couragement should be given to the planting of potatoes, which would grow in soils unfit for the cultivation of grain. The fisheries constitute another important source of supply; al though it is a singular circumstance that in a maritime country, such as this, fish is rarely to be seen, except at the tables of the rich, the poor receiving little or no benefit from so nutritious an aliment. There may be some prejudices against it; but the exertions of gentlemen in the different districts of the country, if rightly directed, might remove them. Mr Rose concluded, by remarking, that every encouragement was due to any plan which promised to introduce a variety of nutritious food amongst the lower orders, to save a sum of 3,500,000l. annually to the country, increase its agriculture, and, by extending its fisheries, employ 100,000 persons in that way, which, more than any other, tended to uphold the naval greatness of the empire.

In a committee of supply, Mr Wharton moved that a sum, not exceeding 554,4411. be granted for the expenses of the barrack department for the current year.-In the proposed grant, a sum of 138,000l. was included as the estimated expense of a new barrack to be built in the Regent's Park, for the second regiment of Life Guards; and various smaller sums for new buildings of the same kind to be erected at Liverpool, Bristol, and Brighton. Strong objections were made to some of these grants: in consequence of which, a debate of a very singular character arose, of which it would be impossible to offer an abridgement without doing injustice to all the speakers. Mr Whitbread seized the .opportunity for attacking the government; and with the ebullitions of his patriotism, mixed some personal reflections on the character of the chief minister. The mildness and dignity

of this eminent man formed a fine contrast to the violence of him who aspired to be his antagonist.-In answer to some objections which had been started by preceding speakers, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said, "that there was a real necessity for erecting new barracks for the Life Guards. Government had been actually ejected from the possession of the present ones, and was obliged to make a new agreement with the lessor, paying an annual addition of 9501. for the convenience of remaining in them two or three years longer till others were built. The system of having the men diffused over the metropolis, away from their horses and accoutrements, he thought a very re. prehensible one. What might have been the consequences, had such a system been in practice during the late disturbances? Might not the men have been intercepted by the mob from reaching their stables, and the peace of the capital have been most seriously endangered?-The honourable gentleman imagined, that it would be a work of bad taste, but he could assure him, that he was not conscious of any unnecessary expense. With respect to the barracks at Bristol, it would be hard to ascertain what sort of building it should be which was to last during the war, if that was a principle of limitation which the house would be inclined to adopt. If a barrack was to be built there, considering the extent and population of the town, considering also the accommodation it would afford to the military passing to and from Ireland, he thought it should not be built upon any parsimonious scale. The money that was thrown away under this denomination of expenditure, was chiefly applied to the purchase of temporary barracks, which were now in want of repair. As to Liverpool, it was considered to be a great inconvenience that there should be no bar

rack there; and with regard to the expedient of hiring the warehouses for that purpose, he hardly thought that government would be justified in taking advantage, as it were, of the temporary suspension of trade in that place."

Mr Whitbread said, "that the right honourable gentleman appeared to him to have adopted erroneous views upon the subject, when he thought it of such little consequence to separate the soldiers from the people, as to be surprised at any objection to a grant for that purpose. The right honourable gentleman had not argued that general question; the time was gone by; but he would declare it as his sentiment, that he was extremely jealous, and he was sure the country at large was jealous, of the separating system. It had been said, that great advantage was likely to be derived from the labours of the commissioners appointed to audit General Delancey's accounts. Perhaps at the end of four or five years, if the country should exist so long under such financiers, that advan tage would greatly increase with the practices that rendered it necessary. But whence did the advantage arise? What was the necessity under which this boasted saving was made? The want of care in the controuling power; the negligence and mismanagement of those who, by proper application, ought to have prevented the occurrence of evils instead of leaving us to be obliged to the commissioners for the ascertainment of their extent. was expected that if the commission ers proceeded, many other defalcations would appear. To him this was not consoling. An honourable gentleman had stated once, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was the victim of the departments, and the public were given to understand that the honourable gentleman had left the treasury through disgust at the want of a suffi

