HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
conduct of ministers on this occa- 
sion. 
‘Mr. Fox reprobated in the sever- 
est terms, the demand of implicit 
confidence from parliament to mi- 
nisters, who, by the spirit of the 
constitution, ought much more to 
be watched than trusted. The 
highest confidence should mutually 
subsist between the nation and its 
representatives ; but if these trans- 
ferred the confidence reposed in 
them by their constituents to mi- 
nisters, the people, instead of be- 
ing represented, were betrayed. 
While negociations were pending, 
and even when at an end, the House 
had in more cases than one been 
denied the information which they 
required,—though called on to 
provide at the same time the sup- 
plies of money wanted for the mi- 
nisterial purposes, thus concealed 
from their knowledge. Confidence 
in ministers was at best a necessary 
evilin the constitution. When the 
crown dictated to whom confidence 
should be paid, which it virtually 
did by the appointment of minis- 
ters,—such confidence necessarily 
devolved to the executive power 
itself; but this confidential method 
- of voting subsidies implicitly at the 
desire of ministers, without exer- 
cising the parliamentary right of en- 
quiry, was totally repugnant to the 
genius of the constitution ; especi- 
ally when the majority of the na- 
tion was evidently opposed to mi- 
nisterial opinions. When nothing 
was wrong, nothing, he observed, 
needed to be secret. It was fit, 
erefore, that ministry insisted on 
1€ propriety of its measures; the 
correspondence between it and the 
various courts with which it had 
been negociatinz, should be ad- 
duced in proof of its assertion ; and 
es 
7 
[iss 
to remove at once the doubts of it 
veracity, and the persuasion pub7 
licly entertained of its erroneous 
conduct and incapacity. 
Such was the substance of the 
reasoning on both sides; but the 
majority decided against the motion 
of Mr. Gray. 
This question was agitated on 
the same day, with no less vivacity, 
in the House of Lords: a warm ex- 
position of the conduct of ministers, 
and the severest complaints of their 
ill-usage of the public were laid be- 
forethe House by Lord Fitzwilliam. 
In order to give additional weight 
to his arguments, he circumstanti- 
ally recapitulated the particulars of 
the controversy between both par- 
ties; grounding upon them a series 
of resolutions, such as, he asserted, 
they were fully calculated to autho- 
rize. Niet 
The Empress of Russia, he affirm- 
ed, had, by the very confession of 
the British and Prussian ministers 
at her court, been unjustly attacked. 
Her minister at London had com- 
municated to our government, in 
May 1790, the terms on which she 
should make peace, and from which 
she would not recede. These terms 
were, the re-establishment of the 
treaties in force between Russia and 
Turkey, at the commencement of 
hostilities, together with the cession 
of Oczakow andits territory, as far 
as the river Dniester; which was 
hereafter to ferm the boundary be- 
tween both empires. To this com- 
munication it was replied by the 
British administration, that neither 
Turkey nor Sweden would be any- 
wise satisfied with these proposals. 
The Turks, especially, would most 
warmly oppose the cession of Ocza-~ 
kow. Inthe mean while, Sweden 
concluded a pacification with Rus 
[kK] 3 sia 
