The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser. — London, England, 1805-04-09 00:00:00

suffered to remain in the hands of the N a vy; and they should not he suf any emoluments from it individually; • provision should extend to the Pay- Clerks who should receive salaries, in • 'tes fees, or any other emoluments. time when Mr. Barre held the office of the Navy, no emoluments were suf . - isted to the Treasurer or Clerks ; that ale's Administration the salary of the Navy was advanced to 8001. Lord Melville himselt had a salary tear; that Mr. Trotter had specuiated money, by connivance of laird Mel many Bills to a caesiderable had lent th-refore to Lord Melville 41)001. that large sums appropriated to the Navy had been applied by Lord her services, the nature of which he lain; that then , was reason to swipe& ieleille participated in the emoln rived from these misapplications of money ; and that in all these proceedings in a manner inconsioent with his :ornpatil•le with the injunftions of the ' He then, on recollection, said, that it , intention to press this night any of the beyond thne that regarded the applt public money, but to reserve for a tsion what Teta. ed to the suspicians of tale having participated in use advane first resolution having then been read lair; NCELLOR of the NACHEQUER ovever much he approved of the resolti i by the Hon. Gentleman at the corn f his speech, not to lose sight, in its the language of temperance and mm should have applauded it more, it that been consistently persevered in. In part, however, of what had fallen from ;tittle/min, he was sorry to observe that adhering to the CO:, he took that line fre adopted in criminal proceedings and charges. appeals to the passions, and of pas sio i; too, 'Which had nn conndlion with the subjea, under discussion He spoke very feelingly of the heAvyburthens and the mass of taxation with which the cOnno - y was oppressed, as if any thing arising nom this subjeft ever added a single shilling to the hurthens of the people. 'Mere certainly could have been no occasion for all this industry in mat ching out topics of aggravation upon a rOojea which produced not the slight, ,t griev e .^e, and from which no mischief whatever esuhe 1. Mere thcre ions • toed cry of bear! k• ' Arch cootmerd ra fter longer thin front the ohe, tile of the Itiose). He then contilmed his speech with some degree of warmth. If Gentle men, he said, attempted thus to preveia tile exercise c:free.inm of speech in that House, by Mut ruption and clamonr ; and if these interruptions proceeded hem the vere quarter which professed a disposition for temperance and moderation. it afforded no good tar.en of the sincerity of such declarations. So vi+ lint an attempt tii aggravate and inflame the pas siis, on a sitbjeft which had en very remote a con reehen with them, and even within their own walls, made it the less to he wondered at. th tt se mach industry had been used in making ca lumnies and inflammatore misrepresentations of it out 1 , 1 doors. Amongst the rest or these calum nies, it had been publicly represented, that by these proceedings, seamen hid h-en defrauded of their wages, though no single instance had been she am, nor any allegation made, that the payment of seamen's wages had been delAved a single mo ment, or coat there was the slightest hitetrup. lion in any part of the Naval S'lNlte The Hon. Mover of these resolution.; had not only lost sight of his professed principles of forbearance ar. the language he made use of; but had also presented a view of the sithieft, which it co u ld not bear him nut in. stated that these Gentlemen might have been tried, and that they were under trial, because questions had been put to them. He, however, must contend, on the other hand, dust this engine!, was any thing but a trial. l'he charaaer of a trial was, that the parties, when put upon their defonee. were informed of the wholenaturent thecharge preferred against them, that they were placed before theer accusers, nd acquainted with the scope of the evidence they bad to repel ; that they had the power of cross-examining the wit nesses ; that they might make their defence, without bung called upon for their persdnal testimony; and, above all, that they were never called upon"nor al lowed criminate themselves In these proceedings, however, en trace was to be sem of any of these charaaco. ; end surely the Flotrte of Commons could never allow that any thing contained in the Report of the Comm.scioners could bear out the - resolutions proposed Ise the Honourable Gentleman. He must, however, upon the whole, admit that the Report of the Commissioners of Naval Inquiry pre sented some eery important en liter ; and, though it (lei nut appear that a single shilling had been lot by all ther.:.