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particularly to one great confideration, which extends to both thofe points, I mean the navigation act; on the conftruction of which depend the future welfare and grandeur of this country.Recollect and for ever remember the declaration made within thefe few days by a Right Hon. Member (Mr. Fofter) who, with amanly and decided clearness, that does him honour, declared his explicit refolution to contend for an equal, fair and identical conftruction of that act with what fhall prevail in England.-Recollect his firmness in perfevering in that declaration, notwithstanding that another Right Hon. Gentleman next him (Mr. Secretary Pelham) got up to deliver a fentiment, certainly not to that amount, if not in oppofition to it. Does that bode well to this country? Does that difcover a regard to the rights of Ireland? Is that confiftent with ideas of mutual advantage, common rights and interefts, and equal trade? Does that give you confidence in the œconomy of his Majesty's ministers ?

See now, Sir, whether your internal œconomy affords better grounds for confiding in the prefent miniftry. Where are the reductions made in your civil lift to balance the profufion of your military prodigality? Where are the offices fuppreffed, or the penfions difcontinued, notwithstanding the hopes given upon that fcore to parliament, and the profeflions made? profeffions which, had they been put in practice, must have still been branded with the abfurdity of neglecting military œconomy in time of peace, and retrenching revenue offices at the moment we were to expect an extenfion of trade :-Inftead of even these measures we have feen increase of falaries voted at a time when the country was fcarcely able to pay the old, and without any documents whatfoever to fhew either increase of expence in the offices to which they were granted, or any new circumftance that proved them juftifiable.

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How ought the advisers of his Excellency to blush at the recollection of having added meanness to the extravagance of his administration, when they reflect that the first new extravagance of his Excellency's government had for its object his Excellency's own emolument! The increase of falaries to the Lord Lieutenant and his Secretary are warranted by no eftimate of their expence, or of the ability of the country; and where is the merit of their adminiftration that calls for fuch a voluntary teftimony of national regard? Have they reduced your eftablishments?-Have they acknowledged your commercial rights?-Have they formed a fyftem for your trade?-Have they given you a parliamentary reform?-Have they given due conttruction to the navigation act?-Have they fettled the treaty with Portugal ?-Have they fettled your trade with America? But whatever the measure was in itself, the manner of it is fo degrading, and is of fuch duplicity, as to banish all confidence in those who first formally refuse

and pledge his Excellency's commands for the refufal, ftating that they are but just come out of his Excellency's closet, and then with fhameless inconfiftency themfelves carry by numbers, on a divifion, the meafures they in their fpeeches oppofed. It puts me in mind, Sir, of a play in which I acted when at school; it was Richard the Third, and I remember I played Buckingham, who was the confidential minifter of Richard, the protector or viceroy of the kingdom. Richard, Sir, had a great mind to have the crown forced upon him by the people, but was determined to appear to refufe it; and he fends for Buckingham into his clofet Buckingham, Sir, was not the attorney-general, but yet an able minifter for the purpofe :-" My dear coufin and counfellor, fays the viceroy, the people are now met, and there will be fomething faid about the crown; haften down to the meeting, and tell them that you are just come out of my clofet, and that you come to affure them, that it is my command that they shall not think of offering the crown to me upon any terms; and that if they do, I certainly fhall not accept of it: And then, my dear Buckingham, no matter for what you have faid, tell them that, notwithstanding all you have fpoken, yet that they ought to force it upon me; and be the first to tofs up your cap, or, if there be a divifion, be the first to cross the floor: and be fure to carry the point, and you fhall have the earldom of Hereford for your pains." Here the Houfe in a loud laugh.] I remember, Sir, continued Mr. Corry, I did not much like the bufinefs, being a very young man, and I thought in my own mind, rather that the author was to be held cheap for impofing upon me a fcene which even hurt me to play it, but which could never poffibly be acted in real life. I must confefs, Sir, I was but a poor judge then of Shakepear's merit, and little acquainted at that time with politics.→ However, Sir, if I recollect the play, I came back to the viceroy after the bufinefs was over, and told him what a devil of a figure I had made of myfelf-how the people all ftared to hear me fpeak one way and vote the other-that when I came as minister juft out of the clofet with your commands, and the next fentence faid that I would do directly the reverfe of them, and bid them do the fame, they thought nothing elfe, to be fure, but that your Excellency must have been at the bottom of it all, and that as to what they thought of me, I muft have appeared extremely ridiculous and very contemptible indeed; but be that as it might, that their speaker was to come up at the head of them with an addrefs begging that your Excellency may accept of their offer. [Here the Houfe was in a roar of laughter.] I remember, Sit, we then fettled the etiquette of the viceroy's receiving them-how long he was to refufe and play the virgin, and then, as other virgins do, to yield to their ftrong enforcement.And then, Sir, I recollect I put him in mind of the earldom and moveables of

