direct oppofite. Fearlefs of danger, because confcious of innocence, he had acted in the moft open, artless, and unreserved manner; nay he had even himself put a question to each of his witneffes, that none of his counsel, nor any one of his friends, would have ventured to have proposed for him to alk. The queftion he alluded to was the general question which he put to every witnefs, not what particular, fpecies of neglect and misconduct they obferved in him on the 27th of July, but whether or no they faw any inftance of negligence or misconduct in his behaviour the whole day? And yet notwithstanding the different conduct of the two admirals, and the different conftitution of the courts that tried them, what had been the fentences? By the one, Admiral Keppel had been honourably and unanimously acquitted, and his accufer pronounced a falfe and malicious accufer; by the other, Sir Hugh Pallifer was faid to have behaved in an exemplary and meritorious manner in many inftances, which directly implied that his conduct had been the reverfe in fome inftances: he was then condemned as having been guilty of criminal neglect, in omitting to let the Admiral know by the Fox frigate, the condition of the Formidable, and after that he was acquitted. So that the fentence of acquittal had neither the word "honourable," nor the word “unani"mous" in it, and even, while it acquitted, fixed a charge of criminality.

The second sentence, he faid, confirmed the first; for who fhould be the man to prefer a malicious and ill-founded accufation against his commander, but an inferior officer, who had himself been guilty of a neglect of duty? From fuch a quarter only was it likely that fuch an accufation fhould arife, He who is confcious of guilt cannot bear the innocence of others; he tries to reduce other characters to his own level; and the hiftory of mankind teaches us, that the higheft, the moft virtuous, the most glorious of men, are the most envied, the moft hated, and the moft liable to caJumny, detraction, and malevolence. Hence the accufation against Admiral Keppel, and hence the record of the vice admiral's malice! But even if the fentence of the fecond court-martial had been as warm, as honourable, and as unanimous as that which acquitted Admiral Keppel, if it had placed the conduct of the vice admiral on the 27th of July in the most exalted point of view, ftill it would not have done away the declaration that he had preferred a malicious and ill-founded accufation against his commanding officer

;

and

and though it might have excited his pity, to be forced to know that true greatness of mind did not always accompany distinguished valour, and that a brave and gallant admiral fhould have given way to his paffions, and have defcended to the meanness of preferring a malicious and ill-founded accufation against his commander, it would not have justified minifters in beftowing an office of high rank, an office of diftinguished rank, an office looked up to by the navy as the hope and prospect of honeft ambition, on a man who stood recorded as a falfe and malicious accufer.

From the appointment of this man to the government of Greenwich-Hofpital, he said, every thing dangerous to the public interest was to be apprehended. The officers of the navy in general would be difgufted, because they would fee that honour and bravery combined were not the merits that were now thought worthy of reward, but that malice and infamy were ftrong claims with the prefent minifters. Difcipline and fubordination would ceafe, and the spirit of the navy would be broken; thus would the great and only folid ftrength of this country be annihilated. Every inferior officer, confcious of his own guilt, would threaten his commander with a court-martial, and feeing that difobedience of orders was countenanced and rewarded, would neglect his duty, from the idea that he was fure of protection. What was it that had driven fo many great and diftinguished commanders from the fervice, but that they now found they could not ferve with fecurity to their honour. Why was not Admiral Barrington employed? Admiral Barrington, confefedly a good officer, and a zealous lover of his country! Admiral Barrington, it was faid, was willing to go out fefcond in command, but would not accept of a chief command. Admiral Barrington had as much honeft ambition as other officers, and he prefumed Admiral Barrington was as thirsty of honour; why then did Admiral Barrington decline accepting a chief command? To what could it be imputed, but to his feeing that a commander in chief had fpies fet upon him, that he was not fafe, that it lay in the power of his inferior officer to attack his honour, to attack his life, and to bring a malicious and ill-founded accufation against him; and if it fucceeded, his ruin was certain, at any rate his accufer would be protected and rewarded. How happened it, that one officer commanded the fleet the beginning of the laft campaign, and as foon as he could know what he was about, refigned the command, and another was appointed?

Thele

Lord North.

These were all matters that it was fair to suppose had their origin in the mischievous fyftem of the prefent firft lord of the admiralty. He concluded with faying, that no man ought to be promoted, who had rendered himfelf unworthy of a rank in a profeffion fo honourable as that of the British navy; and by enumerating the feveral heads of his speech, in order to remind the Houfe of the grounds on which he refted his intended motion; thefe were, that it proceeded not from perfonal enmity; that the court-martial, who tried Admiral Keppel, were perfectly competent to declare that Sir Hugh Pallifer had preferred a malicious and ill-founded accufation; that the declaration was warranted by a variety of undeniable facts and circumstances; that Sir Hugh Pallifer had himself acquiefced in the juftice of the fentence; that the Houfe had acknowledged its truth; that the fentence of the fecond court-martial was neither an honourable nor an unanimous acquittal; and laftly, that the promotion of a perfon, declared to have preferred a malicious and ill-founded accufation against his commander in chief, was a measure fubverfive of the difcipline, and derogatory to the honour of the British navy.

