but how could any time be found appro priate, unless the experiment were made? Would the right hon. gentleman, looking back to that history in which he was so well read, pronounce it to be his opinion, that we were hereafter likely to obtain such desirable conditions of peace as might have been obtained at any former periods! The right hon. gentleman boasted of our being the great and only barrier to Buonaparte's desire of universal dominion. On this point there could be no dispute? why were we so? Because it was the policy of the authors of this and the preceding war which had made us so; which bad first made Buonaparté consul for life, and afterwards in alliance with his own talents, had made him emperor, and had enabled him to trample upon every hostile state. The same errors and fallacies were still circulating and still be lieved; one day Prussia was said to be arming against France, on another she was described as uniting her force to that of France, to assist in crushing the only independent state remaining on the continent. It was his duty, then, to ask the people to be misled no longer by the fatal policy of ministers; and he would ask the right hon. gentleman himself, not to become the victim of his own infatuation, by bringing the country to the end of its resources. He believed the period must soon arrive when this would be the case. He should be sorry if any thing had fallen from him that might bear an interpretation foreign to his intentions, but he had deemed it an impressive duty to enter into this avowal of his sentiments.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer declared, that every offensive impression which the hon. gentleman had made, more on the feelings of his hon. friends than on his own, was completely removed. He had certainly not attributed to the hon. gentleman that which he imagined him to have done. As to the question immediately before the House, he held it to be desirable that in populous towns the soldiery ought rather to be kept apart, than to be quartered on the people. The hon. gentleman had again alluded to the Orders in Council; but could they be said to prevent the importation of corn, when it was generally known that, notwithstanding their operation, eight millions had been paid last year for foreign corn imported? The fact was, that the scarcity was felt as severely in France at present as in England.

Mr. Stephen confessed that he did not hear the first speech of the hon. gent. but he had the misfortune to hear the two last. He should certainly think himself greatly wanting in his duty to the public, if he did not endeavour to counteract, by every effort in his power, the mischievous misrepresentations of the measures of government which were circulated insidiously through the country. Those misrepresentations were calculated to divert the resources of the country from that patriotic channel in which they ought to flow, into a channel of disaffection; they were calculated to make men turn away their confidence from the conductors of our public affairs, and to make them believe, that until certain measures were adopted—until a change, which he knew to be impossible, should take place-the country could never regain its former prosperity. It was the proper and peculiar duty of a member of parliament not to suffer the public to be deluded by artful misrepresentations,

not to suffer their ignorance or their prejudices to be worked upon by those persons in the country, who seemed to spend their time and talents in poisoning the minds of the people. He could conceive nothing more mischievous in a political, nor more infamous in a moral sense, than the propagation of falshood which was now disseminated; of falshood he should say, because there were many members on the benches opposite, and even the hon. gentleman himself (Mr. Whitbread) who had admitted at various times that the effect of the Orders in Council was not such as was now attributed to them. He held in his hand a paper which was just one of that description which now crowded the country newspapers, and in hand bills crept through the country; this paper was signed "A Staffordshire Potter," and it set out with a most notorious falshood, that before the Orders in Council, and under the first operation of Buonaparte's decrees, our trade was not diminished. (Hear, hear, from Mr. Baring.) What? did he hear a cheer from any gentleman opposite? or was the cheer from him who bad often taken part in debates on this subject, and who must, therefore, be well acquainted with the truth of the fact which he was alluding to? Did the hon. gentleman mean that the representation of the paper was right? If so, he should certainly move a resolution on the fact, and have it officially before the House (Move, move!

from the Opposition benches.). He disdained those sneering cries, because he, knew that there was no person who would venture to call upon him seriously for proof of a fact which was in evidence before the House. It was already known, that during the first three months after the issuing of Buonaparte's decrees, until the Orders in Council were adopted, our trade had not only diminished, but was entirely at a stand; that there were no exports, and that many of the cargoes which had cleared the river for the continent were obliged to be relanded. The insurance was even so high as 60 per cent.; so that scarcely any underwriter was to be found who would subscribe one. This was a stubborn fact; and yet in defiance of such a truth, there were men who could be base enough to mislead poor ignorant manufacturers, and make them attribute to the Orders in Council, and the government who advised them, the very contrary of their operation. Such a bold and rank imposture he would not impute to any member of that House, because he was aware that the intentions of them all were pure; but he would say, that such an imposture must proceed from a French party, animated by French spirit, imbued with French principles, entertaining French views, discontented with their own government, and willing to rush upon measures that must be fatal to all that Englishmen hold dear, to the freedom that Englishmen cherish, and the independence, without which they would not care to exist. Such a deed as this imposture, in such a country, and under such a government, was unparalleled in the baseness and profligacy of mankind. In justice to the poor de luded manufacturers, he wished to see these detestable arts abandoned; and this effort of his indignation was directed to no other purpose. He begged the lurking authors of those misrepresentations to look to the consequences; to see that they were only paving the way for the ravages of military force, and exposing the nation to a deluging waste of blood.-The hon. and learned gentleman then proceeded to shew, that in the six months subsequent to the issuing of the Orders in Council, the country had reached a pitch of prosperity unknown at any former period of our history, that our exports were unexampled, amounting to no less than to an excess of 10 millions. After this statement, he would put it to the candour of the hon. gentleman, whether he was fair in the introduc

