Earl Temple observed, that certainly the resolutions read by the hon. gent. could not answer the purpose of his hon. friend, as there was omitted in them the letter of sir Rd. Strachan to lord Gardner, applying for relief. He said that the weather could not have been so tempestuous at that time, as he knew that from the 6th of Nov. to the 25th of Dec. ships sailed daily westward from Portsmouth. The charge brought against the board was sufficiently plain, arising out of the fact that sir Rd. Strachan was obliged to leave his cruizing ground to meet victuallers; but by remaining at Rochfort he would be obliged to capitulate for want of provisions. Lord Castlereagh stated, that the Adrian cutter had sailed with victuallers on the 14th of Nov. and had arrived on the 30th. Mr. W. Pole rose to supply an omission in his statement. The Colossus joined on the 12th, and the enemy did not come out till the 18th of Jan. Our squadron and the Collossus did not communicate till the 18th, and on account of foul weather, the Mediator was not cleared till the 19th. secure Madeira. With all these occasions, | Calcraft, and expressing his willingness to added to that of the blockade of Brest, grant any information which could, withother difficulties arose in sending supplies out danger to the public interest, be given. of provisions to sir Rd. Strachan's squadron, particularly from the tempestuous state of the weather. The best mode of relieving blockading squadrons was to send fresh ships; the men had thus an opportunity of being refreshed, and the wear and tear of ships was much diminished. He could not here omit paying a just tribute to the patience and zeal of the officers of the squadron under sir Rd. Strachan, who bore every hardship with cheerfulness for the good of their country. Every attention and relief was due to such men; but the admiralty could only appropriate such means of relief as they had. Was it consistent with the public service to allow sir S. Smith to rest idle from want of sufficient force? Was it desirable to keep back the expedition under sir S. Hood, and to suffer the Russian fleet, if it had come out, to proceed home unmolested? Certainly no Englishman would say so. Every relief competent with circumstances had been afforded to the blockading squadrons. The ships ordered to the relief of sir Rd. Strachan's squadron were the Bellerophon, which, when partly fitted out, was found to be so bad that it Mr. Calcraft, in reply, observed that he was necessary to take her into dock at was not aware that any observations he Plymouth to be repaired. The Superb, had felt it his duty to make, deserved so Colossus, and Cumberland joined the harsh a character as the hon. gent. had Spencer was prepared, but prevented from been pleased to bestow upon them. In joining by an epidemic disorder breaking the little he had to offer at any time to out among her crew. He would leave it the house, he was not much in the habit to naval authorities whether a relief of of indulging in charges, or making use of five ships upon seven was not ample and terms that could justly be stigmatized as adequate. Sir Rd. Strachan was driven indecent. Ile had questioned the conduct from his anchorage in Basque roads by of the noble lord at the head of the admibad weather. He met the relief ships in ralty upon two grounds; one was the apthe rendezvous appointed in his last gene-pointment of sir Home Popham to an emiral letter. Sir Rd. was now up the Mediterranean; Brest was blockaded; Madeira was looked to; the West Indies were safe; and we had a tolerable force to look the American gentlemen in the face if they should prove refractory. The admiralty, so long as it was directed by the noble lord now at the head of it, would not shrink from any attack that might be made by the hon. gent. opposite. Let the charges be brought forward upon the papers; but let not a premature and uncandid aspersion be cast upon a man who stood as high as any other in the country. The hon. gent. concluded with reading resolution which was nearly the same in substance as what had been moved by Mr. a nent command under circumstances that had excited a considerable irritation; an appointment which he had thought, and did still think, extremely ill judged: it was an appointment that had given rise to a very general sensation of well-grounded jealousy among the officers of the British navy. The public prints had recorded their dissatisfaction; it was a circumstance known throughout the country, nor did the country think those officers had been well treated. His other ground of objection was the reprehensible neglect of our squadron off Rochfort. The hon. gent. had ingeniously steered clear of both these topics and thought the house would suppose he was answering them when he was giving his very accurate details of what he The Chancellor of the Exchequer rose to give his negative to the motion of the noble lord, upon the following grounds: in the first place, the observations of the noble lord were applicable to the article of cotton only: and, in the next place, he informed the house, that there was no disinclination whatever on the part of his majesty's allies to concur in the system which government had found it expedient to adopt in the present period of the war; and that assurances had been received from Sweden, in particular, of the willingness of that government