lice or partiality--but they passed, merely because the rules had been better known at home than abroad; and if Mr. Montague's claim had been disallowed finally, they should at once have returned to their original rank. An officer of the name of Jenkinson had passed, and since got a lieutenancy, but this was merely because at the navy office they had not the same scruples as in the Mediterranean. He hoped that now the statement had been laid plainly before the House, no misconception could exist upon the subject. to be examined for a higher rank. By the new code the time at school was not defined by years, but a certain course of education was to be fully gone through, and after that four years were to be served at sea before an examination could be given. It happened that just a month before the enactment of the new order, the old one had pased the council, in the routine of business. This was in 1806. The lords of the admiralty did not give full being to the new academy, so as to abrogate the old, till 1808; thus the two were in being together, but the laws of service in each were still applying to the different classes of persons. An order was issued to prevent mistakes on this point, and guarding to those who served under the old rules, their privilege of passing after three years service at sea. At this time Mr. Montague presented himself to the examining captains on the Mediterranean station; they conceiving themselves to be acting under the new code, would not examine him on less than four years' service. Admiral Montague applied to lord Mulgrave, with the zeal becoming a father-his lordship laid the case before the admiralty counsel, and it pronounced him inadmissible. Lord Mulgrave, feeling the case one that pressed on the individual, requested admiral Montague to make his own statement, and submit it to the counsel. It was submitted, and the same judgment passed on it as before-still, every effort was made to draw up the latent justice of the thing, and a case was drawn up by himself (Mr. Ward), which was laid before the attorney and solicitor general. The day on which the hon. bart. gave notice of motion, was before the opinion was returned from those lawyers and he (Mr. Ward) had taken it upon him only to advise his postponing it; in this he was wrong; for his plain course would have been to let the motion be made, and then state to the House, that the papers were still before counsel. It was but two days ago, that the opinion of counsel was given in favour of Mr. Montague's claim; and at that time lord Mulgrave took occasion to say, that he would have great pleasure in al- Mr. Croker vindicated the conduct of the lowing him to be examined, with a prior- admiralty, and denied that there was in ity of date, corresponding to the time at any person belonging to that board any which his examination should have taken disposition of hostility towards admiral place. Some cases had been mentioned Montague. We (said Mr. Croker) referof others, to whom no delay had occurred.red his case to our counsel, Mr. Jervis; From the tenor of the hon. bart.'s. language, he was convinced that there was an idea of imputing the difference to ma Admiral Markham was surprised at the assertion of his hon. friend, that the admiralty was not in the habit of investigating the grounds upon which certificates were granted by the navy board. On the contrary, such an examination was the peculiar duty of the admiralty, and he could affirm, that it was a duty never over-looked upon any application for promotion, while he had the honour of being a member of that board. The appointment of Jenkinson upon the 11th of December, sp soon after his examination on the 7th, was naturally calculated to excite conversation out of doors, where the refusal of Mr. Montague's promotion was much talked of, and particularly in consequence of some difference that was known to exist between the first lord of the admiralty and admiral Montague, the father of the gentleman alluded to in the motion. The hon. officer contended, that there was no order in council that warranted the demand of four years service afloat, to qua lify for a lieutenancy. This probably was an arrangement of the first lord of the admiralty, who was known to be very forward to act for himself on subjects of which he could know little or nothing, and who, in the case under discussion, referred to lawyers, instead of referring to his professional colleagues. Indeed, it was understood, that in this case the first lord took a course directly opposite to the unanimous opinion of all his professional colleagues. If this were not the fact, he called upon the secretary of the admiralty to deny it. his opinion was against the claims of admiral Montague. We then called upon the gallant admiral to furnish us with his cessary, of himself and the board of admiralty, no matter which, for the hon. gent. had done the board the honour of identifying them with himself. He spoke as big as the first lord of the admiralty might do, but certainly would not; and as if he had been himself at least one of the lords, it was nothing but "we did this," and we ordered that"-our opinions, and our orders, our counsel, and what not. To be sure, the hon. gent. had some pretensions. He had not been idle since he came into office. He had been the means of converting a venerable old gentleman, for whom he (Mr. W.) had great respect, into a young and enterprising sea-officer, and major Cartwright, who was of his Majesty's army, was then, according to the hon. gent., a rising lieutenant of the royal navy; nor had the official exertions of the hon. gent. stopped with the living. He was resolved to be grateful to those who died in their country's service, and to promote them if he was to raise the dead for it. own statement of his own case, drawn up by his own hand; the gallant admiral did so. The last statement given in was referred by us to the attorney and solicitor general; their opinion was in favour of the young man's claim. Gentlemen then, must see that it could be a question of no ordinary difficulty, when three counsel of such great professional authority differed upon its merits.