and wine. Mr. Sheridan also took notice of what had fallen from Mr. Dundas; and said, he had addressed himself to a right honourable gentleman, (Mr. Grenville) and not to him, when he talked of moving for the last accounts from India; but that right honourable gentleman had chosen to avoid a reply. If his right honourable friend (Mr. Fox's) bill had passed, there would have been no necessity for a right honourable and learned gentleman (Mr. Dundas) to come to the house with his Indian budget; which he waited, as he had declared, to have properly shaped. They all understood what shaping East India accounts was; but that shaping would, as he had just declared, have been unnecessary, had his right honourable friends's bill passed; as one of its operations was, to have obliged the accounts of the company to be, from time to time, laid before the house. Mr. Sheridan again recurred to his proposition of a new, a fair, and an impartial committee, to examine and report the real state of the revenue, and its expenditure.

Mr. Grenville replied. Mr. Burke exculpated the secret committee from the charge made upon them, by Mr. Grenville; and added, that so far from Mr. Sheridan being liable to it, he did assure the right honourable gentleman, that the committee had not been assisted by his honourable friend more than once, and then he had given them his company only for half an hour. Mr. Grenville admitted that Mr. Burke had fully cleared himself and the committee from the charge of having made an indiscreet use of their powers; instead, therefore, of Mr. Sheridan being liable to the suspicion that he had suggested of his speaking from too good information on the subject of the state of the company's affairs in India; it was evident he had spoken from no information at all.

Mr. Sheridan desired the right honourable gentleman, when he thought proper to argue upon the degree of information from which he (Mr. Sheridan) had spoken, to rest his arguments on what he admitted to be the information in his possession; and not on what any other person stated it to be. He alone could be a judge of the information in his mind, and the sources from whence that information was derived. The quarter, from whence he had learnt what he hinted at, was an indisputable authority; and such as he should not be ashamed to state to the house.

The resolution was read a second time and agreed to.

APRIL 26.

TAX ON POST HORSES.

Mr. Rose brought up the bill for farming the tax on post horses.

MR. SHERIDAN having observed, that it would not be necessary to do more than take up a short time of the house, stated several arguments against the bill; and particularly contended, that the house could not delegate the powers of the executive government to others, who were not amenable to that house. With regard to the ridicule which the right honourable gentleman had been pleased to throw upon the suggestion of an honourable gentleman who sat on the bench with the chancellor of the exchequer (Mr. Bastard), with respect to the mode of ascertaining what the produce of the post-horse tax ought to beby getting at an account of the number of horses kept by the innkeepers throughout the kingdom-there was nothing nearly so ludicrous in that, as in some of the modes of regulating the collection, and carrying some of the right honourable gentleman's own taxes into effect, which he had at different times proposed to the house. He remembered-among other most ridiculous ideas, which the right honourable gentleman had stated with respect to his horse tax-the obliging persons to put up the names, characters, and qualities of the horses they kept, on the church-doors; and another, of stamping the accoutrements of the horses at the turnpike-gates, as they passed. The right honourable gentleman was so remarkable for disturbing, shifting, and changing the mode of collection of the taxes, that his desire to put the post-horse tax out to farm for a term of years, appeared to him as if the right honourable gentleman was so conscious of his own propensity to meddle with the collection of the taxes, that he knew he could not trust himself; and, therefore, he was determined to put it out of his power to touch the post-horse tax for three years to come. He could not otherwise account for his proposing a scheme so irreconcileable to the principles of the British constitution. What the right honourable gentleman had said respecting the excise, Mr. Sheridan admitted was perfectly just, when applied to the excise as a mode of collecting a part of the revenues, recognized by parliament, and established and existing in the country; but the case would have proved widely different, had there been no such thing as

an existing excise. With respect to what had fallen from an honourable gentleman, who had said that he would support the bill, because he did not think that there was any thing unconstitutional in its contents; but that he was a zealous friend to the constitution, and had resisted two bills, which he thought likely to affect the constitution in church and state; he presumed, he alluded to the good old cause of clamour, his right honourable friend's East India bill, and to the bill in favour of the dissenters, moved for by the honourable gentleman behind him (Mr. Beaufoy). If so, the honourable gentleman was welcome to his boast, and all the credit which belonged to it; but, undoubtedly, the bill then under consideration was a much more violent, as well as a more dangerous, attack on the constitution. Mr. Sheridan took notice of Sir Joseph Mawbey's declaration, that he had entertained sentiments of alarm and jealousy respecting the measure; but that he was now satisfied he might safely support it. The honourable baronet was the most easily satisfied of any man he ever heard of; for, what had fallen from the right honourable the Chancellor of the Exchequer ?—nothing more than a desire, that gentlemen would wait till the bill was printed, and till they knew its contents, before they made up their minds upon it.

The question was put, and the house divided; ayes 76; noes 39. The bill was read a first time.

APRIL 27.

BILL FOR MORE EFFECTUALLY MANNING THE BRITISH NAVY.

MR. SHERIDAN moved for leave to bring in a bill, respecting which, he said, he should have no occasion to trouble the house long; as the bill was, in some measure, the same with one which the house had entertained during the course of the last session, excepting that the obnoxious clauses were left out. Mr. Sheridan declared, he had not himself made up his mind as to the whole of its present contents; but all he meant to do then was, to move for leave to bring it in; to have it read a first time, and printed; and then to leave it till the next session, for the consideration of gentlemen during the recess. He added, farther, that he should graft a plan upon it, for the advantageous employment of those youths who now led a life of infamy and idleMr. Sheridan concluded with moving,

ness.

