French monarch is not the less to be dreaded on account

of economy.

The noble lord, with much exultation, very ill-placed, I think, has told us the national honour does not consist in being the busy meddlers in every European quarrel; and in terms which wanted no explanation, severely condemned the whole system of British politics from the Revolution. He has his system, we well know, though not the author of it; but he and his friends would have been more consistent, had the least opposition ever once been heard from them to continental measures, when in their meridian. But the system is that of blindness and infatuation, held forth as an excuse for that conduct which saw Corsica seized in one part of Europe, and Poland dismembered in another, with the most torpid indifference; when, by having a little of that busy spirit of intermeddling, both might have been prevented by mere force of negociation, had the powers of Europe any respectable idea of this country, once the refuge and protectress of distressed nations. But the time will come, when the new system will be seen in all its impotence and folly; and when the balance of power is destroyed, it will be found of what infinite consequence its preservation would have been.

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The noble lord has apologized for the greatness of our military establishment, by telling us that our enemies may begin with us in the next war with as little ceremony we began with them; but herein he speaks against reason and experience. A great establishment may impoverish, but cannot preserve you; it is impossible for you to have one sufficient for that; if you are secure of peace, it will be too great; if you are in real danger of war, it will ever be too small and insufficient in the hour of want: it is also useless, for a nation can never be surprised: it is talking absurdly to suppose it; a minister who finds himself unexpectedly in a war would deserve to be hanged for a blockhead. Watch the merchants, who read the political hemisphere admirably, and whose motions will always tell you where they apprehend a storm. It is im

possible for a minister of sagacity to be deceived: he will have sufficient notice when any state intends hostilities to prepare for it. But for what do you keep ambassadors, those licensed spies? Are they sent to all the courts of Europe in order to render their country ridiculous? What a bungling system of politics it must be, where a minister is possessed of every means of certain intelligence, and yet talks of a great peace establishment as a means of security against a surprise. Here, therefore, is an instance wherein administration might, upon the principles now avowed, save millions every year to their country.

The noble lord has thrown out much ridicule on those he is pleased to call the orators. He tells you, sarcastically, that the House is much obliged to gentlemen who take the trouble of opposing administration, in order to keep up a proper spirit of enquiry. Upon my word, Sir, the man who honestly and sincerely opposes what he thinks a bad administration, and who persists in it, while others, equally professing, gradually are tired and fall off, is a true and sincere friend to his country; is honest, and not that contemptible being which ministerial followers are so fond of representing him. There are such men in this House, and I trust and hope it never will be without them.

QUEBEC GOVERNMENT BILL.

June 10.

TOWARDS the close of the session a bill passed the Lords,

and was brought down to the Commons, " for making more effectual provision for the government of the province of Quebec in North America." The principal objects of the bill were to ascertain the limits of that province, which were extended far beyond what had been settled as such by the king's proclamation of 1763: to form a legislative council for all the affairs of

that province, except taxation, which council should be appointed by the crown, the office to be held during pleasure; and his majesty's Canadian Roman Catholic subjects were entitled to a place in it: to establish the French laws, and a trial without jury, in civil cases, and the English laws, with a trial by jury, in criminal; and to secure to the Roman Catholic clergy, except the regulars, the legal enjoyment of their estates, and of their tythes from all who are of their own religion. The bill received in the course of its progress through the Commons many amendments, so as to change it very greatly from the state in which it came down from the Lords; but the groundwork remained the same. On the 10th of June, Sir Charles Whitworth having reported the bill, with the amendments that had been made, Mr. Mackworth moved, that a clause should be added to the bill, "That in all trials relating to property and civil rights, where the value shall exceed a certain sum, either of the contending parties may demand a trial by jury, constituted according to the laws of England, and that the issue between the parties shall be determined by the verdict of such jury, and not otherwise." He recommended the clause as a security for the English in Quebec against the French laws. After the clause had been opposed by Lord North, Mr. Attorney General Thurlow, and Mr. Solicitor General Wedderburn; and supported by Mr. Serjeant Glynn and Mr. Dunning,

