The New-Jersey gazette — Burlington [N.J.], 1782-08-07 00:00:00, page 1

HOUSE of C OMMON S, April 3 0.
MR. Thomas Pitt made a motion, of
which the following is the substance,
“ 1 he national debt has, during the
war, accumulated to an enormous size,
and beyond all conception ; it is time for us to ac
count with ourselves; to examine into the true
state of our affairs, and when we are acquainted
with it, we should take such measures as are suita
ble to our situation. We have for many years past
successively raised immense sums. It is time for us
to examine if we were in a condition to raise those
sums, and if the publick creditors are secured."
I move therefore, " That a committee be appoint
ed for the purpose of ascertaining the amount of
the different sums voted as subsidies, from the sth
of January, 1776, to the sth of April, 1782; the
amount of the annual interest of these sums; the
annual produce of the taxes which were intended
to be a fund for the payment of the above interest ;
and lastly, the amount of the annual deficiencies in
the receipt of those taxes."
This motion passed without opposition : and thus
the account-book of Great-Britain will soon be
made publick.
Mr. Sawbridge then made a motion, of which
he had given notice a few days before, on the fub
jed of the pension of a Thousand Pounds sterling
per annum, that had been granted to Mr. Robin
son, firft Secretary to Lord North.
Uuluckily for Mr. Sawbridge, his mean* were
inadequate to the attainment of his object; his as
sertions were ill-founded, and bordered upon ca
lumny. The indignation of the house was excited,
and Ihewn without dissimulation. Mr. Thomas
Pitt was the firft who opposed the motion; alledg
ed, that in the present situation of affairs, such
trifling objeds ought not to engage the attention
of the house, but that they ought to be occupied
about the means of faring the empire.
Mr. Secretary Fox likewise opposed the moti
on, and spoke nearly in the following terms: " I
flatter myfelf that I shall be less fufpeded than
any body, of endeavouring to protect the late Mi
nitters from the rigour of those enquiries, which
their conduct demands of the justice of Parliament;
but 1 cannot approve of the partial motion of the
Honourable Member, because if we lower down
the enquiry, so far as to examine whether Mr. Ro
binson’s pension were deferred or not, it would
seem as if the whole mifeondud of the late Admi
nistration, confined merely in granting useless pen
lions. But when the grand enquiries, which cir
cumstances render indispensable, shall be entered
upon, 1 expert they will be general ; that they will
go to every branch of government. In that case,
we mud expect, not only to be astonished, but to
shudder. The situation of affairs is such, that
about the conclusion of the late administration,
when I meant to give a pi&ure of them, I scarcely
gave a Iketch. I was very far from dreaming one
half of the hedious extent of the mifehiefs which
are heaped upon our heads. The offices of my
<department furnifh me with a multitude of proofs
of the imminent danger into which the empire was
plunged when 1 entered into them. An idea can
not be formed of the deplorable weakness, naked
ness and exhausted state in which I found the king
dom. Who indeed could have conceived, that
Minitters, who ought to have known this general
exhausted state, who could not be ignorant, that
they did not pofTefs half the means necessary to
make head against the house of Bourbon alone,
should have pitched upon the moment when this
truth was most glaring, to draw upon themselves
the additional weight of Holland, though the pres
sure they already were under, was beyond their a
bility? Who could have believed, that Ministers,
surrounded with precipices on every fide, should
have been so senseless, as to maintain till the last,
the haughty and insolent language, which I find in
the correspondence of Lord Stormont, with the fe
vera| courts of Europe, in the course even of last
December?
NEW-JERSEY GAZETTE.
[Vol. V.]
WEDNESDA Y, August 7, 1782.
This, which is not far back, was an epocha, at
which inference, ever unbecoming, could only be
confidcred rs madness. Yes it was in December
last, that the Ministers had the hardiness Rill to
talk to the mediatorial powers of the punishment of
Van Berkel; that they proposed the exemplary
punishment of this man, as the preliminary arti
cle of any treaty of peace they should enter into
with Holland! And yet, I must observe, that I
could hardly get over the astonishment I was
thrown into, when in going over the papers relative
to the quarrel between tip and the Republick, I law
they had no motive, not even any pretence for it.
In short, who could think, that after what had pas
sed in this house, on the fubjecf of the American
war, those Ministers fnould be so infatuated as to
issue orders to the officers whom they employed, in
which their absurd ideas of the pohibility of reco
vering America by force, are difeovered; their old
rhodomantades ; their dreams of victories and con
quest: all this is very gravely fgnifed, and it ap
pears that they seriously imagined that their firft
system was ftiil practicable! Inforauch, that their
grand buhnefs, and that which absorbed all their
attention, was on one fide, the conquest of Ameri
ca, and on the other, the chaflifement of Van
Berkel. Such are the statesmen that we have had!
lam sorry to tell the house, that the profpedof a
separate peace with Holland, is not quite so near as
we thought it ; but I am convinced that if the reign
0! the late ftdminiffitatron had been only a few
months shorter, we fnould now be at peace with the
Repubiick.
