EAST INDIA DECLARATORY ACT. THE most considerable legislative measure of the present session, related to a controversy which had arisen between the board of control and the East India company. At the moment of the general alarm excited by the affairs of Holland, government proposed to the directors, to send out four regiments of the king's troops, as a reinforcement to the army in India, upon condition that the whole expense was defrayed by the company. This proposal was at first partly accepted, but the rumour of war having speedily subsided, the matter was reconsidered by the board of direction and finally rejected. They contended, that lord North's bill of 1781 expressly provided, that the company should pay only for such troops as by their requisition should be sent to India; and the opinion of different eminent lawyers who had been consulted on the subject, appeared perfectly to coincide with that of the directors. Part of the troops however company refusing to admit them on board their ships, the minister, to extricate himself from this perplexing dilemma, introduced into parliament his famous declaratory act, to show that his own India bill of 1784 had vested in the board of control, and not in the directors, the supreme power of determining the propriety of every such measure. The declaratory bill met with a most formidable opposition in parliament. Colonel Barre protested that he had from the first discerned the traces of a system of Indian patronage, of which he believed the bill under discussion to be a great advance to the final completion; and if it should be suffered to pass, a fatal stab would be given to the constitution. The question of commitment was carried by a majority of fifty-seven voices only; and on being carried into the house of lords it experienced a second opposition not less violent than the first. It passed at length, accompanied with a protest signed by sixteen peers, in which the declaratory bill was reprobated as friendly to corrupt intrigue and cabal-hostile to all good government and abhorrent to the principles of our constitution. TRIAL OF HASTINGS. 1788. In the early part of the session, Hastings had delivered in his answer to the impeachment of the commons, who immediately appointed a committee of managers to make good the same, and the trial commenced on the fifteenth of February 1788 in Westminster hall, which was fitted up for the purpose with great magnificence. Burke was four days in making his preliminary speech, which was filled with vehement invective, with much rhetorical exaggeration, and with matter almost wholly extraneous to the subject of the impeachment. The friends of Burke extolled this speech as a more than Ciceronian effort of eloquence; but the public considered it injudicious, extravagant, and bombastical. On the twenty second of February, the Benares charge was opened by Fox; and concluded on the twenty-fifth by Gray, member for Northumberland, a gentleman whose talents at a very early period of life attracted in an eminent degree the attention of the house. On the fifteenth of April the charge relative to the Begums of Oude was brought forward by Adam, and the evidence on this charge was summed up by Sheridan with transcendent ability. BILL TO REGULATE THE SLAVE TRADE. THE last business of importance which engaged the attention of parliament, was a bill to regulate the transportation of slaves from the coast of Africa to the West Indies. This bill, which was intended merely to establish a certain reasonable proportion between the number of the slaves and tonnage of the ships, was violently and obstinately opposed by petitions from the merchants of London and Liverpool, concerned in the African trade. Counsel being therefore engaged and witnesses examined, it appeared in evidence at the bar of the house, that the slaves had not, as was emphatically stated, when stowed together, so much room as a man in his coffin, either in length or breadth. They drew their breath with laborious and painful efforts, and many unable to support the struggle died of suffocation. The customary mortality of the voyage exceeded seventeen times the usual estimate of human life. A slave ship, when full fraught with this cargo of wretchedness and abomination, exhibited at once the extremes of human depravity and human misery. In reviewing this superlatively wicked and detestable traffic, Pitt with indignant eloquence declared, "that if, as had been asserted by the members of Liverpool, the trade could not be carried on in any other manner, he would retract what he had said on a former day, and waving every farther discussion, give his instant vote for the annihilation of a traffic thus shocking to humanity. He trusted that the house being now in possession of such evidence as was never before exhibited, would endeavour to extricate themselves from the guilt and remorse which every man ought to feel for having so long over-looked such cruelty and oppression." The bill was carried up June the eighteenth to the house of lords, where it was fated to encounter the deter. mined opposition of lord Thurlow, the duke of Chandos, and lord Sidney. The bill however had a number of friends, and to the honour of parliament, the nation, and human nature, finally passed by a cousiderable majority. The king put an end to the session July the eleventh, by a speech from the throne, in which he complimented the two houses on their attention and liberality. "His faithful subjects had every reason," as he affirmed, “to expect the continuance of the blessings of peace, and the engagements which he had recently formed with the king of Prussia and the States-general of the united provinces would, he trusted, promote the security and welfare of his own dominions, and contribute to the general tranquillity of Europe." of the committee was laid upon the table of the house of commons on the tenth of December, wheu a motion was made by Pitt, for