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At the same time, however, that he cheerfully expressed his readiness to go into the committee on the state of the nation, he thought it right that this committee should be delayed for some short time, and he trusted the reasons which he should give would be satisfactory to the House. It had pleased His Majesty to command his services, at a time, when, however he might feel himself unqualified for the high station of the minister, he could not think himself justified in conscience to decline. The circumstances of the country were peculiar and distressing. The EastIndia bill, brought in by the right honourable gentleman, a bill so violent in its form as to give just reason for alarm to every thinking man, had been, by what powerful management it was not for him to say, hurried through that House. That bill established a species of influence unknown to the constitution of this country; and he was one of a most respectable minority, who thought, that if it had passed into a law, the independence of that House, the equilibrium between the three estates of the realm, and the beautiful frame of our government, were at an end. That bill passed this House; but at the same time it was the idea of all men, even of those who objected to that bill as unfit to be passed, that some bill was essentially necessary; and he had pledged himself if it was withdrawn or thrown out, to propose one less violent in its principles, and, as he thought, more adequate to its purposes. Would any man object to his moving for leave to bring in that bill? Would not all sides of the House acknowledge, that the first object to be embraced was the India business? It was for this question that the House was impatient. They had thought proper to present an address to the throne, testifying their extreme anxiety to go upon this important pursuit, which they stated to be so urgent as to make them dread any interruption whatever. Was it possible then that they should think of interrupting the business? Was it possible that they should think of preventing the introduction of a new bill, which was the only way of coming fairly to the business? Whatever serious enquiry into the state of the nation might be meditated afterwards, he should think it is duty most attentively and cheer

fully to accompany. In the mean time he begged the House to consider, that this was the first day when the new ministers had met them in parliament. That ministry was formed, was called by His Majesty into office, chiefly on the ground of the India bill. Their first duty was to frame a system for the government of India. They had not opposed the last bill by cavilling; they had not objected to it from envy to the parents of it. They had opposed it, because they thought that its objects might be accomplished in a safer way. This was the point on which they were at issue. They had now to prove that they had not lightly disturbed the government of the country; that they had not set up a captious opposition, an opposition to men merely; but that they opposed a most violent measure; and having overthrown it, they thought it their first duty to substitute a more moderate, a more constitutional scheme in its place.

He spoke again of the clamour which had been excited, and said he was ready to meet it all. He had objected to the last bill, because it created a new and enormous influence by vesting in certain nominees of the ministers, all the patronage of the East. He stated all his great objections to Mr. Fox's bill, and said, that he was now called upon by his duty, to bring in a new bill; and if the House, by agreeing with him to postpone the order of the day, would allow him to move for leave to bring in his bill, he would state all the outlines of his system, as shortly and precisely as he could. He trusted that he should not be prevented, because the right honourable gentleman had forestalled the House, by rising at a time when those persons were absent, whose duty it was to conduct official business; and he hoped the House in general would agree with him in voting against the order of the day.

Before the debate closed, Mr. PITT again rose, and applied to a variety of matters that had been urged against him, as well on the ground of secret influence, as on the principles on which he had come into administration.

He declared he came up no back stairs; that when he was sent for by his sovereign to know whether he would accept of

office, he necessarily went to the royal closet; that he knew of no secret influence, and that his own integrity would be his guardian against that danger: but the House might rest assured whenever he discovered any, he would not stay a moment longer in office. I will neither have the meanness, said Mr. Pitt, to act upon the advice of others, nor the hypocrisy to pretend, when the measures of an administration in which I have a share are deserving of censure, that they were measures not of my advising. If any former ministers take these charges to themselves, to them be the sting. Little did I think to be ever charged in this House with being the tool and abettor of secret influence. The novelty of the imputation only renders it the more contemptible. This is the only answer I shall ever deign to make on the subject, and I wish the House to bear it in their mind, and judge of my future conduct by my present declara. tion the integrity of my own heart, and the probity of all my public, as well as my private principles, shall always be my sources of action. I will never condescend to be the instrument of any secret advisers whatever, nor in any one instance, while I have the honour to act as minister of the crown in this House, will I be responsible for measures not my own, or at least in which my heart and judgment do not cordially acquiesce.

