him that honour; all that he could do in return was to declare, that his conduct should be an example of the most sincere and perfect gratitude. It could not, however, surely be warrantably advanced, that from this circumstance he was imitating Pisistratus, or that he was endeavouring to obtain illegal honours! The electors of Westminster thought well of his efforts in that House, and this naturally shewed itself in acts of affection and regard towards him. Lost almost as the public cause seemed to be, they were glad to find the representative for Westminster among the number of those true friends to liberty, who best served their country, and who were still determined to stand in the breach to resist the torrent of corruption and of increasing influence, which threatened to bear down the constitution, and to destroy it. In order to do this, he, and those with whom he acted, had sacrificed their interests, they had sacrificed their ambition, they had sacrificed all views of greatness and emolument, they had sacrificed every thing that could gratify the mind of man, or fall within the wish of human pride, or human vanity. Let not gentlemen on the other side, on almost every one of whom places, pensions, titles, and rewards of every kind, were profusely heaped, grudge, then, either him or others the poor comfort of a little popular applause. Let them not complain that the people held his humble efforts to serve his country in some degree of estimation. And though they might, in the warmth of their zeal and affection, use a few imprudent words, for such he granted those words were, which composed the resolution of the Westminster committee read to the House by the honourable gentleman, let it not be said, that he was borne off his legs by popular honours, or that he was frantic with popular applause. Had he been anxious to court those honours, and to obtain that applause, opportunities had offered, which he should not have neglected. In the time of the tumults, when the people were madly riotous, had he uttered one word, or said one syllable in support of the protestant association? On the contrary, had he not opposed it firmly, and been among the first to reprobate and censure those lawless proceedings which began with insult to that and the other House of Parliament, and did not end till the public prisons, and private property, to an immense amount, had been burnt and destroyed! Again, when a measure was in agitation within those walls, which was particularly the object of opposition from those very persons, whom it was at that time known, he wished should become his constituents, had he with a view to court popular applause, meanly given up his opinion, and adopted that of those who had since chosen him their representative? On the other hand, was it

not notorious to every gentleman present, who had sat in the last parliament, that he stood up in his place, and firmly supported the measure, declaring at the same time, that he trusted it would be a proof to the electors, that if they chose him their representative, they would send to parliament a member who, at least, was sincere, and who was at all times determined to speak his real sentiments.

After other instances adduced in proof, that the popular applause with which he had been honoured, was the voluntary gift of the people, and had not been sought after by him, either industriously or improperly, Mr. Fox took notice of the necessary freedom of debate, and said, that as it was the dearest and most inestimable privilege of a British senator, so was it the last right that he would abandon or give up; and here he must observe, that in his speech on the first day of the last session, in his speech on the first day of the present session, he had talked language, which, however people might chuse to construe it, was not, he would at all times maintain, in the least personal to any man whatever. As long as he had the honour to sit in that House, he would exercise that inestimable privilege of speaking freely upon public matters, both as to the conduct of men in public situations, and of measures any way connected with the public interest. He had spoken freely hitherto, whenever he had taken the liberty to rise in that House; and in spite of every attempt to prevent him, of every sort that could be suggested, he would continue to use and support the freedom of debate. He thought it necessary to say thus much, and to say it in the most express terms just then, because he foresaw, that in speaking to the subject which was presently to be taken into consideration, as the order of the day, when a supply for the support of the navy was to be proposed, he should have occasion to advert to the character of a person (Sir Hugh Palliser) who, if report was to be credited, and there could be found constituents sufficiently abandoned and lost to all sense of honour as to chuse him their representative, was shortly to come among them. That person had been convicted by one court-martial of having preferred a false and malicious accusation against his superior officer, and had been tried for his own conduct by another court-martial, who had neither acquitted him honourably, nor acquitted him unanimously. Those trials were matters of public notoriety, and therefore they were fit subjects for parliamentary allusion, and for free discussion within those walls ; to those trials he should have occasion to refer, in what he should have to say when the supply for the support of the navy came under debate; and as often as any matter relative to the navy was the topic of consideration, so often

would he most undoubtedly speak of those trials, and the person to whom they had relation, without reserve. Nor had that gentleman, or any other honourable gentleman, any right to complain of being personally insulted by what he should then say. If he were to prefer an indictment against any person accusing that person of a crime, none surely but the most wrong-headed man in the world would deem the hard words, which constitute the legal and technical phrases of the indictment, as so many private affronts to him as a gentleman; the case was exactly the same as to his treating upon any public topic in that House. He owned, he was a little astonished to hear the honourable gentleman who spoke last, congratulate him upon his having, in consequence of the Westminster committee's resolution, an exclusive privilege of speaking personalities within those walls. He had already said, that he never had spoken personalities. Had he indulged himself with entering into a dissertation on economy, and the well-ordered arrangement of his private affairs, or talked of noble ancestry and noble vices, or alluded to his domestic virtues, and pointed all these things at any particular gentleman, then, indeed, he might with reason have been accused of having dealt in personalities; but so long as he confined himself to public matters, and public matters only, he did not imagine the House would think that the character of being fond of personalities belonged exclusively

to him.

