1803-] 
for the ensuing” year to be laid before you, in 
the fullest confidence that your loyalty and 
public spirit will induce you to make such 
provision for the public service as the ur- 
gency of affairs may require. 
‘¢ His Majesty has great satisfaction in 
informing you, that, notwithstanding the 
difficulties which the enemy has endeavoured 
to impose upon the commerce of his subjects, 
and upon their intercourse with other na- 
tions, the resources of the country have con- 
tinued in the last year to be soabundant, as to 
have produced, both from the permanent and 
temporary revenue, a receipt considerably 
larger than that of the preceding year, 
‘© The satisfaction which his Majesty feels 
assured you will derive, in common with his 
Majesty, from this proof of the solidity of 
these resources, cannot but be greatly in- 
creased, if, as his Majesty confidently hopes, 
it shall be found possible to raise the neces- 
sary supplies for the present year, withoug 
any material addition to the public burtheas. 
‘© My Lords and Gentlemen, 
‘© We are especially commanded to say to 
you, in the name of his Majesty, that, if 
ever there was a just and national war, it is 
that which his Majesty is now compelled to 
prosecute.—-[his war is in its principle purely 
defensive. His Majesty looks but to the at- 
tainment of a secure and honourable peace; 
but such a peace can only be negotiated upon 
a footing of perfect equality. 
“© The eyes of Kurope and of the world 
are fixed upon the British parliament. 
‘© Tf, as his Majesty confidently trusts, 
you display in this crisis of the fate of the 
country the characteristic spirit of the British 
nation, and face unappalled the unnatural 
combination which is gathered around us, 
his Majesty bids us to assure you of his firm 
persuasion, that under the blessing of Divine 
- Providence, the struggle will prove success- 
ful and glorious to Great Britain. 
*¢ We are lastly commanded to assure you, 
that in this awful and momentous contest, 
you may rely onthe firmness of his Majesty, 
who has no cause but that of his people ; and 
that his Majesty reciprocally relies on the 
wisdom, the constancy, and the affectionate 
support of his Parliament.’” 
A motion was made in the House of 
Lords, to omit the 4th paragraph in the 
motion for an Address to the Throne, 
(viz. the paragraph respecting the Seizure 
of the Danish Fleet), and the question 
being put “ That the said paragraph do 
stand part of the motion,” the same was 
carned in the affirmative, 
“¢ DissENTIENT, 
‘* Because no proof of hostile intention on 
the part of Denmark has been adduced, nor 
any case of necessity made out to justify the 
attack upon Copenhagen, without which the 
#oeazsure is, in our conception, discreditable 
State of Public Affairs in January. 
69 
to the character and injurious'to the inter- 
ests of this country. 
W.Frepericx. Wassar Hotrand. 
Rawpbon. NorFork. | 
LAUDERDALE. SIDMOUTH.” 
Grey. 
DisseNTIENT, for the above reasons, and 
for those that follow :== 
Because, It has only been through the slow 
and painful progression of many ages, that ci- 
Vilized nations have emerged from a state of 
continual insecurity and violence, by the esta~- 
blishment of an universal publit law, whose 
maxims and precedents have been long ac- 
knowledged to be of the same force and obli- 
gation as the municipal constitutions of parti- 
cular states. A system which has gradually 
ripened with the advancement of learning and 
extension of commerce, and which ought to 
be held sacred and inviolate by all govern- 
ments, as binding the whole civilized world 
under one politic and moral dominion. 
Because, alledged departures from the prin- _ 
ciples and authority of this public law in the 
earliest stages of the French Revolution were 
held out by the parliament of Great Britain, as 
the origin and justification of the first war with 
Revolutionary France, and because in all its 
subsequent stages, the continuance of hostili- 
ties was uniformly vindicated in various acts 
of state, as being necessary for the support 
of the moral and political order of the world, 
against the avowed disregard and subversion of 
it by the different governments of France, in 
their groundless and unprovoked attacks upon 
the independence of unoftending nations. 
Because, the people of Great Britain, on 
being repeatedly called upon by the King and 
Parliament to support the public law thus al- 
ledged to have been violated, and to exhibit 
an example to the most distant ages, of inflex- 
ible national virtue, submitted to the heaviest 
burthens, and sacrificed the most essential ad- 
vantages rather than consent to any peace, 
which was considered by their government as 
an abandonment of their allies, or as an ina- 
dequate security for the rights and privileges 
of other mations. And, because it appears in 
many state papers during the progress of the 
wars with the difierent governments of: 
France, that it was the duty and interest of 
Great Britain, and her pledge to the world, 
to maintain inviolate the acknowledged prin- 
ciples of public law, as the only foundation: 
upon which the relations of peace and amity 
between nations could be supported. 
Because, it is the first and most indispen- 
sible maxim of public law, founded indeed 
upon the immutable principles of justice, that 
no violence should be offered by one state to 
another, nor any intrusion made upon the 
rights, property, independence or security of 
its inhabitants, except upon an aggression by 
such state, and the refusal of adequate satis- 
faction; or in the rare instance of indispensi- 
ble necessity, involving national destruction, 
SUC 
