against a regular invafion, fince the planters, apprehenfive of the devaftations of the enemy, would oblige the governor to capitulate, while the enemy, on the other hand, when once in poffeffion of the island, would have the full ufe of the fortifications, and fet the planters at defiance. General Burgoyne afked members, who were now willing to vote the fums required, whether they would be equally ready in the following year to vote double or treble the prefent number of men for the defence of the West India islands? He added, that the climate was fo unhealthy, that it often happened in three months after a regiment was landed there, that one third of the troops died, another third was in the hofpital, and not more than a third was capable of anfwering the muller roll, and doing duty. Colonel Phipps replied, that the unhealthinefs of the climate was a reafon in favour of feafoning our troops to it, and that the cafe put by general Burgoyne of a fmall number of landing places, applied to almoft every one of the flands. If the planters were fo in different as to wifh for an immediate furrender, the fortifications would be of ufe, by enabling the commander, even in fpite of the planters, to preferve the ifland till affiftance could be given by our fleets. He faid, that in the laft war, though our flects were deemed equal to thofe of the enemy, and ultimately proved them felves fuperio, yet ifland after ifland was captured merely for want of fortifications; while in the war that preceded it, Martinico, with the advantage of fortifications, had held out, with eight hundred men, almoft a year, against a hoftile army of fifteen thoufand men. The motions of general Burgoyne were carried in the negative. The army eftimates gave occafion to fome animadverfion

from general Burgoyne, upon the circumftance of the reduced officers of the houfhold troops being permitted to fell their commiffions, and upon the difmiffion of the marquis of Lothian from the command of the first regiment of life guards. This nobleman was one of thofe, who, in the late difcuffion of the regency, went over from the party of adminiftration to that of oppofition; and he was offered an exchange for another regiment, which he deemed fo difadvantageous that he did not choose to accept it. The duke of Queenfbury was at the fame time, and for the fame reafon, difmiffed from the appointment of one of the lords of the bed-chamber; and lord Malmefbury, late fir James Harris, who had before been an adherent to the party of Mr. Fox, was deprived of the office of ambaffador extraordinary to the United Provinces.

The treaty between Great Britain and Pruffia having been fubmitted to the two houfes, loid Stormont put a queftion to the marquis of Carmarthen, who had lately fucceeded to the title of duke of Leeds upon the death of his father, whether the treaty upon the table contained the whole of the engagements between the two courts, or whether, as a prevalent rumour both at home and abroad had afferted, England had entered into other engagements, different in their principle, and totally fubverfive in their nature of the public treaty, converting what was in its name a defenfive alliance into a connection of a very opposite defcription? Lord Stormont obferved, that, if this rumour were true, minifters had been guilty of a very improper behaviour, at a time, when the fpeech at the opening of the feffion had promifed a communication of the alliance, to withhold that which conftituted fo material a part of it. Papers

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of public importance were fubmitted to parliament with no other view than to enable them to form an opinion concerning, them; and, unlefs the whole of the treaty were communicated, how was it poffible for parliament to judge of its advantages or difadvantages? Lord Stormont proceeded to animadvert upon the conduct of Great Britain in the late mifunderstanding between Denmark and Sweden. We had determined to offer our mediation to the contending parties, and, in cafe it were refufed by the court of Copenhagen, then to furnish the king of Sweden with a ftipulated quantity of auxiliary forces. This, he faid, was a proceeding contrary to every principle of politics, and not founded upon the precedent of former treaties. Denmark had never done any thing adverse to the interefts of Great Britain, and yet we took part againft her. Ruffia was our natural ally; and, though a country might not always have it in her power to effect a reconciliation with her natural ally, it was always her intereft not to do any thing to widen the breach, and render reconciliation more difficult. He laid no great ftrefs upon the mutual gratitude of states; but there were favours fo peculiarly calculated to gratify perfonal ambition, that, if they were done by one fovercign for another, he conceived they could not fail to be remembered; and fuch was the favour which France did the king of Sweden in the revolution of 1772. He declared, that he could not but admire the felicity of France. He envied her not her great and powerful refources, nor her able and accomplished minifter; but he envied her fingular good fortune in the moment of her prefent embarraffments, in having her natural ally fupported and affifted by her natural

foe. The odium of the bufinefs Great Britain with a degree of unexampled fpirit fuftained; but France would probably come in for her full share of the accruing advantage.

The duke of Leeds replied, that he felt it to be right to give the queftion of lord Stormont no fort of anfwer; and in this opinion he was fupported by lord Thurlow. Lord Thurlow obferved, that if the doctrine now delivered were once established, no treaty with fecret articles could ever be concluded. The queftion of lord Stormont was the most pointedly and obviously irregular that had ever been put to a fecretary of ftate in any houfe of parliament; and the duke of Leeds, if he hadanfwered it, would have been guilty of a high mifdemeanour. It was the duty of fuch an officer to disclose no more of the affairs of the executive government than he had it in command from the king to communicate. He was himfelf, lord Thurlow faid, deftitute of the power, even if he had the inclination, to disclose the circumftance to which lord Stormont alluded; but, if he might venture to speak hypothetically of the politics of the north, he could fay that there had been states, whofe policy was fo refined, that they thought it juftifiable for the fake of attaining their ends to corrupt the magiftrates of their enemies, and found means fo to infinuate themfelves as to employ the natives of thofe countries as inftruments to feel the pulfe of the public. In that case, the higher and more refpectable were the characters they could deceive, the better was the end of their artifices fulfilled. With regard to Ruffia, he declared, he was as anxious as lord Stormont to obtain an alliance with that empire; but what was most defirable was not always to be attained even by courtship on fair and honourable

honourable terms, and therefore wife ftates must refort to the line of conduct that was most likely to conduce to the attainment of their object.

