GENERAL HISTORY. 



[91 



The Marquis of Buckingham 

 spoke warmly against the treaty, 

 on the ground both of its disho- 

 nesty, and its impolicy. At a 

 time, he said, when the whole 

 north of Europe might have been 

 united against the common ene- 

 my, Denmark, while engaged in 

 testifying her sincere desire to re- 

 establish the relations of peace and 

 amity with tliis country, was told, 

 in language that could not be 

 mistaken, that she had no alterna- 

 tive but to be hostile to us, and 

 thus was forced into the ranks of 

 the enemy. 



Earl Grey took the same ground 

 in condemning the treaty, and 

 made some pointed remarks on 

 the conduct of Sweden, which 

 countiy, he contended, was more 

 likely in future to be, as she had 

 formerly been, a friend to France 

 than to England. He concluded 

 with blaming ministers for not 

 having in the spring made some 

 attempts at negociation with the 

 ruler of France. 



Earl Bathurst spoke in defence 

 of the treaty. 



The Earl of Liverpool, in an- 

 swer to Lord Grey's assertion that, 

 according to the wording of the 

 treaty, it was a guarantee in per- 

 petuity of both Norway and Gua- 

 daloupe to the Swedish govern- 

 ment, argued, on the contrary, 

 that it was only a virtual guaran- 

 tee, contingent upon the perform- 

 ance of certain stipulations on the 

 part of Sweden. 



A division then took place on 

 Uie original address, in which 

 the numbers were, contents, 78 ; 

 proxies, 62 — 140. Not-contents, 

 40; proxies, fJ7 — 77. Majority 

 in favour of the iiddrcss, 63. 

 The proceedings in the House 



of Commons relative to this sub- 

 ject were so similar to those in the 

 House of Lords, and the argu- 

 ments used on each side followed 

 so nearly the same train, that a 

 general notice of them is all that 

 our view of parliamentary history 

 can require. 



The debate in that House com- 

 menced on June 18th, when lord 

 Castlnreagh moved, 1st, That the 

 Hous^e should resolve itself into a 

 committee of supply ; and, 2ndly, 

 That the treaty with Sweden, pre- 

 sented to the House by command 

 of his royal highness the Prince 

 Regent, be referred to the said 

 committee. 



Mr. Ponsonhy then rose, and 

 said, that on the present occasion 

 he conceived that the most conve- 

 nient method of raising the debate 

 on the merits of the S\vedi^^h treaty 

 would be, to proceed with the dis- 

 cussion prior to the Speaker's leav- 

 ing the chair ; and he intimated 

 his intention of moving an address 

 to the Prince Regent on the sub- 

 ject. He then observed, that he 

 believed it was the first instance 

 in which a treaty, containing the 

 cession of a valuable possession of 

 the crown of Great Britain, had 

 been laid on the table of either 

 House of Parliament, the minister 

 of the crown in each House not 

 having expressed a desire to take 

 the sense of parliament upon it. 

 After some remarks on this point, 

 the right hon. gentleman pro- 

 ceeded to a discussion and censure 

 of the treaty nearly on the same 

 grounds with those taken by its 

 opposers in the other House. He 

 concluded with moving an address 

 to the Prince Regent of a similar 

 purpose with that of lord Hol- 

 land. 



