: 'tional honour he had therefore always held forward as an object of the first importance. As to a glorious peace, no peace can deserve that title but the peace which follows a glorious war, which is a description inapplicable to the late war, either in its original, principle, or final result. The great points for present consideration he conceived to be two: 1st, Whether peace on the conditions obtained, is preferable to a continuance of the war? 2dly, Whether better terms could have been had? As to what might be gained or conceded between two great nations, he perfectly agreed with what had been stated by lord Hawkesbury he considered Ceylon and Trinidad as very important acquisitions; and although he admit ted the importance of Malta, and regretted the necessity of giving it up, yet he could not flatter himself that we could have obtained peace on better terms. We could produce no serious pressure on France, and perhaps it was better not to risk the rupture of the negotiation, by insisting on an article which the pride or prejudice of the enemy would have led him to refuse. France and England were now in such a situation, that neither could produce any considerable impression on the other. In Europe, we could not affect France; in the colonies, we had done every thing we could do; and happily the present ministers did not speculate on the financial difficulties of France. If too much importance had been attached to trifles, we should have risked another year of war, which, although our resources would be able to carry us through, would certainly be a great evil. Even those who cry out the most loudly against the terms of peace, would not pretend to recommend a continuation of the war. When the horrible evil was considered of the bulk of the people subsisting on charity, it must appear infinitely better that they should be able to purchase by their labour that subsistence which the war had put out of their reach, than that we should insist on retaining either Malta or the Cape. Some regretted that the peace was glorious to France; for his part, if the peace could be glorious to France without being dishonourable to this country, he should not feel concern at it. As far as the object of the war was a restoration of the house of Bourbon, it was to him a recommendation of the peace, that that object should have failed: had it succeeded, the general liberties of mankind would have been endangered. Then would have followed coalitions of princes for the mutual oppression of their subjects: had such coalitions formerly existed among the princes of Europe, England would not now have enjoyed a free constitution. Were such coalitions of princes now to be made, it would be the greatest misfortune which could befall this country. As to the maxim which had been laid down by a right honourable gentleman (Mr. Pitt), that when the executive government makes peace, men in high stations should abstain from inflammatory or insulting language; if this is true after peace is concluded, how much more forcibly would it apply to using such inflammatory language as he had used, before war had ever been declared? With respect to the terms and the tone of the treaty, he perfectly coincided with the noble lord (lord Hawkesbury), but as to the time of it, he must still insist, that both before the War war began, and at almost every period since, better terms than the present were in our power. The negotiation at Paris broke off on account of the extravagant terms we then demanded, and in the failure of that at Lisle, Mr. Pitt had declared, that he trembled lest it should succeed, and employed it only to assist his schemes of finance. Even passing by the negotiations at Paris and at Lisle, we might have had much better terms when Bonaparté made overtures of peace. It was then said, we must pause. We did pause, and that pause cost us, beside the lives of thousands, seventy-three millions of money. This was more than the whole of the national debt from the revolution to the year 1755. Thus Mr. Pitt's pause had cost more than the victories of the duke of Marlborough and king William together. The experience of the first coalition ought to have taught ministers not to have placed too much confidence in a second. And it must be allowed, that the excessive aggrandizement of France was not the eff ct of the peace, but of the war. He was of opinion, that for the future, to enjoy the blessings of peace, we should confine ourselves to small establishments, and not pretend to cope with France in keeping up expensive armies: he thought the new order of things would cherish, on both sides, pacific dispositions; and that it was in an increased commerce we must fiad compensation for the territorial aggrandizement of France. Mr. Fox then commented with some severity on the observation of lord Castlereagh, that Ireland had been managed with a delicate hand: he said, the conflagrations, whipping, and other enormities, com mitted in that country in 1797, by no means deserved that appellation. If however the effect of the peace should be, that the habeas corpus act was to be again put in force, and the common law established, he should rejoice: he should receive, however, the restoration of the liberties of the country as a right, not as a boon. Mr. Addington rose about three o'clock, and apologized for troubling the house at so late