the appointment of another committee to inspect the journals for precedents. "With respect to precedents, there were," said Fox, "notoriously none which applied to the present instance; and he affirmed, that all that was requisite to their ultimate decision had been obtained by the report now lying upon their table. By that report they had ascertained the incapacity of the sovereign: and he advanced as a proposition deducible from the principles of the constitution, and the analogy of the law of hereditary succession, that whenever the sovereign was incapable of exercising the functions of his high office, the heir apparent, if of full age and capacity, had as indisputable a claim to the exercise of the executive authority, in the name and on the behalf of the sovereign, during his incapacity, as in the case of his natural demise." Pitt immediately, with much apparent warmth, declared, "that the assertion which had been made by Fox was little short of treason against the constitution; and he pledged himself to prove, that the heir apparent in the instance in question, had no more right to the exercise of the executive power than any other person; and that it belonged entirely to the two remaining branches of the legis lature, to make such a provision for supplying the temporary deficiency as they might think proper. To assert an inherent right in the prince of Wales to assume the government, was virtually to revive those exploded ideas of the divine and indefeasible authority of princes, which had so justly sunk into contempt, and almost into oblivion. Kings and princes derive their power from the people, and to the people alone, through the organ of their representatives, did it appertain to decide in cases for which the constitution had made no specific or positive provision." Thus was this famous political question at issue between these two great political rivals; in which it was remarkable that Fox, the steady, uniform, and powerful advocate of the people, appeared to lean to prerogative; and Pitt, who had been loudly and justly accused of deserting the principles of liberty, stood forth their intrepid and zealous asserter. All those popular arguments and primary axioms of government, on which the friends of freedom delight to dwell, were upon this occasion urged by Pitt with energy and eloquence. If he was sincere on this occasion, his sentiments, as will ap pear in the sequel, afterwards underwent an entire revolution. The motion of Pitt for a committee to examine precedents being carried in the commons, a similar motion was the next day made by lord Camden in the house of peers, and the doctrine of Fox reprobated by his lordship with great severity. It was on the other hand defended with much ability by lord Loughborough and lord Stormont; the latter of whom concluded his speech with recommending an immediate address to the prince of Wales, entreating him to assume the exercise of the royal authority. The discussion of the abstract question of right having afforded a great and unexpected advantage to the ministry, the duke of York, soon after this debate, in the name of the prince, expressed his wishes, "that the question might be waved. No claim of right," his highness said, " had been advanced by the prince of Wales; and he was confident that his brother too well understood the sacred principles which seated the house of Brunswick upon the throne, ever to assume or exercise any power, be his claim what it might, that was not derived from the will of the people expressed by their THE KING'S INDISPOSITION. SOON after the recess of parliament, the king, who had been for some time rather indisposed, was advised by his physicians to try the mineral waters of Cheltenham. His majesty accordingly took a journey to that place. His health appeared, during his residence there, greatly re-established; but soon after his arrival at Windsor, late in the summer, his illness returned with new and alarming symptoms. By the end of October, it could no longer be concealed that the malady of the king was of a nature peculiarly afflictive and dreadful. A mental derangement had taken place, which rendered him totally incapable of public business. The parliament stood prorogued to the twentieth of November. On the fourteenth of that month circular letters were addressed to the members of the legislature, signifying that the indisposition of the sovereign rendered it doubtful whether there would be a possibility of receiving his commands for the further prorogation of parliament. If not, in that case the two houses must of necessity assemble, and the attendance of the different members was earnestly requested. Parliament being accordingly assembled, the state of the king's health was formally notified to the house of peers by the lord chancellor, and to the commons by Mr. Pitt: and as the session of parliament could not be opened in the regular mode, an adjournment of fourteen days was recommended and adopted. Upon the re-assembling of parliament, December the fourth, a report of the board of privy council was presented to the two houses, containing an examination of the royal physicians; and it was sug-representatives." The duke of Gloucester confirmgested, that, considering the extreme delicacy of the subject and the person concerned, parliament would do well to rest satisfied without any more direct or express information, especially as the examinations of council had been taken upon oath, which the house of commons had no power to administer doubts, however, were started by Fox, Burke, and others of the same party, whether parliament could in this momentous case dispense with that sort of evidence on which they had been accustomed to proceed. As the minister's chief object was procrastination, the objection was too acceptable to be warmly contested, and therefore after a trifling debate, a committee of twenty one persons was appointed in each house to examine