In opening the budget for this year the chancellor of the exchequer stated the amount of supplies at about £43,000,000 for England, and £5,700,000 for Ireland. The produce of the war-taxes was estimated at £20,000,000, and among the ways and means was a loan of £8,000,000, and more than £300,000 additional taxes. As Portugal was occupied, Sicily threatened, and Sweden brought to the brink of ruin by its alliance with England, an increase of soldiers and sailors was demanded. The number of seamen voted for the year was 130,000; and the total number of soldiers, cavalry and infantry, was 300,000. All the corps were represented as being in a higher state of discipline than heretofore; and although 24,000 men had been drafted from the militia into the regular army, it was stated that it was nearer to its establishment than it had been last year. On the motion of Lord Castlereagh a bill was introduced for establishing a local militia of 200,000 men, to be trained for twenty-eight days every year; and this bill, which passed into a law, extended to Scotland. Lord Castlereagh moved, likewise, for the insertion of a clause in the mutiny bill, to permit soldiers to enlist for life; and this was carried in spite of the stern opposition of Windham, whose system it affected. Early in the session Mr. Bankes reproduced his bill for preventing the grant of offices in reversion, or for joint lives with benefit of survivorship; but though it passed the commons, it was rejected by the lords. Subsequently he brought forward a new bill, limited to one year’s duration, which passed into a law.
DEBATE ON IRELAND.
In the course of this session there was a vehement debate on Ireland. The late ministry and their friends attributed the disaffection which still prevailed in that unhappy country to the coercive policy of the present administration. The appointment of Dr. Duigenau, to a seat in the privy-council, which took place about this time, was considered as a wanton insult to the feelings of the Irish people; and as Mr. Canning was mainly instrumental in making that appointment, he was unsparingly condemned for the act. Mr. Tierney asked how ministers could suppose, that in recommending such an appointment, they were cherishing that unity and harmony which it appeared to be his majesty’s earnest desire to cultivate. It was the boast of Mr. Canning, he said, to be the representative of Mr. Pitt’s opinions; but, he would venture to say, that if Mr. Pitt were living, he would be ashamed of such an appointment; and that he never would have lent himself to the contemptible system of irritation which the present administration seemed to have adopted. This debate took place on the presentation of the Roman Catholic petition, on which occasion ministers were anxious to elude the question. Opposition, however, not only pressed it upon them in this debate, but also in others, when it was wholly out of place; going occasionally to some unjustifiable lengths, in the way of assertion. Thus Lord Hawkesbury affirmed, that ministers and the country had learned from the disaffected in Ireland, that there were secret engagements in the treaty of Tilsit, which secret engagements he declared in his speech. All the powers of Europe, he said, were to be confederated to engage or seize on the fleets of Denmark and Portugal; and then Ireland was to be attacked from two points, i.e. from Lisbon and Copenhagen. This ministers, he added, had learned from the disaffected in Ireland, and they had never yet found the information of these parties false!
MOTION RESPECTING THE DROITS OF ADMIRALTY, ETC.
Sir Francis Burdett, considering that the proceeds from the droits of admiralty were so large as to become dangerous to public liberty, moved, with a view to ulterior inquiry, that an account of the net proceeds paid out of the court of admiralty since the 1st of January, 1793, with the balances now remaining, be laid before the house, which motion was agreed to. This year witnessed a diminution of rigour in our criminal code. Sir Samuel Romilly introduced a bill to repeal so much of an act of Elizabeth as tended to take away the benefit of the clergy from offenders convicted of stealing privately from the person. A clause was introduced by the solicitor-general, providing that the act, instead of being punished by death, should be punished by transportation for life, or for a term of years, according to the discretion of the judge. During this session a bill was also passed for the better administration of justice in Scotland; its object being to divide the court of session into two chambers of seven or eight judges; to give those courts certain powers for making regulations with respect to proceedings, and to executions in pending appeals, and also for issuing commissions to ascertain those cases in which it might be proper to establish a trial by jury. In the course of this session the charges against the Indian administration of the Marquess Wellesley were fully disposed of by his full and entire acquittal. Sir John Anstruther’s motion, that the noble marquess had been actuated by an ardent zeal for the service of his country, and by an ardent desire to promote the interests, safety, and prosperity of the British empire, was carried by one hundred and eighty-nine against twenty-nine. Subsequently a vote of thanks was given to the noble marquess for his services in the Copenhagen expedition; and in communicating this, the speaker of the house of commons dilated on his Indian exploits, and pointed him out as the officer best fitted to command in chief a great expedition. While parliament was sitting, a grand movement had begun in Spain against the French nation; and Sheridan called the attention of the house to this subject, and demanded its exertions in favour of the Spanish cause. But ministers seemed to think, that though they fully sympathized with the patriots who had taken up arms in that country, the time had not arrived for the interference of England.
PROROGATION OF PARLIAMENT.
Parliament was prorogued by commission on the 4th of July. By this time ministers had become convinced that it was their duty to aid the Spaniards in their struggle against Napoleon; for the commissioners stated, in his majesty’s name, that the Spanish nation must now be considered as the ally of Great Britain, and that it was his majesty’s intention to make every exertion in his power for the support of their cause.