immediately after the holidays, that the honourable gentleman might attend in his place, in order that the matter might then be taken into confideration. This notice, or intention, not meeting with approbation, and it being objected, that fuch an order would convey some mark of cenfure on Mr. Fullarton's conduct, Sir James Lowther concluded by declaring, that he was indifferent in what manner the bufinefs was brought on, but that he certainly would bring it forward, in fome form or other, at the time he had mentioned; and he wifhed that the gentleman's friends who were now prefent would inform him of his intention, as well as of the day which would be in future fixed, that he might have an opportunity of attending in his place. mode of agitating every fubject, to which the question under debate had reference. Without that free difcuffion, the question could not be agitated at all. A gentleman high in office, acknowledged the neceffity of preferving the freedom of debate; that public measures, and public men, were fit objects of difcuffion; and that if any check was put to the unreferved agitation of fuch topics, parliament would be of no ufe, and might as well be abo→ lifhed. But how far it was warrantable in the difcuffion of pub. lic matters, and in the allufion to public men, to throw out reflections of an invidious nature, and to treat them contemptuously, was another queftion; and refpecting which, every gentleman muft draw his own line, and would a& accordingly. He wished therefore, that the propofed enquiry into an unfortunate affair, thould be en Some other gentlemen in oppofition, went farther and more particularly into the matter, than Sir James Lowther. They contend-tirely dropped. That, and every ed, that the words fpoken by the noble earl, were in the ftricteft fenfe parliamentary language. That the honourable gentleman feemed to have confounded public debate with private converfation. They drew the line of distinction between both. In the latter, the object was the happiness and fatisfaction of all prefent; it was there the duty of every one to be upon his guard, and to take care, that he let no expreffion flip, which might either give offence to any individual, or difturb the harmony of the whole. In public debate, the cafe was widely and effentially different. The very means and end of public debate, were free difcuffion, and an open unreferved other matter like it, fhould be fuffered to reft undisturbed, and be buried in total oblivion. He was happy to hear, that both parties were fafe, and that no affair of the fort, could terminate more to the honour of those concern. ed. Why then should they inter fere with, or revive it? No means, nor no authority, could prevent gentlemen, who felt, or who thought, their honour injured, from feeking and obtaining redress in the customary mode. In talking of the two recent affairs, he said, they were matters which every man mult lament, but which no man, nor no fet of men, were able to put a ftop to. Out of this great evil, however, he thought fome [K] 4 little little good would enfue; and that was, it would teach gentlemen, to confine themselves within proper limits; and though it might not, and he hoped it would not, abridge the freedom of debate, he hoped it would make men fpeak in parliament with better man ners. Although he immediately declared that he intended no perfonality, whether to the abfent or prefent, by the remark which he had now made, and acknowledged his own faultinefs in that very refpect, yet it called up Mr. Fox, who thought himself glanced at. He obferved, that as the right honourable gentleman was apt to fpeak in a loose and careless way, he might, perhaps, have had no particular meaning in what he had faid; but that as the words feemed to point to him, he was, however, under a neceffity of taking notice of them. He had advanced, that he hoped what had happened that morning, and what had happened before of a fimilar fort, would keep gentlemen within proper limits, and at least teach them better manners." He begged for one to fay, that what had happened to himself had not taught him better manners; nor fhould it ever restrain him within any other limits, than those which he had chalked out for himfelf. With regard to the noble earl, who had been concerned in the affair of that morning, he did not believe it would teach him better manners, and for this reafon, that he was fure his noble friend had not gone beyond proper limits in what he had faid. As a proof of which, he was determined, that when the new levies came under confideration, he would then object to that particular regiment, which his noble friend had objected to; and that on the very faine ground which he had taken, viz. because the perfon appointed to the command of it, did not appear to him to be a fit perfon to hold the command. This affair happening fo foon after that of Mr. Fox, and being attributed to the fame caufes and motives, occafioned no fmall degree of warmth, both in language and fentiment, without doors. Both the noble earl, and that gentleman, were confidered as martyrs in the caufe of their country. And it was openly