volved interests of state policy of the first magnitude and consequence, and put an end to the claims so often previously set up by France upon our right of sovereignty in India. It annihilated for ever, as far as the most solemn compact can have that effect, every question, dispute, or challenge of our right that could hereafter be brought forward.*

On the 27th of October 1787, Mr. Eden, in concurrence with the late Duke of Dorset, signed and exchanged the declaration and counter-declaration with the French minister, by which it was agreed to discontinue all warlike preparations, and by which the court of France disavowed the retaining hostile views towards any quarter in consequence of what had happened in Holland.

In March 1788 Mr. Eden went to Spain as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary. On his return from that embassy in October 1789, he was promoted to the dignity of the Irish peerage; and a few weeks afterwards was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the States General of the United Provinces,

*In the discussion of the late definitive treaty of peace, in the House of Lords, a question was raised, whether the nonrenewal of this convention in the definitive treaty did not let loose the right of sovereignty of India, and once more reduce it to the form of a difputable claim? But the question was so ably and satisfactorily refuted by the noble negotiator of the convention, that it may be almost considered as a beneficial incident of debate, that any doubt was started on the fubject.

In May and June 1790, on the occasion of the disputes with Spain, and of the Spanish armament, he negotiated with the States General the prompt and friendly detachment of a considerable Dutch squadron to Portsmouth under Admiral Kinsbergen. On the 10th of December, 1790, Lord Auckland concluded and signed the convention between the Emperor Leopold and the Kings of Great Britain and Prussia, and the States General of the United Provinces, relative to the affairs of the Netherlands.

In 1792 and 1793 he took an active part as Ambassador in Holland, in preventing and repelling the mischiefs which have since overwhelmed so many of the continental powers. In April 1793, after the repulse of the French armies, he attended the congress of the several Princes, Ambassadors, and Generals at Antwerp. On the 18th of the following month he was promoted to the dignity of a baron of Great Britain, by the style and title of Baron Auckland, of West Auckland, in the county of Durham.

A few months afterwards he retired from the line of foreign embassies, in which he had manifested a variety and versatility of talent for diplomacy rarely found in any one minister whom this country had sent to different foreign courts, and in the same short period of time entrusted with such unlimited. discretionary powers, respecting matters of the highest national importance, though of an opposite nature in almost every instance.

Having thus rendered his country the most essential and valuable services abroad, Lord Auckland re

turned

turned home, not to waste the remainder of his life in ignoble sloth, or that useless ease which has been falsely termed otium cum dignitate, but which is undoubtedly the reverse of it, so long as the mind and faculties retain their full powers. Lord Auckland saw that a domesticated senator in the House of Lords might employ his time and his talents with great advantage to his fellow-subjects; that various matters of state policy bearing relation to transactions with foreign powers, and that much of internal regulation involving questions of the first importance, must in a free country present themselves to parliament, and call for the exercise of legislative wisdom : hence we find him, since the year 1794, not only sedulous in attending his parliamentary duties, but actively engaged in a great variety of debates. Nor has he confined himself to mere public oratory, though his lordship is acknowledged to be a correct, fluent, and intelligent speaker: whenever the occasion seemed to justify it, he has appealed to his fellow-subjects through the medium of the press. In October 1795 he published "Remarks on the apparent Circumstances of the War;" and he has more than once stood forward as a writer on the popular topics which the pregnant times have of late years so frequently produced.

In September 1796, on the death of the Earl of Mansfield, Lord Auckland was chosen Chancellor of the Marischal college of Aberdeen; and in February 1798 he was appointed to the office of Postmastergeneral.

In the session of 1798-9 he brought forward a bill for the better prevention of adultery and divorce, the principle of which was to prevent the intermarriage of the adulterer and adultress. A bill on a similar principle had been proposed about thirty years before by the Duke of Athol, and passed the House of Lords, but was rejected in the House of Commons; and it was again tried by the present Bishop of Durham in 1779, when it also met with similar fate, having been negatived by a division of 51 to 40. The frequency of divorce bills of late years, and the evident shameful collusion practised respecting them by the parties interested, had called forth a degree of public disgust and abhorrence, and the more especially as there are upon record, within a very few years, six or eight marriages which have taken place between the adulterer and adulteress. This might induce Lord Auckland, when he found that the public mind felt a virtuous alarm at the rapid progress of an offence which strikes at the root of domestic happiness, and endangers the stability of society itself, to imagine that parliament would receive a bill founded in such sound morality, with chastised feelings and a corrected wisdom. The event, however, proved, that if such were his lordship's expectations, he deceived himself. The bill was warmly opposed, and among the foremost of its professed adversaries were two married peers, not only of the most unexceptionable, but of distinguished character, worthy men in private life, and known to be excellent husbands. The subject certainly will admit of a difference of opi

nion, and that difference prevailed to defeat the bill, which, although strengthened by some additional salutary clauses, by the present Lord Chancellor, for the more effectual punishment of adultery, was lost in the House of Lords. The merit of those who made the attempt to interpose this barrier to the strong current of a most dangerous and destructive evil, will not be forgotten by such of their fellowsubjects as deplore the progress of it, and lament that legislative wisdom has not yet been able to devise the means to check it effectually; to put an end to it altogether is perhaps not within the reach of human foresight or ability.

In 1799 Lord Auckland supported the measure of the income tax, and published the substance of his speech on that occasion. He also published his speech in support of the union with Ireland; and in the course of it stated, that he had been particularly employed with others in preparing the details of that business to be submitted to parliament.

Thus we have accompanied Lord Auckland from his infancy to the period of the most important of the many services which, in the course of his long and useful public life, he has, by his talents, and the most indefatigable application and industry, been enabled to render his country. He still continues to act for the promotion of her political, religious, and moral interests with unabated zeal and equal ability, by a due discharge of his public duties as a peer of parliament; and, as no member of either house has had more practice as a statesman, whatever falls from