It

cient controul.—But did the right honourable the Chancellor of the Exchequer think that he wanted military controul over the people of this country? Even at the end of the war, which the right honourable gentleman seemed to think would last long, and which he was sure would last as long as the career of the right honourable gentle. man, would it be necessary for us to look forward to the prospect of overawing them? Was this a principle to be maintained? Did any one ever hear a minister coolly assert it? But the right honourable gentleman disapproved of the idea of applying any of the warehouses of Liverpool to the purpose of accommodating the military. He who had made the loom useless, and the warehouse idle, who had spread starvation and discontent, had disapproved of that which to him appeared a natural course of proceeding-that of filling the warehouses with soldiers for the purpose of controuling the people under the inflictions he had brought on them and on the coun-try. But even although the right honourable gentleman had been endeavouring to make the revenue come up to an hundred millions, did he think, or could he think, that for three years more the country could go on as it was now going? If things proceeded as they were now proceeding, if expenses continued to accumulate, and means to diminish, they must look for relief to a peace with the enemy, a peace which his measures had rendered unavoidable. In the transactions of past years he saw many great and glorious opportunities of ending this war neglected and lost, while, at present, the system of the right honourable gentleman was calculated to produce the necessity of peace by sub-. mission. But why was it necessary that the horse and the soldier should be more together now than at any other time? Did any reason exist now,

that did not exist before, why the soldier and the general population of the country should be kept apart, or why barracks, which he had always regarded, in conformity with the opinions of the most constitutional authorities, as fortresses for controuling the kingdom, should be multiplied and enlar ged? As to the policy of it, merely with regard to the soldier, he under stood that when the men were on service, those who came from regular barracks, were not so healthful as others, so that even military purpo. ses were not likely to be served by it. One of the most lavish expenses under this head was incurred by the purchase of old houses at Clifton, in a ruined state, without a window; but now we were going back to Bristol again, to guard the French prisoners. Would to God that they were all out of this country, whether we continue at war or not!" The honourable gentleman concluded, with repeating his determination to vote against the resolution.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, "that the honourable gentleman must be positive indeed upon the subject, and confirmed in the opinion he had formed, when he thought it right not only to censure the conduct of his majesty's government, but to vote against the resolutions before the com

mittee."

Mr Whitbread, in explanation, stated, that his objection went only to the grant for building barracks.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer proceeded to observe," that to refuse it without knowing whether the sol diers could be otherwise accommodated, might be productive of much inconvenience. He supposed, however, that by the debating strain which the honourable gentleman had thought proper to adopt, and the topics to which he had resorted, he expected to do much towards tranquillizing the

country. When he brought forward his arguments attributing the starvation he described to the conduct of government, did he really think there was any thing in their manner of conducting the war against France which operated to produce the scarcity at Liverpool? Did he think there was any thing in it to call down the vengeance of Providence on our heads, and provoke him to deny the harvest to our hopes? If not, how could the honourable gentleman shut his eyes to what every man could see but himself, and resort to those imputations, which no man, who was acquainted with the subject, could hesitate to reject? He would own that in some inflammatory publications he had met with the topics to which the honourable gentleman had alluded; but he did not expect that any member could be found who would come down to that house for the purpose of making such statements. The honourable gentleman had spoken of golden opportunities of making peace, which ministers had neglected; but he did not say, he could not say, whether one of those opportunities presented itself now; and if no such opportunity existed, where was the policy in asserting, that there was no salvation for the country but in peace? It would be impossible for him to say so much against the peace he recommended, as by saying that we were unable to go on with the war. The honourable gentleman had always said that he would not accept of peace but upon honourable terms. If, then, peace could not be obtained upon honourable terms, there was, according to the honourable gentleman's own feelings, and those of the country, but one alternative. Why then should the honourable gentleman give the sanction of his authority to the opinion, that the war could not be conducted, and that we were only to look for consolation to the event of the enemy

granting us peace? Nothing could be more improper, nothing more unjust, nothing more dangerous to the security of the country, or more calculated to inflame the minds of the people under the present high price of provisions, than flinging out opinions of this sort to the disadvantage of the great contest in which we were engaged. He would maintain, and he thought the honourable gentleman might have been included amongst the number of those who would insist upon the same doctrine, that if we could not obtain peace upon honourable terms, we must maintain the war at all hazards, and under all circumstances, and to the last extremity. As to what had been said of his intention to keep the people down by a military force, when he had driven them to madness by his policy, he would ask where was the proof? In that candour of mind, in which he hoped the honourable gentleman was not deficient, he might have acknowledged, for he must have known, that it was at least a matter of serious doubt, whether all the difficulties experienced in our trade, would not have been aggravated, if they were not met by the orders in council. In two years after the adoption of those orders, this fact was demonstrated by an increase of our trade. Yet the honourable gentleman went on with his old proof, or rather with his old statement, in defiance of this striking fact, and insisted that our sufferings were not owing to the decrees of the enemy, but to our own orders in council. If this was logic, he was sure it was not a logic which the honourable gentleman would apply to any other subject; this confusion of cause and effect, this anticipation of consequence over the means that produced it, could, in no other than a political case, have warped the mind of the honourable gentleman. But if he was right in supposing that the effects which prece

