WITH

MOTION RESPECTING WAR FRANCE.] Mr. Whitbread rose, in pursuance of his notice, to move an Address to the Prince Regent upon the subject of the threatened war with France. He rejoiced at the concession made by the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because not only the subject itself was of great im

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The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, the House would recollect, that the committee on the Property-tax had already been postponed for three days; he was willing, therefore, to pass over that day without putting it through another stage. If he was to understand that it would be allowed to pass through that stage without discussion, he had no objection to its coming either before or after the hon. gentleman's motion.

Mr. Barham begged that it might be understood that this was not the only order of the day which had precedence of the hon. gentleman's motion. There was another order in which he was concerned, and which he considered of some importance; but whatever was the feeling of the House, he should be most willing to adopt; yet he still felt he was entitled, under the resolutions which had been adopted by the House, to lay in his claim to precedence.

Mr. Serjeant Best was also interested in an order of the day-the committee on the Insolvent Debtors Bill-which, however, he would willingly postpone for the convenience of the House.

Mr. M. A. Taylor likewise laid claim to a priority of attention on the order of the day for the further consideration of the report of the Pillory Abolition Bill; but, like other gentlemen, was not desirous of pertinaciously pressing this subject to the exclusion of business which might be considered of greater importance.

The question for the adjournment of the House was then put, and carried. Mr. Whitbread instantly rose and said, he would maintain possession of the House then, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not consent to postpone the committee on the Property-tax Bill.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, that he should certainly accede to the request, under the impatience of the House for the motion of which the honourable gentleman had some time ago give notice.

quence that it should be discussed without a moment's delay. He did not imagine that it would be necessary to detain the House at any considerable length on a question which lay in a compass so narrow, namely, whether the House would consent to embark the country in a new war, the termination of which no human being could foresee. The principle was as narrow as the question; it was now, for the first time, avowed, and Parliament was called upon to decide, whether it would take advantage of that opportunity afforded by the disclosure of certain documents-much, to the benefit of mankind, but little to the credit of the noble lord-for a deliberation on this great subject-whether it would avail itself of the short interval that now remained in order to enter a protest against embarking this country in a war upon a principle so narrow, by voting an Address, praying the Prince Regent to avert a calamity so dreadful. He begged leave to recall the attention of the House to its own proceeding on this day three weeks, when an Address was proposed by the, noble lord in the blue ribbon in consequence of a Message from the Throne. To that Address he (Mr. W.) had suggested an amendment, which was rejected by the House, on a distinct understanding from the noble lord, that the die was not yet cast, and that there still remained an alternative for this country, which alternative was, whether we should avail ourselves of the abstract right of commencing war, or whether it would not be more consistent with sound policy to act merely upon a defensive system? It was not at all times easy to comprehend the meaning of the noble lord, if meaning were intended

but if any thing could be collected from the words he employed, it was that there still remained that alternative [Hear, hear!]. Mr. Whitbread put it to many of his right honourable and honourable friends round him, whether they would have voted against his amendment, unless they had expressly understood from the noble lord that it was unnecessary, because his Majesty's ministers had given their

plighted faith that an alternative was left, and that they were undetermined on the line of policy, which, for the safety of the country, they should deem it right to pursue? [Hear, hear!] If any thing could be wanting to prove that such was the language of the noble lord, and the understanding of the House, it was sufficient to quote the term applied by the noble lord to that amendment. The noble lord had called it a truism, because it called upon the Prince Regent to take such measures as would secure a peace consistent with the honour of his crown, his faith to his Allies, and the security of his dominions. He described it as a truism, because it prescribed a course which ministers had taken, and therefore that it was idle to give advice to do that which had been already determined.

Such being the universal persuasion in the House, what must have been its astonishment when it was found that the noble lord had been deluding the House and the country?—that he had been holding forth the possibility of an alternative, and the wish to adopt a pacific resolution, when in truth it had been already decided in council that hostilities should be commenced. Such was the delusion practised upon parliament and the country: and but for an accident we might have been plunged into all the horrors of a new war, without an opportunity of reflecting upon the consequences. Even now, Mr. Whitbread said, he feared that this discussion would be too late, if what had fallen from a noble earl (Liverpool) in another place, had been correctly stated. By an accident (certainly unforeseen by ministers, or the delusion would not have been attempted,) in the Vienna Gazette appeared an illicit publication, which must sink the fame of the noble lord from the proud height to which it had once been exalted. This publication was the Treaty signed on the 25th March at Vienna; and it seldom happened that so much was disclosed by mere dates as in the present case. received by Government on the 5th of April, the day before the Message was brought down to the House. Yet, though ministers knew the contents of that Treaty and to what extent it pledged this country, they had not thought fit to alter a single word of the Royal communication. Having been brought down on the 6th of April, on the 7th the Message was taken into consideration, and the Answer was returned on the 8th, on which day likewise (VOL. XXX.)

