148] 
NH WA Bc ee 
ANNUAL REGISTER,. 1797. 
Clouded Aspect of British Affairs in the. End of 1796, and earlier Part of 
1797.—Messages from His Majesty to loth Houses of Parliament, 
relating to the Rupture of the Negociation for Peace at Paris.—Ad- 
dresses in consequence moved to His Majesty —Amendments proposed. 
—Detates.—Amendments rejected and the Addresses carried by large 
Majorities.— Motion for Peace in the House of Lords.—Motion for the 
* same End in the House of Commons.—Debates in both Houses. 
HILE either the improvi- 
W dence of ourcouncils, or the 
adversity of events, involved a ne- 
cessity of heavy and evensevere tax- 
ation, other discouraging circum- 
stances accompanied or followed 
this evil in close succession. _Diffi- 
culty crouded on difficulty, danger 
on danger. On the return of lord 
‘Malmesbury, towards the close of 
1796, from the unsuccessful nego-- 
ciation at Paris, the British funds 
suffered a greater depression than 
was experienced atany periodof the 
Ametican war.* Insurrections pre- 
vailedin many parts of ireland, dis- 
contents in all: an unexampled run 
on the bank of England wasfollow- 
ed by a suspension of payment in 
pecie; a mutiny of unprecedented 
extent and inveteracy raged in the 
navy; symptoms of discontent began 
to appear in the army; the public 
dissatisfaction and alarm were ex- 
pressed in petitions from all quarters 
for achange of measures, if not of 
ministers; the wild and darkening 
* The three psr cent. Consols, being so low as 511. 
forest threatened toclose around us. 
But vistas and passages were opened 
for our escape: andtemporary embar- 
rassmentsand alarms, only served to 
prove the extent of our resources, 
and the influence of those virtues 
which still strung the nervesof both 
private and public credit, and united 
Englishmen in the bonds of mutual 
confidence, and an attachment to- 
théir common country. 
In the circumstances and temper 
of the nation, in December, 1796, 
an opinion very generally prevailed, 
that the embassy jwas sent over to 
Paris, by his majesty’s ministers, for 
the sole purpose of amusing people 
with the fallacious hopes of peace, 
that they might the more easily pro- 
cure money. for the prosecution of 
the war. The adherents of the 
ministry, on the other hand, Jabour- 
ed by all means, whether of speaking 
or writing to impress a conviction, 
that the rupture of the negociation 
for peace at Paris was to be at- 
tributed to a systematical aversion 
and 