-We did not think fit to decide upon it ourselves, not being all of us professional men. Some of us were, to be sure, more immediately connected with the navy as a profession than others of us were-we were not all lawyers, and therefore we thought it expedient to refer the case to legal opinion. A gallant admiral (Markham) has thrown out a broad insinuation, as if all the professional lords of the admiralty differed generally from the opinions of the first lord. The gallant admiral bad even asked me if I could deny it? I do deny it; and this I take to be a sufficient answer to the question put to me by the gallant admiral.-The hon. gent. then proceeded to contend with great warmth that the admiralty were well disposed towards admiral Montague, and well inclined to grant him every favour they could. There was not a person at the board that did not feel so disposed towards the gallant admiral. Pole agreed to withdraw his motion for the present, on an understanding that the required accommodation would take place. Mr. Croker replied, that he was for a long time at a loss to make out what the hon. gent. meant by imputing to him language that had never fallen from him; but he now found that the object of the hon. gent. was to make a joke, and therefore he must forgive him, though the joke was Mr. Whitbread said, that one would not, after all, a very good one. At the imagine from the great warmth the hon. same time he must request of that hon. gent. had displayed, that he differed gent. the next time he intended to make all the time from those who supported the jokes, not to ground them upon misrepre present motion. There had been no in- sentations of what had been said by him. tention of charging the admiralty, withAfter some further conversation, sir C. any hostility towards admiral Montague. The hon. gent. had told them that they were not all lawyers at the board of Admiralty. This certainly was comfortable intelligence in these times, when official departments were so over-run with law. yers: the first lord of the treasury a lawyer, the chancellor of the exchequer a lawyer, a secretary of state a lawyer, and the secretary of the admiralty a lawyer. There were lawyers enough in all conscience, though to those who were strangers to the peculiarity of the hon. gent.'s pronunciation, it might appear that he had rather singular notions of what was, and what was not professional, as that hon. gent. had spoke so much of parsons not being professional men [a laugh], though he (Mr. W.) believed that those reverend gentlemen were generally considered as such. The hon. gent. had entered into a warm defence, that was altogether unne HOUSE OF LORDS. Thursday, March 22. [TROOPS ON FOREIGN SERVICE.] The Earl of Darnley rose, in pursuance of the observations he had previously made, on the subject of the great numbers of our military forces which had been sent abroad of late, on various expeditions. It was pretty confidently reported, that almost all the regular infantry were about to be sent out of the country; and that even a regiment of cavalry was sending to Spain or Portugal, which might speedily, in the event of re-embarkation, find it necessary to cut the throats of all the horses. He could not understand on what grounds an opposition to the motion he had to submit could be supported, as motions of a similar nature had not been negatived. It was, in his judgment, highly necessary to carry the motion, in order to shew the country what use the government had made of an immense military establishment, and in what situation they had now, by their improvidence, left the country. His lordship concluded by moving for accounts of all the regular infantry, cavalry, and artillery, sent out of the country on different expeditions from the 1st of Nov. last up to the present time. The Earl of Liverpool was not averse to putting the House in possession of all material information on any important subject, except where the nature of the case was such as to render it impolitic, with reference to the interests of the country, to do so. He did not feel that any very serious danger could result from the production of the accounts moved for; but must still think, that on a general view of the subject, it would be impolitic to give information to the enemy of the num ber and distribution of our forces at home, and in different parts of the world. The expeditions which the noble earl so much disapproved of, had not been so planned or conducted as to neglect or impair the general security of the country, which had never been left out of consideration under all the particular circumstances of different periods. He felt it, on the whole, his duty to oppose the present motion. Earl Grey contended, in defence of the motion, that it was by no means founded on any novel or unprecedented principle; and that it was necessary, in order to obtain a just view of that situation of our affairs into which the improvidence and misconduct of ministers had brought the country. Was there not sufficient ground for suspicion of the fitness of ministers to dispose of the forces of the nation, after the repeated calamities we had experienced? Could it be maintained that the House should not call upon those ministers who had so misused our best resources in money and in lives, and who were understood to he now sending out fresh armaments on plans equally useless and wasteful-ought not the House to demand information from such ministers, as to the actual state of our army at home, in order to see the full extent of our evils, and the possible danger to which a career of errors might subject us? The motion might appear to ministers dangerous to themselves. If he imagined it dangerous to the country, he would not support it; but