ONE:This action was the height of imprudence. The true wisdom would have been to have taken no notice of such a discussion by an obscure association. On the 13th of March Sir Francis Burdett moved that Mr. John Gale Jones should be discharged, questioning the legality of his commitment, and declaring that, if the proceedings of Parliament were not to be criticised like everything else, there was an end of liberty of speech and of the press. This motion was rejected by one hundred and fifty-three against fourteen. The speech of Sir Francis was printed by Cobbett in his Weekly Register, a publication possessing high influence with the people. It was also accompanied by a letter of Sir Francis, commenting in strong language upon this arbitrary act, and[596] questioning the right of such a House to commit for breach of privilege, seeing that it consisted of "a part of our fellow-subjects, collected together by means which it is not necessary to describe."
TWO:The prospects of the European war at this juncture, as observed from England, were gloomy in the extreme. The dispersion of the armies of Spain, the retreat and death of Sir John Moore, leaving the whole of the Spanish and Portuguese Peninsula under the feet of Buonaparte, disposed many to believe the power of the conqueror unassailable. The Whig Opposition made every use of this feeling to damage and, if possible, drive their rivals from office. That the Whigs, in power, would have refrained from Continental war any more than the Tories is not to be believed. They had always, when in officeexcept, in the case of Fox, for a short intervalbeen as ready to fight; but they had generally conducted their campaigns with much less ability. Now, their great organ, the Edinburgh Review, indulged in the most vehement censures on the Cabinet; charged all the adverse circumstances of the Spanish and Portuguese war to its bad management; and intimated that it was the most wicked and idiotic folly to hope to contend with Buonaparte at all. But if ever there was a time when the continuance of the war was excusable, and perhaps necessary, it was now. Great Britain had gone fully and freely into the conflict to assist the Continental nations. She had pledged herself[571] solemnly to Spain and Portugal, and to have withdrawn at this crisis would have been equally treacherous to our allies and pusillanimous as regarded the enemy. It would have been, in fact, to proclaim to the world that we had been completely beaten out of the field, that we could not do what we had promised to our allies, and that Napoleon must be left the master of Europe, and the dictator to Britain. Such a confession would have destroyed for ever the prestige of Great Britain, and justly. Ministers felt this, and never were more resolved to persevere to the end. To show that they did not for a moment despair, they signed a treaty of peace and amity with Spain only five days after the arrival of the news of the retreat and death of Sir John Moore, binding themselves never to acknowledge the authority of Buonaparte over Spain, or of any family but of Ferdinand VII. and his lineal successors. That they were supported in their views by Parliament was soon made evident by the rejection, by a majority of two hundred and eight against one hundred and fifty-eight, of a motion of Lord Henry Petty censuring the Convention of Cintra, and, by a majority of two hundred and twenty against one hundred and twenty-seven, of a motion of Mr. Ponsonby for inquiry into the conduct of the late campaign in Spain. Ministers had at length satisfied themselves that they had in Sir Arthur Wellesley a man capable of contending against the haughty tyrant of Europe. The most liberal votes were made for the prosecution of the war. The total of supplies for the year amounted to fifty-three million eight hundred and sixty-two thousand pounds, including a loan of eleven million pounds. For the army twenty-seven million pounds was voted, and for the navy nineteen million pounds. Between twenty and thirty thousand men were drafted from the militia into the regulars, and thus the army was augmented to that amount by soldiers already well trained. The loan was freely taken at a lower interest than any hitherto borrowedthe Opposition asserted, because trade was deranged, and capitalists were at a loss how to invest their money; but the Ministers contended, on the other hand, that it was solely because the war was popular with the nation. Before, however, entering into its arduous and bloody details, we must narrate some disgraceful affairs at home.The advice of Pitt prevailed. Ministers determined to bring in two Acts in accordance with his counsels: an Act declaratory of the supreme[189] power of Parliament over the colonies, and another repealing the Stamp Act, on the plea which he had suggested. The Declaratory Act passed readily enough, for all parties agreed in it; but the repeal of the Stamp Act met with stout opposition. Grenville, with the pertinacity of a man who glories in his disgrace, resisted it at every stage. When he was hissed by the people, he declared that "he rejoiced in the hiss. If it were to do again, he would do it!" In the Lords there was a strong resistance to the repeal. Lord Temple, who had now deserted Pitt, supported his brother Grenville with all his might. Lords Mansfield, Lyttelton, and Halifax, the whole Bedford faction, and the whole Bute faction, opposed it. The king declared himself for repeal rather than bloodshed.
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