The resolutions were afterwards read, and agreed to; and Mr. Burke moved, that they should be referred to a committee, to prepare articles of impeachment upon the same; and that the committee consist of the following gentlemen :— EDMUND BURKE, Esq. M. A. TAYLOR, Esq. WELBORE ELLIS, Esq. It was moved in the usual forms, that the committee be invested with the customary powers of calling for papers and witnesses, sitting where they pleased, &c. &c.; and it was agreed, on all hands, that it must necessarily be a secret committee. A division took place upon the nomination of Mr. Francis, against whom it was objected, that in India he had been personally at variance with Mr. Hastings; and he was rejected by a majority of 96 to 44. APRIL 4. CONSOLIDATION DUTY BILL. The order of the day for the third reading of this bill having been moved and read, the bill was read a third time. Mr. Pitt brought up two clauses; and on the question being put "that the bill do now pass," a debate ensued, in which at any MR. SHERIDAN contended, that the right honourable gentleman (Mr. Pitt) had not yet answered his right honourable friend's (Mr. Fox) argument relative to the situation of this country and Spain. How awkwardly, he observed, would ministers be circumstanced, should a Spanish vessel offer herself of our ports, and be refused the same rates of duty at which French goods were admitted. In this case the court of Madrid would understand the treaty of Utrecht to be broken. He next took notice of what had fallen from Sir James Johnstone, who, he said, spoke generally with a sort of Lacedemonian eloquence. What the honourable baronet had said jocosely of the treaty, with respect to its enabling them to get fine clothes, fine cambrics, and fine laces, and the wines of France to intoxicate their constituents, was in effect one serious reason of his disliking the treaty; because it tended to put the country in a condition to forget her former situation, and lose sight of it altogether. Mr. Sheridan condemned the treaty on various accounts, and took occasion to mention (what he had on a former day hinted at) the absolute necessity of coming to some commercial arrangement with Ireland. He had been in hopes that the bringing forward that business would have been taken out of his hands by His Majesty's ministers; but if it were not soon done, he desired to be understood as giving notice that he would, after the holidays, make a motion on the subject. It was impossible that the two countries should continue as they were, both looking with their faces full to France, and merely casting a sullen side glance at each other. He begged leave to remind the right honourable gentleman, that when the Irish propositions were in agitation, he had himself urged it as an argument for agreeing to them, that if an arrangement was not forthwith made with Ireland, we should force her into the arms of France. The house divided, ayes 119; noes 43. The bill passed accordingly. APRIL 19. PAPERS RELATING TO PUBLIC ACCOUNTS. MR. SHERIDAN rose to move for a variety of papers relative to the public accounts, and prefaced his motion with declaring, that he lamented he had been prevented from attending his duty in the house on the preceding day, when the right honourable gentleman (Mr. Pitt) moved for leave to bring in a bill to enable the Board of Treasury to let a part of the collection of the post-horse tax out to farm. Mr. Sheridan said, that he did not lament his absence on account of the great degree of information which he had thereby lost, since he understood that the right honourable gentleman had not condescended to favour the house with a syllable on the subject; but merely embraced the opportunity of preparing the attention of the house to a matter of considerable moment. The idea of reviving a mode of collecting the public revenue by farming any part of it, led to consequences, of the extent of which the right honourable gentleman might not, perhaps, be sufficiently aware. It was impossible for it to be adopted under limitation; it must, if adopted at all, be adopted generally; and before the house consented to a measure of that magnitude, it behoved them to recollect, that the system of farming the public revenue had been long since exploded, on account of its having been decided to be a system uncongenial with the constitution of this country, and by no means applicable to it. This (Mr. Sheridan said) he should take an opportunity hereafter more fully to argue; and at present, as the papers relative to the public accounts were but just printed and delivered, he submitted it to the candour of the right honourable gentleman, whether he would persist in his intention to open the budget on the immediately ensuing day, before it could be possible for gentlemen to have read the papers with sufficient attention to be able to make themselves fully masters of their contents. The papers for which he then meant to move (Mr. Sheridan added), he had expected the right honourable gentleman would have moved for himself. Mr. Pitt answered, that what he should have to state to the house upon the morrow would prove extremely short. Mr. Sheridan did not seem to expect much information from the papers he moved for; but if he found any, he would have a full opportunity of making use of it on the report during the course of the Monday following. APRIL 20. WAYS AND MEANS. The order of the day for receiving the report of the committee of ways and means being read, Mr. Gilbert brought up the report, which was read a first time, and the question put, " that this resolution be read a second time." MR. SHERIDAN begged leave to remind the right honourable gentleman (Mr. Pitt) that he had not fulfilled his promise, to