Norfolk Gazette And Publick Ledger

From London Papers received at the Office of the Publick Ledger by the Shefield.

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF COMMONS, APRIL 9.

DISMISSAL OF THE LATE MINISTERS.

(Continued.)

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Percival) agreed that nothing was more abhorrent to the freedom of debate, or more inconsistent with free discussion, than that any set of men should impute to others as the motives of the opinions they offered, the consequences which they themselves conceived likely to result from these opinions. He imputed no such motives to the hon. gent. opposite, and hoped they would do similar justice to him and his hon. friends; and if from ideas, however mistaken in their minds, he had conceived and argued that great mischiefs might follow from the measure they had introduced and abandoned, they would not charge him with raising a cry that the church was in danger, merely with a view to promote party objects.--(Hear, Hear.)--He had already stated the grounds on which he conceived the measure introduced by the noble lord opposite was of a tendency dangerous to the church establishment. That measure was to be considered not merely as a single measure; it was brought in as a measure intended to conciliate the Catholicks, but it was acknowledged that it could not effect that object unless it should be followed by another measure of a greater extent. He believed the expressions he had used on a former night, at least the sentiments he held on this subject were, that if that measure should be conceded, Catholick claims would not stop short of the admission of Irish Catholick bishops into the house of Lords. The hon. and learned gentleman who had just sat down confirmed him in this opinion: for he stated, that it was not in human nature that the Catholicks should rest satisfied as they were, or that they should be contented without opening to them honours and distinctions from which they were now excluded. It had been supposed, that when the elective franchise was granted, accompanied with other concessions to the higher ranks, all further demands were completely stopped. Yet the Catholicks were not content and why? Because from the repeated concessions that had been made to them, it was not consistent with human nature they should be satisfied with less than the Protestants enjoyed.--Upon the ground of this insatiability, and this encouragement given to new demands by continued concession, he opposed the motion for the introduction of the bill: and those who were now in office with him were influenced by the same principles and the same opinions. This was not the time to go much at length into the Catholick question; for he agreed that the points on which the merits of the question immediately before the house were very distinct from that question. How the hon. gent. opposite reconciled to themselves their abandonment of the bill, and their sense of its indispensible necessity, as he had not the benefit of hearing the explanation they had given, he should not take much pains to inquire. The hon. and learned gentleman opposite, his learned friend, if he would allow him to call him so, had not only made an appeal to the real friends of the church, and the real friends of religion, which implied a contradistinction of the pretended friends of both; but had also told the house it was unconstitutional to endeavour to procure Addresses to parliament on measures pending in parliament.

Mr. Plunkett hoped the right hon. gentleman would excuse him for interrupting him, just to set him right. He had not spoken of interference to procure addresses to parliament; but that the undue use of the sovereign's name to procure addresses to himself.

