ty, ought to be made fubject to martial law, moved, as an amendmeut, to leave out the words "commiffioned and," in order to make room for words more fuitable to his view of the fubject.

The Secretary at War thought it fufficient merely to reftate former arguments against the amendment, which had been urged with fuccefs. Brevet commiffion was a new term; he knew of no diftinctions in commiffions, and therefore, as the commiffion always governed the cafe, and no other circumftance, he would not trouble the house any farther than to give the proposed amendment his negative.

Sir Charles Gould faid, that as to brevet commiffions, it was quite a novelty in terms, though what the right honourable gen.leman had remarked was by no means a novel argument. In difcuffing the matter, Sir Charles referred to the cafe of Lord George Sackville, General Rofs, and others, and mentioned how the mutiny act had flood during Queen Anne's wars. Mr. Adam, who had been council for General Rofs, ftated the particular circumstances which attended his court martial, from whence he deduced an inference, that the opinion of Colonel Fitzpatrick muft have been the opinion of military men when General Rofs was brought to a court martial. He therefore contended that his right honourable friend's amendment ought to pass.

On the queflion being put, the houfe divided;

Ayes, 70; Noes, 24. Mr. Fox moved, that the Livery Stable keepers in Westminster, should be exempted from having foldiers lodged on them; but on the question being put, it was negatived.

Friday, 11th March.

The order of the day for refuming the adjourned Committee on the corn bill, having been moved and read,

upon the claufe for erecting warehoufes for the reception of foreign corn, to fupply the country in times of scarcity,

Lord Sheffield declared, he never rofe to oppose any claufe that had been in his time offered to parliament, with more hearty good will, than he did to object to that now before the Committee. He faid, every man in the leaft acquainted with this island, is informed that the western and north-western parts are full of inhabitants and manufactures, and that in proportion to the inhabitants, thofe parts raife little or no great quantities. It has been the policy of this country to prevent exportation of corn from the fouthern and eastern parts, except when the price was moderate; and the western and northwestern parts were the great marketa of thofe counties that grew large quantitiesof corn. Under this fyf tem, the country and the corn trade had flourished a great number of years.

The mischief of warehoufing foreign corn at all times, in almost all the ports of the kingdom, fhould be obvious to every man. Every country in the world may warehouse their corn in our ports, in readiness to be poured into the country the moment the ports are opened, either through fraudulent practices in the districts, or through the want of perhaps not the 500th part of our confumption. When once open, the port is to continue open for three months. means of our canals, the country may immediately be glutted with foreign corn, before the countries which produce corn can fend it coaftwife to the ports which are thus opened, and the farmer muft fell his wheat at 438. per quarter to enable it to meet foreign wheat in our ports, as all the expences of carrying coaftwife will, in general, amount to at least 5s per quarter.

By

It is hardly neceffary to point out how ruipous fuch a fyftem must be to tillage, and that the farmer will cer

tainly turn his ploughed land into pafture, if the home market is to be foreftalled by magazines of corn from cheap countries, raifed, perhaps, at half the expence at which it can be raised in this country. Every thing proceeding from pafture was allowed to obtain its full value, while the price of corn is limited, by the importation at low prices, to that it was one hundred years ago. Dependance on foreign countries for fubfiftence, and frequent dearths, if not famines, and alfo depopulation, would be the certain confequences of a dereliction of tillage; and in many counties, now well mhabited, would be feen only a few herdímen and fhepherds.

He added, that magazines, at the public expence, for foreign corn, were perfectly unneceffary in any view, especially as Ireland was now capable of fupplying the utmost quantity that had been imported into this country in one year. He obferved, that a fcarcity, much less a famine, does not happen on a fudden, and that the magazines of the great cities of Holland were near at hand, and that we had never wanted any nearer. He therefore moved, "That all that part of the bill relating to warehousing foreign corn, fhould be omitted." The Committee divided,

against any part of the bill did not obtain the leaft attention, he should move at a proper time for a call of the house.

The clause was opposed by Mr. Duncombe, Mr. Powys, Mr. Harrifon, and feveral other gentlemen, as injurious to the agriculture of the country, highly detrimental to the landed intereft, likely to raise instead of lowering the price of corn, and to render this country dependant upon others for a fupply.

Other gentlemen contended for the claufe as likely to promote agriculture, by rendering the price of grain lefs variable; and accounted for the increafe of the importation of wheat, by the increase of population and luxury,

A divifion took place,
Ayes
Noes

55

67

Tuesday, 15th March.

