of commissioners has been attended with the best effects, and nothing appears to be wanting, but the adoption of the several recommendations contained in the reports of the committee, and an active fulfilment of duty on the part of the Treasury Board. It is certainly a very ungrateful requital of the labours of the committee, to leave their reports as mere waste paper on the shelves of the House of Commons; and it is treating the public very unfairly to have held out the prospect, and encouraged the expectations of reform in the year 1796, and to neglect those measures which are sanctioned by the public declaration of the committee, of their being adapted to improve the collection of the revenue, and to curtail the expenses of the nation. If it has been found expedient to appoint a commission to report upon the substance of the reports of the Commissioners of Naval Inquiry, why would it not be equally expedient to appoint a similar commission or a committee of the House of Commons, to report upon the recommendations of the Committee of Finance; and to state to Parliament those of them which have been adopted, and those which have been passed by; and their opinions as to their being applicable to existing circumstances? These reports reflect great honour to the committee, and may be rendered of great service to the public I trust, therefore, Mr. Cobbett, that the public attention may not be led away from abuses of which there is positive proof, by the novelty of looking after others, perhaps, of very inferior importance. In iny next, I shall lay before you a plan for conducting the whole expenditure of the 'nation-I am, &c.—VERAX.- -April 29, 1805.

DOMESTIC OFFICIAL PAPERS. PETITIONS, &C. AGAINST LORD MELVILLE.

-Address presented to the King, upon the Throne, by the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council of London, on the 30th of April, 1805.

We your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Commons of the City of London, in. Common Council assembled, beg leave, with every sentiment of duty and devotion to your Majesty's person and government, to approach your Majesty with our sincere congratulations on the discoveries which have been made by the Reports of the Commissioners of Naval Inquiry, laid before your Mjesty and the other branches of the legislature; from which your Majesty must have seen with astonishment and indignation that au eminent member of your Majesty's go

vernment, the Lord Viscount Melville, had been guilty of practices which the representatives of the people, in Parliament assembled, have declared to be a gross violation of the law and a high breach of duty.--We are persuaded that your Majesty's royal mind feels it to be a great aggravation of Lord Melville's palpable, conscious and deliberate breach of a statute, which he beyond all others was bound to observe with strict fidelity, that he had filled so many and such high offices in executive government, and was honoured with so large a portion of your Majesty's confidence. -The virtues which adorn your Majesty and which excite in the highest degree the love of your people, are a pledge to the nation that in removing Lord Melville from your Majesty's councils and presence for ever, the punishment of a delinquent, however just, is, far less a motive with your Majesty than the example held out, that no minister, however favoured, shall presume upon your Majesty's countenance, who shall be found to have trampled upon the law and to have disgraced the func tions with which he had been invested. The investigations of the Commissioners of Naval Inquiry have excited the interest, and inspired the country with gratitude towards those commissioners, and we are persuaded that your Majesty paricipates in the general anxiety which pervades all ranks for the prolongation, and if necessary, for the enlargement of their authority.Confiding in your Majesty's paternal solicitude, that whatever is chearfully contributed by a loyal people shall be faithfully administered, we entertain the fullest assurance that to your Majesty it will be a source of the profoundest satisfaction, that all necessary measures shall be adopted. and persevered in towards the correction and punishment of proved malversation, and that nothing will be omitted which shall have a tendency to promote the public confidence in government, and to invigorate and confirm the spirit, energy, and union, of your Majesty's empire at this important crisis.

His Majesty's Answer.

I am fully sensible of your loyalty and attachment to iny person and government; you may rely on my concurrence in every measure which is calculated to maintain the credit of the country, and to remedy any abuses which may be found to exist in the public expenditure.

PETITION AGAINST LORD MELVILLE presented to the House of Commons, on the 3a of May, 1805, from the Electors of the City of Westminster.