Mr. Percival said it was not necessary to apologise to him for such an interruption as the hon. and learned gentleman had given. He was much better pleased to be set right in the beginning than to be suffered to go on in error. But his hon. friend was still guilty of a mistake with respect to the principle. It was the use of a name in that house never so used before, that was in reality unconstitutional and dangerous beyond any precedent ever before established, and not any argument or inducement held forth by any person to offer an address of any description to his majesty. He would forbear to touch upon many topics irrelevant to the immediate subject of the debate, and among them the merits of the late administration.--(a laugh from the Treasury benches).--He had already employed himself for the greater part of two sessions in doing justice to those merits, and it was hardly to be supposed, that he could now comprehend them all in the remainder of one small night (a laugh). In confining himself to the immediate question before the house, he could not, however, exclude the consideration of the circumstances so immediately connected with it. It was idle to debate the resolution proposed from the chair, as an abstract proposition; it must of necessity be considered with reference to the facts upon which it was acknowledged to be founded; and the house should be cautious of being led, by joining in that abstract resolution, into an implication of facts of which there was no proof. First the adoption of the proposed resolution would imply, that the dismissal of the late ministers was an act which the house looked upon as highly censurable; for, coupling the consideration of the resolution with the explanation made by the noble lord, out of which the motion grew, it would be implied, that a pledge of a censurable nature had been required; and that on the refusal to accede to that pledge, a censurable dismissal followed; and further that those who were now in office, had expressly or by implication, given that pledge (hear, hear, from the opposition benches). He was glad he had rightly conceived the objects of the hon. gentleman. He wished the motion had distinctly that object rather than attempted by means of general language, to draw the house into an implied assent to what it would expressly never give its sanction to.--(Hear, hear, from the ministerial benches.) The house was called upon to consider the question stripped of all its circumstances, and then it was expected that a censure should be passed upon the mere naked act of the crown in dismissing the late ministers. But the circumstances of the case immediately alluded to were to be considered; and if the sovereign was to be called to the bar of the house, not less justice should be shown to him than to a private individual--(a cry of hear, hear, and order, order)--He felt the difficulty he was under with respect to the forms of the house; but upon a question relating to the dismissal of ministers, and a question upon which these ministers justified themselves against their sovereign, much latitude was to be allowed to those who appeared on the opposite side. It was certainly true, that for parliamentary purposes it was supposed that the King did nothing without advice: but the fact was in this case, as he believed and had reason to know the King had acted without any advice whatever, he meant so far as regarded the pledge required of the late ministers; for as to their dismissal he did not mean to say that there had not been advice. In saying that so much had been done without advice, he did not however mean to repudiate from himself, or from those connected with him, the responsibility of the demand of the pledge. He was ready to defend the wisdom of requiring such a pledge. But if the fact was to be argued with all its legal consequences, he thought it still right that it should be known to parliament, and to the country, that there was no secret adviser whatsoever, nor any adviser connected with the proceedings that had taken place in this respect, till the dismissal of the ministers was resolved upon, it became necessary to recur to others to carry on the business which had been determined upon, and in his opinion those referred to were not at liberty to give a refusal, which would put a stop to the publick business, even though they should disapprove of the principles which led to the change, as the present ministers certainly did not disapprove of the proceedings that led to the application from their sovereign to them. He conceived it would be convenient in the discussion to consider the measure which had been the occasion of the dismissal in three stages--first, when the application had been made for his majesty's consent to bring it in; secondly, when it had been brought in in a shape very different from that in which his majesty had understood and sanctioned it; and thirdly, when it was withdrawn, and the circumstances attending that proceeding. As to the first, it was quite clear that his majesty could not have understood the original intention only as meant to extend the provisions of the act of 1793 to Great-Britain, by means of clauses in the mutiny act. The first dispatch to his majesty, turning on the anomalies of the law in Ireland and Great-Britain, and on the obligation of the pledge given in Ireland in an extension of the law of that country to this, and then the use of the words of the Irish act, in that dispatch, that is, to grant all commissions, and all the arguments offered to gain his majesty's consent, tended to shew that nothing more was meant at that time than to extend that act to this country. This was rendered still more clear and unquestionable by the change which was introduced into the expressions when it began to be in the contemplation of the late ministers to grant more than was granted by the Irish act. Then the former expression of commissions was omitted, for it did not apply to the staff, and the words "warrants and appointments" were introduced into the bill. It was besides to be considered, that it was not till