to give every facility for carrying that system into full effect. A general assurance of this nature had been received, but it could not be supposed, that any distinct and decisive expression of approbation of the whole details of the measure had been received, because those details were not yet finally arranged, and were still subject to the decision of parliament. Sir A. Piggott asked if it was not proposed to levy a tax upon the exportation of sugar? He understood this to be the intention; and, if so, it might be carried direct from America to Sweden: and as Sweden had no sugar colonies except the small island of Saint Bartholomew, and consequently had no sugar monopoly to protect, he did not think it probable that the government of that country would concur in imposing a duty upon this article merely to secure the British monopoly. He wished to know, therefore, what assurances ministers had received that Gottenburgh would not be converted into a depôt for supplying the continent with colonial produce. The Chancellor of the Exchequer replied, that government had received general assurances of the readiness of Sweden to concur in giving effect to the measure. Mr. Ponsonby said, that if the king of Sardinia co-operated in the measure, the result of this co-operation, as to him, would be to deprive him of the only part of his dominions of which he was still in possession; and if Sweden refused to co-operate, which he thought not at all improbable, the right hon. gent. had told the house that she was to be compelled to concur in it. And this was the reward which was to be conferred upon our only remaining ally! this the encouragement which we held out to other nations, to attach themselves to our cause! this the motive which we presented to those powers by whom we had been deserted, to return to their old connection with us! Mr. Secretary Canning stated, that the king of Sardinia was not an ally of this country, and that he had never been asked to concur in the measure; and that from the king of Sweden, who was our ally, the most satisfactory assurances on this head had been received.-After a short reply from lord H. Petty, a division took place: For the motion 71. Against it 130. LIVERPOOL PETITION RESPECTING THE Orders in COUNCIL BILL.] General Gascoyne presented a Petition from the Merchants of Liverpool against the Orders in Council bill. He said he was sensible of the readiness with which parliament and ministers attended to the petitions of the people, and the high respectability of the Liverpool merchants would, he was persuaded, obtain for them all due attention. He was aware that the forms of parliament might operate against his motion for receiving the present petition, and he was far from wishing for any departure from its rules. The petition, however, did not go to oppose the duties, but the spirit of the bill, while it. expressed apprehensions that from the nature of the warfare, we might lose much, and the enemy gain. Liverpool at present possessed threefourths of the trade with America; and the disbursements amounted to 150,0001. annually for the last three years. From bearing so great a portion, Liverpool would be most particularly affected; and he therefore hoped there would be no objection to receiving the petition against the present bill. The Speaker asked if the Petition was against the bill which provided certain duties under the Orders in Council? General Gascoyne answered, that it only went to oppose certain clauses, but not the bill in the general view. The Speaker stated the usage of the house to be, not to receive any petition against a duty bill. If the hon. general could satisfy the house that his petition did not come under this description, it might be received; not otherwise. Mr. Tierney observed, that the house was obliged to the Speaker for the distinct manner in which he had stated the usage of the house. This was a most important petition. Interests of the greatest magnitude were concerned in it; yet these petitioners were now to be told, that they could not be heard. Where then could they be heard? Was there any course for them to pursue to obtain a hearing? Or did the house stand in this unfortunate predicament, that though well disposed to listen to the petitioners, they could not, in point of form, attend to them? If so, it was the only instance that ever had occurred in the history of parliament where petitioners were rejected, without some other mode being pointed out by which they might state their complaints. He professed his respect for the usage of admitting no petitions against tax bills, because, if petitions should be received against them in the session in which they passed, every one would be so anxious to shift the burthen from himself, that the public business could not be carried on. But this petition was not against the duties, but against the regulations; though it was contrary to the letter, it was perfectly consistent with the spirit of the usage. This tax was, besides, not within the principle of duties, for it was merely a tax on foreigners, laid with a view not to revenue, but to the carrying into effect certain commercial regulations. Against these this petition was presented, and the petitioners would have the strongest ground of complaint if they were shut out from bringing evidence to prove their allegations. The house too had much reason to