municated with his parliament. If ever the day shall come when an examination shall be instituted into the steps which have been adopted to secure the re-establishment of the general tranquillity, I am confident that no endeavours for that purpose will be found to have been wanting on the part of His Majesty's ministers. But gentlemen must be sensible, that what may be admitted as an endeavour to restore peace depends upon a variety of circumstances, and is likely to be differently appreciated by individuals of opposite sentiments. It depends on the relative state of parties, on the number of allies with whom we may be engaged to act, on the degree of attention we pay to their interests, and on the concert we wish to preserve with them. Taking all these necessary considerations into view, I again pledge myself that it will be found in the result of enquiry, that ministers have neglected no opportunity which could have been improved for the purpose of accelerating peace.

But the right honourable gentleman has told us, that we are at last come to the period which he had all along pointed out; that we have now consented to adopt that course which he has uniformly recommended since the commencement of the contest - to send a person to Paris, and to try the effect of negotiation. He takes to himself all the merit of that policy which we have tardily adopted, and so confident did he feel himself in this ground of self-exultation, that he declined all illustration of his victory, and merely made it the subject of one triumphant observation. His assertion was, "you are now taking those measures which, if you had listened to my counsels, you might have adopted four years ago." But does it follow that the measure was right then, because it is right now? May not a period of four years produce many events to justify a material change of policy, and to render measures wise and expedient, which at a certain time would neither have been prudent nor seasonable? Because you do not choose to make peace the day after an unprovoked aggression, you may not be justified in holding out pacific overtures after a lapse of four years? The argument of the right

honourable gentleman amounts to this, that either you must make peace the day after the aggression, or not make it at all.

With respect to the relative situation of this country and Spain, it would not be consistent with my duty to go into any detail on that subject at the present moment.

As to the question of our resources, the right honourable gentleman admits them to be extensive and flourishing. They furnish, indeed, in a moment like the present, a subject of peculiar congratulation and well-grounded confidence. If the revenue after a four years' war, which might have been expected to have injured it so materially in so many branches, and after all the additional burdens which have been imposed, still keeps up to the rate at which it was stated last year, that circumstance is surely no slight source of satisfaction. With respect to the state of commerce, I am enabled to speak in a very different strain. Notwithstanding all the embarrassments which it has had to encounter, it has attained and still continues to enjoy a pitch of unexampled prosperity. Those embarrassments have proceeded from various causes; - the expense of the war abroad, and the high price of articles of consumption at home; the situation of part of the Continent, where the markets have been shut against us; and even the growth of our capital re-acting upon the commerce which occasioned it, so that what was an unequivocal symptom of prosperity, was itself a cause of temporary distress. Of the continuance of this prosperity, we have now the best assurance. The state of our exports during the last six months has been equal to what they were in the most flourishing year of peace, 1792; and our foreign trade has even exceeded the produce of that year, which was the most productive of any in the history of this country. Under these circumstances, whatever temporary embarrassments may have arisen from the quantity of specie sent out of the country, from the want of a sufficient circulating medium, from the state of foreign markets, and from the increase of our capital; and however these difficulties may for a time have obstructed the ordinary operations of

finance, the commercial character of the country has lost neither its vigour nor importance. If such has been the state of things, at a period when the country has had to contend for every thing dear to it; if, notwithstanding all the obstacles which have clogged the machinery, the spring has retained so much force and energy, we may presume, that, if by the obstinacy and ambition of the enemy we should be called to still greater exertions, our resources as yet remain untouched, and that we shall be able to bring them into action with a degree of concert and effect worthy of the character of the British nation, and of the cause in which they will be employed. These resources have in them nothing hollow or delusive. They are the result of an accumulated capital, of gradually increasing commerce, of high and established credit. They are the fruits of fair exertion, of laudable ingenuity, of successful industry; they have been produced under a system of order and of justice, while we, under many disadvantages, have been contending against a country which exhibits in every respect the reverse of the picture ;-a proof that the regular operation of those principles must triumph over the unnatural and exhausting efforts of violence and extortion. By these resources we are now qualified to take such steps as may tend to conduct us to a solid and a durable peace; or, if we do not succeed in that object, to prosecute the contest with firmness and confidence.