after much reasoning that his majesty had been induced to withdraw his dissent from the original proposition, and that his majesty had then declared, that nothing should ever induce him to go one step further. His majesty, at the same time, expressed a hope that his forbearance in this instance would save him from being pressed further upon a subject upon which his mind was unalterably made up against all further concession. It was not his majesty alone that understood the original intention in the limited sense of extending the Irish act to this country. The person who was employed in Ireland (Mr. Elliot) to communicate with the Catholicks, did not feel himself authorised to give any larger understanding till he had referred to his principals for explanation, and the noble lord employed to communicate to his majesty (lord Sidmouth) had understood it merely as a measure to get rid of an anomaly between the laws of different parts of the empire. He believed the noble lord opposite (Howick) when he stated a different understanding on his own part; but the rt. hon. baronet, late chancellor of the exchequer for Ireland, had given some sanction to the other belief, when, in opposing the delay of the proceedings on the bill, which was urged by some on the ground of the absence of the Irish members, the rt. hon. baronet stated that the bill was already law in Ireland, and already sanctioned by the Irish members. But there was a still further sanction in the understanding of his majesty, as three members of the late cabinet were under the same difficulty. (A communication from the other side, across the table, only two.) He begged pardon--he thought the Lord Chancellor, the lord chief justice of the king's bench, and the Lord President (Sidmouth) had been dissentient to the exclusion beyond the limits of the Irish act; but he found that the Lord Chancellor had not been summoned on the second day, and he thought it not so right that the lord who had the particular guardianship of the king's conscience and still further he thought it right that the dissentient members of the council, as well as the consenting should be summoned, in order that the king may have the benefit of hearing the opinion of those who confirmed as well as the opinions of those who invalidated his principles, with respect to the church, which were known to have been heretofore unaltered. Having established that when it was a thing unknown to some of his majesty's cabinet ministers, and to the minister in Ireland, charged to negotiate this particular point, that it was intended to exceed the Irish act of 1793, it was not extraordinary that his majesty himself should have been at a loss to understand the extent of the proposed measure. Here he closed the first point of the question, contenting himself with having clearly established, that his majesty had no knowledge in the first instance of its being intended to carry the measure so far as was afterwards proposed. As to the time when the measure was introduced into the house in its present extent, no communication had been made to his majesty on that subject till the 3d March. In the intermediate time, dispatches had been laid before his majesty, stating that the Irish catholicks would not be content with the measure then pending, without large additional concessions. The hope of keeping back the agitation of the general petition of the Catholicks, could not, in the opinion of the Lord Lieutenant, nor of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, who was more particularly concerned, could not be accomplished without granting in addition to the officers' bill, the situations of sheriffs and members of corporations to the gentry, and the situations of king's counsel in the courts of law. The dispatch, containing this intelligence, was certainly sent to the king, but without any precise notification of its meaning; and here he must say, without any charge of intention to circumvent, or overreach the king, that the want of precision and explanation that existed, was the cause of all, or a great part of the difficulties that were found to incumber this question. When the doubts arose in Ireland, and the dispatch sent back with a view to remove those doubts led to a more clear disclosure of his majesty's mind, it was attempted first to modify the proposed measure to his majesty's wish--but when it was found that that could not be done with the satisfaction which it was at first proposed to give to the Catholicks, it was thought better by the advocates of the measure to withdraw it. And here was a point upon which the late ministers had overlooked a material duty indeed. After they had urged that the importance of the business would not admit of its being postponed a single day, they had, he would not say for the motive, but certainly with the effect of keeping their places, by the oddest sacrifice that had ever been known, the sacrifice of private feelings to publick principle. His majesty's late ministers claimed a right in withdrawing the measure lately before the house, to state their sentiments strongly in favour of that measure, and of a general system of favour towards the Catholicks. This was the strangest plan he had ever known; and wished those who were so anxious to guard against the case of a crown, without responsible ministers to consider in what situation we should be if the ministers in this case were allowed to come down and state their own case against their sovereign, and to say they were favourable, and they were right, but his majesty opposed him, and they were obliged to concede.--(A cry of no, no!)--Was not that the fact!--(Hear, hear!)