"it is under that discipline alone, that avarice is able "to spread to any considerable extent, or to render "itself a general public mischief. It is therefore no "apology for ministers, that they have not been bought, &c."1

66

It is, methinks, a curious coincidence, that this admirable piece of eloquence, in the course of a bitter invective, was actually applied to Mr. Pitt, at that early period of his administration; and that about ten years afterwards this minister should give the orator, for acceptable services, and the orator should accept from this minister, pensions which he sold for thirtyseven thousand pounds, in ready money. With regard to Mr. Pitt's loan of forty thousand pounds to two members of parliament without interest, and at the very period when government bills were daily dishonoured for want of money from the treasury to pay them,2 and under other very suspicious circumstances (on which perhaps I may touch again) I imagine that any impartial man who shall take the trouble to examine and to weigh THE EVIDENCE, and who shall be capable of drawing thence a rational conclusion, will find it extremely difficult, not to say impossible, to divest the case of very high state criminality, accompanied by the aggravations of gross falsehood, respecting the "solidity of the public resources."

Why it was not so considered by that grand inquest, or jury, to whom it belongs to impeach, or why a select committee of that inquest, consisting in part of Lord Castlereagh, and several other servants in the pay of the crown, seemed more intent on framing an apology for, than on fixing criminality upon the minister, the reader will decide for himself. But it is not necessary for me here to argue the case, as it has been ably done in the weekly Political Registers for June 15th. and 22d. But I must not part with one passage in the last

I Speech, Feb. 28, 1785.

2 The loan was in the latter end of 1796, and between June 1796, and June 1798, at the victualling office alone, seven hundred and forty two accepted bills were dishonoured; which is more than two day for two whole years, Sundays not excepted,

C

mentioned of those weekly papers, without an observation. "It was a saying," observes the writer" of "Lord Northington, that a man had better be damned "than indemnified, and as his Lordship, doubtless "meant politically, there can, I think, be little objec❝tion to the sentiment. Nevertheless, I am far from "thinking that enough has been done in this case." In thus thinking, this writer and myself perfectly agree. I presume also that we likewise agree in this, that between indemnifying and impeaching Mr. Pitt, the house of Commons had no possible medium.

That the resolution of the house which was the ground of the impeachment of Lord Melville, as literally applies to Mr. Pitt as to his Lordship, must be evident on a mere inspection :

"Resolved,―That Lord Melville having been privy Thaving

Mr. Pitt

to, and connived at, the withdrawing from the Bank "of England for purposes, as

Lord Melville >

of private

sums issued

and placed

Boyd, Ben

field, and Co.

Sto him as Treasurer of the Navy,

"by him as First Lord of the Treasury

66

S to his

to the Treasurer of the Navy's

account at the

Bank,

according to the provisions of the 25. Geo. III. c. 31.

" has been guilty of a gross violation of the law, and a high breach of duty."

Now we have only to consider whether the plea of state necessity, set up by Mr. Pitt, for bribing-I beg pardon-for" accommodating" two members of parliament with the use of Navy money without interest, while that money was so much wanted in the navy department; and the plea also of MERIT for thereby saving the nation from great mischief, ought to have made so great a distinction as it did, between the case of Lord

Melville, who" accommodated" Mr. Trotter, his private agent, and was IMPEACHED; and the case of Mr. Pitt, who "accommodated" two members of parliament, and was INDEMNIFIED. The case, by what lies upon the very surface, speaks for itself: but the EVIDENCE, as brought in the Weekly Political Registers above mentioned to bear upon the point, and to throw upon the transaction a clear light, will cause the warmest partizan of the minister to blush for a defence, which would have disgraced the lips of any but an Old Bailey Solici tor. And when such a minister who, as the partizans of Lord Sidmouth tell us, drove his Lordship out of the cabinet by "the measures he pursued to rescue Lord Mel"ville from the laws of his country, and by his profli86 gate waste of the public resources in the Atholl case,"f ventures, under the protection of such an indemnity, to brave the storm of public indignation; and when his continuance in office must be a national disgrace, attended with no other prospect than that of new evils and new dangers to the state, pertinaciously clings to power to the last convulsive grasp, to what can it be attributed, but to a personal desperation, accompanied by a total disregard of consequences to the public!