The right honourable gentleman suggested one remark, that the speech contained no recognition of the government of France. He wasted a good deal of ingenuity in attempting to prove that it ought to have contained an express acknowledgment of the French government. It ought to have occurred to him that a passport having been sent for and granted, some communication must have taken place on that occasion, and as the executive directory had been satisfied with the form of communication, and the mode in which they had been addressed, it could not be necessary for him to start a difficulty where they had found none. I can assure him, on the part of British ministers, that no question of etiquette, no difficulty of form originating from them,

shall be permitted to stand in the way of negotiation, or to obstruct the attainment of the great object of peace.

As to the other points, the right honourable gentleman has suggested what lessons we ought to derive from the experience of adversity. These lessons may be greatly varied according to the situation of parties and the different points of view in which the subject is considered. But when the right honourable gentleman tells us that the situation of this country is that of adversity, I can by no means agree to the proposition. How far it deserves to be ranked under that description, let those pronounce who are best acquainted with the state of our resources. It cannot surely be termed a state of adversity from any losses of our trade, the diminution of our capital, or from the reduction of any of our foreign possessions. We have not been greatly impoverished by the events of the war in the East and West Indies. We cannot be much weakened in our national strength, even upon the statement of the right honourable gentleman, by having our navy, in consequence of repeated triumphs over every hostile squadron, raised to a greater degree of glory and of fame than it had ever before attained. Where then are we to look for the symptoms of this adversity? Are we to look for them in the losses and disasters of our allies? But, does the right honourable gentleman appeal to these as a criterion of adversity, when in the same breath I hear him hold out as a source of complaint, that you are not, under your present circumstances, sure of a triumphant peace? And why can you not command such a peace?—because you will not separate your own greatness, and your own commerce, from the interest and from the fate of your allies; because you refuse to purchase peace for yourselves on any other terms than those which will secure the tranquillity of Europe, and consider the situation of Great Britain as chained to that of the Continent, by the bonds of a liberal and comprehensive policy. If what has been lost on the Continent is a subject of regret, it is at least a topic on which we have no reason to reproach ourselves. If even the prospect in that quarter continued as gloomy as it was some time since, and if

the extremity had not roused the armies of the emperor to those gallant and spirited exertions which have been crowned with such brilliant and unprecedented success, no share of blame could attach to us. While the violence of France has been overrunning so great a part of Europe, and every where carrying desolation in its progress, your naval exertions have enabled you to counterbalance their successes, by acquisitions in different parts of the globe, and to pave the way for the restoration of peace to your allies, on terms which their own strength might have been unable to procure. If you look indeed to the geogra phical situation of the seat of war, the emperor has not regained by his recent victories all that he had formerly lost. But do you count for nothing the destruction and ruin of those armies, by whom all the previous successes of the enemy had been achieved? Do you count for nothing the glorious and immortal testimony that has been exhibited to mankind, that disciplined valour must finally triumph over those principles that the war was undertaken to oppose, and which owed all their extraordinary and unaccountable success to the violence in which they originated, and the excesses with which they were accompanied? A memorable warning has also been afforded with respect to the true consequences which have resulted to those foreign powers, who, in opposition to their true interest, have courted the alliance of that enemy, and expected to find security in disgraceful tranquillity. Recent events have served also to exculpate the characters of those who were calumniated as desirous to embrace their principles, and receive their laws, and in Germany they have left behind them nothing but the memory of their wrongs, and a feeling of eternal resentment. Are such effects to be considered as of small importance, or to be put in competition with the reduction of a fortress, or the possession of a district?

Of the virtues to be acquired in the school of adversity, the right honourable gentleman only mentioned those of moderation and forbearance. Moderation I should consider as that virtue which is best adapted to the dawn of prosperity: there are other

VOL, II.