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to those efforts by which government had been able to contract for fo large a loan in the fourth year of the war, and upon terms fuperior to what had been obtained in former years. The king's meffage was not in his mind when the bargain was made; nor, if it had, could he poffibly have forefeen the rife of stocks: nor could it have arifen from the meffage, which only intimated, that the time was arrived to which his majefty had alluded in his fpeech to parliament. There were other collateral caufes for the rife, as the Auftrian victories, and the increased distresses of the enemy. The profits upon the loan, he averred, amounted to nothing like the fum stated.

Mr. Fox faid that ftill he muft accuse the chancellor of the exchequer with having made an improvident bargain; and he had been aftonished to hear him ftate it as a mere peccadillo. Was improvidence in him to this extent a mere peccadillo?" Improvidence (faid he) in a minifter of finance is no fmall crime: and when I fee this improvidence accompanied by fuch circumftances as the prefent, I can. not conceal my fufpicions; though, when I cannot prove, I will not allege." He did not conceive the loan to have been used as an inftrument of corruption in that houfe: there was certainly no occafion to increase the majority; if it was made a fubject of influence, it must be an influence of another kind. It was not, however, neceffary to couple corruption with improvidence, to criminate a chancellor of the exchequer and if there was any species of improvidence which it was proper to check, it was that which tended to procure to the minifter, from great and powerful men, a great and powerful fup

port which he cannot constitutionally poffefs. However innocent the minifter, the loan was divided among men from whom he might derive more folid advantage than from a few votes in that houfe. Mr. Fox next adverted to the principle of competition in tranfacting loans. Let it, said he, never be forgotten, that in 1793, when he made the moft extravagant bargain that ever was made by any minif-ter, he juftified his conduct folely on the ground of competition. With refpect to the question, what motive the minifter could poffibly have? were he unable to difcern the motive, he must demur to fucir a queftion. To afcertain the motive, it was important to confider with attention the period and manner in which the chancellor of the exchequer first attended to the claim' of Mr. Boyd. The year before laft, a loan was bargained for by the minifter. The following May, when it was thought advisable to fend a loan to the emperor, the former contractors objected to its falling into other hands, fo that the question was by no means new. During that year there was another loan; but no agreement was stated declaring the point on either fide. It was material for the honour of the minister's character, to tell when he had the first notice of Mr. Boyd's claim. Mr. Fox pointed out feveral apparent inconfiftencies in this point between the account given by the minifter, and by Mr. Boyd. If Mr. Boyd's claim was juft, it ought to have been afcertained; if it was not, the minifter had broken his faith with the public. Was it nothing, after having made a pofitive promise to prefer an individual, to give notice to the governor of the bank of a public competition, in which the

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minifter knew at the time he could not perfevere, and which he had been obliged to abandon? The evidence given by the governor of the bank, went, he faid, directly to invalidate the claim of Mr. Boyd; and this opinion was fortified by fact and justice. As to the reluctance of the minister to accede to the claim of Mr. Boyd,-reluctance was, he obferved, often a veil to conceal the commiffion of acts which ought not to have been committed. Reluctance was fometimes put on to fave appearances. Of this coynefs in the minifter, "this fweet, reluctant, amorous delay," the reluctance appeared to be of the doubtful kind. The qualified competition talked of by the minifter, after the manner in which the loan had been made, could deferve no other character than a mere mockery. If that fyftem had any folid advantages, why was it abandoned? The motive which actuated the hafty transactions of the loan, was, he thought, the Hamburgh bills. If this was not allowed to be a means of corruption, it certainly had fome reference to what had taken place in September, when Mr. Boyd raised 2,500,000l. for government upon treafury bills bearing a fictitious date from Ham burgh, though drawn here. This tranfaction was reprobated by Mr. Fox, on the authority of the governor of the bank, as extremely difcreditable to government, and as difgraceful to those who fet it on foot; by impoting a fictitious fecurity, it did injuftice both to the drawer and indorfer. From a train of reafoning deduced from the advantages derived by the minifter from Mr. Boyd in this bufinefs, Mr. Fox again thought the relation etablished between that tranfaction and the negotiation of the loan.

The mode of negotiating a prefent supply till after the holidays, could not, it had been objected, have been explained to France, nor have given her that idea of our financier's fuperiority which the must neceffarily have formed from fuch a highly-creditable tranfaction as raifing money by fiftitious Hamburgh bills. How falfe and how ridiculous an argument! With respect to the caufes, independent of the king's meffage, for the rife of stocks, the Auftrian victories were, he faid, known before the 25th of November: and, fince that time, had the French finances decayed fo rapidly that even the moft fanguine calculator found his calculations far short of the truth? This language was the more furprising, as eight months ago they were defcribed as in the agonies of death," in the very gulph of bankruptcy." These were, he faid, childish and contemptible pretences, to veil the fufpicious conduct of the minister.