tion into his speeches of those little episodes on the Orders in Council; whether his custom of flinging a remark or two on this subject into the context of his casual speeches, was altogether very gracious, when he always declined making any specific motion,-any motion that could be distinctly met by the evidence of facts which were too strong to be broken down. The hon. gentleman was always carping at the Orders in Council, save the first two years when he thought it convenient to be silent on their effects; and now again he came forward with his views, and prospects, and prophecies; and it appeared that in his opinion there was no alternative for England but inability to carry on the war or submission. Really, although he was not himself totally devoid of apprehension, he confessed that he derived some consolation from the hon. gentleman's evil predictions. In fact the hon. gentleman's prophecy was to him the very best security he could wish for. The reputation of a prophet seemed to be the fame now most in vogue; and if the ambition of the hon. gentleman was very soaring, he would recommend him to become Editor of Moore's Almanack, in which work he could have a wide field for the display of his abilities. The prediction of sun-shine in the dog-days, or a fall of snow in December, might fortuitously and felicitously turn out to be realised, and the character of the hon. gentleman might be retrieved. The hon. and learned gentleman then argued, that the present scarcity was not to be attributed to the Orders in Council, contrary to what he understood had been stated by the hon. gentleman. (Here Mr. Whitbread signified his dissent.) He was glad to see that the hon. gentleman disavowed, by his gesture, that he had imputed the scarcity to the government,-that was at least one advantage gained by this irregular discussion. As to the asperity of the beginning of the debate, after the display of good humour by the hon. gentleman, he should not repeat the offensive expressions which were applied to his right hon. friend. the same time he could not help saying, that when his right hon. friend was represented by the hon. gentleman as rising to his station by talent, and ingenuity, and dexterity, and afterwards said to have obtained his place because no one else would take it, there was some little appearance of discrepancy in the hon. gentleman's assertions. At one time it was his dex

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could have any other ground to go on but general pacific principles; and it was on such that his hon. friend always acted. The hon. and learned gentleman who spoke the panegyric, seemed to be very indignant against inflammatory productions. All the hon. gentlemen on the other side, it seemed, were quite in a passion that such horrible productions could have been resorted to. They scorned to descend to such arts. Oh dear, yes, they rose above such meanness: they never deigned to play upon the vulgar passions or prejudices of the people! They never, innocent souls! imagined such a thing as the Church in Danger! They never dealt in hand-bills. They knew nothing, for instance, of the No Popery placards in Man chester; and, unquestionably, the immediate actors there had no connection or dependence upon government! The right hon. gentleman, too, had been very compassionate to-night. He would not deny food even to his bitterest enemy. What a happy philanthropy! How greatly must the good wishes of that side of the House, for the benefit of the human race, be lately increased! and yet how intrusive would recollection sometimes be, for he declared he could not help remembering, that it was those very moral and religious ministers who were the omoters of the Bill for prohibiting xportation of Peruvian bark to France (Loud cries of hear, hear!)

Mr. Huskisson agreed with the ideas of the right hon. gentleman who had just sat down, on the question immediately before the House. If the House was prepared, without document of any kind, to say that 133,500l. should be granted for barracks for 380 men and horses, and that accommodation for them could not be more economically procured, then, and not otherwise, they would vote for it. He proposed that this part of the estimates should be postponed till the House should be satisfied on this head.

Mr. Wharton thought any delay unnecessary. No farther information could be furnished on the subject; and the military department had declared the barracks indispensibly necessary.

Mr. Rose was ready to maintain, that the Orders in Council were not the cause of producing a greater state of distress in the country. They did not prevent a supply; on the contrary, they gave facility to the supply, in aid of the people. Grain principally came from the Baltic,

and with the ports there the Orders in Council had nothing to do. He was afraid, if gentlemen were sanguine in the expectation of getting supplies from any part of Europe, they would be disappointed.

Mr. Whitbread said, that the petitioners who had come to government, and also to parliament, complained that they were in a state of starvation arising from the want of employment, in consequence of which they were without money to buy food-a situation to which they were reduced in consequence of the Orders in Council. He had observed it stated, that the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Rose) haď, to some of those petitioners who waited upon him from Birmingham, compared France and England to two men up to their neck in water, who must try which of them could stand the longest without being drowned. He could not suppose that the right hon. gentleman had so expressed himself. He was satisfied the right hon. gentleman could not have used such a metaphor, conceiving as he did, the good ship of England to be so high above water.

Mr. Rose said he had been very hardly dealt with in the business alluded to. He confessed that some such comparison had fallen from him [Laughter]-but denied that he had treated the distresses of the Birmingham petitioners with any thing like levity.

Mr. Whitbread did not suppose that the right hon. gentleman could have thought of treating with levity persons in so perilous a situation as he himself had described.

Mr. Baring agreed that the Orders in Council had no immediate effect in producing the scarcity of food, though it was equally true, that by reason of those Orders in Council, the manufacturers were deprived of the means of purchasing food, were it before them in abundance. Every thing, in his opinion, depended on economy in our expenditure, and, therefore, he was against the present grant.

Mr. Fuller would not consent to repeal the Orders in Council, though it were even true that he could get nine shillings a pound for his sugars in France. If the two countries must be like two fellows pumping, each striving to save himself the longest above water, let it be so; but Old England should never yield to France.

Mr. Huskisson said, he should move that instead of 534,000l. the grant be reduced to 400,000l.

Mr. Wynn objected to a grant which