except such as were already before the House. He did, however, feel that ministers were accountable to parliament for the application of the money to the public service. The noble marquis asked, whether the money to be paid by France to this country was to be considered as the money of the Crown or of the country? There were two sums-the one, a general sum of 700 millions of francs; the other, a sum to be paid for the use of the army to be kept in France; and he would answer thus far, that, for the application of both to the public service, ministers were accountable to parliament. With respect to the latter sum, it certainly would be more convenient that it should be immediately imprest for the payment of the army, and it was intended that it should be so. But still he conceived that parliament was entitled to a due account of its application. This was his feeling on the subject; but he did not consider himself called upon to give any answer to the abstract question.

Lord Grenville said, he did not ask the noble earl to give any opinion on the abstract question; this was, however, not merely an abstract question, but a point of constitutional principle, of the highest importance, which must be decided upon at every step which ministers might take with reference to this matter. It was impossible for them to take the least step in practice, in the application of this money, without deciding the question, whether or not this money was the property of the sovereign individually, or the money of the country, to be under the control and at the disposal of parliament. It was a very different question, indeed, whether the ministers were to be considered as accountable to parliament for the due application of this money, and whether the money itself was to be at the disposal and under the control of parliament. Accountable to parliament! Why so, they were for the proper exercise of the clearest and most undoubted rights and prerogatives of the Crown. But the question here was, what were the rights of the Crown, and what were the rights of parliament? He did not wish the noble earl to discuss that matter at present, or to enter into a detail of what had been done, or what opinions had been held on the subject; but he trusted that whatever inaccuracies or errors might have been fallen into in past arrangements, proper care would be taken in future, that no

thing should be done which trenched on the rights of parliament, and that money should not be paid to the sovereign individually, to be at his own private disposal, where it ought to be given, merely as the head of the government of the country, to be applied, under the control of parliament, to the public service. It was one of the most important principles of the British constitution, that the money for the payment of the army should be issued from the exchequer under the control of parliament; and unless this principle was preserved entire, one of the two great principles upon which the authority of parliament rested-the power of the purse

-was gone. He did not wish to press the matter at present; but their lordships would be pleased to remember that it was a question of no light moment, for every step taken in the business was in practice a decision upon a point of the very highest constitutional magnitude and importance.

PEACE ESTABLISHMENT.] The order of the day for summoning their lordships being read,

Lord Grenville rose. He said, that when he gave notice of the motion which he was now about to submit to their lordships, and took the liberty of proposing that their lordships should be summoned, he did not anticipate any opposition to the production of the paper which he intended to call for; and since he had come down to the House, he had still further reason to believe that the motion was not to be opposed. It certainly rested on very strong grounds. If he had understood that there was any doubt as to the propriety of laying before their lordships this estimate, he should have stated two periods of our history at which motions similar to the present were made, and precisely on the very grounds upon which he now moved. The first was in the year 1742, when this country had entered into pecuniary engagements for the support of some points of continental policy. After the result of one campaign, a proposal was made for some additional measures for the furthe rance of the same object, and for making good engagements which the Crown had, with the same view, already entered into. The lords at that period, in order to enable them the better to judge of the necessity or expediency of further engagements of that nature, thought it right that they should be informed of what would be the probable amount of the whole military

expenditure for the purposes then under consideration, and an order was accordingly made that the estimates should be laid before them. The other instance was still more exactly in point. In 1756, the lords called for the estimates of the year, in order to ascertain in what manner the blessings of peace could be best secured to the country. To enable their lordships now to do their duty, and to see how the benefits and blessings of peace could be best secured and preserved to the country, they ought to have the military estimates of the year before them. And their lordships would observe, that at the period which he had last mentioned, the estimate was produced to the House on the very same day that the treaty of peace was laid on their table; so that it then appeared impossible to separate the consideration of the propriety and policy of the peace itself from that of the military expenditure which might be necessary in time of peace. On these precedents he called for the production of this document. He called for it, first, because the country was at present called upon to execute extensive pecuniary engagements: and next, because, whether the treaty should be ratified, and the conduct of those who concluded it approved, or whether it should be ratified out of regard to the national faith-whether the conduct of those who concluded it should be approved or not-in every view, it was of the highest importance that their lordships should see what was the military expenditure which must accompany the peace. It was highly necessary, when their lordships came to congratulate his royal highness the Prince Regent on the restoration of peace, and the establishment of a lawful government in France (and none could more sincerely congratulate his Royal Highness on these events than he should) -it was highly necessary for their lordships to consider whether they could congratulate his royal highness also upon this, that the peace was likely to be permanent; or whether, from the information which they might thus acquire, there was any reasonable ground of alarm on that topic. And, lastly, he called for it, because it was, above all, of the greatest importance, that their lordships should take their share in those duties to the public recommended from the speech to the throne, by watching carefully over the public expenditure. It was important that their lordships should do so, because,

