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tion to the sentiments of the city of London, of the city of Westminster, or of the city of Bristol; but if he dares to disagree with the Duke, or Lord, or Baronet, whose representative he is, must he be considered as unfit for the society of men of honor?

and of persons whose low condition necessarily be permitted, without dishonor, to act in opposicurbed the independence of their minds. That, then, I take to be the most perfect system which shall include the greatest number of independent electors, and exclude the greatest number of those who are necessarily, by their condition, dependent. I think that the plan of my honorable! friend draws this line as discreetly as it can be drawn, and it by no means approaches to universal suffrage. It would neither admit, except in particular instances, soldiers nor servants. Universal suffrage would extend the right to three millions of men, but there are not more than seven hundred thousand houses that would come within the plan of my honorable friend; and when it is considered, that out of these some are the property of minors, and that some persons have two or more houses, it would fix the number of voters for Great Britain at about six hundred thousand; and I call upon gentlemen to say whether this would not be sufficiently extensive for deliberation on the one hand, and yet sufficiently limited for order on the other. This has no similarity to universal suffrage; and yet, taking the number of representatives as they now stand, it would give to every member about fifteen hundred constituents.

It has often been a question, both within and Objection to without these walls, how far reprebent sentatives ought to be bound by the atives are com instructions of their constituents. It pelled to obey

their represent

of the proprie tors who send them.

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This, sir, is the chicane and tyranny of corruption; and this, at the same time, is called representation! In a very great degree the county members are held in the same sort of thraldom. A number of peers possess an overweening interest in the county, and a gentleman is no longer permitted to hold his situation than as he acts agreeably to the dictates of those powerful families. Let us see how the whole of this stream of corruption has been diverted from the side of the people to that of the Crown; with what constant, persevering art every man who is possessed of influence in counties, corporations, or boroughs, that will yield to the solicitations of the court, is drawn over to that phalanx which is opposed to the small remnant of popular election. I have looked, sir, to the machinations of the present minister in this way, and I find that, including the number of additional titles, the right honorable gentleman has made no fewer than one hundred and fifteen peers in the course of his administration; that is to say, he has bestowed no fewer than one hundred and fifteen titles, including new creations and elevations from one rank to another. How many of these are to be ascribed to national services, and how many to parliamentary interest, I leave the House to inquire. The country is not blind to these arts of influence, and it is impossible that we can expect them to continue to endure them.9

Reform nec

avoidable.

Now, sir, having shown this to be the state of our representation, I ask what remedy there can be other than reform. essary and un What can we expect, as the necessary result of a system so defective and vicious in all its parts, but increasing calamities, until we shall be driven to a convulsion that would overthrow every thing? If we do not apply this remedy in time, our fate is inevitable. Our most illustrious patriots-the men whose memories are the dearest to Englishmen, have long ago pointed out to us parliamentary reform as the only means of redressing national grievance. I need not inform you that Sir George Savile was its most strenuous advocate; I need not tell you that the venerable and illustrious Camden was through life a steady adviser of seasonable reform; nay, sir, to a certain degree we have the authority of Mr. Burke himself for the propriety of correcting the abuses of our system; for gentlemen will remember the memorable answer which he gave to the argument that was used for our right of taxing America, on the score of