:

In our courts of law, my Lord, we have such things as verdicts being set aside for having been contrary to evidence and in a higher court also, we have precedents, which should make wicked ministers, although intrenched chin-deep with indemnities, tremble for their iniquities. Lord Coke in his 4th. Inst. c. 1. informs us of the fate of Empson and Dudley, although their oppressions had had the sanction of acts of parliament. And by the 1 Hen. IV. c. 3. in our statute books, we have "a repeal of the whole parliament, "holden anno. 21. Rich. 2. and the authority given " hereby."

This bold man intends, it is said, to dissolve the parliament. Such a measure must put us in mind of the conduct of the king we have just mentioned; who, says Rapin, "had already taken all necessary measures to

1 Times, 12th. July, 1805.

have a parliament at his own devotion. Some time "since, he had changed all the Sheriffs1 of the king"dom and suffered none, but what had promised to be "subservient to his designs. He had taken the same "precautions, with respect to all officers that had cre"dit and power in the boroughs and counties. So by "means of the magistrates, and persons in public posts, he had caused such representatives to be chosen "as he had secured before hand. If any were elected "not agreeable to him, the Sheriffs were ordered not "to return them, but to cause others to be chosen in ** * But this" was one of "their room." "the principal causes of Richard's destruction, as will "be seen hereafter. And indeed it is impossible, that nation can see their liberties in the hands of men, "whom they have not themselvee freely chosen, without "desiring to be delivered from such an oppression." "All the acts," of the late parliament," were so manifestly destructive of the nations' liberties, that they were unanimously repealed."s

After the rights and privileges of the people were by these acts restored to the same state as before the "incroachments of Richard, the authors and advisers of the usurpations, were called to an account."4 Perhaps this trier of a people's patience may find the nation is not now in a temper to witness a dissoluthan that he may oust from tion, for no other purpose the Treasury Boroughs the creatures of Lord Sidmouth and put in his own; as well as play off some other borough manoeuvres, for counteracting the defections which have of late broken in upon the unanimity of the Borough Faction! Perhaps he will find that the nation is "determined no longer to see their liberties in the hands "of men whom they have not themselves freely chosen ;" and that it will not cease its exertions, until delivered from such an oppression!"

When we have heard it declared in the court of King's Bench on a trial which took place in 1792, that

I It was but in the preceding reign, that the election of the Sheriffs was taken from the people; See Blacks. Com. iv. 427.

2 I. 468.

3 I. 485.

4 I. 486.

at the election for Westminster in 1788, (Mr. Pitt then holding his present employments) that a large sum of money was paid for supporting the court candidate, and that," as it was furnished by the SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY, he best could tell whence it came,"1 and the speaker offering a proof of the fact; when we have heard it, in the house of Commons, directly imputed to Lord Castlereagh, that he employed the public money to purchase votes for carrying the Union in 1800 (Mr. Pitt then also holding his present employments, and his Lordship holding his tongue under the imputation;) when we have heard the declaration of Admiral Markham, that, out of the fifteen millions a year voted for the navy, one third of it is swallowed up in abuse and corruption of one kind or another, and know it to be a very prevalent opinion, that out of the Navy Extraordinaries, (that service on account of its popularity being most liberally supplied) it is the custom to purchase men of war, for the minister's parliamentary line of battle; and when by the system of bribing, we see openly practised upon parliament by places and emoluments, we are but too well warranted in believing, (what no human being I believe doubts) that bribery both in elections and in parliament is likewise practised in private; when, I say, we have heard, and seen, and believe most of these things, and have strong reason to suspect the rest, the nation will not imagine that Mr. Pitt, circumstanced as he now is, will solely depend upon his popularity for securing a new parliament to his mind; and how it will like to pay for a parliament suited to Mr. Pitt's necessities, necessities which cannot fail to make the terms of the contractors run high, remains to be seen.

Having thus noticed the introduction and early discussion of the question of Parliamentary Reformation, and indulged in such cursory remarks as arose out of that topic, let us now return to the point we were upon.

I See a subsequent page.