lation to him, individually, that it had not been withheld. Measures of coercion had proceeded from the fame source. War had been preferred to negotiation, and force to conciliation; because, instead of regulating our plans by a mild and enlightened policy, we had acted upon the maxims of barbarous times. And quoting the words of CICERO, he recommended the fentiment inculcated in them to the ferious confideration of every person to whom the important talk of legislation was affigned. Carum effe civibus, bene de republicâ mereri, laudari, coli, diligi, gloriosum est: metui vero et in odio effe, invidiorum, deteftabile, imbecillum, caducum.'-After a variety of speeches on both fides, the house divided; for the motion 84, against it 220-a majority proportionably less than usual. In the course of the fpring many popular meetings were held agreeably to the restrictions of the new act, and some faint hopes were excited that the spirit of the people would be at length rouzed to fomething like national exertion. The object of these meetings was to petition the king for the removal of minifters. That from the city of Westminster was remarkably full and strong, and attracted much attention. It commenced by ftating the uncontrovertible facts, "that in the four years' profecution of the present war minifters had fquandered upwards of 130 millions of money, and had impofed taxes to the amount of fix millions and a half annually.” The petition then proceeds in the following terms:-"We humbly reprefent to your majesty, that in the hands of thofe ministers nothing has fucceeded. Instead of reftoring monarchy in France, they have been compelled to recognise the republic there established, and to offer propofals of peace to it. Instead of difmembering the territories of that republic, they have suffered it to add to them the Netherlands, Holland, and great part of Italy and Germany: and even a part of these kingdoms, which the fleets of that republic have infulted, has only only been preserved from the calamities of an invafion by the accidents of the feafons. "In their negotiations for peace they have been equally unsuccessful. It was to be expected. When they asked peace they were abject, but not fincere; they acknowledged their impotence, but not their errors. They difcovered the most hoftile difpofitions towards France at the very time they proved their utter inability to contend with her. "When they wanted to obtain our confent to the war, they affured us that it was neceffary for the fafety of our commerce. At this moment most of the ports of Europe are shut against us; goods to an immense amount are lying upon the hands of our merchants, and the manufacturing poor are starving by thousands. "They affured us the war was neceffary for the prefervation of property and public credit. They have rendered every man's property subject to an order of the privy-council, and the Bank of England has stopped payment. "They affured us that the war was neceflary for the prefervation of the conftitution. They have destroyed its beft part, which is its liberty, by oppreffive reftrictions upon the right of petitioning, and upon the freedom of the prefs; by profecuting innocent men under falfe pretences; by fending money to foreign princes without the confent of parliament; while, by erecting barracks throughout the kingdon, they give us reason to fufpect their intention of finally subjecting the people to military defpotism. "They affured us the war was neceffary for the prefervation of the unity of the empire. But they have so conducted, and are ftill fo condućting, themfelves in Ireland, as to alienate the affections of that brave, loyal, but oppreffed and perfecuted nation, and to expofe the most flourifhing of its provinces to all the horrors of lawless military << Thefe "These are no common errors, they are great crimes; and of these crimes, before God and our country, we accufe your minifters. They have tarnished the national honor and glory; they have oppreffed the poor with almost intolerable burdens; they have poisoned the intercourse of private life; they have given a fatal blow to public credit; they have divided the empire, and they have fubverted the conftitution." These petitions encouraged the members of oppofition in both houses to bring forward motions of the fame tenor and purport. On the 27th of March the earl of Suffolk, after premifing a few general obfervations on the alarming fituation of public affairs, and on the character of the first minister, Mr. Pitt, whom he ftigmatized as incapable in every refpect, except in the arts of deceiving,-declared "that he confidered it as a duty which he owed to himself, his king, and his country, to move, that an addrefs might be prefented to his majesty, humbly requesting him to dismiss from his councils his minifter, the firft lord of the Treasury, whose pernicious measures had deprived him of the confidence of the country."