The New-Jersey gazette — Burlington [N.J.], 1783-03-26 00:00:00, page 1

Debates in the HOUSE of COMMONS, De
cember 5, 1782.
AS soon as the speaker had returned from
the other house, the several members who
had been newly chosen, were sworn in at
the table, and the annual bill of outlawry,
as usual, brought in, and read a firft time. After
\vhich the speaker produced the copy of his majes
ty's speech, and read it to the house.
Mr. Yorke (member for Cambridgefhire) then rose
and shortly Went through the several parts of his
majesty's speech, considering them one after another,
and pointing out their immediate importance. Mr.
Yorke spoke so low, that we could not diftindly hear
all he laid ; the publick however are aware, that the
cuftoni of those members, who move an address,
is generally to dwell in terms of eulogy upon each
particular pallage of the speech, and to propose an
address, echoing back those passages to his majesty,
. accompanied with warm profeffions of loyalty, zeal
and support. This talk Mr. Yorke performed with
great diffidence, but great propriety ; and as soon
as he had read the proposed address,
Mr. Bankes seconded it in a speech somewhat more
diftindly heard. Mr. Banks began with stating the
nature of the firft fact communicated to parliament
by his majesty in his speech, entering into a difcudlon
of its importance, and shewing the necessity that im
pelled, and the utility of the measure. He then re
minded the house, that in conceding American inde
pendence, we, in fad, gave her nothing, for that her
own arms had already obtained it. Having darted
this, he said, that a ray of hope, both rational and
probable, was to be looked up to : as his majesty had
expressed it, a beneficial connection might yet be pre
served between the two countries, in consequence of
their having the fame religion and language, in con
sequence of old affections, and the long established
habits of commerce that had formerly subsisted be
tween them. Henext entered upon the naval successes
of the last campaign ; and was warm in praise of our
victory in the Weft-Indies, though no man he believ
ed, thought Jamaica would still have been fafe, had
the enemy's fleet pursued their destination, and not
turned back to protect their trade. He next declared
the relief of Gibraltar by general Elliot and lord
Howe, was equal to any thing. He painted the cif
trefs that those successes mult have cost the enemy ve
ry strongly, but laid, great as that undoubtedly was,
it was not a circumstance on which we ought too tri
umphantly to rely, and that splendid and glorious as
the last campaign had proved, it ought not to operate
so upon the minds of his countrymen, as to induce
them to be less ready to treat for peace, or less wil
ling to make some facrifices to obtain it. He remark
ed, that we could not now expect to obtain terms
of pacification so beneficial as might have been in
fixed upon at the end of a war more fuccefsful ; he
trusted, therefore, that the nation would not be ob
stinate, or think that it would be impoliticly to con
cede something as the price of peace, on account
of any wild notions of keeping places merely hono
rary, or fighting solely for a name, without any
thing under it substantially advantageous. He said,
the real national honour confined, in his opinion, in
a ftrift adherence to good faith, a rigid preservation
of our publick credit, and a just payment of our
debts. The war had already coit us eighty millions,
the annual interest of which is about three milli
ons—a fort of burden larger than we could have ex
pected to have incurred, or ought to have been in
curred. It behoved us not, therefore, from an im
prudent and rash desire to ruin other powers, to
make ourfelvcs bankrupts, and endanger the interest
and the treasures of those, with whose money, we
must continue the war, if it was to be continued.
He said, to make a separate peace with America was
not to be expected; but if to be obtained, he feared
it was not under our present circumhances to be
wished for. That a durable peace was what alone
we should aim at making, and the only means of
obtaining it, was, he thought, to remove the cause
of war, by conceding some of the objects that had
induced the present powers to go to war. Spain
once at peace, he imagined would not speedily go
to war again. Gibraltar had proved impregnable,
and therefore Spain would scarcely make that again
her object. With regard to the ceconomy spoke of
in the speech, Mr. Bankes dwelt upon it with en
ergy. He alluded to what had been already done,
and said it was neceflary, not barely to introduce
ceconomy, but parsimony, and even avarice, to get
Tid of our enormous debts. To these remarks he
added various others, all tending to recommend
peace, and to induce the house to agree to the ad-
NEW-JERSEY GAZETTE.
