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able to sail sooner :-If the battle of Marengo had not been lost-But-If-Why, sir, I do not know what degree of fortune there may be in this battle, or in that battle; but I believe the honourable gentleman never was more mistaken than he would find himself, even in the event of Bonaparte's defeat at Marengo. Such were the precautions of that fruitful mind; so well did he arrange his measures; so little did he, in truth, trust to mere fortune, that if, against all probability, Marengo had been lost, that mighty genius had so formed and disposed his resources, that many and many a bloody battle must have been gained by his enemies before they could have made much impression upon the incomparable system of his operations in Italy last summer. defy imbecility itself to string together a more motley pack of excuses than the honourable gentleman has laid before the house this night. Amsterdam had been taken, if sir Ralph Abercrombie had landed on the 16th instead the 27th of August.-Sir John Stuart's dislike to the Russians protracted sir Ralph's departure for the Mediterranean.-Ten thousand Irish militia were to come to England, and ten thousand English to go to Ireland. Some of the troops wanted their new coatssome their arms.-One expedition sailed on the 8th of April, took shelter on the 13th, and re-sailed on the 24th. It was designed to assist the Austrians, but the Austrians would not be assisted-There was no plan or concert between the two courts.-An account current with the seven years' war; took more ships than lord Chatham, and more islands.-St. Domingo was unhealthy, and rather expensive; but it was a good market.—This war has opened worlds of new markets.-Returns, even to a man, of the new-raised corps at Gibraltar. Minorca, Malta, Portugal; and the total of your force now, and in 1797, with a most comfortable exactness.-The history of England from 1755 to 1762-from Severndroog to the Havannah ;-In a word, such a series of insulting puerilities as no house of parliament was, ever

before, entertained with, under the name of a defence. So much, for the present, of the late secretary; and now to proceed to another view of the success of this war. The late chancellor of the exchequer tells us, that he forbears going over the military exploits, only because his honourable friend (Mr. Dundas) has put those things in the clearest light. He is equally positive as to the success of the war; but, not to usurp upon his truly fortunate colleague, he has his own peculiar instances to detail of prosperity, of comfort, and of multiplied happiness-all flowing in upon the country from his own more immediate department. Quite scandalized at my honourable friend's statement of the magnitude of the national debt in consequence of this war, the honourable gentleman pares down its amount since 1793 to the trifle of one hundred and sixty-millions: and how ?by a mode surprisingly curious indeed. First, he cuts out the fifty-six millions, for which the income-tax is mortgaged; and next, he desires you to forget all that the sale of the land-tax has already purchased, or may yet redeem. Alas, sir! there is not a gentleman in this house would rejoice more than I, that the income-tax was to be set down for nothing; and I cannot help admiring that frontless insensibility under which the honourable gentleman passes over a grinding impost, that has ripped open the private concerns, and reduced the necessary comforts, of every man in England. The extinction of debt from the sale of the land-tax carries its own evil in its tail; and we might as well rejoice at our prosperity from that measure, as a private man would from paying his debts by bringing his estate to the hammer. The debts in so far may be paid; but the estate is gone for ever. The honourable gentleman must think his audience are children, when he attempts to cajole them by such a play upon words. In reality, what is the state of the country upon this point? From such a population as that of Great Britain, near forty millions sterling are annually