in so doing, they only fulfilled the just expectations of the country; and he was sure their lordships themselves would not be satisfied that they had done their duty, if they were negligent in a matter of such vast consequence to the country. The question which their lordships had now to consider was, whether, after a struggle of twenty-five years, maintained by such immense efforts, and at such vast expense, they were at length to obtain the blessings of that real peace for which they had so long contended, or whether their situation was to be exactly the reverse? Whether they were still to be charged with an im mense military establishment; whether they were now to be called upon to take their rank among the military states of the continent; whether they were to abandon the wise maxims and policy of their forefathers, by which the country had risen to such a height, and had been enabled to make such great exertions, and, at an humble distance, turn servile imitators of those systems which had been the cause of so much distress and calamity to the nations by which they had been adopted and maintained? That was what their lordships had to consider: whether the people of this country, after all that they had done, after all the loyalty and firmness which they had evinced, after all they had suffered, and were still suffering, were to have, not the name of peace, but the establishments of peace-the expenditure and taxation of peace? And it was with that view that he now endeavoured to bring this document before them. For his own part, he pledged himself to their lordships and to the country, that never, either in that house or elsewhere, would he fail to give the most strenuous opposition in the power of so humble an individual as himself, to any attempts to entail such a monstrous burthen on the nation, and to lay the foundation of such ruin to the constitution as must follow from the maintenance, in time of peace, of an immense military establishment. He could not help, last year, expressing his dread that some such proposition was likely to be brought forward. His apprehensions were then considered as visionary; but he fairly confessed, that the utmost stretch of his imagination never came nearly to the amount of expenditure which was spoken of out of doors as likely to be proposed. He never did for a moment conceive, and he could hardly yet believe, that it was intended to keep up in time of

In 1791 the whole matter was laid before parliament, and instead of 14 millions, of which they now heard, the question then was, whether the military expenditure should be 1,600,000 or 1,800,000/.? And when at length it was fixed at 1,800,000%. the very next year the minister came down to the house, and proposed-he thought it worth his while to propose-a reduction of 50,000l.-no bad proof that it was not then thought that the military expenditure had been fixed at too low a rate. Their lordships now heard of eight millions for the navy. The expenditure then proposed for the navy was two millions, or 1,800,000/.; and when it was fixed at 2,000,000l. a reduction was afterwards made in it to the extent of 100,000/ He had heard it was said, that the great man who was then minister had changed his opinion, and had observed, that in acting to the best of his judgment, in requiring only 1,800,000l. for the army, and 1,800,000l. or two millions for the navy, he thought, on reflection, that he had illdischarged his duty. It was his fortune to have lived on the most intimate terms of communication and friendship with thas great man. It was difficult for him, at such a distance of time, positively to assert a negative. But he did most positively declare and he trusted their lordships would do him the justice to believe that he spoke as if he were on oath at their bar-that he had not the smallest recollection, that he had no belief, that Mr. Pitt ever expressed himself otherwise on that subject than in terms of self-congratulation and conscious satisfaction that he had, by the most scrupulous economy, at that time enabled the country to meet that dreadful period of trial, which it had afterwards to encounter. In 1792, Mr. Pitt in another place, and himself in their lordships House, referred to the circumstance as a proof that those who had proposed such a reduction then did not will ingly plunge into war in 1793. Mr. Pitt might have said, that if he had known in 1792 what was to have happened in 1793, he would not have wished the establishment to be so low in 1792. And he said now, that if he could have then foreseen the extent to which the madness of the French revolutionists would have gone, and the extent of the folly, not to say treachery, of those who then directed the counsels of the king of France, he would have proposed a higher military establishment in 1792. But, as to (2 L)

