partiality of my numerous friends (whom you know to be among the most weighty and respectable people of the city) I have the means of a sharp one in my hands; but I thought it far better, with my strength unspent, and my reputation unimpaired, to do early and from foresight that which I might be obliged to do from necessity at last.

I am not in the least surprised, nor in the least angry at this view of things. I have read the book of life for a long time, and I have read other books a little. Nothing has happened to me but what has happened to men much better than me, and in times and in nations full as good as the age and country that we live in. To say that I am no way concerned would be neither decent nor true. The representation of Bristol was an object on many accounts dear to me, and I certainly should very far prefer it to any other in the kingdom. My habits are made to it; and it is in general more unpleasant to be rejected after a long trial than not to be chosen at all.

But, gentlemen, I will see nothing except your former kindness, and I will give way to no other sentiments than those of gratitude. From the bottom of my heart I thank you for what you have done for me. You have given me a long term, which is now expired. I have performed the conditions, and enjoyed all the profits to the full; and I now surrender your estate into your hands without being in a single tile or a single stone impaired or wasted by my use. I have served the public for fifteen years. I have served you, in particular, for six. What is past

is well stored. It is safe, and out of the power of fortune. What is to come is in wiser hands than ours, and He in whose hands it is, best knows whether it is best for you and me that I should be in Parliament, or even in the world.

Gentlemen, the melancholy event of yesterday reads to us an awful lesson against being too much troubled about any of the objects of ordinary ambition. The worthy gentleman who has been snatched from us at the moment of the election, and in the middle of the contest, while his desires were as warm and his hopes as eager as ours, has feelingly told us what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue.*

It has been usual for a candidate who declines, to take his leave by a letter to the sheriffs; but I received your trust in the face of day, and in the face of day I accept your dismission. I am not-I am not at all ashamed to look upon you, nor can my presence discompose the order of business here. I humbly and respectfully take my leave of the sheriffs, the candidates, and the electors, wishing heartily that the choice may be for the best at a time which calls, if ever time did call, for service that is not nominal. It is no plaything you are about. I tremble when I consider the trust I have presumed to ask. I confided perhaps too much in my intentions. They were really fair and upright; and I am bold to say that I ask no ill thing for you when, on parting from this place, I pray that whomever you choose to succeed me, he may resemble me exactly in all things except in my abilities to serve and my fortune to please you.

REPLY TO THE DUKE OF RICHMOND.

[THE Duke had taunted him in the House of Lords, June 1779, on his plebeian extraction and recent admission to the Peerage, when he replied as follows:]

I am amazed at the attack which the noble duke has made upon me. Yes, my lords (considerably raising his voice), I am amazed at his grace's speech. The noble duke cannot look before him, behind him, or on either side of him, without seeing some noble peer who owes his seat in this House to his successful exertions in the profession to which I belong. Does he not feel that it is as honourable to owe it to these as to be the accident of an accident? To all these noble lords, the language of the noble duke is as appli

cable and as insulting as to myself; but I do not fear to meet it singly and alone. No one venerates the peerage more than I do; but, my lords, I must say that peerage solicited me, not I the peerage. Nay more, I can say, and will say, that as a peer of Parliament-as Speaker of this right honourable House-as Keeper of the Great Seal-as guardian of his Majesty's conscience— as Lord High Chancellor of England-nay, even in that character alone in which the noble duke would think it an affront to be considered, but which character none can deny me—as a man, I am at this moment as respectable; I beg leave to add, I am at this moment as much respected as the proudest peer I now look down upon.

* Mr Coombe, one of his competitors, who had died suddenly the evening before.

