cowardly crew, he has been our polar star, shining while other lights hid their head, always in his place and always luminous; constantly forewarning us of our dangers, and constantly pointing to the cause of safety and of honour. From him, therefore, on every important occasion, we must naturally wish to hear something; and, particularly when, by, his keeping silence, a destructive measure may go forth with the appearance of having his consent.

CHANGE IN THE MINISTRY.-Mr. Tierney; we beg his pardon, "the Right Ho"nourable Mr. Tierney" (we do not know his Christian name); the famous Mr. Tierney, who so long made a conspicuous figure in the poems and caricatures of the friends of Mr. Pitt, has, after a long and arduous struggle, made a safe lodgment upon the ministerial bench, in character of Treasurer of the Navy, a place of four thousand a year. Mr. Bragge, the predecessor of Mr. Tierney, is, it seems to be Chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, in place of Lord Liverpool, who with a disinterestedness and patriotism peculiar to well-meaning men and "safe politicians," has thus, at the age of four-score, given up four thousand out of about seven thousand a year, which he has enjoyed from before the far greater part of us were born, and which he now partly relinquishes with the hope of keeping together an administration, on the existence of which depend upwards of thirty thousand a year, received by his son and other of his relations. It is, we suppose, in emulation of this venerable and noble "col"lector of the customs inwards," that Mr. Bragge has yielded a place of four thousand a year, held daring pleasure, for a place of the same value, held during life.-It is said, that further changes are to take place; and, if such can take place, without any diminution of the emoluments of the The Family, we should think they would; for some sort of change is absolutely necessary to keep even the meanest of the people quiet.-Mr. Tierney is said to have been admitted for the sake of his talents in finance; and, if public rumour does not deceive us, he has conceived some plan, which he imagines will, in future, render loans unnecessary. On the first point we must observe, that the fact, if true, seems to contradict that high opinion, which the wiseacres had formed of Mr. Addington's financial abilities. With respect to the second point, we are rather inclined to doubt the fact; but, if it be true, if Mr. Tierney has conceived such a plan, .and if he really does provide for the exigencies of the state, without the aid of loans, we hesitate not to pronounce him a conjuror far surpassing Dr. Val. Mr. Tierney's fa

ther was, if we mistake not, something in the treasuring and financiering way, and even for the navy, and, therefore, like his worthy, his truly worthy colleague, Lord Hawkesbury, he may, probably, possess "an "hereditary disposition to office;" but, coajuring, it is well known, does not go by descent, and, therefore, though we have no reason to suppose, that Mr. Tierney is, in any one point, inferior to his worthy ancestors, and though that ancestor should himself have been a conjuror, it does not follow, that Mr. Tierney will prove a conjuror too; and, we repeat, that nothing short of conjuring, nothing short of the down-right black art, will enable him, without loans, to carry on the war, or even to keep up the peace establishment last fixed on. The national expenditure of this present year will be about £54,000,000, and the revenue will be about £30,000,000; so that, if there be any truth in figures, there will be a deficit of about £24,000,000 to be raised by new taxes. That this sum never can be raised from the people Mr. Tierney must be very well assured, and therefore, he must intend to proceed by conjuration, in which it is unnecessary for us to say, that we most heartily wish him success. But, in the expenditure of the year, we have included the charges on account of the National Debt and the Sinking Fund, which amount to about twenty-four out of the fifty-four millions; so that, if Mr. Tierney means not to pay these charges, or to tax the funds, which is nearly the same thing, he may possibly effect his object without the aid of supernatural faculties. At any rate, we hope, that, in the prosecution of his plan, he will endeavour to spare the inhabitants of the Borough, to whom, like another Mayor of Garrat, he has, for many years past, been constantly pledging his honour to bring about an alleviation of their burdens.Farcical, however, as all this is in the eyes of other people, Mr. Tierney's promotion can be no farce with Mr. Pitt, towards whom that promotion is, on the part of Mr. Addington, a guage of defiance, if not a stupid mark of contempt, and, on the part of Mr. Tierney, a signal of triumph. This is the man, and the only man, who, for several years past, has set himself, foot to foot, against Mr. Pitt; who has constantly opposed his principles, his measures, and his system, particularly his favourite system of finance, that great foundation of his fame, that pedestal without the durability of which his statue must sink into the earth. Disguise the thing, therefore, in whatever manner he pleases, Mr. Pitt must feel, that he has, at last, been over-reached, out-witted, and