Your petitioners share the national gra

titude to your honourable House, for your memorable and virtuous votes of the 8th and 10th days of April last, founded upon the Tenth Report of the Commissioners of Naval Inquiry, declaring the Lord Viscount Melville to be guilty of a gross violation of the law and a high breach of public duty.Never were Parliamentary measures received with more exultation by the country than the said votes; and nothing, your petitioners are persuaded, could cause more disappointment to the nation than your hon. House's stopping short of those great ends of justice, which the public interest demands, and the honour you have acquired by the said votes exacts and enforces at your hands.——The pure, the moderate, the faithful, the independent and the dignified discharge of the functions with which the law has invested the said Commissioners of Naval Inquiry has filled the country with the most unqualified admiration of their conduct. The renewal of their authority is a source of the most unfeigned pleasure to the people at large; and we do most earnestly supplicate your honourable House, that in the construction of the new statute, your attention will be fixed upon the contumacious obstruction to full inquiry, which is so clearly pointed out in the said Tenth Report; and that you will carefully. guard against its repetition. Your peti

tioners beg leave to state to your honourable House, that a civil suit against Viscount Melville and Mr. Trotter, unaccompanied by criminal prosecution, would be infinitely short of the public hopes, because it is so of public justice. It is not the refunding of money, that, of itself, is of real consequence, to the nation; it is the infliction of an exemplary vengeance upon proved and powerful delinquents. It is the manifestation to the whole world that high criminals are not above the reach of punishment; and that the corrupt or wanton violators of law shall feel the strength of its arm.Above all things we intreat your honourable House not to permit the public feeling to be sported with; and, in the formation of inquiries similar to the Naval Commission, that you will take care that the power constituted be equal to its professed objects; both as relating to the vigour of the authority, and to the integrity of those who are to put it in execution; for we submit to your honourable House whether, if any thing can be worse than a deep-rooted, wide-spreading system of abuse and peculation in the management of public money, it would not be the institution of a system of revision, in its nature a burlesque upon investigation, and in its result a mockery of justice.To all these points, we beg the best attention of your honourable House.

We beseech you to pursue with effect what you began with so much honour. We intreat you not to relax in your efforts till you have brought Viscount Melville to condign punishment, and given to all who shall be found to have committed similar crimes, a signal demonstration that, in the representatives of the people, instead of abettors of their iniquities, they will find only the faithful guardians of the nation, and the zealous vindicators of the laws.- -And by so doing your petitioners will ever pray.

PETITION AGAINST LORD MELVILLE presented to the House of Commons on the 25th of April, 1805, from the Electors of the Borough of Southwark.

We, the undersigned electors of the Borough of Southwark in the County of Surrey, beg leave to congratulate your honourable House upon the result, so glorious to the character of Parliament, of the discussions which have taken place in your honourable House, on the 8th and 10th days of this instant (April) respecting the gross malversa tions in certain branches of the Executive Government, which have been disclosed in. the Tenth Report of the Commissioners of Naval Inquiry.--We pray your honourable House to follow up that virtuous line of conduct, which, upon the two days before named, have diffused such signal satisfaction through the whole country.- -We intreat you to sift to the bottom the mass of abuses which the aforesaid Commissioners have traced and exposed.--We beseech you to renew, without loss of time, and to extend, if necessary, the powers so faithfully executed of those Commissioners.We implore your honourable House to pull down guilt however protected; to save from rapacity, from peculation, and fraud, a people who contribute chearfully to the real wants of the state, and who never complain but when their generous temper is abused and imposed upon: so shall the Commons of England take the most efficient course possible to vindicate the sullied honour of the government; to confirm the public confidence; and to plant in all good hearts the most unfeigned admiration of the British Constitution.- And your petitioners will

