peace to be a mere hollow and preearious truce, that carried with it no symptoms of permanency or security. He considered, that the joy which the people expressed was a mere momentary delusion, that would vanish as soon as the people should return to their reason, and compare the immense sacrifices we have made to the trifling cessions made by France. For the two islands of Ceylon and Trinidad, the country has been nine years at war, has wasted some hundreds of millions of her treasure, and thousands of lives. At the same time that he disapproved of the peace, he considered that the public faith was now pledged, and that the terms of the treaty, bad as it was, must be adhered to.

Lord Westmoreland defended the preliminaries.

Lord St. Vincent considered Cey lon and Trindad as two of the most valuable islands in the whole habitable globe, either considered in a political or commercial point of view.

Lord Nelson rose to give the opinion he had formed from the best opportunities which he had of ascer taining the value of some of the places which we had taken and afterwards ceded. Minorca he conceived of little value, as it was too far distant from Toulon to be an important naval station. As to Malta, he did not consider it as likely to be of any great importance to this country. We took it to rescue it from the hands of the French. It would require a garrison of 7000 men to defend the works. He thought, provided the French did not get it, it was immaterial what third power was possessed of it. Neither did he consider the Cape of Good Hope as a settlement of very

great value. When the Indiame were heavy ships, it was necessary to touch there and refit, but now that they are coppered and sail well, they often make the voyage without touching at any port whatever. He thought his majesty's ministers were bound to seize the first opportunity of making peace that offered, and that the preliminaries on the table were both honourable and advantageous.

The marquis of Buckingham lamented sincerely that he could not give his consent to the preliminaries on the table, as they appeared to him to be humiliating and disgraceful to this country. In the first place, he considered them dishonourable, as they left our allies exposed and unprotected. Portugal, in particular, appeared to him to havebeen shamefully abandoned, and by our consenting to its new commercial regulations with respect to France, we all but excluded our own woollens from the markets of Portugal. With regard to the security of the peace, nothing had been stipulated, but we were left solely to depend on the bare word and honour of the person now holding the government of the French republic. What was there in the character and conduct of that person to induce us to suppose, that he would not take the earliest favourable opportunity which offered for breaking the peace? He had betrayed a rooted jealousy and deep lodged hatred against this country, which it was not to be supposed would be easily washed away by any superabundant milk of human kindness in his composition. Since the signing the preliminaries, the intrigues of the French government had negotiated a private peace between the republic and the Porte, in order to prevent

the

the latter power from feeling that gratitude which it ought to feel to this country for affording it the greatest assistance in the hour of danger, which it had ever received from any European power. This was a sufficient specimen of the good faith of the first consul. We had given him "a giant's strength, and we might be assured he would use it like a giant." His lordship then observed, that although he could not give the present ministers his confidence on their coming into office, yet he had forborne to oppose them till the present occasion had compelled him to do so. If however the measure on the table was followed up by measures of energy and vigour, and if his majesty's ministers would make the necessary exertions to render the peace less precarious than it appeared to him now to be, he should give them his hearty support.

Lord Caernarvon was of opinion, that a peace more adequate, safe, and honourable, might have been obtained, if our negotiators had not lightly surrendered the interests of the country. Every article in the preliminaries is concession on our side, and advantage to France and her allies, although peace was as necessary to them as to us, and equally wished for on their side. It might therefore reasonably be expected that they would have consented to negotiate on equal terms. As to the mode of defending it by putting a question separately on every thing ceded, whether it was worth continuing an expensive wat for that object; this might be as

well answered by asking, was it worth the while of France to have continued the war for any of them separately? After having surrendered all the fruits of a nine years war, we had no better security for the peace than the good faith of a nation which had never before been celebrated for that quality.

Lord Hobart defended the preliminaries, and replied to the leading objections against them. He contended that the interests of Portugal had not been deserted, and that the cession of Cochin in India was by no means of that importance now, which it would have been of, when it was surrounded by the territories of Tippoo Saib: those territories are now in our possession, and the neighbouring sovereign of Travancore is our firm ally. As to the Cape, it was a possession which could not be held but at an enormous expense to this country. As a place for our ships to touch at, it was by no means necessary to us, as many ships went and returned from India without touching there; and as a colony its product would never be at all equal to the expense of keeping it. As to the interests of the stadtholder, the only reason they were not expressly mentioned was, that a negotiation was then depending through the mediation of the court of Berlin, which promised a favourable issue.

The house then divided upon the question:

94 Proxies 10 0

Contents
Non-contents 10

Majority for the address 94

day by

Sir Edward Hartop, who stated that, in the conduct of the late war, his majesty's ministers had two grand objects in view: the one to defend their country from the destructive and sanguinary doctrines of jacobinism, and the other to resist the inordinate ambition and aggrandizement of the new government of France. In the latter object we cooperated with the other powers of Europe; and had their zeal and exertions been equal to our own, we should not now have witnessed the humiliating degradation to which they have been reduced. As to the destructive principles which had been at war with every government, they had already sufficiently manifested their own malignity, to be for ever reprobated by the people of these realms. Even in France they were detested by the great majority of the people, as subversive of government and social happiness; and thus, by the excess of their own virulence and malignity, they had effected their own destruction. We had maintained unimpaired the purity of our constitution. We had not only

preserved but considerably increased our dominions by our great acquisitions in the East and West Indies, and by retaining Ceylon and Trinidad. His majesty's ministers, notwithstanding the great successes of the British arins during the last campaign, finding that one of the great objects of the war (for want of con tinental cooperation) was no longer attainable, resolved on negociating for peace, and in this treaty they had preserved the British empire entire and increased in its territories: they had also preserved the strictest good faith to their allies, by securing their interests, even at the expense of surrendering valuable conquests we had made from the enemy. He therefore thought they had held forth to Europe on this occasion, an illustrious example of honour, of justice, and of faith, worthy of admiration and of example, and highly advantageous both to our reputation and our interests. He concluded by moving an address of thanks to his majesty for his gracious communication, and expressive of a firm reliance that the ratification of these preliminaries would be advantageous to the interests, and horourable to the character of the British nation.