defeated; for, it is absolutely impossible, that he should not be cut to the very soul at seeing Mr. Tierney the dictator on that Bench, from which he so long looked down on Mr. Tierney with contempt. Mr. Pitt must entertain these feelings, and the attempt to hide them, by giving the ministers, his support, will only discover a conscions weakness, a conscious inability to oppose them with success. He perceives clearly enough the defection of his former adherents, who are daily becoming less and less numerous, less and less warm, and who, though they still profess their admiration of his character and talents, will give their support to his enemy, in which support, to avoid the mortification of being left in a minority, and of seeing his fall recorded by a vote of that Parliament, over which he so long has ruled, he himself will join. Those persons, who, having nothing within themselves whereby to obtain a name or attract notice, still endeavour to get rid of their insignificance by calling themselves Pittites, affect to live in hopes, and perhaps really do live in hopes, of seeing their leader restored to his former power and splendor. This is possible; but, nothing that we find in history, nothing that we can collect from the circumstances of the present times, authorizes us to regard it as probable. Public opinion is a stream, which, if it once changes a long continued course, seldom or never returns to its ancient bed. Had Mr. Pitt, when he retired from his Majesty's service, left his place to be supplied without any interference of his own; had he regularly continued his attendance in Parliament, speaking and voting merely as a member of that body, supporting those measures that were good, and opposing those that were bad; had he left the war to be continued, or the peace to be made, by the ministers themselves; and, had he, when the peace of Amiens came to be discussed, given it that mark of reprobation, which it has been found to merit; had this been his line of conduct, his return to power would, at this day, have been the undivided wish of the nation, who would have looked to him as an immoveable rock of defence. But, he, unhappily for his country and for his own fame, chose a course entirely different. The new cabinet was moulded up by his assistance, and with every appearance of wishing to retain his power after he had yielded his place, not unaccompanied with some marks of having retired himself for the purpose of getting rid of his colleagues, and with a view of returning to exercise absolute sway

amongst others of his own creation. The moment, too, that he ceased to be minister, he seemed to have forgotten that he was a member of parliament; and, as if it were beneath him to be any thing less than the ruler of the nation, he imitated the example of secession which had been given him by his rival orator. In the mean time, however, by whispers and nods, his followers were instructed to support the ministers, lest they should sink under their opponents, lest a breach should be made, and lest the cabinet should fall into the hands of others whom he hated, or, which was nearly the same thing, over whom he could not hope to have an absolute controul. From this motive it was, that he supported the Preliminary and Definitive Treaties; for, it is utterly incredible that he should not have seen their destructive tendency; and, having supported them, having pledged himself to that support in the most unequivocal manner, he could not now avail himself of that opposition, which might yet have restored him to power. Therefore, it is that we see his simple followers, fed by vain hopes of a future opportunity, lending their aid to preserve his consistency and to disguise his mortification. His friends, indeed, do say that he means to join in the vote of censure, this night (Friday, 3d of June,) to be brought forward. We shall rejoice to see this assertion verified, and we are sorry, that the nature of our publication does not permit us to wait the event, before this sheet is put to the press; but, these are our opinions, and though we shall be glad to see cause for retracting them, we regard it as a duty to submit them to our readers.-In the mean time, the proceedings in the House of Lords strongly corroborate all that we have said. On the 2d instant, Earl Fitzwilliam brought forward certain resolutions, disapproving of the conduct of ministers, on which the previous question was moved by Lord Grosvenor, after which the middle course of adjournment was moved by Lord Mulgrave and supported by Lord Melville; and, the result was, that the adjournment was negatived, 106 to 18, the previous question was carried, 110 to 15, and the resolutions negatived without a division; so that, in approbation of their conduct, the ministers had a majority of 95 out of 125.

