advance he should have occafion frequently to allude perfonally to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

He averred, that when one Member of any Administration acted in such a manner as to merit the cenfure of Parliament, all the Members of that Adminiftration ought to be arraigned; but on the present occafion, he fhould allude perfonally to the Chancellor of the Exchequer more frequently than to any of his colleagues, because his name occurred often upon the Report. But though he fhould impute blame perfonally to him, he did not confider him as fingly the object of cenfure, for if his colleagues in office had not fanctioned the meafures which he propofed, he never would have dared to carry them into practice. When he first read the Order of Council, afcribing the drain of Cafh in the Bank, which rendered it neceffary to prohibit the payment of their Notes in Specie, to an unfounded alarm of invafion, he much doubted the truth of the allegation. For if an unexpected run upon the Bank had been occafioned to that extent by the alarm of invasion, it appeared strange to him that that run had not taken place at the opening of the Seffion of Parliament, when danger of invafion was fo ftrongly inculcated upon the minds of the people; but if he was led to doubt of the truth of the allegation when the Order of Council first appeared, thefe doubts were ftrengthened and confirmed when he found that the Committee appointed by ballot to inquire into the causes which produced it, was compofed not only of the known and zealous fupporters of Adminiftration, but of Members of that very Cabinet upon whofe conduct they were appointed to decide. When he found this mockery of inquiry carried into practice in a cafe where, if the measure which was to be investigated was pronounced to have been injurious and impolitic, the authors of it would have been inftantly impeached; and when he recollected the various inftances of incapacity and duplicity by which the present Administration was marked, he conceived that the real caufe of the Order in Council was very different from the pretended one. Impreffed with these fentiments, he thought it his duty to move for another Committee, with more extended powers than thofe with which the former Committee was invefted. This his Majefty's Minifters did not think proper to deny, but the Committee was compofed, as before, of their own fupporters, with a due proportion of the Members of the Cabinet. He fcarcely fuppofed that a Committee fo formed was likely to bring to light the true causes which produced the neceflity of iffuing the Order in Council. But on this point he was fortunately difappointed; the Committee having had to examine men of the first respectability, all of whom coincided in fentiment, and having had to infpect written

written documents which left not even a fhadow of doubt refpecting the inferences which were to be drawn from them. The Minifter's anfwers to the remonftrances which were made to him in perfon by the Directors of the Bank were the only papers to the authenticity of which any objection could be offered.

But thefe anfwers were taken in fuch a way, as appeared from the evidence of Mr. Bofanquet, that no reasonable doubt could be entertained that they came before the Committee in their true fhape. In page 29 of the Report they found, from this Gentleman's evidence, that the anfwers of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the reprefentations of the Directors of the Bank were delivered verbally to the Governor and Deputy Governor, who reported the purport of them to a fubfequent Court: and that fuch Reports were minuted in the Bank Book. Upon his being asked, whether he believed that fuch minutes contained an accurate statement of what paffed between the Governor and Deputy Governor of the Bank, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer? he answered, he had no doubt but they did. Unto a queftion, whether the purport of these minutes were fettled by the perfons deputed to attend the Chancellor of the Exchequer? he replied in the affirmative. He did not feel it neceflary to dwell longer upon this fubject, perfuaded as he was that no doubt could reft regarding their authenticity upon the mind of any man who was not difpofed to cavil in defiance of all probability. He had faid, that he was difpofed to doubt the truth of the matter contained in the Order of Council from the beginning. These doubts were much confirmed by the investigation of the Committee. And here he referred to the evidence of Mr. Gibbs (page 50 of the Report,) in which it is stated that he had made frequent reprefentations in the capacity of Governor of the Bank to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, all of which tended to perfuade him of the danger to the Bank from the diminution of its fpecie, in confequence of its advances to Government. He next adverted to the evidence of Mr. Raikes, (page 50 in the Report,) in which he ftates that he has had conferences with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as Deputy Governor of the Bank, in which reprefentations were made to him on the fubject of Foreign Loans, or Remittances; and on the danger of continuing the advances made by the Bank to Government, and the times at which these representations were made he particularly mentions. Mr. Bofanquet (in page 34 of the Report,) ftates that if the advances of the Bank to Government had been paid off, or greatly diminished, it would have enabled the Bank to regulate at their difcretion the amount of their notes in circulation, and they would have diminished in fome degree the ne

ceffity

ceffity for iffuing the Order of Council; he concluded from the
anfwers of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that no doubt could
be entertained that he was fully aware of the apprehenfions of
the Bank Directors, arifing from the frequent advances which
were made to Government, and that by perfifting in the fame
line of conduct contrary to their remonftrances, he rushed into
the danger which they forefaw, and against which he was
warned. He next called the attention of their Lordships to the
Paper annexed to the Report entitled a Summary of the Chief
Points which had occurred to the Committee in the course of
their inquiry. How this Paper came to be called a Summary
he knew not, for no one who read it, after purfuing the Report,
could confider it as conveying the fubftance of that Report. To
fay that he difagreed with many parts of this Paper, was a feeble
term to express the difapprobation which he felt at it. It abound-
ed in grofs mifreprefentations of the truth, in fhameful attempts
to conceal what ought to be known to the House, and in affer-
tions which were not warranted by fact. By the slightest at-
tention to the Paper to which he alluded he was convinced that
their Lordships would agree with him in thefe pofitions. It be-
gan with ftating the amount of circulation in the kingdom; this
opened a wide field, and whether it was neceflary for the Commit-
tee to enter into it he could not pretend to fay; but if an ac-
count was to be given of the circulation, it fhould have been
given accurately, and ftated as it came out in evidence.
As it was contended, however, in this Paper, that the diffi-
culties of the Bank were owing in fome degree to a scarcity
of circulating medium, it was not surprising that they endea-
voured to keep part of the means of the circulation in the back
ground. Hence it was denied that Bills of Exchange were
applicable to the purposes of circulation. "In land Bills of

