and particularly of his celebrated triumph over that noble lord on the fubject of kitchens, tape, and whipcord.

Thefe obfervations brought on, as topicks of that kind ufually did, a difcuffion of the coalition; against which Mr. Pitt inveighed in reply, with great feverity. He afterwards remarked, that he had made the fpeech alluded to, refpecting whipcord, &c. while the noble lord was in office, and himself on the other fide of the house, and that he had ftated them not as charges against the noble lord in the blue ribband, but as a proof of the want of regulation and check in the particulars to which they alluded. With regard to nothing having been done in the way of reform, let any man, he faid, look at the ftate of the country before the time that he came into office, and let him look at it then, and fee if nothing had been done. With respect to the use he had made of the influence of the crown in advifing the appointments to places, and the bestowal of titles and honours, he had done that which he fhould ever do; he had advised the crown fo to exercife the royal prerogative in both those inftances, as fhould beft contribute to give luftre, vigour, and firmness to his majesty's government, and therefore the honourable gentleman had paid him a much greater compliment than he intended.

Mr. Adam remarked, that the right honourable gentleman was correct in ftating that he was in oppofition and not in office, when he made the charges relative to whipcord, the new kitchens in Downingftreet houfe, &c. against lord North. He would not have prefumed to have faid a fyllable of that nature, while the noble lord was out of of

fice, and whilft any hopes remained of forming a coalition with him. The noble lord had fince joined himself to men of the firft genius, ability, and virtue in the nation, and the right honourable gentleman had taken the only part that was left him, he had given vent to his chagrin in illiberal abuse, and to make himself fome amends for his difappointment, had taken into his fervice thofe former dependents on the noble lord, who, by their conduct, had proved how much his confidence had been misplaced.

Mr. Fox, in corroboration of the remark made by Mr. Adam, obferved, that when the prefent minifter ftood up in 1782, after the noble lord had been driven from his poft, and declared against any retrospective cenfures against that administration, it was understood and believed that he withed to court the noble lord with a view to a junction.

Mr. Pitt faid across the table, "Who understood fo?" Mr. Fox replied, I did for one, and fo I have reafon to believe did many others, from the conversation I then held with them. Certain it was (he added) that before the coalition the right honourable gentleman never expreffed himself with that acrimony, which he had fince used when fpeaking of the noble lord.

Mr. Pitt denied the fact, and concluded, that the right honourable gentleman chofe to forget all that had paffed previous to the coalition. He chofe, however, to date bis recollection from his first appearance in that house, and to appeal to all who had witneffed his conduct, whether he had not uniformly per fifted in declaring, that he thought the noble lord a bad minifter, and that he never would act with him in any public fituation as a minister.

Some

the facts contained in the report were of the most stale, trivial, and unimportant nature, that had ever engaged the attention of a house of parliament. The grant of 350l. a year to Mr. Treves, an intimate friend of lord Carteret, was no charge whatever to the public, nor any impediment to the public bufnefs, but was, with the content of the party moft interefied, paid out of the exifting emoluments of the office of fecretary of the post-office in Dublin. That fuch a measure was not ftri&ly justifiable he was ready to admit, but it was by no means unprecedented; and, compared with the tranfactions that took place in every public office only ten years ago, it was purity itfelf. Nor indeed had it been even infinuated, that it originated in any thing like a corrupt motive in lord Carteret. Thenext tranfaction was that of Mr. Dashwood, poftmafter of Jamaica, which was, as the honourable gentleman had stated it, exactly fimilar to that of the 350l. and therefore required no new obfervations. With regard to the permiflion of Mr. Molyneux to refign the agency of the Helvoetfluys packet boats to Mr. Hutchinfon, that was a tranfaction founded in a charitable intention to relieve an unfortunate man from prifon; and, if there were any criminality in the tranfaction, it was as much imputable to the earl of Tankerville as to lord Carteret, fince the noble earl had taken as great a part in it as the noble lord; but, in his opinion, there was no criminality imputable to either. He then went into the other facts flated in the report, and commented upon each, with a view to fhew that it was either not perfonal to lord Carteret,

or of a trivial nature. With refpect to the two one-half per centage allowed to the perfon who managed the packet boats, and the other abufes in that department, as ftated in the report, they appeared to him to be the most important, and to require a thorough reform: but he did not conceive them to be fit fubjects for parliamentary cenfure, and therefore he fhould first move the previous queftion, and afterwards that the farther confideration of the report should be put off for three months.

Mr. Pitt obferved, that the motion could not be defigned to provide for a reform of the abufes complained of, fince that had been effectually done already by a bill, which he had himself the honour of bringing into that houfe three years ago: it must therefore be meant for the purpose of throwing blame upon the conduct of the noble lord at the head of the poft-office, and of cenfuring himfelf for the part he bad taken in the arrangement, by which the noble earl had been removed from it. With regard to the former point, the conduct of lord Carteret had, he con ceived, been fufficiently juftified by the honourable member who preceded him. With respect to the latter, he apprehended that the houfe feemed to feel the impropriety of entertaining fuch a difcation, as it certainly belonged folely to the executive government to dif pofe of all public employments; and parliament thould be very cautious how it attempted to controulor queftion the difcretion with which that power was exercifed. It certainly had been found necellary to remove one or other of the noble lords, as their differences had