complain. Hitherto the responsibility of these Orders rested with those who advised them; but when the bill passed it would rest with the house. Could the members say, that they had sufficient evidence from commercial men, that they were just and proper? Had the ministers satisfied them with their speeches? There were grounds to suppose from what had passed that some of the provisions would be changed, so little had ministers themselves matured their measure. But all that the petitioners had in the world was at stake. The ministers said, that this was a bill for the protection of trade;' the petitioners said, that they would shew that it was a bill not for the protection, but for the destruction of trade. Would the house take upon itself the intolerable responsibility of this measure, without listening to such a heavy complaint preferred from such a quarter? It was an intolerable hardship on the petitioners, to be sent back unheard, merely through the negligence and blunders of the ministers. They might, upon a pretence of this sort, deprive a man of his estate, without allowing him to be heard, by inserting in the bill a duty upon the stamp for the conveyance. Our ancestors had prevented such things, by confining the duties to the committee of ways and means, and originating other things in such a way as to allow petitioners to be heard. Mr. Pitt had been scrupulous in avoiding the committee of ways and means where he could; and of this the cases of the consolidation of the duties, and the two-penny post duty, were instances. Oh, that the gentlemen on the other side would imitate Mr. Pitt in what was just and proper, as well as in his mistakes! All that the petitioners desired, was to be heard some way. He had given the right hon. gent. some credit for his mistake in this business; but he could not even give him that now, since he found that he persevered in his plan, and so shut out petitioners. Was this to be endured, especially with such petitions on the table, where it was stated, that thirty or forty thousand people were deprived of bread? The present petition was not a party one, nor could such a thing be even alleged, for it was known, that many who signed it were friendly to administration. Would ministers thus aggravate the distress of the people? He had given them credit for pitying them; but if they rejected this petition, he would give them no such credit. Here we were told, not of forty thousand people, as in the other petitions, but of four hundred thousand, who would be deprived of bread by the destruction of the Liverpool trade; a circumstance that would spread devastation over all the surrounding country. Usage in such a case as this ought to stand by, as the petitioners had been shut out by the neglect of the house. He said, that the same course ought to have been taken here as in the case of the convoy tax, where a committee of trade and navigation had been appointed. He had thought this from the beginning a most important point, and now the difficulty began to be felt. The forms of the house were the perfection of wisdom for the convenience of business, as the common law had been called the perfection of reason. The departure from these had placed the house in this unpleasant predicament. But it was impossible that the house could, with any shadow of justice or prudence, refuse to hear the petitioners in some way or other. The Chancellor of the Exchequer observed, that the bill before the house went to levy certain duties to carry on the war, and the petition, in opposing the bill, obviously went against levying those du ties, and could not, therefore, consistently with regard to the usages of parliament, be received. The precedent would prove injurous, by establishing a deviation from so wise and necessary a principle of not admitting petitions against supplies immediately necessary for the service of the state. He lamented as much as any man the pressure attendant upon the war; but there could be no general good in such cases, without some partial evils; and the interests and safety of the state would be sacrificed, if we permitted ourselves to be diverted from general purposes, by yielding to complaints of a local nature. Under these considerations he was sorry to be under the necessity of opposing the motion for receiving the petition. Mr. Ponsonby considered that the petition, both in form and substance, was admissible, and contended that from the great interest the petitioners had in the bill, they had a right to be heard upon the subject. Lord Castlereagh insisted that the usages of parliament, which it was so necessary to hold sacred in respect to the necessary supplies for the public service, would not admit of the petition being received, and enforced the other arguments adduced by the chancellor of the exchequer. Mr. Sheridan could see no good reason for refusing to receive the petition; and entered into some general arguments against the tendency of the measure of which the petitioners complained. General Tarleton wished the petition to be received, although it was not signed by any one of the 1461 voters who supported him at the last election; nor was he requested by any one of those voters to interfere in its behalf. The hon. officer took occasion to inveigh against the want of national spirit on the part of opposition; and on their disposition to panegyrize the talents of