With regard to the questions put to him as to the dissolution, it did not become him to comment on the words of a most gracious answer of the sovereign delivered from the throne; neither would he presume to compromise the royal prerogative, or bargain it away in the House of Commons. When his honourable friend *, in whose hands he considered his honour to be as safe his own, before the recess, in his name, and by his authority pledged himself to the House, that he (Mr. Pitt) would not advise a dissolution, such at that time had been his real sentiment; he could not at present say more, but he hoped, nevertheless, the House would now consent to receive and go into the consideration of his India bill.

as

Mr. Dundas.

The motion for the order of the day was carried,

Ayes......... 232

Noes......... 193,

and the House went into the committee on the state of the nation; when several strong resolutions were passed, condemning as unconstitutional both the appointment, and the continuance in office, of His Majesty's ministers, who possessed not the confidence either of that House, or of the people.

The purport of the message from the King, which Mr. Pitt had to present, and which was afterwards read from the chair, was, " to inform the House, that on account of the river Weser being frozen up, and its navigation rendered impassable, two regiments of Hessian troops had been obliged to be disembarked and distributed in barracks at Dover, Canterbury, Chatham, and Portsmouth: and that His Majesty had given' especial directions that, as soon as the navigation of the Weser was open, the two regiments in question should be again embarked, and immediately sent home to Germany."

January 14. 1784.

Mr. PITT, in pursuance of the notice he had given, this day moved for leave to bring in a bill for the better regulation of the government in India,

He rose, he said, in performance of his engagement to the public and to the House, and to discharge that duty which was indispensable to him in the situation which he held. He was neither deterred by the circumstances of the time, nor the ap pearance of the agitation of that assembly, from rising to move for the introduction of a new bill for settling the government of India, because he knew it to be the most immediate concern of the country, and that which before all other things called for the consideration of parliament. He was aware that, in the present circumstances of the time, any proposition that came from him was not likely to be treated with much lenity; and indeed, from what he had heard, he might be permitted to apprehend, not likely to be treated by certain persons with impartiality or justice; for they had already excited a clamour against what they conceived to be his ideas, and had already condemned, without knowing, his system. They had taken up certain resolutions passed by the proprietors of East-India stock, and had said, that

a system founded upon them must necessarily be defective, must necessarily be charged with more influence, accompanied with less energy, than the bill which had been rejected. He knew the triumph which he should afford to a certain description of men, when he informed the House, that the plan which he proposed to submit to parliament was chiefly founded on the resolutions of the proprietors of India-stock, and that his ideas in all the great points coincided with theirs. He anticipated in his mind the clamour which would take place on this discovery, and the vociferous acclamations of those gentlemen ranged behind the right honourable member *, whose signals they were always disposed to obey, and whose mandates they were always ready to execute. He perfectly understood the nature of their conduct: he knew well how capable they would be of deciding on the subject, from the notices they would receive, and how eagerly they would embrace the opinion which the right honourable gentleman would give them; but he was not to be intimidated from undertaking what he conceived to be for the interest of his country; and to the crime which was alleged against him, he pleaded guilty. He confessed himself to be so miserably weak and irresolute, as not to venture to introduce a bill into that House on the foundations of violence and intrenchment. He acknowledged himself to be so weak as to pay respect to the chartered rights of men, and that, in proposing a new system of government and regulation, he did not disdain to consult with those, who, having the greatest stake in the matter to be new-modelled, were likely to be the best capable of giving him advice. He acknowledged the enormous transgression of acting with their consent, rather than by violence; and that, in the bill which he proposed to move for, he had governed himself by the ideas of the proprietors of EastIndia stock, and by the sense and wisdom of those men who were most habituated to the consideration of the subject, as well as the most interested in it.

He gave to his opponents, with perfect cheerfulness, all the advantage which this view of the subject could confer. His plan

* Mr. Fox.

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