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again be such as to incur the censure of the House. Whereupon Mr. Speaker

action with you. Fill up the measure of our laudable principles, and then we will treat with you. Shocking to think! Per-submitted to the House, that he trusted haps even now the barbarians were embruing their hands in the blood of the unhappy prisoners! Let us look around, and observe their judges. Among others who reflected honour on human nature, were citizen Frost and citizen Paine-men of the most unblemished characters! Being a general lover of new constitutions, and enthusiastically fond of projectors, he was not surprised, that Mr. Erskine had undertaken to plead Paine's cause.

[The Debate interrupted by the Misconduct of a Member.]-Mr. Burke being interrupted in a very disorderly manner, in this and in several other parts of his speech, by Mr. Whitmore, member for Bridgenorth, the member who yesterday disturbed the proceedings of the House, Sir James Gordon called to order, and insisted on the standing order being enforced against a disorderly member.

The Speaker immediately rose, and in a manly, firm, but gentleman like manner, stated to the House how much he was concerned to find himself under the necessity of putting into execution the standing order of the House, which he had yesterday directed to be read; but that he was now compelled to name the member that had given this interruption. He accordingly called upon Mr. Whitmore by his name; upon which Mr. Whitmore was directed to withdraw.

And he withdrew accordingly. Then a motion being made, and the question being proposed," That Mr. Whitmore be called in, and be for his said offence reprimanded by Mr. Speaker in his place," Mr. Burke apologized for him, and imputed his disorder to a warmth of constitution he could not conquer: he was confident it arose not from any malevolent motive, or from any intention to break the privilege of the House, and solicited earnestly for the slightest proceeding the House could adopt.

they would, at all times, be extremely careful to pay the strictest attention to the observance of their orders, so necessary for conducting the business of the public with regularity and effect, and so essential to the maintenance of their own honour and dignity: That he would remind the House of their orders, whenever he saw occasion, and enforce them to the utmost of his power, as the duty of his station required; in doing which he had no doubt of receiving the support and approbation of the House: That however, in the present case, he submitted to the House whether they would not be pleased to take into their consideration the information which had been given by the hon. member who spoke last. (Upon the information before mentioned, and the apology which Mr. Whitmore had authorized the member to make, and in consequence of what Mr. Speaker had now said, the House consented that the motion made for calling in and reprimanding Mr. Whitmore should be withdrawn.) And the said motion was accordingly, with leave of the House, withdrawn. And notice was given to the member who was withdrawn that he might return to his place in the House.]

Mr. Burke resumed his speech. Hav. ing now decided a point of order in this House, we return to the transactions of another assembly, not so famous for order. But by whom was the unfortunate king accused? By citizen Paine on the one hand, and citizen Frost on the other. Were these Frenchmen? No. They were not Frenchmen by birth, but Frenchmen by merit. Thus, France adopted citizens from all nations, and such a group of abandoned and unprincipled citizens as no other nation on the face of the earth would receive. Instead of navigating the Scheldt, these wretches navigated the Styx only; and announced slaughter and destruction to all mankind. Were these the men to whom we purposed to send an ambassador? Were we to petition them for peace? Were we to humble ourselves before Judge Paine ? It might perhaps be sar

After some debate, Mr. Adam acquainted the House that, having had an opportunity of speaking with the member who was withdrawn, the said member had expressed great regret for having trans-castically asked, how citizen Franklin, with gressed the orders of the House, and had authorized him to acquaint the House, that he is extremely sorry for his offence, and to assure the House, that upon no occasion his behaviour should [VOL. XXX.]

whom citizen Paine was formerly intimate, came to be acknowledged as an ambassador, and why he (Mr. Burke) connived at such a degradation? The answer was obvious: citizen Franklin had never advi [1]