give such an account of the finances as should afford perfect and complete satisfaction to the committee; but he had certainly fulfilled his promise of brevity: for he had been so extremely concise, that though he (Mr. Pitt) who was acquainted with all the grounds and circumstances to which the facts and figures which he had stated referred, could talk with familiarity and ease upon the subject without any farther explanation than that he had thought proper to give it, yet such brevity was rather an awkward circumstance to him and those who, like him, were to answer and speak after the right honourable gentleman. Mr. Sheridan said, that he thought the air of triumph assumed by the right honourable gentleman sat but awkwardly upon him, at a moment when he should have conceived another sort of demeanour would have better become the humiliating and mortifying situation in which he ought perhaps to feel himself; when obliged to come forward, and state the finances of the kingdom to be in so very different a condition, from that in which the committee had last year been so confidentially assured they would prove to be in 1787. The right honourable gentleman, and those who sat near him, would please to recollect the statement contained in the report of the revenue committee, which report he held in his hand, and the manner in which it was contradicted, when he advised them not to be too sanguine in their expectations; that because the year's receipt, ending January 5, 1786, amounted to £15,397,471 the year ending January 5, 1787, would turn out equally. He had, again and again, argued the fallacy of making out an account in such away; but what he said upon the subject had been rejected with a sort of unbecoming scorn. What he predicted had, however, proved true; for now, instead of the flattering prospect which the right honourable gentleman held out, of our income equaling our expenses, it was evident that the receipt of the last year fell £900,000 short of the receipt of the year ending January 5, 1786. On this assertion Mr. Sheridan grounded his reasoning, in order to impress the committee with the idea that ministers entertained a much more sanguine opinion of the state of our finances than their real situation warranted. He warned the committee, therefore, against giving way to delusion which might lull them into a dangerous inattention to the national circumstances, declaring that it was much more manly in ministers to state the real situation of the country, to look it in the face; and, if more taxes were really necessary, to lay them on, burdened as the people were already. Mr. Sheridan animadverted upon the budget just opened, and said, admitting that the right honourable gentleman was correct in every one of his statements, still it was evident that there was a deficiency of £900,000 compared to the amount of the total of the preceding year's ways and means. He declared his concern to hear the East India Company mentioned as a source of the right honourable gentleman's expectations, and that to so large an amount as £350,000. That circumstance alone was sufficient to fill his mind with great doubt and suspicion of the soundness of all the various expectations which the right honourable gentleman had that day stated to the committee. Mr. Grenville replied to Mr. Sheridan. VOL. I. APRIL 23. WAYS AND MEANS. MR. SHERIDAN observed, that notwithstanding the formidable dilemma into which the honourable gentleman, (Mr. Steele) who spoke last but one, had put the house, by declaring, that if they disliked the manner in which the minister had stated the articles of his budget, he wished they would come forward with their mode of calculation, and show how the accounts ought to be made out; he certainly should persist in the exercise of his undoubted right to find fault with the minister's budget, wherever he saw, or thought he saw, cause of blame; and look for amendment to them, without feeling himself at all bound to suggest the means of it. Mr. Sheridan proceeded to call the attention of the house to the report of the revenue committee of last year, observing that the right honourable gentleman, who had been chairman to that committee, was not then in the house. (Mr. Grenville at that moment showing himself Mr. Sheridan said, he begged pardon, he saw the right honourable gentleman; and as he was forthcoming, he heartily wished his revenue might be forthcoming likewise.) He still persisted in maintaining, that the report to which he had alluded was fallaciously made up, and that every one of the predictions which he had, in the course of the last year hazarded, as to the deficiency of the ways and means, were this year fully verified and confirmed. The honourable baronet (Sir Grey Cooper) who sat near him, had proved in a manner perfectly satisfactory to his mind, that there was a very great deficiency in the ways and means, as stated by the minister in the opening of the budget, on Friday; and the noble lord (Newhaven) who had endeavoured to answer the honourable baronet, certainly had failed in his attempt. Mr. Sheridan went over the articles of the supply, enumerating them severally, and distinguishing such as were voted, from such as remained to be voted; and dwelt for some time on the miscellaneous services. After going through the whole, he proceeded to notice the ways and means, which, he said, consisted of six articles. The first he mentioned was, the £100,000 to be drawn from the cambric, and the consolidated duties. In making out that article, £40,000 were taken by the right honourable gentleman for the duty on cambrics, which left £60,000 for the consolidation of duties; a sum for which he was altogether at a loss to account; since, |