foreign generals, while they overlooked the merit of their own countrymen. These gentlemen were, in his apprehension, pursuing a dreadful course; which, although perhaps their only object was to turn out ministers, would tend to turn out the country [a laugh.] The hon. officer bore testimony to the respectability of Mr. Rathbone, the delegate from Liverpool, but he did not like his sectarian principles. Mr. Whitbread observed, that his gallant friend seemed to allude to some remarks of his on a former evening, relative to the talents of foreign officers; but however transcendant those talents were, or however much was to be apprehended from them to any part of the empire, he had the consolation to think, there was one place which defied their attack; that at least Berwick was safe. [A laugh, general Tarleton being now governor of Berwick.] The hon. member argued forcibly in favour of the motion. would be covered with petitions against it, on the authority of this precedent. Mr. Huskisson observed, that every proviso of the bill against which the petition was levelled containing the imposition of a duty, it was completely a money bill, and therefore the motion could not at all be acceded to, consistently with the usage of the house. Lord H. Petty said, that his object was to rescue the petition from the representation made of it by the hon. member who had just sat down, and to shew it was a petition against the bill by its title, and therefore not within the meaning of the established usage of the house. The title of the bill was, a Bill more effectually to carry into execution certain Orders in Council.' He contended, therefore, that there was no ground of usage that could preclude the merchants of Liverpool from being heard upon so important a question. The Hawkers and Pedlars bill had not been divided, but referred to a committee of the whole house, in which the petitioners were heard by their counsel against the bill, the counsel having been warned to confine themselves to the matter of the regulations, and not to meddle with the part of the bill granting duties. Were the merchants of Liverpool not to be allowed that privilege which had been granted to chapmen, hawkers, and pedlars? Was the house to have its doors hermetically sealed against the petitions of the people? He trusted, however, that they would not suffer themselves to be led away from their duty by his majesty's ministers, but decide that they would hear the petitioners then at the bar, on a question of such vital importance to the trade and prosperity of the empire. Mr. Rose contended, that the usage which precluded the reception of the petition, had never been departed from. The Hawkers and Pedlars bill, had been rather of regulation and police than of duties, and therefore was not analogous to the present case. If the house were to throw open its doors in the present instance, they would never be able to close them; for whatever might be the nature of a tax hereafter to be proposed, their table Mr. Sheridan rose to a point of order. He said that it had been declared from the other side of the house in the course of the debate, that the authority of the Chair had decided against the claims of the petitioners to be heard in this instance, and that authority had been quoted, and made the ground of arguments in the discussion. Now, the point of order to which he rose was, that as he had not heard any such opinion stated from the Chair, he wished to know whether the question had been so decided upon from the Chair? The Speaker then rose and said, that the house must perceive he was called upon in no usual way; however, he should not shrink from the performance of his duty, whenever he should be called upon to perform it. He apprehended that any member of that house, who might have had the honour of being appointed to the chair, had two duties to perform. The first was, when a member thought proper to consult him upon any question touching the forms of that house, or the nature of its proceedings, he was always ready, as, indeed, it was his duty, to state to him his personal opinion, upon the point submitted to his consideration. It was also his duty, whenever a question arose in the course of their proceeding, respecting the orders, forms, or usages of that house, to explain the rules of its conduct, and the nature of the particular order or usage that might bear upon the question, always leaving it to the house to make the application. It was not for him by an avowal of his opinion to attempt to sway the debates of that house. If, however, it should be the pleasure of the house, to call upon him for his opinion, he should be ready to declare it; for he did not fear to state his opinion. But the matter was still a question in the house, and upon it the house alone could, by a vote, decide. He had stated what the usage was, and that, if the bill under consideration was a Money bill, pursuant to such usage no petition could be received against it. But he had understood the house to have been debating the question, whether the bill was a Money bill or not. Upon that point, a vote of the house alone could be decisive; and if, in the only case in which he could be called on for an opinion upon it, in the case of a balanced opinion in the house, it should be his duty to pronounce that opinion, he would know how to do his duty; but, until then, it |