The order of the day being read, for the fecond reading of the bill for applying to the public fervice the fum of 500,000l. out of the balance remaining in the Bank of England from fums iffued for the payment of divi dends, on account of the national debt, and for fecuring the punctual payment of any arrears of dividends, whenever the fame fhall be demanded;

A petition of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England was prefented to the house, by Mr. Thornton, and read; taking notice of the faid bill; and fetting forth, that, in the faid bill, after reciting that, in purfuance of fundry act of parliament, certain annuities and dividends are regularly iffued at the receipt of his Majefty's Exchequer, at the end of cach quarter of the year, to the cashier of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, by way of impreft, and on account, for payment thereof to the respective creditors of the public, and that, by reafon of the delays which take place

before

before fome of the faid dividends are demanded by the respective proprietors thereof, a large balance has been gradually accumulating in the Bank of England, which balance amounted, on the 8th day of January 1791, to the fum of 702,9951. 8s. 3d. and that a balance to a fmaller amount would be sufficient to fecure the punctual payment of all arrears of fuch annuities or dividends at the Bank of England, as the fame fhall be claimed, and that it is just and reasonable that fuch portion thereof as is at prefent ufelefs to the public and to the proprietors, should be applied to public purposes, it is propofed to be enact ed, that the Governor and Company of the Bank of England fhall, out of any monies which fhall have been if fued at the receipt of the Exchequer for the payment of any annuities or dividends, payable at the Bank of England by virtue of an act or acts of parliament, and which fhall have become due previous to the 5th day of January, 1791, pay, or caufe to be paid, into the receipt of his Majefly's Exchequer, the receipt of 500,000l. and that the petitioners beg leave to reprefent, that the money, which is thus proposed to be taken from them, is private property, of which they are in poffeffion on account, and for the benefit of thofe to whom the fame belongs; and the petitioners are apprehenfive that, if they were to be filent during the progrefs through parliament of a bill which appears to them of fo novel and extraordinary a nature, and fo repugnant to the rights of thofe with whofe property the petitioners are entrufted, and to whofe interefts, without being negligent, they cannot be indifferent, they might be deemed to afquiefce in the propriety and juftice of it; and as the petitioners conceived that any step to be taken by them for the purpofe of affembling the numerous perfons in every clafs and condition of life who are interested in the public funds, and collecting their fentiments, might be

productive of great alarm, and per haps occafion public disturbances, the petitioners have been induced to acquit themselves of their duty, in the discharge of a great and important truft, by preferring a plain and faithful reprefentation to this house of the ferious confequences to the public creditors with which the petitioners are fearful this measure is pregnant. The acts of parliament granting to the contributors to the public loans the annuities which are the confideration paid by the public for the money obtained from fuch contributors for the public fervice, and conftituting all the government funds payable at the Bank, and the evidences of a folemn and hitherto inviolable contract between the public and the public creditors, and uniformly contain, for the benefit and convenience of the latter, a ftipulation, on the part of the public, to the following effect: That, for the more eafy and fure payment of all the annuities, the Governor and Company of the Bank of England fhall, until all the faid annuities fhall be redeemed, appoint one or more fufficient perfon or perfons to be their chief cafhier or cashiers, and one other fufficient perfon to be their accountant-general, and that fo much of the monies by this act appropriated for this purpose, as fhall be fufficient, from time to time, to anfwer the faid annuities, fhall, by order of the Commiffioners of the Treafury, without any further or other warrant to be fued for in that behalf, from time to time, and at the refpective days of payment in this act appointed for payment thereof, be iffued and paid, at the faid receipt of the Exchequer, to the faid first cashier of the Bank, by way of impreft, and upon account, for the payment of the faid annuities, and that fuch cahier fhall, without delay, pay the fame accordingly, and render his accounts thereof according to the due courfe of the Exchequer; and, by a fubfequent clause it is enacted, that the Bank fhall be continued a

Cor

Corporation for the purposes of the faid act, until all the annuities fhall be redeemed, notwithstanding the redemption of all or any of their own funds: By the acts of parliament from which what precedes has been extracted, and which affure to the public creditors their refpective annuities in return for the money contributed by them to the public fervice, not in obedience to a law, but upon the faith of a public compact, the Legiflature, one of the parties to a contract of borrowing and lending, has exprefsly ftipulated with thofe whofe money the public have the benefit of that, for their more eafy and fure payment, the full fum of their annuities, at the periods when they become due, fhall be iffued to the Bank, for the ufe, benefit, and convenience of those intitled to them, until all the annuities shall be redeemed, and befides, that this mode of payment is part of the original ftipulation of the public, and is incorporated into the body of the contract between the public and the public creditors; it has alfo in its favour the prescriptive fanction of long ufage, and the confirmed habits of all who have invefted their money in that great mafs of property conftituting the public funds. The money in the Bank, and out of which the fum in queftion, forming a long portion of it, is to be taken, is the balance of the quarterly iffues made by the Exchequer to the Bank for the payment of the dividends contracted by parliament to be paid, and which the proprietors fuffer to remain in the Bank till it fuits their convenience to receive them, and not from the amount of unpaid dividends of any confiderable ftanding which may have been forgotten by the owner, or may be unknown to him. That fuch is the fact, clearly appears from the account which has been prefented to the house of arrears of all dividends iffued by government to the Bank of England for payment of public creditors, from the original stablishment of the Bank to the 31it