• transattions, to the public, yet, if it should turn rut that any thing was wrong or irre gular in the pioceedings of the public affairs, it was the duty or that House, after maturely considering the whole of the circumstances, and weighing duly the motives or reasons n hich may be alleged. in justice, to set a mat k, and not let it pars nett impunity, if a penalty should attach to h. After making this admission, he must at the same time say, that the representation, as it rood at present, did not justify the Hou.c in com ing to any decision whatever, much less to the Re solutions which had now been proposed to it. which u, evidently involved in them a vote of censure. Whether that shnuld be their final determination or rot must depend upon other documents which were not now before them ; and he was the more con firmed in that opinion, by finding that the Resolu vons proposed by the I knowable Gentleman were founded on the admission of long and in tricate calculations contained in the Appendix to the Report, the accuracy of which the best arithmetician may find it necessary to aonsum- some time in ascertaining. The Hon. Gent. who brought forward the business this day, thought proper in his speech to represent three o barges ;-Ist. That the Nolle Lord had, in violation of law, applied the public money to other services. wily. That he had, contrary to his duty, connived at the speculations of ethers, in employing the public money for their own ernelomen: ; and, idly. That he had hirnsalf par ticipated in these emoluments. After, however, • descanting in the Most aggravated terms on all of these, he was contented to rest fir the present upon the former two, reserving the point of par ticipation to sonic future opportunity. But if he did not intend to have pressed the last point at this time, it would' have In-en more consist ent with his proposed forbear iiice not t) have brought it forward in aggravation of the two former, which also still remained to. he proved. What he on the other hand meant to propose, was, to put the matter in such a stat? as to e-able the House to form a mature and distinct jodzment on the wholt! of the proceedings, and afterwards to corn • to a fin..l determination upon th•am. He should for bear, at present, to enter into a derailed account of what came to his own knowledge upon the sullied, because the materials regul rrly before the House were much too confined and shapeless for any ade quate judgment to be prr.notincad upon them. All tie other documents tit-cm:lay to be considered were not so numerous as to require any great delay ; for it was a sullied on which much delay must he inadmissible; bat he thought they might all be put into such a shape as speedily to be arranged and digested, so as to enable the House to come to a final determination immediately after the holi days. The first charge of the Hon. Gentleman was, that money had been issued from the Navy Office for other services irregularly, and contrary to law. Supposing that to be admitted, he would ask, whether it would be either policy or justice to make that a matter of consideration, without any in- quiry intothe circumstances of the existing exigencies, or reasons f so doing ? Would the House consent t make it criminal before they were informed of the necessity of the measure, or the quantity of the corns which might have been so applied? Would the dry and naked statement of its being contrary to the letter of the law be decisive in the mind of any man pretendi:lg to be a statesman Could nn caw of policy, secrecy, or debracy, be stated, in which even a direct infraction of the law may not be . . _ desirable? And filially, upon all these considera tions, were Gentlemen prepared to state that no farther information was a t all desirablt ? For all these reasons, what he wanted was, by no means to avoid or to prolong the decision, lint to he put in a train so as to let in all thi; information. His proposi- tion, therefore, would be, o.at th,• whole should be referred to a Seleut Comm nee, berme which every information and explanation might be made, with out the danger of indiscreet disclosures, and upon whose report the House might he enabled to come to a final dec i• ion upon it. There was, however, one cir cumstance, -nentioned in the Repot t, in which an Hon Friecr; of his ( Mr. Smith) was named, of advances to ti.e trea , ury. in wh ch he should be ashamed if there should I.e the slightest lifficulty of explanation, pro vided the seri ft ea: put in a proper train for the dit.closure of l'.nr transaition. All that he need now say upon that subjed was, that when the proper time arrived, the House would have a full importunity of deciding whether that instance of the money being diverted to another service was mote deserving of censure or of praise. He neruld then demonstrate, that no injury whatever could have ensued, for the money was diverted without inconvenience, and replaced quickly without loss. The slim at that time so disposed of was to the amount re 40,00a1., and after all they had heard upon the subject. perhaps the House would be somewhat amp, ised at hearin 6 that it was, at least, three-fourths of all the sums that, to the course of Lord Melville's long occupancy of the situation of t:easiiret of the Navy, had been so applied from or.e service to another. If this, therefore, which w the largest, and Corm-d so great a part of the whole, could he satisfactotily accounted for, as he pledged himself to the House it would be, it was not on. reasonable to infer, that the othets would be fannu, on examination, equally justifiable. The next charge which was meant this night to be insisted on Was, that Lord Melville commended Mr. Trotter's having employed the public money, entrusted to Ili. charge, to purposes of personal emolument to him self. This, indeed, if true, would he a proper oh• jeet of serious enquiry, and ouelit to he hive tigated, tor he should never contend, that allowing 'he Pay master of the Navy to aa in such a manner was by any means jusiifiable the Report, however, of the Naval Commissioners, did m a state that Lord Melville had ever suffered his Paymaster to draw for larger sums than were aCtually wanted, and the great fault was, that the Paymaster had so com plicated his accounts, that the different drafts, and the distin4 sums could not