sed the extirpation of all kings. When the third and fourth generation. Seizing the independence of America was acknow. with avidity the prominent features of ledged, all Franklin's crimes were absol- certain detestable characters, he bestowed ved. The difference between these two condemnation upon the whole, because was great in other respects. Franklin was some individuals had committed acts of a native of America: Paine was born in outrage, and deserved condign punishEngland, and lived under the protection ment. The right hon. gentleman put up of our laws; but instigated by his evil ge- the members of the national convention nius, he conspired against the very coun- like ninepins, and bowled them down as try which gave him birth; by attempting his inexhaustible fancy directed. With to introduce the new and pernicious doc- regard to the impolicy of sending an amtrines of republicanism. During the bassador to Paris, he widely differed from American war, we heard of no acts of bar- the right hon. gentleman. Had not Swebarity, no deliberate murders, no de- den an ambassador there? Had not Naples thronement and decapitation of kings. an ambassador there? Were not the royal There had appeared more atrocious guilt family of Naples nearly related to that in France in one day than in America and of France, whose fate he, as well as every England in seven years. How could we good man, sincerely deplored? How, possibly avoid war, when France had de- then, could our ambassador be degraded? nounced destruction against all the kings But the right hon. gentleman allowed of Europe. We were forced, on princi- himself to be hurried away by his implaples of self-defence, into a confederacy cable hatred to the French, whom he had with all the sovereigns of Europe. I say, ingeniously described conquering every we are now engaged in actual war. The where, with the sword in one hand, and question consequently is-Will you tame- the Rights of Man in the other. He comly surrender yourselves to citizen Frost, mended the honourable testimony which and Paine? Forbid it, heaven! forbid it, Mr. Burke had given in favour of the justice! forbid it, humanity! Yield to English soldiers in America, who were traitors to their king? To a nation of now very generously presented with absomurderers? Stain the illustrious pages of lution. A recantation of past errors was our history with such profanation and im- an act of magnanimity. Could he, howpiety? May God, in his infinite mercy, ever, forget his conduct during the Ameadd vigour to our arm, and enable us to rican war? Could he forget his prayers check the encroachments of those mon- for the success of the American arms? sters of society!-Mr. Burke concluded Could he forget his enthusiasm in favour a very eloquent but desultory speech with of republicanism? Was his memory so reading, from a slip of paper, a declara- frail and fleeting, that he could not retion, which he wished to be avowed as the member how he wept over the fate of grounds of the conduct of the executive the rebel Montgomery-how he exulted power, in order that the people of Eng- at the victories of the rebel Washington? land might know, that, if there must be a Was it so treacherous, that he could not war, it had arisen from the proceedings of remember his complaint against the imthose among themselves, who, by their se-prisonment in the tower of Mr. Laurens, ditious practices, had provoked it; and that a war with France was necessary for the security of the liberties of England, the interests of Europe, and the happiness of mankind.

the chief magistrate of the greatest republic in the world? But success changed the opinions of men. Dr. Franklin's crimes, as we had now been told by the right hon. gentlemen, were pardoned by the recogniMr. Courtenay said, that he had learnt, tion of American independence: and perfrom the speech of the right hon. gentle haps he, or some other orator, equally man who spoke last, three points of mate- ingenious would boldly affirm, that the rial importance, which he should otherwise murderers of Paris were pardoned by the never have conceived: 1st, that we were recognition of the French republic! Mr. at war with France; 2dly, that to send an Courtenay confessed that he had not been ambassador to that country would be sueing in France "in the days of chivalry." for peace; and 3dly, that we ought to make He had not seen seventeen years ago war, in order to exterminate the French" delightful visions" in that country. But metaphysicians. The right hon. gentle- he had been there a short time since, man, however, had proceeded to a greater when he saw sights that would have "creextent, having damned all Frenchmen to ated a soul under the ribs of death." He

might travel the remainder of his journey with alacrity. Talk of a republican government, suddenly his magic lantern appears, and he produces Paine, Frost, Marat, Robespierre, &c. dancing in merry confusion. He sports till he himself is sickened; and till the most jocose become serious. Thus (said Mr. Courtenay) have I delivered my sentiments on the present state of affairs. They exactly correspond with those of my right hon. friend (Mr. Fox.) While I live and breathe I will maintain these opinions. I know the public and private virtues of my right hon. friend; and whenever I separate from him, I shall consider that day the most degraded of my life.

Sir James Murray opposed the motion. He agreed that nothing could justify a war but the most urgent necessity; but if such necessity should be found to exist, he was decidedly of opinion we had every thing to hope for. To prove this position he took a view of the powers of Europe, as they stood affected towards France, and contended that we must receive their assistance in any struggles we might unhappily be drawn into. He defended the duke of Brunswick, and assured the House, from his own personal knowledge, that no acts of cruelty were exercised by the Austrians, in their irruption into France, and that the manifesto that had given so much offence was merely intended to terrify the inhabitants into a submission, and at most could only be called bullying.

