HISTORY OF EUROPE. 



GI 



presented, he might have advised 

 his majesty to give so far a diffe- 

 rent answer, as to declare that 

 the result of the expedition was in 

 a state of inquiry. For although 

 he conceived that a complete an- 

 swer to the insinuations contained 

 in the narrative would be found in 

 the original dispatches, it would 

 have been but justice to require 

 from sir Richard Strachan a coun- 

 ter statement. It was this sense 

 of justice towards the gallant ad- 

 miral that had induced him to ap- 

 prize him of the existence of lord 

 Chatham's narrative (even before 

 he had time to read it himself), 

 although the rapidity with which 

 the narrative was moved for, and 

 produced in the House of Com- 

 mons, did not permit him to send 

 a copy of it to the gallant admiral. 

 Lord Mulgrave repeated what he 

 had said on the first day of the 

 session, that in his opinion the 

 failure of the expedition arose 

 chiefly from adverse winds and 

 unfavourable weather. The earl 

 of Grey admitted that the question 

 ■ at present before the House lay in 

 a very narrow compass, as it re- 

 lated merely to the propriety of 

 ascertaining whether, on the 20th 

 of December, when the answer 

 was given to the address of the 

 Londoners, ministers were, or 

 were not, in possession of the in- 

 formation which had subsequently 

 come out on that subject. He 

 agreed that ministers ought only 

 to have called upon lord Chatham, 

 for information in the character of 

 commander-in-chief. But he con- 

 tended that, independently of the 

 narrative of lord Chatham, there 

 were various circumstances in the 

 diiipatches that called for inquiry, 

 eepecially the change of measures 



after the sailing of the expedition. ' 

 Instances of such cases were de- 

 tailed by 



Lord Grenville. At that period 

 of the debate, lord Grenville did 

 not think of entering into a con- 

 sideration of the question, as it 

 bore upon a service which was at 

 once the pride and the bulwark of 

 the nation. But he could not 

 avoid looking at it in a constitu- 

 tional point of view, when a noble 

 lord, at the head of the admiralty, 

 thought that his ignorance of lord 

 Chatham's narrative, and the ig- 

 norance of the other members of 

 the cabinet, would be sufficient, 

 as it were, to non-suit his noble 

 friend, or to induce him to with- 

 draw his motion. — Lord Grenville 

 said, that in all possible circum- 

 stances, he must deprecate that 

 system of double government, 

 which pushes forward one set of 

 men to the ostensible administra- 

 tion, but invests another set of 

 men, concealed from public view, 

 with all the effective powers of go- 

 vernment. That was the first 

 time their lordships had on their 

 table any paper showing the exist- 

 ence of such a system ; and he 

 had only to regret, that any set of 

 men could be found to counte- 

 nance such a system. 



On a division of the House for 

 lord Lansdown's motion. 

 Contents, 90. 

 Non-contents, 136. 

 On the same day, iVIarch 2, Mr. 

 Whitbread made a specific motion 

 on the subject of the earl of 

 Chatham's narrative, in the House 

 of Commons. Mr. Whitbread, 

 after many remarks on the disin- 

 genuity of ministers, in setting 

 themselves to frustrate the object ' 

 of a course of procedure of their 