TO THE PUBLIC.

At this time when the eyes of all the civilized world are directed to Egypt and Malta, the possession and retention of which countries by France and England have produced such important effects, and been attended with so considerable an expense of blood and treasure, when Great-Britain has become so interested in their fate as to engage exclusively on their account in a war with France, after the short interval of a few months of peace; it will not be considered as ill-timed or uninteresting by an intelligent Public to inquire more minutely than has been done heretofore, into the very extraordinary circumstance of their being allowed to fall a prey to our enemy, at a time when our navy had attained a height of improvement and pre-eminence in strength and skill unexampled in our history, and when the marine of our enemies was sunk to the lowest ebb of insignificance approaching annihilation.

The importance to this country of the occupation of these places by the French, was as well understood by us at the time the expedition was preparing for Egypt at Toulon, as it is at this moment; yet strange and unaccountable to relate, the French were knowingly and uninterruptedly permitted to collect their force for this enterprize eight or ten months previous to its sailing, and to draw vessels, troops, and stores with the same security as if in time of peace, from every port in the Mediterranean, without which foreign aid nothing of importance could have been undertaken from that port.

Before we proceed to examine the past conduct of the Marine Minister in this singular and eventful business, let us take a view of the force under Lord St. Vincent, who then commanded on the Mediterranean station, and of the means his lordship possessed to counteract and defeat the designs of the enemy, whose force and position may be also described.

From the latter end of the year 1797, when the French began to collect a force at Toulon, until the latter end of May, when their expedition sailed for Malta, our Mediterranean fleet consisted of about 24 sail of the line, (of which none carried less than 74 guns) some ships of 50 and 44 guns on two decks, with a very large proportion of frigates and smaller vessels; and during a portion of this time, Lord St. Vincent had at his disposal, a squadron of five or six Portuguese ships of the line, with some frigates of that nation. The only two very material objects for his lordship's attention VOL. III.

within the limits of his command, were the Spanish fleet in Cadiz, and the French force collecting at Toulon; the former consisted of 20 or 21 sail of the line in some sort of preparation for sea, but with few men on board, (part of the fleet of 27 sail of the line his lordship had beaten off Cape St. Vincent with his squadron of 14 sail) together with seven or eight others unrigged, or in a state of ordinary, and several frigates. The latter varied from three or four ill provided ships of the line with two or three frigates of the first, until it was aug. mented in the end to 12 or 13 ships of the line and four or five frigates with near 400 transports. The Spanish fleet, which had been most insultingly and effectually blockaded in Cadiz during a great part of this time by eight or nine sail of the British line, were known to be in a miserable state of unfitness for active service; and officers and men but very little zealous in the cause they appeared compelled to support; and it was clear the French force at Toulon could only attach a degree of strength and importance, and early arrive at a fitness for service, by being totally unmolested and left at full liberty to receive external supplies.

The disposition during this time of Lord St. Vincent's fleet was in general as follows; about half the ships of the line, sometimes more, with a very small proportion of frigates and other vessels were stationed off Cadiz; two ships of the line were kept almost constantly cruizing off Cape St. Vincent, and, at the same time, two others were sent off Madeira to look for prizes; of the remainder of the ships of the line, some of them at Gibraltar, others at the Tagus; some of the frigates were kept off Cape Finisterre, others off Corunna, and some along the Coast of Portugal. No part of the fleet was stationed to the eastward of Gibraltar, except a fifty gun ship with a frigate, and one or two sloops, which had latterly been sent up the Mediterranean, but not particularly to cruize off the Port of Toulon. Insignificant as this last mentioned little squadron was, had it been exclu sively employed, at an early period, to interrupt the communication with Toulon, it might have been of material service; but it was kept cruizing for other purposes, in the Mediterranean generally, and returned to Gibraltar about a fortnight before the sailing of the Toulon fleet; the moment of all others, when it ought to have been left there, if only to lay on the skirts of the convoy to ascertain its route. Instead of this disposition, had the four or five ships of the line generally employed to look after

