-that army upon which (exclusively, as the right honourable gentlemen contend) the security of the empire is to rest. And all this at a moment like the present!-The bill, I am afraid, is gone too far to admit of opposition in the whole, or amendment in many parts. One part only of one danger it is yet in our power to guard against. The amendment proposed by my honourable friend affords us this opportunity. It is the last twig at which we can catch, before we are precipitated into all the danger which awaits us. It is too late for the house to decide against measures which hazard the army altogether; but it is yet in their power to take a security for its being kept together, at least in time of war."

So entirely was Mr. Canning tied and bound by the chains of party, that no measure of administration, however excellent in itself, or consonant with his own most cherished sentiments, could secure his support, or even neutralize his opposition. It is little to his honour that he suffered the great moral question of the abolition of the slave trade, which, on former occasions, he had so vehemently and eloquently advocated, to be carried through parliament without his voice being raised either to advance its progress or to celebrate its triumph. All that he could bring himself to say, on this his confessedly favourite measure during other administrations, was cold, brief, waspish, and unworthy of his great and good mind. the 10th of June, he spoke to the following effect: "He thought it impossible for the ingenuity of man to devise a form of words, contributing to the repeal of the slave trade, that he should not concur in. He lamented, however, that the house had not the subject more fully before them, and censured his majesty's ministers for not bringing it more tangibly and efficiently forward, during the vacant interval that

VOL. II.

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On

presented itself between the recess and the time that the right honourable secretary (Mr. Wyndham) brought forward his military plan!!!" In the last debate he, however, declared himself as "decidedly for the most speedy abolition of so disgraceful a traffic.”

It was on this occasion that Charles James Fox, justly styled by Sheridan "the apostle of humanity," made the memorable declaration: "So fully am I impressed with the vast importance and necessity of attaining what will be the object of my motion this day, that if, during the almost forty years that I have now had the honour of a seat in parliament, I had been so fortunate as to accomplish that, and that only, I should think I had done enough, and should retire from public life with comfort and conscious satisfaction that I had done my duty."

The Chelsea Hospital Bill afforded Mr. Canning another opportunity of indulging his invectives against the administration. At the close of an argumentative speech on the 12th of June, Mr. Canning said:

"The whole of the argument, if argument it might be called, of the right hon. gent. (Mr. Wyndham) resolved itself simply into a claim of confidence on the part of administration. The house were to vote this bill, they were to take the pledge contained in it, in perfect confidence that the ministers would exact nothing from them in consequence of that pledge but what the house must approve, when it should come to be submitted to their consideration. And the right honourable gentleman who spoke last seemed to take it very ill that this confidence was withheld, and the propriety of giving it questioned, by persons who, as he said, at the outset of the present government had professed a desire to support them. For my own part, said the right honourable gentleman, I have no pledge or promise of that sort to account for; I have nothing to retract, or qualify, or explain. I never offered any general professions of support. I never

thought myself called upon to do so. I have given my opinion freely, as a member of parliament, on the measures of the government, as they have been brought forward: and sorry have I been to find, that scarcely one of the measures which have originated with them has been such as I did not feel myself bound to oppose. And I quite concur in the opinion expressed by my noble and learned friends (lord Castlereagh and Mr. Perceval) as to the general character both of the system of the present ministers, and of the manner in which it has been carried into effect, and in which public business has been conducted in this house, since this great administration came into office—that nothing can form a more ludicrous contrast than their promises and their performance. Of one noble person, indeed, in the other house of parliament (lord Grenville), who forms a part of the administration, I have once before had occasion to speak, Perhaps it is to that occasion the right honourable gentleman alluded. I did once say (it was early in the session, and before the measures and system of the government had been developed) that I was desirous of placing confidence in an administration of which he was the head. My personal confidence, my personal esteem and regard for that noble person, continue unimpaired: but to talk of him now at the head of the government, after all that we have heard, all that we have seen, to consider him as the presiding and directing mind, is impossible. I am sorry for it: but I admit no claim for confidence arising from an expression which was applied to an individual, and which was founded on an error as to his weight and situation in the government. In his colleagues I neither have, nor ever professed to have, the confidence which they now demand; and by my vote of this night I shall certainly refuse to give it to them."

On the same subject, on the 16th of June, there is a similar attack, though not so manly; for it is conveyed through an affected compliment to Lord Howick, which that nobleman refused to accept at the expense of his colleagues.

Even those who are not disposed to be lavish of

their commendations of Mr. Canning, during this period of his parliamentary career, must yet very warmly approve of the high tone and spirit which he uniformly assumed and exhibited when the pre-eminence and glory of the country were likely to suffer by unnecessary concessions to foreign states. The

interests of Great Britain were with him not only paramount to all others, but he was determined to place them on an elevation where they would not only appear to the best advantage, but where it would be impossible to endanger their security, either by the policy or the power of rival nations. In this view, we cannot but regard as a noble burst of patriotism his speech on the American intercourse bill, delivered on the 17th of June, and which evinces an extensive knowledge of the doctrines then in vogue, on the subject of commercial intercourse, when that intercourse was likely to involve important political considerations.

On the general policy of the measure recommended to parliament by the bill which originated with the ministers, and which was ably supported by the attorneygeneral, Mr. Canning, in reply to the arguments of the latter, in favour of a measure, the effect of which would be the removal of all the colonial restraints in the navigation act, having demolished his array of facts, proceeds in the following strain :

"So much for the learned gentleman's facts. Now for the general policy which the learned gentleman recommends to us. He says, that rather than violate a law frequently, you should enact another to make that violation legal. When you cannot enforce an act of parliament in its strictness, you should do what? pass another to amend and modify it? No, pass another

that is a direct repeal and contradiction of it. When a law becomes difficult to be enforced to its full extent, when it becomes inconvenient, or troublesome, or distasteful to ministers, what is the natural course of a government, at least of an omnipotent government, such as this country is at present blessed with, a government which abhors detail, which scorns to descend into the little affairs and petty interests of any class of men, what but to abrogate it at once, and for that purpose to bring before parliament one grand sweeping clause to do the whole away, without the difficulty of descending into particulars? This they are pleased to call revising the system of our laws; but one way of revising a system is to examine it, and one way of understanding a thing is to examine it with deliberation, and after having so done, the result is what we call decision in this case act with as much decision as you please; but what I ask of you is, that your decision should not precede inquiry, but what you do should be the result not of arbitrary will, but of well-considered information. But the hon. and learned gentleman thinks that the navigation laws will be found inconvenient in some particular instances, or incompatible with the extent of empire which we may enjoy; but must these laws be altogether repealed because they may be found inconvenient in some particulars? I trust not. Do I mean to say, therefore, that it is better that our colonies in the West Indies should starve, than our navigation laws should be made to give way? Nothing of the kind. I do mean to say, that there are means of moderating the rigour of these laws, and that like any other laws they may even be suspended in cases of absolute necessity; and I say too, that notwithstanding this same experience of thirteen years, I am persuaded there are, or may be, means of supplying the colonies from this country in a manner nearly, if not entirely, adequate to their necessities; and I contend, that it would be extremely rash to suspend an entire system, because in some few instances you find that it cannot be enforced to its utmost rigour: revise the system, if you will; but in that case what I contend is, that you ought to receive information upon the subject before you proceed upon your legislative enactments. But it seems the responsibility of these suspensions of the law of navigation is not to be abandoned any longer to the governors of the islands, but is to be transferred to the great and wise men