he had any, and by borrowing from other states-if future kings might be tempted by their object to descend to that corrupt expedient-money might be procured to maintain an army that might threaten the very existence of the constitution. He considered the statute of King William, commonly called the disbanding statute, reducing the number of troops to 12,000, and which by a late act had been raised to 15,000, to be still in force with respect to this country, but it was not so agreeable to the present ideas of the people of Ireland, so that there was no sufficient restrictive power on ministers against maintaining in that country an army to any extent. But it might be argued, that without the power of the purse, the power of the army was nothing. To this he begged to answer, that two checks were better than one; that it was much better to have the power of the purse, and the power of the army, than only to have one of those for our security; and this had been the prudence and the policy of Great Britain. She had kept them both in her own hands, and had granted them only for one year. But Ireland had now given a perpetual army, and nothing more was wanting than the money.

His present majesty, thanks to his ministers, had no power on the continent from whom he could receive assistance; but some future monarch, possessed of wise and active counsellors, might, by the aids derived from foreign states, raise and maintain 100,000 men in Ireland, and direct them to any achievement of despotism that ambition might frame; and there would be but little security to be found in the resistance that the country might be inclined to make in such a moment. The precaution and the defence were to be taken before the alarm was up; and in this alarm, it was not only Ireland, but England also, that was threatened. With such a prospect before them, it could not be imputed to any motives of attack on the question of the legislative independence of Ireland, that this country should take warning, and prepare for its own security. In the same situation if Ireland stood with respect to England, mutatis mutandis, if England was to adopt a similar measure, and grant the crown an unlimited mutiny bill, Ireland would be excusable if she took up the consideration of the business, and provided by some specific measure for her own safety.

He

He said there was no responsibility in the ministers under the present law; nor was it in the power of either kingdom to bring them to a legal parliamentary conviction. considered the ministers who advised the perpetual mutiny bill, as guilty of high treason. He was in general an enemy to constructive treason. He could not conceive that an un

armed, unarrayed mob, assembled round the House of Commons, could be said to be levying war against the king. No such construction could be drawn from the act of the 25th of Edward the 3d; and though he did not condemn the authors of some late opinions and attempts to make this constructive treason, as having been wilful misinterpreters of a plain law, yet he could only excuse them as having too hastily adopted the speculations of a worthy, but, in this instance, a deceived man, Mr. Justice Foster*. This act giving the crown a perpetual mutiny bill, in direct violation of the Declaration of Rights, was high treason against the constitution of the realm. But how could he get at the authors of the treason in the present circumstances? It was perfectly impossible; for there was no responsibility to be established against them. might be said of him in the present instance, with some truth, as it was frequently said of Opposition without truth, that he was much readier to find the blame, than to advise the remedy. In this instance he felt himself full of difficulties. He honestly declared, that he knew not in what manner to act with prudence and wisdom. He was full of indignation against the men who had reduced us to a state of such unprecedented difficulty, that parliament could not assert their powers with safety, nor suggest remedies for evils that were foreseen with prudence. He might say, if they would permit

It

*Mr. Fox here alludes to the following extract from Mr. Justice Foster, which had recently been quoted by Lord Loughborough, in his charge to the grand jury, on opening the special commission for the trial of the Riotors, at the sessions house, on St. Margaret's Hill, in the Borough:

"Every insurrection which in judgment of law is intended against the king, be it to dethrone or imprison him, or to oblige him to alter his measures of government, or to remove evil counsellors from about him,-these risings all amount to levying war within the statute, whether attended with the pomp and circumstances of open war or not. And every conspiracy to levy war for these purposes, though not treason within the clause of levying war, is yet an overt-act within the other clause of compassing the king's death.

"Insurrections in order to throw down all inclosures, to alter the established law, or change religion, to inhance the price of all labour, or to open all prisons-all risings in order to effect these innovations of a public and a general armed force, are, in construction of law, high treason, within the clause of levying war. For though they are not levelled at the person of the king, they are against his royal majesty; and besides, they have a direct tendency to dissolve all the bonds of society, and to destroy all property and government too, by numbers and an armed force. Insurrections like wise for redressing national grievances, or for the expulsion of foreigners in general, or indeed of any single nation living here under the protection of the king, or for the reformation of real or imaginary evils of a public nature, and in which the insurgents have no special interest-risings to effect these ends by force and numbers, are, by construction of law, within the clause of levying war. For they are levelled at the king's crown and royal dignity.

the expression, that this situation had been incurred by a system of negligence and incapacity. Any other minister would have softened, when it could have been done with propriety; or resisted, when it could have been done with success: but the noble lord had acted contrary to every occasion. When Ireland, in a decent, sober stile, applied to parliament for relief from restrictions which were at once impolitic and illiberal, the noble lord attended more to the representations of individual members, who happened to be influenced by the opinions of their constituents, the manufacturers of trading towns, than to the unanimous call of a whole country. He admitted the influence derived from the opinion of constituents; it was the best and most virtuous species of influence; but the minister could not be influenced by the opinions of Banbury to resist the pretensions which his own liberal ideas of trade convinced him were just and reasonable. But he was obliged, on account of the American war, to court the votes of individual members; and when the gentlemen on that side of the House had carried a decisive question, he came down two days afterwards, and resisted their anxious endeavours to redress their grievances, when they were temperate in their requests.