an hour: he said it had been the leading feature of his majesty's present administration, to endeavour to efface that. angry aspect and tone which had been apparent not only to France, but to all the countries in Europe. The cessions which Portugal had been obliged to make in Guyana were not considered by Portugal herself as likely to be prejudical to her essential interests: although an honourable gentleman had spoken with much levity of the service we had rendered, and the security we had obtained for Naples, yet if that honourable gentleman would take ' the trouble of speaking to the Neapolitan ambassador on the subject, he would find that the king, his master, was perfectly content with what had been done by this country. He trusted a right honourable gentleman (Mr. Windham) would not wish, by a further continuance of the war, to drive this country into such an extremity of danger, and so completely to exhaust, its resources, that it should never again, in any future war, be able to oppose any check to the aggrandizement or ambition of France. For his part, he felt no desire to deprive France of her distant colonies, nor of her due proportion of commerce and as to her form of government, this counD 2 : try try in time of peace had nothing to do with it, and it should be the principal object of his administration to preserve faithfully a peace which had been honestly made. Dr. Lawrence, Mr. Windham, and Mr. Grenville, explained, and the house, on account of the lateness of the hour, adjourned the debate. On the next day, previous to the renewal of the debate, lord Temple asked ministers whether they had been informed of the ratification of the treaty between France and Portugal, which was stated in the French official journal, and whether the ratification extended to any new cessions since the treaty of Badajos? Lord Hawkesbury replied, that he had no information on the subject but from the French papers; but that the ratification certainly did not extend to any new cessions. Mr. Windham delivered his sentiments at great length against the peace. Every thing he heard and saw made him more strongly dis approve of the terms of it. Notwithstanding the tone of vigour and dignity assumed by Mr. Pitt, he could draw no inference from his arguments, but that we are completely in the power of the enemy, and have no other security but the disposition he may please to show. He thought he perceived a general apathy to the danger of the country, a general disregard for its national dignity and honour, which made him tremble for its future destiny. The question of the present treaty had nothing to do with the negotiation at Lisle, no more than with the peace of 1763, and yet that appeared the favourite topic of those who supported the preliminaries, which they urged as an argumentum ad hominem against him. He should allow that the present question was not so much whether the peace was good or bad, honourable or dishonourable, adequate or inadequate; those considerations were but parts of the question, which was really this: Whether the peace which has been concluded is or is not better than a continuance of the war? To an swer this question rightly, it was necessary not only to consider the cessions which had been made at the peace, but the effect which those cessions produced on our national character. If the peace has been concluded on terms which lowered the character of this nation; if any symptoms of weakness were discovered in it, then perhaps a continuance of the war would have been better than such a peace. It had been often stated in that house, and perhaps truly, that the preservation of national honour was almost the only legitimate ground of war. National honour was certainly a subject of the first-rate importance: if we permitted any violations and aggressions in this quarter, it would immediately lead us to infamy and ruin. [Here Mr. Windham read an extract from Junius, comparing the delicacy of national honour to that of female purity.] The situation of things, as settled by the peace, is this. Austria has been conquered, and has lost her rank among the nations, and there remains no counterpoise in Europe for the great power of France. In the East, Pondicherry and Cochin has been restored to France, and in the West Indies she had recovered many valuable islands, which we had won from her by conquest. The posses sions of Spain also might be said to be hers; she could take them whenever she pleased: she has now the means of increasing her foreign settlements, and of surrounding the British empire. If peace was supported on the ground of our inability to pursue the war, he must ask, was that inability likely to grow less? He thought not: on the contrary, he thought the disparity between the countries would daily increase. All that we could expect from the present peace was, that the enemy may not think it expedient at present to exert the power she has obtained for our destruction. France has uniformly aspired to universal empire: in the beginning of the revolution she had an empire of opinion, but now of power. French principles first paved the way for power, and now her power is used to disseminate principles; not such principles. however, as now are tolerated in France, but principles which will not serve for home consumption, and which, therefore, they send abroad for exportation. Bonaparté