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BOOK martial, styled in the public orders issued by his XXI. late majesty a censure much worse than death,' and

1781,

Lord Geo.
Germaine

adjudged unfit to serve his majesty in any military capacity, should be recommended to the crown as a proper person to sit in that house."

The motion was evaded by the question of adadvanced to journment; but lord George Germaine having acthe peerage tually taken his seat in the house under the title of

Lord Viscount Sackville, the marquis of Carmarthen renewed his attack, and urged, "that the house of peers being a court of honor, it behoved them to preserve that honor uncontaminated, and to mark in the most forcible manner their disapprobation of the introduction of a person into that assembly who was stigmatized in the orderly books of every regi ment in the service."

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Lord Abingdon, who seconded the motion, styled the admission of lord George Germaine to a peerage an insufferable indignity to that house, and an outrageous insult to the public.—What," said his lordship," has that person done to merit honors superior to his fellow-citizens? His only claim to promotion was, that he had undone his country by executing the plan of that accursed invisible though efficient cabinet, from whom as he received his orders, so he had obtained his reward."

Lord Sackville, in his own vindication, denied the justice of the sentence passed upon him, and affirmed "that he considered his restoration to the council

XXI.

board, at a very early period of the present reign, BOOK as amounting to a virtual repeal of that iniquitous verdict."

The duke of Richmond strongly defended the motion, and said, "that he himself was present at the battle of Minden, and was summoned on the trial of lord George Germaine; and had his deposition been called for, he could have proved that the time lost when the noble viscount delayed to advance, under pretence of receiving contradictory orders, was not less than one hour and a half; that the cavalry were a mile and a quarter only from the scene of action; and it was certainly in his lordship's power to have rendered the victory, important as it was, far more brilliant and decisive; and he had lit tle reason to complain of the severity of the sentence passed upon him."

Lord Southampton also, who, as aide-de-camp to prince Ferdinand on that memorable day, delivered the message of his serene highness to his lordship, vindicated the equity of the sentence.

The motion was likewise powerfully supported by the earl of Shelburne, the marquis of Rockingham, and other distinguished peers.

1781.

the lords

On the division, nevertheless, it was rejected by Protest of a majority of 93 to 28 voices: but to the inexpres-against it. sible chagrin of lord Sackville, a protest was entered on the journals of the house, declaring the promo

BOOK tion of his lordship to be "a measure fatal to the XXI. interests of the crown, insulting to the memory of 1782. the late sovereign, and highly derogatory to the dignity of that house."

renews his

censure on

Sandwich.

Mr. Fox Mr. Fox, on the 20th of February, 1782, again motion of brought forward his motion of censure, somewhat the earl of varied, on lord Sandwich; which was negatived by a majority of 19 voices only, in a house consisting of four hundred and fifty-three members: but, to the astonishment of the nation, the noble lord still daringly kept possession of his office, although two hundred and seventeen members of the house of commons had pronounced him "guilty of a shameful mismanagement of the naval affairs of Great Britain." The opposition appearing every day to gain strength in the house of commons, the downfall of the ministry began at length to be confidently predicted.

Gen. Con

the Ameri

On the 22d of February, general Conway moved way's mo❝for an address to the king, earnestly imploring his can war ne majesty, that he would be graciously pleased to gatived by listen to the humble prayer and advice of his faithof one voiceful commons, that the war on the continent of North

a majority

only.

America might no longer be pursued, for the impracticable purpose of reducing that country to obedience by force." This was opposed in a long speech by Mr. Welbore Ellis, the new secretary for the American department, who declared, "that it

XXI.

1782.

was now in contemplation to contract the scale of BOOK the war, and to prosecute hostilities by such means as were very dissimilar from the past. A striking change of circumstances had taken place, and these of course demanded a change of measures. The war now raging in America was not so properly a war against the colonies as with France. He wished to discard as inapplicable so vague a term as the American war, While the whole continental army was fed, clothed, and paid by France, it was not mere locality which ought to give a name to it. The war was a French war; and as in the late war America had been said to be conquered in Germany, so in this France must be conquered in America. A conquest of this nature would inevitably root out the faction now prevalent in that unhappy country. That this faction, however powerful, was less numerous than the party of the royalists, appeared from the most respectable authorities. However, at the present juncture, administration were conscious of the necessity of contracting the scale of war in America, and of drawing the operations of it into a narrow compass."

That this miserable mixture of falsehood and folly should fail to make impression upon the house cannot be deemed wonderful, and the ministry themselves seemed to despair of their cause, when they committed the defence of it to so contemptible an dvocate ;-whom Mr. Burke, in reply, over

XXI.

1732.

BOOK whelmed with the supercilious and poignant disdain of his ridicule. "This war," Mr. Burke said, "had been most amazingly fertile in the growth of new statesmen; the right honorable gentleman was indeed an old member, but a young secretary. Having however studied at the feet of Gamaliel, he had entered into full possession of all the parliamentary qualifications by which his predecessor had been so conspicuously distinguished;-the same attachments, the same antipathies, the same extravagant delusions, the same wild phantoms of the brain, marked the right honorable gentleman as the true ministerial heir and residuary legatee of the noble viscount. And notwithstanding the metamorphosis he had recently undergone, he was so truly the same thing in the same place, that justly might it be said of him, alier et idem nascitur.' Being of the caterpillar species, he had remained the destined time within the soft and silken folds of a lucrative employment, till, having burst his ligaments, he fluttered forth the butterfly minister of the day." On a division, however, the ministry had still a majority, but a fearful majority of ONE voice only! the numbers being 192 for, and 193 against, the motion; so that the pyramida! edifice of ministerial power seemed now, by a marvellous and magical inversion, to rest upon its

apex.

Mr. Fox immediately gave notice, that in a fev days the question would be revived under anoth

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