HISTORY OF EUROPE. 



113 



Wynne, Mr. W. Smith, Lord Por- 

 chcster, Mr. Jekyll, Mr. Morris, 

 and Lord Temple. 



On the 28th of June, Mr. Fox 

 presented a petition from Mr. Todd 

 Jones, confined in Cork gaol, com- 

 plaining of various hardships. The 

 petition stated, amongst a variety of 

 matter, his having been arrested by- 

 virtue of a warrant which lie never 

 saw. Ilis having been confined in 

 the giiard-honse of Bandon, and af- 

 terwards in the south gaol of the 

 county of Cori, and in the provost 

 prison of the same city ; his being 

 refused seeing his friends and rela- 

 tions ; that he had remained in cus. 

 tody twenty months, to the mate- 

 rial injury of his health ; that hav- 

 ing resigned his income into the 

 hands of his creditors, he had sub- 

 sisted on the gaol allowance ; that 

 he was at the age of fifty-two years, 

 and very infirm. lie therefore 

 "^prayed the house to take his case 

 into consideration, and grant him 

 such redress as in its judgment and 

 benevolence might seem meet. Mr. 

 Fox said he had every reason to be- 

 lieve the petitioner's statement to 

 be a true one ; he did not think it 

 necessary to go into the case at 

 large, it was generally stated, and 

 he believed no where denied, that an 

 olTer had been made of his enlarge- 

 ment, if he pleased to accept it, in 

 England, which offer clearly proved 

 that notiiing could be urged agajnst 

 Mill. IJe understood Mr. Jones's 

 health had suffered materially, which 

 circumstance deserved consideration. 

 Ife hoped that those who had the 

 power to give redress, would give 

 •attention to the circumstances of 

 this petition, lie then moved the 

 petition do lie on the table. 



Mr. Sheridan also strongly re- 

 commended the petition to the coii- 



VoL. XLVIl. 



sideration of Mr. Pitt ; and after a 

 short observation from Mr. Vansit- 

 tart, the petition was ordered to be 

 laid on the table. 



On the same day Colonel Crau- 

 furd rose to make his promised mo- 

 tion : he lamented the subject had 

 been postponed to so late a period ; 

 many important reforms and im- 

 provements, he tliought, might be 

 introduced during the present year. 

 He took a comparative review of 

 the opinions expressed by Messrs. 

 Pitt, Fox, Windham, See. on a for- 

 mer occasion, and contended, that, 

 in consequence of the war with 

 Spain, our military force was, in a 

 proportionate degree, more inade- 

 quate to the contest we were en- 

 gaged in, than it was last year. 

 Upon a full review of the whole of 

 the case, he thought that, by a judi- 

 cious and moderate conduct, that 

 war might have been avoided. The 

 main question was, whether our si- 

 tuation was better or worse than it 

 was before that war was under- 

 taken. From a variety of conside- 

 rations, he' contended /that it was 

 worse ; ttiongh the addition made 

 to our navy was as great as that of 

 the enemy, it should be considered 

 that ours was a defensive, theirs an 

 offensive war. He then proceeded 

 to examine, whether there was any 

 augmentation of our army, to ba- 

 lance that which the enemy had re- 

 ceived in his navy, for which pur- 

 pose he entered into a variety of de- 

 tails, too voluminous for the limits 

 of this work, to shew that they were 

 not. Our forces were scattered 

 throughout the vast extent of our 

 Fast and West India possessions; 

 that of the enemy was united. The 

 priifie minister himself, not long 

 since, expressed great apprehensions 

 of an immediate invasion j and as a 



i com- 