ded the decrees were not to be ascribed to them, how was it fair to represent them as the act of our own government? Was this his wisdom, was this his policy, was this his patriotism? The reasoning of the honourable gentleman would go to turn all the resentment not against the enemy, but against the government; and that too, at a time when we were engaged in war with an enemy, who if the honourable gentleman was not aware intended our destruction, he must be ignorant of what was known to every body else. From this country he had met with his most effectual check in the pursuit of his insatiable ambition, and in his progress to universal empire and universal tyranny, his certain disappointment. If the honourable gentleman did not see this, and he trusted in God that he did not, when he called upon the country not to look to Buonaparte and to France, but to its own government, with indignation, and ascribed the inflictions of Providence to them alone; if he did not see this, but could make such statements with a conviction that he was doing right, he was sure that such sentiments would meet with little sympathy and little support.". -(Loud and continued cheers.)

Mr Whitbread rose, evidently in great agitation, and began by declaring, "that if he were not in that house, he would ask the warmest friend, or the loudest cheerer of the right hon. gentleman, whether the whole of his speech was not a gross misrepresentation? The right hon. gentleman was mistaken if he supposed that he had obtained a victory over him. No; it was a victory over his own invention. The house of commons was a fine place-the constitution of England was a great thing-every thing was to be admired, respected, and supported, when an adventurer from the bar was raised by his talent for debate to a

great situation, but a great situation which nobody but himself would have accepted under such circumstances."

The Chancellor of the Exchequer here signified his dissent from the statement that nobody would have accepted the situation but himself.

Mr Whitbread repeated the statement, maintained the truth of it, and added, "If you doubt me, I refer you for information to a letter signed Spencer Perceval." (Loud cries of, order, from all parts of the house, followed this expression, and Mr Whitbread attempted for some time in vain to be heard.)

Mr Yorke rose to order. The hon. gentleman had just made one of the most outrageous personal attacks on his right hon. friend which had ever been heard in that house. With respect to the justice or propriety of the attack thus made, he

Mr Ponsonby rose to order (Here the disorder became general, and cries of Chair! Chair! resounded through the house; at length Mr Ponsonby obtained a hearing)" I call the right hon. gentleman himself to order, and on this ground, that he having risen to call my hon. friend to order, did not confine himself to that point, but thought proper to advert to other to pics, thereby transgressing the regulations of the house. I speak this before high authority, who will contradict me if I should be incorrect."

Mr Lushington, the chairman, then declared his opinion to be, that Mr Whitbread had been out of order.

Mr Whitbread got up again, and "confessed he had risen in some heat, and unconsciously at the time had exceeded the limits of debate. He would however say, that if he was described as having told the people that they were to regard the government rather than Buonaparte as their enemy, it was a gross misrepresentation. Unfortunately it was too much a practice to

identify the government with the ministry, and convert the fair claims of the former to support and attachment, into a blind approbation of the measures of the latter. Whatever might be the construction put upon his words, he was determined ever to speak out in the house of commons, to conceal no part of the truth, and to lend no helping hand to the delusion, any more than to the ruin of the people. He knew nothing more likely to prove destructive to the safety and greatness of the people than the prevalence of a different doctrine. He did not confound the visitations of Providence with the decrees of France, or the measures of the right hon. gentleman. But he knew that thousands of manufacturers were now out of employment, and that tens of thousands were now working at reduced wages, which scarcely sufficed to procure them subsistence. He knew that an unreformed house of commons had approved of all the proceedings of the right honourable gentleman, and of all his orders in council, but he knew too, that the people and the merchants out of the house, were, in every part of the kingdom, of very different opinions. Was not this table already covered with petitions that daily multiplied; and had he indeed abandoned all his patriotism when he stated this? As to what he had said with respect to peace, how was it possible for him to speak positively as to the fitness of the present moment; but how could any time be found appropriate unless the experiment were made? Would the right hon. gentleman, looking back to that history in which he was so well read, pronounce it to be his opinion that we were here. after likely to obtain such desirable conditions of peace as might have been obtained at any former periods? The right hon. gentleman boasted of our being the great and only barrier to Buonaparte's desire of universal domi