ever pray,

1

No

rested the whole nation, and no part of the nation more deeply than your petitioners.-We humbly crave the liberty of staring, that no measures ever yet issued from the Commons of England which had. diffused more gladness or raised more expectations than the said votes of April the 8th and 10th, declaring Lord Viscount Melville to be guilty of a gross violation of the law and a high breach of duty;' thereby supporting the upright and virtuous discharge of the salutary duties of the said Commissioners, whose conduct has excited the gratitude and the confidence of the whole country.That the renewal of the said Commission is a subject of unfeigned joy to your petitioners; and that we entreat your honourable House to be careful to make the new law effectual, and adequate to its end. We pray your honourable House to attend particularly to those parts of the Tenth Report which have detailed the obstacles thrown by persons in office in the way of the investigation of the said · Commissioners, and to guard against their repetition. We submit to your honourable House whether the subaltern agents of corruption will not be eager to shelter their contumacy under the example of their superiors, unless the explicitness and enlarged authority of the law defeat their artifices. thing, we are persuaded, could be more revolting to the public sentiment, or could more thoroughly disappoint the hopes of the country than that, instead of inquiries real, honest, and efficient, a fallacious and illusory system should be allowed to be adopted, under which real guilt might elude detection, and the substance of earnest investigation be sacrificed to mere pretence and shew.--Your petitioners humbly beg leave to state to your honourable House, that a civil action against Viscount Melville and Mr. Trotter would not, of itself, be satisfactory to the public expectation. That a criminal prosecution against these delinquents is the real wish of the country; because the recovery of millions of money would not be of such real benefit to the people, as to see the justice of the law vindicated upon a great malefactor, with the same equal, impartial, and infiexible sternness, with which it falls upon the poorest and most unprotected criminal.Your honourable House, by the said votes of the 8th and 10th of April, has extorted the admiration of those most hostile to the chatacter and construction of the Lower House of Parliament. By following up the spirit of those votes, your honourable House will secure the confidence and the affection of the nation, and the triumph of the English Constitution will be complete.We entreat you to proceed and Enish your bours upon

these points in a manner that may be worthy of your honoured and applauded commencement of the same. We beg of you not to cease till you bring Viscount Melville to condign punishment; to expose delinquencies wherever traced, and to make an example of guilt in whatever quarter it may be proved. -And your petitioners will ever pray.

PETITION AGAINST LORD MELVILLE presented to the House of Commons on the 25th of April, 1805, from the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Livery of the City of London, in Common Hall assembled, setting forth

That the petitioners have uniformly .concurred in and supported such measures as have appeared conducive to the safety and welfare of his Majesty's dominions, and have cheerfully submitted to the most unexampied burthens, under a confidence that the resources of the country were faithfully and honestly administered; and that they learn, with the utmost concern and astonishment, from the reports of the Commissioners for Naval Inquiry, now before the House, that the Right Honourable Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville, late Treasurer of his Majesty's Navy, has been guilty of a gross violation of the law and a high breach of duty, whereby immense sums of the public money have been perverted to private emolument: and that they conceive it to be a high aggravation of such offence, that these disgraceful transactions were carried on during a period of unprecedented difficulty, when the very existence of the country was said to be at stake; and that the person so abusing his trust, so violating the law, was in the enjoyment of several high and lucrative offices, and ever among the foremost in laying additional burthens upon the people, and calling upon them to subunit to the most painful privations; and that they are duly impressed with a high sense of the virtue, integrity, and firmness of the House, and strongly participate in the sentiment which so generally pervades all ranks of his Majesty's faithful subjects, of the wisdom and fidelity with which it has discharged its most sacred trust, by the progress it has made towards protecting the people against such gross violations of the law and breaches of public duty; and that the petitioners approach the House, as the guardians of the liberties and property of the people, under a full conviction that such shameful abuses will induce the House to do ample justice to the outraged feelings of the country, by bringing to condiga punishment convicted criminality; and that they beg to submit to the House, that it would be high'y derogatory to his Majesty's government, pre

Judicial to the public service, and insulting to the House, and the nation at large, for Lord Melville any longer to continue in his Majesty's councils, or to hold any place of trust, profit, or honour, in or under the government; and that they conceive all other persons who may be implicated in, or have connived at, such abuses, to be incapable any longer of serving the country with honour or advantage, and ought equally to be brought to a severe account; and therefore praying, that the House, taking these matters into their serious consideration, will vigorously promote and prosecute those inquiries, and cause the powers of the said commissioners to be prolonged and extended, and other measures to be adopted, in order that such further inquiry may be made into the receipt, management, and expenditure of the public money, and the conduct of the public offices, as may lead to the detection of all abuses and the punishment of all offences, and that such a system of vigilance and economy may be established, as may effectually guard against the recurrence of such flagrant abuses.

