tyrannized in the market; it enticed the strong, and controlled the weak. This capital, he afferted, was supported only by the universal partnership in which our funds, and the nature of our establishments, kept the immense property of this country. It was by keeping it dammed up from France, that this general partnership within the nation subfifted, The moment we admit France, she will immediately begin to infinuate herself into the partnership, and in the end come in for a share of the capital. --By means of the correspondence which might be established between the two countries, an alliance in commercial undertakings would foon blend the property of the two kingdoms. In this we had reason to admire the depth of the designs of France: she was ready to put up with a temporary loss in trade, by the fuperiority of our manufactures, for a permanent, future advantage in commerce. Holland was a proof that commerce is more than a compensation for manufacture; and Germany was a proof, that with manufactures a state may be plunged into the abyss of poverty: for no commerce had fubfifted there since a vessel was wrecked on the coast of Bohemia! The designs then of France were to allow us fome present gain in the sale of our manufactures, for some permanent advantages which she promised to herself in commerce. Through her rivers and canals she intended to pour the commodities of England into other countries. She had already, by her politics, contrived to wrest our share of the Levant trade from us; and it was a part of her present defign to divert the remainder from its former channel; and by supplying all the ports in the Mediterranean fea through the Seine, the Garonne, the canal of Languedoc, and the Rhone, to engross the carrying trade to the Levant, and to ruin our factory at Leghorn and our other establishments in those seas. Her conduct was fimilar towards America; which proved that she proceeds systematically, and makes her progrefs in a regular series. What could she expect from America in return for the bounties and free ports fo liberally granted her? America could make no return at present; for she was totally unable to pay the debts she had already contracted with the French government and the French merchants. It is evident that it is for benefits which she has in prospect. What a reverse in the conduct of our government! We act wholly without system, and abandon Portugal for France, while it is in our power to form arrangements with both by no means incompatible with each other. France on the contrary points all one way-to the increase of her navigation and commerce.- The advantages she is to gain are political, naval, and commercial; ours will confift only in the fale of manufactures. But we have been told repeatedly of the friendly difpofition of France: the opens her arms, it issaid, to receive us into her bosom; this might be said in more than one sense. She opens two arms to embrace you in the channel! It was not without aftonishment (Mr. Burke added) that he confidered the immense operations now carrying on at Cherbourg; they exceeded the pyramids of Egypt as much as the wisdom and policy of their designs exceed the idle vanity of the sovereign who caused those piles to be constructed. Their efforts were wonderful; they grappled with nature, removed mountains, overcame the ocean, to be enabled to look into Portsmouth. Yet we fat down in stupid insensibility of the danger with which we were menaced: we were deaf to the notice which was given us of our peril; it was in vain the alarm was founded: Aut hoe inclusi ligno occultantur Achivi, While the mill-stone is hanging over our heads, we talk of an union with France. But that she has little fincerity in such an union, may be inferred from the eagerness with which she increases her alliances; yet the temporary advantages of a little trade blinds the nation against its real interest, and renders it a prey to her delufions: they are treated like a woman who has been debauched, and is told, have you not fine cloaths, do you not enjoy all the luxuries of life, are you not caressed and courted, do you not ride in an elegant carriage, and live in splendid lodgings? How then are you ruined? The answer should be, she is ruined, because she has loft her reputation. It is the fame with a nation: if it has loft its character, all is gone, and nothing remains but gaudy trappings to conceal its mifery. And it is of little confequence, whether this confifts of fine cambrics, of rich fearlet or good black cloth, of filks or fatins: the same principle holds good with nations as with individuals. When once a man has facrificed his honour, in what respect is he better than a beast? What is he good for, but to fatten? To drink rich wines and wallow in luxury and riot?--Equally infidious were the designs of France in endeavouring to make a treaty with Portugal, to fecure to herself the monopoly of the Brazil cottons: this was an indisputable proof of the infincerity of the French court. Our manufacturers might exult on the temporary advantage they would derive from the avidity of the French for English commodities; but if at the expiration of twelve years France should be found a large, commercial, trading and naval power, the merely temporary benefits of trade would, doubtless, become purchased at Lord Mor at a most shameful and alarming price: the price of irretrievable ruin to the country. Lord Mornington said it would not become that attention mington. which the House would always pay to the feelings of their constituents, to proceed hastily on a decifion, if a general alarm and apprehenfion appeared to exist in the minds of those whose interests were most materially affected by this important measure. Had any fuch apprehenfions been stated in petitions to the House, they would have been confidered patiently and respectfully, referving however to the House the exercise of its own wisdom on the whole fubject; for the Legiflature, though it would never reject the petitions of men, interested in the subject of discussion, was not bound to a blind adoption of every fear which might agitate their minds. But if no such alarm did exist, (and that it did not was incontestible) he never could admit that the filence of the manufacturers, under all the circumstances of the moment, did not afford a strong and substantial proof of their approbation of the treaty. He then proceeded to state the circumstances under which the manufacturers had remained filent. He mentioned their disposition to stand forward where their interests were touched, which, he said, had been fully evinced in the recent instance of the Irish propofitions. He asked, if it could be denied that every possible incitement had been applied to urge the manufacturers to the bar on the present occafion? He then enumerated (what he called) various attempts of the other