THE RUSSIAN ARMAMENT.* [THE circumstances under which this speech was delivered are thus given by Dr Goodrich: "Turkey having commenced war against Russia in 1788, Joseph, Emperor of Austria, espoused the cause of the Russians, and attacked the Turks. At the end of two years, however, Joseph died, and his successor, Leopold, being unwilling to continue the contest, resolved on peace. He therefore called in the mediation of England and Prussia at the Congress of Reichenbach; and the three allied powers demanded of the Empress of Russia to unite in making peace on the principle of the status quo, that is, of giving up all the conquests she had gained during the war. To this Catharine strongly objected, and urged the formation of a new Christian kingdom out of the Turkish provinces of Bessarabia, Moldavia, and Wallachia, over which her grandson Constantine was expected to be ruler This the allied powers refused, on the ground of its giving too great a preponderance to Russia; and the empress, being unable to resist so strong an alliance, consented finally to relinquish all her conquests, with the exception of the fortress of Oczakow (pronounced Otchakoff), at the mouth of the Dnieper, on the Black Sea, and a desert tract of country dependent thereon, which was valuable only as a security for her former conquests. England and Prussia, however, insisted on her restoring Oczakow, to which they attached undue importance as the supposed key of Constantinople, distant about 190 miles. The pride of Catharine was touched, and she indignantly refused. Mr Pitt instantly prepared for war, and with his views and feelings at that time he would probably have thrown himself into the contest with all the energy and determination which marked his character. He continued his preparations for war (fearing, no doubt, that the empress might rise in her demands), and thus brought upon himself new charges of wasting the public money, since it turned out that Catharine was still ready to abide by her original terms. On those terms the matter was finally adjusted, Mr Pitt pledging himself that Turkey should accept them within four months, or be abandoned to her fate. Accordingly, peace was concluded on this basis between the empress and the Porte in August 1791, and Oczakow has remained from that time in the hands of the Russians."

"Fox's eloquence," says Lord Brougham, "was of a kind which, to comprehend, you must have heard himself. When he got fairly into his subject, was heartily warmed with it, he poured forth words and periods of fire that smote you, and deprived you of all power to reflect and rescue yourself, while he went on to seize the faculties of the listener, and carry them captive along with him whithersoever he might please to rush."]

SIR,-After the challenge which was thrown out to me, in the speech of a right honourable gentleman [Mr Dundas] last night, I consider it my duty to trouble you somewhat at length on this important question. But before I enter into the consideration of it, I will explain why I did not obey a call made, and repeated several times, in a manner not very consistent either with the freedom of debate or with the order which the right honourable gentleman [Mr Pitt] himself has prescribed for the discussion of this day. Why any members should think themselves entitled to call on an individual in that way, I know not; but why I did not yield to the call is obvious. It was said by an honourable gentleman last night to be the wish of the minister to hear all that could be said on the subject before he should rise to enter into his defence. If so, it certainly would not become me to prevent him from hearing any other gentleman who might be inclined to speak on the occasion; and as he particularly alluded to me, I thought it respectful to give way to gentlemen, that I might not interrupt the course which he has chosen, as it seems he reserves himself till I have spoken.

This call on me is of a singular nature. A minister is accused of having rashly engaged the country in a measure by which we have suffered disaster and disgrace, and when a motion of censure is made, he chooses to reserve himself, and speak after every one, that no means may be given to reply to his defence-to expose his fallacy, if fallacious, or to detect its misrepresentations, if he shall choose to misrepresent what may be said. If the right honourable gentleman is truly desirous of meeting the charges against him, and has confidence in his ability to vindicate his conduct, why not pursue the course which would be manly and open? Why not go into a committee, as was offered him by the honourable gentleman who made the motion [Mr Whitbread], in which the forms of

each side to answer whatever was advanced by Q

the other, and the subject would have received the most ample discussion? Instead of this honourable course, he is determined to take all advantages. He screens himself by a stratagem which no defendant in any process in this country could enjoy; since no man put upon his defence in any court of justice could so contrive as not only to prevent all reply to his defence, but all refutation of what he may assert, and all explanation of what he may misrepresent.