--and he was sure the noble lord would support himself in nothing but the fact, and every thing he saw and heard confirmed the impression he had stated. What responsibility then had the house to look to? The late ministers would have said, if the pledge, of which he would say a few words by and by, had not been required, we are strongly for the measure, but the king is strongly against it, and therefore we must give way. In such a situation what responsibility would parliament have to look to? His majesty here contented himself upon this too, with regretting that his ministers should have opinions different from his, and with lamenting the necessity of introducing discussions so improper; but when the right of submitting other measures was insisted on, not to combat a mere loose opinion, but a settled principle of his majesty's mind during his reign, the house would see the mischiefs that must result. He was ready to allow that, abstractedly, ministers were not to fetter themselves in the right to advise how the prerogative, to give or withhold consent to acts of the legislature, should be exercised. But the case in agitation was a case of bringing forward a great legislative question against the crown, with the authority and influence of ministers of the crown. It was ridiculous to say the king had the prerogative of changing his ministers, unless he could change them upon certain topics and principles. His majesty's mind was made up not to concede further upon this question, and further instances could produce nothing but agitation and irritation. If the minute had been suffered to pass without a pledge, an attempt might be afterwards made to bring forward the measure again, on the ground, that it was not contrary to the sanction of the profession, and acquiesced in. His majesty therefore required a pledge in writing, that he should not be disturbed with applications which could only produce distress and irritation; and that pledge at the present moment went only to extend for a little time, the forbearance which the late ministers were disposed to shew in conceding the measure lately proposed by them.--When they could not go farther into that concession, they were bound to no eternity of service, they might resign. Under these considerations his majesty may be justified in saying his ministers should not come to him with advice repugnant to his fixed principles and coronation oath. Others, also, thought with his majesty. He, for one, thought that measure would lead to the destruction of the church establishment in Ireland. It was, therefore, not to be wondered at, if his majesty should have thought his coronation oath in this instance endangered. The reformation, and the union with Scotland, had sanctioned the original church establishment, which was adopted also for the sake of political freedom. He was now surprised to hear that an attachment to principles of such value, was looked upon as antiquated, and belonging to the dark ages. An attachment to such darkness could, however, never be matter of shame, and he should wish always to preserve it (hear, hear!)--He censured the determination to concede to the Catholicks of Ireland, in consequence of the disturbance of the last year, as an encouragement to disturbance, by holding out concession as the consequence. He also condemned the idea of holding out advantages to the more wealthy Catholicks, in order to engage their favourable influence on their inferiors. The loyalty of these gentlemen was not worth much if it could not be active on the considerations now enjoyed. In answer to the charge against him, of having wantonly offered to enact strong measures with respect to Ireland, he stated that he had made such offer only in the contemplation of its being necessary to adopt such measures. In that case he would have supported such measures without any regard to the loss of popularity, in which as a member of a new opposition, he was involving himself. He denied that the Catholicks could now with truth be said to be given over to a persecuting spirit. For himself he defied any one to shew the instance in which he had shewn a want of moderation in his power, or a want of charity in his religion. He thought the proper way to maintain tranquillity in Ireland, was to hold not only a just and tranquil, but a firm hand towards the Catholicks, and by no means to encourage them to new hopes by forward concessions. Instead of encouraging hope from recent disturbances, it should be encouraged, if at all, after a long period of loyalty and approved attachment. He was convinced that nothing could be conceded without danger to the establishment, and therefore he would not hold out any hope to the Catholicks. It was highly impolitick to keep up a fluctuation in Ireland; the Catholick and the Protestant churches would be in danger of a ruinous conflict from all concessions which would go to approximate the situation of the Catholicks with that of the Protestants, and would be highly injurious. Then as to the pledge rejected by the late ministers, and supposed to be granted by the present, no such pledge, he could assure the house, had been given, at least no such pledge had been given by him. Nor was it to be supposed that, because such a pledge was required from the ministers, who had urged the obnoxious measure, such a pledge, or any pledge, had been required of the new ministers. He, and those with whom he acted, were known to be of opinion that no measure, of the nature to which the pledge applied, should be brought forward without the consent of the crown, and the parliament and the people of this country. Therefore a pledge was superfluous from them. He believed no such pledge had been required from any of his colleagues--certainly no such pledge had been required from him.--If the late ministers were dismissed on the refusal to give the pledge, it was not to be concluded that the new ministers had given that pledge. But the conclusion was not fair; and though they should even have disapproved of some of them, he did not think the new ministers were at liberty to refuse to come into office; for the business of the country was not to be allowed to stand still for want of a government. Neither was it to be supposed that the new ministers had adopted the pledge supposed to have been refused by their predecessors. He hoped the house would be cautious of implying a censure on the dismission of the late ministers, and if they did so, that they would be particular to see that they did not do it without just ground.

