[Here Lord Henry Petty suggested to Mr. Sheridan, that the honourable member (Mr. Johnstone) was not a member of that committee; Mr. Sheridan answered loudly, "I am very glad of it," which occasioned a considerable laugh]. He would ask then of that gentleman who is not a member of the committee, and may be therefore more impartial, whether the late ministers are not upon this ground particularly entitled to the acknowledgments of the country? Did it appear that there had been any shuffling, or any ministerial balloting in the formation of that committee; was there any obtrusion of ministers' friends? He appealed to the chairman himself of that committee, to the gentlemen (Mr. Biddulph) with whom the motion that led to the creation of that committee had originated, if such practices had been resorted to. An allusion had been made to the increase of salary in the office of first lord of the admiralty. The salary was confessed to be shamefully low. A noble lord (Melville) whose conduct since had been the subject of such general animadversion, on the same appointment, received, in addition, a considerable salary, levied by the illegal intercep tion of the revenue of Scotland, which salary the noble lord still holds though deprived of his place, in virtue of which he originally held it. If, therefore, the charges brought by the honourable gentleman were not to be better founded than those he had already adduced, he (Mr. Sheridan) wished that the honourable gentleman would secure to himself the office of charger general against the administration and all their friends. As to another honourable gentleman opposite him (Mr. Montague), who had said, that though some might deride, none could answer his arguments, he (Mr. Sheridan) was ready to confess that he was among the many who thought that no argument the gentleman used could be answered, and that was to be the less regretted, as the gentleman took good care to answer himself as he proceeded (a laugh). [Here Mr. Montague was heard to say "Facts." What, continued Mr. Sheridan, does the gentleman mean by facts? Does he want me to enter into a guaging kind of estimate of the lawyer-like talents of his honourable friend, and those of any other professional gentleman? This I will not do; but I will go so far as to tell that honourable gentleman, that he has not advised his honourable friend as a friend ought. What! when a gentleman so fitted for

the office of attorney general comes to offer himself for it, to be told by his ill-judging friends, No, you ought not to take that office for which you are qualified beyond all competition, and yielding 10,000l. per annum; but you must try what you can do as chancellor of the exchequer, at the rate of 2,500l. per annum; such advice was either not the most friendly, or not the most wise. Besides, I can scarcely believe that the present ministers can be in such great distress, when they can among themselves command such a swarm of chancellors of the ex

quer; when they have so many used and unused officers in this way; when there issued from them every day so many different gentlemen, like so many Jews, with their several boxes of financial ware strapped to their shoulders, cach decrying the other, and praising his own: "Buy, here, gentlemen, this is the plan; I've got it;" (incessant bursts of laughter), all professing with equal energy that each had got the true bit of the "mulberry tree." I hope, however, that if the right honourable gentleman is, from a lack of permanency, to be brought into the peril of committing himself with the present adminis tration; if the balmy air of that happy side opposite, from which my friends and I have just retired, is not suffi cient to relieve the bad effects of the chill air at this side upon the lungs of the intended chancellor of the exchequer without some additional application, I trust that the ministry will be consistent; I trust they will not forget the gallant general (Sir James Pulteney), and as they are to make an ex-attorney-general a chancellor of the exchequer, that they will make a gallant ex-financier attorneygeneral, (bursts of laughter.) The right honourable gentleman concluded with a warm eulogium on the purity and disinterestedness of the late administration.

Mr. Johnstone, in explanation, stated that he neither had nor would have applied to the right honourable gentleman who had just sat down for the purpose of procuring him any appointment upon the occasion alluded to, and for two reasons, the first, that he knew, if he had applied, the right honourable gentleman was too much engaged in providing for himself and his family, to attend to any agency for others; and secondly, because if he had requested the right honourable gentleman to undertake the commission, he was pretty sure that, although he might promise, he would have been very apt to forget it.

Now

Now the fact was, upon the case referred to by the right honourable gentleman, simply no more than this. After stating to the right honourable gentleman the substance of some conversations which he had with an illustrious person, now no more, (Mr. Fox) he did communicate to that right honourable gentleman, and authorize him to mention his readiness to accept of any office to which no salary should be attached, and in which he might be able to make himself useful. He remembered that he particu larly mentioned Indian affairs, from his knowledge of which he stated to the right honourable gentleman his opinion that he should be able to render some service to his country. In offering to accept a situation in the conduct of those affairs, without any emolument for his services, he hoped he was making a proposition which should not expose him to censure, or to the suspicion of any unworthy motives.

