a free trade with every part of the British | sum to call for in the present times for the empire; and that the Petitioners consider lodging of a single regiment of horse. He the monopoly of the East-India Company could not well conceive a more profligate to be highly impolitic, and excessively in- waste of the public money. At Liverpool jurious to the interests of the United King- it was also proposed to build a barrack for dom; and the Petitioners humbly repre- 1,000 men, at the estimated expence of sent to the House, that the trade of the 82,000l. A new stable at Brighton was to town of Wolverhampton has been gra- cost 26,000l.; and a new barrack at Brisdually declining for some time past, and is tol for 800 men, was estimated at 60,000l. now so greatly diminished, that numbers These were very large items, and required of manufacturers are thrown out of em- explanation. ployment, and their families reduced to the utmost distress; and praying the House to promote the opening of new channels for the exportation of British manufactures, and especially to resist any attempt that may be made by the EastIndia Company for a renewal of their commercial monopoly." And the said Petitions were ordered to lie upon the table. PAPERS RELATING TO CAPTAIN KING.] The adjourned debate on the motion for Papers respecting the case of captain King was resumed. After a few words from lord Folkestone and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the motion was agreed to. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and sir Home Popham then severally moved for further papers as necessary to the full elucidation of the case, which were all agreed to. BARRACK ESTIMATES.] In the Committee of Supply, Mr. Wharton moved, That a sum not exceeding 554,4411. be granted for the expences of the Barrack Department for the current year. Mr. Fremantle saw many things in those Estimates, which appeared to him to require a great deal of explanation. New buildings which would bring on a very considerable expence, appeared in one part of the accounts to be ordered by the Commander-in-Chief, and in another part of them, he was at a loss to know whether the whole of this expence was now to be submitted to parliament. The expence of the Estimates for building barracks, appeared to be regularly increasing without any apparent cause. After adverting to the expences of the new buildings at Bexhill, he made several observations on the estimate of the new barrack projected to be built in what was called the Regent's Park. This barrack, which was only intended for the second regiment of Life Guards, was to cost 138,000l. Now it did appear to him that it was an enormous Mr. Wharton said, it was true that many new barracks had been proposed to be built in 1811; but as it was not now intended to build them, the estimated expence of course was not stated in the present accounts. The estimates were only of those buildings now in progress, and which were intended to be completed. The expence of buildings was in one schedule, and that of repairs and alterations would be found in another. The regiment of Life Guards had hitherto kept their horses in rented barracks in King-street, but the term was expired, and if they were to be kept in barracks at all, it was necessary that they should be built. At Brighton the stables formerly used by the troops were in a most dilapidated state, and it was necessary, if troops were to be kept there at all, that new stables should be built. The necessity of building the barracks in the neighbourhood of Bristol arose from the circumstance of there being a considerable depot of French prisoners in the neighbourhood, amounting to eight or ten thousand men. If the necessity for the buildings was admitted, he would say that greater economy or more diligent superintendence could not be used with respect to the expence. Those who were accustomed to barrack estimates for many years, would perceive that the present was not higher than was usual, and, in point of fact, the contract was generally much within the original estimate. Mr. Fremantle did not mean to throw the least imputation on the Barrack Board, who were obliged to obey the directions of government. The sums, however, did appear to him to be very exorbitant. Mr. Huskisson said, that notwithstanding the explanation which had been given, he could not feel satisfied. He remembered, that when he was at the Treasury, it had been proposed to build a magnificent bar. rack at Islington, and the ground was ac tually marked out for it. Now, although this was strongly recommended by military authorities, the Treasury thought the expence too great, and that it might be postponed till some other time. If they had adopted all the plans submitted to them by the Military Board, an expence of two or three millions would have been incurred in building new barracks. In the present times, however, it appeared to him, that every expence should be postponed which was not absolutely necessary; and that the same considerations which made the Treasury reject many of those plans formerly, ought now to act with as much force as ever. If the House were to calculate the expence of this new barrack, they would find that it was near 4501. for every horse. It appeared to him that this was most extravagantly beyond any thing that really could be necessary. It was said, to be sure, that the men were also to be lodged there, but considering the manner in which men of their class in life were usually lodged, this sum appeared enormous, amounting, according to the interest generally given for money laid out in building, to 40l. per annum for the lodging of each trooper and his horse. He was afraid that in this new building there would be some attempt at splendour and awkward magnificence, and that the building would be something between a palace and a stable. At Liverpool he thought that it was unnecessary to go