rifen

rifen to fuch a height, that they could not even fit in the fame room with fatisfaction; and that difcretion, with which government was invested, had led them to determine the alternative against the earl of Tankerville. The neceffity of removing one of thofe noblemen, and the vacancy which must follow from fuch removal, had afforded an opportunity of accommodating a noble lord who had been alluded to, and to whom gentlemen might allude as often as they pleafed, in the way in which they did, fo long as he was perfuaded that every favour which had been conferred upon that noble perfon, fince he had any fhare in his majefty's councils, had been fully earned by the most able and meritorious fervices. But the Vacancy was not made for the fake of accommodating the noble lord, as it was evident that the two noble lords could not poffibly continue to act together; and whether the noble earl (Tankerville) or lord Carteret had been removed, it would have made no difference with respect to lord Hawketbury; for, in either cafe, there would have been an opening for him. Besides, there certainly was nothing perfonal intended again the noble earl of Tankerville; for, at the very moment of his removal from the poftoffice, there was an arrangement fet on foot for the purpofe of accommodating him, but his lord fhip would not liften to it. Other matters, he faid, had fallen from the honourable member, of which he believed the houfe did not expect he should take notice, and which indeed nothing but the thortnefs of the time which that gentle

man had fat there, and his confe quent ignorance of parliamentary ufages, could juftify.

Mr. Sheridan ridiculed the gra-vity with which this reproof, totally unmerited as he conceived, was beftowed upon his friend by the right honourable gentleman, the veteran ftatefman of four years experience, the Neftor of twenty-five.-Mr. Fox declared, that he thought the whole proceeding on the part of adminiftration moft extraordinary, and to the gentlemen, who brought the enquiry forward, extremely unfair. He had not failed in eftablifhing his facts by proof; and if it was meant to do nothing in eonfequence, why did they fuffer the committee to be appointed at all? It was clear, that when the minif ter confented to the committee, he thought that no proofs could be obtained, and that it would end in the difgrace of those, who defired an enquiry. Now that the honourable member had made good his charges, and prefented a report, the whole bufinefs was represented to be trifling and frivolous. In reply to an obfervation of Mr. Pitt's, that Mr. Grey's conduct fhewed him to be a party man, Mr. Fox faid, that the honourable gentleman was not at prefent of that defeription, but he hoped by degrees he might become a party man: he defended the term, and maintained, that as long as there were great conftitutional queftions, refpecting which there were differences of opinion, to be a party man was to act the most honourable part. In this country there were known differences of opinion upon great queftions, and upon none more, than on the manner in which the right honourable gentleman himfelf came laft into office.—

The

The previous queftion being carried in the negative, the second motion was agreed to without a divifion. On the 18th of May, a queftion, arifing out of the late decifion of the boufe upon the 13th of February, relative to the reprefentation of the Scotch peerage, was brought before the lords by the earl of Hopetoun. It was ftated by his lordship, that at the election for two peers to fupply the places of the two noble perfons lately created peers of Great Britain, the votes of the dukes of Queensberry and Gordon had been received by the lord registrar, contrary to the refolution of that houfe of January 1708-9. The refolution being read, to the following effect, "That at any election of the fixteen peers of Scotland to repre"fent the Scotch peerage in the "British parliament, or of any one "or more of them, no Scotch peer who had been created a "British peer by patent fince the "union fhould be entitled to "vote"-lord Hopetoun moved, "That a copy of the faid refolution "be tranfmitted to the lord regiftrar of Scotland, as a rule for "his future proceeding in cafes of "election."

"

"

The duke of Queensberry objected to this motion, as materially affecting his rights; and defired, on his own part and that of the duke of Gordon, who was out of England, to be heard by counfel, before the houfe proceeded to a decifion. This was objected to as irregular, fince the queftion was not, whether the houfe fhould come to any new refolution, but whether they fhould not notify to an officer concerned a refolution already agreed to.

The lord chancellor took this opportunity of again cautioning the VOL. XXIX,

houfe how they proceeded precipitately to decide a queftion of much greater importance, than might, upon the first blush of it, appear. Heftated, that a refolution of either houfe of parliament, however unanimoufly carried, did not conftitute law: and as a proof how little they were to be confidered as legal decifions, he stated, that on the 20th of December, 1711, two years after the former refolution, the house paffed another, by which two Scotch dukes, who had been created British peers, were declared incapable of fitting in that houfe as British peers. Hethen reafoned upon the palpable injuftice and abfurdity of these two refolutions. The first took away the votes of the noble dukes as Scotch peers, and the other deprived them of their feats as British peers. The refolution of 1711 was undoubtedly a very great hardship, and it had lately been done away; but how? Not by a refolution, but by an act of parliament. In like manner, if, upon mature confideration and deliberate difcuffion, it fhould be thought right to make the refolution of 1708-9 effectual, let it be done by due courfe of parliamentary proceeding; let a bill be brought in, and pafs through its regular ftages, but by no means let the houfe, acting judicioufly, decide a matter, that involved in it the private rights of individuals. Whenever the queftion, whether the right of a Scotch peer, who had been created a British peer by patent, to vote at the election of Scotch peers to ferve in parliament, came to be finally decided, there were other important confiderations to be decided at the fame time. For inftance, fuppofe a Scotch peer was made a bilhop; did he, in that

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