the instructions is a question upon which my mind is not altogether made up, though I own I lean to the opinion that, having to legislate for the empire, they ought not to be altogether guided by instructions that may be dictated by local interests. I can not, however, approve of the very ungracious manner in which I sometimes hear expressions of contempt for the opinion of constituents. They are made with a very bad grace in the first session of a septennial Parliament; particularly if they should come from individuals who, in the concluding session of a former Parliament, did not scruple to court the favor of the very same constituents by declaring that they voted against their conscience in compliance with their desire, as was the case of an honorable alderman of the city of London. But, sir, there is one class of constituents whose instructions it is considered as the implicit duty of members to obey. When gentlemen represent populous towns and cities, then it is a disputed point, whether they ought to obey their voice, or follow the dictates of their own conscience; but if they represent a noble Lord or a noble Duke,, then it becomes no longer a question of doubt; and he is not considered as a man of honor who does not implicitly obey the orders of his single constituent ! He is to have no conscience, no liberty, no discretion of his own; he is sent here by my Lord this or the Duke of that, and if he does not obey the instructions he receives, he is away a very large number of sinecure offices, which not to be considered as a man of honor and a gen- patronage and reward. Mr. Pitt therefore resorted tleman. Such is the mode of reasoning that pre- to the expedient of raising men to the peerage, as a vails in this House. Is this fair? Is there any means of influence, to an extent which was generalreciprocity in this conduct? Is a gentleman toly and justly complained of.

Mr. Burke's Bill of Economical Reform took

ministers had been accustomed to use as means of

The tendency

easie to aggrandize the Crown at

the expense of

their being virtually represented, and that they | propose the remedy, and fatal will it Peroration: were in the same situation as Manchester, Bir- be for England if pride and prejudice of things, for mingham, and Sheffield. "What!" said Mr. much longer continue to oppose it. Burke, "when the people of America look up to The remedy which is proposed is simyou with the eyes of filial love and affection, will ple, easy, and practicable; it does not the people. you turn to them the shameful parts of the Con- touch the vitals of the Constitution; and I sinstitution ?" With the concurring testimony of cerely believe it will restore us to peace and harso many authorities for correcting our abuses, mony. Do you not think that you must come to why do we hesitate? Can we do any harm by parliamentary reform soon? and is it not better experiment? Can we possibly put ourselves into to come to it now, when you have the power of a worse condition than that in which we are? deliberation, than when, perhaps, it may be exWhat advantages we shall gain I know not. I torted from you by convulsion? There is as yet think we shall gain many. I think we shall gain time to frame it with freedom and discussion; it at least the chance of warding off the evil of con- will even yet go to the people with the grace and fusion, growing out of accumulated discontent. I favor of a spontaneous act. What will it be think we shall save ourselves from the evil that when it is extorted from you with indignation has fallen upon Ireland. I think we shall satisfy and violence? God forbid that this should be the moderate, and take even from the violent (if the case! but now is the moment to prevent it; any such there be) the power of increasing their and now, I say, wisdom and policy recommend numbers and of making converts to their schemes. it to you, when you may enter into all the conThis, sir, is my solemn opinion, and upon this siderations to which it leads, rather than to postground it is that I recommend with earnestness pone it to a time when you will have nothing to and solicitude the proposition of my honorable consider but the number and the force of those friend. who demand it. It is asked, whether liberty has not gained much of late years, and whether the popular branch ought not, therefore, to be content? To this I answer, that if liberty has gained much, power has gained more. Power has been indefatigable and unwearied in its encroachments. Every thing has run in that direction through the whole course of the present reign. This was the opinion of Sir George Savile, of the Marquis of Rockingham, and of all the virtuous men who, in their public life, proved themselves to be advocates for the rights of the people. They saw and deplored the tendency of the Court; they saw that there was a determ

Intimation that

ed to withdraw,

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And now, sir, before I sit down, allow me to make a single observation with reMr. Fox design spect to the character and conduct to some extent of those who have, in conjunction from the House. with myself, felt it their duty to oppose the progress of this disastrous war. I hear it said, "You do nothing but mischief when you are here; and yet we should be sorry to see you away.' I do not know how we shall be able to satisfy the gentlemen who feel toward us in this way. If we can neither do our duty without mischief, nor please them with doing nothing, I know but of one way by which we can give them content, and that is by putting an end to our exist-ined spirit in the secret advisers of the Crown ence. With respect to myself, and I believe I can also speak for others, I do not feel it consistent with my duty totally to secede from this House. I have no such intention; but, sir, I have no hesitation in saying, that, after seeing the conduct of this House; after seeing them give to ministers their confidence and support, upon convicted failure, imposition, and incapacity; after seeing them deaf and blind to the consequences of a career that penetrates the hearts of all other men with alarm, and that neither reason, experience, nor duty, are sufficiently powerful to influence them to oppose the conduct of government; I certainly do think I may devote more of my time to my private pursuits, and to the retirement which I love, than I have hitherto done; I certainly think I need not devote much of it to fruitless exertions, and to idle talk, in this House. Whenever it shall appear that my efforts may contribute in any degree to restore us to the situation from which the confidence of this House in a desperate system and an incapable administration, has so suddenly reduced us, I shall be found ready to discharge my duty.10