to such great expence, as many warehouses might be now got on easy terms, which would make very good temporary barracks. He thought that every expence that could be spared ought in the present times to be spared, and that even if the government were determined that the expences should amount to an hundred millions a year, there were other ways of spending the money which would be of more use in the prosecution of the present war. He thought there must be reasons fully as strong for postponing those buildings now, as existed at the time when he was in the Treasury, and he did not imagine there was any greater facility of borrowing money now, than there was then. Mr. Parnell thought the House ought to pause before it came to a vote out of all proportion to the objects specified. He wished to call their attention to one item, namely, that of 25,000l. paid to the commissioners for anditing general Delancey's accounts, during the five years that they had been employed upon them. If the public was to pay that yearly for the detection of official defaulters, he thought it would be better to let them go altoge ther unpunished. Mr. Wharton observed, that barracks for the Life Guards must be erected somewhere, if they were to be in barracks at all, for they could not remain where they now were. The estimates, he admitted, were large; but he apprehended they would not be thought disproportionate to the intended purposes (which were obviously very comprehensive) if they were compared with those of any preceding year in the same department. He repeated, however, that he had every reason to believe that the prices contracted for would fall considerably within the estimates. There was great inconvenience attached to the present system of the barracks in King-street, which contained accommodation for the horses only, while the men were scattered over the whole of this vast metropolis. With regard to the 25,000l. for the commissioners who were auditing general Delancey's accounts, he could assure the House that they had saved the public more than double that sum. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, that there was a real necessity for erecting new barracks for the Life Guards. Government had been actually ejected from the possession of the present ones, and was obliged to make a new agreement with the lessor, paying an annual addition of 950l. for the convenience of remaining in them two or three years longer, while others were built. The system of having the men diffused over the metropolis, away from their horses and accoutre. ments, he thought a very reprehensible one. What might have been the consequences, had such a system been in practice during the late disturbances? Might not the men have been intercepted by the mob, from reaching their stables, and the peace of the capital have been most seriously endangered? The hon. gentleman imagined, that it would be a work of bad taste, but he could assure him, that he was not conscious of any unnecessary expence. With respect to the barracks at Bristol, it would be hard to ascertain what sort of building it should be which was to last during the war, if that was a principle of limitation which the House would be inclined to adopt. If a barrack was to be built there, considering the extent and population of the town, considering also the accommodation it would afford to the military passing to and from Ireland, he thought it should not be built upon any parsimonious scale. The money that was thrown away under this denomination of expenditure, was chiefly applied to the purchase of temporary barracks, which were now in want of repair. As to Liverpool, it was considered to be a great in convenience that there should be no barrack there; and with regard to the expedient of hiring the warehouses for that purpose, he hardly thought that government would be justified in taking advantage, as it were, of the temporary suspension of trade in that place. Mr. Whitbread said, that the right hon. gentleman appeared to him to have adopted erroneous views upon the subject, when he thought it of such little consequence to separate the soldiers from the people, as to be surprised at any objection to a grant for that purpose. The right hon. gentleman had not argued that general question; the time was gone by; but he would declare it as his sentiment, that he was extremely jealous, and he was sure the country at large was jealous of the separating system. It had been said, that great advantage was likely to be derived from the labours of the Commissioners appointed to audit General Delancey's accounts. Perhaps at the end of four or five years, if the country should exist so long under such financiers, that advantage would greatly increase with the practices that rendered it necessary. But whence did the advantage arise? What was the necessity under which this boasted saving was made? The want of care in the controuling power. The negligence and mismanagement of those who, by proper application, ought to have prevented the occurrence of evils instead of leaving us to be obliged to the commissioners for the ascertainment of their extent. It was expected that if the commissioners proceeded, many other defalcations would appear. To him this was not consoling. An hon. gentleman had stated once, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was the victim of the departments, and the public were given to understand that the hon. gentleman had left the Treasury through disgust at the want of a sufficient controul. But did the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer think, that he wanted military controul over the people of this country? Even at the end of the war, which the right hon. gentleman seemed to think would last long, and which he was sure would last as long as the career (VOL. XXII.) of the right hon. gentleman, would it be necessary for us to look forward to the prospect