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the treasury have discovered this for his country? Could not Lord North, first lord of the treasury, have applied to the paymaster of the forces, and have procured the 73,000l. in his hands? After being fourteen years chancellor of the exchequer, the noble lord could not without a commission of accounts discover that the public money, in the hands of private individuals, ought to be paid into the exchequer !

Mr. Burke proceeded in the same strain, and took the language of the noble lord himself as evidence of the inutility, the nullity, and the insignificance of this commission of accounts, which had done nothing but what the board of treasury could and ought to have done; but what the exchequer could and ought to have done; but what other offices, largely paid and little employed, could and ought to have done. So that this mighty machine had been contrived and set in motion to draw a cork to do what other bodies ought to do, and to keep them in idleness when they should be employed. He ridiculed the whole scheme and shadow of reform. For this the plan of substantial reformation of last year had been rejected; for this the noble lord himself had opposed the bill which he had the honour to move in that House; for this he had turned a deaf ear to the bill which was introduced, and now contented himself with taking little inconsiderate portions of it, and bringing them forward as subjects of parliamentary attention. He had broken the comprehensive plan into fritters, and now presented them one by one, as sops, to deceive, not as a substantial feast, to satisfy the national desire. A full harvest of economy had been offered to the House. This the noble lord had rejected. He had himself promised a crop; and now it had come to the time of reaping, he went about picking up the leavings of the harvest, the hawkers and the pedlars, and holding up in his hands the few heads that he had gathered. Seducing the people with the prospect of something solid at least, he gave a whiff with his mouth, and blew them into chaff.

Mr. Burke, after treating this mockery of reformation with most severe censure, animadverted on the constitution of the noble lord's commission. He said that his language upon a former occasion had served to convince him how much wit the noble lord had; but the present had also shewn what was the power of face which he possessed. After declaring that he could never consent to see a commission of accounts, not erected of men, chosen by the people of England, entrusted with the guardianship of their property, he said he had nothing to hope nor expect from the inquiry that they should make into the extraordinaries of the army. The noble lord had been suckled with the milk of the treasury and exchequer; he had grown fat upon it; and he was enamoured of, and attached to, the old habits. “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." This was exactly the case with the noble lord; he had been brought up among the abuses of the treasury and exchequer, and he would not now depart from them. He declared that he did not form a bad opinion of the consequences of the enquiry from any disrespect towards the members of that commission; but merely from the specimen set before the house that day, in which the noble lord had thought proper to reject every part of their reports that went to correct the irregularities and ill habits of office. They had shewn themselves to be men of sense, of integrity, and of ability, as public accountants. Their reports did them the highest honour and credit. As pieces of literary composition, he never saw style and manner so happily suited to a subject. It was neither too elevated nor too low, but clear, correct, nervous, and intelligible; as nicely adapted to the occasion as any pieces of writing he had ever read in his life. He hoped that the gentlemen would be well rewarded for their labours. Undoubtedly they ought to be paid, and paid liberally; and whenever that proposition was made, he promised to give it his hearty support; but he nevertheless would oppose continuing the commission, and that, not that he had the smallest objection to them as public accountants. If any

strangers were to be employed as commissioners, he knew none more capable than they had shewn themselves, but he would never give up the argument, that appointing commissioners, who were not in parliament, was a scandalous delegation of the authority of that House, and of powers which they held in trust only, and could not give out of their hands into the hands of others, in conformity to the old maxim of delegatus non potest delegare,

The several motions were then agreed to.

MR. BURKE'S MOTION FOR AN INQUIRY INTO THE SEIZURE AND CONFISCATION OF PRIVATE PROPERTY IN ISLAND OF ST. EUSTATIUS.

May 14.

THIS day, in pursuance of his previous notice,

THE

Mr. BURKE rose, and drew the attention of the House to the very important question of the seizure and confiscation of private property on the late capture of the island of St. Eustatius. He began with stating the very great consequence of the question on which they were about to enter. The eyes of Europe would be on the conduct of the British legislature in the present instance, and it would be exceedingly necessary to be cautious and grave, to be cool and impartial in their deliberations; perhaps the fate of Britain would depend on the result and decision of that question; for it ought to be remembered, that we stood in a new situation we were engaged in a most calamitous war, in It was a situwhich we had many enemies and no friends. ation unprecedented in the history of Britain, and called for all the wisdom and all the prudence of the government.

We ought not, by instituting a scheme of inhuman plunder and unjust oppression, to make more enemies, or to incense and provoke those with whom we were already involved. We ought, instead of pushing war to its extremes, to en deavour, by every means in our power, to moderate its horrors, and to commit no other depredations than such as were necessary to public success, or as contributed to national glory. Private emolument ought not to be received as an excuse for rapacity. By such civil regards, the resentments of our enemies might be softened; their enmity might be subdued, and their minds be brought to a favourable inclination towards peace. Or neutral nations, perceiving that, even in a struggle for our existence, we did not deviate from honour, might be brought to applaud the dignity of our sentiments as a people, and assist us in the conflict. But a contrary behaviour on our part was likely to provoke them to unite against us, and make the protection of human nature from plunder and robbery a common cause. They would not stand unconcerned spectators of the renovation of that system of havoc which it had been the pride of civilised Europe to execrate and explode.

Mr. Burke then called back to the recollection of the House the terms of the manifesto, published by Great Britain on the commencement of hostilities with the Dutch. That manifesto was published on the 20th of December; the terms and language of which threatened no inhuman cruelty, no uncommon severity; but, on the contrary, seemed rather to promise the short variance of old allies, in which all their old friendship and affection would operate rather as the softener than the inflamer of the common calamities of war. It breathed expressions of kindness and long suffering, and the menaces which it held out seemed to be torn by constraint from a heart bleeding under the affliction of unwilling strife. The harbinger was so gentle, that it was not to be feared that the war would be shocking. It was expected by men of both countries as no more than a temporary rupture, flowing from the rash petulance of the parties, and which their mutual good sense would, in the coolness

of deliberation, suddenly heal. The proclamations, with respect to letters of marque, &c. which followed the manifesto, warranted the same expectations. There was no predatory system threatened, nor powers granted of an unusual nature. Mr. Burke proved this by reading the various passages in these state papers, containing the language of the court, and the powers granted in the commencement of the war.

He now came to the transactions in the West Indies. The rapidity of the expedition against the island of St. Eustatius was a matter which begot suspicions, that the orders of government to the commanders on that station had not waited for the event of the declaration of hostilities; or else the circumstances of the affair were proofs of the vigilance and wisdom of our government, and of the promptitude, alacrity, and conduct of our commanders. But, in order to the due consideration of this very important question, it was necessary that all the circumstances of the situation and the time of the prospect, and the event should be attended to. First then, it was on the close of a most melancholy and general disaster, which happened in that part of the world; a hurricane which had involved all the islands in common suffering and common distress; when all that extensive branch of islands and settlements had been visited by the scourge of Providence, as a correction of their vices, or an humbler of their pride. At such a moment it might have been expected that the deadly serpents of war would for a time have been hushed into a calm in that quarter of the world: their stores of poison being exhausted, and wanting the recruit and fructification which the rich earth was accustomed to bestow, that they would have remained for a time mutual spectators as they were mutual sufferers, and would not have increased the stock of their distress, by adscititious calamities. The hurricane seemed the particular visitation of Heaven, as if the Deity had meant thereby to check the fury of mankind against each other, and reconcile them by the sense of their common necessities. Surely, when human pride was le

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