PETITION AGAINST LORD MELVILLE presented to the House of Commons on the 25th of April, 1805, from the Mayor and Corporation of the City of Salisbury, setting forth

That the petitioners have perused, with much concern and interest, the resolutions of the House of the 8th and 10th days of this instant April, with concern, that any charges of the nature therein implied should attach upon any individual in high official situation, and with interest that the representatives of the nation have, under the circumstance of such charges, marked such individual with their censure and reprobation; and that the petitioners beg leave to state, that, in common with the nation at large, they have to lament the weight of the burdens to which the legislature has found it necessary to submit them, but they claim for themselves, in cominon with the nation at large, the merit of having borne them with patience, readiness, and equanimity, trusting that what had been granted liberally would be applied faithfully; but when a suspicion is gone forth, under the authority of parliamentary, commissioners, and that suspicion apparently adopted by the House, that peculation has been hard at work, the petitioners take leave to call upon the national representatives for redress, reminding them that it is of little consequence as a public grievance, of little consequence in point of official morality, whether the actual Fect.lation be by men of great authority and power, or by their deputies and subal

terns under their permission and connivance; and therefore praying the House to continue such commission of inquiry as has already discovered such abuses, and to institute any new commission which may be necessary to ascertain whether in any other department of the state the national finances have been misapplied, and also to devise such legal proceedings upon those instances of misapplication already before the public as may satisfy the general cry for justice, by bringing all persons concerned to a strict responsibility.

SUMMARY OF POLITICS..

Many important subjects, which belonged to this head, have, during the last four or five weeks, been unavoidably omitted. I say unavoidably, because there was not time, and, in some instances, not room, to introduce them, without excluding part, at least, of that which has been inserted relative to the Tenth Report and matters connected therewith; and, which exclusion I could, in my own mind, have found nothing to justify, convinced as I have all along been, and as I still am, that, compared with the danger to be apprehended from an alienation of the people from the government, all other dangers, though some of them in themselves very great, are of trifling importance. To see the powers of the Continent, from whom co-ope ration was expected, shrinking from our touch; to see our West-India islands, submitting, one after another, to contributions demanded by an enemy, of whose maritime force the ministerial writers have constantly been speaking in terms of contempt; at this day to hear of the bustle of preparation to enable our admirals to face the combined fleets of France and Spain: either of these circumstances is sufficient to cause deep regret in the mind of any man attached to his country; but, neither of them, nor even al of them put together, is a thousandth part so much to be dreaded as the loss of the hearts of the people. To secure these the House of Commons has taken one important step; and, it is the duty of every man to make use of all the constitutional means in his power to induce them to pursue, to a satisfactory termination, the excellent work they have begun.

PROCEEDINGS AGAINST LORD MELVILLE, The history, somewhat disjointed indeed, et these proceedings was, in the foregoing sheet, p. 672, brought down to the 30th ultimo, when it was determined, in the House of Commons, to form a select conmittee, in the manner described in p. 670, to inquire, as far as related to the conduct of Lord Melville, into the circumstances respecting the diverting of the naval money