of overawing them? Was this a principle to be maintained? Did any one ever hear a minister coolly assert it? But the right hon. gentleman disapproved of the idea of applying any of the warehouses of Liverpool to the purpose of accommodating the military. He who had made the loom useless, and the warehouse idle, who had spread starvation and discontent, had disapproved of that which to him ap. peared a natural course of proceedingthat of filling the warehouses with soldiers for the purpose of controuling the people under the inflictions he had brought on them and on the country. But it had been said, that there were French prisoners at Bristol. He would answer, so there had for the last twenty years. But even if the right hon. gentleman had been endeavouring to make the expence come up to an hundred millions, did he think, or could he think, that for three years more the country could go on as it was now going? If things proceeded as they were now proceeding, if expences continued to accumulate, and means to diminish, they must look for relief to a peace with the enemy, a peace which his measures had rendered unavoidable. In the transactions of past years he saw many great and glorious opportunities of ending this war neglected and lost, while, at present, the system of the right hon. gentleman was calculated to produce the necessity of peace by submission. But why was it necessary that the horse and the soldier should be more together now than at any other time? Did any reason exist now, that did not exist before, why the soldier and the ge neral population of the country should be kept apart, or why barracks, which he had always regarded in conformity with the opinions of the most constitutional authorities, as fortresses for controuling the kingdom, should be multiplied and enlarged? As to the policy of it, merely with regard to the soldier, he understood that when the men were on service, those who came from regular barracks, were not so healthful as others, so that even military purposes were not likely to be served by it. One of the most lavish expences under this head was incurred by the purchase of old houses at Clifton, in a ruined state, without a window; but now we were going back to Bristol again, to guard the French prisoners. Would to God that they were all out of this country, whether we continue (X). at war or not! The hon. gentleman concluded, with repeating his determination to vote against the resolution. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, that the hon. gentleman must be positive indeed upon the subject, and confirmed in the opinion he had formed, when he thought it right not only to censure the conduct of his Majesty's government, but to vote against the Resolutions before the Committee. Mr Whitbread, in explanation, stated, that his objection went only to the grant for building barracks. The Chancellor of the Exchequer proceeded to observe, that to refuse it without knowing whether the soldiers could be otherwise accommodated, might be productive of much inconvenience. He supposed, however, that by the debating strain which the hon. gentleman had thought proper to adopt, and the topics to which he had resorted, he expected to do much towards tranquillizing the country. When he brought forward his arguments attributing the starvation he described to the conduct of government, did he really think there was any thing in their manner of conducting the war against France, which operated to produce the scarcity at Liverpool? Did he think there was any thing in it to call down the vengeance of Providence on our heads, and provoke him to deny the harvest to our hopes? If not, how could the hon. gentleman shut his eyes to what every man could see but himself, and resort to those imputations, which no man who was acquainted with the subject, could hesitate to reject? He would own that in some inflammatory publications he had met with some topics to which the hon. gentleman had alluded; but he did not expect that any member could be found who would come down to that House for the purpose of making such statements. The hon. gentleman had spoken of golden opportunities for making peace, which ministers had neglected: but he did not say, he could not say whether one of those opportunities presented itself now; and if no such opportunity existed, where was the policy in asserting, that there was no salvation for the country but in peace? It would be impossible for him to say so much against the peace he recommended, as by saying that we were unable to go on with the war. The hon. gentleman had always said that he would not accept of peace but upon honourable terms. If, then, peace could not be ob tained upon honourable terms, there was, according to the hon gentleman's own feelings, and those of the country, but one alternative. Why then should the hon. gentleman give the sanction of his authority to the opinion, that the war could not be conducted, and that we were only to look for consolation to the event of the enemy granting us peace? Nothing could be more improper, nothing more unjust, nothing more dangerous to the security of the country, or more calculated to inflame the minds of the people under the present high price of provisions, than flinging out opinions of this sort to the disadvantage of the great contest in which we were engaged. He would maintain, and he thought the hon. gentleman might have been included amongst the number of those who would insist upon the same doctrine, that if we could not obtain peace upon honourable terms, we must maintain the war at all hazards, and under all circumstances, and to the last extremity. As to what had been said of his intention to keep the people down by a military force, when he had driven them to madness by his policy, he would ask where was the proof? In that candour of mind, in which he hoped the hon. gentleman was not deficient, he might have