Mr. BURKE, in a long speech, the first part of which was a keen pointed vein of humour against the ministerial members, who just then came into the House in great numbers, said, he should not then have risen, only he thought he now seized a happy moment when he should carry his point, for the House had filled, all of a sudden, with members who had not heard any thing that had been said against the bill, no not even from its being first agitated in the House; that they had now come with good English dinners in their bellies, which would, he trusted, make them good-humoured, and by being thus full of English meat, they would undoubtedly be for English laws, that could secure to them that meat; that he should have been afraid to attack such a body of power and wisdom as the other side of the House contained, had he not fortunately

eminent services, the vast space he fills in the eye of man kind; and, more than all the rest, his fall from power, which, like death, canonizes and sanctifies a great character, will not suffer me to censure any part of his conduct. I am afraid to flatter him; I am sure I am not disposed to blame him. Let those who have betrayed him by their adulation, insult him with their malevolence. But what I do not presume to censure, I may have leave to lament. For a wise man, he seemed to me at that time, to be governed too much by general maxims. I speak with the freedom of history, and I hope without offence. One or two of these maxims, flowing from an opinion not > the most indulgent to our unhappy species, and surely a little too general, led him into measures that were greatly mischievous to himself; and for that reason, among others, perhaps fatal to his country; measures, the effects of which, I am afraid, are for ever incurable. He made an administration, so checkered and speckled; he put together a piece of joinery, so crossly indented and whimsically dovetailed; a cabinet so variously inlaid; such a piece of diversified Mosaic; such a tessalated pavement without cement; here a bit of black stone, and there a bit of white; patriots and courtiers, king's friends and republicans ; whigs and tories; treacherous friends and open enemies: that it was indeed a very curious show; but utterly unsafe to touch, and unsure to stand on. The colleagues whom he had assorted at the same boards, stared at each other, and were obliged to ask, "Sir, your name?-Sir, you have the advantage of me-Mr. Such-a-one-I beg a thousand pardons-" I venture to say, it did so happen, that persons had a single office divided between them, who had never spoke to each other in their lives; until they found themselves, they knew not how, pigging together, heads and points, in the same truckle-bed.*

* Supposed to allude to the Right Honourable Lord North, and George Cooke, Esq., who were made joint paymasters in the summer of 1766, on the removal of the Rockingham administration.

Sir, in consequence of this arrangement, having put so much the larger part of his enemies and opposers into -power, the confusion was such, that his own principles could not possibly have any effect or influence in the conduct of affairs. If ever he fell into a fit of the gout, or if any other cause withdrew him from public cares, principles directly the contrary were sure to predominate. When he had executed his plan, he had not an inch of ground to stand upon. When he had accomplished his scheme of administration, he was no longer a minister.

When his face was hid but for a moment, his whole system was on a wide sea, without chart or compass. The gentlemen, his particular friends, who, with the names of various departments of ministry, were admitted, to seem, as if they acted a part under him, with a modesty that becomes all men, and with a confidence in him, which was justified even in its extravagance by his superior abilities, had never, in any instance, presumed upon any opinion of their own. Deprived of his guiding influence, they were whirled about, the sport of every gust, and easily driven into any port; and as those who joined with them in manning the vessel were the most directly opposite to his opinions, measures, and character, and far the most artful and most powerful of the set, they easily prevailed, so as to seize upon the vacant, unoccupied, and derelict minds of his friends; and instantly they turned the vessel wholly out of the course of his policy. As if it were to insult as well as to betray him, even long before the close of the first session of his administration, when every thing was publicly transacted, and with great parade, in his name, they made an act, declaring it highly just and expedient to raise a revenue in America. For even then, Sir, even before this splendid orb was entirely set, and while the western horizon was in a blaze with his descending glory, on the opposite quarter of the heavens arose another luminary, and, for his hour, became lord of the ascendant.

This light too is passed and set for ever. You understand, to be sure, that I speak of Charles Townshend,