The report of the committee was pointedly cenfured by Mr. Sheridan. The examination, he faid, had been chiefly in the hands of the friends of the minifter, who, he did not think, could plume himfelf on the refult of an inquiry conducted by perfons notorionly dependent on his own political character. The loan, he still thought, had been used as a means of extending political influence. Nay, the houfe, he said, had witneffed enough to bear out that affertion. The lord mayor had obligingly come forward to correct the monfrous error he had fallen into of ftating that his banking-house had been favoured with only two millions of the loan; whereas, according to the worthy magiftrate's better knowledge, the fum was not two millions, but two millions eight

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hundred thousand pounds. To the accommodation fecured by government in the Hamburgh bills, he afcribed the preference fhewn to Mr. Boyd in the loan. Such a tranfaction as that of the Ham burgh bills had been declared, by the governor of the bank, of a na ture fo bad, that, if it had taken place in the dealings of a private mer. chant, it would have been deemed a difgrace to his houfe. If the ruin of the French finances brought that country into a more negotia. able state, he must congratulate the minifter on having brought Great Britain into a ftate peculiarly fitted for negotiation."

Mr. Smith, in reply to what had been advanced, infifted upon the abandonment of competition. The point which had been conceded to the claim of Mr. Boyd, was certainly, he obferved, of great magnitude and importance; and the minifter was defirous to have it understood that he had received fuch conviction on the fubject as enabled him, with propriety, to make fuch a facrifice. Now, he defired it might be carefully obferved, that after all the converfations and reprefentations which had wrought this unwilling conviction, the minifter had repeatedly fpoken of that claim in fuch terms as thefe; as a circumftance which had but recently come to his knowledge, but which "was entitled to fome degree of attention." Would he then lay that an impreffion on his mind, fo lightly fpoken of when warm and exiting in its full force, to perfons too who were entitled to the strongest reafons he could produce, and whom he must be defirous of convincing, could be the real, fole, and fufficient motive to induce him to furrender, and to juftiy him in furrendering,

the acknowledged benefits of com petition, and in concluding fuch a bargain as had been made? In conclufion, the refolutions which had been brought up by Mr. Smith, and which confifted of thirty-nine, were negatived; and two refolutions moved by Mr. Douglas were paffed, approving the conduct of the chancellor of the exchequer.

The affair of the Hamburgh bills, which had been fo frequently al luded to in the debates refpecting the loan, produced, February 29, three refolutions from Mr. Jekyll, the ft. ftating the fact that 700,000l. were drawn in London in September 1795, on the treasury, in the name of W. Boyd, jun. bearing a fictitious date at Hamburgh, feveral weeks preceding the time when, with the privity of the chancellor of the exchequer, they were drawn in London; and that the faid Boyd was not engaged in business in Hamburgh.-2. That the said fum was paid to the paymafter general by order of the treafury, in direct breach of an act of parliament of the 23d of George III. and that the bank of England could have refufed to discount the notes as illegal:-and, 3d, that the faid tranfaction was illegal and unconftitutional, and had broughtthe public credit into difrepute and fufpicion.

The motion was preceded by a fpeech from Mr. Jekyll, in which he obferved upon the fecrecy of this tranfaction. Secrecy, he faid, was the concomitant mark and badge of fraud. How the minifter came to be in want of fo much money fo early in September, and why he was not upon fuch terms with the directors of the bank as to obtain the money from them by way of anticipation, was not indeed the

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queftion; but that he was not, appeared from the evidence of Mr. Boyd, who fuggefted the mode by which government might be fupplied. Mr. Boyd had stated, too, that he expected no remuneration for this fervice to government. This, however, had not been the opinion of Meffrs. Giles, Mellish, and Morgan. The first particularly underftood that a preference was to be given to Mr. Boyd in the loan. It was the opinion alfo of thefe gentlemen, that the mode in which Mr. Boyd affifted government in thefe bills, would have difcredited any private mercantile house, and fhaken the credit of any private individual. Another feature of fraud and collufion in the bills, was, that they were without ftamps, though inland bills of exchange. It was an axiom, legally admitted, that an appearance of fraud like this would vitiate any tranfaction ab initio; and the moment that a caufe had come into court refpecting these bills, when this defect was difcovered the whole would have been completely annihilated, the parties nonfuited, and the bills, with the right of action, fallen to the ground. Here were three fpecies of prefumptive fraud, -the fecrecy of the tranfaction, the antedating of the bills, and the drawing of them on unftamped paper. Had they, indeed, been drawn at Hamburgh, no ftamp was neceffary; this, therefore, was glaring fraud. Had the holder of the bills been afked, where was the drawer? he muft ei ther difgrace the paper and difcredit himself, or he muft affert a fraudulent falfehood. "The ftatute which this tranfaction violated, was paffed to prevent embezzlement, and to interpofe the bank as a falutary check upon the paymafter general." This had been grofsly evaded. When a tranfaction fimilar to this, in the 1796.