The honourable gentleman then stated the powerful and the rapid effect of the resolution and the spirit of Ireland. Their associations had done more in a moment, than all the efforts of friendship in their favour. All false reasonings had vanished; all little partial motives of resistance had ceased; local considerations died away instantly, and the noble lord in the blue ribbon, who had shewn himself the last man to listen to supplications, was the first man to give way to force. The noble lord came down to that House, and by three lumping propositions, did more for Ireland than she had ventured to ask. Not that he blamed the noble lord for the concessions; the noble lord had acted wisely, and had properly told the House, that commercial considerations ought not to be taken upon a narrow, illiberal scale, but should be looked at as great objects. All that he blamed in the noble lord was, his having done that meanly, which he might have done with grace and with dignity; for gentlemen must see, that however prudent and however wise it was to concede to Ireland when armed, concessions made under such circumstances could neither have grace nor dignity. The honourable gentleman said, that the associations should always have his admiration and his applause.

He went into various other topics of argument, to shew the danger of this mutiny bill; and answered such defence as he conceived would be set up in its fayour; that an army

raised and maintained in Ireland under this law, though legal in Ireland, would be illegal in England. This he admitted; but such an army would not be less dangerous, be cause it was illegal. He said, that soldiers raised, enlisted, and attested in England, might be sent to Ireland, and placed under the military law, which in one instance at least was different from the law of England, since it gave the king power over them in every thing but in life and limb. Though he was an enemy to the dangerous influence of the crown, he was a friend to the just prerogative; and he considered the power vested in his majesty, of sending troops to whatever place of his dominions might require their assistance, as the most valuable prerogative. It was on this ground that the Earl of Chatham said, that, retrenching the number of troops to be employed in Ireland, was "tearing the master-feather from the eagle's wing." He considered therefore this bill, as containing different laws, to be dangerous to the prerogative, because it might prevent the crown from sending troops from any other place of his dominions to Ireland, or from Ireland to any other part of his dominions, in cases of emergency. And if it could be conceived that his majesty's ministers should, to the astonishment of the world, foresee danger, and provide against it, this bill might stand in the way of their growing virtue.

He said, he felt the difficulty of proposing any remedy for this evil. He did not propose the re-commitment of the bill, in order to move to re-insert the word Ireland. He confessed the impropriety of such an attempt; but he was of opinion that some clause might be adopted, by which the number of the army in Ireland might be limited, and by that means a responsibility established in ministers that might give some security. He was not prepared with a clause to answer the purpose, but such a one, in his opinion, might be framed. It was to be attributed to the negligence of parliament and of ministers, that they were reduced to this dilemma. The responsibility proposed in no measure affected the independence of Ireland. It was a mere measure of peculiar policy; and in the same manner it would be fit and proper in Ireland to act towards England, if England were to pass a perpetual mutiny bill. Many more things he owned he had on his mind to offer on this subject; but he saw the impropriety of urging all that had occurred to him. He was restrained by the consciousness that every thing which he said would be misrepresented in Ireland, and that with the basest of purposes. He reminded the House again, that the Irish mutiny bill had originated in this country, and that it had passed under the most suspicious and alarming circumstances. He

concluded with saying, that he should move for the re-commitment of the bill when the present question was settled.

Mr. Fox's motion was negatived without a division; and the bill, with the amendments, was ordered to be engrossed.

THE BUDGET-TERMS OF THE LOAN--MOTION FOR OMITTING THE LOTTERY CLAUSE.

March 7.

F all the acts of the minister, during so long a government

much severity of reprehension without doors, or perhaps so much censure within, as the loan of the present year. Twelve millions were borrowed upon terms so advantageous to the lenders, that the price of the new stock rose at market from nine to eleven per cent. above par. Before this circumstance was, however, known, the loan was, on its own bottom, strongly objected to, and both its manner and principle severely condemned by Mr. Fox. Lord North having this day opened the Budget, and moved, "That towards raising the supply granted to his majesty, the sum of twelve millions be raised by annuities, and the further sum of 480,000l. by a lottery,"

Mr. Fox* rose, and entered into an investigation, first of the principle, and then of the terms of the loan, as stated by the noble lord in the blue ribbon. He considered both the one and the other as exceedingly reprehensible and disadvantageous. It was an easy, as well as a very common thing, for a minister, when he was stating the bargains which he had made for the public to that House, to tell them of several worse bargains which might have been made. This was rather a fallacious way of defending a cause, since the true mode of inquiring, whether or not the bargain was a good one, was to examine whether it was not possible to make a better. The noble lord had chosen this year to get the loan, by adding a large sum to the capital of our debt; and he had, for the first time, defended this mode of borrowing money as superior to that of annuities. This was the first time that the noble lord had been of this way of thinking; for last year he

* In the course of this speech, Mr. Fox is stated, in the Annual Register, to have " displayed such a fund of financial knowledge, as seemed to excite surprise."