[Vol. Vl.]
WEDNESDAY, March 26, 1783.
dress, which, as soon as hehad concluded his speech,
was read in the usual form from the chair.
After a short pause, Mr. Fox rose and said, he
had rather wished some other person to have taken
the lead that day: on account of certain lituations
in which he had flood, and certain suspicions of some
of the present minihry, which he was above denying
he entertained, that might induce gentlemen to sup
pose he meant merely to throw obftruCtions in the
way of government, whether the measures proposed
by them met with his approbation or not : Certain
ly, he had no such view er intention ; he rose now
merely to make a few remarks that struck him upon
hearing the speech, and upon hearing the very ex
traordinary manner in which the address had been
moved and seconded (ably undoubtedly, on both
sides, but particularly so on the part of the honour
able gentleman who seconded it.) And what struck
him firft of all was a trifling error, that he could not
confider as at all intentional, but really believed to
have been an inaccuracy only, and an overlight in
those who prepared the speech and the address, but
which nevtrthelefs it particularly behoved him to
take some notice of. What he alluded to, was the
particular period of time, from which all the good
that the speech declared to have been done for the
country of late, was dated. The speech began with
these words, since the elofe of the last sessions ;"
new, the proportion, to declare the independence
of America, the house well know, was agitated long
before that period, as well as the attempt to make
peace, &c. while some persons then dead, and others
hill living, with whom he had the honour to have
served his majesty, were in administration. It look
ed, therefore, a little as if it was intended to deprive
those persons of that merit, to which they had a fair
claim. • 0
The chancellor of the exchequer (honourable W.
Pitt) begged pardon for interrupting the honoura
ble gentleman for a moment, but desired leave to
allure him, that no deception was intended, and that
if he had read the speech, or attended to it with
his usual clofeucl's, he would have found, that his
fuipicions were wholely groundtefs. Mr. Pitt then
caused part of the speech to be read, after which
Mr. Fox rose again, and said, he acquitted his
majesty's ministers of all intention of error in the
particular in question, he was fare it was merely an
inaccuracy ; but that nevertheless, it was necessary,
for the fake of the other persons with whom he had
the honour to serve, that he should notice it, left
it might invidiouily be supposed, that they, as well
as himfelf, had not been clearly and decidedly of the
opinion, which he trusted his majesty's ministers had
now adopted in the provisional terms, viz. That of
granting America fairly and in the firft instance an
avowal of independence : that was, he declared, al
ways his opinion ; he spoke it now as no after
thought, but was merely repeating what that house
had last sessions again and again heard him avow,
and what he had ever wished. should be done as
most conformant to the character of Great-Britain,
as a matter of the greatest magnanimity, and the
greatest explicitness. Nor was it, as the honoura
ble gentleman, who seconded the address, had well
said, giving America any thing ; she possessed inde
pendence already ; her arms had given it her, and
experience proved, that we could not wrest it from
her. The earl of Shelburne need not therefore be
afraid of avowing it; he need not think " the fun
of this country had been set" by him, he need not
fear sealing the avowal with his blood. He would
ensure him from impeachment. No peer should dare
arraign him so. it; no trial had he to dread from
it. With regard to the constitution and conduc
tion of the present ministry, he owned he had Sus
picions, but so far from urging a charge against
them from this, they had done well; they deserved
praise for it ; and knowing and fufpe&ing the since
rity of the earl of Shelburne, as he did, he could
not be niggard of what was his due on this occa
sion, but would apply two lines of a ludicrous poem
to him, and would lay,
You've done a noble turn, tho' in your nature's
spite,.
You think you're in the wrong, I know you're
in the right.
Having raised a hearty laugh at these lines, Mr.
Fox went on to state what had been the difference
of opinion upon which he had quitted his majesty's
service, and imputed it roundly to lord Shelburne's
duplicity. lie said he had written a letter to Mr.
