SESSION OPENED.

On the fourteenth day of November, the king of Great Britain opened the session of parliament with an harangue, which intimated nothing of an approaching rupture. He said, that the general state of affairs in Europe had undergone very little alteration since their last meeting; that he had lately received the strongest assurances from his good brother the king of Spain, of friendship and confidence, which he would cultivate with harmony and good faith. He declared his principal view should be to strengthen the foundation, and secure the duration of a general peace; to improve the present advantages of it for promoting the trade of his good subjects, and protecting those possessions which constituted one great source of their wealth and commerce. Finally, he exhorted them to complete their plan for appropriating the forfeited estates in the highlands to the service of the public. He probably avoided mentioning the encroachments of France, that he might supply no handle for debates on the address, which was carried in both houses almost without opposition. The government seemed determined to humble the insolence of the French councils; and this disposition was so agreeable to the people in general, that they grudged no expense, and heartily concurred with the demands of the ministry.

The commons granted for the service of the ensuing year, four millions seventy-three thousand seven hundred and twenty-nine pounds; one million of that sum expressly given to enable his majesty to augment his forces by land and sea. Thirty-two thousand pounds were allotted as a subsidy to the king of Poland, and twenty thousand to the elector of Bavaria. These gratifications met with little or no opposition in the committee of supply; because it was taken for granted, that, in case of a rupture, France would endeavour to avail herself of her superiority by land, by invading his Britannic majesty’s German dominions; and therefore it might be necessary to secure the assistance of such allies on the continent. That they prognosticated aright, with respect to the designs of that ambitious power, will soon appear in the course of this history; which will also demonstrate how little dependence is to be placed upon the professed attachment of subsidiary princes. The supplies were raised by the standing branches of the revenue, the land-tax and malt-tax, and a lottery for one million; one hundred thousand pounds of it to be deducted for the service of the public, and the remaining nine hundred thousand to be charged on the produce of the sinking-fund, at the rate of three per cent, per annum, to commence from the fifth day of January, in the year one thousand seven hundred and fifty-six. The civil transactions of this session were confined to a few objects. Divers new regulations were made for encouraging and improving the whale and white herring fishery, as well as for finishing and putting in a proper state of defence a new fort, lately built at Anamabo on the coast of Africa.