He then called upon the young members for their fupport, declaring that he made the appeal from a conviction that the higheft fenfe of honour always glowed in youthful bofoms, and that they were most likely to act according to the dictates of their own hearts, without fervilely embracing the opinions of other men. He read his motion, which was "that the appointment of Sir Hugh Pallifer to be governor of Greenwich-Hofpital, after he had been declared guilty of having preferred a malicious and ill-founded accufation against his commanding officer, by the fentence of a courtmartial, was a measure totally fubverfive of the difcipline, and derogatory to the honour of the navy.

Lord North rofe, and declared that he should not attempt to follow the honourable gentleman over the vaft field of matter which he had introduced, fupporting with a great deal of cloquence, as he always did, and he muft give him leave to fay, with a great deal of art, the motion which had just been read. A motion which carried upon the face of it, and muft convey to all who faw or heard it, an idea that Sir Hugh Pallifer was declared to have preferred a malicious and ill-founded accufation againft his commander in chief, by a court-martial before whom he had been tried on a charge of malice and falfhood, and who were thence perfectly compe

tent

tent and able to pafs fuch a sentence upon him. He thought it fair, therefore, even in that early part of his fpeech, to inform the honourable gentleman, that before he fat down, he fhould certainly move to amend the queftion, by introducing words tending to fhew, that the court-martial which declared the accufation preferred against Admiral Keppel, malicious and ill-founded, were not appointed to try the accufer, nor had they heard him in his own defence. If it were neceffary to make any motion ftating the merits of the argument, certainly the whole truth ought to be told in that motion; whereas, as the motion made by the honou-" rable gentleman ftood, only one part of the truth was told, and that in fuch a manner, as to prejudice the vice admiral, in the minds of all who heard of the motion. His lordfhip begged the Houfe to obferve, that the motion before them was not a motion tending either to criminate or acquit Sir Hugh Pallifer, but a leading motion to condemn and convict minifters of having advifed his Majefty to beftow the government of Greenwich-Hofpital on an unworthy object. The House therefore were to act in a judicial capacity, and to try him and the reft of the King's fervants upon the point ftated in the motion; for if blaine were due, he was free to admit, that a part of it belonged to him in common with other minifters; he trufted however he thould be able to. make it appear, that the motion was falfe in fact, that it was unjuft, and that no blame was due, for that minifters had done no more than their duty. With regard to the honourable gentleinan's argument, upon the competency of the court-martial to pronounce upon the accufer's motives, he did affure the honourable gentleman and the House, that he had not the fmalleft intention to arraign the court-martial, or to question their conduct; but this he muft fay, their opinion that the accufation was malicious and ill-founded, was undoubtedly an extrajudicial opinion. The honourable gentleman, forefceing that the objection would be made on that ground, had, with a wonderful deal of ingenuity, endeavoured to prove, that the opinion was not extrajudicial, but the mode in which he had argued it, was obviously an attempt to confound and mislead the Houfe, rather than a fair endeavour by candid reafoning to impress conviction on the minds of all who heard him. The honourable gentleman had taken a great deal of pains to maintain that the court-martial ought to have done this, and had right to have done that: the queftion was not what the

I

court

court ought to have done, but what it did. The courtmartial certainly had pronounced the accufation malicious and ill-founded, although the accufer had never been heard as to his motive. The honourable gentleman had faid, that the right of reply was not effential to juftice, and rarely claimed by an accufer. The honourable gentleman, from the trouble he had given himself to make himself mafter of the fubject, could not but know, that in naval courts martial, it was no unufual thing to claim it, no unusual. thing to exercife it. In the trials of Admiral Knowles, and of the captains who accufed him, it was claimed and exercifed on all the trials. Abundant and recent inftances could alfo be adduced to prove that the right of reply was not fo rarely claimed as the honourable gentleman was pleased to fay it was in the courts of criminal law. But the honourable gentleman feeling that his argument was not fufficiently ftrengthened by the precedents which he produced, and nobody ever denied that there were not precedents to be found, had recourfe to another method of gaining his point, and had endeavoured to demonftrate the malice of the motives of the accufation, by referring to the antecedent conduct of Sir Hugh Pallifer, as well as to his conduct after the trial. The word recrimination is the great inftrument of proof which the honourable gentleman applies, in hopes to fix an impreffion on the minds of the Houfe, that the accufer was ftimulated by malice. Will the honourable gentleman be, pleased to recollect that recrimination may be innocent; it may arife from a good motive as well as from a bad one. The man who tells another who firft charges him with a crime," If you do not withdraw your charge, I will charge you with another crime," fuch a man undoubtedly is a criminal recriminator, and his motive is a bafe one. But that is not pretended to be the complexion of the prefent cafe. The vice admiral finds himself cenfured, and that by the officers of the commander in chief. Cenfure from fuch a quarter, is no light matter; every man of honour muft feel it to the quick, muft be anxious to get it explained; an officer who has not this feeling, can neither be a brave nor a good man. The vice admiral inftantly applies to the cominander in chief to do him juftice, and he fails in his application; feeling as every man of spirit must feel on fuch an occafion, and anxious to do away the calumny that is in circulation, and tends to point him out as the caufe of a circumftance, not very agreeable to the people of Great Britain,