TO 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1810. 



of such a proceeding in future. 

 But he was not prepared to adopt 

 the strong resolutions proposed. 



Lord Folkstone observed, that it 

 was a principle in the constitution, 

 that the king's advisers should be 

 responsible to the country for the 

 consequences of their ad vice. Now 

 he contended, that if advice was 

 allowed to be given in the same 

 manner as lord Chatham had com- 

 municated his narrative, and with 

 the same request of secrecy, it 

 would be impossible to be furnish- 

 ed with that overt act, the pos- 

 session of which was indispensably 

 necessary, to manifest the inten- 

 tion of the individual. Much had 

 been said of the unfairness of im- 

 puting motives to lord Chatham. 

 That noble lord must have been 

 actuated by some motives or other, 

 be what they might ; for his own 

 part, he had no other way of judg- 

 ing of any man's motives than by 

 his actions; and he confessed, that 

 in the present instance, he thougiit 

 lord Chatham's conduct of a na- 

 ture to warrant the strongest sus- 

 picion of his motives. In the ca- 

 pacity, not of a peer and privy 

 counsellor, but of a general officer, 

 he had obtruded on his majesty's 

 military report, exclusive in its 

 nature, and yet bearing reference 

 in every line of it, to a party that 

 had not the same advantage ; and 

 anticipating that judgment which 

 was to be formed only upon the 

 fair public sources of investiga- 

 tion. A standing army had al- 

 ways, in this free country, been 

 thought dangerous to liberty. It 

 was most dangerous to counte- 

 nance that illega' conjunction of 

 the civil and military duties of the 

 subject, by which one was made 

 necessary to the other, and both 

 ruinous to the general order of 



regulated liberty. In addition to 

 that standing army, wo had now 

 in pay an immense body of fo- 

 reigners, not le'ss than thirty bat- 

 talions. A district of Great Bri- 

 tain had been lately commanded 

 by a foreign officer, a man neither 

 a native nor naturalized in this 

 country. Might not such an alien, 

 following the precedent of lord 

 Chatham, by virtue of his office 

 as a general, poison the royal 

 mind, and, while the nation were 

 stupidlj' gazing on the daring act, 

 which their weakness permitted, 

 overturn the constitution ? 



It may here be proper to state 

 the leading question now before 

 the House, which had led very 

 naturally, in such an assembly as 

 the Houseof Commons, into much 

 free digression. It was allowed, 

 on all hands, that, according to 

 the constitution, the king could 

 do no wrong, and that ministers 

 were responsible to the country, 

 that is, to parliament, for their 

 own conduct in carrying the mea- 

 sures of government into execu- 

 tion. But it was contended, that 

 there was no law against giving 

 secret advice to the king, and that 

 then only were ministers respon- 

 sible for any secret advice they 

 might have given when it was 

 acted upon; when there was a 

 practical result. This was, in fact, 

 the main point on which the de- 

 cision of the most momentous 

 question, before the House, turn- 

 ed. And it was treated in a man- 

 ner suited to its importance by a 

 member distinguished for his pro- 

 found knowledge of parliamentary 

 law, and the constitutional or 

 fundamental law of this country. 



Mr. W. Adam, after some pre- 

 fatory matter, respecting the im- 

 portance oC the question, and the 