and report the sentiments of the royal physicians. The report ed the declaration of the duke of York. Lord Thurlow, who had at first consented to take a part in the regency administration, in the arrangement of which the post of lord president had been assigned to him, now varying the course of his policy, spoke with great energy of his "sentiments of affection towards the king. Nothing could be more disgraceful than to desert the sovereign in his distressed and helpless situation. His own debt of gratitude for favours received was ample, when he forgot his king, might God forget him." This pathetic and loyal exclamation, not being perhaps in perfect uni. son with the acceptance of a place in the new administration, it was rumoured to be the result of certain intimations which his lordship recently received of the happy and not very distant prospect of the king's recovery. This was however as yet a matter of anxious and doubtful speculation. On the sixteenth of December, the house being in a committee on the state of the nation, Pitt moved the two following declaratory resolutions; first, the interruption of the royal authority; and, second, that it was the duty of parliament to provide the means of supplying that defect. A vehement debate ensued, in the course of which Fox declared the principles of the minister to be, that the monarchy was indeed hereditary, but that the executive power ought to be elective.-"Where," said he, "is that famous dictum to be found by which the crown is guarded with inviolable sanctity, while its powers are left to the mercy of every assailant? The prince, it is asserted, has no more right than another person, and at the same time it is acknowledged that parliament is not at liberty to think of any other regent; and all this paradoxical absurdity for the paltry triumph of a vote over a political antagonist." The resolution was however, on a division, carried by two hundred and sixty-eight against two hundred and four voices. This great point being gained, the ministry proceeded without delay to convert it to their own advantage. A third resolution passed, on the twenty-third of December, empowering the chancellor of Great Britain to affix the great seal to such bill of limitations as might be necessary to restrict the power of the future regent. This mode of procedure was warmly opposed by lord North. "A person," said his lordship, "is to be set up without power or discretion, and this pageant, this fictitious being, is to give the force of a law to the decisions of the two houses. Was it ever before heard of, that there could be a power of giving assent without the power of refusing that assent? Would auy man seriously maintain that the third estate, thus conjured up, is really distinct from the other two?" 1789. On the second of January 1789, to complete the singularity and perplexity of the business, died Cornwall, speaker of the house of commons; and on the fifth the vacant chair was filled by Grenville, brother to lord Temple, and though there were a striking irregularity in entering upon the duties of his office without the previous sanction of royal approbation, yet in this season of novelties, a defect of this sort was scarcely noticed, amid the pressure of affairs so much more important. THE bill intended to carry into effect this wild and dangerous project, the offspring of party interest, and personal ambition, was brought into the house on the sixteenth of January 1789. Long and violent debates ensued; and in the house of lords, it was accompanied by a protest, signed by the duke of York, at the head of the princes of the blood, and fifty-five other peers, expressive of their highest indignation at the restrictions thus arbitrarily impos. ed on the executive authority. These extraordinary and unprecedented proceedings were at length, happily for the public, arrested in their progress by an intimation from the chancellor, that the king was declared by his physicians to be in a state of convalescence. This was followed by a declaration on the tenth of March, that his majesty being perfectly recovered from his indisposition, had ordered a commission to be issued for holding the parliament in the usual manner. The tidings of the king's recovery diffused the most general and heartfelt satisfaction. A national thanksgiving was appointed, and the king himself went in solemn procession to the cathedral of St. Paul's, to offer up to the Almighty his grateful devotions on this event. His recovery was also celebrated throughout the kingdom by splendid illuminations, and all the other accustomed demonstrations of joy. PARLIAMENT REGULARLY OPENED. SHOP TAX REPEALED-TEST AND COR- En ONE of the earliest topics that engaged the attention of parliament was the unpopular shop tax. Fox renewed his annual motion for its repeal, to which Pitt did not choose any longer to withhold his assent, though at the same time he affirmed he had heard nothing in the shape of argument which induced him to change his original opinion. couraged by the success of this application, Dempster immediately moved for the repeal of the hawker's and pedlar's tax. This, however, could not be obtained; but a bill passed to explain and amend the act, by which the more oppressive clauses were mitigated, and that friendless and injured class of persons restored in some measure to their civil and commercial rights. In consequence of some difference of opinion among the royal physicians respecting the state of his majesty's health, Loveden made a motion for a fresh committee to re-examine the physicians on the subject of the king's illuess, and the probability of recovery. This motion having been acceded to, gave rise to a second report, which left the house, with regard to the event, as much in the dark as ever, answering no other purpose than to create delay, of which the minister well knew the value and advantage. A letter was at length written to the