The Sun.
London, England, 1804-03-16 00:00:00

stalcn, without some of our ships seemg them ;
and such was our force every where, that he
had no doubt of -the issue. A'-; they were at
Boulogne stated to be in, a large force, which
he had no doubt they were; he Wyss gIA to hear it,
he wished they ‘vouid come out, that v:e might g;ve

a better account of them than any account tive haci at

present. In the mean time they were blocic.ded,
so thaf:ll-..e,y coull not, or they dared not cone Out ;
and that he Undeistpod to he the fiat business of a

Fleet. lie would say again, that mnre c.n.rage,
zeal, and ardour, in all ranks and descriptions of
persons, never existed on board a Peet, titan ex-
isted at this Moment in the British Fleet. 'Never
was there more general satisfaaion felt on board
every Ship than at preSent : never were Ships bet-
ter stored, nor in better condition in every respeEt
than at present ; and this he averred to be perfeffly
curred is applicable to the Navy at this mormnr,
and to have been s 9 in the years tSoz and 1303, as
well as at the present moment. There was now not
a great number uf ships Under repait, but there
were some ; we had, however, enough to meet die

enemy, and more than enough for that purpose :
we had enough for the purpose of blockading Brest ;
we had enough at Flushing ; we had enough at
Boulogne ; we had enough at l',,nlon; we had, in
a word, the command of cverf P.;rt our of which
the Enemy could ever attempt to come fOrth. He
had had the command of only six ships ; he had-been
relieved generally about once in a month or six
weeks, While he was at Ferrbl r..ith his six ships,
which the Enemy's Admiral thought were twelve,
that was to say, he must have thought that !,e had

six outside and Six inside ships ; so that the e;letny

dared not face him.

Admiral Bssots os:sr explained.
Mr. 171 L-11 E E, that undoubtedly the
question now befOre the House was extremely in.
teresting to every Member of that House, and to
every individual in this Country, and upon
_which
he was anxious to say what he felt. He waottd 'to
enter upon this question as •a Representative of the
People of England should, and as the People of Eng-
land, or he mistook them, expected their Reoseo:o-
tatives to do ; and in beginning, he would say, that
in his opinion, there would be an end to the seen._
rity of this Country if subjects like the present were
not treated with a becoming gravity in that House :
this was what the People of England hat a right to
exped from that House, and did rxiied from that
House. He did not think that the Right Hon.
Gentleman (Mr. "ft srsy), who followed his
Right Hon. Friend (Mr. Piri), had hero happy in
the of the manner in which he had treated this
subjed to-night : He confessed, that the manner in
which he took up
_the subjed, the. tone irr'which he
spoke of it, the temper with which he dieeutsed
it, the epithets he bestowed upon it, the charac-
ter he gave to the motive with which it was
brought forward, and what was more of importance
than the eharader of any man's motive, • theorriatiner
in which he passed over the important crisis in
which this business was discussed, were all of them,
in his judgment, injudiciously managed by the Right
Hon. Gentleman. We were in a state of difficulty
and danger, which required great fortitude• and
judgment, in which the Members of that House
should discuss important questions gravely and- se-
dately ; but 'What would the Public think of theM ?
What 'comments would they make upon•the Debates
of that House, if they were to hear such topics as
were brought forward, by the Right Hon. Gentle.
man, in answer to his Right Hon. Friend ?.r--The
Right Hon. Gentleman seemed to think that he had
some ground of re fledion upon his Right • Hurl.
Friend, by saying he ought to be content With being
a Leader in the Voltinteer System of our Defence by
Land,and that he should not in te rmeddte with our Na-
val Defence; what was this but admitting, although
the Right Hon. Gentleman did not intend it, that his.
Right Hon. Friend's mind-, which could not be confin.
ed to one species of defence for his Country, or with
one sort of force or means for its security, but that he
was capable of assisting his Country by his wisdoth in
Council, his energy of thought, and his activity in
execution.; first to raise and qualify the mighty'
mass of Volunteers for the essential proteaion of
their Country in the hour of peril, should that event
arise ; but after accomplishing a system for that
purpose, then to endeavour to render the exertions
of such a fOrce unnecessary, by maturing the still
more immediate and most natural system of defence
. of this Country, and which tvent still more with
the hearts of the people of it,—its Naval Force.--
It did, therefore, seem to him that the very state-
.
ment of the Motion of his Right Hon. Friend was
of itself a sufficient illustration of its importance and
of its propriety. He should have wished, as he
had hoped, it had been discussed nakedly and
simply and plainly, and put to the good sense of
the House, instead of being, Mixed with matter
which appeared to him to he foreign to it. He did
• not distinctly understand the ground on which. the
Right Hon. Gentleman had put his opposition to
, this Motion. He could have understood hi?i if he
had pUt it upon the absolute impropriety of asking
any questions upon this suhjed at the present mo-
ment, of the propriety of abstaining from all in.
equity, and of confiding in the First Lord tif the Ad-
miralty, whose merits, Mr. WILItEIC”ii.CE said,
he was pettedly ready to acknowledge ; yet he was
of opinion that the services of that distinguished
person, however great, were not to be urged as rea-
sons against entering upon the Irquiry to which
these Motions led. However, the Right Hon.
Gentleman, besides stating as an objection. that
which was no objection • at all, had also stated
something that had the appearance of objedion, by
saying there was an imprudence in these Motions, be-
cause disadvantages would arise from the Inquiry to
which they led. Novri if that Right HoroGentleman
could prove that sufficient exertions had been made,
no Inquiry would he necessary ; and the Right Hon.
Gentleman himself had admitted that if the Motion
was granted, there would then be strong reason
for going into an inquiry. Now there were two
things to be considered upon the present occasion :
first, as to the danger of Inquiry -which the. Right
Hon. Gentleman had hinted at, by which he pre_
sumed was meant, the danger of publicity in such a
case a 6 this. To thi, he asked in his turn, whe-
ther the House had not means of avoiding that
publicity which was supposed to be. so dangerous?
Could not the House appoint a Committee of Sc.