XX. BOOK as grossly unjust and unconstitutional, for it must have an obvious and powerful tendency to bias 1794. the minds of the juries who were to decide upon the fate of the persons accused, and who, agreeably to the principles of the law of England, ought to be presumed innocent till they were found and pronounced guilty after a fair and open trial. The house nevertheless agreed to the address, and negatived an amendment proposed by Mr. Fox, omitting the clause which stated their belief of the conspiracy, without a division. Motion by Mr. She partial abo test laws. In consequence of the provision made in the ridan for the course of the session for embodying a very nulition of the merous corps of French emigrants, Mr. Sheridan conceived it proper to move for leave to bring in a bill for a new military test, containing merely a declaration of allegiance, such as might admit the whole body of English Dissenters, Catholic and Protestant, to serve their country in a military capacity; to which he said that he presumed the house would allow them to be at least as competent as an army of French Papists. Mr. Sheridan very forcibly objected to all tests and disqualifying laws; but, confining himself on the present occasion to what he thought might probably be granted, he extended his motion only to military and naval tests, leaving all civil employments to remain as they were, XX. But it was in vain to expect any liberal con- BOOK cession from the present administration; and the previous question being moved by Mr. 1794. Dundas, upon this unwelcome and perplexing motion, it was carried with little debate, and without any division. who Series of able moved by resolutions the duke of the Bedford and On the 30th May, the duke of Bedford, had already distinguished himself as an speaker in the house of peers, called for attention of their lordships on the important subject of peace. His grace stated it to be his design to shew the views which had originally been entertained of the war by the government and the legislature, the different aspects it had subsequently assumed, and the impossibility of drawing any specific conclusion respecting the intention of administration, or limiting the calamity to any object, the attainment of which would satisfy their wishes. For this purpose his grace offered a series of propositions, no less than fourteen in number, for the consideration, and, if approved by their lordships, for the assent of that house. The First resolution imported in substance, that, previous to the commencement of hostilities, it was the professed policy of his majesty's government to preserve a strict neutrality in relation to France, and that, after the declaration of war, the avowed object of it was to oppose Mr. Fox. BOOK all views of ambition and aggrandizement on the part of that country. XX. 1794. 2. That before the end of April 1793, the armies of France were obliged to evacuate Holland and Flanders, and that the prince of Cobourg did, by a proclamation, engage to cooperate with general Dumouriez, to give to France the constitution of monarchy she had formed for herself; and that, within the compass of a few days, this declaration was superseded and revoked. 3. That by the 15th article of the treaty concluded with the landgrave of Hesse Cassel on the 10th of April, it appears that his majesty's ministers were of opinion that the situation of affairs had then entirely changed its aspect, in consequence of which his majesty might not have occasion for the Hessian troops. 4. That on the 14th of July, 1793, a convention was concluded by Great Britain with Prussia, in which the two powers reciprocally promise to continue to employ their respective forces, as far as their circumstances would permit, in carrying on a war equally just and necessary. 5. That on the 23d of August, 1793, the inhabitants of Toulon did declare that it was their unanimous wish to adopt a monarchical government upon the basis of the constitution XX. of 1789; and that lord Hood, by his proclama- BOOK tion of the 28th of August, on taking possession of Toulon, did accept of that declaration. 6. That the constitution to which the preceding declaration and acceptance are applied was the same which his majesty's ambassador at the Hague did, in a memorial presented to the States-General on the 15th of January 1793, describe in the following terms, viz. "It is not quite four years since certain miscreants, assuming the name of philosophers, have presumed to think themselves capable of establishing a new system of civil society. In order to realize this dream, the offspring of their vanity, it became necessary for them to overturn and destroy all established notions of subordination, of morals, and of religion."-And that this description was applied by the said ambassador to a government with which his majesty continued to treat and negotiate, from its institution in 1789 to its dissolution in 1792; and that his majesty's ambassador was not recalled from Paris until that government was dissolved. 7. That by the declaration of the 25th of October, 1793, his majesty demands only of France that some legitimate and stable government should be established, and that his majesty hoped to find in the other powers engaged with 1794. BOOK him in the common cause, sentiments and views perfectly conformable to his own. XX. 1794. 8. That at the commencement of the war the prosecution of it was considered by his majesty as a cause of general concern, in which his majesty had every reason to hope for the cordial co-operation of the powers united with him by the ties of alliance or interest. 9. That it does not appear, in this cause of general concern, that his majesty has received that cordial co-operation. 10. That, on the contrary, it does appear that many of those powers have not co-operated with his majesty; that Russia has not contributed in any shape to the support of this common cause; that the crowns of Sweden and Denmark have united to defend themselves against any attempts to force them to take part in this cause; that the républics of Venice and Switzerland remain neuter; and that Sardinia is subsidized by Great Britain merely to enable him to act upon the defensive. 11. That the king of Prussia, bound by the convention of July, 1793, to act as a principal in the war, in the most perfect concert and the most intimate confidence with his majesty, has, by the treaty of April 1794, obtained the grant of an enormous subsidy from this country in |