"That leave be given to bring in a bill, more effectually to supply His Majesty's ships of war with seamen, when occasion shall require; and to encourage men, under certain regulations and bounties, voluntarily to engage themselves for that service, whenever they shall be duly called for."

Mr. Brett complained of having been attacked and vilified in the newspapers, by the authors of the bill, by name, for the language which he held in that house respecting it as a member of parliament.

Such abuse he considered as an attack on the freedom of debate, and he had declared that he more than once had it in contemplation, to make a formal complaint upon the subject.

Mr. Sheridan assured the right honourable gentleman, that if he thought he had any hand in the newspaper attacks alluded to, he was mistaken. He considered the measure merely, and not the men, who were the authors and suggestors of it.

Lord Hood rose to combat some ideas which he conceived to be in the bill; and which, he said, he knew from experience could not be adopted without great inconvenience.

Mr. Sheridan begged leave to assure the noble lord, that no such ideas, as those to which his lordship had alluded, were contained in the bill. He begged, that gentlemen in general would suspend their opinions till the bill should be printed; and reminded the house, that he had declared, he had not himself made up his ideas to all the contents of the bill.

The question being put, the resolution was agreed to.

AFFAIRS OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.

On the 20th of April, previous to the opening of the budget, a subject was brought forward in the house, by Mr. Alderman Newnham, which had for some time before, strongly engaged the attention and feelings of the public:—namely, the embarrassed state of the finances of the Prince of Wales. The establishment of his Royal Highness's household took place upon his coming of age, in 1783, during the Duke of Portland's administration. It is well known that a great difference of opinion subsisted, at that time, between the great personage with whom the final settlement of the affair rested, and the persons whose duty it was to give him their advice upon the subject, respecting the sum to be allowed for that purpose. Upon a full consideration of what was thought becoming the credit of the nation, and the exalted rank of the heir apparent to the throne:—the great increase in the value of every article of expenditure, and the economy of such a liberal provision, as might totally supersede the necessity of incurring debt. The ministers of that day are said to have proposed that an annual income should be settled upon him by parliament of £100,000. This proposition is said to have been not only entirely disapproved of by the King, but rejected with expressions of such marked resentment, as to make the immediate resignation of those minis

ters more than probable. In this emergency, the Prince of Wales, who had early manifested a favourable opinion of that party, interposed, and gave the world, upon this his first step in public life, a striking proof both of his filial duty and public spirit. He signified his desire, that the whole business should be left to the King; and declared his readiness to accept of whatever provision the King in his wisdom and goodness should think most fit: and at the same time he expressed his earnest wishes that no misunderstanding should arise between the King, and his then ministers, on account of any arrangement in which his personal interest only was concerned. In consequence of this interference, the affair appears to have been accommodated; and an allowance of £50,000 a year, payable out of the civil list revenue, was settled upon his Royal Highness. A very few years experience made it but too manifest that this provision was inadequate to the purpose for which it was designed. In 1786 the Prince was found to have contracted a debt to the amount of £100,000, exclusive of £50,000 and upwards, expended on Carlton House. The Prince was no sooner made acquainted with the embarrassed state of his affairs, and the great distress in which it necessarily involved a considerable number of his creditors, than he came to a resolution of taking some effectual measures for their relief. His first application was to the King his father; upon whose affection alone he wished to rely, and to whose judgment he declared his readiness to submit his past, and to conform his future conduct. By his Majesty's directions a full account of the Prince's affairs were laid before him; but from some dissatisfaction in the mind of his Majesty, a direct refusal to afford him any relief was conveyed to his Royal Highness through one of the principal officers of state. In consequence of this refusal, the Prince appears to have conceived himself bound in honour and justice, to have recourse to the only expedient that was now left him. His determination was prompt and manly. The day after he received the message from the King, he dismissed the officers of his court, and reduced the establishment of his household to that of a private gentleman. He ordered his horses to be sold; the works at Carlton House to be stopped; and such parts as were not necessary for his personal uses to be shut up. From these savings an annual sum of £40,000 was set apart and vested in the hands of trustees, for the payment of his debts. This conduct, however laudable it may appear, did not escape censure; it was represented as precipitate and disrespectful to the King; and was said to have been a principal cause of difference with his Majesty. An event which happened soon after, afforded a public proof of the displeasure he had incurred―viz. the danger to which his Majesty's life was exposed in August, 1786. Upon that occasion no notice whatever of the accident was conveyed to the Prince by the court. He learned it at Brighton, from the information of a private correspondent; he immediately flew to Windsor, where he was received by the Queen; but the King did not see him. It was impossible that the situation to which the heir apparent to the throne was reduced should be regarded with indifference, either at home or abroad; and what made the indignity of his condition the more generally felt and lamented, was, that no man was ever more highly qualified by distinguished affability, amiable manners, and a noble and liberal disposition to adorn the splendour to which his exalted birth entitled him. The Duke of Orleans, the richest individual in Europe, who was at this time upon a visit in this country, it is reported, pressed the Prince in