XLVI. Mr. Fox, against Lord North.

SUPPOSING any remonstrance with the noble lord (lord North) against the American war, what will the noble lord say? "Why, you know that this war is a matter of necessity, and not of choice; you see the difficulties to which I am driven, and to which I have reduced my country and you know also, that in my own private character I am a lover of peace. For what reason then do I persist in spite of conviction? For your benefit alone! For you I have violated the most sacred engagements! for you, neglected the suggestions of conscience and reason! for you, forfeited a thousand times my ho nour and veracity in this business! and for you I must still persist! Without the American war I shall have no places, no emoluments to bestow, not a single loan to negociate; nor shall I be able to retain the poor situation of mine that I have so long held disinterestedly. You see me now in the most elevated situation, with the disposal of places and pensions, and with the whole power of the nation in my hands; but make peace with America to-day, and to-morrow I shall be reduced to the level of private life, retaining nothing but what is merely personal of all my present advantages.

"If you do not vote with me (says the noble lord) against a peace with America, how am I to give you any thing? It is true that my situation, as minister, is a respectable and elevated situation; but it is the American war that enables me to give douceurs, and to put into your pockets eight or nine hundred thousand pounds by a loan. Put an end to that, and you undo all. My power will be miserably lessened, and your pay as miserably reduced. As to myself, why, I am perfectly indifferent about that; I get a little, and it is my happiness that a little, thank heaven, contents me. I cannot therefore be supposed to care if a peace takes place with America to-morrow, as far as I am personally concerned; but for your own sakes do not let such a thing come to pass. Nay, were I to go out of olice, a situation I never coveted, always disliked, and heartily wished to be rid of, still I hope the American war will be continued." Surch -pathetic reasoning cannot fail having its effects; and thus

it is the noble lord induces the members of this house to sacrifice the interest of their constituents, by proving that their own interest is essentially connected with the American war. Was it possible, therefore, that a peace could be obtained with America? "O spare my beautiful system! (the noble lord would cry). What, shall I part with that! with that which has been the glory of the present reign, which has extended the dominions, raised the reputation, and replenished the finances of my country! No, for God's sake, let this be adhered to; and do with all the rest what you please: deprive me, if you please, of this poor situation; take all my power, all my honour and consequence; but spare my beautiful system, oh! spare my system!!!"

XLVII. Mr. Sheridan, against Mr. M. A. Taylor.

We have this day been honoured with the counsels of a complete gradation of lawyers. We have received the opinion of a judge (Kenyon), of an attorney-general in petto (Bearcroft), of an ex-attorney-general (Lee), and of a practising barrister (Taylor). I agree with the learned gentleman (Mr. Bearcroft) in his admiration of the abilities of my honourable friend (Mr. Fox). What he has said of his quickness and of his profoundness, of his boldness and his candour, is literally just and true, which the mental accomplishment of my honourable friend is, on every occasion, calculated to extort even from his adversaries. The learned gentleman has, however, in this insidious eulogium, connected such qualities of mind with those he has praised and venerated, as to convert his encomiums into reproach, and his tributes of praise into censure and invective. The boldness he has described is only craft, and his candour hypocrisy. Upon what grounds does the learned gentleman connect those assemblages of great qualities and of cardinal defects? Upon what principles either of justice or of equity does he exult with one hand, whilst he insidiously reprobates and destroys with the other? If the wolf is to be feared, the learned gentleman may rest assured, it will be the wolf in sheep's clothing, the masked pre

fender to patriotism. It is not from the fang of the lion,. but from the tooth of the serpent, that reptile that insidiously steals upon the vitals of the constitution, and gnaws it to the heart ere the mischief is suspected, that destruction is to be feared.

With regard to the acquisition of a learned gentleman (Mr. Taylor) who has declared that he means to vote with us this day, I am sorry to acknowledge, that, from the declaration the learned gentleman has made at the beginning of his speech, I see no great reason to boast of such an auxiliary. The learned gentleman, who has with peculiar modesty styled himself a chicken lawyer, has declared, that, thinking as in the right with respect to the subject of this day's discussion, he shall vote withus; but he has at the same time thought it necessary to assert, that he has never before voted differently from the minister and his friends, and perhaps he never shall again vote with those whom he means to support this day. It is rather singular to vote with us, professedly because he finds us to be in the right, and, in the very moment that he assigns so good a reason for changing his side, to de-. clare, that in all probability he never shall vote with us again. I am sorry to find the chicken is a bird of ill omen, and that its augury is so unpropitious to our future interests. Perhaps it would have been as well, under these circumstances, that the chicken had not left the barn-door of the treasury, but continued side by side with the old cock (Mr. Kenyon), to pick those crumbsof comfort which would, doubtless, be dealt out in time,. with a liberality proportioned to the fidelity of the fea thered tribe.