Exchange (fay the authors of this Paper) are thought by many
to be a part of the circulation of the kingdom. They are not
ftrictly fo in the fame fenfe, as the two forts of Paper before
mentioned, namely, Notes of the Bank of England, and Bills
of country Bankers." That Bills of Exchange could not anf-
wer all the purposes of Cafh was pretty notorious, but he re-
ferred to Mr. Thornton's evidence upon the fubject (in page
71 of the Report) where he states his opinion to the following
effect." In calling Bills of Exchange a means of circulation
I do not confider them as equally fo with the other two articles
I have mentioned (Coin and Notes payable on demand), fince
they oftenfibly ferve the purpofe of afcertaining debts between
buyer and feller, and of pledging the accepter to a punctual
payment, and are often created chiefly with that view and are
ufed but fparingly, and occafionally as a means of circulation.
I conceive

I conceive that the number of Bills of Exchange, which may happen at any time to exift, bears no neceffary proportion to the magnitude of the exifting trade, although I conceive that the use of them in payment does bear a pretty regular proportion to the quantity of commerce. For inftance, at Liverpool and Manchester, all payments are made either in Coin or in Bills of Exchange." Now, when he confidered that Bills of Exchange were the chief means of circulation in these two great manufacturing towns, and that they bore a regular proportion to the quantity of commerce, he could hardly agree with the opinion advanced in the Paper annexed to the Report, that they were not a part of the circulation of the kingdom ftrictly fo understood.

A difcuffion of this question would lead him into too wide a field, particularly upon the prefent occafion, when he wished to draw the attention of their Lordships rather to facts than to fpeculative opinions. Among the various caufes which had produced the scarcity of cafh in the Bank, which he thought was scarcely worth the attention of that Houfe, and which he fhould not have fuppofed that the Committee could have gravely ftated, namely, the diminished number of bills of inclosure fince the war, there was a paper bound up in the Report, giving a comparative statement of the number of Bills of Inclolure before and fince the commencement of the war, from which it appears that they have increafed very confiderably in number fince the war began. They would find, however, that the fame thing happened during the American war in pretty nearly the fame proportion, the only inference, therefore, that could be drawn was, that it was one of the confequences of the war, which the Committee would have feen, had they called for the account for the last twenty instead of the last nine years. He came now to a subject of a much more serious nature. He had faid before, that things were stated as facts in this paper which were not warranted by the evidence given before the Committee, and contained in the Report. How to account for the grofs mif-statement which he was about to mention, he was utterly at a lofs. In page 252, they found that all the remittances made for the fervices of the war in the West Indies, on the Continent of Europe, in the Ifland of Corfica, and other diftant parts of the world, amounted during the four last years to 33,510,7791. that the fums expended on the European Conti'nent, diftinguished from those expended in other diftant parts of the world, during the faid four years, including the Imperial Loan, and the advances made to the Emperor, amounted to 14,988,4221. and laftly, that the fums paid for all forts of mili tary fervices on the Continent, during the war, ending in 1763, amounted

amounted to 20,626,9971. He had to remark, in the first place, upon this statement, that if the authors of the Report meant to compare the expences of the prefent war upon the Continent with those of the war ending in 1763, the number of years ought to have been marked, and then their Lordfhips would have found that there had been expended in the four years of the prefent war almoft as much as had been expended in eight years of the former war; for it is to be recollected that there is one million to be deducted from the 20,000,000l. of expence incurred in the war of 1763, for the winding up of the accounts which ftill remain as a charge to be defrayed at the conclufion of the prefent war.

This was not all: he begged their Lordships particularly to remark that in the account of our Continental expences during the prefent war, the fums advanced to the Emperor are faid to be included. It fo happened, however, that the account was accurate only by leaving out the words "including the Imperial Loan and the advances made to the Emperor." These fums appeared in the title, but were excluded from the body of the account, so that in fact there was an error in the total fum of 5,500,000l. For an error fo palpable and grofs he knew not how to account. If it was committed for the purpose of deceiving their Lordships, and deluding the country, he fhould feel the ftrongest indignation at thofe who had been the authors of an infult fo unpardonable to the good fenfe of that House and of the nation. If, on the other hand, the account was made out according to the beft ability of those by whom it had been prepared, what was he to think of the wretched incapacity of those who, prefiding over the affairs of a mighty empire, had not the ability to make out a plain account? He left it to their Lordships to decide whether the error originated in intention or in ignorance; but to one or other of these causes it must be imputed.

The next point to which he called the attention of the House, was the state of our exports and imports, upon which great stress had been laid by the Committee. He reminded their Lordships, that, in the laft years of the American war, the excefs of the exports above the imports of the country were averaged at 6,000,000l. As this excess was a natural comcomitant on war, he cautioned the House how they acceded to the inference that was drawn from it. Upon this part of what is called the fummary of the report, he had another obfervation to make not very favourable to the ingenuoufnefs of thofe by whom it had been drawn up. But having found out an error fo grofs in a former ftatement, he might perhaps be led by this detection to impute to them an intention to deceive where there

was