SENTIMENTS OF SOME LORDS TOUCHING THE WAR.

The ministry had by this time secured such a majority in both houses, as enabled them to carry any point without the least difficulty. Some chiefs of the opposition they had brought over to their measures, and among the rest lord Harcourt, who was created a viscount, and gratified with a pension of four thousand pounds. Nevertheless they could not shut the mouths of the minority, who still preserved the privilege of complaining. Great debates were occasioned by the navy debt, which was increased to one million seven hundred thousand pounds. Some members in both houses affirmed, that such extraordinary expense could not be for the immediate service of Great Britain; but, in all probability, for the preservation of foreign acquisitions. The ministers answered, that near two-thirds of the navy debts were contracted in the late reign; and the parliament acquiesced in this declaration; but in reality the navy debt had been unnecessarily increased, by keeping seamen in pay during the winter, and sending fleets to the Mediterranean and Baltic in order to support the interests of Germany. The duke of Wharton moved that the treaty with Spain might be laid before the house. The earl of Sunderland said it contained a secret article which the king of Spain desired might not be made public until after the treaty of Cambray should be discussed. The question was put, and the duke’s motion rejected. The earl of Strafford asserted, that as the war with Spain had been undertaken without necessity or just provocation, so the peace was concluded without any benefit or advantage; that, contrary to the law of nations, the Spanish fleet had been attacked without any declaration of war; even while a British minister and a secretary of state were treating amicably at Madrid; that the war was neither just nor politic, since it interrupted one of the most valuable branches of the English commerce, at a time when the nation groaned under the pressure of heavy debts, incurred by the former long expensive war. He therefore moved for an address to his majesty, desiring that the instructions given to sir George Byng, now lord Torrington, should be laid before the house. This motion being likewise, upon the question, rejected, a protest was entered. They voted an address, however, to know in what manner the king had disposed of the ships taken from the Spaniards. Disputes arose from the bill to prevent infection. Earl Cowper represented, that the removal of persons to a lazaret, or pest-house, by order of the government, and the drawing lines and trenches round places infected, were powers unknown to the British constitution; inconsistent with the lenity of a free government, such as could never be wisely or usefully put in practice; the more odious, because copied from the arbitrary government of France; and impracticable, except by military compulsion. Those obnoxious clauses were accordingly repealed, though not without great opposition. Indeed, nothing can be more absurd than a constitution that will not admit of just and necessary laws and regulations to prevent the dire consequences of the worst of all calamities. Such restrictions, instead of favouring the lenity of a free government, would be the most cruel imposition that could be laid on a free people, as it would act in diametrical opposition to the great principles of society, which is the preservation of the individual.