy of loading her fubjects with any new taxes, or putting the public to any expence. When the found herself under no neceffity to send out forces to attack the enemy, or affift her allies, fhe kept no army or squadron at home, to be a burden and oppreffion upon her own fubjects. She raised no armies, nor fitted out any squadrons, but when he had immediate occafion for them, or was in imminent danger; and as foon as the fervice, or the danger was over, the difmiffed her armies, and paid off her fquadrons: I wish I could fay, we had held the fame conduct ever fince, or that we now held such a conduct.

With regard to Oliver Cromwell, it is well known he began his war with Spain by the conqueft of Jamaica, which has since brought in so many millions sterling to England; and if it had not been for a mistake in his General, he would probably have

begun

begun it with the conqueft of St. Domingo, which would have been an acquifition of much greater confequence to this kingdom. If he did not fecond his blow in the Weft-Indies, it was because he engaged with the French in their war against the Spaniards in the Netherlands, by which he got poffeffion of the important city and port of Dunkirk; and he died in little more than two months after he had made this new and important acquifition, which we might to this day have had in our poffeffion, if the Parliament, upon the Restoration, had done their duty, and annexed it to the Crown of England.

Earl of Chesterfield, Dec. 8, 1740.

THE cafe of the Earl of Bristol, in King Charles the Firft's time, may show how dangerous it is to accufe a favorite Minifter, whilst he is in the zenith of his power and interest at Court. Nothing could be more juft than the accufation brought by that Earl against the Duke of Buckingham, yet it produced an accufation against that Earl, in which the King himself was the accufer, and his Attorney General the profecutor. This was a most terrible situation which that noble Earl was brought into by his fidelity to his country, and his own honor; and if the power of the Crown had been in the fame condition it is now, notwithstanding the heinoufnefs of his charge against the Minifter, notwithstanding his full and well-vouched defence as to the charge exhibited against him, he might, probably, have fallen a facrifice to the refentment of that favorite Minifter. Earl of Carteret, Feb. 13, 1740.

It is with regret I obferve, that almost every Seffion introduces fomething new, in diminution of the Liberties, or derogatory to the Conftitution of this kingdom. In former times. the Grant of a Supply often stood a long Debate in this House, and was sometimes abfolutely refused; now it is always granted nemine contradicente. The Malt-Tax was never introduced till towards the latter end of King William's reign, and was at

first most strenuously opposed: Nay, even during the war in Queen Anne's time, it was often oppofed, and was looked on as a tax fo burdenfome upon the poor labourers and manufacturers of this kingdom, that no man imagined any Minister would have the affurance to propofe renewing or continuing it, after the war was over. The Mutiny Bill was at first thought to be a moft dangerous innovation, and was therefore most violently oppofed, especially in time of peace; but it is now become fo familiar to us, that we pafs it regularly every year, without the least oppofition, as if a Standing Army and a Mutiny Act were two things abfolutely neceffary for the fubfiftence of our Conftitution. Not many years ago, the Members of this House, when affembled, looked upon themselves as the grand Inqueft of the Nation, and therefore thought themselves in duty bound to inquire into every grievance and complaint, without any other foundation than a public rumour; but now every Motion, that tends to an inquiry into any complaint, is rejected; or if any fuch inquiry be fet on foot, it is committed to those who are themselves fufpected of being the original and chief caufe of the complaint.

Thus, Sir, we have for feveral years gone on approaching, I am afraid, to the confines of flavery; and in this Seffion, we have made a new and a very extraordinary step. Till this Seffion we have always thought, that every Member of this House had a right to vote for a Call of the House. We are fellow-labourers for the public good: we are all joint-guardians of the Liberties of our Country, and every Member has a right to infift upon it, that his companion should attend and bear an equal fhare of the burden, or at least a fhare proportionable to his ftrength and capacity. But in this Seffion, Sir, we have feen a Motion for a Call rejected, though that Motion was the fifft of the kind that had been made, though it was fupported by ftrong reafons, and though it was defired by near one half of those that were then present. This I must look on as a most dangerous innovation; for when we begin to encroach upon,