So many blunders, so many extravagancies, one
on the back of another, prove uhanfwerably the in
dispensable necessity of an enquiry. It is necefTary
for the nation. It is essential to the quiet, to the
fafety of the present administration. If the people
be not fully acquainted with the situation of their
affairs; if they should not clearly fee in what a
weak condition their country has come from the
old Administration to the new; it will be difficult,
perhaps dangerous for the present government to
hare tecourfe to those severe and extraordinary
measures, which the critical situation of affairs alone
can justify, in making levies of men and money:
measures which however are absolutely and indis
pensably necefiary, as being the only probable
means left us to extricate' ourselves from the load of
calamities which have been heaped upon our heads.
I therefore repeat it, that we must go into enqui
ries in order to make the people feel the inevitable
necessity of these vigorous measures. Alas! how
often have I risen up in this house against the negli
gence which has fuffered our navy to fail into de
cay. God knows how far 1 was then from even
fuipeding the deplorable condition ^ which we
found it. I have an hundred times represented the
danger to which the negligence of our Miniders
expofe'd the interior defence of the kingdom, but I
saw not the tenth part of these hazards. It is ne
cessary that the people behold them in their utmost
extent, and it is by enquiry alone that this can be
done; but I shall be asked, are you going in this
manner, to lay open our weakness to the view of
the enemy, to the eyes of all Europe; good God!
what will they learn from it, which they are not
already acquainted with better than we? How ab
surd is this affectation of strength; this haughty
language which is intended to suppose great tran
quility in those who use it, whilst those to whom
they hold such language, whilst the whole world
knew that we were feeble, and absolutely unable to
defend ourselves. To vhat purpose are idle rho
domantades? They serve to bring the agents who
use them to be hooted at, and to confirm Europe in
the opinion, but too justly entertained that a nati
on which has recourse to high swelling expressions
of menace, when at the fame time it is seen to tot
ter on the brink of a precipice, is a senseless nati
on, which they must forbear to assist, as it is not
poflible to save it from its own frenzy.
The Lord Advocate of Scotland, to this alarm
ing speech of the Secretary of State, made a very
THE
judicious, but withal remarkable reply, as it con
firms what we had occasion to remark feme day's
since of the supineness of the opposition, and as it
shews, that if the Members of which it is compof
cd have not opened their mouth, at least their ears
are open, and that they wait only for the lignal to
embody themselves./
l am in doubt whether it be perfectly conformant
to the maxim's of found policy, to fix upon the pre
sent crisis as the moment of enquiry. No one will
difoute, that Great-Britain is plunged into a most
alarming condition, and that the new Ministers have
undertaken a mod difficult talk, but the more the
nation difeovers of this dreadful truth, the more
the people will find that their only hopes of fafety
will depend upon unanimity. To begin enquiries,
is to introduce diffentions, inconsistent with cur
riling unanimity. Every question which perfcrally
interests any di/linguifhed member of the communi
ty, of course intcrefts ail his friends and patty; all
who, from political principles, regard or gratitude,
from the tics of blood or friendship are connected
with him.
So that in peficring to no purpose one ficgle in
dividual, you cannot guess at the numbers who,
faking his part, will abandon the publick cause as
you call it, to join the private one. Farewell una
nimity ! The Ministers have as yet met with no
opposition. They have entered upon the publick
business, and they have been supported ; but if thr y
enter into personal broils, let them take rare cf
themselves. 'lhey may perceive that when it was
underwood that they intended in this day to make
motions of this nature, every one was e. ger to fee
them begin upon this course, and that the house is
unusually crowded. Let this circumstance serve
as an admonition to them.
If it be as they fay, that they wish to convince
the people, that they have found the navy in a bad
condition, let them put it in a better ffate- the
people will judge by the comparison. If they could
have made peace some time since with Holland, let
them make peace with the Repubiick now, and the
people will fay, that they have out done their pre
decessors. But in the mean-time may not the peo
ple afle the Secretary of State, who now threatens
us with his enquiries, why he has not, since he be
came Minister, made peace with America, that
peace whilst he was barely a member of the house,
he offered to conclude in an instant? It is because
that no peace can be as easily made, as a war can
be kindled."
Other members spoke against Mr. Sawbridge's
motion, which at length was dismissed, without de
termining whether it was well founded or not, by
calling for the previous question. This enabled
Lord Surry to move according to the notice he had
given, that a lift of pensions, appointments and
furvivorfhips granted between the 15th of Februa
ry, and the firft of April of the current year, should
be laid before the house.
May ''".J'? can a^re our readers that the
new Admimflration are not without very fanguire
expeditions of being able to effe& a general pacifi
cation on terms perfectly honourable to this conn.
tr y. immediately on their accession to their new
dignity, two gentlemen. Messrs. Gfwald and White
ford, both formerly resident in America, and gen
tlemen of the most refpeßable charaders, v.ete
dispatched to I aris, to confer with Dr. Franklin^
on the fubjech of a partial negociation cn the pare
of America only. The answer given by the I
was dire& and peremptory, that the United Coi.:
nies would most assuredly lifteo to no piopojj
tending to a peace, which did net include France
and the other belligerent powers as parties. He a
the fame time insinuated, that on these termc,^
on the most unqualified admission of America^ ft
dependence, probably note of the powers at w
would have much objection to a peace, nor did '}
suppose an ungenerous depression of Great-Br^^
™°%' e . ™ uch "^^ u ?° n - Mr# c^ald a' n
Mr. W hitefoid delivered this reply to Admimrt ,- a
[Numb. 241.]