HISTORY OF EUROPE. 



47 



having tampered with the jury, be- 

 cause some of his relations were 

 amongst those which the cwraniis- 

 sioners intend to be prosecuted. 



The Chancellor of the Exche- 

 quer, Mr. Sheridan, and Mr. Grey, 

 thought the honourable baronet 

 bound to make good his charge of 

 the commissioners having abased 

 their pwwer, and observed that the 

 regular way wou.'d be to appoint a 

 day for takinginto consideration the 

 reports upon the table. 



Sir William Elford said, he did 

 no more than quote what appeared 

 upon the tenth report. 



Sir Charles Pole, said that it 

 would be impossible for the commis- 

 sioners to finish their enquiries in 

 the present session, from the nume- 

 rous difficulties that arose in conse- 

 quence of the war. As to the 

 charge against the eighth report, 

 which he supposed the honourable 

 baronet had from his constituents at 

 Plymouth, he was not surprised at 

 any thing that came from that quar- 

 ter ; for, he believed, the commis- 

 sioners were' never respectfully 

 spoken of at the docks. 



Admiral Markham highly ap- 

 plauded the labours of the commis- 

 •ioners, which it was the more ne- 

 cessary to continue, as he believed 

 in his con'acience that one third of 

 the naval cxpences of the country 

 may be saved by an honest and uj). 

 right discharge of the duties of the 

 officers employed in the administra- 

 tion. The victualling-ofiice, the 

 •ick and wounded ofticc, which he 

 had no hesitation in pronouncing 

 the most corrupt of all, and the 

 prize agents bill, were still to be 

 examiiU'd, and would occupy the 

 'commisbioncrs far beyond iUa ro. 

 i^maindcr of the sc-siQU. 



Mr. Creevey thought there was 

 every reason to augur well of the 

 future exertions of the commis- 

 sioners, from the gross frauds they 

 had already disclosed to the public, 

 and he hoped their reports would 

 not, like the former ones, be suf- 

 fered to lie useless on the table. He 

 expressed his fears that the royal 

 commission was only instituted for 

 ministerial purposes, and could not 

 satisfactorily account for the injus- 

 tice, in a commission appointed to 

 enquire into the means of reforming 

 abuses in the navy, of such a name 

 as that of Mr. Fordyce, who was 

 himself supposed to be indebted to 

 the public in the sum of 80,0001. 

 and the interest upon it might, 

 by this time, amount to as much 

 more. 



Mr. Fox considered the order of 

 the day as an unfair and unmanly 

 expedient to get rid of the original 

 motion. He thought it an unhand- 

 some and indefensible manner of 

 evading the question, which ought 

 to rest on the merits of the com- 

 missioners, and the result of their 

 enquiries. 



Mr. Canning supported the 

 amend iTient. as giving no opinion as 

 to the policy of continuing the 

 commission, and leaving it to the 

 future discretion and consideration 

 of parliament. 



Lord Henry Petty supported the 

 original motion. Nothing, he said, 

 was more notorious than the ex- 

 istence of enormous abuses in the 

 naval department, and that noto- 

 riety appeared to him a betteV 

 ground for the continuance of this 

 commission of enquiry, than the 

 pretended notoriety of disaffection 

 was for suspcndnig the habeas 

 corpus act i« Ireland. After some 



further 



