IMPEACHMENT OF LORD MELVILLE.
Early in this session Lord Melville was threatened with impeachment. In February Wilberforce wrote, “Rumour has for some time impeached Lord Melville’s integrity. I have had much talk with George Rose about him. Rose is confident that Pitt will defend him, though he tells me some stories, and strong ones, of jobs which have fallen under his own view.” The storm which menaced Melville fell upon his head in April. In 1803 a bill had been passed, appointing commissioners to make inquiries into the abuses of the naval department. These commissioners produced many reports, the truth of which appeared to implicate Lord Melville, who, while he filled the office of treasurer of the navy, had illegally retained balances of the public money. This report was brought under the consideration of the commons by Mr. Whitbread, who exhibited three charges against Lord Melville:—first, his application of the public money to other uses than those of the naval department, in express contempt of an act of parliament;—secondly, his connivance at a system of peculation in an individual, for whose conduct he was officially responsible;—and, thirdly, his own participation in that system. This second charge had reference to Mr. Trotter, who, it was said, appropriated the public money to private purposes, at the express connivance of Lord Melville. In making these charges Whitbread remarked:—“To the honour of public men, charges like the present have seldom been exhibited; and it is a remarkable circumstance that the only instance, for a long-period, is one that was preferred against Sir Thomas Rumbold by this noble lord himself, on the ground of malversations in India.” With respect to the first point of accusation, it appeared from the report that there had been for several years deficiencies in the accounts of the treasurer of the navy, to the amount of £600,000 a year and upwards. When Lord Melville was asked a plain question respecting the appropriation of this money, he, as well as Trotter, professed total ignorance of the deficiencies; but presently, beginning to recover his recollection, he confessed that from the year 1788 down to the period of his examination, he had been in the habit of drawing out public money, and placing it in the hands of his own bankers. When the commissioners extended their inquiries a little further, he had the assurance to declare that they had no right to interfere in his private affairs. In a letter to the commissioners he acknowledged the fact of advances having been made to him, but said that he could not give the other information required, because he could not disclose state secrets, and because he was not in possession of the accounts of advances made to other departments, having himself committed them to the flames. And not only had the noble lord destroyed the papers, but he had actually lost all recollection of the whole transaction. This was the principal charge against the noble lord; and Mr. Whitbread concluded by moving thirteen resolutions, founded on the circumstances which he developed in making the whole of his charges. Lord Melville was defended by Pitt, who observed that neither the report nor Mr. Whitbread himself alleged that any loss had proceeded from the transactions set forth to the public. The subject, he said, was of a grave and solemn nature; and that if, in a great pecuniary department, irregularities had been committed, though unattended with loss, the house might justly set a mark on such proceedings. As, however, all the circumstances of the case were not before them in the report, he contended that till they were the house could not be in a situation to come to any vote. Pitt moved the previous question; and after some observations from the attorney-general, Mr. Canning, the master of the rolls, and Lord Castlereagh, in support of Pitt’s views,—and from Lord Henry Petty, Messrs. Ponsonby, Fox, and Wilberforce in support of Whitbread’s resolutions, the house divided. On a division there were two hundred and sixteen votes for, and an equal number against Mr. Whitbread’s motion, and the speaker gave a casting vote in its favour. This led to Lord Melville’s retirement from office. On the 10th of April the house was informed that he had tendered his resignation to the king, and that it had been accepted. On the 6th of May Mr. Whitbread proposed the erasure of the delinquent’s name from the list of the privy-councillors; but as Pitt observed that the measure was generally considered expedient, no motion was made on that subject. Later in the session, after a long and able speech, he moved that “Lord Viscount Melville be impeached of high crimes and misdemeanors;” and this measure was adopted on the 25th of June, Mr. Whitbread being appointed manager. On the next day, in company with a great number of members, Whitbread impeached Lord Melville at the bar of the house of lords; and subsequently he brought a bill into the commons to avoid those differences of opinion which had arisen in the case of Warren Hastings, or to prevent the proceedings in the impeachment of Lord Melville from being affected by any prorogation or dissolution of parliament. This bill was carried without a division; but here the proceedings rested for the present. Before any further progress could be made in them, Pitt, on whose health and strength they had operated unfavourably, was laid in Westminster Abbey.