half-pay; and at the time the increase of salary took place, he told the gentlemen, (as he had sworn afterwards on a trial in the court of King's-bench)-" Here is a fair remuneration for you, and if you put one pound beyond it in your pockets, I hope I shall see a halter put about your necks, or witness your punishment in the most exemplary manner." There was no protection afforded to persons who acted fraudu lently, as the hon. gentleman insinuated. Wherever a peculator was discovered, he was prosecuted; and where accounts appeared to be of a very intricate nature, auditors were sent out to examine them on the spot. The honourable gentleman must himself know, that the accounts of Mr. Wigglesworth, who had been sent out to St. Domingo, were thus inspected by a relation of his own; auditors had in like manner been sent to different parts of the West Indies, and to the Peninsula. The general reflections of the hon. gentleman were perfectly unfair. If he knew any case that called for severity, let him state it distinctly, and it would be attended to.

Mr. Baring acknowledged that Mr. Wigglesworth's accounts were correctly settled; but nine or ten years had elapsed first, and they ought to have been audited in as many days. The accounts of the late sir Brook Watson, than whom a more upright man did not exist, were not audited at the present day. It was this system of procrastination of which he complained. In no country in the world was business of this kind carried on in so slovenly a manner; and it was by submitting to it that plundering and peculation were encouraged.

Mr. Bankes, after eulogising the exertions of the committee of national expenditure, proceeded to observe, that the auditors of the public accounts were embarrassed by the old forms of the Exchequer. He had represented this inconvenience to his right hon. friend (Mr. Rose), and proposed that the public accounts should be carried on in the same mode that was adopted by the first mercantile houses; but his suggestion was not attended to.

Mr. Rose observed, that the old forms of the Exchequer could not embarrass the auditors, since the public accounts passed the Exchequer before they were examined by those gentlemen.

Mr. Ponsonby observed, that the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer

seemed to take credit to himself for demanding only eight millions. Now, he would ask, supposing, when he went out of the House, he was required to state for what this sum was required, what answer could he give? Was there a man among them, except the right hon. gentleman himself, who could give any more specific reply than that it was to pay the expenses of the army? Would this be satisfactory; or, would not their constituents require to be put a little in possession of the manner in which this enormous sum was to be expended? For his own part, he considered it highly expedient that the increasing expenses of the army should be brought under the view of the House with as little delay as possible, and in such a shape as to admit of a clear and satisfactory explanation. Without this, it was impossible to put bounds to those excessive disbursements which had of late taken place. He held a paper in his hand, upon which he was desirous of putting a question to the right hon. gentleman; he alluded to an additional article in the treaty with Sweden, which purposed to bear date October 22, 1813, now nearly thirteen months ago, and yet this document had not been put into the possession of parliament till within the last two or three days. He wished to know in what manner the right hon. gentleman could account for this extraordinary delay. And so with regard to another treaty; he alluded to the supplement to the treaty of Chaumont.

This bore date the 23rd of June, and although the House sat till the 30th of July, no intimation upon the subject had been given to them: they had never heard a word of it, as if his Majesty's ministers were emulous to postpone giving to the House that information, which, for every reason, it was important they should receive, till the latest possible period. The right hon. gentleman, no doubt, would be able to satisfy the House on these topics.

It was with extreme difficulty that he could vote for granting such a sum as eight millions, without knowing any thing of the purposes for which it was intended, beyond the fact that it was for military expenses. He did not mean to cast any reflection upon the right hon. gentleman; indeed, he knew not how he was to cast reflection, when he was in total ignorance of the way in which the disbursements were to be made; neither could he praise the public officers, inasmuch as he knew not whether they had

done well or ill. He would be glad to know what the right hon. gentleman meant by the growing expenses of the military service, of which he had spoken? Did he allude to the military system, as it now existed, or to the war that had gone by? If he meant the military now on foot, the proposition was somewhat intelligible; but if he referred to expenses arising out of past events, there was no forming an idea of their magnitude. There was one other head upon which the right hon. gentleman had touched, which he could not but consider extraordinary: he alluded to the subsidy, in money, now paid to the king of Sicily. The right hon. gentleman had said, that we were bound to pay this money, because Sicily was not now at peace. This was certainly a novel doctrine. What, then, because the king of Sicily chose to be at war, perhaps with our nearest and dearest allies, we were bound to furnish him with the means of carrying on his schemes! For aught he knew, it was not improbable that, under such circumstances, the king of Sicily would find it advantageous to be always at war; his treasury might be enriched; and taking the prodigality of England into consideration, he might be considered, upon the whole, as having made a good bargain. At present, he was at war with Naples: whether this war was such as was entitled to the protection of the House, however, was a subject upon which they had yet to be informed. There was another part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's speech which called for explanation. The right hon. gentleman had stated, that of the 75,000 men to be kept on foot by this country, 15,000 were to be paid for by some other state. By whom this expense was to be borne, the House was in perfect ignorance. It was clear, however, that it was not by Hanover; but be it by whom it might, it was to be hoped the expense would not eventually fall on Great Britain. While upon this topic, he could not help expressing a hope that Hanover would give us a little assistance, in return for the assistance which we had occasionally given her. To revert to the expense of these 15,000 men-Holland, perhaps, was to bear the burthen. He hoped such might be the case; for he did not think it good for this country, or for the other powers of Europe, to which we had been in the practice of affording aid, that we should give them too much assistance. It was proper that they should