XLVIII. Mr. Beaufoy, for the repeal of the test and corporation acts.

PART I..

MR. SPEAKER, I am happy in the outset of our delibe.. rations, to declare, that the grievances of which the dissenters complain, are of a civil, and not of an ecclesiastical nature. They humbly solicit a restoration of their civil rights, not an enlargement of their ecclesiastical

privileges. It is of consequence that this fact should be distinctly stated, and clearly understood;-for the very word dissenter leads so naturally to the supposition that their complaints are of an ecclesiastical kind, and their acknowledged merit as citizens, so naturally excludes the idea of its being possible that the law should have deprived them of any of their civil rights, that I feel myself under a necessity of stating, at the very threshold of the business, that their prayer has nothing ecclesiastical for its object. They wish not to diminish the provision which the legislature has made for the established church; nor do they envy her the revenue she enjoys, or the ecclesiastical privileges of dignity and honour with which she is invested. If their aim had been to attack the rights of others, and not merely to recover their own, they would not have chosen a member of the church of England for their advocate, nor could I have accepted such a trust. So far are they, indeed, from trespassing on the rights of others, that even the restitution of their own they did not solicit till the public tranquillity was completely restored, and till a season of leisure from other avocations had afforded the legislature a convenient opportunity of considering the hardships by which they are aggrieved. That men of acknowledged merit, as citizens, of known attachment to the constitution, and of zealous loyalty to the sovereign, should at no time solicit relief from unmerited disabilities, and undeserved reproach, is not to be expected from the dissenters, for it is not to be expected from human nature;—but, in praying for that relief, they have chosen the time which they thought the most convenient to parliament, and the mode which they deemed the most respectful to the house. United in sentiment, on this occasion, to a dẹgree which I believe unexampled in any other body of men, and hitherto unknown among themselves, and forming in most of the towns of England a large propor tion of the inhabitants, they did not choose to crowd your table with petitions; they wished to owe their success, not to the number of the claimants, but to the equity of the claim;—and, they have observed that justice never pleads more powerfully with the house, than when she approaches them accompanied only by her own complete perfections.

In most of the enlightened nations of Europe, the principles for which I contend-are no longer a subject of dispute. In Scotland, and in Holland, no religious test, as a qualification for a civil office, has at any time existed. In the Prussian dominions, and in those of the empress of Russia, no traces of such a test are to be found. In Ireland, and in the dominions of the emperor, all civil disqualifications, on account of religious opinions, are completely done away. In France, a similar relief was extended by the edict of Nantes, which, if public report may be credited, is likely to become, in the present reign, a permanent part of the policy of that kingdom; for an opinion prevails there, of its not being necessary that a Frenchman should be a catholic, in order to have the privilege of shedding his blood in the serviceof his country.-Shall then England alone adhere to an exploded system, which all the other enlightened nations of Europe, upon a full conviction of its weakness, have already abandoned, or are now preparing to abandon? Shall foreigners still be employed to fight her battles? Shall the Hessian sword again be called upon to protect her from invasions, while so many thousands of her own people, willing to bleed in her cause, and impatient to hazard their lives in her defence, are excluded from her service?

One proof of the absurdity, of the incredible folly of these inhuman statutes, presses so strongly on my thoughts, that I cannot refrain from submitting it to the consideration of the house. The benevolent Mr. How.. ard; he upon whom every kingdom in Europe, England excepted, would gladly confer, at least, the common pri vileges of a citizen, and whoin the proudest nation might be happy to call her own; he of whom a right honourable member of this house has said, "He has visited all Europe, not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces, or the stateliness of temples; not to make accurate measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur; not to form a scale of the curiosity of modern art; not to collect medals, or to collate manuscripts;-but to dive into the depths of dungeons; to plunge into the infection of hospitals; to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain; to take the guage and dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt; to remember the forgotten, to attend to.