had seen fathers devoting their sons, wives | their husbands, mothers their children, to the service of their country. If there were men to whom this sight would not be grateful, those men were not objects of his envy. Indeed he felt sorrowful in the extreme, when he read the audacious, the unprincipled, the shocking manifestoes of the duke of Brunswick; but that sorrow was changed to rapture when, a short time subsequent to the publication of the late manifesto, the duke and his disciplined ruffians were driven disgracefully out of France. He rejoiced at the subsequent successes of the French. Their glorious expedition in Brabant-their liberation of Flanders. He had lived to see the genius of liberty inspire the French with a portion of noble ardour which the slaves of despots found irresistible-to see the duke of Brunswick's disciplined ruffians fly before republican energy, to hear of the battle of Jemappe, when the fighting machines of aristocracy retired with disgrace, and left the field to freemen, emulous of true glory. These were the men whom the right hon. gentleman had reviled; these were the men against whom, to increase the blessings of our constitution, he urged us to wage war. Were we become so senseless, so petrified, so deadened to justice and humanity, as to listen for a moment to such pernicious sophistry? The proclamation, which, no doubt, was very well intended, has been productive of two mobs only-those of Birmingham and Manchester who both bellowed the favorite cry of "Church and King!" minis- Mr. Sheridan said, that never since he ters had certainly acted in a bungling had sat in parliament had he heard a manner. Before this time, there ought to question so perversely argued, or the have been church and king mobs all over mover of it so unjustly treated. This the kingdom. Where were the insurrec- compelled him to trespass on the indultions said to be against the constitution? gence of the House, late as the hour was, When the tree of liberty was expected, and he must be excused for paying no according to the ministerial report, to be respect whatever to the observation of a planted on Kennington-common, the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Burke), that it troops were almost starved, waiting for was improper to bring forward these disthe insurrection. This reminded him of cussions in the absense of his majesty's a story of lord Craven, in the time of first minister. This was a tender respect Charles the 2nd. His lordship was always to the dignity of office in that right hon. present at fires. A house being burnt in gentleman; but he must be permitted to the city, the king asked if lord Craven say, that the representation of the counwas there, "Oh yes," exclaimed a cour-try was indeed placed in a degraded light, tier," he was there waiting for the fire three hours before it broke out." Mr. Burke, he said, was the dupe of his imagination. If France was only hinted at, the right hon. gentleman immediately yielded to his favourite passion. Off he dashed, with some whipping and spurring, that he

if it was to be maintained that the great council of the nation was not in this momentous crisis a court competent to discuss the dearest interests of the people, unless the presence of a certain minister of the crown sanctioned their deliberations. But on what ground did they regret the

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absence of the treasury leader? Had there appeared any want of numbers or ability on the bench opposite to compensate for this loss? What exertion that he could have furnished had been unsupplied? Had there been any want of splendid and sonorous declamation to cover a meagreness of argument? Any want of virulence of invective to supply the place of proof in accusation? Any want of inflammatory appeals to the passions where reason and judgment were unsafe to be resorted to? Unquestionably in all these respects, the chancellor of the exchequer had not been missed. In one respect, indeed, they might be justified in regretting his absence. They had been pressed to prove the facts asserted in the king's speech, and in the proclamation. Not an atom of information could any present member of the government furnish; doubtless, therefore, the insurrection was a secret deposited in the breast of the chancellor of the exchequer, and he had taken in his pocket all the proofs of the plot to assist him in his re-election at Cambridge. His right hon. friend had recommended, that before we plunged into a war, and drew upon the treasure and blood of the people of Great Britain, we should try, if possible, to settle the matter in dispute by negociation, and show to the people that we had so tried. This his right hon. friend had recommended as a duty which we owed to our constituents, be the character and principles of the power with whom we are disputing what they may. Was it credible that a proposition of this nature should have been received with such heat? Reason and duty at any other time must have supported it. But the fact was, that the moment was unfortunate; the time was full of heat and irritation; natural and artifical government had thought it their interest to inflame this disposition. Intelligence was expected of a catastrophe in France, which all human hearts deprecated, and would equally deplore; in this temper, therefore, the public mind was worked up to a blind and furious hostility against France, and the dearest interests of our own country were to be risked at the call of a momentary enthusiasm, which, if not bottomed in sound policy and sound sense, was sure not to be lasting. Could there be a stronger proof of this temper, than the manner in

Mr. Burke, for the first time, took his seat this evening on the Treasury Bench.