he thought it calculated to produce to the country beneficial information, and should therefore give it his vote. On the question being put, the House divided, when there appeared, non content 38, content 28, Majority against the motion 10. [EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS OF WAR.] Lord Holland stated the strong impressions made on his mind, when he first saw the accusation preferred against our government by the government of France, that we had refused to enter into a negociation for the exchange of prisoners. This was a charge which, even with the decided opinion he entertained of the views and conduct of ministers (and a worse opinion of their administration than he had, no man entertained), he could not bring himself to believe founded in fact. He lamented deeply the melancholy circumstances that had of late attended the progress of the war, which had assumed features so much worse than we had been accustomed to see in modern times, in the conflicts of civilized nations. He had certainly been willing to believe, and he had thought without undue prejudice, that the departure from civilized practices, which had so strongly marked recent hostilities, particularly in the case of prisoners of war, was more owing to the conduct of the enemy than to that of our own government, as he was too well aware of the entire indifference manifested by the emperor of France, to subjects of this nature. The first notice of this matter that came before him was in the Moniteur. It might therefore be looked upon by him merely as the unofficial and anonymous observation of the editor of the Moniteur, whoever that person might be. But when, after some lapse of time his lordship found that it remained uncontradicted on the part of the government of this country, he could not but give it a greater degree of attention. And still farther, even though it bore no official appearance, yet when he knew the subdued and degraded state of the press, which was among the number of the heavy calamities which the establishment of an absolute despotism had brought upon that country, he could not but be convinced that no editor of the Moniteur could have ventured upon the insertion of such an article contrary to the wishes of the French government, or probably without its authority, From this circumstance, there fore, he felt himself bound to consider it as a serious accusation. But whatever doubts he might have indulged in at first were entirely removed by a repetition of the charge, not in an unauthorised paragraph, but in a public official document signed by the French minister of foreign affairs, and addressed to Baron de Roeil, minister of foreign affairs in Holland. It was contained in a long and in many parts a sufficiently disgusting paper, from which his lordship read the passage to which he had referred, and which runs thus."His Imperial Majesty wished for peace "with England. He made advances to"wards it at Tilsit; they did not succeed. "Those which he adopted in concert with "his ally, the emperor of Russia, at "Erfurt, were equally unsuccessful. The "war will therefore be long, since all the "attempts that were made to obtain it have "failed. The proposal even to send com"missioners to Morlaix, to treat for the ex"change of prisoners, although suggested by England, miscarried, when it was perceived that it might lead to an accommo"dation." The date of this paper was Paris, the 24th of Jan. 1810. Thus the accusation was made and published to all Europe by the French government, that we had shut our eyes on the sufferings of our own countrymen, prisoners of war, and refused even to enter upon a negociation for the purpose of establishing a cartel. His lordship then took a view of the circumstances that had led to this melancholy state of warfare, which he considered to arise from the pretentions set up by the French government in four instances. The first of them was founded upon an act of its own, which, to say the very least he could say of it, was an act of the most useless violence that could be committed, with a view to the attaining of any great object in the war, or in the question of exchange of prisoners. He meant the seizing upon British subjects, who, at the breaking out of hostilities the last time, were travellers in France. These unfortunate persons the Government of this country had refused to recognize as lawful prisoners of war. There was a second pretension advanced by France respecting the particular cases of a num'ber of seamen. A third pretension was *founded on the capitulation of a certain number of 'French soldiers taken in St. Domingo, who, by the terms of that capitulation, were to be conveyed to Europe. Now the "French government had con tended, that by Europe was meant France, and thence inferred, that those persons were not prisoners of war, and not subject to the usual mode of exchange. There was a fourth difficulty arising out of the case of the electorate of Hanover. At the beginning of the war it was well known that a considerable number of Hanoverian troops had been compelled to lay down their arms; a number which the French government made to amount to no less than 21,000. Of these, a part had since then entered into the service of his Britannic Majesty; but the French government pretended to consider the whole in the light of prisoners of war. These pretensions had been hitherto considered inadmissible; and it was true that the French government had said nothing in the papers he had referred to, of the terms they had now to propose, but, he must observe, that though they said nothing that was decisive, they did say distinctly that they were willing to send commissioners to Morlaix to meet other commissioners on our part, to enter into an arrangement for negociating an exchange of prisoners. But they go farther, and charge upon England the refusal or the evading of this proposition; and they ascribe to the English government a motive for doing so; namely, their perceiving "that it might lead to an accommodation!" Why, his lordship asked, if the facts were correctly stated (for the motives ascribed he could not bring himself to impute even to the present ministers)-why was the proposition eluded? He perceived, by the French papers, that this matter occurred three months ago. He thought that constituted a very good reason for enquiry, for he could not conceive that such a negociation could be still pending, especially after what had been stated by the French minister in a public document. So much time might be wanted in an intricate negociation; but to the proposal to commence a negociation on such a subject, or whether or not we should send commissioners to treat, could not require such a length of time.