easily be separated. He certainly should admit irt its fullest extent the posi tion; that notwithstanding thecitcumstance of no loss whatever having been incurred, the setting the pub lic money to any risk or hazard was alone highly to be censured ; but h could not at the same time help observing that the circumstance of no loss whatever, even of a haying been incurred, was in it self no mean argument, that, considering the vastness of the sums and the transaStions, there could scarcely have been any great mismanagement. Some of the transaCtions were certainly so very inaccurately given in the Report, that they required further investigation. For instance, the Report stated, that the sums paid into the house of Mr. Coutts were not in the legal manner of drafts im mediately from the 'Bank, but in their passage to other different services, and the sums so irre gularly drawn, were said to be to the amount of five millions. But, if he was not misinformed. one million of this was drawn direetly from the hawk of England, in the manner prescribed. and the others were drawn at different times in smaller proportions, so as to make it doubtful whether' the report was accurate even as to these. The Commissioners, in fa R, did not appear thoroughly to understand that no money could be drawn for by the Treasurer, but in consequence of memorials sent to him for that purpose from the other offices, specifying the amount, and the purposes fur which they were demanded ; and that in this the Treasurer was merely ministerial, and had no discretion whatever. There was ruching con tained in the Report that could insinuate a charge of the offices dewing in this manner on the 'Trea surer oftener than the money was wanted ; and if so, it was impossible that the money could remain any great length of time in his hands. It had, in deed, intimated, that they might be iikluced to draw upon the Treasurer some time before the money may be wanted, under the supposition that he Was dilatory in his application to the ilaak ; but this very supposition of dilatoriness, or slowness iu doing so, rather inferred that 111111011 Mom t en ger be stiff 'reasurer of the e red to derive an h.tt the same in and (lei isters • stead of perquisi 'at in the time assurer of the .red to be derive • Lord Melva' paymaster of t n nally ; that I of 4pool• a year viii the public T 1 Ole, and purch: a mount, and he the sum Of YO,O O the s ervice of tl Melville to rube d ec lined to expl: that Lord me vents so delis , t it, public mane he had aged i a tuty, and incor Legislatore.". ti • ir us not his :nt resolutions bey cation of tho I future occasion Lord Melville tagei• The 6 ' from the Chair Tl•e C HAh said, that how' don expressed mencement of progress, of thi Aeration, he sit intention had the greater par t he Hon. Gvnt instead of adhi quentiv a,lopts of ma king . a; sio i; t ti , , svhi , wider disenssi , Leavy burt hen the conn:ry w nom this sultj burthens of have been I searching on sl'ojea whirl a e. and 1 .esuhe h- • chhe, silt speech with • men, he said. o'..free.lnm n 1 • and clamonr ham the vei . for t,raporan omen of the of an art • he eats sot inclined to retain the 'possession of it lo ng . Upon the whole, he did not see that there was any deficiency whatever in the payments which had been charged, and the report made no allow ance for the numerous assignments which were always outstanding to a very large amount, and for the immediate payments of which, to the individuals or patties who held those sum' of motley, must, to that amount, be of course lying in the hails of the paymaster, and in many of the years it appeared from the accounts that balances thus laing were very little more than the amount of the assignments. Flee report also stated, that there should cot be more than ten days' balances so remaining in the hands of the treasurers, and complained that they generally retained thiny•two days balances. From this it seemed, that they had not seleded accurately, nor made the proper allowances. In fairness and candour, they should have confined their remarks and calculations to the unassigned balances retained ; but they made not even the proper allowance for the numerous assignments every day coming in tram the out-ports, which, if they had done, the tooth would be that the balance in hand did not, on an average, exceed fifteen days, which comes pretty near the ten days they themselves recommended, instead of the thirty-two days on which they dwell so very much. All these errors, mistakes, and omissions, chewed that the calculations on which the retort was founded, were so inaccurate and complicated. that the House could not be in a condition m con sider the subjed merely on the materials now before it, for which reason he should propos • that the whole should be fef ared to a Sae& Committee. The case then standing thus, he could scarcely have expeded that, after the Noble Lord had offered to substeetiete his allegations upon oath, the House should have heard of any suspicions being entertained of him. The reason why he could not answer to the question, whether any of this money had been applied to the purpose of producing any emolument to himself was, that Mr. 