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which a learned member (Mr. Grant) had supported his argument. The most successful passage in his able speech turned upon a passionate appeal to the pride and dignity of the English nation. He thought proper to assume, that any thing like negociation at present, would be a petition for mercy and forbearance from the French nation; and then he triumphantly exclaimed, " Draw your petition, and where is the man, with a British heart within his bosom, who will sign it?" What unfairness was this? Was there no mode between nations of demanding explanation for an injury given or meditated, but by petition? Did we petition the court of Spain in the affair of Nootka Sound? Did we petition France in the dispute respecting this very Holland in 1787 ? Or did the learned gentleman believe that, notwithstanding these instances, there was something so peculiarly meek, pliant, and bending in the character of the first minister, that it was quite impossible for him to assume a lofty tone or a haughty air for any purpose? The case of Russia, however, Mr. Sheridan ridiculed and excepted. To judge by that alone he admitted that the learned gentleman might be justified in apprehending that every menace of this government was to end in an act of meanness; that, whenever he saw the minister in the attitude of threat→ ening, he might expect to see him in the act of conceding; and that, if he armed it was in order to petition for mercy. Without this inference from the past conduct of administration, the general argument was idle, and all the proud acclamations it had produced were wholly thrown away.-Mr. Sheridan next adverted to the declaration of Mr. Windham that as he was of opinion that moral propriety prohibited our treating or having any intercourse with France, he had rather, if it ever took place, that it should be matter of necessity and not of choice. This he treated as a sentiment not consistent with the usual precision of understanding which characterized that hon. gentleman. It was admitted that some time or other we must treat with the French, for eternal war or the extirpation of the nation was not yet avowed by any one. Necessity, then, was to be looked to, to give us a moral excuse; and whence was that necessity to arrive? from defeat, from discomfiture, from shame and disgrace. Happy prospect to look to, which would excuse us as it did the duke of

overthrow of the French republic, and the extermination of all who had supported it. Was the House, was the country, ready to vote a war for such an object, and on such principles ?-We were told that we must not differ with the allied powers, with whom we were in future to co-operate. Were we, then, to make a common cause in the principles, and for the purposes for which these despots associated? Were the free and generous people of England ready to subscribe to the duke of Brunswick's manifesto? That hateful outrage on the rights and feelings of human nature, that wretched issue of impotent pride, folly and inhumanity, that proclamation which had steeled the heart and maddened the brain of all France, which had provoked those it had devoted to practise all the cruelties it had impotently threatened to inflict, which had sharpened the daggers of the assassins of the 2nd of September, which had whetted the axe now suspended over the unfortunate manarch was the nation ready to subscribe to this absurd and detestable rhapsody? One case alone had been sufficient to decide him as to the true spirit of the league

Saxe Teschen in his glorious retreat from the contamination of treating with this nation of robbers and murderers, as they are styled. Happy, dignified opportunity to treat, when we should be completely at their mercy. Unquestionably we should then be justified, and certainly we should be undone. But the hon. gentleman argued as if this case of necessity, through defeat, could alone justify us in negociating with such a foe. What! did he not perceive that an equal necessity might arise from our success? We went to war for a specific object-the minister avowed and explained that object. Admit that we are victorious and obtain it-is not the war to cease when the object of it is obtained? And if to cease, how but by some intercourse or agreement of some sort or other? Here there would be a situation in which negociation must arise, not from necessity and defeat, but from victory and justice; all nicety and strained morality, and meek dignity, therefore about the thing itself was trifling; and as to waiting that time might operate, he did not conceive that if that time was to be spent in war and blows, much advance would be made in the spirit of concilia tion. In stating the question this way, he argued, on the declared grounds which his majesty's speech and the ministers gave for the war; for if he were to argue on the ground on which the war was urged with such impassioned and popular eloquence by other gentlemen, in that case he must despair of ever seeing peace return to the earth. With them was the motive to keep faith with our allies? Was the object to preserve Holland? Or to resent the incendiary decree of the national convention? Nothing like it through all their speeches! They scarcely deigned to mention such little and limited purposes. No: their declared object was to avenge all the outrages which have been committed in France; to reinstate, if possible, all that has been overthrown; to exterminate the principles and the people who preach the principles which they reprobate. As Philip demanded the orators of Athens to be delivered up to him as his most formidable enemies, these gentlemen must have all the democratic metaphysicians of France extirpated, or they cannot sleep in their beds. In short, the whole bearing of the arguments and instigations they used to rouse the House to hostility, went to advise a war which never was to cease, but with the total

the brutal rigour with which La Fayette had been treated; whatever else he was,he was a brave man, and he was in their power. The use they had made of that power sufficiently showed how they would have treated others, whom they might well consider as entitled to ten-fold enmity. Mr. Sheridan proceeded to reprobate the idea of Great Britain engaging in the war on the principles of the allies. The question was not merely whether we should go to war or not, but on what principles, to what end, and pledged to what confe deracy we should go to war. For his part, he had declared, that, if war must be, the defence of the country and its constitution would be the single consideration in his mind; and for that purpose he would support the executive government, in whatever hands his majesty placed it. But in this declaration he referred to a war undertaken on the neces sity, and directed to the objects stated by his majesty and his ministers. He did not refer to the crusade of chastisement and vengeance, which the zeal of some gentlemen recommended, and the clamour of the House seemed so ready to adopt. He would never consent that one Eng lish guinea should be spent, or one drop of British blood be shed, to restore the antient despotism of France, that bitter

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