-Lord Grenville warmly vindicated the character of his friend, Mr. Pitt," the failure of any of whose measures, he was certain, could be justly attributed only to those errors to which human nature was at all times liable to thofe accidents which no human wisdom could prevent, or to thofe difpenfations of Providence which no human power could control; and he complained that the charges against him were not fubftantiated by proofs."The duke of Norfolk, in reply remarked, "that the proofs were every-where; they prefented themselves to every eye, they made impreffions upon every heart, they compofed a living epitaph upon the infatuation of minifters-fi monumentum quæris circumfpice."---The earl of Moira thought the present motion highly neceffary. "The mifmanagement of ministers had brought us to the disastrous fituation we were in, and they could not too foon be deprived of the power they they had fo grofsly abufed:"---The marquis of Lanfdown, in answer to lord Grenville, who had boasted that the country had been preferved from Jacobinical principles by the laudable exertions of his majesty's minifters, faid, "that, he believed there were very few persons of those principles in this kingdom; and that he knew of no fuch practical Jacobins as the ministers themselves. They had banished gold and filver from circulation; they had taken up the paper system at the time France had laid it down; they had recourse to arbitrary measures, military force, and pretended plots, with every article of Jacobinism as it had been previously practised in France: It was the virtuous juries of 1794 which defeated the Robespierrian system attempted to be established in this country by his majesty's ministers."— The motion was finally rejected by a majority of 86 to 16 voices. On the 19th of May the subject was brought forward in the lower house by Mr. Alderman Combe, one of the reprefentatives for the city of London, who prefaced his motion for an addrefs to the king, befeeching him to dismiss his prefent minifters, with fome very seasonable and appofite remarks. "By minifters," he said, "the war had been frequently declared both just and neceffary. In both these points he had always differed from them. But from the authors and approvers of the war it was at least to be expected that they should point out fome fixed and settled principle by which it was intended to be guided, and fome object at which it aimed. On the contrary, we were sometimes faid to be fighting for one purpose, and sometimes for another, and were still left at all times equally in the dark. The decree of November, and the opening of the Scheld, were in 1793 the oftenfible causes of the war. 1794 it was the restoration of the conftitutional monarchy. In 1795, indemnity for the past, and security for the future. In 1796, the re-establishment of focial order, and the relations of peace and amity Laftly, the fine qua non of lord Malmesbury. In 1 It was now fubmitted to the confideration of the house, whether the prefent minifters, who had fo rafhly precipitated the country into the war, and had manifested such incapacity in the conduct of it, were likely to be more fuccessful in obtaining that defirable blessing---tranquillity? He was perfectly of opinion with his constituents, that they were not it required men of greater minds, and more upright intentions, to bring about this object."---Mr. Curwen avowed his belief" that the present minifters neither would, nor perhaps could, make peace for this country; and, as the fituation of the country rendered the speedy reftoration of that blefling abfolutely neceffary, he felt it his duty to support the motion."--The minifters, Pitt, Dundas, and Windham, who deemed it perhaps decorous not to take part in this debate, were defended by alderman Lufhington, Mr. Hawkins Browne, Mr. Dent, Mr. Pierrepoint, Mr. Burdon, &c.---and the motion was negatived by a vast majority of 242 to 59 voices. On the 26th of May Mr. Grey made his final motion relative to a reform in parliament, which he had fo frequently, at different times, and in various modes, brought under public and parliamentary difcuffion. This able and zealous advocate of reform in general had not, however, yet attempted that great defideratum,---a fpecific plan of reform at once rational, feasible, and beneficial. Such was the object of the propofition now fubmitted to the candor and judgment of the houfe. Mr. Grey folemnly affirmed that he fought not to alter any part of the constitution, but merely to obtain for the people a full, fair, and free reprefentation in parliament, to which they were incontrovertibly entitled. He proposed that the county representation should continue' upon the fame footing, only that the number of county members fhould be increafed from 92 to 113; the addition to be made to the larger counties in proportion to their po pulation. In order to put an end to compromifes, counties fhould be divided into diftricts, each of which should return one |