'l'rotter had so complicated his private accounts with the public money, that it was impossible for him to determine whether any advance made to him on his private account, might come under that description, or whether Trotter might not have lent him the public money without his being by any means aware of it. The assertion of 186,000,0001. of the public mo ney having been drawn for by him during his long administration had nn application, no refer ence whatever to his own affairs, as it was applii d to public services, and the only part of it with which his affairs could at all be conneded, was of no greater amount, for the whole time, than about I 00,0001. This,though aconsiderablesum, would not appear so, for such a number of years, when it was consiJered4 that in it were included his salary of of 40001. annually as Treasurer of the Navy, his salary as keeper of the signet in Scotland, and all his other property derived from that coun try, Ste. Some part of it was applied to public pur• poses, in consequence of Mr. Trotter's sometimes signing his name to bills which he did not at that time know of; and surely all these circumstances and trans eClions should be separated and investigated before the House could be in a condition to decide upon the subject. Under all these circumstances, and the tender which the Noble Lord made of his oath in bis owls vindication, he contended, that to acquiesce thus prematurely in the resolutions now proposed, would not only be inconsistent with justice, but ' also, in the hiallest degree, illiberal, ungenerous, and preposterous. Without, therefore, going into any particulars in this stage of proceeding, he should offer a method which would he accompanied with very little delay, by proposing that all the words of the resolutions should be left out, and in thi it room substituted the words—" That the 'L'entli Report of the Commissioners of Naval Enquiry be onerred to a Seled Committee." Mr. FOX objeCted, that the mode pmpoked, as he conceived, horn his recollection of a case that happened about five and twenty years ago, would puevent the original resolutions from appearing upon tha Journals of the House. '1 he CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER answered, that he distinetly meant to substitute his motion for that proposed; and, for that purpose, to move the previous question upon each of the resolu tions. Mr. GREY spoke a few words. The SPEAKER—s' The original question was" [he then read the first resolution proposed by Mr. Whitbread] " since which the previous question has been put, 1 am now, therefore, to move the pre vious question." Lord HENRY PETTY expressed his anxiety to t.tke an early opportunity of declaring his senti ments upon the question before the House ; it was with a great degree of nu prise he heard the Rt. Hon. Gentleman who spoke last, at the beginning of his speech, state, that his Hon. Friend (Mr. Whitbread) had travelled out of his original track of modera tion, and had endeavoured to inflame the passions of his hearers ; he, however, observed, in the first place, that the resolutiuns of his Hon. Friend were founded upon plain matters of fad, which arose out of the breach and violation of the law ; hut the preference which the Right Honourable Gentleman had given to appointing a celed Committee, was from an enumeration of figures, which arose from the obscurity thrown upon the business by Lord Melville, and his paymaster. The feat of Lord Melville's having violated the aft of Parliament, of his having allowed his paymaster to lodge cer tain sums, which should have been deposited in the Bank of England, in the hands of a private banker, of his admission that several sums of money, con stituted for the particular purposes of the navy, were appropriated to oilier services, were too flagrant breaches of the Aat of Parliament to be passed over ; and when the Resolutions proposed by his Honour able Friend were agreed to, he should be one of the first to acquiesce ils the appointmeat of a idea Com mittee, nor would any Member of that ilonse be more arcious to carry such a measure into effect. He asked, would Lord 'Melville wish to make any fur Cher declarations ? and even se, he felt lie could cot go into a Seim, Committee without a hope to some explanation ; but it was more befitting the House of Commons to agree to the Resolutions then before them when a gross breach of an .ka gm' Par , lament had been committed. The Right Hon. Gentleusast had said, that uo luas whatever had been sustained to the public in this business; it appeareu to him, however, notwithstanding the Right Hon. N_' 1 1. . , . Gentleman's assertion, d'l4t, at least, a eorsat cols lie risk might be stifferedo but, ceverigly:, a gekist,' • positive, and particular fooblic loss oatd been c.o.= o' mined. The Right Hon. Gentlamass Se 3 ouvreted inn, • an argument of numerical calcolation's, fr, -eine?! he could not attempt to follow him. beieg onarotta;rx ed with the forms of' office with whicE the Rite): Hon Gentleman was so conversant: he had said that large sums were given from the Etc' equer foe the service of the Navy, which were actereeords operci prioted to other services, and much larger rotors were drawn than applied, how then could they have beet applied ? this was not specified, and they might as well have been applied to private purposes as any other. The Right Hon. Gentleman !ad .admitted that great speculations hod takeh place, great risk. must consequently have followed. A combination had been formed of three persons, the ogre had the direction of the public funds relating to a r articular department Mr. Mork Sprott was the broker and manager under .Ir. Alexa 'der Trotter ; he was the confidential agent, and occountahle to Lord Melville; and he was the person who Was accountable to the public. LVltat danger, he asked, might have arisen • from this combination ? he had heard of many com binations of