fide of the House, to extort complaints from this refpectable body of men. He contended that they had first been charged with inconsistency, if they did not come forth to maintain the opinions which they had advanced against the Irish propositions, and which were afferted to point with equal force against the French treaty: their filence was contended to be a desertion of former opinions fanctioned by the folemnity of an oath; but when this tone of reproach was not found to have produced the intended effect, then a milder tone was adopted; they were told, that whatever private interest they might feel in the conclufion of the treaty, it was hoped that they would not suffer so unworthy a confideration to guide their judgements on this great question: the manufacturer was called upon in pathetic and elevated language to raise his mind above the low cares of his private interest, and to look to something more extended and more liberal; but when this appeal had been urged to the woollen manufacturer, and that he had looked beyond his own immediate interest to that of the cotton, of the hardware, of the iron, of all the principal branches of British manufacture, and had found all those concerned in the several branches individually contented with the treaty, and had drawn no unreasonable conclufion, "That as each great interest of British manufactures seem"ed content under the treaty, there was probably no great " danger to the general trade of Great Britain," then he was told that he must not even stop here, he must take a wider range, and a more comprehensive view; he must look to the interests of the navigation and marine, and even to the balance of power in Europe. Yet, when neither this groundless reproach nor this artful flattery, which would put the manufacturer in the place of Parliament, had fucceeded in bringing him to the bar, then a new species of argument was discovered. We had been told that there was no occafion to bring the manufacturers to the bar; we had no occasion for petitions; we had their opinions already in the most solemn and authentic form. The opinions delivered ort oath on the Irish propositions applied with equal force to this question, and on the evidence delivered two years ago, on another subject, the House had been called on to decide the present question. Extreme, indeed, was the injustice which this mode of reasoning offered to the manufacturers. It must be rememhered, that the House, though it had received the opinions of the manufacturers on the Irish treaty with due attention, had not acted upon them; and now these opinions were to decide the House on the French treaty-they had not been allowed to operate in the decision of the question to which they had been immediately applied; but having been recorded against the manufacturers, at the end of two years they were, by an interference and induction, in which the manufacturers had no part, to be brought to bear on a totally new question, and to decide it, against the real wishes of those, whose sentiments were thus perverted to a purpose so foreign from their original direction. And now, when it appeared that the House was not prepared to adopt this last argument, it was as openly and broadly avowed, that the opinion of the manufacturers was of no fort of consequence, for that they were perfons too deeply interested in this question to be allowed any weight in the decifion of it. This confession was a complete desertion of the commercial part of the subject, and brought the whole to a political question. Much mention had been made of Ireland in the debates on this treaty. With all due deference to the talents and the eloquence of two honourable gentlemen, (Mr. Sheridan and Mr. Flood) he must beg leave to affert, that it would be a matter of no great difficulty to prove, in opposition to their opinions, that Ireland, after this treaty, would remain a nation more highly favoured in the British market than France. He added, that if Ireland were to enter into a treaty with Great Britain, VOL. XXI, founded Mr. Anftruther. founded on the principles of the French treaty, her staple manufacture would be undone. He then made some remarks on the political part of the question, which he confidered to be implicated with the commercial. He said, it had been eloquently urged, that whatever might be the commercial merits of the treaty, in a political view, it proftrated the majesty of this country at the feet of France, and deposed Great Britain from the throne of Europe. He answered, that the true majesty of Great Britain is her trade, and the throne of the coinmerce of the world is the fittest object of her ambition. He said, that the industry and ingenuity of our manufacturers, the opulence which these had diffused through various channels, the substantial foundation of capital on which they had placed our trade, a capital, which had that night been well described, as predominant and tyrant over the trade of the whole world, all these, as they had been our best confolation in defeat, were the most promifing fources of future victory; and that to cultivate, to strengthen and to augment these could not be inconsistent with the glory of the kingdom. Regarding the treaty as aiming at these beneficial objects, he should vote in favour of the address, and thus fincerely express his approbation of a procedure by which the best interests of the nation were likely to become confiderably and permanently strengthened. Mr. Anfiruther defied Ministers to produce a fingle instance from the journals that could in any imanner be brought to bear upon so extraordinary a proceeding. He also met the argument of the filence of the manufacturers, and combated all which had been inferred on that ground, by declaring, that if the manufacturers had even been clamorous for the treaty, he should have confidered it to have been his duty, and the duty of the House, to have nevertheless opposed the treaty, if upon due deliberation it should appear to have been injurious to the political interests of the country at large. That it would prove politically injurious to the arguments he had heard upon the effects which the treaty was likely to have upon our connection with Portugal, were fufficient to fatisfy his mind fully; but he saw another danger, and that was, the danger which the treaty would draw down upon the very existence of our manufactures. It had been faid, with a tone of confidence, that the treaty was to laft but twelve years. Was that any argument? Did gentlemen confider that our knowledge of the cotton manufactory was but of twelve years standing; and if we in twelve years only from the date of our first acquaintance with the art, had brought it to fuch perfection, what reason had we to imagine that France might not in another twelve years (the very time of the duration of the treaty) become-as skilful and |