bufinefs by private property. It is blowing up the mine instead of working and carrying it to the coinage. But now how is it with our revenue? In fact, all its fources have rather improved than diminished fince the war. Our commerce is actually extended beyond all expectation. Where are not our manufactures exported? In what fea is not the British navy triumphant? The Spanish, the French, and the Dutch fleets have fucceffively acknowledged the fuperiority of our flag. And are all these instances of our glory to be furrendered for the amity of a Government incapable of accepting, cementing, or realizing it. What do we gain by this heterogeneous connexion? Are your Lordships in hopes of better treatment than any of their other allies? Have they not fubverted the order pre-established in all the connexions they have formed? And will they reverence yours any longer than it is in their power to trample it under their feet. By what means can you deter them from this outrage, or bind them to regard as facred among us what they abolished among themfelves? It has always been my opinion that had our alliesproved true to each other, had they been animated with as much zeal to defend as the French to attack, the whole fabric of regular fociety, the war had been happily terminated long ago. But the cccentricities we had to repel have never been fairly met. We have ruined the cause we wished to protect by our own mifmanagement; by want of magnanimity, by mutual jealoufy and inattention to the common spirit and principle which ought to have animated and knit us all together in one heart and one aim.---The defertion of one led the way to that of another. But though left in the field alone, we occupy fuch vantage ground as may enable us for a long time to come to hold them in perfect defiance. Is not the Emperor a beacon to the people of this country. He who ought to have preferved the Empire from the dreadful inundation to which it is now exposed by his new allies; who had fo many reasons for refifting the torrent that has fo long threatened to overflow his dominions; inftead of proving himfelf the father of his people, their hereditaty head and protector, is actually, by the afcendancy of the French in his councils, become their tool to Jacobinife his fubjects. This is his fate, and the fate of all who have fuffered themselves to be the victims of this new policy. In proportion as your Lordships regard with veneration and patriotifm our valuable liberites, as tranfmitted in purity to us by our ancestors, you will refift all terms of coalefcence with this Regicide GovernHas not the object, as advanced by his Majefty in a former fpeech, that we fought for order, morality, and religion, the fame value in your estimation, and the fame claim' ment. on your decifion and exertion as ever? Your Lordships know how fered thefe ought to be to us all, and what influence they are calculated to maintain in our individual and relative ftate; and for what, by preffing a negotiation, would your Lordships exchange them? It merits deep and mature confideration, whether it becomes a great and free people to part with order, morality, and religion, for every fpecies and degree of confufion, mutual depredation, and atheifm. Thefe are the fentiments in which it has been my lot to contemplate the progrefs of these new-fangled principles. And it is now as much as ever my fteadfaft opinion that confiftently with our national dignity, with our conftitution, with the patriotifm we feverally owe our country, our children, and our pofterity, with all our dearest and best regards for the creed and independent fentiments of our forefathers, we cannot agree to conditions of peace and amity with our enemies until the old monarchy is reftored, and an hereditary fovereign re-initated in the throne of his ancestors!" He concluded with moving, "That the words in the Address "which expreffed an approbation of the fteps which his Majefty "had been advised to take to reftore peace with the French "Government, be omitted." Lord Grenville." In prefenting myfelf to your Lordships immediately after the Noble Earl who has thought it right, I am fure, with the best intentions on his part, to move for leaving out a part of the Address that has been fo ably moved and feconded, I by no means intend to offer any fentiments in oppofition to the well-grounded doctrines he has thrown out, with refpect to the conduct of the French, and to the efficacy of their principles on the fate of Europe. On the contrary, I concur with the Noble Earl in all that he has faid of the dreadful import of the fyftem which now tyrannizes in France, not merely as it affects all foreign nations, but alfo, and chiefly, as it affects their own people. I agree with the Noble Earl alfo in the idea that there is no fafety for any people by being at peace with the French, for the dreadful picture which he has drawn of the horrible nature of their friendship, is justified by the hiftory of the nations which they have ruined; but I carry my opinion fo much further than the Noble Earl, as I think that these calamities not merely flowed from their peace with France, but happened to them totally and altogether on that account. It was because they were at peace with France -it was because they fought for fafety in a temporizing system, as if it were poffible to find fafety by a difhonourable and ignominious acquiefcence in fuch principles. In my opinion, the only fafety to be obtained under fuch a fyftem is by an honourable peace or vigorous war. It is not by compromifes, however hum ble, [LORDS. ble-it is not by facrifices, however extravagant, that fecurity can be obtained against fuch a fyftem. It is only by a vigorous refiftance of their principles, a manly difregard of their threats, and a zealous maintenance of our own principles, that we can fecure to ourfelves the bleffings of our established government; but acting on thefe ideas, and trusting to our own genuine vigour, I differ from the Noble Earl fo far as that I believe that even with the French Republic, as now conftituted, peace upon these terms may be both practicable and permanent. It may be obtained, in my mind, upon conditions confiftent with the honour and fafety of the Empire, and fuch as no man, whatever may be his feelings, need disdain to embrace—but I perfectly agree with the Noble Earl that we can look for no fafety by following the conduct of those powers that have fought it in ignominious fubmiffion. It is not by facrifices of principlenot by acquiefcence-not by yielding point after point-but by a regular, temperate, and firm maintenance of our just rights and dignity, that we can fecure ourselves againft the peril of the torrent of French inundation. "I think, my Lords, that I have faid all that is neceffary in anfwer to the Noble Earl's obfervations on this part of the fubject; but the Noble Earl chofe to refer to fome