acknowledged, for he must have known, that it was at least a matter of serious doubt, whether all the difficulties experienced in our trade, would not have been aggravated, if they were not met by the Orders in Councii. In two years after the adoption of those Orders, this fact was demonstrated by an increase of our trade. Yet the hon. gentleman went on with his old proof, or rather with his old statement, in defiance of this striking fact, and insisted that our sufferings were not owing to the Decrees of the enemy, but to our own Orders in Council. If this was a logic, he was sure it was not a logic which the hon. gentleman would apply to any other subject; this confusion of cause and effect, this anticipation of consequence over the means that produced it, could, in no other than a political case, have warped the clear mind of the hon. gentleman. But if he was right in supposing that the effects which preceded the Decrees were not to be ascribed to it, how was it fair to represent them as the act of our own government? Was this his wisdom, was this his policy, was this his patriotism? The reasoning of the hon. gentleman would go to turn all the resentment not against the enemy, but against the government; and that too, at | Chair! Chair! resounded through the a time when we were engaged in war with an enemy who, if the hon. gentleman was not aware, intended our destruction, he must be ignorant of what was known to every body else. From this country he had met with his most effectual check in the pursuit of his insatiable ambition, and in his progress to universal empire and universal tyranny, his certain disappointment. If the hon. gentleman did not see this, and he trusted in God that he did not, when he called upon the country not to look to Buonaparté and to France, but to its own government, with indignation, and ascribed the inflictions of Providence to them alone; if he did not see this, but could make such statements with a conviction that he was doing right, he was sure that such sentiments would meet with little sympathy and little support.—(Loud and continued cheers.) House; at length Mr. Ponsonby obtained a hearing)-I call the right hon. gentleman himself to order, and on this ground, that he having risen to call my hon. friend to order, did not confine himself to that point, but thought proper to advert to other topics, thereby transgressing the regulations of the House. I speak this before high authority, who will contradict me if I should be incorrect. Mr. Lushington, the chairman, then declared his opinion to be, that Mr. Whitbread had been out of order. Mr. Whitbread got up again, and confessed he had risen in some heat, and unconsciously at the time had exceeded the limits of debate. He would however say, that if he was described as having told the people that they were to regard the government rather than Buonaparté as their enemy, it was a gross misrepresentation. Unfortunately it was too much a practice to identify the government with the minister, and convert the fair claims of the former to support and attachment, into a blind approbation of the measures of the latter. Whatever might be the construction put upon his words; he was determined ever to speak out in the House of Commons, to conceal no part of the truth, and to lend no helping hand to the delusion, any more than to the ruin of the Mr. Whitbread rose, evidently in great agitation, and began by declaring that if it was not in that House, he would ask the warmest friend or the loudest cheerer of the right hon. gentleman, whether the whole of his speech was not a gross misrepresentation? The right hon. gentleman was mistaken if he supposed that he had obtained a victory over him. No; it was a victory over his own invention. The House of Commons was a fine place the constitution of England was a great thing-people. He knew nothing more likely to every thing was to be admired, respected, and supported, when an adventurer from the bar was raised by his talent for debate to a great situation, but a great situation which nobody but himself could have accepted under such circumstances. 1 The Chancellor of the Exchequer here signified his dissent from the statement that nobody would have accepted the situation but himself. Mr. Whitbread repeated the statement, maintained the truth of it, and added, "If you doubt me, I refer you for information to a Letter signed Spencer Perceval." (Loud cries of Order from all parts of the House, followed this expression, and Mr. Whitbread attempted for some time in vain to be heard). Mr. Yorke rose to order. The hon. gentleman had just made one of the most outrageous personal attacks on his right hon. friend, which had ever been heard in that House. With respect to the justice or propriety of the attack thus made, he Mr. Ponsonby rose to order (Here the disorder became general, and cries of prove destructive to the safety and greatness of the people than the prevalence of a different doctrine. He did not confound the visitations of Providence, with the decrees of France, or the measures of the right hon. gentleman. But he knew that thousands of manufacturers were now out of employment, and that tens of thousands were now working at reduced wages, which scarcely sufficed to procure them subsistence. Was he, when he declared this, telling the hungry man that he had no bread? He knew that an unreformed House of Commons had approved of all the proceedings of the right hon. gentleman, and of all his Orders in Council, but he knew too, that the people and the merchants out of the House, were, in every part of the kingdom, of very different opinions. Was not this table already covered with petitions, that daily multiplied; and had he indeed abandoned all his patriotism, when he stated this? As to what he had said with respect to peace, how was it possible for him to speak positively as to the fitness of the present moment, |