-The noble lord commented in animated terms on the mischiefs of this alarming departure from the usages of modern times among civilized nations, which tended to excite all the bad passions, and to restore Europe to a state of barbarism. No condition could be more gloomy or heart breaking, than that of an enterprising young man shut out from all the honourable avoca government to take any notice of an ano nymous passage in a French news-paper ; and he did not think it befitting their lordships to enter upon discussions on tions of life, languishing, not perhaps in a dungeon, but in the country of the enemy, with no hope before him of any chance of obtaining the distinctions and advantages which arise from the per-such a foundation. As for the letter of the French minister to the Dutch minister, it was not an official paper, addressed to any person in or under this government, and did not call for our public and official notice. After several observations, shewing that no necessity existed for our making any declaration in consequence of such assertions, the noble lord proceeded to state his objections to the motion, which he conceived might do mischief, but could produce no advantages. The expectation of an exchange, his lordship, stated, was not at an end. The motion might, if carried, be prejudicial to those very individuals whose interest it professed to` serve; it might interfere with the object desired, and in no point of view could be advantageous to the public interests. The Marquis of Lansdowne contended that his noble friend was justified in drawing the conclusion he had done. The charge of having neglected to reply to a proposal made last year, was prefaced in a state paper issuing from the French government, and remained uncontradicted by ministers. Would the noble baron declare, that no proposal to the effect stated in that document, was tendered? He had dwelt much upon the necessity of withholding information pending negociation, and studiously avoided giving a plain answer to a plain question. With respect to trammel suit of the honourable and glorious professions of the navy and the army! Nor was that all; we were to consider the effects produced on the minds of the various relations and connections at home of those unfortunate sufferers, and whose feelings were, from time to time, cruelly sported with! He could assure their lordships, that scarcely a day had occurred since he first mentioned the subject in that house, that he had not received two or three letters from the relations of prisoners in France, which contained charges against our government, as having been, since the proposition alluded to, blameable in a greater degree than the hostile government for the continuance of the imprisonment of their relations. They stated this to be a feeling among their relations in detention, made known to them by communications they contrived to receive from France. There were other matters of consideration to be found exclusive of these, when we reflected on the consequences that might ensue from the length of banishment from their own country, in the views and feelings of the individuals. He felt it therefore in all respects of great importance to know from his Majesty's ministers what was the real state of the case, and whether the accusation of the French government against them was or was not well founded. If to the unfor-ling the negociation, he was persuaded tunate failures in our Spanish campaign; if to the ruin of Spain, in as noble a cause as could engage a nation-a ruin partly owing to the improper views of our feeble and jarring counsels; if to the calamities and disgraces of Walcheren, we were now to add the ignominy of refusing to negociate a cartel, he must say, that nothing could be more foul, disgraceful, and destructive than the conduct of administration. His lordship concluded by moving for copies of all communications that had been made from France, on the subject of negociating an Exchange of Prisoners, &c. and of all communications to the transport board, since the 1st of Sept. 1809, &c." Lord Mulgrave said, that the French Moniteur might not have fallen in his way when this subject was first noticed; but if he had seen it, he should not have thought it becoming the dignity of his Majesty's nothing was further from his noble friend's thoughts, and he could not see what em. barrassment could possibly arise to it from acceding to the motion. All that his noble friend wished to obtain, was a knowledge of the nature of the communication, and of the manner and time of its reception. The Earl of Liverpool thought that the speech of his noble friend was perfectly satisfactory. In all the proposals on the subject of an exchange of prisoners, that had been made from France, since the Revolution, there had been manifest injustice. The enemy always set out on a basis totally inconsistent with the principles recognised by all nations; and it was only by tedious and difficult negociation, that they could be prevailed upon to depart fromthem. With respect to the charge preferred by the noble marquis, that a plain answer had been refused to a plain question, his noble friend felt it his duty |