One of the earlieft topics of revenue that engaged the attention of parliament, exclufive of those which have already been mentioned, was Mr. Fox's annual motion for the repeal of the fhop-tax. Whether it were from a conviction of the inexpediency of the tax, or from gratitude for the extraordinary popularity he enjoyed, Mr. Pitt was at length induced to confent to a meafure fo earnestly and unremittingly demanded by the perfons immediately affected by the tax. Mr. Fox obferved, that, if the law had been refifted and oppofed upon the ground of mere clamour, he fhould have thought the giving it up to be a dangerous example; but, convinced as he was of the impolicy and partial operation of the tax, and perceiving that party fpirit and political prejudice had no fhare in the condemnation to which it was univerfally expofed, he muft earneilly and fincerely prefs for its repeal. Mr. Pitt remarked, that his opinion upon the fubject had originally been, that the tax would fall not upon the retailer, but the public at large. He allowed however, that the uniform fentiment of the fhop-keepers was adverfe to the truth of his doctrine, and the continuance of that fentiment for fo long a time was the ftrongeft inducement to him to believe, that the retailers had not been able to find a mode of indemnifying them felves, and that mere theory ought to yield to practice and experience. He fill however maintained, that, as far as argument went, he had heard nothing to induce him to change his original perfuafion; and accordingly in the progrefs of the bill of repeal he moved an amendment in the preamble, for the purpose of leaving

out the words by which the tax was pronounced "a partial and oppreffive impofition, militating again't the juft principles of taxation."

The propofition for the repeal of the fhop-tax having fucceeded, Mr. Dempfter moved for a repeal of the tax upon the licences of hawkers and pedlars, which had been established at the fame time under the idea of a compenfation to the refident fhopkeepers. He was however induced to alter his propofition upon farther reflection into that of a bill to explain and amend the hawkers and pedlars' act, which, at the fame time that it abolished the licence duties, fhould perpetuate the provifions a gainft fmuggling, and fome other claufes of the former law. In the mean time Mr. Demptter thought proper, in the project of the bill which he submitted to the house of commons, to provide for the repeal of certain claufes which were infifted upon by Mr. Rofe, fecretary to the treafury. The firft of thefe was a clause to prohibit any pedlar from coming within two miles of a market town, and the other to empower the juftices of peace in the quarter feflions to forbid their entrance into the county in which they prefided. The firft was carried against Mr. Dempfter, ayes 36, noes 29, and the latter rejected by a majority of one.

A bill was introduced in the courfe of the prefent feffion, for the purpofes of extending the penalties. of felony, which, by an act of the fixth of the prefent king, had been awarded against perfons who should be convicted of breaking trees and deftroying plants and fhrubs during the night, to thofe who fhould be guilty of fimilar misdemeanours in the day-time This bill gave occafion to fome degree of difcuffion. Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Burke and other members of the houfe of commons expreffed their

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count to be disabled from filling any office civil or military, and it was not till he carried his deteftable opinions into practice, that the law was juftified in feeking a remedy and punishing his conduct. The Roman Catholics had been fuppofed by our ancestors to entertain opinions dangerous to the ftate; they acknowledged a foreign authority paramount to the legislature, and a title to the crown fuperior to that conferred by the voice of the people. No opinions could certainly be more obnoxious than these; and yet Mr. Fox was fully perfuaded that government was not entitled to interfere with them, till they exprefsly acted upon the dangerous doctrines they they were thought to entertain. He spoke of the inference that was drawn from the fuppofed alliance between the church and the ftate, and declared, that it was an irreverent and impious opinion to maintain, that the church muft depend for its exiftence upon the fupport of the political government, and not upon the evidence of its doctrines and the moral effects it produced. He concluded with obferving, that he was a friend to an established religion in every country, and that he wished it might always be that which coincided with the ideas of the majority of the people. The motion was oppofed by lord North and Mr. Pitt, and upon a divifion the numbers appeared, ayes 102, noes 122.

A bill was introduced into the houfe of lords by earl Stanhope for relieving the members of the church of England from various penalties and difabilities under which they laboured, and for extending freedom in matters of religion to perfons of all denominations, papifts

excepted. The laws it chiefly intended to repeal were laws, impofing penalties upon perfons who did not frequent the eftablished worship, and prohibiting men from speaking or writing in derogation of the doctrines of the book of Common Prayer. It alfo repealed the laws, enjoining the eating fish on certain days, authorifing the imprisonment of perfons excommunicated, prohibiting the exportation of women, and declaring all perfons, who fhould go to court, without having previously made a certain declaration, which had probably been made by no person now living, to be in the eye of the law popish recufant convicts, which was a fpecies of outlawry. Lord Stanhope alfo mentioned certain canons, of which however he should not propose the repeal, because he conceived them to be at prefent void of the force of a law. By thefe canons among other things it was declared, that a perfon, who fhould bring against another a charge of impiety, fhould not be allowed to be complained againft, as having acted out of malice or from any other motive than from the discharge of his confcience; and that no clergyman fhould without licence from the bishop at tempt upon any pretence whatsoever to caft out any devil or devils. Lord Stanhope deprecated the objection that thefe laws were obsolete and never carried into execution, and undertook to produce above thirty cafes within the last twenty-fix years, fome of them within ten, and fome within one year, in which men had been perfecuted under thefe laws, and in fome inftances the tables, chairs, dishes and beds of poor people had been fold by public auction to pay the penalties of not going to church.