but without I am allowed the official documents, I cannot prove the validity of my grounds, I cannot follow up my enquiry. If ministers choose to make this a question of confidence, they cannot, they shall not, induce me to the surrender of the inestiinable privileges transmitted to every member of parliament by his predecessors in the House. In bringing forward the subject of this present discussion, I have no other motive than merely to discharge my duty to my country, whose safety, in such a crisis as the present, is the first object of my heart. The House divided on the question : Ayes.........150 Noes.........201 April 23. 1804. Mr. Fox, in pursuance of the notice he had previously given, this day moved, “That it be referred to a committee of the whole House to revise the several bills for the defence of the country, and to consider of such further measures as may be necessary to make that defence more complete and permanent." Mr. PITT rose immediately after the Chancellor of the Exchequer : I cannot agree, Sir, with the right honourable gentleman who has just spoken, in the description of the motion which is now before the House.. It is a motion, in my view of it, which is neither calculated to embrace opinions hostile to government nor to any ministers whatever, nor to embrace opinions that may have been entertained on small and minute points, and thereby produce a general concurrence against ministers, to criticise upon their conduct, when such members might have but small and minute differences in their opinions as to the detail of a system to which they generally assent; but it is a motion calculated to embrace all those, who consider that such a measure ought to be adopted and substituted for that which they consider to be inadequate for our defence, and to call the attention of those who are disposed to take a grave and radical review of our public affairs; a review of all the resources which government have brought forward; who think that no part of our defence is adequate to what we ought to expect, all those who are convinced by experience, that, after twelve months have been given to these gentlemen to exhaust all the resources of their minds, and to amend and improve their plans from the suggestions of others, nothing satisfactory has been accomplished, all those who are convinced upon mature reflection, that from the present ministers, or under them, nothing is likely to originate to give to this country any fair chance of having what is due to its own zeal and its own exertion, at the most important and the most critical period that ever existed in its history; and I confess I am one of those who look at this subject in that point of view, and I am inclined to support this motion on almost all the grounds which the honourable gentleman urged who moved it. I feel it my duty to my sovereign and to my country to do so, not only on all the reasons which that honourable gentleman has urged in support of it, but also for many which he omitted to state, and which I shall slightly touch upon. But the right honourable gentleman who spoke last, with all his recollection of the records of parliament, and with all the force of his imagination, which he indulged to supply his recollection, has only proved, that he knew of no motion like the present; and also by the same authority, which is himself, that when circumstances are extraordinary, the measures to provide for them are likewise extraordinary; and I think we may add, that whatever extraordinary measures may be adopted, the present crisis which requires them is also extraordinary. And this the right honourable gentleman appears to be surprised at; as if it were extraordinary to propose a committee of this House, to consider of the means for providing for the defence of the country; as if it were extraordinary, that after twelve months of war, preceded by a peace which, by the confession of ministers themselves, was a mere notice of that war, and a war in which they themselves last twelve months, they have brought forward nothing in which there has not been a variety of contradiction in the plans, repugnancies in the measures, and imbecility in the execution,— nothing in which every step has not been marked by unnecessary delay; and at last the measures adopted amounting almost to a retraction of the principle upon which it was founded;)-I should say it is extraordinary indeed, if, after having such and so many melancholy proofs that ministers themselves, after repeated trials, have proved what is to be expected from them, by what they have produced, this House did not enquire into this important subject, in the hope of being able to devise some better means for the defence of the country than any which they have brought forward for that purpose; a course in which if they are permitted to go on, there can be no hope of safety to this country. Such has been the mode in which they have managed the important charge of defending the country! I feel that I am compelled to make this strong and explicit declaration of my sentiments. I do consider the measure for the increase of the regular army as a measure for which ministers are unable to provide; for it is only a few nights ago, since we had the confession of ministers themselves, that the necessity