Star.
London, England, 1817-02-18 00:00:00

Secretary's demand, in order to avenge themselves for
'the-interference of the House.--(.1 laugh.)—The
Honourable Secretary had called himself an insigni.
scant individual, which nobody else would rresume
to do; he has, however, acted with great skill; he
raw the day of voluntary contributions coming, and
tie pri pared himself for it, by taking his indemnity
before-hand. He feared a run upon the shop, and
tforetoie collected together all that he could get. The
S •cretary had said, that all who knew him would
acquit him of any unworthy motk!es. He (Mr. Tier- i
ney) would acquit him for £2OO, provided
it was his right. As to tujielf, (sao Mr. Tierney),
I keep my head above water at 'well* as 1 can, and
should have no objection to 'rft2OP,)l' I had a claim
to i., ;bough it would alwayite' a matter of taste or
fetlipg whether I should claim it or not : but the
Lord. of the Admiralty had acted from resentment ;
they had agreed to stand by the Secretary, and make
the House see what it was to fall out with them.-
-(4 laugh).—lf the Lords of the Admiralty bad
refused to comply with his demand, he supposed that
the Honourable Gentleman would have told them to
look tor another Secretary r but no, (says Mr. T.)
don't think he would have gone so far as that. What
must the poor Chancellor of the Exchequer think of
these proceedings.? He was not nearly so well paid,
and yet his labours deserved additional remunera-
tion quite as much as those of the Honourable
Secretary : thy, the fatigues of issuing Exchequer
Bills lately must have been qiiite as 'great as the fa-
tigues of the Algerine equipment—(A laugh).—Then
the Lords of the Admiralty themselves, had only
£l,OOO a-year each, though, to be sure, they made
up in number what they wanted in weight. If he
(Mr. Tierney) were to speak for hours longer, it
would only be an unnecessary trespass on the time of
the House. Those who believe the Honourable Se-
cretary had a vested tight should . vote against the
Motion of the Noble Lurd ; but those who think that
there was a discretionary power lodged in the Lords
of the Admiralty, and that they were not bound to
give to the uttermost penny, would find it impossible
to vote for the proposition of his Noble Friend.
No person, man, woman, or child, out of doors,
could doubt that this transaction forfeited all' confi-
dence in the Lords of the Admiralty. He said this
in their presence, as he should•not hi* the opporttr.
nity of saying it long, because-theta:would soon he a
division, and the Lind: of thrs:AdMitalty would then
of course withdraw—Or larrti,:tladheari hear.)
Lord CA.STLEREAGH said-he would trouble
the House with a very few observations. He had, in
common with the House, felt great satisfaction at the
numerous jokes and pleasantries which the Right
Hon. Gentleman had thrown over the subject; but
at the same time he must say, that he had never be-
fore heard him labour so hard in argument. (41/eud
lartrifrear the Opposition.) The Right Hon. Gentle.
man had talked of the disgust which he felt at the
conduct of the Board of Admiralty. He (the Noble
Lord) would retest the expression, and say, this he
himself felt the most unmeasured disgust to see that
spirit of detraction abroad against all public men
(100 from the Opitosition); above all, to see that
readiness in Honourable Gentlemen to appeal to the
unsound part of the people in order to depreciate
and degrade the characters of public men. (Hear, and
a laugh from the Opposition) How bad the Right
Honourable Gentleman argued the present question
Nothing could be more weak or unfair.—The
conduct of the Loads of the Admiralty had been
such as they were bound both in law and justice to
pursue.. Lord Spencer's order of 1800 left them no.
option—it was imperative—nor was any thing left
to their discretion, except the bare fact whether there
were peace or war. Could they.-could the House
for a moment entertain that monstrous doctrine, to
which nothing but utter desperation of all rea-
sonable argument could have driven the Right Ho-
nourable Gentleman—that it was within the discre-
tion of the Board of Admiralty to lessen, at their,
pleasures 'the salaries of the officers, civil or Military,
of their establishment I—As well might it be con-
tended: that the Commander in Chief bad the power
of abridging the income of the officers of the As my.'
Nothing but a dearth of all feirsigtounds of attack
could have induced the Right, Hon. Gentleman to
have recourse to such a wretched shift-a(/fear; hear.)
As to the real question, whetheriebadcbeen peace or
war, he was ready to meet it feltiy ; and he mast
my, that if the Noble Lord bad not been far more

impatient to procure, at all events, a vote of censure,
than be was anxious to investigate whether any mat-
ter for censure really existed, he would have moved
for papal, which would have enabled him to see
more clearly the proper line for bins to pursue.—
But no: censure was wanted, not a fair judgment;
and therefore the expedition itself was to be degraded
rather than the Noble Lord's motion should be lost.
Algiers was now called a petty State : he should like
to know whemaptate began not to be petty. Was this
sort of language to be used in order to make a shame-
ful trap for public opinion : or wits the term da petty"
to be employed in the face of facts as a criterion whe-
ther this nation had or had not been at war What
was the real state of the case I Duty to the English
tag ; duty to the honour-of the English character ;
duty to the civilised principle throughout the world,
made a war with Algiers at once lawful and neces-
sary. That war once determined upon, was not to
be settled, except on certain conditions, which were
absolute sine qua temis. The gallant Admiral, there-
fore, though in one sense he carried with him the al-
ternative of war or peace, yet, from the nature of the
case, could not be supposed to go out for any purpose
but for battle. The body of his instructions con-
tained these principles and these conditions : nay, he
was directed in express terms to consider as enemies
all ships of the Algerian which he should meet it sea,
and was ordered to destroy them whereier found.
That the Noble Admiral hinstelrconceived that he
w.i.t out to fight rather than bevciiite, might be ga-
thered from the circa:luta:ice, that to allowed only
three hours for the consideiktion of the conditions..:-
--Such were some of the cfieurbidnces which the,
Noble Lord Would have learned, if he had been
anxious to thew himself a man of busineu, instead of,
a man of crimination—(Lestai erinfreestka umboodisi)
The dispatch of the gallant Admiral had been quoted
for one purpose; be (Lord Castlereagh) would now
refer to it for another: and certainly be could not see
its that dispatch any thing to justify the surmise, that
but little labour had been expended by the Board of
Admiralty : on the contrary, he saw that the gallant