WAR WITH SPAIN.
On the 15th of June Mr. Thomas Townshend moved for an address, praying his majesty not to prorogue parliament, until the inquiry into the conduct of affairs in America should be completed. This motion was negatived, but, on the next day, Lord North gave some information which necessarily prolonged the session. He acquainted the house that the Spanish ambassador, after delivering a hostile manifesto to the secretary of state, had suddenly quitted London. This manifesto, North said, together with a message from the king, would be laid before parliament on the morrow. On the 17th, therefore, the message and the manifesto were introduced. In the message, his majesty declared, in the most solemn manner, that he had done nothing to provoke the court of Spain; that his desire to preserve peace with that court was uniform and sincere; and that his conduct towards that power had been guided by the principles of good faith, honour, and justice. He was the more surprised, he said, at the declaration of Spain, as some of the grievances enumerated in that paper had never come to his knowledge, and as those which had been made known to him had been treated with the utmost attention, and put into a course of inquiry and redress. His majesty’s message concluded by expressing the firmest confidence in the zeal and public spirit of parliament, and the power and resources of the nation. His majesty’s declarations concerning his conduct towards Spain were fully borne out by the manifesto, which was a loose rigmarole, in which scarcely anything else was clear than that war with Great Britain was fully resolved upon. The opposition in both houses took credit to themselves for having prognosticated, in the spirit of true prophets, a war with Spain, and taunted ministers with folly and blindness in imagining that such an event would not take place. Both houses, however, were unanimous in their indignation against Spain, and in their determination of supporting the war against the Bourbons. Addresses to this effect were agreed to; but Lord John Cavendish moved for another address, to be presented at the same time, praying that his majesty would give immediate orders for the collecting of his fleets and armies, and to exert the whole national force against the House of Bourbon. As this motion involved the withdrawal of the troops from America, ministers opposed it, and the secretary at war having moved an adjournment, it was immediately carried by two to one. In the lords, an amendment to the address, moved by the protesting Earl of Abingdon, was also rejected by a large majority; as was also a motion made by the Duke of Richmond, similar in its nature to that made in the Commons by Lord John Cavendish.