Sir, I have done. I have given my advice. I

10 Mr. Fox did for some time discontinue a regular attendance on the House.

to advance its power, and to encourage no administration that should not bend itself to that pursuit. Accordingly, through the whole reign, no administration which cherished notions of a different kind has been permitted to last; and nothing, therefore, or next to nothing, has been gained to the side of the people, but every thing to that of the Crown, in the course of this reign. During the whole of this period, we have had no more than three administrations, one for twelve months, one for nine, and one for three months, that acted upon the popular principles of the early part of this century: nothing, therefore, I say, has been gained to the people, while the constant current has run toward the Crown; and God knows what is to be the consequence, both to the Crown and the country! I believe that we are come to the last moment of possible remedy. I believe that at this moment the enemies of both are few; but I firmly believe that what has been seen in Ireland will be experienced also here; and that if we are to go on in the same career with convention bills and acts of exasperation of all kinds, the few will soon become the many, and that we shall have to pay a severe retribution for our present pride. What a noble Lord said some time ago of France may be applicable to this very subject"What !" said he, "negotiate with France? with

to remain in place. Let them retire from his Majesty's councils, and then let us, with an earnest desire of recovering the country, pursue this moderate scheme of reform, under the auspices of men who are likely to conciliate the opinion of the people. I do not speak this, sir, from personal ambition. A new administration ought to be formed: I have no desire, no wish to make a part of any such administration; and I am sure that such an arrangement is feasible, and that it is capable of being done without me. My first and chief desire is to see this great end accomplished. I have no wish to be the person, or to be one of the persons, to do it; but though my inclination is for retirement, I shall always be ready to give my free and firm support to any administration that shall restore to the country its outraged rights, and re-establish its strength upon the basis of free representation; and therefore, sir, I shall certainly give my vote for the proposition of my honorable friend.

men whose hands are reeking with the blood of
their Sovereign? What, shall we degrade our
selves by going to Paris, and there asking in hum-
ble, diplomatic language, to be on a good under-
standing with them?" Gentlemen will remember
these lofty words; and yet we have come to this
humiliation; we have negotiated with France;
and I should not be surprised to see the noble Lord
himself (Hawkesbury) going to Paris, not at the
head of his regiment, but on a diplomatic mis-
sion to those very regicides, to pray to be upon
a good understanding with them. Shall we, then,
be blind to the lessons which the events of the
world exhibit to our view? Pride, obstinacy,
and insult, must end in concessions, and those
concessions must be humble in proportion to our
unbecoming pride. Now is the moment to pre-
vent all these degradations; the monarchy, the
aristocracy, the people themselves, may now be
saved; it is only necessary, at this moment, to
conquer our own passions. Let those ministers
whose evil genius has brought us to our present
condition retire from the post to which they are
unequal. I have no hesitation in saying, that
the present administration neither can nor ought❘jected.

On a division, the numbers were, Yeas, 93; Noes, 253. Mr. Grey's motion was therefore re

SPEECH

OF MR. FOX ON THE REJECTION OF BONAPARTE'S OVERTURES FOR PEACE, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, FEBRUARY 3, 1800.

