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accomplished, such signal honour on the British nation.

"In India, the refusal of the government of Nepaul to ratify a treaty of peace which had been signed by its plenipotentiaries, occasioned a renewal of military operations.

"The judicious arrangements of the governor-general, seconded by the bravery and perseverance of his Majesty's forces, and of those of the East-India company, brought the campaign to a speedy and successful issue; and peace has been finally established upon the just and honourable terms of the original treaty.

My Lords and Gentlemen, "I have the satisfaction of informing you that the arrangements which were made in the last session of parliament, with a view to a new silver coinage, have been completed with unprecedented expedition.

"I have given directions for the immediate issue of the new coin, and I trust that this measure will be productive of considerable advantages to the trade and internal transactions of the country.

"The distresses consequent upon the termination of a war of such unusual extent and duration have "Gentlemen of the House of been felt, with greater or less severity, throughout all the nations of Europe; and have been considerably aggravated by the unfavourable state of the season.

Commons;

"I have directed the estimates for the current year to be laid before you.

"They have been formed upon a full consideration of all the present circumstances of the country, with an anxious desire to make every reduction in our establishments which the safety of the empire and sound policy allow.

"I recommend the state of the public income and expenditure to your early and serious attention.

"I regret to be under the necessity of informing you, that there has been a deficiency in the produce of the revenue in the last year but I trust that it is to be ascribed to temporary causes ; and I have the consolation to believe, that you will find it practicable to provide for the public service of the year, without making any addition to the burthens of the people, and without adopting any measure injurious to that system by which the public credit of the country has been hitherto sustained.

66

Deeply as I lament the pressure of these evils upon the country, I am sensible that they are of a nature not to admit of an immediate remedy; but whilst I observe with peculiar satisfaction the fortitude with which so many privations have been borne, and the active benevolence which has been employed to mitigate them, I am persuaded that the great sources of our national prosperity are essentially unimpaired; and I entertain a confident expectation that the native energy of the country will at no distant period surmount all the difficulties in which we are involved.

"In considering our internal situation, you will, I doubt not, feel a just indignation at the attempts which have been made to take advantage of the distresses of the country, for the purpose of exciting a spirit of sedition and violence.

"I am too well convinced of the loyalty and good sense of the great body of his Majesty's subjects, to believe them capable of being perverted by the arts which are employed to seduce them; but I am determined to omit no precautions for preserving the public peace, and for counteracting the designs of the disaffected. And I rely with the utmost confidence on your cordial support and cooperation, in upholding a system of law and government, from which we have derived inestimable advantages, which has enabled us to conclude, with unexampled glory, a contest whereon depended the best interests of mankind, and which has been hitherto felt by ourselves, as it is acknowledged by other nations, to be the most perfect that has ever fallen to the lot of any people."

His Royal Highness then retired, and their lordships adjourned till five o'clock.

After the Prince Regent had withdrawn,

Lord Viscount Sidmouth rose and announced, that before any other matter could be entered upon by the House of Lords, he had one of the most important communications to be made to them that had ever been laid before Parliament. Accordingly, after the strangers had withdrawn, he informed them, that when the Prince Regent was returning from the House, and passing at the back of the garden of Carlton-House, the glass of the carriage had been broken by a stone, or by two balls from an airgun, which appeared to have been aimed at his Royal Highness. 'n

the result, a conference was desired to be held with the House of Commons, at which an Address

to his Royal Highness was agreed upon, congratulating him upon his escape.

The further proceedings upon this subject will appear in the Chronicle of the present year.

On January 29th, the Speech of the Prince Regent was taken into consideration by the House' of Lords. The Earl of Dartmouth first moved an address of thanks, which was in the usual form, and was seconded by the Earl of Rothes.

Earl Grey then rose, and began with declaring his full assent to that part of the speech which gave a tribute of applause to the noble admiral, and his officers and seamen, who were engaged in the expedition against Algiers; at the same time he could not refrain from doubting how far the advantages arising from the enterprize would be adequate to its expense, or to its future security. With respect to the termination of a remote war in India, he conceived it rather too much to ask at the present moment for an opinion concerning the cause and necessity of a war, when, to the best of his knowledge, no information had been laid before their lordships on the subject.

Passing over these topics, the Earl proceeded to take into his consideration the speech from the throne, and the speeches of other noble lords, respecting the probable continuation of peace. The system of policy on which this confidence was founded. appeared to him, instead of tending to secure this end, fraught with the greatest danger to the peace: of Europe. This idea he pursued. through various consequences; and with regard to the policy which we had adopted relative to the [B 2] French

French nation, he said, that instead of having reduced its power within moderate limits, we had generated in them an implacable spirit of animosity, the end of which would probably be, that having placed and supported the present family on the throne of France, that family must ultimately re-establish its power by going to war with this country.

ing distresses of all classes of his Majesty's faithful subjects.

"That we are willing to indulge the hope that these distresses may be found, in part, to have originated from circumstances of a temporary nature, and that some alleviation of them may be produced by the continuance of peace; but that we should ill discharge our duty to his Royal Highness, and be guilty of countenancing a most dangerous delusion, were we to conceal from him our opinion, that the pressure which now weighs so heavily on the resources of the country, is much more extensive in its operation, more severe in its effects, more deep and general in its causes, and more difficult to be removed, than that which has prevailed at the termination of any former war.