Mr. Grattan hoped that the sway of government over the Irish Catholicks would always be mild; for if not mild it would not be permanent. The government of Ireland had been guilty of extravagant excesses of power, and had been compelled to capitulate with the people; or capitulation with the people were the consequences of enormous stretches of power. To such fluctuations much of the distresses that had existed in Ireland were to be attributed. The speech of the honourable gentleman who had just set down, may be divided into two principal points; first, their conduct towards the Catholicks; and secondly, their conduct towards his majesty. The benefit of the Catholick bill, had been felt by experience in the last 14 years. It was not enough that the mutiny act provided a remedy for certain difficulties in which Catholick officers were involved here; there ought to be a provision more explicit to secure them against a penalty of 500l. and the chance of being disabled from suing at law, and of bringing a witness. Innumerable complaints had been made of severities to Catholick soldiers, in the exercise of their religion, since 1795. They had been prevented from going to mass, and had been forced to go to church. This was by a double cruelty, to make the religion of the Catholick soldier his tormentor, and your religion the means of his punishment. He owned he had the agonizing foresight to see the destruction of the protestant establishment, in the relief which was proposed to be granted in this respect to the catholicks, nor from having catholick generals on the staff. The bill went to give to the country the benefit of the powers of the catholicks, physical as well as intellectual; and in order to do that, it was proposed to give to the catholicks, in some degree, a community of rights as they had a community of danger in the fullest extent. All dissention between the different classes of the subjects ought to be removed, and all the united energy and hostility of all turned against the
had shewed an honest intention to execute the laws already passed in favour of the Catholics, and to give the benefit of the constitution as far as could be. That the Catholics desired more was, however, unquestionable. Hence it was argued by their opponents that it was the course of human nature that they should go on to the destruction of the church establishment. But this was to suppose every man a high churchman, which was not human nature. The right hon. gentleman mistook human nature, and made every man a casuist in order to establish his own casuistry. It was not, however, to be supposed, that the Catholic would expose his family, for what? in order to have priests! No, for he already had them; in order to have bishops! No, for he had them also; but to have magnificent bishops--(Hear, hear!) and that by the aid of the French, who had made bishops poor in their own country. The Catholics were satisfied with the concessions already made to them when their government was mild; they were not satisfied when their government was otherwise--in 1793, when the last concessions were made to them, the very minister who proposed these concessions represented them as still barbarous, and said it was an act of insanity to grant them the elective franchise. Two persons of the name of Hamilton, who signed the Catholic petition, were afterwards persecuted as defenders by means of witnesses so infamous that the judge from the bench said those witnesses ought themselves to be the objects of prosecution. To give the Catholics the pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war, was some ground of attachment, if the gift was conferred in a proper shape. The various acts of the Irish parliament since the 14th of George III. had done justice to the loyalty of the Catholics, and had truly characterised the hardships with which they had been treated. The Irish Roman Catholics were as much the constituents of this house as any subjects of England; and when any member stigmatized the Catholics of Ireland, he stigmatized his own constituents. The universities of Oxford and Cambridge, on addressing his majesty against the bill, strove to weaken the strength of the empire, and to endanger the church establishment by endangering that empire in whose security the church and every thing else we held dear was comprehended.--Here the right hon. gentleman detailed the proceedings on the officers bill, and the references to his majesty upon it, and argued that there was no intention to surprise his majesty. Then as to the pledges required of his majesty's late ministers, they must have forfeited their stations, if they had given such a pledge, and have constituted themselves as the tools of place, and the mere hirelings of salary. To what part of the duty of a minister may not such a pledge be extended, if the precedent was once established. It was very necessary that ministers should hold themselves free to advise, according to circumstances. Circumstances may be such as in a short space of time to render a different policy necessary. In 1792, the Catholic petition was rejected in Ireland; and in 1793 the same grants were made. So it was with all the concessions made; what had been granted subsequently, had been thought dangerous to be granted, in the first instance. If a French force were in the country, it would be terrible to have the hands of ministers tied up from what the most essential policy would dictate. His majesty's late ministers would have forfeited their duty as privy councillors by agreeing to such a pledge, and would have covenanted against one-fifth of his majesty's subjects. He commended the late government for its care in putting an end to religious dissensions in Ireland. He stated the lamented consequences that had been produced by a contrary system, when government, desirous to promote dissention, had encouraged poisonous paragraphs, the tendency and consequence of which was, to drive God out of his attributes, and parliament out of the constitution, that the country was at last reduced to the lowest step of human calamity. He wished the imperial people to be identified, and not to be at issue at one part with another. He wished the people of England to be impressed with a spirit of moderation and charity; and he was proud to see so honourable a specimen of that moderation in the city of London. He dwelt upon the importance of Ireland in a commercial as well as in a military point of view. He recommended to treat the Irish with softness, gentleness, and affection. He applauded the government of the duke of Bedford, and that of Lord Hardwicke, for their beneficent character. He recommended to those who had been lately in administration still to pursue the same plan. And as their principles would preserve their authority, and that authority would probably be strengthened by the division of this night, which would at the same time shew the Catholics that their cause had deep root in the house, he recommended them to use that authority to promote peace, union, and concord. If the cry of the church being in danger was raised, both Catholics and Protestants, and all parts of the empire would be ruined. He gave his support to the original motion, as tending to maintain the constitution, and the integrity and independence of the empire.

(To be continued.)