knows well how to be the supporter of despotism in France, and of jacobinism in Holland. Mr. Windham then asked, should we hold an intercourse with a nation which was the foe of morality? with a nation with whom the sacred institution of marriage has been abolished? The scheme of the French illuminati was, that their end was to be accomplished by the destruction of morality, and the fairest part of the creation were made their instruments of corruption. As to the supposed change of character in the French people and government, the only difference is, that in more jacobinical times they were chiefly formidable from their principles, but now it is their arins and real power which gives alarm; but in all this change they have preserved the same hostile spirit against this country. This country is still marked out as Carthage, which must be destroyed, to make way for the universal empire of modern Rome. The Romans too conquered Carthage. point by point, always terminating a glorious war by an advantageous peace: every renewal of the war was attended with fresh advantages, and Carthage at length sunk beneath her powerful rival. We have by the present peace given out of our hands every security which we possessed, and in this situation we shall be obliged at a future time to contend against an enemy infinitely stronger, by reason of her great acquisitions. It seems that it is supposed that our great capital will enable us for a long time to outstrip France in the race of commerce; but without wishing to undervalue this great advantage of capital and industry on our side, he must ask, was it to be supposed that Bonaparté would permit this great commercial contest to be fairly decided, or would not he rather endeavour to decide it by the sword? Wealth, though a means of carrying on war, will not by itself save a country from ruin and destruction. He asked at present for security, and nothing more; but he could not conceive that security could be obtained under a peace like the present. Let economy be as great as it can, and the expense of such a peace must be very nearly equal to that of a full war establishment; and all we can hope to obtain at that great expense, is a mere armed D 3 truce. truce. On the other hand, war would have preserved us from all communication with the enemy, and consequently from all contagion from their principles: it would have left us in possession of all our commercial advantages, and have given us all those chances which arise out of war. When he has heard so much of the wealth, energies, and resources of the nation, he has always thought that there never was a time when they were more necessary to be called forth than at present, when the security and the very existence of the nation is in danger. There was another point to which he wished to direct their attention; he considered the entire desertion of the interests of the emigrants (who had shown such attachment to the cause they embraced, and given such cooperation to the British forces), as a thing most disgraceful to the country. There ought to have been stipulated for them at least a safe return to their country. He thought that the chief fault throughout the war was, that the people were not sufficiently aware of their danger. The people, always accustomed to wish for an end to the war, had not sufficiently reflected on the dangers of a peace. Mr. Wilberforce rose in reply to Mr. Windham, and took notice of the universal joy which pervaded all classes of people when they heard that peace was made, and which was not diminished by hearing the terms of it. He complained of the ideas which the honourable member had imbibed, and seemed anxious to propagate it appeared as if that right honourable gentle man thought there ought never to be peace with France, till a counter revolution was effected in that country, and yet the whole nation was convinced that this country alone, without continental cooperation, could not effect such counterrevolution. The only difference between this peace, which the right honourable gentleman painted as a funeral, and that which he would have solemnized as a festival, was, that some colonies were restored, which he would have wished to have kept. Mr. Wilberforce then, in speaking of Trinidada, lamented the probable increase of the slave trade: he concluded an animated speech by deploring the contagion of modern French morals, although he thought this contagion would be as fatal in war as in peace. Dr. Lawrence spoke at great length, and very ably, against the peace. The strongest 'topic he urged in addition to the grounds which had been taken by the other speakers on the same side, was, that while the French were always faithful to their allies, his majesty's ministers deserted ours. He added that general Menou, when cooped up in Alexandria, obtained better terms for his allies in Egypt than we had pretended to do for ours in Europe. The consequence he conceived that must result from this conduct was, that the weaker powers would for the future put themselves under the protection of France, whom they knew to be faithful to her engagements. Mr. Elliot looked upon the peace as ruin, and the treaty as an unnecessary sacrifice of our honour and interests, merely to purchase a short-lived and precarious tranquillity. [Mr. Elliot necessarily went over many of the grounds which the |