Grenville at Paris, by his majesty's order, in which
he directed him to acknowledge the independence
cf America in the firft instance, not as a referred
condition of any nature whatsoever: that lord Shel-
THE
burne, then secretary of state for America, had writ
ten the fame words to fir Guy Carleton ; that at the
time his joy had been excessive, conceiving from that
moment peace with America to be at hand ; that to
his utter astonishment a few days afterwards, he
heard it endeavoured to be maintained; that the
words in the two letters did not mean an avowal of
the independence of America in the firft instance,
but merely an offer of it, as the basis and price of
peace. That he saw himfelf ensnared, and com
passed round with treachery. He saw he was not fafe
in inch hands, and he quitted his situation. He re
peated it, that he thought the avowal of the inde
pendence the best part of the whole speech, but he
wilhed it had been more explicit. There seemed to
be an aim at expressing personal reluctance in his
majesty in the very ad of doing that which his mini
sters should have advised him to have done graci
ously. He did not also like the not calling America
the United States. Why not do it in the speech,
as well as in the secretary of date's letter to the lord
mayor? He could not conceive the difference was
intentional, or that the secretary meant to rob his
royal matter of the credit of the expression, by adopt
ing it in his own letter, and by another expression's
appearing in the speech. Though the provisional
treaty didnot actually put us at peace with Ameri
ca, Mr. Fox said, he conceived it put us in a date
so like peace, tint we might now confider ourselves
as at war but with three enemies; and therefore we
should be the better enabled to direct all our efforts
against the house of Bourbon. He descanted on the
benefits of such a situation, and then went into a
consideration of the propriety of making peace. He
said a peace was worth obtaining, if only for so short
a Space as two years ; and for these reasons: we
might in that case be assured, we never should have
the fame four powers combined against us, and we
should have leisure to make alliances ; he under
stood there were courts inclined to assist this coun
try, now we were come to our senses, though they
would not join us when we were mad. With re
gard to the successes of the last campaign, he was
loud in extolling them, but particularly the conduct
of lord Howe before Gibraltar, which he declared
was equal to that of any admiral that ever existed.
He also with particular warmth reprobated the at
tempts that had been made to revile and traduce
that noble lord's character, by dark, unauthenti
cated insinuations. Insinuations not more scanda
lous than ill founded. He had himfelf, he declared,
seen a letter from a foreign nobleman, in which the
writer extolled his lordship's conduct to the skies,
and said his country resounded with his praise from
one end to the other ; nay, this noble foreigner
wrote over, that his countrymen were so convinced
of his amazing skill and good conduct in the affair of
relieving Gibraltar, that it was universally expected
by them, that when the noble lord arrived in Eng
land, he would instantly be brought to a court mar
tial. One great cause of the noble lord's success, in
fuperadditien to his wonderful personal merit, Mr.
Fox declared was ascribable to the vigour cf the pre
fect naval adminiftratiori, which had done more and
deserved more praise, than any that ever had pre
ceded it. Our navy, Mr. Fox said, he had himfelf
described to be in a miserable state, when he had the
honour to be in office. His speech had been said
to favour of despondency. He nevertheless, did now
assure the house, it did net come up to his real feel
ings upon the Subject, nor had he thought it pofli
ble that all the exertion, even of the present naval
administration, could so soon have recovered our
marine. Ail that the honourable gentleman who se
conded the address, had said in panegyrick of lord
Howe, had pleased him, and had pleased every body
who heard it. The house, he was convinced, could
have listened to the honourable gentleman, on such
a theme forever; but how was his joy damped:
what a gloom had been call over his mind, by what
had dropped from the honourable gentleman imme
diately afterwards! Was he to underhand that Gib
raltar was to be given up? There might be possible
Situations of this country, where the parting with
that important, that valuable possession, would be
juftifiable, But was the present one of those situati
ons? The honourable gentleman, for whom he pro
feffed the highest personal refpeCt, must be a shallow
politician indeed, if he imagined that because Spain
had lately found Gibraltar impregnable, she would
never mewe attempt its capture. Had the late mini
stry left off pursuing the fruitlefs and fatal American
war, because they found the conquest of America
impracticable the very firft campaign ? The honour
able gentleman seemed to have no idea of the am
bition, the avarice and the absurdity of human na-
[NUMB. 274.]