On the question being put, the House divided: Tellers. } Tellers. 177. (Lord Maitland YEAS 197.-NOES Sir Geo. Yonge Mr. Byng {Mr. R. Smith Sir Geo. Yonge} Majority in favour of the motion 20. While the majority were in the lobby, Mr. Fox said, it was the idea of gentlemen who stood near him, that in consequence of the high language which had been held in the debate, an address should be proposed on the motion. The members joined in an unanimous declaration of Hear him! He then said, that if it met with their approbation, he would move it after the determination of this question, and that it should be carried up to the throne by the whole House. They joined in the same general shout on this proposition also, When the numbers were declared, Mr. Fox and Mr. Pitt rose together, and their friends, in pressing for their respective leader, were loud. A good deal of clamour ensued. At length Mr. Pitt said, that it amounted exactly to the same thing, whether the sense of the House was taken on his motion for the Speaker to leave the chair, or on the motion for the address, which he understood the right honourable gentleman was about to propose. He therefore yielded the point. Mr. Fox then said, that as the right honourable gentleman and his friends had met the resolution of that day with a high language, and had treated the House in every respect so cavalierly, it was the idea of the gentlemen with whom he had the honour to act, that a motion should be made, without farther delay, for an address to the throne on the resolution of that day, and that it should be presented by the whole House. He entered shortly into the situation into which the obstinacy of Mr. Pitt had brought the House, and concluded with moving for an address to the king in the words of the resolution. After a short debate, the House divided on Mr. Fox's motion: Tellers. {Mr. Byng } 177. Tellers. NOES Mr. R. Smith } 156. So it was resolved in the affirmative; and also, that the address be presented to his majesty by the whole House. Ôn the 27th, the Speaker read from the chair his majesty's answer to the address of the House, which was as follows: "Gentlemen; I am deeply sensible how highly it concerns the honour of my crown, and the welfare of my people, which is the object always nearest my heart, that the public affairs should be conducted by a firm, efficient, extended, united administration, entitled to the confidence of my people, and such as may have a tendency to put an end to the unfortunate divisions and distractions of this country. Very recent endeavours have already been employed, on my part, to unite in the public service, on a fair and equal footing, those whose joint efforts appear to me most capable of producing that happy effect. These endeavours have not had the effect I wished. I shall be always desirous of taking every step most conducive to such an object; but I cannot see that it would, in any degree, be advanced by the dismission of those at present in my service. "I observe, at the same time, that there is no charge or complaint, suggested against my present ministers, nor is any one or more of them specifically objected to; and numbers of my subjects have expressed to me, in the warmest manner, their satisfaction in the late changes I have made in my councils. Under these circumstances, I trust my faithful Commons will not wish that the essential offices of executive government should be vacated, until I see a prospect that such a plan of union as I have called for, and they pointed out, may be carried into effect." The consideration of the above answer was deferred to the 1st of March. MR. Fox's MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS TO THE KING TO REMOVE HIS MINISTERS. March 1. THE order of the day being read for taking into consideration his majesty's answer to the address of the House on the 20th of February, and the said answer being also read, Mr. Fox stood up, and begged that the House would allow him to preface what he now deemed it his indispensable duty to say, with a short review of those peculiar circumstances, in which the House of Commons, the people of England, and the constitution of the country, were all inevitably placed by his majesty's late answer to the address of his Commons. He connected all these particulars into one view, because they were all formed to stand or fall together. It was not in the wit or machination of man to dissever them for a moment, and whoever made the attempt, would be taught from the issue that it was nugatory and chimerical. But on what ground did they now stand? Had not his majesty put a negative on their joint wishes? Was not this a situation to which they had not been reduced since the glorious æra of the accession of the House of Brunswick to the throne of these kingdoms? The two first princes of that auspicious and illustrious family were not, perhaps, wholly without favourites: for what prince ever yet was? Or who could blame a king for having friends? It was the consolation of human nature to be susceptible of such predilections as suit the peculiarities of every temper, character, and situation. Where was the man, or the minister, who would prescribe terms to royalty, which would injure the feelings, and would bar the comforts of an individual? Notwithstanding this, which per haps was the feature of all reigns, unanimity marked those both of George the First and George the Second. Whatever attention they might pay to secret advisers, whatever degree of curiosity or inquisitiveness might affect their hours of social and friendly intercourse, the harmony of the nation, the public business, the great concerns of the nation were seldom or never interrupted by an ill-advised and unconstitutional preference of any man, or set of men, in opposition to the representatives of the people at large. In the late reign especially, Lord Hardwicke evidently possessed much of the royal confidence. His abilities were unquestionably eminent, and justly procured much respect both at home and abroad; but when the circumstances of the country demanded a surrender even of his counsels, when some of his majesty's subjects were in open rebellion, and when the crown was satisfied that a new system had become indispensable, was not every system of favouritism readily, generously, and magnanimously relinquished? Had it been otherwise, and had those who were said to have deserved his majesty's favour, retained their situation, in direct opposition to all the calls and expostulations of the House and the country, all those splendid and incomparable actions which graced the subsequent war had most undoubtedly been prevented; the glorious victories which then took place, and overwhelmed all Europe with astonishment, had not been acquired. The vast appendages of