faid, without the fmalleft appearance of covert or difguife, that when an abandoned and malignant adminiftration were driven to the laft and defperate refource, of employing that part of the united kingdom, which was generally inimical to the conftitution, and to all the rights and liberties of the people, in order to curb the freedom of debate in parliament, and to fingle and pick off thofe tried fupporters and affertors of both, who were neither to be bought nor terrified, it was highly time, and abfolutely neceffary, for Englishmen to unite and affociate, as well in defence of their common rights, as for affording effectual protection to thofe lords and gentlemen, who hazarded all things in the fervice of their country. The public addreffes of congratulation from the cities of London and Weftminster, from fome of the county meetings which happened near the time, and from the committees of affociation in others, to the the Earl of Shelburne upon his recovery, all held out the idea, in language more or lefs forcible, that his life had been endangered, for the faithful and fpirited discharge of his public duty as a peer of parliament. Some took in, his oppofing the undue influence of the crown, and fupporting the interefts of his country; and one county, at least, paft a vote of cenfure, declaring the late attacks upon Mr. Fox and that nobleman to be highly reprehenfible. The paft failures which he had fo repeatedly experienced, were not able to overcome the conftancy of Sir Philip Jennings Clerke, or to prevent his bringing in another contractors bill, in the prefent fef fion. The present ftate of things was too favourable to fuch a meafure, and the minds of the minifters too much occupied, with matters still more immediately trying and critical, to admit of any effential oppofition. To be beaten in the Houfe of Commons a fecond time, and on another bill, might be ruinous; and the defence of the contractors would have been far more difagreeable to moft of the court members, than that of the civil offices. The bill was accordingly read the third time and paffed, (without a divifion in any part of its progrefs) on that day, on which Col. Fullarton had made his complaint in the House of Com mons. On the fame day, (March 20th) the claufe in Mr. Burke's bill, for abolithing the offices of treasurer of the chamber, treasurer of the houthold, cofferer, and the number of fubordinate places appertaining to them, was brought forward in the committee. This brought out long debates. The one fide, feeming to regard with a kind of reli. gious horror, every approach towards an interference with any part of the arrangements or management of the royal houthold; which they reprefented, not only as a most alarming and dangerous innovation in the conftitution, but as a direct infult, and a kind of facrilege with refpect to the person and dignity of the monarch. Here at leaft, faid they, a manifeft deftruction presents itself on the very principles of the references.themselves. This is not matter of public arrangement. This is not the regulation of office. It is an intrufion into the king's own houthold. It is breaking the fences which are respected and held facred even in private families. These officers are the king's domeftic fervants. The ftate has nothing to do with them. The king indeed is a public perfon; but he is a man too; and if his dignity only ferves to expofe him to infults that would be intolerable to a private perfon, the monarch and the monarchy are not only a pageant, but a downright mockery; and to make a perfon a king, is to make him, not the greatest, but the meaneft and most miferable part of society. This bill, they faid, they confidered from the beginning, as a fyftematic attack on the conftitution; and every part, as it was developed, proved more and more clearly the tendency of the fcheme. The queftion was not therefore on the utility of the employments; (on that they did not much rely) it was on the power of taking them away-which if it may be done by parliament, parliament, the king has nothing, hardly his perfon, that he can call his own. On this head, they entered largely on the schemes of fupplying the houshold by contract; which they reprobated, as mean, degrading, and vexatious; and compared rather to the mode of feeding of poor in workhoutes and hofpitals, than to the splendour and magnificence of a great court, in the richest country in the world. On the other hand, the mover of the bill, and the rest of the oppofition afferted, that the idea of fuppofed infult and indignity to the fovereign, was too abfurd to deferve an answer. Nothing was to be touched, that could either affect the perfonal fatisfaction and pleafures of the fovereign, or a bridge the splendour and magnificence of the throne. They afked, whether our enemy, the French monarch, had fuffered any loss of reputation, any degree of degradation, either in the eyes and opinion of his own fubjects, or of the rest of Europe, by the prodigious reform which he had fo chearfully made in his own houthold and expence. He adopted that scheme of œconomy, in order to wage a great and vigorous war, with