By this commerce she enriched her produced only in that part of the world. merchants and augmented her finances. the conquests in North America is extremely low; the speculations as to the future trade are precarious, and the prospect, at the very best, is remote. We stand in need of supplies which will have an effect certain, speedy, and considerable. The retaining both, or even one, of the considerable French islands, Martinique or Guadaloupe, will, and nothing else can, effectually answer this triple purpose. The advantage is immediate. It is a matter not of conjecture, but of account. The trade with these conquests is of the most lucrative nature, and of the most considerable extent; the number of ships employed by it are a great resource to our maritime power; and, what is of equal weight, all that we gain on this system is made fourfold to us by the loss which ensues to France. But our conquests in North America are of very little detriment to the commerce of France. On the West Indian scheme of acquisition, our gain and her loss go hand in hand. He insisted upon the obvious connexion of this trade with that of the colonies in North America, and with our commerce to the coast of Africa. The African trade would be augmented, which, with that of North America, would all centre in Great Britain. But if the islands are all restored, a great part of the benefit of the colony trade must redound to those who were lately our enemies, and will always be our rivals. Though we had retained either Martinique or Guadaloupe, or even both these islands, our conquests were such that there was still abundant matter left to display our moderation. 66 Goree, he said, is also surrendered, without the least apparent necessity, notwithstanding it had been agreed, in the negotiation with M. de Bussy, that it should remain with the British Crown, because it was essential to the security of Senegal. "In the East Indies there was an engagement for mutual restitution of conquests. He asked, what were the conquests which France had to restore? He declared that she had none. All the conquests which France had made had been retaken, and were in our own possession, as were likewise all the French settlements and factories. Therefore the restitution was all from one side. We retained nothing, although we had conquered every thing. "Of the restitution of Minorca he approved; and that, he said, was the only conquest which France had to restore; and for this island we had given the East Indies, the West Indies, and Africa. The purchase was made at a price that was fifty times more than it was worth. Belle Isle alone, he affirmed, was a sufficient equivalent for Minorca. 66 As to Germany, he said, it was a wide field-a tedious and lengthened consideration-including the interests of many hostile powers, some of them immediately, and others eventually, connected with Great Britain. There might sometimes be policy in the construction of our measures, to consult our insular situation only. But while we had France for our enemy, it was a scene to employ and to baffle her arms. Had the armies of France not been employed in Germany, they would have been transported to America, where we should have found it more difficult to have conquered them; and if we had succeeded, the expense would have been greater. Let any one, he said, make a fair estimate of the expense of transports and provisions to that distant climate, and he will find, in the article of expense, the war in Germany to be infinitely less than in the wilds of America. Upon this principle he affirmed that the conquests made in America had been owing to the employment of the French army in Germany. He said, with an emphasis, that America had been conquered in Germany. 66 He owned that several objections had been made to the German war. He thought them frivolous and puerile, factious and malicious. It had been said, that during twelve months after the Marathon of Minden, not a squadron of ships had been sent to make any British conquests. If this be true, will any man say that France would, the day before the battle of Minden, have made those humiliating concessions she afterwards did make ? To what but her ill success in the German war was it owing, that she submitted to the most mortifying terms in the late negotiation with M. de Bussy? These facts speak for themselves; and from them it the cessions offered by France, during the late negotiation, which will always be remembered with glory to Great Britain, were owing to our perseverance in the German war, and to our observing good faith towards our Protestant allies on the continent. appears, that "Other objections had been made, and while he was upon the subject he would take notice of them. It had been said, that the French subsidies do not amount to half what we pay. The subsidies which the French actually pay may not, but what they promise amount to double. They subsidize Sweden, Russia, and the Swisses, several Italian states, and, if we are to believe their own writers, even the Danes; those subsidies are most, or all of them, for negative services. They have got nothing by the Swedes; they have got nothing by the Empress