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ment, now urged by the honourable baronet. He must, therefore, be excused from imputing the motion of the honourable baronet merely to the motives he avowed. He must call things by their right names, and freely avow his own conviction that the true object of the honourable baronet's motion was to cast an indirect censure on the board of admiralty; and, therefore, without dissenting from the truth of the resolution, he would oppose it by the previous question. It would have been more honourable and manly to name the persons to whose ap pointments he had objected, and thereby give to the friends of those gentlemen the opportunity of defending them fairly and openly. The honourable member then named severally the different members of the victualling board, to whose characters he paid high encomiums, and wished the honourable baronet to state to which, if to any of them, he could personally object. The persons at that board against whom he conceived the honourable baronet's motion chiefly directed, were Colonel Welsh and Captain Stuart, and this for no other cause than that they were military men, and therefore in the honourable baronet's estimation unfit to sit at the victualling board. He (Mr. Ward) however conceived that military experience was as necessary as naval experience to the efficiency of that board; inasmuch as ever since the year 1793, by a new arrangement of the board, with increased salaries, additional clerks, and the appointment of a military inspector of provisions, the duty of purchasing victualling stores for the army in foreign stations, as well as for the navy, devolved upon them, although the victualling of both branches of the public force was carried on under distinct departments, was different in kind, and distributed differently on shipboard, and in garrison. The commissioners of revision had said there should be some military and some civilians. There could be no objection, nor was there any to Colonel Weish, other than his being appointed by Lord Mulgrave, and every one but the honourable baronet allowed his merits. All he had said of Colonel Welsh was equally applicable to Captain Stuart; and in point of justice, the honourable baronet ought to get up and state, that they have no abilities and no integrity, if he wished to throw blame on the admiralty for these appointinents. The motion went to charge the admiralty with blame without a single

argument in support of it. He was, therefore, compelled to move the previous question.

Mr. H. Martin said he had never heard more warmth or less argument than in the speech just delivered by the honourable gentleman. The fact was, the admiralty had dismissed, or allowed to retire, Mr. Marsh, who presided at the victualling board, under pretence of his age and infirmities, because the accounts were in arrear, and had appointed a person much the senior of him they had removed; and the person so appointed had been longer in the victualling office than any other, so that if bad habits were an objection, they applied in full force to him. Mr. Budge had also been removed without any application on his part; and Mr. Moody, who was allowed to be one of the best accomptants in the country; and if it were true that the accounts of the office were so tremendously in arrear as had been represented, it was very extraordinary they should get rid of such a man, who was in all respects so capable of forwarding them.

Mr. Bastard said he could not but feel indignant at the manner in which the honourable gentleman (Mr. Ward) had treated the motion of the honourable baronet, to whom he thought the House and the country were highly indebted for bringing it forward, as well as for many other services he had done to the public. Public boards were not the masters of that House, but ought to be their servants, and liable to their controul; and the honourable gentleman would have done well to have recollected the benefits the country had received from a board, of which the honourable baronet had been an active member. The commissioners of naval inquiry had said many reports had been made as to the conduct of the victualling board, but not one had been acted on. It was the duty of the House to enforce such a resolution as the present, which might probably prevent such neglects in future. It was not the honourable baronet, but the naval commissioners who asserted this to be necessary; and though it might be a truism, it came before the House in a much more opposite shape than many others had done. In saying this, he meant no slur on the admiralty, and the honourable gentleman had gone very far out of his way in saying so much on the appointment of Colonel Welsh. He thought the honourable baronet was actuated by the best motives; he hoped he would persist in

his present conduct, and he should give the motion his cordial support.