December 1787, and which remained unpaid on the 31ft December 1790, f which arrears, in all the differen: public funds, the total is,

And if to this beadded the

arrears of prizes due on lotteries for the fame period, And

arrears

due on various mifcellaneous arti cles for the

fame period,

The total of that aggre gate arrear of thefe various fubjects would be,

£127,457 3 4

46,380 0

16,427 6 9

190,264 10

Hence it is evinced that the 500,000l. propofed to be taken is not money which lies in the Bank to pay dividends unclaimed, for any confiderable time, and long in arrear. If divi dends, lottery prizes, ond other arti cles, not demanded for the short space of three years, fhould be confidered as old and unclaimed, and should there fore be taken back, as being without an owner (an attempt that would fure ly offend the reafon and juftice of mankind) even then all that could be taken would be 190,264 10s. Id. To the prefent moment, the contract be tween the public and the public cre ditors, has been unimpaired, and the public faith preserved inviolate; no alteration, of the flighteft kind, has ever been made in the contract, but with the confent of thofe whofe property might be affected by fuch alte ration, and the money to pay the an nuities has invariably been iffued, with punctuality, to the extent of the pub lic engagements for the full payment of the public creditors.

(To be continued.)

Continuance of them, produced the following order from gene ral Amherst "No fcouting party, or others in the army, are to fcalp women or children belonging to the enemy they are, if poflible, to take them prifoners; but not to injure them on any account: the general being determined, fhould the enemy continue to murder women and children, who are fubjects of the king of Great Britain, to revenge it by the death of two men of the enemy, for every woman and child murdered by them." That the enemy might not pretend ignorance of his refolutions on this head, he fent an officer with a hag of truce, to M. de Bourlamaque, he commanding officer at Ticondeago, with a copy of the above order. But he afterwards appears in a more miable point of view.

Nothing could exceed the furprize of the marquis de Montcalm, when he eard that general Wolfe and the Briish army had made good their land. ng above the town. He could not redit it, and faid, "It is only M. Volfe with a small party come to urn a few houses, look about him, nd return." But when he was in ormed that the British army were rawn up in order of battle on the lains of Abraham; "Then," faid e, "they have at laft got to the weak de of this miferable garrison: there. ore we must endeavour to crush them your numbers, and scalp them all be< re twelve o'clock. He died the day ter the battle; and it is reported of m, that when his wounds were drefd, he requested of the furgeons who tended him, to tell him ingeniously hether or not his wounds were mor

On being informed they were, faid, "He was glad of it." He POL. MAG. VOL. XXI.JULY, 1791.

next afked, How long he might fur vive? He was told, ten or twelve hours, perhaps lefs. "So much the better," replied he; "then I fhall not live to fee the furrender of Quebec.

We cannot refift our inclination to tranfcribe this paragraph.

The victory gained over M. de Montcalm, and the furrender of Que bec, were announced in one gazette extraordinary. Although joy and rapture flew from one end of the kingdom to the other; yet in the midst of this exceffive exultation, a concern for the death of general Wolfe was vifible in every countenance; and while they rejoiced at the victories, they failed not in paying due praises to the memory of the accomplished hero, who had failen in the attainment of them. Bonfires and illuminations were univerfal, one place excepted; and this was the village in which the mother of the deceased general lived. The inhabitants felt for her grief, which they would not increase; and put a violence on their inclinations, by not joining with their neighbours in giving public teftimonies of joy and approbation on this occafion. every one in the leaft acquainted with the difpofitions of the people, they muft know that the facrifice they here made was very great.

To

The fucceeding observations cannot be circulated too widely.

From a very grofs defect or impropriety in the night-fignals at prefent in ufe, and which are established by the authority of the admiralty, the very falutary measure adopted by fir Edward Hawke, of bringing the fleet to an anchor at the time he did, might have been attended with the moft fatal confequences, and might have proved H

the