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the ratification of the Treaty by the Prince Regent was dispatched to Vienna. In the discussion on the 7th of April, in which the gross delusion was practised upon the country, which had put an end to all further debate, the proclamation of the 13th of March, signed by the Duke of Wellington, so unhappily for himself, had been referred to, and the noble lord had attempted to gloss it over, to show that the language might have a double application in short, to weaken and falsify the whole of its contents. He had contended that the alteration in circumstances had cancelled the obligation; and yet in the teeth of this statement was the Treaty of the 25th of March, which the noble lord had just before been reading, which, in his own judgment and that of his colleagues, revived that Declaration with all its horrors, called all its malignity into activity, provided for its execution, and avowed it to be the basis of the new engagement. It remained therefore for the noble lord to reconcile the words he had uttered with the facts that had appeared, and to show how an alternative could exist in the face of a Treaty to which he had acceded, and which declared immediate and interminable hostility [Hear, hear!]. To complete which, the only remaining step was the amount of subsidy left in the hands of lord Clancarty, whose powers the noble lord had refused to produce.

Under these circumstances, Mr. Whitbread said, he had thought it his duty to propose an Address to induce the Prince Regent to pause before he involved his people in war, on the ground that the executive government of France, whether by the choice of the people, or the power of the army, was placed in the hands of an obnoxious individual. The restoration of the House of Bourbon had never before been made a ground of hostility. Mr. Pitt had disavowed it, and it had frequently been denied by some of his successors, and in the Declaration of the Regent annexed to the Treaty of Vienna, his Royal Highness had disclaimed any intention to interfere with any particular form of govern. ment. Why was such a declaration required? What more right had the Prince Regent to interfere with the internal government of France, than the French had to interfere with the internal government of this country? Ministers concluded that it might enter into the design of the Allies to restore the family of Bourbon, and for this reason that Declaration was (3 Q)

inserted, and therefore we were now not to contend, whether the government of France should be imperial, royal, or republican; we allowed the nation to adopt for itself the government that should please itself, but it was not to be permitted that one particular man should be placed at the head of it. Was such a declaration --such a principle of war-just or politic? On the contrary, was it not the surest inode to rouse the spirit of a mighty people, and to confirm them in their resolution of supporting that man by their most strenuous efforts? A distinction was attempted to be made between the governor and the government; but where was the politician so subtle-or rather, so bewildered in the mazes of paradox-as to be able to convince a people of this nice distinction? Would not such a declaration by a foreign power, as applied to ourselves, animate all hearts to defeat a project so extraor dinary and so foolish? The Declaration of the 13th of March, therefore, though nominally against one man, was, in truth, an anathema against millions of people. Mr. Whitbread said, that nothing could exceed his indignation at this unprecedented document, and he felt ashamed that the name of Wellington was affixed to it. Followed by the Treaty, it was plunging Great Britain into a war that, if not otherwise terminated, must, in the opinion of all thinking men, be soon abandoned, from a deficiency in our very physical resources. [Hear, bear!]

The hon. member then went on to reprobate in very warm and severe terms the Declaration of the Allies, which placed Buonaparté out of the pale of civil society, made him an object of public vengeance, and represented him as a man who had forfeited his last and only claim to exist ence. If there were any meaning in language, it was this, that for the first time in the history of the world, war was proclaimed against one man for the Demolition of his power? What was his power? His people: and the conclusion therefore was inevitable, that hostilities were to be renewed for the desperate and bloody enterprise of destroying a whole nation-[hear, hear!] Mr. Whitbread read the first paragraph of the Declaration of the 13th of March, and ridiculed those who, while reviving all the calamities of war, with egotistic vanity, called themselves the deliverers of Europe. He maintained, that while they proclaimed death to Buonaparté and vindicated assassination, by their own abandonment of

treaties, by their own tergiversation, they were the direct authors of this new war. He also read a part of the Treaty of the 25th of March, in order to show that it continued and recognized the spirit of the previous Declaration, declaring that neither truce nor peace could ever be made with Buonaparte. What, he inquired, would in all probability be the result of this system? Supposing the Allies were early to accomplish their avowed design, and Buonaparte were to fall in the first battle-was the system complete? Would the Allies retire, or could they withdraw with safety to themselves upon their own principles? Were there no other persons of experience and talents whom the French nation might place at their head? Having raised mankind in arms against one single individual (an object not very worthy of the means), how could the Allies be more secure than at present, if marshal Ney were placed at the head of the French people-a man whom Louis the XVIIIth had declared to be second only in wickedness to Buonaparté ? He remembered a discussion in that House some sixteen years ago, of which Buonaparté was the subject, with whom we were now going to war, only because he continued in existence. It was then said, if he were taken off, others would rise in his place, and Berthier had been mentioned as a person likely to succeed him, and it was contended that new difficulties would arise in that case, quite as great as those of which Buonaparté was the cause under the then existing form of government. He would suppose the dynasty of Buonaparté to be quite extinct-was it certain that the Bourbons would be the choice of the French people? Perhaps, if it were possible to collect the sense of the most intelligent portion of them, more votes would be given against them, than against any other family.-[No, no! from Ministers.] He expected that cry from the other side: if they thought as they expressed, they would find themselves deceived, for although accustomed to majorities in the House of Commons, ministers would discover that their in. fluence did not extend beyond its walls. Many gentlemen who cried "No, no!" in the House when ranged at the back of their friends in power, when they were out of hearing of those friends, would utter very different sentiments in the lobby [hear, hear! and laughter].