58 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1810. 



jesty's ministers, with whom his 

 colleagues had daily opportunities 

 of communication, andfromwhom 

 it was to be supposed they must 

 have learnt those circumstances 

 detailed in the narrative, each of 

 which imperiously demanded an 

 inquiry. An inquiry, however, 

 had been deemed unnecessary by 

 his majesty's confidential servants. 

 It would be recollected also, that 

 the ministers who had thus ad- 

 vised his majesty to refuse inquiry 

 into the petition of his subjects, 

 where inquiry was so imperiously 

 demanded, were the same minis- 

 ters who, on a former occasion, 

 when a petition from the same 

 corporation called for inquiry into 

 the disgraceful affair of the con- 

 vention of Cintra, had advised his 

 majesty to reprove the citizens 

 of London for thus coming to ask 

 for inquiry ; and to state, that his 

 majesty was desirous at all times 

 to institute inquiry, whereas, in 

 that case the hopes and expecta- 

 tions of the nation had been dis- 

 appointed. Under the impression, 

 therefore, that his majesty's minis- 

 ters could not have been ignorant 

 of the facts and circumstances de- 

 tailed by their colleague, the mas- 

 ter-genera! of the ordnance, in his 

 narrative, as commander in chief 

 of the expedition to the Scheldt, 

 of circumstances, each of which 

 most imperiously called for in- 

 quir}', as well for the purpose of 

 satisfying the country and the 

 public, as for clearing that profes- 

 sion, which was so important and 

 valuable to the dearest interests of 

 the country ; he fell it his duty to 

 move for an address to his majesty, 

 "praying that his majesty would 

 be graciously pleased to inform 

 tiie House who it was that advised 



his majesty to return the answer 

 to the city of London, respecting 

 the expedition to the Scheldt, 

 that his majesty had not deenaed 

 it necessary to " institute any in- 

 quiry." 



The earl of Liverpool said, if 

 the object of the noble marquis 

 was merely to know who it was 

 that advised his m;ijesty to return 

 the answer alluded to, he had not 

 the smallest objection to state, 

 that tiie whole of his majesty's 

 ministers had concurred in advising 

 his majesty to give that answer, 

 with the exception of the earl of 

 Chatham, who had not attended 

 the deliberations on that subject. 

 It was open, therefore, to the 

 noble marquis to make that answer 

 the subject of any accusation that 

 he might think it proper to urge 

 against his majesty's ministers. 

 He was prepared to meet the noble 

 marquis on the ground of that 

 answer. His majesty's ministers 

 bad no more right to call on lord 

 Chatham for papers ordocuments, 

 than upon the commander of any 

 other expedition. There was no 

 ground for a military inquiry ; nor 

 any precedent for an inquiry in 

 the case of conjoint military and 

 naval service; nor could it, with 

 any propriety, take place, where 

 the military and naval code dif- 

 fered in so many material points. 

 The only place in which a case 

 of that kind could be fully gone 

 into was parliament, and to par- 

 liament it had been referred. The 

 original design of the expedition 

 was, that the attack upon Ant- 

 werp should be simultaneous with 

 that on Walcheren, which pro- 

 ceeded on the supposition, that 

 Flushing might have been masked 

 while the attack was made on Ant- 