be called upon to do something to assist themselves, and not be led to depend too much upon us. He had now only to hope, that the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer would answer the questions which he had proposed, as in the future debates on this subject, the information he required would be of the utmost importance.

He,

The Chancellor of the Exchequer observed, that with regard to the treaties which the right hon. gentleman had represented as being complete novelties in the House, it was chiefly his fault, and not that of ministers, if he had not had earlier information. As to the treaty of Chaumont, the right hon. member might have recollected, that at the close of last session, lord Castlereagh had explained its nature, and stated that its not being ratified was the cause of its not being then laid before the House. On the first day parliament had met this session, he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had been called upon by an hon. member near the right hon. gentleman, to give precisely the same explanation he had now produced. therefore, did not expect that any doubt would have remained respecting the causes which had prevented the official appearance of that document before the termination of the last session. With respect to the additional article of the treaty with Sweden, its contents had been discussed during the course of the last session; and he thought it had been long in the possession of the House. He was surprised, he acknowledged, at finding, a short time since, that it had not yet been laid on the table. However, as its provisions had been the subject of much public conversation, he was astonished the right hon. gentleman should assert his total ignorance on the subject. There now remained only one topic, on which further explanation was expected from him. It was the part of the subsidy which was still paid to the king of Sicily. It should be recollected, that our engagement with that country was antecedent to all our treaties with the continental sovereigns, and therefore of a different nature. Those which we had concluded with the powers of the north of Europe, had almost all been signed in 1812 and 1813. But the king of Sicily had, at a much earlier period, lost his Neapolitan dominions, and been driven from his continental capital, in consequence of his fidelity to us. It was on this ground that he was taken under

British protection, and his second kingdom was guarded by British troops. It was in 1809 that a treaty to that effect was entered into with him, the provisions of which were of course different from our subsequent arrangements with other powers. We then bound ourselves to continue the payment of the subsidy during the whole course of the war subsisting between him and France, as the latter had set up a rival king against him. Sicily was not yet freed from the consequences of such a war. She was no party to the present state of things. She had not acknowledged the legitimacy of the title of the king of Naples. The only power by which it had been as yet fully recognized, was Austria; and the king of Sicily felt himself justly entitled to receive the subsidy, until his claim to the kingdom of Naples had been settled either by indemnity or restoration: then all payment on our part would cease. Had we withdrawn our protection from him at the time we signed the treaty of Paris, how ungenerous would have been our conduct! We should have abandoned him without any security, who had incurred his losses and perils on our account; for what would have prevented the king of Naples from invading Sicily, had its shores no longer been lined with British warriors?

Mr. Ponsonby said, he was not in the House at the time when the substance of the supplementary treaty had been communicated in the last session; but the Chancellor of the Exchequer had no reason to be surprised at his want of information, when he himself, as he had confessed, had not known that a treaty of the utmost importance to the country had not been laid before the House.

Mr. Whitbread said, he was not astonished that his right hon. friend (Mr. Ponsonby) should have been ignorant of the contents of a treaty which had not been delivered to the House till within the last few days. In this committee, many topics had been introduced relevant to the original and important subject of discussion; but none of those topics was of more special interest than the statement made by his hon. friend respecting the state of the audits. He would not, however, revert to these subjects; but he thought the right hon. gentleman must acknowledge, that he had left the House in complete ignorance of the arrangement entered into with the king of Naples, eo nomine, whilst we were paying a subsidy to the king of