Mr.

Mr. Lee seconded this motion. In order to prove that this was a war of aggression on the part of France, and merely defensive on the part of England, he took a retrospective view of the conduct ot this country in 1792, when so far from exhibiting any hostile views, she reduced her forces both by land and sea, while France on the other hand was encouraging plots for the subversion of our constitution, and the moment it was possible for her to do so, attacked our old ally, Holland. He considered that the war, as it had been necessary, so it had added to the glory of the British name, and had given additional security both to our constitution and our empire, He saw, however, no possibility of making any peace which would not be so far precarious as that it might be violated as soon as it was the interest of either power so to do. He remembered the saying of an emperor of Morocco, who wishing to break a peace, and being told that that would be violation of faith, replied, "I break it because it is my interest." He suspected that this savage emperor spoke, in plain blunt terms, the liberal language and policy of the modern courts of Europe. He considered, however, that this peace promised a reasonable degree of permanence and security.

Lord Levison Gower could by no means admit that the projet offered at Lisle was any criterion to judge of the merits or demerits of the present peace by. The circamstances of the country were then totally different from the circumstances under which the present peace was signed. A short time before the negotiation at Lisle, the

bank had stopped its payments, and commercial credit had received a violent shock. A spirit of dangerous insubordination existed in our fleet, and the funds had fallen so low, as to make us almost despair of the future resources of the em pire. In Ireland, although rebellion had not absolutely taken the field, yet the most unequivocal sentiments of disaffection had been exhibited. The navy of the enemy was at that time nearly equal to our own, and we had not a single frigate in the Mediterranean. The situation of the country now was widely ditferent, and yet we had made many more cessions than that projet at Lisle proposed to make. We had ceded Surinam, Minorca, Porto Ferrajo, and Malta: and what had we obtained as the price of all those cessions? Notwithstanding, however, that the terms of this peace was far short of his expectations, yet peace itself was so desirable an object, and had been received with such general joy, that he should by no means oppose the address, although he conceived it his duty to make those observations.

Lord Hawkesbury, at considerable length, defended the preliminaries. He first observed upon the comparison which had been drawn between them and the articles of the projet at Lisle. He thought that it was unfair to dwell upon any comparison between them, as the projet at Lisle was but a projet, and no person could venture to deny that Lord Grenville would have been glad to have taken less from the government of France than he then demanded. After nine years effusion of blood; after an increase of debt to the amount of nearly 200 millions; after the uninterrupted

C3

interrupted exertions of the country, and, at the same time, the most splendid and signal successes, there was no man who could deny but that peace was a most desirable object. Notwithstanding the zeal, however, with which he had laboured for the public tranquillity, he solemnly disclaimed the plea of over-ruling necessity, which some persons had set up. Although he felt the present peace to be eligible and adequate to the relative situation of the two countries, yet he would not pretend to say that it was free from all objections, and secure from all risk and danger. He would not attempt to pledge himself for the stability of the present peace; he should confine himself to that question which was peculiarly before the house, whether his majesty's ministers in signing this peace have been to blame or not? În considering this question it would be necessary to observe the different grounds upon which this peace has been objected to. Some persons object, because they say the object of the war had not been obtained they state that the object of the war was to destroy republicanism, and by an interference in the internal affairs of France, stop the progress of its revolution. This was an opinion which he must utterly deny to have been wellfounded, and on the contrary he must declare that this country had been forced into the war by France. It was France who had interfered in the internal affairs of other countries who both openly and by her agents propagated disaffection, sedition, anarchy, and revolt in this country. The revolution was torrent so dreadful, that no man or set of men could hope to check

2

a

its rage and impetuosity: but if this country had opposed its fury with some success; if it had changed its direction into a channel less dangerous to the general welfare, some acknowledgment was due to the wisdom and zeal of government, as well as to the spirit and exertions of the country. It was impossible to look at the present state of France without being convinced that we had effected that most important change; a change which is manifest to the most superficial observer in the manners, habits, and opinions of the people of France. After considering well the effects of this change, and the existing circumstances, he considered that there had not been a time when fewer evils could be expected from peace than at present. With regard to a continuance of hostilities, there were two questions to be considered: first, whether we possessed the power of forming another coalition against France? secondly, what injury could England and France do to each other? As to the first question, it must be recollected that the first coalition

d failed, and that the second had also failed. Was it then very desirous to hazard the experiment of a third? But if we should have desired it ever so strongly, the elements of a new coalition were not to be found. We should look for them in vain in Germany, Prussia, or Russia. A coalition being therefore impossible, it only remained to consider what harm could England and France do to each other by continuing the war? The fact was, that with our immense naval superiority we could not strike any effectual blow against France, and neither power could materially