leaft were his ideas; and the eyes, he believed, of all men were naturally turned to the Duke of Portland. Inftead of this noble perfon, the Earl of Shelburne was felected, of whom he could not truly fay that he bore any refemblance to his predeceffor; perhaps the exact reverfe might come near the picture. He did not mean to difpute the right of the King to nominate his own minifter; but he contended that thofe who went into office on public principles, not only had a right, but that it was their duty to be fatisfied that none were introduced into the cabinet who were hoftile to thofe principles. If the court chofe to revert to other principles, it was certainly competent fo to do; but it could not be expected that thofe perfons fhould fuffer themfelves to be made acceffaries in reviving a fyftem which it had been the Jabour of their whole lives to destroy.

It would naturally be asked, why then, thinking as he did of the Earl of Shelburne, he had ever come with him into office at all? To this he fhould answer, that he had ftrongly objected to it; that he had made the fame objection to another noble perfon (the Lord Chancellor); that he had been induced to fubmit by the general cry that prevailed, of forming the adminiftration on as broad a bafis as poffible; but at the fame time, he had a fatisfactory pledge for the integrity of that adminiftration in the noble marquis at the head of it. The right honourable gentleman might, but he could not regard with indifference who took the lead in his Majefty's councils: he deemed it a great and national

object, of infinite moment to every individual, but much more to thofe who were in the fervice of the crown, and still more fo to one of his Majefty's cabinet minifters. The perfon now prefiding at the treasury-board was not of a defcription to demand that confidence from his colleagues which in fuch a fituation was indifpenfable.

Thefe, and a variety of other arguments of a fimilar kind, were ftrongly urged by Mr. Fox in jufti fication of the part he had acted. He concluded with obferving, that in the particular situation in which he stood, feveral circumstances oppofed themselves to a full vindica tion of his conduct. It was none of the leaft, that he did not think himself at liberty to speak to freely and fully as he had accustomed himself to do on other occafions. Details would in this cafe be im. proper; and yet, without a very circumftantial detail of facts, fuch as he did not think it became him at that time to give, he was fenfble his defence would not be fo strong and complete as otherwise it was easy to have made it.

After Mr. Fox, Lord John Cavendifh got up, and contented himfelf with declaring in general terms, that finding a different fyftem was meant to be pursued from that on which the late adminiftration had been formed, and finding it impoffible by his prefence to prevent it, he had determined to withdraw, that he might not dis vide the cabinet, and render it the fcene of confufion it had been in the time of their predeceffors.

Mr. William Pitt arraigned the conduct of the late fecretary of ftate in the fevereft terms. It was evi

dent,

dent, he faid, from the whole tenor of the right honourable gentleman's fpecches, that he was more at variance with men than their measures. He denied that he had adduced any public ground on which his refignation was juftifiable. He deprecated the fatal confequences of diffention. He conjured the people to give the minifters their confidence till they had thewn they did not deferve it; and he pledged himfelf in the moft folemn manner, that whenever he faw things going wrong he fhould first endeavour to fet them right; but failing in that effort, he fhould be the first to relinquish his prefent political con

nections.

This converfation, which continued to a late hour in the night, was clofed by Mr. Lee. He faid he held it to be the duty of every honeft man to refign his office the moment he found public meafures vere carrying on of which he could not approve. The appointment of a minifter unqualified for his fituation, was undoubtedly a meafure of that kind. He had heard much of diffention, but he had not feen one perton ftep forward to fay the Earl of Shelburne was a fit and proper perfon for the high office he held. If there was any fuch perfon, he wifhed to hear

him.

The noble earl to be fure poffeffed fplendid talents, had fome friends, and was now in a way to make more. But the minifter of this country fhould have other.endowments. He fhould join to a found head a purity of mind, a fteadiness of principle, and an unfufpected integrity. Were thefe, he demanded, the reputed charac.

teriftics of the nobleman juft exalted to the principal department of the ftate? To put him at the head of affairs in this plain and open-hearted country, was to put him out of his element. The people of England were incapable of fineffe, and not fond of fubmitting to the government of thofe who practifed it. The treafury too required a fober, honeft, induftrious, fteady commiffioner at its head. It was not an oftentatious affectation of uniting the man of fcience and the fine gentleman; the technical jargon of arts and the gibberish of courts; the pedantry of fcholaftic noftrums, and the abficufe theorems of mechanifm, that would create refpect and confequence in that high office. Who knows not, fays he, how eafily a head filled with fuch materials may be turned upfide down? He concluded with fome obfervations on the youth and inexperience of the new chancellor of the exchequer, to whofe extraordinary abilities he nevertheless paid the higheft compliments. He faid there was an obvious intention of trifling with the people, by bringing forward one of their favourites as a compenfation for infulting another; but though the honourable gentleman would adorn any fcene in which his part was properly caft, yet he did not think the coufidence of the people would be much increafed, by putting the complicated bufinefs of our fi nances into the hands of a boy. Next day, the fame interefting fubject was July 10. difcuffed in the Houfe of Lords, The Duke of Richmond followed General Conway in declaring, that fo long as the great principles on

which the late adminiftration had been formed was adhered to (and he had no reafon to imagine they would be abandoned) he fhould continue to act with and support the noble earl.

The Earl of Shelburne rofe next, and made a copious defence of himfell and the late proceedings. He declared, that his being placed in the high office he then held, had not been the confequence of perfonal ambition or the love of power; on the contrary, he affirmed that three months ago the fame fituation was moft certainly within his reach, but that he had exerted his utmost efforts to place the noble marquis there. To the principles on which that adminiftration was formed, he folemnly profeffed the most inviolable attachment. It was true, he faid, that he differed in opinion on other points with fome of his then colleagues; but it would not be expected that he fhould lightly give up all thofe conftituțional ideas which for feventeen years he had imbibed from his mafter in politics, the late Earl of Chatham. That earl had always declared that this country ought not to be governed by a party or faction. If the power which others wifhed to affume, of vefting in the cabinet the right of appointing to all places, and filling up all vacancies, fhould once be established, the King muft then refemble the king of the Marrattas, who had nothing of fovereignty but the name.

He lamented the lofs of the two refpectable characters that had withdrawn themselves from the cabinet, but imputed their conduct to very different motives. One of them, he said, a noble lord

diftinguifhed for the purity and chastity of his mind, and for his unimpeached integrity, had at first been brought with difficulty into the public fervice. His love of retirement rendered him extremely averfe from office; and on the death of his lamented friend, he could no longer endure to remain in an active fcene. With refpect to the other right honourable gentleman, he declared, that in his opinion there was no other reafon for his feceffion, than his Majefty's having been pleased to appoint him (the Earl of Shelburne) first lord of the treasury.

On the fubject of the independence of America, his opinions. were ftill the fame; but circumftances had changed, and he now faw it was become a neceffary evil, to which this country muft fubmit, to avoid a greater.

With refpect to the penfion granted to Mr. Barré, he could only fay that it originated with the noble marquis, now no more, and that it had been beftowed on his right honourable friend as a compenfation for giving up his pretenfions to the pay-office. As a proof of this, he had a letter in his poffeflion from that noble perfon, in which the proposal was contained.

The day following, before his Majefty July 11th.

came to the House of Lords, the Earl of Derby got up and faid, that in confequence of what had fallen from a noble earl the day before refpecting the refignation of one of the fecretaries of ftate, he had been authorized by the right honourable gentleman to declare, that the affertion then made was not founded in fact; but, on the

contrary,