Sor.) 
againft the propofed inquiry. To the 
other misfortunes, which, under the late 
Adminiftration, we had experienced; we 
had to reckon an addition of 270,000,900]. 
to our national debt, and of 17,000,000]. 
perAinnum to our permanent taxes. Af- 
ter this immenfe and lavifh expenditure of 
the public treafures, we had the mortifi- 
cationto find ourfelves-in a ftate of un- 
exan.. ied humiliation -and diftrefs ; while 
Franc:, by means of our obitinacy and 
our o'ly, had acquired an unprecedented 
extent o| ternitory and of glory, and ob- 
tained the ‘upport of a maritime confe- 
deracy, tne members of which had till of 
Jate been the friends of this country. In 
fuch circumftances it was furely neceflary 
and incumbent upon us to inquire into 
the caufes which had produced fuch ex- 
traordinary events, in order that we might 
guard againit the repetition of our errors, 
ana“provide a fuitable remedy for the mif- 
chief which they had occafioned. The 
rejeétion of the pacific overtures made laft 
year by France—our condué& towards fo- 
reign powers—ihe imprudent and lavith 
expenditure of our money, and the alarm- 
ing fituation of the fitter kingdom—were 
ali fubjeéts which called for the imme- 
diate and moft ferious confideration of 
Parliament. If we-had been fuccefsful in 
a few diftin& abjects, how extremely un- 
fuccefsful had we been in the general 
fcale. We went to war to prevent the 
aggrandizement of France; but no one, 
he was perfuaded, would fay, that we had 
in any refpect accomplifhed that obje&. 
France had fo completely fruftrated all 
our exertions, that, in the negociations 
which we had, entered into with her, we 
had expreffed a willingnefs to abandon 
almoft all thofe conquefts of which we 
were in the habit of boafting fo much, at 
the fame time that France had added to 
her domeftic territory a greater extent of 
country than Louis X1V. in all his dreams 
of ambition ever hoped to acquire. It 
had been well faid by an honourable friend 
of his, that the enemy had extended their 
influence and their conquefts from the 
‘Texel to the Mediterranean. There was 
not a fhore which had not witneffed the 
difgrace of our expeditions. Dunkirk, 
Holland, Toulon, and Quiberon, had, in 
~the commencement of the war, borne am- 
ple teftimony, to our complete ‘difcom- 
fiture. All that Minifters had afked had 
been readily granted, though no objeét 
whatever had, in any diregtion, been ac- 
complifhed by them. The prefent mili- 
tary forces of Gréat Britain, exclufive of 
thofe on the Irifh eftablifhment, amounted 
State of Pubhie Affairs in April, 1801. 
355 
to 168,000 rank and file, a far greater 
army than the country had ever before 
pofleffed. - The great genius that now 
direéts the councils of France, who had 
every thing to find and to create, had con- 
trived; by his extraordinary exertions, to 
lay his enemies completely at his feet, 
while we, who had indignantly rejected 
his overtures of peace, were now complete- 
ly humbled. and ingulphed in misfor- 
tune. The confederacy of the Northern 
Powers, it. was notorious, we had pro- 
voked, and the woeful change which had, 
within the laft year, been effected in our 
fituation—all this (faid Mr. Grey) called 
loudly for immediate inveftigation. He 
would afk every gentleman who heard. 
him, whether, under all thefe circum- 
ftances, he did not confider the affertion 
of the country being in a ftate of profpe- 
rity an infult to his underftanding? He 
mentioned féveral inftances of the poor’s 
rates being enormoufly high, from the vaft 
number of diftrefled perfons, who, in con- 
fequence of the war, had been driven to 
live upon charity. At Birmingham, in 
particular, there are upwards of 15,000 
people actually receiving parifh-alms at 
the prefent moment. Ever fince the recal 
of Lord Fitzwilliam, the fituation of Ire- 
land had been fuch as to fhock humanity. 
He next alluded to the Catholic quettions 
in which Mr. Pitt is ftated to have faid, 
that innumerable obftacles had been found 
to exift againft the Catholic claim. He 
next came to the fubject of the new Ad- 
miniftration. For his own part, he con- 
feffed she could not give them his confi- 
dence ; we had fufficient grounds already 
on which to form an opinion of their me- 
rits. He did not confider them as entitled 
to the confidence of the country. Here 
(Mr. Grey faid) he would leave the im- 
portant queftion to the decifion’ of the 
Houfe. Ifthey thought the country truly 
profperous, and that Minifters had pro- 
duced all the good that could be expected, 
they would in that cafe do well to reject 
his motion. He concluded by movingy 
«© That the Houfe do refsive itfelf into a 
Committee of the whole Houle, to take 
into confideration the ftate of the nation.”” 
Mr. Whitbread feconded the motion. ’ 
Mr. Dundas entered into a long de- 
fence of the lateAdminiftration,‘in which he 
enumerated all the expeditions fince the 
commencement of the war, and concluded 
with voting againft the inquiry. . 
Lord Temple -exprefied his regret at 
the painful neceffity he was under, from a 
fenfe of duty, of differing from thofe with 
whom he had long been accuftomed to 
; Lin concurs 
=- 