INTRODUCTION.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, having usurped the government of France, became First Consul in December, 1799; and, as an air of moderation seemed appropriate under these circumstances, he made overtures of peace to the King of England, in a letter written with his own hand. Mr. Pitt, who had no belief in the permanence of his power, rejected his offers in terms which were certainly rude, if not insulting. Some of them will be given hereafter in notes to this speech.

The correspondence in question was laid before Parliament, and, on the 3d of February, 1800, a motion was made by Mr. Dundas approving of the course taken, and pledging the country for a vigorous prosecution of the war. After Mr. Whitbread, Mr. Canning, and Mr. Erskine had spoken, Mr. Pitt rose, and held the House in fixed attention for nearly five hours by one of the most masterly orations he ever pronounced in Parliament. Mr. Fox then delivered the following speech in reply; and never were these two great orators brought into more direct competition, or the distinctive features of their eloquence exhibited in finer contrast.

Mr. Pitt, instead of entering at once on the reasons for refusing at that time to negotiate, treated the rise of Napoleon as only a new stage of the French Revolution, and thus dextrously prepared the way for going back to consider,

I. The origin of the war, maintaining that France was the sole aggressor throughout the whole conflict. II. The atrocities of the French in overrunning and subjugating a large part of Europe during the preceding eight years.

III. The genius and spirit of the Revolution, as "an insatiable love of aggrandizement, an implacable spirit of destruction against all the civil and religious institutions of every country."

IV. The instability of the system, as marked from the first by sudden and great changes.

V. The past history and character of Napoleon, whom he depicted in the darkest colors, as devoid of all faith, the inveterate enemy of England, and the cruel oppressor of every country he had overrun. His power he represented as wholly unstable, and insisted that England ought never to enter into a treaty with him until, "from experience and the evidence of facts, we are convinced that such a treaty is admissible." On these grounds he defended his refusal to negotiate. This speech should be taken up previous to the one before us, if the reader intends to enter fully into the merits of the case.

Mr. Fox, in reply, without the exactness of Mr. Pitt's method, touches upon most of these points, and adverts to others with great pungency and force.

He condemns Mr. Pitt for reviving the early animosities of the contest as a reason for refusing to treat, since on this principle the war must be eternal.

He censures the severe and unconciliating terms in which a respectful offer of negotiation had been rejected.

He insists, in regard to the origin of the war, that Austria and Prussia (so long the allies of England) were undeniably the aggressors; that England provoked the contest by harsh treatment of the French minister; that, in relation to her grievances, she ought from the first to have stated definitely to the French what would satisfy her; that she ought, especially, to have accepted the mediation urged upon her by France, before a single blow had been struck, with a view to prevent the contest; that the English were, therefore, far from being guiltless as to the origin of the war, while the French, in all their aggressions, had been simply carrying out the principles taught them by the Bourbons, whom Mr. Pitt now proposed to restore.

While condemning the atrocities of the French, he sets off against them the outrages practiced on Poland and other countries by the powers in league with England; and exposes the inconsistency of refus ing, on the ground of character, to treat with the French, while such rank oppressors were taken into the strictest alliance.

He dwells upon the fact, that Mr. Pitt, who now refused to treat on account of the outrages of the French and the instability of their government, had himself twice opened negotiations (in 1796 and 1797) in the midst of these very outrages, while the existing governments were confessedly of the most unstable kind, and comments with great severity upon Mr. Pitt's explanation of his conduct on those occasions. Finally, in reference to the question, "When is this war to end?" he considers the grounds on which Mr. Pitt had intimated a willingness to treat with Bonaparte, if the Bourbons could not be restored, viz., "experience and the evidence of facts;" he adverts for a moment to some of the charges brought against the First Consul; and, recurring again to the grounds stated, inquires, "Where, then, is this war, which is pregnant with all these horrors, to be carried? Where is it to stop? Not till we establish the house of Bourbon"—or, at least, not until we have had due "experience" of Bonaparte's intentions. "So that we are called upon to go on merely as a speculation""—"to keep Bonaparte some time longer at war, as a state of probation"-" to try an EXPERIMENT, if he will not behave himself better than heretofore!" With this thought he concludes, in the boldest and most eloquent strain of mingled argument, irony, and invective which he ever produced.