of Russia, though she has got a great deal for herself; they have got far less by the Empress Queen, if we except the honour of having buried above one hundred and fifty thousand of their best troops in Germany. The Wertemburghers, it is well known, have refused to serve them, the Swiss and Italian states cannot serve them, and the Danes give them a neutrality. "The subsidy to Hesse had been arraigned, and falsehood had been added to malignity. But it ought to be remembered, that the treaty with Hesse was made before he came into office. An imputation of crime to him, for not breaking that alliance, came with a very ill grace from them who made it. They blamed him for consenting to pay the Prince of Hesse a sum of He was money for the damage done by the French in his dominions. astonished that any set of men, who arrogated to themselves the distinction of friends to his present Majesty, should represent this circumstance as a crime. Can a people, he asked, who impeached the Tory Ministry of Queen. Anne, for not supporting the Catalans at an expense that would have cost some millions, against their King, merely because they were our allies-can a people, who unanimously gave one hundred thousand pounds as a relief to the Portuguese, when under the inflicting hand of Heaven, merely because they were our allies-can a people, who indemnify their American subjects, whom at the same time they protect in their possessions, and even give damages to their own publicans when they suffer, though in pursuance of our own Acts of Parliament-can such a people cry aloud against the moderate relief to a Prince, the ally and son-in-law of Great Britain, who is embarked in the same cause with Great Britain, who is suffering for her, who for her sake is driven from his dominions, where he is unable to raise one shilling of his revenue, and with his wife, the daughter of our late venerable monarch, is reduced to a state of exile and indigence? Surely they cannot. Let our munificence, therefore, to such a Prince be never again brought forward. "It had been exultingly said, that the present German war had overturned that balance of power which we had sought for in the reigns of King William and Queen Anne. This assertion was so far from having the smallest foundation in truth, that he believed the most superficial observers of public affairs scarcely stood in need of being told, that that balance was overturned long before this war had existence. It was overturned by the Dutch before the end of the late war. When the French saw that they had nothing to apprehend from the Dutch, they blew up that barrier for which our Nassaus and Marlboroughs had fought. The Louvestein faction again got the ascendency in Holland; the French monarchy again took the Dutch republic under its wings, and the brood it has hatched has-but let us forbear serpentine expressions. Since the time that the grand confederacy against France took place, the military power of the Dutch by sea and land has been in a manner extinguished, while another power, then scarcely thought of in Europe, has started up-that of Russia, and moves in its own orbit extrinsically of all other systems; but gravitating to each according to the mass of attracting interests it contains.-Another power, against all human expectations, was raised in Europe in the House of Brandenburgh, and the rapid successes of his Prussian Majesty prove him to be born to be the natural asserter of Germanic liberties against the House of Austria. We have been accustomed to look up with reverence to that House, and the phenomenon of another great power in Germany was so very new to us, that for some time he was obliged to attach himself to France. France and Austria united, and Great Britain and Prussia coalesced. Such are the great events by which the balance of power in Europe has been entirely altered since the time of the grand alliance against France. "His late Majesty so passionately endeavoured to maintain or revive the ancient balance, that he encountered at home, on that account, opposition to his Government, and, abroad, danger to his person, but he could not reanimate the Dutch with the love of liberty, nor inspire the Empress Queen with sentiments of moderation. They talk at random, therefore, who impute the present situation of Germany to the conduct of Great Britain. Great Britain was out of the question; nor could she have interposed in it without taking a much greater share than she did. To represent France as an object of terror, not only to Great Britain but Europe, and that we had mistaken our interest in not reviving the grand alliance against her, was mere declamation. Her ruined armies now returning from Germany, without being able, through the opposition of a handful of British troops, to effect any material object, is the strongest proof of the expediency of the German war. "The German war prevented the French from succouring their colonies and islands in America, in Asia, and in Africa. Our successes were uniform, because our measures were vigorous. "He had been blamed for continuing the expense of a great marine, after the defeat of M. Conflans. This was a charge that did