vast objects of policy in view, against this country, without oppreffing and burthening his people. Are we not to profit by fo immediate and striking an example? In anfwer to the houfhold being the king's own; they faid, that parliament in all ages had confidered it in a different light, of which they gave many examples, in the reigns of the Edwards, Henries, and in that of James the firit, and others. That if the boufhold could not be reformed by law, no effectual part of the intended re form could take place; as it was full of offices, by which the influence propofed to be reduced, was chiefly fupported. The court, conftituted as it is, faid they, is the very ftrong-hold of that influence. The king is not degraded by be ing furnithed by contract. He is fo furnished already in many things, though in the worst way; the late Prince of Wales, bis majefty's fa ther, was fo furnithed. Even now, when the court intends any thing worthy of its ftate, it is fo fap plied; nor is there any thing more mean, by being fupplied at large, and on one great fcale, than in finall and pitiful details; on the contrary, there is fomething more princely in it. With regard to the king's living in a state of depend. ance on the people, the mover said, it was the very circumstance of his dignity; that which conftituted him a king: and, instead of a difgrace, was the highest honour a man could arrive at. Some, who withed to be confidered as moderate men, acknow. ledged the proposed reform to be a matter of fuch neceffity, as must abfolutely be adopted; but they did not approve of the mode of procuring it. It was taken, they faid, at the wrong end. It fhould come from the crown, and not originate in parliament. The only precedents, they faid, for fuch an interference, were to be found in times too dangerous, to admit of the example being copied; they were only to be found in the unfor tunate reigns of Edward the fe cond, and of Richard the fecond. This ground was not, however, much occupied. The bill had been fo framed, that that questions arofe upon the fe. veral offices of the houfhold feverally. The treasurer of the chamber flood first. The framer of the bill obferved, that from the turn of the debate, he apprehended this would be the laft procedure on any part of it. In the treasurer of the chamber confifted the very pith and marrow of his plan, fo far as it was endeavoured to be reduced out of theory into practice: it was the very first office of the houfhold which he had fixed upon; it led the way, and involved all the reft; and as the remaining claufes of his bill, for the most part, turned up on the abolition of the board of ordnance, the board of works, the mint, and other boards and offices, which were arranged under the denomination of houthold; he was under a neceffity of abandoning the whole, if the prefent doctrine was established, that the houfhold was to be confidered as facred, and not to be touched in any one part. That finding the objections of many gentlemen to the contract scheme (extremely weak, as he conceived them, in reason) ftrongly adhered to, he would, contrary to his own cleareft opinion, for practicability give up that point; though it impaired the unity and confiftence of his whole plan, and prevented the reform of upwards of an hundred offices, many of them confiderable, as well as feveral other great advantages. But he repeated, that if the prefent queftion was carried against him, he thould confider his bill as gone; and concluded by declaring, that he would not continue to keep his weak and difordered frame and conftitution on the torture, by fighting his bill through the house, inch by inch, clause by claufe, and line by line; he would leave it to the people to go on with it as they liked; and they would judge by the iffue, how far their petitions were likely to procure redrefs for the grievances they complained of. As the court fide wifhed to keep the fubject-matter of the bill as long as poffible in agitation, and thereby keep the public hope and expectation to the laft in fufpenfe, they affected greatly to refent this declaration; which they defcribed as being highly dictatorial, and as conveying a kind of menace to the committee. They argued, that it could be no caufe of furprize, that in a bill, which took in fo great an extent and diversity of matter as the prefent, fome of the parts fhould be highly excep. tionable, and others equally laudable. That the fame principle did not apply generally to the whole of the prefent bill; that on the contrary, it was compofed of a number of different parts and claufes, each of which turned upon fome feparate and important point, and had each therefore a feparate principle. That it was not denied, but that many of the principles were highly laudable, and might probably be adopted with advantage; but it was not from thence to be inferred, that the improper, the abfurd, or the impracticable, were to be equally received and adopted. It was furely then, a ftrange, and an unfair conclufion, that the refufal of the prefent, or of any other exceptionable claufe, was to be confidered as a rejection of the whole bill. The |