The speech is admirably reported, and was considered by most who heard it as the ablest Mr. Fox ever made.

SPEECH, &c.

MR. SPEAKER,-At so late an hour of the night, I am sure you will do me the justice to believe that I do not mean to go at length into the discussion of this great question. Exhausted as the attention of the House must be, and unaccustomed as I have been of late to attend in my place, nothing but a deep sense of my duty could have induced me to trouble you at all, and particularly to request your indulgence at such an hour.

A new era in

old argumenta

tinuance.

Sir, my honorable and learned friend [Mr. Erskine] has truly said, that the present the war, but the is a new era in the war, and the used for its con- right honorable gentleman opposite to me [Mr. Pitt] feels the justice of the remark; for, by traveling back to the commencement of the war, and referring again to all the topics and arguments which he has so often and so successfully urged upon the House, and by which he has drawn them on to the support of his measures, he is forced to acknowledge that, at the end of a seven years' conflict, we are come but to a new era in the war, at which he thinks it necessary only to press all his former arguments to induce us to persevere. All the topics which have so often misled us-all the reasoning which has so invariably failedall the lofty predictions which have so constantly been falsified by events-all the hopes which have amused the sanguine, and all the assurances of the distress and weakness of the enemy which have satisfied the unthinking, are again

LL

enumerated and advanced as arguments for our continuing the war. What! at the end of seven years of the most burdensome and the most calamitous struggle in which this country ever was engaged, are we again to be amused with notions of finance, and calculations of the exhausted resources of the enemy, as a ground of confidence and of hope? Gracious God! were we not told five years ago that France was not only on the brink and in the jaws of ruin, but that she was actually sunk into the gulf of bankruptcy? Were we not told, as an unanswerable argument against treating, "that she could not hold out another campaign-that nothing but peace could save her-that she wanted only time to recruit her exhausted finances-that to grant her repose was to grant her the means of again molesting this country, and that we had nothing to do but persevere for a short time, in order to save ourselves forever from the consequences of her ambition and her jacobinism?” What! after having gone on from year to year upon assurances like these, and after having seen the repeated refutations of every prediction, are we again to be gravely and seriously assured, that we have the same prospect of success on the same identical grounds? And, without any other argument or security, are we invited, at this new era of the war, to conduct it upon principles which, if adopted and acted upon, may make it eternal? If the right honorable gentleman shall succeed in prevailing on Parliament and the

country to adopt the principles which he has advanced this night, I see no possible termination to the contest. No man can see an end to it; and upon the assurances and predictions which have so uniformly failed, we are called upon not merely to refuse all negotiation, but to countenance principles and views as distant from wisdom and justice, as they are in their nature wild and impracticable.

surable for

using harsh language in declining to

could be more proper nor more wise than this language; and such ought ever to be the tone and conduct of men intrusted with the very important task of treating with a hostile nation. Being a sincere friend to peace, I must say with Lord Malmesbury, that it is not by reproaches and by invective that we can hope for a reconciliation; and I am convinced, in my own mind, that I speak the sense of this House, and, if not of this House, certainly of a majority of the peo

provoked and unnecessary recriminations should be flung out, by which obstacles are put in the way of pacification. I believe it is the prevailing sentiment of the people, that we ought to abstain from harsh and insulting language; and in common with them, I must lament that both in the papers of Lord Grenville, and this night, such license has been given to invective and reproach.3

early circumstan

now the question.