Mr. Sheridan, in explanation, expressed an unwillingness to fix any imputation on the honourable gentleman.. As some persons wished for emoluments, so others wished for honour or patronage. It was not for him to say, of what description the honourable gentleman was. With respect to the charge of his (Mr. Sheridan) being busy in providing for himself and his family, the fact was, that his honourable friend, who was now unhappily no more (Mr. Fox), thought, that after a service, he hoped not unmeritorious, of twenty-seven years in Parliament, some provision for life ought to be made for him. It had hap pened rather singularly, that his honourable friend had intended, that the office that had been so much spoken of that night, the chancellorship of the duchy of Lancaster, should be appropriated to that provision; but, on consulting with his colleagues, his honourable friend found that they had formed a determination not to grant for life this office, or any other, usually held during pleasure. On being informed of this determination, he entreated his honourable friend by no means to press the matter, and thus he remained without a provision for life, and this office was reserved for the disposal of the new ministers.

Mr. Simeon thought the right of granting the office in question for life ought not to be much exercised. Ho thought it wrong, however, to adopt a general restriction with a view to a particular case. He regretted that the ques tion should now be brought forward to prevent the forma

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tion of a new administration. He wished the late administration to have remained in place. But the new administration were better than none, and therefore he was unwilling to see its formation impeded. If the crown had the power of granting the office for life to Lord Lechmere and Lord Ashburton, it had also the power of granting it in the present case, and who had a right to interfere with the discretion of the crown in the exercise of that power?

Mr. Fuller would be always forward to support the just exercise of his majesty's prerogative; but he confessed that he must disapprove of the manner in which it was understood that this prerogative was now about to be applied, and therefore he would support this motion. For the sake of the king's own interest he would support this motion; because he did not like the idea of his majesty's giving away places for life. On the contrary, he would advise him to keep such places subject to his disposal, for those men who served him. He would recommend to the king to keep the key of the locker of the pat-chest himself, and not give it to others; for he might rely upon it, that if he did not retain the power of serving those men, they would not serve him. It would be much better for his majesty that all places for life were converted into places during pleasure than to allow any increase of the former. This he said with a view to the king's own interest; for he regarded him much, for his majesty's firm attachment to the constitution. He declared, that in his opinion the names of George the Third, Nelson, and William Pitt, ought to be engraven on the hearts of all Englishmen, for the noble services they had rendered to their country; for having in fact been the saviours of our glorious constitution. As to the right honourable gentleman to whom this motion was understood particularly to refer, he declared that he could see no reasonable objection to him, compared to those who preceded him in the office to which he was said to be appointed, especially when he considered how young the man was who held that office in the late administration.

Mr. Wilberforce had the honour, he said, to have been very long acquainted with the principles and character of the right honourable gentleman to whom this motion was understood more immediately to refer, and he sincerely be licyed him a man of the hightest disinterestedness and

public spirit. With this impression strongly upon his mind, his opinion must be that that right hon. gentleman himself would have come forward to render this debate unnecessary, if it were not that, from the manner in which notice of the motion had been given, the remarks which had been made the preceding night, and other circumstances, such a proceeding might appear the effect of intimidation, than which nothing, he was persuaded, was less likely to have effect upon the mind of that right honourable gentleman. However, the motion was such as he could not hesitate to support. It had economy in view, and that was to him a sufficient recommendation. But there was another even stronger recommendation in his mind; that it must operate to impress the country with an idea of the disinterestedness of public men. Knowing, as he did, how very prone the people were to entertain an opposite sentiment, and how mischievous any thing to justify that propensity must be, he should be always ready to countenance motions of this nature, in order by such means to induce the direction of public confidence in favour of public men. Being fully persuaded that the rejection of the motion before the House would have a contrary effect, and also apprehending that if the precedent were once established, against which this motion proposed to guard, there was reason to suppose it not improbable that such precedent might be acted upon in future instances, he should certainly give the motion his cordial support.

The Master of the Rolls having had no opportunity of inquiring fully into the merits of the general proposition which this motion involved, could not think himself justified in voting for its adoption. There were, in his opinion, a variety of topics, which ought to be fully investigated before such a motion was acceded to. There were many places held for life which ought to be converted into places during pleasure, and vice versa; there were also many places, the tenure of which ought to be left entirely, to the discretion of his majesty, and of which nature the place to which this motion was understood to refer might be one; the House surely would not venture to decide without any enquiry or deliberation whatever. If the case were determined in the very hasty manner proposed, he was rather afraid that the public would not give the; House credit for acting dispassionately, in being actuated

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