of public affairs, he had forgot to attend to a fubject in which millions of money were concerned. However, the Minifter had introduced a Claufe into the Act of William and Mary, which amounted to a complete evafion of the falutary provifions of that ftatute. He called it a Claufe only to remove doubts; doubts which he hardly thought worth entertaining; fo little did that appear to be fo, that he had, on the contrary, a clear opinion that the ftatute, before the Minifter introduced his Claufe into it, abfolutely prohibited, under a fevere penalty, the iffuing of money in the manner in which the Bank had afterwards iflued it to Government. The Minifter had faid that the Bank had done fo before this claufe paffed. That many things had been done which were irregular he had no doubt; nor was it difficult to affign a reason why the Directors should apply for an amendment to an Act the provifions of which inflicted a penalty on themselves for what (out of inadvertence, or a difpofition to oblige the Minifter) they had formerly done. But the Act alluded to was not that for which the Directors applied :---they had applied only for that which would empower them to flue money to a limited fum. The Act was paffed to empower them to iffue money, but omitting any thing like limitation to the fum. This was criminal in the Minifter; for it gave to him a fatal facility of command over all the cafh in the Bank; and we all know the use he has made of that power. He faid now, indeed, that he intended to make a moderate ufe of that power. He promised to do fo. He faid that he intended to keep his word. He made that promife fix times; and it was fix times he broke that promife. This might do very well for such a Minifter as the prefent; but he apprehended that, if a man was to follow fuch a practice in the courfe of private life, his reputation for honefty would not be very high. The Minister said that he calculated upon the probability of circumftances as well as he could, but they came fo thick upon him that he was difappointed. That might be an apology for the fecond application; but what was to be faid for the third, fourth, fifth, and fixth? Were they all to be apologies for one another, as the firft was for the fecond? They certainly could not: there was evident mifconduct on the face of it. But the Minifter laid great stress upon the fums of money which he had caufed to be repaid into the Bank from time to time, to keep his engagement with the Directors. To which the answer was, That was not the engagement; the engagement was, that the Bank fhould never be in advance to Government beyond a certain fum. The Bank had never faid, if he paid them one, two, three, four, five, or any number of millions, that then he should draw upon them to any amount he pleated. The engagement was, that Government should never be in their 8 N 2 debt debt at any one time above half a million. That was the promife which the Minifter had frequently made, and as frequently broken. This was a crime in the Minifter. Had it happened but once, and that when Parliament was not fitting, there might have been fomething like an excue for it. But he followed this practice for a whole year, and never once intimated it to Parli ament, although, in that time, he brought forward a Loan, and opened, as he faid, to the Houfe, all the circumftances of the finance of the country. He concealed all this from the House and the public even after the ftrong memorial of the Bank against his conduct. He even, after all this, advised his Majesty in the month of October, to tell us that there had been a temporary difficulty, but concealed that he had thus extorted money from the Bank. Nothing appeared at that time that he had failed to fulfil his promifes with the Bank. At that time, therefore, he made no provifion for this extortion. Perhaps the Minifter did not think of thefe trifles at that time; his mind was otherwise employed; he was occupied, perhaps, with his Cavalry, Militia, and other good and popular Bills, which were paffing at that time, and he was willing that the Members of the House fhould go into the country with nothing upon their minds, but the plan whereby thefe excellent Bills fhould be carried into practical effect. He could not find in the time he had one day to come to the House, and stated the truth upon the state of the finance of the country. And now that these things were objected to, the Minifter expected to be acquitted by the House, that was to fay, that he laid his cafe before a House of Commons that had an entire dependence on the will of the Crown, and was wholly unconnected with the people, and therefore regardlefs of their interefts. That they were, what fome invidious perfons ftated them to be, a body of men who mifrepresented the people of England. That it was enough for the Minifter to recur to what had been called the burden of a song, "He had not time." He had not time to tell us the truth of the state of the finance of this country. He had not time to ask the House of Commons, whether they would enable him to fulfil a promise which he had made without their confent, or even knowledge. He had not time to inform us of what he was doing, although he should afterwards call for taxes to defray the expence of it. He had no recollection, perhaps, of it at that time, although it was his duty to lay the documents that related to it before the Cabinet. Here Mr. Fox went over the material parts of the evidence of Mr. Giles, Mr. Bofanquet, and other Gentlemen, as ftated in the Report, in order to fhew that the drain upon the Bank was pointed out to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as well as to to the effect which it would produce, and alfo to prove that the Directors understood the Chancellor of the Exchequer to declare and promise to them at an early period of the correfpondence between them, that no further Loan or advances were to be made to the Emperor before thofe already made by the Bank fhould be reduced. The contrary of the whole faith of which promife was the conduct of the Minifter, and that was the most material charge against him. Here he blamed the Directors for not having referred to the letter and the spirit of our Conftitution, and have come to the