cafe of the Liverpool and Manchefter bills, had come before the lords, a very ferious doubt was entertained whether they did not amount to forgery, and whether the parties concerned in the indorsement ought not to be hanged." If fuch was the cafe when the indorsement only was fictitious, what was the cafe when the drawer and the place were both fictitious, the bills drawn on unftamped paper, and antedated?" What would be the fituation of the bill-holders, had the bank refused to difcount them? and what confidence could be placed in a minifter who reforted to fuch means, and who, in a war like the prefent, might be frequently driven to the fame fyftem? Who could tell, when a bill was offered, whether it was a fair bill from the treafury, or a fictitious one from Boyd? The minifter had, he faid, on a former evening, contended that there was no fraud, because there were fufficient affets. Had there not, he asked, a whole month elapfed after the laft payment of the loan of 1795, and before these bills were due? The bills were drawn September the 10th; and fortunately fome of them ran to the 3d of February before they became due. What was the actual cafe? If no new loan had been bargained for before December 10th when the first clafs of these bills became payable, an action might have lain against the accepter, the drawer, and the indorfer of these bills; but it fortunately occurs, that, on the very day when they were due, the depofit of 10 per cent. of the new loan is made, and thus Boyd pays himself out of his own fund. The fund was then leffened by the prompt payments; and towards the latter end of the year the payments came in fact, or

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the funds at that period would not have been half the value of the bills. Mr. Jekyll cenfured the want of forefight in the minifter, in not making the loan of 1795 nineteen inftead of eighteen millions; which would have precluded the neceffity of fhaking the public credit by coming in the middle of fummer for another million. The excufe for this had been, that, as parliament was not then fitting, and as it was neceffary to be fecret left the enemy should be apprized of the preffure of our circumstances, he was compelled to recur to this expedient. What would the enemy fay now, but that the chancellor of the exchequer has been fo diftreffed for money, as to raife it, in concert with one Boyd, by forging bills, and that he had been guilty not only of fraud, but of a direct violation of an act of parliament?

Mr. Charles Long objected to the refolutions, and ftated the tranfaction which they were defigned to reprobate. In Auguft 1795, money was wanted for the public fervice, in anticipation of certain portions of the payments on the loan and lottery ren aining unpaid, and which became due in November, December, and January. In confequence of this, application was made to Mr. Boyd, who, through a relation, his agent at Hamburgh, agreed to accommodate government. Secrecy was neceffary to prevent a fcarcity of money. Before this bufinefs took place, Mr. W. Boyd arrived in London; and the exigence of affairs did not allow of fending to Hamburgh in convenient time for a remittance of fuch bills as were wanted. The only irregularity was in antedating the bills, and dating them from Hamburgh; had they been drawn in Hamburgh, and fent to London, they would

have been perfectly regular. There was no fraud, he contended, in any part of the tranfaction. From the account of monies paid into the exchequer, he afferted that there was more than fufficient to discharge the 700,000l. without anticipating the new loan. If, in complying with the orders of the lords of the treafury to pay this fum into the hands of the paymafter general, he had offended against the letter of an act of parliament, he had not offended against the spirit of it. He knew there was no balance left in the hands of the paymafter general; but the regular mode was to pay it in his name. The engagement about the loan between the chancellor of the exchequer and Mr. Boyd he perfectly recollected.

Sir W. Pulteney vindicated the whole of the tranfaction. The fum wanted was, he thought, far from extraordinary, and was much better raised in the mode in which this bufinefs was tranfacted, than by convening parliament at fo unusual a time. With refpect to the mode in which it was raifed, bills of exchange were preferable to bonds or treafury warrants, which could not be readily transferred. It was certainly right that the minifter fhould give Mr. Boyd whatever security he liked beft; and furely there was no crime in raifing money by anticipation from the bank, or from a private banker; confequently there could be no fraud. cent. intereft required by Mr. Boyd was, he thought, very reasonable. This was not, he faid, as had been advanced, a new thing. In 1773 the bank of England agreed to advance 60,000l. on the fecurity of a Weft India eftate: the bank then never difcounted bills for more than two months. Bills in this cafe (Walton and Ellifon) were drawn

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