words of a Declaration of the King, made in the commencement of this conteft, as if his Majefty's Minifters had departed from the line of politics. pointed out therein. I think the Noble Earl has not been altogether correct in this reference. I have in no idea varied, and the rest of His Majefty's fervants have in no idea varied from the words of the Declaration to which the Noble Earl alludes. At no time fince the commencement of the war have his Majefty's Minifters declared that no peace could or ought to be made with the Republic. All that they afferted in that Declaration to which the Noble Earl has alluded, and which is further proved by the whole tenor of the conduct which his Majefty has been advifed to hold, is that they thought peace was more likely to be permanent if France fhould happily return to a regular government. It was never faid that peace was not practicable under the new order of things, but that certainly it would be better made, and more likely to be durable, under the monarchy. I beg, therefore, that the Noble Earl will examine with attention our former Declarations, and compare them with the prefent, that he may fatisfy his fair and honourable mind of the confiftency of our conduct; we have been uniform throughout; we are eager only to fecure to this country peace upon conditions which fhall be independent of any exifting order of things in France, and however we may have preferred to treat with one kind of government to another, We we have never made any one kind of government a fine qua ni n of negotiation. "On the main fubject of his Majefty's Speech from the Throne, it is impoffible for me to add any thing to what has been fo eloquently faid by the Noble Peers who moved and feconded the Addrefs. They have fo forcibly expreffed the fentiments which I feel, and I think have fo perfectly fecured the approbation of your Lordships to the Addrefs itfelf, that it would be equally vain and impoffible for me to add any thing to what they have faid. I rejoice in the unanimity which is likely to prevail this day; it is the most critical and the most awful period that the Hiftory of England ever witnessed, and at no moment was the unanimous declaration of a determined spirit to fupport his Majefty in the meafures effential to national profperity more incumbent upon us than at prefent. If the Addrefs could be made more clear, more decifive upon this point, by leaving out the words to which the Noble Earl objects, I would be the first to agree with him in the amendment to that purpose. I truft it is the object of us all explicitly to declare, that we will never compromife or furrender the juft claims of England; that we will never feek for peace by facrifices that are inconfiftent with our true fafety. But, my Lords, not thinking that the fpirit of the declaration is weakened, by manifefting a defire for peace upon honourable and juft principles, I muft object to the Motion of the Noble Earl, and vote for the Addrefs as it has been fo ably propofed." The Marquis of Lanfdowne.-" My Lords, I do not rife to offer my feeble oppofition to the Addrefs that has been propofed. I know how illufory and how vain it would be for me to flatter myfelf with the prefumption, that any thing which I can offer would avail in this moft perilous and most awful moment! When I fee the House deferted by all those Noble Peers, whofe juft influence is fupported by great ability and by powerful eloquence, I cannot hope that any thing coming from abilities like mine can have weight upon you; but, my Lords, however weak my voice, however feeble my talents, I conceive it to be my duty to exert them in the wav which I think may the best conduce to the object which I have in view, that of arrefting you in a career, that leads to death. In the fhort interval between life and death, brought as we are to the brink of that most dreadful precipice, which Noble Lords have fo juftly deplored, I yet think it right, fingle as I am, to raise my warning voice, and to fave you, if poffible, from the abyfs. "The abfence of the Noble Lords, though it has not furprifed me, afflicts my heart: I am not furprifed, my Lords, because because I do not know whether it is not even a wife, a falutary, and a patriotic measure; far be it for me to arraign them; it is a measure upon which I have often contemplated myself with seriousness, and which I have more than once thought of adopting. For what, my Lords, avails it, for a few mcu, unfupported by public opinion, to fpend their breath here against a fyftem which is not to be affailed by wisdom nor moved by patriotifm; which repofes itfelf on other basis than difcuffion, experience, and truth? I have no doubt, therefore, but that these noble perfons have declined their attendance upon confiderations, ftrong and weighty, upon principles of confcience and rectitude, and that their abfence may do more to awaken you to ferioufnefs and to reflection, than all they could have done by fine harangues and by declamation, however lofty, and however impreffive. "My Lords, if I come down thus fingle, it is not from any motive of felf-conceit; it is not, I repeat it, because I think that any thing which I have to fay will work upon your minds, but because I think the times themfelves demand from every man exertion, in every way in which it is poffible--demand from yourselves the furrender of thofe prejudices which have hitherto made you deaf to the danger that furrounds us-and demand from all parties the forgetfulnefs of what is past, that we may now come to contemplate with ferious minds the peril of our fituation. It is this, my Lords, that induces me yet to trouble you with my faint, perhaps my unavailing voice. The Declaration, and what a Declaration! has made a most serious impreffion upon me; unaccompanied as it is with the documents, I read it with a perfect confidence, in the main facts which it ftates. If one quarter of thofe facts be true, and that they are, I have not the flighteft inclination to disbelieve, what do they prove? That the French Directory have no intention to make peace with you, not merely that they have no intention to make peace with you, but they are alienised and hoftile to the government of this country! My Lords, this is a moft ferious, and a moft important matter; for then comes the great question, What are we to do in fuch a predicament? The Noble Earl fays, continue the war! I ask you, how are you to continue it? I leave all that has been faid about Geneva and Genoa, and the other states who have fuffered from the conduct of France, to men better acquainted with the circumftances. We have nothing to do with these details. Our cafe is not parallel. Great Britain is not to be put on a footing with the petty states, which the drunkenness of the French revolution has difturbed, and we ought not to be diverted from the contemplation of our own cafe by fuch re ferences. |