House of Commons, and stated the whole truth, in order to give the Houfe of Commons an opportunity of ftopping the Minister in his ruinous career. But what would be the effect on the public mind in confequence of what had happened? They would feel that the Houfe had entered into a dreadful war upon the authority of the Minifter as to its neceffity. That, in confequence of the connexion between that Minifter and the Bank, the expence of a great part of that war was to be fupported for a time by advances made by the Bank to that Minifter without fo much as the knowledge of the Reprefentatives of the people; and this was, after all, a free Conftitution, where the Minifter kept from the knowledge of the people, even the mode of raifing the money which they were to pay. He knew that there was fome excufe for the Directors, for the terror that was held out to them might have had fome effect upon their conduct, to say nothing of the poffibility of another species of influence; but the Minifter was left abfolutely without any excufe. He then proceeded upon the subject of the drain of Cafh, and affigned for it reafons very different from those urged by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He ridiculed the idea that an attempt on the part of the Bank to leffen the outstanding demands against it, in order to preferve Credit, would be injurious to their interefts, &c. as alfo the Motions of the Minifter upon what he called the neceffity of increafing the circulating medium before it was proved that our capital was increased. Such attempts refembled thofe of a perfon who, because Specie was scarce, changed his gold into filver, and filver into gold every day, in order to avoid the inconvenience of a general fcarcity of Specie. He contended also that there was much fallacy in the Minifter's conclufions from the imports and exports in the course of the war, and by which he had attempted to impose upon the Houfe. Upon these points he faid that there had not been a cogent reafon urged on the part of the Minister. He obferved that the Minifter had been pleafed to fay nothing to us of comfort on the general fcale of Europe, well knowing he could not do so. The only point of confolation he had at tempted There was tempted was that of the extent of our commerce. one point upon that fubject in which he concurred with the Minifter, namely, that theories upon these matters could not be trusted, unless they were accompanied by experience. thought the House ought to look at our increated debt with fome caution. In the war which was begun by Sir Robert Walpole, the amount of our exports was only Eight Millions; in the year 1789, they were fifty Millions, or thereabouts; in the course of the feven years war our exports increafed from 13 to 16 Millions. He could not, however, help obferving, that we had not gained in this proportion in national profperity. He defired the Houfe to look at the increate of our debt; it was now increased to Four Hundred Millions and upwards. The burthen impofed upon the people was Seven Millions annually, and this we were not fure we fhould be able to continue. There was a fituation in human affairs in which it was faid that ignorance was a bleffing, and that it would be folly to become wife. We were now in that fituation. It was hardly worth while to awake us out of our dream of profperity, when it was clear that when we awoke we could only ice that we could hardly fave ourfelves from deftruction. The queftion before the Houfe was this, whether the Houfe would chute to fupport the Minifter, and thereby run the country to certain and immediate ruin, or take the chance of faving it for fome time by their exertion? The Queftion being loudly called for, the Houfe, after a few obfervations from Mr. William Smith, divided on Mr. Grey's firft Refolution. The House again divided upon the laft Refolution. Against the Refolution 206 HOUSE OF COMMONS. Wednesday, May 17. The Debtors Relief Bill was read a third time and paffed. SUPPLY. In a Committee of Supply, the House voted 1,600,000l. for the payment of Bills drawn upon the Treafure; alfo 830,000l. for the payment of Exchequer Bills iffued on the Credit of the land and Malt. In a Committee of Supply, the Houfe voted 1,600,000l. for the payment of the advances already made to the Emperor. Mr. Rofe brought up a Bill for guaranteeing the interest of the 1,600,000l. which had been advanced to the Emperor. Adjourned. HOUSE OF COMMONS. The Refolutions of the Committee of Supply, and Ways and Means, were reported and agreed to. The Merchants-Seamen's and Vagrants' Bills were read a third time. ISLAND OF ST. DOMINGO. Mr. St. John faid, he certainly fhould not have attempted to bring forward his Motion in fo thin a Houfe, had not frequent delays already occurred. However callous they might have become by the many very difaftrous fcenes which had of late happened, yet, when the fituation and fate of our brave countrymen in thofe peftilential climates was deliberately confidered, it must excite one uniform wifh in the breast of every man---a wish to rescue the remains of that gallant army from thofe climes of death. When he originally gave notice of his Motion, he had not determined in his own mind whether to move for a Committee, or for an Addrefs to his Majefty, requefting the recal of the British troops from the Island of St. Domingo. Whatever his doubts once were, now he could have none: the recent events of Europe had evinced the propriety of the latter Motion, and therefore that would be the Motion he intended to submit to them: but if it were not fo, there were two Papers upon the Table of the Houfe, which of themfelves contained every information that could be expected from a Committee, and of themselves fhewed the neceflity of his Motion. The two Papers were, the accounts of the bills drawn from the Ifland of St. Domingo, and the fad catalogue of the deaths of our unfortunate countrymen. Of late, indeed, it had been made matter of juftification by Minifters, that the expedition of St. Domingo far exceeded their expectations :---be it fo; and allowing the climate of St. Domingo to be healthy, inftead of fatal and peftiferous, yet, under the circumftances of Europe, he fhould think the meature |