to other purposes, alleged by his lordship to be of a public nature. The Commons have, since the formation of the select committee, sent a message to the Lords, requesting that Lord Melville may be ordered to appear before the committee, the Lords have taken the request into consideration, and this paper will, probably, be printed before their decision be known.- -In the mean time a very important and most satisfactory step has been taken by his Majesty, who has resolved to strike Lord Melville's name from the list of his Privy Council. The reader will remember, that the vote of censure having been passed on the 8th ultimo, Mr. Whitbread, upon the next meeting of the House, which took place on the 10th, was prepared to make a motion for an address to his Majesty to remove Lord Melville from his royal presence and councils for ever. Mr. Pitt objected to this; and, it was finally agreed, simply to lay the resolution of the 8th before the King, leaving it to the ministers to advise his Majesty as to what further steps should be taken. This done, on the 11th, the House adjourned to the 25th. When it met again Mr. Whitbread inquired, whether his Majesty had been advised to dismiss Lord Melville from his councils, to which Mr. Pitt replied, that he had not; and, added, that, until he should be further instructed by the House, he should not think it right to advise his Majesty to command such dismission. Whereupon Mr. Whitbread gave notice that he should, on a future day, make a motion for an address to His Majesty upon the subject; which motion was brought forward on the 6th instant. But, a debate and division were prevented by Mr. Pitt's stating, that, having FOUND it to be the opinion of the majority of the House, that Lord Melville should be dismissed from the Privy Council, he had advised His Majesty to dismiss him!- -There will offer a future occasion to remark more circumstantially upon this part of the proceedings. At present I must beseech the reader's attention to some circumstances relating to what remains to be done with respect to Lord Melville; for, when we consider former punishments, whether of little or great delinquents, whether we consider the case of HAMLIN, or of the Lords Bacon and Macclesfield, we must perceive that much yet remains to be done to satisfy the demands of justice, and to furnish a useful example. As to the grant of certain revenues recently obtained in the name of Lady Melville, Mr. Bond's declaration, without any comment, may suffice for the present; but, with respect to Lord Melville's annuity and his office and income as Keeper of the

Privy Seal in Scotland, some suggestions have been offered me, which should not, for a moment be suppressed.- -In answer to a question, put by Mr. Fox, on the 6th instant, whether Lord Melville held any place of profit during the pleasure of the Crown, Mr. Pitt is said to have answered, "None bat "for life," which is probably true, if the Letter of the Grant only is considered; for we know of none he continues to hold, but the annuity of 1,500l., granted in July last, and the office of Keeper of the Privy Seal of Scotland.But whether either of them can be considered as legally granted, and he'd for life, is a new and a curious question, which the rapacity of Lord Melville will probably cause to be agitated. An annuity, or pension, payable out of the King's private revenue, or the Civil List, is usually granted, I believe, during His Majesty's pleasure. Can the Sovereign go further, and, by his grant, charge that revenue for a period which may exceed his own life; or charge the revenue of his successors? That is one view; but what will be said, if it turns cut, upon the investigation proposed by Lord Henry Petty, that this annuity of Lord Melville is charged on the public revenue of the country, without the authority of Parliament ?-Again, as to the office of Keeper of the Privy Seal. Does it not sound somewhat odd, that the King should be advised to commit the custody of his seals to a person for life? What should we say, if the Privy Seal or the Great Seal of England were given in that way? The Privy Seal and Great Seal of Scotland are precisely analagous, though of less importance. Ner does the incongruity stop here. The grant of that office to Lord Melville is either i1legal, or it must be maintained, that the King hay, by law, commit the custody of the seals of his successor to any person he pleases; he may chuse the great officers of that successor. If that is unconstitutional; if common sense revolts at it, then the granL to Lord Mekille, though it purports to be for his own life, can of the utmost, stand only dvring the life of the Sovereign who gave it.Precedent may be resorted to. Will prece dent support what is radically, essentially, and constitutionally bad? There is just one prccedent in the ease of Lord Me'vile's imm diate predecessor. Lord Melville formerly held another of the King's Seals in Scot'a id, the Signet, a very lucrative office, now held by his Son, upon his resignation. That Tcwise was granted to him for life, contrary to ́all precedent, and in repugnance to the ture of the office. The Signat is, I believe, the Seal corresponding to that which te