Hereford that were promifed me: But, whether from a change of the viceroy's mind, or from a change of miniftry, I never got my preferment.

Yet, Sir, whatever we may have seen refembling the former part, I fincerely hope we may not fee the latter in the disappointment of a right honourable and worthy friend of mine, but that he may fpeedily adorn that bench to which this Houfe is deftined to refign him: for if my right honourable friend, on that occafion, feemed weakly to have yielded to the interefted withes of others, let it not be imputed as criminal; complacency of difpofition and goodnefs of heart fhield him, even as a politician; and that kind of weakness, like the weaknefs of the other fex, proves against every attack the ftrongest protection.

But, Sir, there is another reafon for not repofing confidence in his Majefty's prefent minifters in this country, and a ftrong one it is, for the Houfe muft remember it: In the opening of the budget it was stated by the minifter exprefly that no new tax would be propofed; and now, Sir, fee whether that is the cafe. Was not a tax on your home brewery propofed, which was obliged to be withdrawn? I mean, exclufive of that on malt liquors imported.-Is there not a tax of 6d. on rum, and 8d. on foreign fpirits, the gallon?-Is not the old allowance of 6 and 10 per cent. taken away from the merchant importer, in order to retain the old diftinction ?-Is not a new 6 per cent. impofed on retailing importers ?-Are there not other new taxes impofed under different pretences, and fome other yet to follow Does this conduct infpire confidence? In fhort, Sir, the ftate of the country forbids confidence-Peace is reftored to the empire, yet your army is continued as burthenfome as during the war; nay, it becomes even more fo by the restoration of your troops which you nobly lent to Great Britain, when you undertook to defend your own coafts by your own volunteers-the feffion is advanced to the near finishing of the minifter's business, but no plan of œconomy proposed-no new encrease of expence appearing to the Houfe, yet new encrease of emolument voted to his Excellency and his Secretary, and the divifion headed by the ministry in favour of it. Oeconomy recommended from the throne in a cafe where it could not apply, the Genevans being already come over, and where, if it could apply, it would be difgrace-profufion abetted by the fervants of the crown in a manner that adds meanness to criminality-the commercial interefts of the nation fuffered to languish unnoticed, and the fyftem of your trade not fo much as mentioned in the house by miniftry-the anxious wishes of the people of Ireland for a parliamentary reform not only disappointed, but their favourite object fcouted out of the Houfe with a contempt that denied it even the form of a hearing. This is a fubject, Sir, upon which I should dwell, but that I

feel myself restrained by that moderation and regard to public peace, the want of which I fo ftrongly blame upon this fubject in miniftry But I fhall not dwell on it, for popularity is a thing which, though I revere it, yet I never court; and public peace is a thing I always highly regard: Still, Sir, I must exprefs my difapprobation of the arbitrary condemning of a measure not confidered, and the calumniating of a body of men, the volunteers, firft mifreprefented as to their conduct, and afterwards cenfured for the monftrous and falfe defcription given of them. Idolatry of old formed with its own hand the object to which it proftrated itfelf afterwards in worship, it was left for the political blafphemy of the prefent day to vilify with its own tongue, the object of public veneration, and then to infult it with a contempt founded only in its own defamation.-Upon every confideration, Sir, I fhall vote for the addrefs proposed.