different descriptions in the state, but he knew of none more formidable than the one in question, and the systematic deception which Lord Melville had pursued, had evaded every attempt at investigation. His Lordship then adverted to an extra& from the evidence of Lord Melville, given before the Committee of Finance, when the Speaker was at the luead of that Board ; and it t hen appear ed, that no account of the first Treasurership of Lord Melville hat been finally passed. The Noble Lord had stated, that the several retold stions which had taken place, had enabled him to carry that most beneficial Aft into effeer He de manded what this beneficial Aft was? It was not to constitute the office of a pueictdar department into a public treasury (A Ire.; rry of h' r ! Hear!). For fourteen years his I"dsitort had systema tically violated the Aft of Parliament, and the House was then called upon to go into a Committee, before the question was docided, whether the Noble Lord was to hold the high and important situation any longer (Hear ! Mail)? If it had occurred to Lord Melville to ask Mr. Mar kSpront whether he had used the ten thousands, and the twenty thouiands for their men benefit or emolument ; it Mr. Trotter himself had asked the question, Mr. Mark Sprott would soon have ceased to be the broker for either. From the evidence in the Report, this Gentleman had stated that from the nature of keeping the ac. . counts, he could not tell whether or not he derived any emolument. If all w •re vtiflred g,ve this . so-t of account, all the Brolcors in London would follow the erample. if any part of Lord Melviile's • evidence, or due extroordi nary Letter which he wzote, after hearing all the arguments of both islends and oi enemies, if the latter could be called enemies, who were only enemies to illeg slimy ; it uu • (-toed find any specific assertion, posuively denyili;, that hoc! re ceived or derived any emolument of a p:isoite nature? his Lordship declared, he would 0' ee r vote for a seleCt Committee ; but he called -es o ty Gentleman to state a case of toe :latur. cat art sent : if so, he would pronounce him inner n' ; Out he could not help remarking with Piso. .‘ who is more criminal than he who CAIIDOt either spook o - write himself guilty r' Such was the Noble L re! . In question, who could he the first to make an a t and violate it himself. If the motion of the R;gl Hon. Gentleman took place, it was a vain toil, a fruitless labour, to follow up the qo ion farther ; in that case, not only would the Treotilrer of the Navy be found to be violating on aft for upwards of fourteen years, but also would be found a House of Commons who would suffer those charges to lie on , • their table, only anxious how they might avoid .such an investigation, and, after all this troubls, it power should step in between the criminal and the law. His Lordship trusted that this night, al though there might be a difference between the House in odour respells, yet when the question came before them, whether the law hod been violated, or the public finances properly administered or not, there would be that promptitude found amorist them, which was ever the support of the honour and dignity of that Horse; with these sentiments his Lordship said he would vote for the Resolutions of his Hon. Friend, and would afterwards agree to a Sete& Committee. The ATFORNEY GENERAL observed, that die lion. Gentleman who bad opened the debate, had appealed to several descriptions of persons, yet he did not know any one he could better have ap plied to than the Noble Lord wbo just sat down; the Noble Lord had said, it was not a matter of account that they had to try, but it was a question upon the disobedience of a public law, and he thought it rr should be considered whether it would nnt be he:- ter to go into the further inquiry of the mat - Jer, be fore they should pass any judgment upon it; then would there be a fine opportunity of enquiring the particulars of it. The fair question was. whe ther it was most to the dignity of the House to take the haulms now by piece-meal, or have it properly investigated, when the whole should ap pear, before they came to a final judgment.— The Noble Lord had adverted to a particgra thin of emoluments with Mr. Trotter by land Melville; hut, before these arguments were plied, he should hear the nature of the charge completely, and not in parts, as they were then called upon to ad. Could it be said that it was ne cessary to pass the censure of the House on that day ? he would ask the Home, generally. whither they would then proceed, or fix that day se'enight, or fortnight, for :he further il•ictission? On that side of the House the further investigation and inquiry were desired, and the question was, whether they were to has c that further inquiry preceding the judg ment. but more especially in a case like the present. where a charge of a criminal nature was made ? It appeared to him rather an extraordinary measure to proceed as they were intending. and inconsistent to proceed in that way : he therefore would agree with his Right Honourable Fe icod in a Seled Com mittee, without prejudice to any party Mr. TIERNEY said, that with re pea to the appropriation of the public money from that service, for which it was roustmtted, he thought it was fraught with much danger; and indeed the perusal of the 10th Report of the Coinmissioners. he studied with surprise, A'' lag meet, and almost shame. Did Lord Melvilk or Mr. Trotter come in the Bar of the Home, and ask further time to investigate filivemeire; 4 t • 1 4 A