Such are the advantages which the right honourable gentleman [Mr Pitt] is determined to seize in this moment of his trial; and, to confess the truth, never did man stand so much in need of every advantage! Never was there an occasion in which a minister was exhibited to this House in circumstances so ungracious as those under which he at present appears. Last session of Parliament we had no fewer than four debates upon the question of the armament, in which the right honourable gentleman involved this country, without condescending to explain the object which he had in view. The minority of this House stood forth against the monstrous measure of involving the country without unfolding the reason. The minister proudly and obstinately refused, and called on the majority to support him. We gave our opinion at large on the subject, and with effect, as it turned out, on the public mind. On that of the right honourable gentleman, however, we were not successful; for what was his conduct? He replied to us, "I hear what you say. I could answer all your charges; but I know my duty to my king too well to submit, at this moment, to expose the secrets of the State, and to lay the reasons before you of the measure on which I demand your confidence. I choose rather to lie for a time under all the imputations which you may heap upon me, trusting to the explanations which will come at last." Such was explicitly his language. However I might differ from the right honourable gentleman in opinion, I felt for his situation. There was in this excuse some shadow of reason by which it might be possible to defend him, when the whole of his conduct came to be investigated. I thought it hard to goad him, when, perhaps, he considered it as unsafe to expose what he was doing. But when the conclusion of the negotiation had loosed him from his fetters, when he had cast off the trammels that bound him, I thought that, like the horse described by Homer (if I remembered, I would quote the lines), exulting in the fresh pastures after he had freed himself from the bridle, the right honourable gentleman would have been eager to meet us with every sort of explanation and satisfaction. I thought that,

*

* "Iliad," the sixth book, near the end: "The wanton courser thus with reins unbound Breaks from his stall, and beats the trembling ground;

restrained by no delicacy, and panting only for the moment that was to restore him to the means of developing, and of expatiating upon every part of his conduct that was mysterious; of clearing up that which had been reprobated, of repelling on the heads of his adversaries those very accusations with which they had loaded him-the right honourable gentleman would have had but one wish, that of coming forward in a bold and manly manner and endeavouring to make his cause good against us in the face of the world. Has he done so? Has he even given us the means of inquiring fully and fairly into his conduct? No such thing. He lays before us a set of papers sufficient, indeed, as I shall contend, to found a strong criminal charge of misconduct against him, but evidently mutilated, garbled, and imperfect, with a view of precluding that full inquiry which his conduct demands, and which we had every reason to expect he would not have shrunk from on this day. We call for more. They are denied us. Why? "Because," say the gentlemen on the other side, "unless the papers now before you show there is ground for accusation, and unless you agree to accuse, it is not safe or proper to grant you more." But is this a defence for the right honourable gentleman? Do these papers exculpate him? Directly the reverse. Prima facie they condemn him. They afford us, in the first instance, the proof of disappointment. They show us that we have not obtained what we aimed to obtain; and they give us no justification of the right honourable gentleman for that disappointment. I have heard much ingenuity displayed to maintain that there was no guilt. But what is the fallacy of this argument? When we called for papers during the Spanish negotiation [as to Nootka Sound], we were answered "the negotiation was pending, and it was unsafe to grant them." Very well. But when it was over, and the same reasons for withholding them could not be said to exist, we were told, "Look to the result. The nation is satisfied with what we have got, and you must lay a ground of criminality before we can admit your principle of calling for papers." Thus we were precluded from all inquiry into that business. But now the right honourable gentleman, conscious that the country feels somewhat differently, admits the ground of criminality to have been laid by producing those documents on your table, imperfect as they are. It is from his own confession, therefore, that I am to pronounce him guilty, until he proves himself not to be so; and it is enough for me to contend that the papers now before us afford him prima facie no

Pampered and proud, he seeks the wonted tides,
And laves, in height of blood, his shining sides;
His head now freed, he tosses to the skies;
His mane dishevelled o'er his shoulders flies;
He snuffs the females in the distant plain,
And springs, exulting, to his fields again."-Pope.

justification, but, on the contrary, afford strong proof of his guilt, inasmuch as they evince a complete failure in the object he aimed to extort. Sir, the right honourable gentleman is sensible how much these circumstances render it necessary for him to take every possible advantage his situation can give him. Instead, therefore, of showing himself anxious to come forward, or thinking it his duty to explain why it was inconvenient or impolitic for him to state last year the true grounds on which he had called upon us to arm, what was the object of that armament, and why he had abandoned it, he lays a few papers on the table, and contents himself with an appeal unheard of before: "If you have anything to say against me, speak out, speak all. I will not say a word till you have done. Let me hear you one after another. I will have all the advantage of the game-none of you shall come behind me, for as soon as you have all thrown forth what you have to say, I will make a speech, which you shall not have an opportunity to contradict, and I will throw myself on my majority, that makes you dumb for ever." Such is the situation in which we stand, and such is the course which the right honourable gentleman thinks it honourable to pursue! I cheerfully yield to him the ground he chooses to occupy, and I will proceed, in obedience to the call personally addressed to me, frankly to state the reasons for the vote of censure, in which I shall this night agree.