not surprise him, after the many others which had been made, and which were equally unfounded and malignant. It was said, that the French marine after that defeat was in so ruinous a condition, that there was not the least occasion for our keeping so formidable a force to watch its motions. It was true, he said, that the French marine was ruined, no man doubted it-they had not ten ships of the line fit for service, but could we imagine that Spain, who in a very short time gave him but too much reason to be convinced that his suspicions were well founded, was not in a common interest with France; and that the Swedes, the Genoese, and even the Dutch, would not have lent their ships for hire? "He begged pardon of the House for detaining them so long, he would detain them but a few minutes longer. "The desertion of the King of Prussia, whom he styled the most magnanimous ally this country ever had, in the preliminary articles on the table, he reprobated in the strongest terms. He called it insidious, tricking, base, and treacherous. After amusing that great and wonderful Prince during four months, with promises of the subsidy, he had been deceived and disappointed. But to mark the inveteracy and treachery of the cabinet still stronger, he is selected from our other allies, by a malicious and scandalous distinction in the present articles. In behalf of the other allies of Great Britain, we had stipulated, that all the places belonging to them which had been conquered should be evacuated and restored. But with respect to the places which the French had conquered belonging to the King of Prussia, there was stipulated evacuation only. Thus the French might keep those places until the Austrian troops were ready to take possession of them. All the places which the French possessed belonging to the Elector of Hanover, the Duke of Brunswick, the Landgrave of Hesse, &c., did not amount to more than ten villages, or about a hundred acres of land; but the places belonging to the King of Prussia they were in possession of were, Cleves, Wesel, Gueldres, &c. "Upon the whole, the terms of the proposed treaty met with his most hearty disapprobation. He saw in them the seeds of a future war. The peace was insecure, because it restored the enemy to her former greatness. The peace was inadequate, because the places gained were no equivalent for the places surrendered." Towards the conclusion of his speech Mr. Pitt was so ill and faint that he could scarcely be heard. It was his intention to have spoken on the articles relative to Spain, but he was unable to do so. The motion was carried by a majority of 319 to 65; and on the 10th of February, 1763, the definitive treaty was signed at Paris between Great Britain, France, and Spain. PROCEEDINGS RESPECTING MR. WILKES. 1763. In the forty-fifth number of a weekly paper called The North Briton, of which John Wilkes, the member for Aylesbury, was the avowed author, his Majesty was charged with uttering a falsehood in his speech from the Throne;* upon which a general warrant for apprehending the authors, printers, and publishers, of the above seditious and treasonable libel, was issued by the Earl of Halifax, one of the principal Secretaries of State. By virtue of this warrant, Mr. Wilkes was taken into custody, and committed to the Tower; but on being brought before the Court of Common Pleas by a writ of habeas corpus, Lord Chief Justice Pratt,† in delivering the judgment of the Court, said, that Mr. Wilkes was entitled by his privilege as a member of Parliament to be free from arrest in all cases, except treason, felony, and actual breach of the peace; and that he ought therefore to be discharged from imprisonment without bail. Mr. Wilkes was thereupon released from custody; but criminal proceedings were immediately commenced against him by the Attorney-General.§ Upon the meeting of Parliament on the 15th of November, as soon as the Commons had returned to their own house after hearing the speech from the Throne, Mr. George Grenville, who, on the retirement of the Earl of Bute on the 8th of April preceding, had succeeded to the office of Prime Minister, said that he was commanded by the King to inform them that his Majesty, having received information that John Wilkes, Esq., a member of that House, was the author of a most seditious and dangerous libel, published since the last session of Parliament, had caused him to be apprehended and secured, in order that he might be tried for the same by due course of law; The forty-fifth number of The North Briton appeared on the 23rd of April, 1763, and the speech from the Throne which it attacked was delivered by the King at the close of the session on the 19th of that month. † Afterwards Earl Camden, and Lord Chancellor. Wilson's C. P. Reports, vol. ii. p. 159. § Two prosecutions were instituted against Mr. Wilkes; one in respect of the libel on the King in the forty-fifth number of The North Briton, and the other in respect of an obscene and impious publication, entitled An Essay on Woman. Mr. Wilkes was convicted on both prosecutions; but, when called on to receive the judgment of the Court, he refused to appear, and he was outlawed. |