I must lament, sir, in common with every genMinisters cen- uine friend of peace, the harsh and un-ple of this country, when I lament that any unconciliating language which ministers have held to the French, and which negotiate. they have even made use of in their answer to a respectful offer of a negotiation. Such language has ever been considered as extremely unwise, and has ever been reprobated by diplomatic men. I remember with pleasure the terms in which Lord Malmesbury, at Paris, in the year 1796, replied to expressions of this sort, used by M. de la Croix. He justly said, "that offensive and injurious insinuations were only calculated to throw new obstacles in the way of accommodation, and that it was not by revolting reproaches nor by reciprocal invective that a sincere wish to accomplish the great work of pacification could be evinced." Nothing The language referred to was of the following kind. As a reason for refusing to negotiate, Lord Grenville goes back to the origin of the war, declaring it to have been "an unprovoked attack" on the part of France. He says it sprung out of "a system, to the prevalence of which France justly ascribes all her present miseries, and which has involved all the rest of Europe in a long and destructive warfare, of a nature long since unknown to the practice of civilized nations"-he assumes that this system "continues to prevail; that the most solemn treaties have only prepared a way for fresh aggressions;" and ascribes to the French those "gigantic objects of ambition, and those restless schemes of destruction, which have endangered the very exist ence of civil society." In addition to this, he tells the French people, through their new ruler, that they ought at once to take back the Bourbons; that "the best and most natural pledge" they can give of a desire for peace, is "the restoration of that line of princes which for so many centuries maintained the French nation in prosperity at home, and consideration and respect abroad." He tells Bonaparte in direct terms, that England can not trust him; that there is "no sufficient evidence of the principles by which the new government will be directed; no reasonable ground by which to judge

war."

For the same reason, I must lament that the right honorable gentleman [Mr. The original and Pitt] has thought proper to go at ces ofthe war out such length, and with such severity of minute investigation, into all the early circumstances of the war, which (whatever they were) are nothing to the present purpose, and ought not to influence the present feelings of the House. I certainly shall not follow him through the whole of this tedious detail, though I do not agree with him in many of his assertions. I do not know what impression his narrative may make on other gentlemen; but I will tell him fairly and candidly, he has not convinced me. I continue to think, and until I see better grounds for changing my opinion than any that the right honorable gentleman has this night produced, I shall continue to think, and to say, plainly and explicitly, “that this country was the aggressor in the The British alBut with regard to Austria Les, Austria and Prussia-is there a man who, for demably the sgone moment, can dispute that they were the aggressors? It will be vain for the right honorable gentleman to enter into long and plausible reasoning against the evidence of documents so clear, so decisive-so frequently, so thoroughly investigated. The unfortunate monarch, Louis XVI., himself, as well as those who were in his confidence, has borne decisive testimony to the fact, that between him and the Emperor [Leopold of Austria] there was an intimate correspondence and a perfect understandof its stability." Such language deserved the censures passed upon it by Mr. Fox. Nothing could ing. Do I mean by this that a positive treaty more irritate the French people than to talk to them was entered into for the dismemberment of of restoring that hated dynasty against which they had so lately rebelled. Nothing was more calculated to provoke Bonaparte to the utmost, and to foster a desire to invade England (which he attempted some years after), than personal reflections of this kind on the stability of his government.

2 This is one of Mr. Fox's characteristic arguments, ad hominem. It was Mr. Pitt (through his embassador) who thus reproved the French minister, M. de la Croix, for certain harsh expressions used during the negotiations for peace in 1796; and Mr. Fox now turns the reproof back upon Mr. Pitt, in language dictated by himself.

and Prussia, un

gressors.

France? Certainly not. But no man can read

Warmly as Mr. Wilberforce was attached to Mr. Pitt, he expressed himself still more strongly on this subject in a letter to a friend. "I must say I was shocked at Lord Grenville's letter; for though our government must feel adverse to any measure which might appear to give the stamp of our author.. ity to Bonaparte's new dignity, yet I must say that unless they have some better reason than I fear they possess for believing that he is likely to be hurled from his throne, it seems a desperate game to play

to offend, and insult, and thereby irritate, this vain man beyond the hope of forgiveness."-Life, 215.

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