peace, and in this year of peace, an army | of 150,000 men. And if any thing could add to the astonishment and horror which he felt when he heard of such an intention, it was this, that an army of 50,000 men was to be kept up in the united kingdom. When that should be proposed, he trusted that time and opportunity would be given to discuss the proposition. He trusted that it was not in the course of one night, or one debate, that their lordships were to be persuaded so far to abandon the maxims and policy of their ancestors, as to cast away the hope of the blessings of peace and freedom. For his own part, feeling as he did every year still less and less desire to share in the debates and labours of that House, yet, if such a measure as this were really to be brought forward, there was no exertion of which he was capable, that should be spared to prevent so great a misfortune. And should such a measure be at last adopted, if any reflection could then sooth the declining years of his life, it would be this-that no poor effort which could be made by so humble an individual as himself had been wanting to avert from his country such a calamity. He should now proceed to move-but he had forgotten another point upon which he intended to have troubled their lordships. He need make no apology for being warm. This was a subject upon which some degree of warmth might be permitted. But it was his wish on this occasion to have called their lordships attention to the state of our establishment in a former period of peace -he meant the period between 1783 and 1793. The establishment of that period was now to be not only doubled or trebled, but, quadrupled, quintupled, sextupled, though the amount of that establishment was founded upon circumstances not now existing, and was larger than a proper policy would at present justify. Instead of joining those who argued that our present military establishment ought to be superior to that which was then maintained, he should come to the House prepared to show that parliament would not do its duty, unless it insisted upon an establishment below that which then existed. He well remembered that at that period there was considerable doubt whether the establishment was not larger than the circumstances called for. The subject was much discussed, and the propriety of so large an establishment was rested on the peculiar circumstances of Europe at that period. `(VOL. XXXII.)

the period between 1783 and 1792, he would say for himself, and undertake like wise to say for Mr. Pitt, that if they had been fully aware of what was to follow, they would not have proposed a higher establishment, for they were convinced that nothing but the lowness of the expenditure at that time could enable the country to meet the expenses and sacrifices which it was afterwards called upon to endure. And if, for the benefit of this country and of mankind, we could now be blessed with the presence of that great man, he was fully persuaded that such would be the sentiment which he would express. If, then, any thing were wanting, in addition to the sense of duty and a due regard to the public welfare, the weight of the authority of that great man must be taken into account. He was convinced, that if Mr. Pitt were now alive, he would, on the ground which had been stated, have anxiously enforced the propriety of a low military expenditure at this period of peace and it was only by following the plan of that great man, and bringing the expenditure for the army and the navy to the very lowest practicable point, that any hope remained of extricating the country from those difficulties in which it was in volved, and relieving it from those burthens which pressed so heavily upon it. He repeated, that against the monstrous attack upon the constitution implied in this enormous military establishment in a time of peace no efforts of his should be spared, and he trusted their lordships would exert their constitutional powers to prevent the country from being subjected to this grievous and ruinous burthen. The noble baron concluded by moving, "That an humble address be presented to the Prince Regent, praying that his royal highness would be graciously pleased to give directions to the proper officer to lay before the House the estimates for the military service for the present year."

The Earl of Liverpool said, that he did not rise to offer a single word in opposition to the motion of the noble lord; on the contrary, he should be ready and anxious to supply all the information required. When the discussion should regularly come before the house, he should be prepared to meet all inquiry, point by point, in justification of the measures adopted by himself and his colleagues in office. He was willing that the question should be put upon this issue, whether a public necessity, or at least a public

urgency, had not existed for every measure adopted in the formation of the peace establishment of Great Britain; and if the affirmative were not satisfactorily made out, for his own part he should submit to any censure, however severe, that parliament might think fit to pass upon his conduct. Such being his view of the subject, it might be supposed that all his duty now required was, to give his assent to the motion, reserving until a future day a more detailed explanation. But even if the noble lord had not thought fit to make the address he had just submitted, such extraordinary and unreasonable fears had been excited upon this subject, that he should not rest satisfied in the complete discharge of his duty, if he did not take this opportunity of entering more at large into several of the points, for the sake of removing some of these ill-grounded and idle misapprehensions. If such a line of conduct would have been necessary, even had the motion been simply put from the woolsack, it was imperiously demanded, after what their lordships had that night heard, no doubt with astonishment, not, indeed, at the maxims uttered and principles laid down by the noble lord; not at the anxiety he expressed, and in which all men joined, that not a single guinea should be expended that was not called for by an overpowering necessity; but at the extraordinary view he had taken of the necessities of the country in the cir cumstances in which it was now placed. The earl of Liverpool said, he knew of no fairer mode of considering the subject under discussion than that which had been elsewhere adopted, namely, to consider coolly and deliberately, first, the real state of the nation with respect to her own dominions and those of foreign powers, and then inquire what establishment was necessary to preserve the integrity of her possessions, and to maintain the rank in peace that she had acquired in war. noble lord had said much upon the subject of the peace establishment of 1792, and of its comparative economy; but surely he could not be ignorant that the present half-pay of the army, and the many additional allowances granted (as he had originally contended, extravagantly and improperly) by parliament, would actually amount to more than the whole extent of the military establishment before the year 1792. Was the House to dismiss from its consideration these important circumstances? Was it to forget

The