prince of Wales by Pitt, informing his royal highness of the plan meant to be pursued: that the care of the king's person and the disposition of the royal household should be committed to the queen, who would by this means be vested with the patronage of four hundred places, amongst which were the great offices of lord steward, lord chamberlain, and the master of the horse. That the power of tho prince should not extend to the granting any office, reversion, or pension, for any other term than during the king's pleasure, nor to the conferring any peerage. The answer of the prince was firm, dig. nified, and temperate. He said, "it was with deep regret, that he perceived in the propositions of administration, a project for introducing weakness, disorder, and insecurity into every branch of politi-jurisdiction over opinions as such, and more parti cal business;-for separating the court from the state, and depriving government of its natural and accustomed support; a scheme for disconnecting authority to command service, from the power of animating it by reward; and for allotting to him all the invidious duties of the kingly station, withont the means of softening them to the public by any one act of grace, favour, or benignity." He observed, that the plea of public utility must be strong, manifest, and urgent, that could thus require the extinction or suspension of any of those essential rights in the supreme power or its representative, or which could justify the prince in consenting, that in his person an experiment should be made to ascertain with how small a portion of kingly power the executivo government of this country could be On the eighth of May, Beaufoy introduced the motion which he had two years before submitted to the house, for the repeal of the corporation and test acts. Fox supported the motion with uncommon force of argument. He laid it down as a primary axiom of policy, "that no human government had cularly over religious opinions. It had no right to presume that it knew them, and much less to act upon that presumption. When opinions were productive of acts injurious to society, the law knew how and where to apply the remedy. If the reverse of this doctrine were adopted, if the actions of men were to be prejudged from their opinions, it would sow the seeds of everlasting jealousy and distrust; it would give the most unlimited scope to the malignant passions; it would incite, each man to divine the opinions of his neighbour, to deduce mischievous consequences from them, and then to prove that he ought to incur disabilities, to be fettered with restrictions, to be harassed with penalties. From this intolerant principle had flowed every species of party zeal, every system of political per secution, every extravagance of religious hate. There were many men not of the establishment, to whose services their country had a claim. Surely a citizen of this description might be permitted without danger or absurdity to say-though I dissent from the church, I am a friend to the constitution; and on religious subjects I am entitled to think and act as I please. Ought the country to be deprived of the benefit she might derive from the talents of such men, and his majesty be prevented from dispensing the favours of the crown except to one description of his subjects? The test and corporation acts had subsisted, it was contended, for more than a century. True; but how had they subsisted? by repeated suspensions. For the indemnity bills were, literally speaking, annual acts. Where then would be the impropriety of suspending them for ever by an act of perpetual operation? Let not Great Britain be the last to avail herself of the general improvement of the human understanding. Indulgence to other sects, a caudid respect for their opinions, a desire to promote charity and good will, were the best proofs that any religion could give of its divine origin." Pitt in an artificial harangue delivered with a great external show of candour, and decorated with a speciousness of language, opposed the motion. On a division this important question was lost by a majority of only twenty voices. MOTION FOR THE ABOLITION OF THE WILBERFORCE, at an advanced period of the session, brought forward his long expected motion, relating to the abolition of the African slave trade, which was now become the theme of public execra tion. Lord Penryu asserted, in the course of this debate," that to his knowledge, the planters were now willing to assent to any regulation of the trade, short of its abolition." In reply to this remark, Fox, with great animation declared, "that he knew of no such thing, as a 'regulation of robbery, and re. striction of murder.' There was no medium : the legislature must either abolish the trade, or plead guilty to all the iniquity with which it was attended. This was a traffic which no government could authorise, without participation in the infamy." Evidence being heard at the bar of the house for several successive weeks, it was at length on the twenty-third of June, moved by alderman Newn. ham," that the farther consideration of the subject be deferred to the next session," which was accordingly carried. The session was terminated August the eleventh 1789, by a speech from the lord chancellor in the name of the sovereign. 