I. Much argument has been used on topics not unfit, indeed, to be mixed with this question, but not necessary; topics which undoubtedly may be incidentally taken up, but which are not essential to the discussion. In this class I rank what has been said upon the balance of Europe. Whether the insulated policy which disdained all Continental connection whatever, as adopted at the beginning of the present reign -whether the system of extensive foreign connection, so eagerly insisted on by a young gentleman who spoke yesterday for the first time [Mr Jenkinson, afterward Lord Liverpool] or whether the medium between these two be our interest, are certainly very proper topics to be discussed, but as certainly not essential topics to this question. Of the three, I confidently pronounce the middle line the true political course of this country. I think that, in our situation, every Continental connection is to be determined by its own merits. I am one of those who hold that a total inattention to foreign connections might be, as it has proved, very injurious to this country. But if I am driven to choose between the two extremes, between that of standing insulated and aloof from all foreign connections, and trusting for defence to our own resources, and that system as laid down in the speech of an honourable gentleman [Mr Jenkinson], who distinguished bimself so much last night, to the extent to

which he pressed it, I do not hesitate to declare that my opinion is for the first of those situations. I should prefer even total disunion to that sort of connection, to preserve which we should be obliged to risk the blood and the resources of the country in every quarrel and every change that ambition or accident might bring about in any part of the Continent of Europe. But in the question before us, I deny that I am driven to either of these extremes. The honourable gentleman, who spoke with all the open ingenuousness, as well as the animation of youth, seemed himself to dread the extent to which his own doctrines would lead him. He failed, therefore, to sustain the policy of the system he described, in that part where it can alone apply, namely, to the degree in which it is necessary for us to support a balance of power. Holland, for instance, he states to be our natural ally. Granted. "To preserve Holland, and that she may not fall into the arms of France, we must make an alliance with Prussia." Good. But Prussia may be attacked by Austria. "Then we must make an alliance with the Ottoman Porte, that they may fall on Austria." Well, but the Porte may be attacked by Russia. "Then we must make an alliance with Sweden, that she may fall on Russia." By the way, I must here remind him that he totally forgot even to mention Poland, as if that country, now become in some degree able to act for itself, from the change in its constitution, was of no moment, or incapable of influencing in any manner this system of treaties and attacks. His natural ingenuity pointed out to him that, in casting up the account of all this, it would not produce a favourable balance for England, and he evaded the consequence of his own principle, by saying that perhaps Russia would not attack the Porte! "for when we speculate on extreme cases," says the honourable gentleman, "we have a right to make allowances. It is fair to expect that when we are in alliance with the Porte, Russia will feel too sensibly the importance of the commercial advantages she enjoys in her intercourse with this country to risk the loss of them by an attack on her." Are we, then, to suppose, in a scene of universal contest and warfare, that this ambitious power, who is reproached as perpetually and systematically aiming at the destruction of the Porte, and while the rest of Europe was at peace, has been in a state of restless and unceasing hostility with her, will then be the only power at peace, and let slip so favourable an opportunity of destroying her old enemy, simply because she is afraid of losing her trade with you in the Baltic? If the honourable gentleman means to state this as a rational conjecture, I would ask him to look to the fact. Did her sense of these advantages restrain her in the late war, or compel her to desist from the demands she made before we began to arm? Certainly not. We find, from

