in their Report. Although the fortifications propofed had been rejected, yet every body knew, that fome fortifications there muft be. They confequently would coft something. Another expence was the civil lift; forjit was pretty generally understood, that His Majefty ftood in need of the whole 900,000l. for his own expenditure. It was idle, therefore, to Thut their eyes against the neceffity of an increafe; the eftablifhment of the other branches of the Royal Family, parti cularly the establishment of Prince William, who could not be expected to live upon a Captain's pay, and certain events which might take place in the family (if alliances with virtue and goodnefs were defirable) would prove that neceffity. There was alfo another reafon which he had mentioned once before, and that was, the increafe of the income of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, which must be soon attended to. A third was a fubject which he was forry to fee had so far changed its impreffion on their feelings, that though the bare mention of it ufed to call forth all their fenfibility, it was now heard with the coldeft indifference; he meant the American Loyalifts; men to whom the faith of Parliament was folemnly pledged, and therefore men whofe cause that House neither could nor ought to abandon. The Houfe had recognized their pretenfions to protection, by inftituting a Committee to inquire into their claims, the amount of which was confiderable, an d must be defrayed. Thefe additions to the expenditure, added to various others, amounted to 4,000,000l., to pay which, he faw nothing in the Report but army favings that could be depended on. As to lotteries, which were reprefented as the boafted means of refource, thefe were, in his mind, the most profligate and pernicious, and at the fame time the most difadvantageous means of rajfing money which could be reforted to. With regard to the public accountants paying in their balances, he imagined there was not any great fum to be gained that way; at leaft the right honourable gentleman must be aware, that there was alfo money to be paid back again by the Exchequer, fo that probably the balance between the two could not be very large. The idea of the unclaimed dividends at the Bank, the Houfe would recollect, had been treated with derifion in a former debate, and were not to be counted upon; and as to the Crown lands, they ought not, in his opinion, to be regulated or difpofed of without the efpecial confent of the Prince of Wales. With refpect to infuring the due collection of taxes, that was a fair object, if fairly managed: but he had heard of fome regulations to be propofed relating to a parti cular branch of commerce, which were fo arbitrary and defpotic, that if they paffed, the revenue might be faid to make War W. W. war against the conftitution. And what were the means whereby the fum wanted to commence the plan with was to be had? At prefent it was clear there was no furplus; and the only means which fuggefted themselves to him were, a Joan of a million for the efpecial purpose: for the right honourable gentleman might fay with the perfon in the comedy, 6. If you won't lend me the money, how can I pay "you?" To that means perhaps it would be best to resort; but certain he was, that to rely upon the Report on the table, and to proceed with a bill founded upon fuch fallacious principles and fuch erroneous reafoning, would be the height of rafhnefs and prefumption: it would be trufting too much to chance; and would ill become that House to countenance fuch conduct if the right honourable gentleman were him felf imprudent enough to rifque it: if he did, he would act like a fchoolboy, who, for the fake of getting at fruit, grasped at the firft branch which he could reach, and not only pulled down the unripe fruit, but deftroyed alfo the bloffom, the bud, and the bough, the hopes of a future crop. Mr. Sheridan having gone the whole of his argument upon the Report, produced a ftring of refolutions which, he said, afferted undeniable facts, and therefore could not be negatived: if, however, any gentleman fhould move the order of the day upon them, he would move them again during the courfe of the ensuing day. The right The right honourable W. W. Grenville obferved, that from a honourable conviction that the honourable gentleman's propofitions would Grenville. prove groundless, he fhould meet them with a determined negative. He could not follow the honourable gentleman through the whole of every part of his argument, nor could he pretend to enliven his fpeech with turns of wit and pleafantry; he had not the talents which the honourable gentleman fo happily poffeffed, of making even a dull subject entertaining; but he would take notice of the chief of his objections to the Report, and as it was unavoidable, the House muft excufe his going into fome degree of length. With re. gard to what the honourable gentleman had faid, in objection to the manner of forming the Committee, he felt not the force of it; exclufive of its being the duty of every man religiously to adhere to truth in all fituations, he had felt it his duty to do fo on an occafion in which the first interests of the country were fo deeply and fo immediately concerned. He believed every gentleman on the Committee had felt this; and fure he was that he had felt it himself, and had endeavoured, by the moft fedulous attention to the fubject, to make himself mafter of it, and to be able to communicate to the Houfe calculations, and to state merits founded on certain and indisputable principles. He was perfuaded that he had had done fo, and that the Report upon the table, was to be depended on, as its contents, generally speaking, were corred, and fuch as might be relied on. Confcious of this, he had been fomewhat furprised, at hearing from the mouth of the honourable gentleman, and from the mouth of another right honourable gentleman near him, objections fated to the Report foon after it had been laid upon the table. The honourable gentleman had given notice long fince of his intention to go into a difcuffion of its contents. He had waited for this difcuffion under fome violence to his patience till that hour; and had feen the honourable gentleman rife and put it off day after day, week after week, and he believed he might fay month after month; for it was on the 16th of March, that the honourable gentleman had fignified his intention of animadverting upon it. He was happy however, that the day was at laft come; and the more efpecially, as after all the time which the honourable gentleman had taken, and all his ingenuity and talents, he had not been able to difprove the calculations, or to obviate the reasonings con tained in the Report. Before he proceeded to follow the honourable gentleman through his objections, he would just take notice of one or two things in which he had been greatly mistaken-And first, the honourable gentleman had alluded to a perfon extremely dear to him on every account (Mr. Grenville) who had been alluded to by an honourable Baronet in a former debate: the honourable Baronet had mentioned a pamphlet, fuppofed, and univerfally believed to have been written under that perfon's infpection. At the time of writing the pamphlet Mr. Grenville was in no office, and had not the means of getting at the facts in queftion with any accuracy, The honourable gentleman had magnified and mifreprefented the fact he had flated Mr. Grenville, as coming down to that House, and opening a plan for a peace establishment; the fact was not fo. Another thing the honourable gentleman had faid was, that he expected fome alteration would be propofed during the courfe of the prefent feffion in the commutation tax. He knew not to whom the honourable gentleman alluded, or who it was that the honourable gentleman expected would come forward with any fuch propofition: he believed that no fuch intention was entertained on the fide of the House which he ftood; but if any attempt fhould be made, either to repeal the commutation tax or to alter it fo as to abandon its prin ciple, he pledged himfelf to oppofe any fuch attempt to the utmoft of his power; being convinced that the measure was falutary; that it had produced the most defirable effect, and that it had already anfwered its end. In juftification of the VOL. XX. Y Com Mr. Sheridan. Committee avoiding to take an average of feveral years income, Mr. Grenville faid, that he fhould now beg leave to read the following paffage, from the exordium to the Report, which the honourable gentleman had omitted to notice, and which he conceived to be an ample juftification. "On the other hand, they did not think themselves com"petent to difcufs the various contingencies which may in "future operate to the increase or diminution of the public "income. A revenue fo complicated in its nature, and de"pending fo much on the various branches of an extensive "commerce, muft always be liable to temporary fluctuations, even although no circumstances fhould arife to occafion "any permanent alteration in its produce. Your Committee have therefore judged it proper, to fubmit to the wif "dom of the Houfe this extenfive confideration, and to ftate in this Report the prefent amount of the public income, "as refulting from the papers before them." 66 Not in any one of the objections had the honourable gentleman been founded, excepting only in regard to the produce of the medicine duty, which he was ready to admit had been overcharged to the amount of 10,000l. out of 30,000l. In regard to feveral other objections, the honourable gentleman had not reafoned fairly, or with that candor to which the Committee were entitled; and particularly, in refpect to the affeffiments upon the window tax, the furcharges and the difcharges. With refpect to the poft-horfe tax, and the game-licenfe tax, he had not correctly reprefented the Report. The reafon why, in the average of the malt-duty produce, they had omitted one year, was, because it was notorious that this year had been a year of famine. Would any man, directed to take the average of the infurance of houfes or lives in the metropolis, include either the fire of London year, or the year of the plague? They had not included the last quarter in their average, because it was impoffible for them so to have done before the quarter was complete, and the papers were made out if they had done fo, inftead of 2,600,000l. the amount would have been 2,850,000l., fo that he fhould have had 250,000l. furplus to fet against the overcharge on the medicine duty, or any other trifling error. Mr. Sheridan begged leave to affure the right honourable gentleman who fpoke laft, that in fpite of laboured arguments and ftrained pofitions, it would appear, that the point in which he had been ftated to have been mistaken, was the only one in which he had trufted to the Report, for the Report ftated it precifely as he had done: whenever he had depended upon himself he had been right; but having unguardedly trufted in one inftance to the Committee, it appeared they had deceived and mifled him. With regard to the right ho nourable nourable gentleman's not having taken the last quarter into his average of malt, the right honourable gentleman furely forgot, that almoft in the fame breath he had stated, that it was impoffible for him to have taken that quarter, as the accounts neither were nor could be made out at the time. Mr. Sheridan anfwered to the imputation of having delayed bringing forward his fentiments on the fubject, by declaring, that the right honourable the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had originally told the Houfe, that he would endeavour to get his national-debt bill paffed through the House before the holidays. Upon that, he had given notice of his purpose, wifhing that what he had to fay in objection to the Report might precede the farther confideration of the bill. When the right honourable gentleman poftponed the farther confideration of his bill, he was glad to do the fame with his motions, in order, as the fubject was important, to be able to examine it with the greater accuracy. Since that, at the express request of the right honourable gentleman, he had put off his intention; and fince, it had again been twice, by confent, poftponed, to make room for a difcuffion of great importance in the cafe of Mr. Haftings, and therefore he was neither responsible for the obftacles which had arifen, nor for the various poftponements in confequence of it. Mr. Beaufoy faid, that he felt it his duty to exculpate him- Mr. Beaus felf from the accufations brought against him by the honour. foy able gentleman, in common with the reft of the members that compofed the Committee. Had the Committee been guilty of the conduct imputed to them by the honourable gentleman, they would have but little confulted either their own honour or that of his right honourable friend, to whose wishes they were charged with having fhewn an unfair partiality in their Report. For his own part, he was ready to avow, that he had strong attachments towards the right honourable gen. tleman; but they were attachments not founded on his minifterial power and influence, for those were in the hands of his opponents when he first gave him his fupport; they proceeded from his principles, which were as upright and incorruptible as any man's could be, and from his abilities, which he had never feen equalled. The Committee had, he flattered himself, acted in the only manner in which they were bound to act, and the honourable gentleman had taken a great deal of pains, to bring a cenfure upon them for reftraining themfelves to the limits of the inquiry committed to them by the Houfe, and had complained of them for not going into inquiries on fubjects that were entirely foreign to their inftructions. But the fact was, the Committee had fo completely fulfilled their duty, that the honourable gentleman could find no complaint against them without going beyond Y 2 the |