207 CHAPTER XXI. Meeting of Parliament― Burke's first Phillippic against France-The Sentiments of Fox and Sheridan on the same Subject-Opposition to the Motion for Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts-A Reform in Parliament moved by Mr. Flood-and withdrawn-State of Settlements in India-Royal Blessage announces a Rupture with Spain-The Dispute settled, and a Convention signed-War commenced in India-To defray the Expenses of the Spanish Armament the Minister proposes seizing the unclaimed Dividends in the Bank-Violently opposed-Compromised-Question whether Impeach ments abate or not by a Dissolution of Parliament-Bill in Favour of the Catholics passed-Bill for settling the Rights of Juries in Cases of Libel-The Slave Trade-The Establishment of the Sierra Leona Company-Bill for the better Government of Canada-Burke's Invective against the French Revolution-Answered by Fox-Terminates in a Breach of Friendship-Rupture with Russia -Grounds of the Quarrel-The French Revolution divides the Nation into Parties-Birmingham thrown into a Ferment by an inflammatory and seditious Hand-bill-Dr. Priestley's House, &c. destroyed. MEETING OF PARLIAMENT-BURKE'S PHILLIPPIC AGAINST FRANCE. WHILE the summer of the year 1789 passed settled doubtful questions; we corrected anomalies away in England without producing any memorable transaction, it proved a period fruitful of commotion on the continent, and will be distinguished to the latest posterity as the epoch of the French revolution. 1790. The parliament elected in 1784, met for its last session on the twenty first of January 1790. In the speech from the throne, his majesty slightly glanced at the affairs of France, by observing, that the internal situation of the different parts of Europe had been productive of events which had engaged his most serious attention." Lord Valletort, in moving the address, took occasion to contrast the tranquil and prosperous situation of England with the anarchy and licentiousness of France, and to stigmatize the revolution in that country as an event the most disastrous and fatal to the interests of the French which had ever taken place since the foundation of their monarchy. This language was highly applauded by the old prerogativo phalanx, and was a tolerable indication of the light in which the recent transactions in France were viewed by the British court. The subject was resumed upon the debate which took place on February the ninth relative to the army estimates. Mr. Burke observed, "that on a review of all Europe, he did not find that politically we stood in the smallest degree of danger from any one state or kingdom it contained, nor that any foreign powers, but our own allies, were likely to gain a preponderance in the scale. The French had shown themselves the ablest architects of ruin that had hitherto appeared in the world. In one short summer they had completely pulled down their monarchy, their church, their nobility, their law, their army, and their revenue. absolute conquerors, and France to lie prostrate at Were we our feet, we should blush to impose upon them terms so destructive to all their consequence as a nation, as the durance they had imposed upon themselves. Our present danger, from the example of a people whose character knows no medium, is, with regard to government, a danger from licen. tious violence-a danger of being led from admiration to imitation of the excesses of an unprincipled, plundering, ferocious, bloody, and tyrannical democracy of a people whose government is anarchy, and whose religion is atheism. He declared he felt great concern that this strange thing, called a revolution in France, should be compared with the glorious event commonly called the revolution in England. In truth, the circumstances of our revolution, as it is called, and that of France, are just the reverse of each other in almost every particular, and in the whole spirit of the transaction. What we did was, in truth and substance, not a revolution made, but prevented. We took solid securities; we constitution we made no revolution ;-no, nor any in our law. In the stable fundamental parts of our alteration at all. We did not impair the monarchy. The nation kept the same ranks, the same subordilaw, the revenue, and the magistracy; the same nations, the same franchises; the same order in the lords, the same commons, the same corporations, the same electors. The church was not impaired. Her estates, her majesty, her splendour, her orders and gradations continued the same. served in her full efficiency, and cleared only of She was prethat intolerance which was her weakness and diswas not made in her constitution? No-every thing grace. Was little done then, because a revolution was done; because we commenced with reparation, not with ruin. The state flourished; Great Britain energies of the country were awakened, and a new rose above the standard of her former self. All the not only unimpaired, but receiving growth and imera of prosperity commenced, which still continues, provement under the wasting hand of time.” SENTIMENTS OF FOX AND SHERIDAN. MR. Fox, notwithstanding his personal regard justice to the rectitude and dignity of his own chaand friendship for Burke, thought it necessary, in racter, to declare "his total dissent from opinions which he was grieved to hear from the lips of a so hostile to the general principles of liberty; and cepts he had been taught, by whose example he man whom he loved and revered-by whose prehad been animated to engage in their defence. He vindicated the conduct of the French army, in refusing to act against their fellow citizens from the asabetting an abominable sedition by mutiny and depersions of Burke, who had charged them with sertion; declaring, that if he could view a standing before, it was owing to the noble spirit manifested military force with less constitutional jealousy than had proved that they did not forfeit their cha by the French army; who on becoming soldiers, struments of a despot. The scenes of bloodshed and racter as citizens, and would not act as the mere incruelty that had been acted in France, no man," said Fox, "could hear of without lamenting. But when the grievous tyranny that the people had so long groaned under was considered, the excesses they had committed in their efforts to shake off the yoke could not excite our astonishment so much as our regret. And as to the contrast Burke had ex. volutions of England and France were conducted, hibited, respecting the mode in which the two reit must be remembered, that the situation of the |