wrung to this add ten millions more for the poor-rates, making together about fifty millions. The honourable gentleman has estimated the landed rental of England at twenty-five millions. Thus, then, we pay, yearly, double the produce of the whole rental of the country, in rates and taxes; a sum approaching very near the whole income of the country, taking the income-tax as the barometer of its amount. Was any nation ever be. fore in such circumstances? If nothing else was stated but this undisputed fact, is it not, of itself, a crying reason for inquiry? Will the honourable gentleman tell us of any people that were (not in degree merely, but in kind or principle) in such a state, since the beginning of the world? As to the sinking fund, let it be always remembered that its effects, highly beneficial as they are, must depend upon the revenue keeping its level. If the revenue fails, the charm of the sinking fund vanishes into nothing. This, sir, is the true picture of our financial condition as a state; and the condition of the people is strictly answerable to it. One sixth of all the souls in England is supported by charity; and the plight of a great proportion of those who contribute to their maintenance, is but little better than that of the paupers whom they succour. How the hon. gentleman has nerves to sustain him in venturing to talk of the happiness of this country would be incomprehensible, if our long experience of him had not convinced us of the fondness with which he can survey every act of his own. The repetition of his delusions, deludes even himself. He has indulged so much in these fallacious and fatal reveries, that he appears to have become his own bubble, and almost to mistake for realities the phantasmas of his bewildered wits. him ask any of the members from Yorkshire and Lancashire, what the state is of the manufactures in those countries; even those (looking at Mr. Wilberforce) of whom I may not think the best, will not venture to deny the starving, distracted condition of those great and populous districts. From them, he may receive an empha

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tical and decisive contradiction to his distempered and pernicious fancies. These, sir, are some of the internal effects of this war, which both the honourable gen. tlemen (Messrs. Pitt and Dundas) venture to compare with former contentions against France. We have taken more, they tell us, than even in the seven years' war, and therefore this surpasses that in success. Good God, sir! what an effect does a confidence in the votes of this house produce upon the understandings of men of abilities! To talk of this war, and that of the seven years!! We have destroyed the commerce of France we have taken their islands, say you-But these I say, were not the objects of the war. If you have destroyed the com merce of France, you have destroyed it at the expense of near three hundred millions of debt. If you have taken the French islands, you have a bootless capture; for you are ready enough to restore them as the price of peace. You have taken islands-but you have, at the same time, laid the house of Austria prostrate at the feet of triumphant France. Have you restored monarchy?-Its very hopes are intombed for ever. Have you destroyed jacobinism, as you call it ?-Your resistance has made it stronger than ever. Have you reduced the power of France?-France is aggrandized beyond the wildest dreams of former ambition. Have you driven her within her ancient frontiers?She has enlarged herself to the Rhine, and to the Alps; and added five millions to her population in the centre of Europe. You had all the great states of Europe for your allies against France what is become of them? All that you have not ruined, are your determined enemies. Where are the neutral powers? Every one of them league with this very France for your destruction. Could all this be chance?

No, sir, it is the true succession of effect to cause. It is the legitimate issue of your own system. You began in foolishness, and you end in mischief. Tell me one single object of the war that you have obtained, Tell me one evil that you have not brought upon your VOL. II.

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country. Yet this house will not inquire. The honourable gentleman (Mr. Dundas) says, we have had more difficulties to encounter than any former government; for we had constantly thwarting us the implacable monster, Jacobinism. Sir, jacobinism has in it no property, so sure as the honourable gentleman's system, to propagate and confirm it. That system has given to Jacobinism life and nutriment, strength and maturity, which it could not have derived from any other source. Bent upon crushing every idea of any reform, they resolved to stifle the once free genius of the English mind, and suspend some of the most valuable parts of the English constitution rather than yield one jot. Hence their administration is marked, in this country, by a succession of infringements upon the dearest rights of the people→ by invasions and rebellions in another country. The parent source of all these disorders is that baneful impolicy, in which both the honourable gentlemen endeavour to implicate this house. All we have done, says the honourable gentleman (Mr. Dundas,) who, to be sure, is more a man of things than words, has been approved by all, excepting a miserable remnant of this house, (an expression which he uses, I presume to show, that though an act of parliament may incorporate legislatures, it cannot unite languages;) and the other gentleman is so anxious to establish the popularity of his system, that he almost reproaches the house with coldness in their support of him. He complains that only seven-eighths of the members of this house were for his measures, when he had nine-tenths of the people. If this were true of the people, they would almost deserve their present fate; but the drift of all this is ob vious enough. This identification of himself with the house; this laborious shifting, as it were, of the honourable gentleman's own responsibility upon their votes, is very intelligible; and he falls into that classical correctness which I have before noticed in his honourable friend, in his great zeal to make that point clear. Though he