the British empire must consequently have been so little as to have excited no envy, it is true; but neither would they, in this hypothetical scale, have produced such emoluments, such wealth, such grandeur, such influence in the scale of nations, as they unquestionably did. If on that pressing and interesting occasion the system of personal favour had not given way to objects of public safety and tranquillity, the illustrious name of Pitt had never been known in this country; had never given the people of England such an influence in government as the constitution has assigned them; had never infused such a spirit of intrepidity and enterprise in the executive government of the country, as must for ever distinguish the period in which he reigned, and the measures which originated in his advice. From these facts and speculations, he desired the House to observe what part they now acted. They were, in his opinion, standing up for the constitution, as enjoyed, as established, as transmitted by their ancestors to their posterity. This ground they had taken; in this it was their duty to intrench themselves; and from this asylum he was certain no honest and sincere friend to the constitution would wish to drive them. They were at least founded in the constitu tion of the country, and whenever they fell, so would it. Then were so united as to live or die together. It was now, perhaps, more than ever, committed to their care, who had always been its preservers; and to abandon it thus beset, thus assaulted, thus doomed, for aught we knew, to destruction, would be to deal perfidiously with their obligations to their constituents and to the public. When he complained, that no other prince of the race of Brunswick had ever given such an answer to an address of that House, he was answered, no House of Commons had ever made such an address. But this question he would beg leave to answer with an anterior question-Did ever the crown, since the accession, keep in office a ministerial arrangement, not only without the confidence of the House, but against its express requisition? This made the matter altogether new and unprecedented: but new and unprecedented as it was, it did not originate in the House; they had acted only on their defence, and would have ill deserved the confidence reposed in them, had they not done every thing in their power to preserve the privileges at once of the House, and of those for whose great original rights it was at first instituted. He referred to the case of Sir Robert Walpole. No man ever possessed the confidence of the House of Commons more completely than this minister. He would not enter into the question, whether he deserved it or not; but the fact was notoriously as he had stated it. Was he, then, resolutely inclined to dispute the eager desires of the House to remove him? Did he resist all their efforts for that purpose? No; when the moment came which convinced him that he was no longer the person on whom they chose to rely, instead of urging the inconsistency of such a revolution in the political sentiment of the House; instead of taking shelter in the arms of prerogative; instead of placing any dependence on those about the throne, who had been long his fast and tried friends, he freely and at once abandoned a station to which, from this single circumstance, he found himself inadequate. How, then, was the constant harmony which subsisted in every part of government sustained and cultivated? It was, at least, as often owing to the compliance of the king with the sentiments and wishes of his faithful commons, as of their complaisance to his inclinations. He did not deal in the extension of prerogative, nor they in the assertion of their privileges. A reciprocal disposition to cordiality and accommodation in case of any accidental collision was not more predominant int he House of Commons than at court. Since the unfortunate reigns of the Stuarts, prerogative had never been so much the topic of discussion as it had become of late in parliament. His ideas of whatever the constitution had vested in the crown were no secret; he ever had and ever would avow them. No prerogative of the crown was, in his opinion, distinct or unconnected with the whole of that free and liberal system in which our government chiefly consisted. The people were the great source of all power, and their welfare the sole object for which it was to be exerted : but who in this case were to be the judges? The House of Commons undoubtedly were competent to protect the rights of the people, to pronounce on whatever they deemed an encroachment on their privileges; and the moment they could not prevent every thing which struck them as such, they were not equal to the design of such an institution. This he called a due seasoning or modification of that enormous power devolved by the constitution on the executive government of the country. The House of Commons consequently were possessed of the power of putting a negative on the choice of ministers; they were stationed as sentinels by the people, to watch over whatever could more or less remotely or nearly affect their interest; so that whenever they discovered in those nominated by his majesty to the several great offices of state, want of ability, want of weight to render their situations respectable, or want of such principles as were necessary to give effect to the wishes of the House; in any or all of such cases they were entitled to advise his majesty against employing such persons as his faithful Commons could not trust. They would then say to such ministers, and say it with the greatest propriety, "We admire your abilities; we love your virtues; and we wish your politics were of a sort to excite our admiration, and conciliate our confidence: but your system is inimical to the object we have most at heart. We wish to encrease the weight of the people in the constitution; your object is to lessen their weight. We are anxious to establish a strong, an efficient, an united administration; you endeavour only to preserve one who possesses none of all these qualities. We would found an executive government on public, open, unequivocal responsibility; you are endeavouring, in its room, to perpetuate a cabal. We assert the controul of parliament wherever the general interest requires their interference; you are attached only to what you imagine is the independence of the prerogative. In short, we are the friends of the people; they made us what we are; to them we are accountable; and for them, as far as the constitution bears us out, we act: but you avow sentiments so materially and flatly contradictory to these, that we are bound in duty to withhold from you that confidence, which your avowed attachments and opinions must inevitably lead you to abuse." |