Mr. Wellesley Pole defended, at considerable length, the several removals, and the appointments made in their stead. He thought, however, that what the honourable baronet bad now brought forward did not call for what his honourable friend (Mr. Ward) had said upon it. He was glad the honourable baronet had stated the matter as he had done, which allowed that the system of the victualling board was so vicious as loudly to call for alteration and reform. There was, however, another report, which the honourable baronet ought to attend to, viz. the 11th, which particularly related to the outports, and which stated that in the victualling board at Plymouth he had been charged with 4000 tons of casks more than by his account he ought to be charged with, and another with 4000 tons of casks less than he ought, and yet both accounts had been passed as right. When the honourable baronet looked to the various boards with so jealous an eye, he could have wished, the honourable baronet had not suffered his own report, as a commissioner of naval inquiry to remain for ten months a mere dead letter, though he was all that time in office, and might have brought it into action, and during that period there were no less than eleven millions of accounts in his office which were never looked to by the board. Many of those accounts had been standing twenty-five years, and many nearly that, and of those sixteen had been reported ready for inspection, but no notice bad been taken of them by that board, of which the hon. baronet was a member. Mr. Marsh, the deputy chairman of the victualling board, had been allowed to retire at his own request on three-fourths of his salary. Mr. Moody was as incapable of discharging the duties of his office, as if he was defunct. From all the inquiries he had made, it was universally agreed that he was incapable of leading the board to carry into effect those reforms which had been recommended by the naval commissioners. He had also been allowed, after forty-nine years service, to retire on three-fourths of his salary; and the victualling board was at present constituted in the exact manner recommended by the commissioners of revision. The honourable gentleman concluded by saying, that as there appeared no shadow of ground for the present motion, he would vote for the previous question.

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Mr. Windham said, in his opinion, the whole case lay in the short compass of how far it was necessary to remove some officers, and put others in their place; he could not see the necessity of this, but it seemed the honourable gentleman thought a reform necessary, and so he began, not by changing principles, but by changing men-a very commodious system of reform; he knew none of the offi cers but Mr. Marsh, and could see no change in him which could warrant his removal; time, however, might have an effect on his mind, which it had not on his body. He defended the motion of Sir C. Pole.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer denied that a change of persons was only intended, but a radical reform of system in the most economical way possible. He contended the right honourable gentleman had formed his opinion on partial parts of the report and deduced therefrom general propositions, which could not be denied in the abstract, but which, when particularly applied, were defective. He would, therefore, support the previous question. He believed Mr. Marsh was a very zealous officer, but he was incapacitated by age from active service. This was also the case with respect to Mr. Moody.

Mr. Whitbread defended the motion of the honourable baronet, and said he had never heard the present board of admiralty praised by any but themselves, with whose testimony on the subject it was not to be expected he should be satisfied. They abused the honourable baronet for not doing every thing in ten months, and yet they, at the end of two years, had only commenced a return.

Sir C. Pole shortly replied, and the previous question was then carried without a division.

In a committee on the navigation act, Mr. Rose moved that the chairman be instructed to ask leave to bring in a bill, for permitting the registry of ships at Malta, taken as prizes. When the House resumed, the chairman accordingly did ask leave, which was granted.

Mr. Foster moved, that the order of the day for the committal of the Irish malt and spirit duty bill should be read. His object was to postpone its committal to Thursday next, as he did not think a bill so materially affecting Ireland could be properly discussed in so thin a Ilouse.

Sir John Newport said he rose for the purpose of moving, not that this bill should be postponed to Thursday, but to this day six months-a bill which he thought

fraught with the most evil consequences to Ireland, and tending to endanger the peace of the whole empire. He considered it of the most serious consequence to encourage by every means the consumption of malt liquors, and to discourage the illicit production of spirits. Nothing could so much tend to the safety and tranquillity of the country.

Mr. Foster contended, that it was desirable to have the question brought to a decision, without the delay of six months, proposed by the honourable baronet,

A long conversation then took place upon the subject, in which Mr. W. Smith, Mr. Barham, Mr. Leslie Foster, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Hutchinson, Mr. Foster, Mr. Grattan, Mr. Alderman Combe, and Mr. Huskisson, took a part, after which a division took place : For the original motion For the amendment

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Majority against the bill

30

43

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The bill is therefore lost for this session.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22.

Mr. Whitbread moved for an account of the fees paid at the admiralty office for licensing private ships to carry guns, and also for three months protections to barges and boats, and how the same has been disposed of for five years ensuing the 30th of January last.-Ordered.

Lord Castlereagh gave notice of a motion for Monday, for a bill relative to the local militia. It was, he said, his intention, with the leave of the House, to present the bill, and after the first reading, to move that it be printed, in order to its discussion after the holidays.

Mr. Foster moved the order of the day for the second reading of the Irish flax-seed bounty bill.

Mr. Baring opposed this bill, as being avowedly one of a temporary nature, and which would produce no advantage before May twelvemonth; and it was totally impossible at present to foresee what the state of those countries might be before next year, from whence the supply of flax-seed was hitherto usually obtained. He therefore could not see the necessity of devoting 20,000l. of the public money, which this bill proposed to distribute in VOL. II.-1809. 4 H

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