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prizes, been detached with a fifty gun ship and three or four frigates, about two or three months before the sailing of the enemy from Toulon, with orders to retard the equipment of the expedition forming in that port by every possible means, such as intercepting their supplies, &c. the sailing of the expedition must have been considerably delayed, and certainly until a junction. might have been formed between this squadron and a reinforcement of seven or eight sail of the line sent from England, which reached Toulon about ten days or a fortnight after the sailing of the French fleet; when its departure must have been effectually put a stop to.

That Lord St. Vincent seems in duty bound to have done this at least, must, I conceive, appear evident to every one acquainted with the strength of the fleet at his lordship's disposal; with the wretched state of the Spanish ships in Cadiz; and with the serious consequences that might attend the successful issue of the French enterprize.

That his lordship might have done more, that he might have detached from his fleet a force sufficient to have stopped the French expedition had it been encountered in full force, and yet left ships enough off Cadiz to keep the Spaniard in check, I could venture to assert and prove. Ten sail of the line of British ships only were frequently absent at one time from the blockade of Cadiz, even when Lord St. Vincent commanded. it in person; though never of so material a service as this would have been, which indeed, it might be said, had become the first object for his lordship's attention.

Had his lordship, however, done what is mentioned in the first instance, neither Malta nor Egypt would ever have been in the possession of the French ! ! !

What an expense of blood and treasure would the adoption of either of these measures have saved! What a difference in the actual state of this country might they have produced !--Why neither of them were resorted to, why the French were entirely left to themselves until too late to be interrupted effectually, remains to be explained, as certainly it ought, and that without delay.

It will not be pretended, after what has been already said, that four or five sail of the British line with a fifty and frigates was too small a force to be risked off Toulon; nor will it be said, that our not having a port in the Mediterranean was a sufficient reason for our not sending ships there. Lord Nelson, who had just joined Lord St.

Vincent with one ship of the line, was detached with only three, a fifty gun ship and about four smaller vessels on that service, (though too late) when the enemy were known to be in their greatest force. His lordship's ship was dismantled; he got shelter to repair in Sardinia, and in Sicily he procured water and provisions. In the worst case, they might have had supplies sent them from Gibraltar.

Neither will it be held by professional men, that an English squadron of ten or eleven sail of the line would have been unequal at that period, to stop the progress of twelve or thirteen defective French line of battleships, ill manned and equipped, crowd, ed with troops, and charged with a convoy of near 400 sail of ill provided vessels, some of them with hardly a second sail to bend. Indeed the recent achievement of Sir James Saumarez in the Gut of Gibraltar is fresh in the memory of every one.

With respect to the part which the board of Admiralty had in this transaction, it certainly might have sent a reinforcement to Lord St. Vincent at an earlier period than it did, considering the importance of certainly and effectually counteracting the designs of the enemy in the Mediterranean. The defeat of the Dutch fleet, and the capture of several of their large ships by Lord Duncan in the preceding October, had considerably increased our disposeable force, and many ships of the line were suffered to remain uncommissioned in our ports, which might have been added to our fleet in the Mediterranean.

Of such importance was it to foil this last and greatest of the French expeditions during the late war; so long in preparing, so formidable in its nature, and so apparently vast in its design, that no effort should have been left untried by the minister or his admiral to effect it.

Our letting the French escape on their expedition to Bantry Bay, and from Brest to the Mediterranean and back again, were bad samples of our naval exertion; but the allowing Buonaparté with his immense and ill appointed armada, to reach Egypt with out interruption, after capturing the hitherto considered impregnable fortress of La Valetta and the Island of Malta, in defiance of our navy, then omnipotent, was worse than all; nothing, in short, appeared wanting to crown the triumph of the French and to complete the disgrace of our then omnipotent navy or rather of its rulers, but the safe return of the French fleet to Toulon; a circumstance, which had Admiral Bruix been allowed to act as he proposed, would cer