EXTRAORDINARY MOTION IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

When the house of lords took into consideration the several estimates of the expense occasioned by the forces in the pay of Great Britain, earl Stanhope, at the close of an elegant speech, moved for an address, to beseech and advise his majesty, that in compassion to his people, loaded already with such numerous and heavy taxes, such large and growing debts, and greater annual expenses than the nation at any time before had ever sustained, he would exonerate his subjects of the charge and burden of those mercenaries who were taken into the service last year, without the advice or consent of parliament. The motion was supported by the earl of Sandwich, who took occasion to speak with great contempt of Hanover; and, in mentioning the royal family, seemed to forget that decorum which the subject required. He had, indeed, reason to talk with asperity on the contract by which the Hanoverians had been taken into the pay of Great Britain. Levy-money was charged to the account, though they were engaged for one year only, and though not a single regiment had been raised on this occasion; they had been levied for the security of the electorate; and would have been maintained if England had never engaged in the affairs of the continent. The duke of Bedford enlarged upon the same subject. He said it had been suspected, nor was the suspicion without foundation, that the measures of the English ministry had long been regulated by the interest of his majesty’s electoral territories; that these had been long considered as a gulf into which the treasures of Great Britain had been thrown; that the state of Hanover had been changed, without any visible cause, since the accession of its princes to the throne of England; affluence had begun to wanton in their towns, and gold to glitter in their cottages, without the discovery of mines, or the increase of their commerce; and new dominions had been purchased, of which the value was never paid from the revenues of Hanover. The motion was hunted down by the new ministry, the patriot lord Bathurst, and the earl of Bath, which last nobleman declared, that he considered it as an act of cowardice and meanness, to fall passively down the stream of popularity, to suffer his reason and integrity to be overborne by the noise of vulgar clamours, which had been raised against the measures of government by the low arts of exaggeration, fallacious reasonings, and partial representations. This is the very language which sir Robert Walpole had often used against Mr. Pulteney and his confederates in the house of commons. The associates of the new secretary pleaded the cause of Hanover, and insisted upon the necessity of a land-war against France, with all the vehemence of declamation. Their suggestions were answered; their conduct was severely stigmatized by the earl of Chesterfield, who observed, that the assembling an army in Flanders, without the concurrence of the states-general, or any other power engaged by treaty, or bound by interest, to support the queen of Hungary, was a rash and ridiculous measure; the taking sixteen thousand Hanoverians into British pay, without consulting the parliament, seemed highly derogatory to the rights and dignity of the great council of the nation, and a very dangerous precedent to future times; that these troops could not be employed against the emperor, whom they had already recognised; that the arms and wealth of Britain alone were altogether insufficient to raise the house of Austria to its former strength, dominion, and influence; that the assembling an army in Flanders would engage the nation as principals in an expensive and ruinous war, with a power which it ought not to provoke, and could not pretend to withstand in that manner; that while Great Britain exhausted herself almost to ruin, in pursuance of schemes founded on engagements to the queen of Hungary, the electorate of Hanover, though under the same engagements, and governed by the same prince, did not appear to contribute any thing as an ally to her assistance, but was paid by Great Britain for all the forces it had sent into the field, at a very exorbitant price; that nothing could be more absurd and iniquitous than to hire these mercenaries, while a numerous army lay inactive at home, and the nation groaned under such intolerable burdens. “It may be proper,” added he, “to repeat what may be forgotten in the multitude of other objects, that this nation, after having exalted the elector of Hanover from a state of obscurity to the crown, is condemned to hire the troops of that electorate to fight their own cause; to hire them at a rate which was never demanded before; and to pay levy-money for them, though it is known to all Europe that they were not raised for this occasion.” All the partisans of the old ministry joined in the opposition to earl Stanhope’s motion, which was rejected by the majority. Then the earl of Scarborough moved for an address, to approve of the measures which had been taken on the continent; and this was likewise carried by dint of numbers. It was not, however, a very eligible victory; what they gained in parliament they lost with the people. The new ministers became more odious than their predecessors; and people began to think that public virtue was an empty name.

But the most severe opposition they underwent was in their endeavours to support a bill which they had concerted, and which had passed through the house of commons with great precipitation; it repealed certain duties on spirituous liquors, and licenses for retailing these liquors; and imposed others at an easier rate. When those severe duties, amounting almost to a prohibition, were imposed, the populace of London were sunk into the most brutal degeneracy, by drinking to excess the pernicious spirit called gin, which was sold so cheap that the lowest class of the people could afford to indulge themselves in one continued state of intoxication, to the destruction of all morals, industry, and order. Such a shameful degree of profligacy prevailed, that the retailers of this poisonous compound set up painted boards in public, inviting people to be drunk at the small expense of one penny; assuring them they might be dead drunk for two-pence, and have straw for nothing. They accordingly provided cellars and places strewed with straw, to which they conveyed those wretches who were overwhelmed with intoxication. In these dismal caverns they lay until they recovered some use of their faculties, and then they had recourse to the same mischievous potion; thus consuming their health, and ruining their families, in hideous receptacles of the most filthy vice, resounding with riot, execration, and blasphemy. Such beastly practices too plainly denoted a total want of all policy and civil regulations, and would have reflected disgrace upon the most barbarous community. In order to restrain this evil, which was become intolerable, the legislature enacted that law which we have already mentioned. But the populace soon broke through all restraint. Though no license was obtained, and no duty paid, the liquor continued to be sold in all corners of the streets, informers were intimidated by the threats of the people, and the justices of the peace, either from indolence or corruption, neglected to put the law in execution. The new ministers foresaw that a great revenue would accrue to the crown from a repeal of this act; and this measure they thought they might the more decently take, as the law had proved ineffectual; for it appeared that the consumption of gin had considerably increased every year since those heavy duties were imposed. They therefore pretended, that should the price of the liquor be moderately raised, and licenses granted at twenty shillings each to the retailers, the lowest class of people would be debarred the use of it to excess; their morals would of consequence be mended; and a considerable sum of money might be raised for the support of the war, by mortgaging the revenue arising from the duty and the licenses. Upon these maxims the new bill was founded, and passed through the lower house without opposition; but among the peers it produced the most obstinate dispute which had happened since the beginning of this parliament. The first assault it sustained was from lord Hervey, who had been divested of his post of privy-seal, which was bestowed on lord Gower, and these two noblemen exchanged principles from that instant. The first was hardened into a sturdy patriot, the other suppled into an obsequious courtier. Lord Hervey, on this occasion, made a florid harangue upon the pernicious effects of that destructive spirit they were about to let loose upon their fellow-creatures. Several prelates expatiated on the same topics; but the earl of Chesterfield attacked the bill with the united powers of reason, wit, and ridicule. Lord Carteret, lord Bathurst, and the earl of Bath, were numbered among its advocates; and shrewd arguments were advanced on both sides of the question. After very long, warm, and repeated debates, the bill passed without amendments, though the whole bench of bishops voted against it; and we cannot help owning, that it has not been attended with those dismal consequences which the lords in the opposition foretold. When the question was put for committing this bill, and the earl of Chesterfield saw the bishops join in his division, “I am in doubt,” said he, “whether I have not got on the other side of the question; for I have not had the honour to divide with so many lawn sleeves for several years.”