Mr. Hatton faid, though he rejected the idea of troubling his Majetty on every occafion, he thought the prefent addrefs neceflary. The affertion made by a Right Hon. Gentleman, that the diftreffes of the poor arofe from idleness, drunkennefs, and madness for a reform, was unjuft and illiberal. The uniform conduct of that Right Hon. Gentleman, reminded him of a line in a remarkable poet:

"He fcorns the base degrees by which he rose."

The Attorney General-I never, in my life, was more astonished than at the wanton and unprovoked attack now made upon me. If the arm of any other man had been lifted to aim fuch a stroke, I thould have looked to the perfon from whom it came to have been the first to rife in my defence. I cannot account for this attack on any other ground, but that the gentleman, being unable to produce any argument on the prefent debate, turned afide to fpeak of the volunteers. I did not introduce the volunteers-no words or meaning of mine had any application to that fubject. He faid, the Right Hon. Gentleman remarked, that "they were running after vifionary projects of reform." [Here the Attorney General explained what he faid about the manufacturers.] But even if I had applied fuch words to the volunteers, I am not afraid to repeat them-I am not afraid to repeat, that the volunteers affembling and projecting an alteration of the conftitution, meditating to fuperfede the authority, under the pretence of reforming parliament, places their fituation in a different light from that in which they food, when they loyally and dutifully pledged themselves to maintain the rights and privileges of parliament. And this I am free to avow, at the very time, that I fhall now and ever declare, that they have my hearty thanks, and my warm gratitude, for fuch a noble demeanor of conduct. They have been greatly inftrumental in procuring all thefe advantages for their country which it now enjoys. But after obtaining those

advantages, is this a time for them to meet in arms, and impeach that parliament, which, during its fitting, has neglected no occafion of advancing the intereft of the nation? The barons who obtained the great charter of our liberties, though they met in arins at Runnymede, met in parliament, not to fubvert, but to fupport the conftitution, and to wreft a ufurped prerogative out of the hands of a tyrant. But what ufurpation of prerogative is there now to complain of? The power of the crown is limited to its proper bounds; and when the intereft and the prefervation of the fubject, compelled the crown to extend its prerogative beyond thofe bounds, has it not come, as a fuppliant to your bar for indemnification? A bill is now under the very roof of this houfe, to indemnify those who advised and acted under a late fufpenfion of the law, which prevented the people from perishing in famine. Illiberal language may be thrown out against me, but a confcious rectitude thall make me despise such language. It was faid, I fcorned the base degrees by which I afcended-I fcorn the affertion as much as I do those who uttered it. What action or fituation of my life has given me occafion to hide or to fcorn the degrees by which I may be faid to have afcended to the ftation in which I now ftand? I thank Heaven, I could now retire from that station, and bid defiance to the voice of calumny in the contemplation of a life, unftained with crimes, and untainted by vices. No change from one fide of the house to the other, can ever change me. Can any man fay, that I' ever delivered a fentiment on that fide, that I do not maintain on this? I made no overtures to government-government came over to me. I went into office with the conftitution, and when minifters cease to fupport that, I will then go out.

When I mentioned the idieness of the manufacturers, I meant not to arraign the poor deluded people, but those factious incendiaries, who excite them to affemble into mobs, and come in a tumultuous manner to your doors. As to retrenchments, I believe my Hon. Friend (Mr. Corry) and I comprehend one object. He may be affured of my hearty coincidence with any measure he fhall adopt to ferve the country. I fhall be as ready to fupport as he can be to propose it; and though I may be the object of his ingenious allufion in the ftory of Buckingham, yet I can laugh, as well as any man, at his pleasant and agreeable manner of application.

The part I took in the increafing of the Lord Lieutenant's falary, thould preclude me from being upbraided on that head, You will do me the juftice to recollect, that I delivered his Excellency's meffage, declining the liberality of the House, or at leaft to wait the refult of his Majefty's pleasure on fo important a matter; but it being over-ruled, I voted according to the dictates of my own judgment and opinion.

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