India, which will not blefs the prefiding care and manly beneficence of this houfe, and of him who propofes to you this great work. Your names will never be feparated before the throne of the Divine Goodness, in whatever language, or with whatever rites, pardon is afked for fin, and reward for thofe who imitate the Godhead in his univerfal bounty to his creatures, Thefe honours you deferve, and they will furely be paid, when all the jargon of influence, and party, and patronage, are fwept into oblivion."

Mr. BURKE Confeffed that this panegyric was " the fruit of much meditation,---the refult of the obfervation of near twenty years." What then must we think of his fentiments and conduct, who, a few years after, could carry about with him, under the robe of friendship, a poifoned dagger, and aim a deadly stab in the dark at the character of the patriot and philanthropist whom he had fo highly and fo defervedly praifed? With what abhorrence must we contraft with thofe eulogies the fatanic epiftle to the duke of PORTLAND,---that unparalleled effufion of flander, deceit, bafenefs, and malignity; which, as it ftands without precedent, fo we hope, for the honour of human nature, it will for ever remain without imitation!

The fate of Mr. Fox's India bill is well known. It baffled all. the efforts of intrigue, corruption, court influence, mifrepresen-tation, and artifice, in the houfe of commons: but it was arrested in its progrefs through the houfe of lords by means the most extraordinary, and the moft oppofite to the fpirit of the British conftitution. Cards were fent to fome members of the upper houfe, ftating, "that his majefty allowed earl TEMPLE to fay, that whoever voted for the India bill was not only not his friend, but would be considered by him as his enemy. And if these were not ftrong enough, earl TEMPLE might use whatever words he might

deem.

deem stronger or more to the purpofe." It is impoffible to reprobate with fufficient feverity fo daring a libel on the king,---so grofs an infult on the ancient and characteristic independence of the British peerage,---fo flagrant an abufe of the royal name to bias the deliberations of the fenate,---such a bare-faced attempt to make his majefty's alledged opinion a rule for directing the votes of those who fhould only attend to their confciences and conviction, or rather to make the voice of parliament the mere mechanical echo of a back-ftairs mandate !---The meffage, however, had the defigned effect; and a bill framed for the happiness of thirty millions of our fellow-creatures, was, to use Mr. Fox's bold figure, ftrangled in the very moment of expected fuccefs and triumph by an infamous ftring of bedchamber janiffaries. The motion for its rejection, on the 17th of December, was carried by a majority of 95 against 76. At midnight on the 18th a fpecial meffenger was fent to the fecretaries of ftate, with an order in the king's name to render up the feals of their offices, and mentioning at the fame time that it was the royal pleasure they should be delivered to him by the under-fecretaries, as a personal interview would be difagreeable. A fimilar order was fent to the commiffioners of the great feal; and early the next morning letters of difmiflion, figned "TEMPLE," were fent to the other members of the cabinet. Lord SHELBURNE was left out of the new arrangement, and Mr. PITT was declared firft lord of the treafury and chancellor of the exchequer. To complete the revolution thus brought about by the cabal, after a series of struggles between Mr. Fox's majority in the houfe of commons and those reptiles, as he called them, that burrowed under the throne, parliament was diffolved on the twenty-fifth of March 178, and a new one convened to meet on the eighteenth of May.

So

So widely diffused was the fpirit of delufion at that time, so fuccessful were the efforts of fallacy and imposture, that the elections in most parts of the kingdom were highly flattering to the new ministry, and enabled them to affume a tone of triumph in the fpeech from the throne. Much fatisfaction was expreffed at meeting parliament, after having recurred in fo important a moment to the sense of the people :---his majesty entertained a juft and confident reliance, that the affembly before him was animated with the fame fentiments of loyalty, and the fame attachment to the conftitution, which had been fo fully manifefted in every part of the kingdom:---and, towards the clofe of the fpeech, the king was faid to have no with but to confult the profperity of his people, by a conitant attention to every object of national concern, by an uniform adherence to the true principles of our free conftitution, and by fupporting and maintaining in their just balance the rights and privileges of every branch of the legislature. An address reverberating those fentiments, and thanking his majefty for the late diffolution, was carried by a majority of 282 againit 114.

Though fuch a divifion too clearly demonftrated the weakness of the oppofition, in point of numbers, to leave any hope of fuccefs in a renewed conteft on the fame fubject, yet Mr. BURKE gave notice, a few days after, that he fhould bring forward a propofition upon the king's fpeech and addrefs on the Wednesday fe'ennight following. He deferred it till the fourteenth of June, when, without having previously confulted any of his party, he laid his fentiments before the houfe in the form of ftrictures, and introduced them with a speech on the propriety of re-confidering the late proceedings. "A parliament," he faid, "had been fenenced, condemned, and executed, and no notice had yet been

taken

taken of so great and extraordinary an event! If the meanest fubject in the land had died fuddenly, or by violent means, an inqueft would have taken cognizance of the cafe, and inquired into the causes of his death; but the parliament of Great Britain had been put to a violent death, and no coroner had yet held an inqueft on the body! No inquiry had been made whether it had been felo de fe, or jure cafus! Did the people then think the sudden death of parliament was a subject too trifling for inquiry? Or did they think that all which might have been apprehended from fuch a death, had perished with the parliament? He feared, alas! that the fatal confequence of it would long furvive it, and be entailed on future parliaments! * * * * If the measures of the late parliament were unconftitutional, they ought to be condemned and cenfured: if, on the other hand, they were strictly constitutional, it was the more incumbent on the present house to defend and maintain them, as the last house was faid to have been put to death for having fupported them."

After thefe and fome other prefatory remarks, Mr. BURKE moved his ftring of reprefentations to the throne, from which we fhall felect a few, containing the most important facts, or fuch incontrovertible principles as fhould never be loft fight of by the reprefentatives of the people, but which Mr. BURKE feemed unhappily to have forgotten before the clofe of his pub

lic career.

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Neceffary reformations may hereafter require, as they have frequently done in former times, limitations, and abridgments, and, in fome cafes, an entire extinction of fome branch of prerogative.

"Whatever, by the manifeftation of the royal difpleafure, tends to intimidate individual members from proposing, or the

houfe

houfe from receiving, debating, and paffing bills, tends to prevent even the beginning of every reformation in the state, and utterly deftroys the deliberative capacity of parliament.

"It is a crooked and defperate defign, leading to mischief, the extent of which no human wifdom can forefee, to attempt to form a prerogative party in the nation, to be reforted to as occasion shall require, in derogation from the authority of the commons of Great Britain in parliament affembled: it is a contrivance full of danger, for minifters to fet up the representative and constituent bodies of the commons of this kingdom as two separate and distinct powers, formed to counterpoise each other, leaving the preference in the hands of fecret advisers of the

crown.

"It is fit that minifters fhould yield to parliament, and not that parliament fhould be new modelled until it is fitted to their purposes. *** It is the deference fhewn to the opinion of the commons, when they diffent from the fervants of the crown, which alone can give authority to the proceedings of the house, when it concurs with their measures.

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During the course of the last feffion a fpirit of intrigue in the executive government broke out in a manner the most alarming. This evil was infinitely aggravated by the unauthorized, but not difavowed ufe which has been made of his majesty's name, for the purpose of the most unconstitutional, corrupt, and dishonourable influence on the minds of the members of parliament, that ever was practifed in this kingdom. No attention, even to the exterior decorum, in the practice of corruption, and intimidation employed on peers, was observed; feveral peers were obliged under menaces to retract their declarations, and to recall their proxies.