the documents before us, that she adhered to one uniform, steady course, from which neither the apprehension of commercial loss, nor the terrors of our arms, influenced her one moment to recede. What, then, are we to conclude from this intricate system of balances and counterbalances, and those dangerous theories with which the honourable gentleman seemed to amuse himself? Why, that these are speculations too remote from our policy; that in some parts, even according to the honourable gentleman's argument, they may be defective after all, and consequently, that if the system he builds upon it fails in one of its possibilities, it fails in the whole of them. Such must ever be the fate of systems so nicely constructed. But it is not true that the system necessary to enable this country to derive the true benefit from the Dutch alliance ought to be founded upon those involved and mysterious politics which make it incumbent upon us, nay, which prove its perfection, by compelling us to stand forward the principals in every quarrel, the Quixotes of every enterprise, the agitators in every plot, intrigue, and disturbance, which are every day arising in Europe to embroil one state of it with another. I confess that my opinions fall infinitely short of these perilous extremes; that possibly my genius is too scanty, and my understanding too limited and feeble, for the contemplation of their consequences; and that I can speculate no further than on connections immediately necessary to preserve us, safe and prosperous, from the power of our open enemies, and the encroachment of our competitors. This I hold to be the only test by which the merits of an alliance can be tried. I did think, for instance, that when the intrigues of France threatened to deprive us of our ancient ally, Holland, it was wise to interfere, and afterward to form an alliance by which that evil might be prevented. But to push the system further is pernicious. Every link in the chain of confederacies, which has been so widely expatiated upon by the member already alluded to, carries us more and more from the just point. By this extension the broad and clear lines of your policy become narrower and less distinct, until at last the very trace of them is lost.

Other topics have been introduced into the discussion. The beginning of the war between Russia and the Porte has been referred to. What possible connection that has with our armament I know not, but of that I shall have occasion to speak by and by.

II. I come, however, sir, to a question more immediately before us, and that is, the value and importance attached, in the minds of his Majesty's ministers, to the fortress of Oczakow; and here I must beg leave to say, that they have not once attempted to answer the arguments so judiciously and ably enforced by my honourable friend who made this motion. It was explicitly

stated by the gentlemen on the other side, as the only argument for our interference at all, that the balance of Europe was threatened with great danger if Oczakow was suffered to remain in the hands of Russia. Of no less importance did ministers last year state this fortress of Oczakow, than as if it were indeed the talisman on which depended the fate of the whole Ottoman empire. But if this, from their own admission, was true last year, what has happened to alter its value? If it then excited the alarms of his Majesty's ministers for the safety of Europe, what can enable them now to tell us that we are perfectly secure? If it was true that her bare possession of Oczakow would be so dangerous, what must be the terror of Europe, when they see our negotiators put Russia into the way of seizing even Constantinople itself? This was the strong argument of my honourable friend [Mr Whitbread], and which he maintained with such solid reasoning that not the slightest answer has been given to it. To illustrate the value of Oczakow, however, one honourable gentleman [Mr Grant] went back to the reign of Elizabeth, and even to the days of Philip and Demosthenes. He told us that when Demosthenes, urging the Athenians to make war on Philip, reproached them with inattention to a few towns he had taken, the names of which they scarcely knew, telling them that those towns were the keys by which he would in time invade and overcome Greece, he gave them a salutary warning of the danger that impended. But if the opponents of that great orator had prevailed, if they had succeeded in inducing their countrymen to acquiesce in the surrender not only of those towns, but of considerably more, as in the present instance, with what face would he afterward have declared to his countrymen, "True it was that these sorry and nameless towns were the keys to the Acropolis itself; but you have surrendered them, and what is the consequence? You are now in a state of the most perfect security. You have now nothing to fear. You have now the prospect of sixteen years of peace before you!" I ask, sir, what would have been the reception even of Demosthenes himself, if he had undertaken to support such an inconsistency?

Let us try this, however, the other way. In order to show that his Majesty's ministers merit the censure which is proposed, I will admit that the preservation of the Turks is necessary for the security of a balance of power. I trust, at the same time, that this admission, which I make merely for the argument, will not be disingenuously quoted upon me, as hypothetical statements too commonly are, for admissions of fact. What will the right honourable gentleman gain by it? The Turks, by his arrangement, are left in a worse situation than he found them; for, previous to his interference, if Russia had gone to Constantinople, he would have been un