After gently touching on his affair, last session, with Mr. Adam, declaring, it could never be alluded to without giving that honourable gentleman and himself great pain, and after many other remarks, struck out with all that wonderful quickness of conception, happy position, and force and poignancy of application, which generally distinguish his speeches; Mr. Fox concluded with declaring, that he was ready to defend the resolution of the Westminster committee, though at the same time he was ready to confess, that he thought it imprudently drawn up, and that it contained words which had better not have been used on the occasion.

Mr. Adam, in answer to what Mr. Fox had said of the resolutions not being personal, read the last resolution, and added, that every person, conjunctively and severally of that committee, who approved of those words, was an infamous and base traducer of his character. Colonel Fitzpatrick confirmed what Mr. Fox had said, relative to his not being present when the committee came to the resolution. He said he had the honour to belong to that committee, but was absent, as well as his honourable friend, when the resolutions were carried; having, therefore, no hand in drawing them up, it was impossible for him to say what or whom the

particular gentlemen who penned them had in their view at the time; he was sure, however, from the known honour of the committee, that their intention was a good and a warrantable one; he therefore thought it right to say, that the resolutions had his hearty consent. Mr. Adam said, if either the honourable gentleman who spoke last, or any other person approved of the words in question, as personally applied to him, that he meant to apply to him and them, every epithet that he had mentioned. Mr. Fitzpatrick said, that if the honourable gentleman chose to apply any part of the words used in the resolution of the Westminster committee to himself, he could not possibly help it. He must still approve of those resolutions, but he had not applied them to the honourable gentleman, neither had he said, they contained any thing immediately applicable to him, or which the honourable gentleman was entitled to apply to himself. They certainly had his consent; nor did he feel himself at all obliged to give his reasons why he consented to them. This altercation was put an end to, by the order of the day being loudly called for.

MR. FOX'S MOTION RELATIVE TO THE APPOINTMENT OF SIR HUGH PALLISER TO THE GOVERNMENT OF GREENWICH HOSPITAL.

February 1. 1781.

TH HIS day Mr. Fox made his promised motion relative to the appointment of Sir Hugh Palliser to the government of Greenwich Hospital. The clerk of the House having, at his request, read the copy of the charges exhibited by Sir Hugh against Admiral Keppel, the sentence of the court-martial on those charges, the charge and sentence of Vice-Admiral Palliser's court-martial, Mr. Speaker Norton's speech on delivering the thanks of the House of Commons to Admiral Keppel, and the answer made thereto by the Admiral,

Mr. Fox rose. He began with saying, that there was no gentleman less accustomed than he was to apologize for the motions with which he, from time to time, thought it his duty to trouble the House, but on the present occasion as the motion which he should make at the conclusion of his speech, would undoubtedly point to two particular individuals, he thought it incumbent upon him to say, before he entered into an explanation of the grounds on which he rested the propriety and justice of his motion, that he was actuated by no personal motives whatever. He knew not that man on earth against whom he harboured the least personal enmity, and

least of all, did he feel any against those two individuals, who would be thought by the House, and who certainly were meant by him, as the immediate objects of his motion. He had no personal enmity whatever, he did assure the honourable gentleman whose name he should be obliged to mention pretty frequently in the course of what he had to say, against him, nor against his majesty's ministers; public enmity against him and them, he felt and avowed. Public enmity occasioned by their public conduct, detestation excited by the miseries and misfortunes which they had entailed on their country. He said, he considered the honourable gentleman, the governor of Greenwich Hospital, as one great cause of those calamities under which this country was now suffering, and therefore he felt against him, all that public enmity which such a sense of his conduct ought to inspire. He considered Sir Hugh Palliser as the man, who by giving way to his boisterous and unruly passions, had almost ruined that service on which alone we could depend for the protection of this country in the hour of danger, and as the only probable means, if any there were, of extricating us from our present difficulties. It was on these grounds, and these only, that he was the public enemy of the honourable admiral, the public enemy of those who abetted and supported him.

ance.

Having said that he was actuated by no motives of personal enmity, he also assured the House, he was not influenced on the present occasion by private friendship. Not that he disclaimed private friendship; no, God knew, he considered his intimacy and connection with his honourable relation who sat below him (Admiral Keppel) as the chief honour and happiness of his life, but his honourable relation's character, his virtue, his glory, were too firmly established to need assistIf ever there was a man whose character met the description of the poet exactly," merses profundo pulchrior evenit," the admiral was that man. Let those who had attempted against his life and his honour bear witness to this truth. See him attacked, charged, criminated, and sent to trial, on an accusation of the most serious nature ! What is the consequence? He comes purified from the ordeal, his honour is clearer than before, his glory beams with renovated lustre ! See him at Windsor! See the attempts that are made, successfully made, to separate him from consti→ tuents who had thought well of him before, and always, till then, been happy in their representative, and for ought he knew, had been his constituents for two, three, or four suc cessive parliaments! What is the consequence? The county of Surrey, who saw with indignation the oppression practised,