Sicily, who was at war with him. The right hon. gentleman maintained, that it was Austria alone who had entered into a treaty, he should have said, not only of peace, but of alliance with the king of Naples. But he understood, that ministers had been parties to an engagement, by which they bound themselves, in case the king of Sicily should not accept the proffered indemnities for the kingdom of Naples, to leave him to his own resources and his fate. The circumstances in which we were placed, with respect to those two sovereigns, were remarkable; at peace with both of them, and yet paying the one to enable him to support the war which he waged with the other! If these things were concealed here, they were well known on the continent, where our conduct would be seen in its proper light. It should be remembered, that at the time the accession of the king of Naples was obtained, it was considered by every power engaged in the contest, as of the highest importance to the success of the war. Because the service had been performed, it should not be forgotten, nor the king of Naples treated with more indifference than when his alliance was wanted. The right hon. gentleman said, that the king of Sicily had forfeited his continental dominions in our cause, and that we were therefore bound to protect him and his remaining kingdom. But how had we acquitted ourselves of that duty? How had we protected' the royal Sicilian family? He had never been able to develope the mysteries in which the whole of the events which had taken place in Sicily were involved. He could not account for the manner in which the queen of Sicily-(it ought not to pass unnoticed, that ministers no longer added the title of king of Naples to that of king of Sicily)had been deposed and exiled, a member of that very family which we had engaged to protect! If the right hon. gentleman was ignorant of these particulars, he regretted that his colleagues should not have communicated them to him. Before this vote was passed, however, which would sanction the continuance of the payment of a subsidy under the strange circumstances of the present, he thought the House should pause. Besides this, there was the maintenance of a British army in Belgium, which ought also to attract considerable attention. He would not now discuss the policy of the measure, but inquire into the probable expense

which it would entail upon the country. He had heard, that a survey had been aken of the barrier fortresses of Belgium, and an estimate made of the expense which would be required to place them in a state of defence. He had heard, that this estimate amounted to 14 millions, but certainly not less than ten. He wished to know whether such a survey had really been taken, such an estimate been made; whether there was any intention on the part of ministers to call upon the country to bear a share, or the whole of this expenditure? It was said, that the erection of Hanover into a kingdom, was a matter of total indifference to this country: it might be so, if other circumstances were not attached to that event. It was said to have taken place in consequence of a general call, on the part of the German princes, on the Prince Regent, that he should assume the royal dignity in his father's name. The right hon. gentleman had even treated the House with a tiny joke on the occasion, and he was so unused to this progeny of his brain, that he was busy with it, as a hen with one chicken. He had said that the title of elector had become ridiculous, because there was no one elected. In Germany there might have been a danger of electors without an elected in this country, by a strange contrast, there were many elected without any electors. The call of the grand dukes and kings of Germany on the Prince Regent, reminded him of the fabled assembly of animals, in which a fox proposed that they should cease wearing tails; and the person of the mover being examined, it was found that his own had been cut off. Thus, because the German sovereigns had degraded themselves by accepting the kingly dignities and titles which Buonaparté had heaped upon them, they now wished to involve the Prince Regent in their own predicament, and reduce him to their own level. But if the erection of Hanover into a kingdom was a matter of indifference to this country, the same was not the case with regard to the aggrandizement of the Hanoverian territory. The more extensive that kingdom should become, the more likely it was to draw this country, at some future period, into a new continental war. He would be glad to know how the money, which was to be advanced for the support of the 15,000 Hanoverian troops employed, was to be repaid. That was a secret which the right hon. gentleman did not choose to tell.

But the right hon. gentleman might keep it to himself, provided he would assure the House that the sum in question would be paid by some continental power. But, if he shrunk from doing that, he should consider every farthing of the money which the House was now called upon to vote on that account, as entirely lost. With regard to an expression used by the right hon. gentleman, that future increased exertions should be made, he feared that ministers really began to feel their necessity: they now acknowledged, for the first time, that the contest with America (and the public were of the same opinion) was likely to plunge the country in frightful expense. We were unfortunately engaged in the war, and as, it could not be terminated at once, it must be carried on. But he also thought that they had more than surmises on which to found their apprehensions that the war would grow exceedingly expensive. He thought that they knew facts which justified their fears, and that they had not dealt fairly with the public in withholding their appearance. He believed that they had been for forty hours, or more, in possession of intelligence of a disastrous nature from America, which they had shrunk from communicating to the country. He understood they had received sir George Prevost's account of the unfortunate failure at Plattsburgh, and believed that his subsequent retreat had been very disastrous in several points of view, although little loss might have been suffered in killed and wounded on the part of the enemy. Though on a former occasion he had taken the defence of that officer, and had urged, that no judgment should be formed upon his conduct until sufficient evidence should be produced, it was not his wish to screen him from any blame he might deserve. He therefore called upon the right hon. gentleman to state, why, being in possession of sir George Prevost's official dispatches, he had not laid them before the public? He understood that sir George Prevost had crossed the Canadian frontiers at the head of an army of 12,000 men; that in six days he had arrived at Plattsburgh; and that after his repulse, he had retreated in two days through that very extent of country, which, in his advance, he had not been able to march through in less than six; that although not overtaken or pursued by the enemy, he had lost in this rapid retreat 2,000 men by desertion; that these were not the militia of the