His lordship then went on to consider, what he regarded as the most important subject of attention in our present circumstances, our internal situation. This he contrasted with all that had taken place in former cases, in order to shew the much greater difficulties we had now to encounter; and this led him to the question of a reduction of the national expenditure. After various views on the subject, he said, this and the other "That we are firmly persuaded House of Parliament must impose that the same exemplary patience on the ministers the duty of re- and fortitude with which all ranks trenchment. We must insist on have hitherto borne the difficulties a retrenchment very different from under which they labour, will that adverted to in the speech continue to support them under from the throne. We must insist such burthens as may be found upon a rigid unsparing economy, indispensably necessary for the an economy founded not on what unavoidable exigencies of the pubsound policy requires, but on what lic service; but that to maintain necessity will admit; not on what this disposition, it is incumbent government would have, but on on parliament, by a severe and viwhat the country can afford. If gilant exercise of its powers to we cannot extend the means to prove that sacrifices, so painfully meet the expense of the establish- obtained, are strictly limited to the ments, we must contract the es- real necessities of the state. tablishments to meet the means.

His lordship concluded a long speech, by proposing the following amendment :

"That we have seen with the deepest concern the continued embarrassments of our agriculture, manufactures, and commerce; the alarming deficiency of the revenue, and the unexampled and increas

"That while we acknowledge the gracious dispositions announced in his Royal Highness's speech from the throne, we cannot help expressing our regret that his Royal Highness should not have been sooner advised to adopt measures of the most rigid economy and retrenchment, particularly with respect to our military establish

ments.

ments. That to prompt and effectual reductions in this and every other branch of the public expenditure, this House must naturally look, as the first step to relieve the distresses and redress the grievances of which the people so justly complain; and that to enable themselves to assist his Royal Highness by their advice in the execution of a duty so imperiously called for by the present situation of the country, they will lose no time in instituting a strict inquiry into the state of the nation."

The speakers who successively followed were the Earl of Har rowby, Earl Grosvenor, the Earl of Aberdeen, Lord St. John, Earl Bathurst, the Marquis Wellesley, Viscount Sidmouth and the Earl of Darnley. It will scarcely be necessary to remark that the ministers and their opponents widely differed in the conclusions they were led to draw from the premises. The question was then put, and the amendment being negatived without a division, the Address was agreed to.

It

In the House of Commons an amendment exactly of the same import was moved by Mr. Ponsonby, to an address to be presented to the Prince Regent. engaged many of the principal speakers on both sides, among whom were Mr. Bathurst, Mr. Lamb, Mr. Charles Grant, Mr. Curwen, Mr. Bankes, Mr.Canning, Mr. Brougham, and Mr. Tierney. The amendment was rejected by 264 to 112, and the original motion was then carried.

PRINCE REGENT'S MESSAGE.

On Feb. 3d, the Prince Regent sent to each House of Parlia

ment a message to the following purpose:

His Royal Highness the Prince Regent, acting in the name and on the behalf of his Majesty, has given orders that there be laid before the House papers containing information respecting certain practices, meetings, and combinations in the metropolis, and in different parts of the kingdom, evidently calculated to endanger the public tranquillity, to alienate the affections of his Majesty's subjects from his Majesty's person and government, and to bring into hatred and contempt the whole system of our laws and constitution. His Royal Highness recommends to the House to take these papers into their immediate and serious consideration."

On February 4th, Lord Sidmouth rose in the House of Lords to propose an answer to this communication. If the answer should be, as he did not question that it would, an agreement with his Royal Highness's proposal, it was his own intention to refer the message to a committee of secrecy; and all he had to desire, was that their lordships would abstain from making up their minds till they were in possession of the information which was to be laid before them. One remark he further had to make, which was, that the present communication was in no degree the consequence of the shameful outrage on the Prince, which was viewed, not only by the parliament, but by the great body of the people, with detestation and horror. He concluded with moving an address of thanks to the Prince Regent for his message.

In some of the subsequent speeches, hints were pretty plainly thrown out of a secret intention in the ministers to shackle the liberty of the subject. At present, however, they kept warily on their ground, and the address was carried unanimously.

Lord Sidmouth then moved that the papers on the table should be referred to a committee of secrecy consisting of eleven lords to be chosen by ballot; which was agreed to.

In the House of Commons, Lord Castlereagh made a parallel motion respecting the Prince Regent's message, which was carried without opposition; as was likewise that of a secret committee consisting of twenty-one members.

On the 18th and 19th of February, the secret committee in each House made its report of the contents of the papers communicated by the Prince Regent.

The substance of each was nearly alike; but it will probably be more interesting to our readers if we place both of them in their view.

House of Lords.

By the Lords Committees appointed a Secret Committee to inquire into certain Meetings and Combinations endangering the public tranquillity, and to report to the House as they shall see occasion :

Ordered to report, that the committee have met, and have proceeded in the examination of the papers referred to them.

Their attention was in the first instance directed to those which relate to the metropolis; and they have found therein such evidence as leaves no doubt in their minds that a traitorous conspiracy has

been formed in the metropolis for the purpose of overthrowing, by means of a general insurrection, the established government, laws, and constitution of this kingdom, and of effecting a general plunder and division of property.

In the last autumn various consultations were held by persons in the metropolis engaged in this conspiracy. Different measures of the most extensive and dangerous nature were resolved upon; partial preparations were made for their execution, and various plans were discussed for collecting a force sufficient for that purpose. But at a subsequent consultation another plan was adopted, which was, to get a great number of men together to see what force could be raised; and it was agreed that the best way to get them together would be to call a public meeting. Spa-Fields was fixed upon as the place affording the greatest facilities for entering the town, and attacking the most important points in the city. In pursuance of this design, and in order to assemble in the neighbourhood of London a great number of the poorer classes of the community, and particularly of those in whose minds the pressure of the times might be supposed to have excited disaffection and discontent, advertisements were inserted in newspapers, and handbills

were industriously distributed, inviting the distressed manufacturers, mariners, artisans, and others, to assemble at that place on the 15th of November. A large body of people accordingly assembled at the time and place prescribed. The most inflammatory language was there held to the multitude, having a direct

tendency

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