was so great for the making of a provision for this purpose, that the measures they themselves had formerly brought forward they would consent to abandon, if by any other measure the increase of the regular army could be produced. I do not mean to say any thing of the propriety of the measure proposed upon the subject of an armed peasantry, nor of substituting an armed peasantry for the volunteers, which the right honourable gentleman who spoke last at one time was about to state, as being the idea of the honourable gentleman who has brought forward this motion; but he set himself right afterwards, and admitted of a difference, not a very slight one, that of adding an armed peasantry to the volunteers, instead of substituting them for the volunteers. And if there are persons who think, that, in point of substance, the volunteers are more essential for the actual and efficient service of the country -- than the armed peasantry, as certainly there are great numbers that would be for altering the quality of our mode of defence, then they may assent to having the aid of the peasantry, but not in the way in which it was stated by the right honourable gentleman: and as to the volunteers, we have a full right to avail ourselves of the full benefit of that force a force which has often been, and justly is, a favourite with this House and the public a force, which, whatever it may have been in its origin, has now the advantage of being formed, and of being in a great state of efficiency as a force, though none of its efficiency has been owing to ministers. Often it has produced among us some difference of opinion, as to the precise extent to which you should carry it, and as to the circumstances under which you should render it most effectual; but it is a force which all of us allowed to be an extremely valuable force. And now that there is hardly any difference between the honourable gentleman who made this motion, and His Majesty's government, on the subject of the armed peasantry, he says it may be a proper thing if ministers and parliament shall think it right. So the right honourable gentleman has gone the length of admitting the measure may be right, if he shall hereafter think so. I say, I think it clearly right that you should institute an enquiry whether it is right or not. Have we not been told by ministers for these six months past, that the invasion might take place, perhaps within 24 hours? Is it a time to procrastinate any wise measures, any efficient plans of defence, at a time when we see that the enemy have surmounted many of those preliminary difficulties which some months ago were deemed invincible? Have not the enemy supplied those means of conveyance which it was at first thought must render all their threats vain and futile? Have they not, in the face of that navy which ministers so confidently boast has been carried to its utmost strength, and has been distributed with the most perfect judgment-have they not, within sight of our shores, and in defiance of our obstruction, assembled in one port between 13 and 1400 vessels, ca they not proved that all our reasonings about the impossibility of sailing from one port, the difficulty of a concerted attack, the obstacle of winds and tides, were unfounded, and that the contempt we entertained for their preparations and for their menaces was ill-founded and unwarranted? With such facts before us, ought we to suspend or delay any means that can contribute to our safety? We ought not to treat with contempt, or with a false security pronounce impracticable, the projects of a bold, enterprising, and desperate, though often fortunate enemy, and one, too, that never stood in the way of good fortune by a dread of bad. If then an armed peasantry is calculated to be of any utility in Essex, Kent, or Sussex, in opposing an enemy, and retarding their progress to the metropolis, it is fit that no time should be lost in devising a plan for obtaining this additional aid.. The honourable gentleman next contends, that the motion is unconstitutional; but what is there unconstitutional in referring to the consideration of a committee of the whole House, which I understand to be the object of the motion, [Mr. Fox nodded assent,] certain acts passed by the legislature, so that they may be modified, altered, and improved? Is the honourable gentleman, who so long filled that chair, with so much credit to himself and advantage to the House, so little acquainted with parliamentary usages, as not to know, that in a committee of the whole House alone several proceedings can regularly originate? Matters of religion, grievance, trade, finance, &c. must first be discussed in a committee of the whole House. If, then, questions on those subjects must originate in a committee, can there be any scruple to refer to a similar committee measures, the object of which is to defend every thing that is dear and valuable to a state, the religion which exalts, the commerce which enriches, the laws which regulate and protect? Is there any thing extraordinary, any thing dangerous, then, in the present motion? Will it be said that the system of defence is so good that there is nothing to be added to it? Is the experience of it in its fruits and effects such as to encourage us to rely with |