'Spanish cruelty, it was faid, afforded no precedent or excufe for English

men.

General Macleod brought this fubject into the house of commons, on the twenty-fixth of February, and complained of the difgrace attending fuch a measure. He was anfwered, that it was a matter of neceffity, and not of choice; that the maroons maffacring, without mercy, every one that fell into their hands, they could be confidered in no other light than murderers, and deferved extermination by any means that could be employed to that purpose.

The general moved, however, on the twenty-first of March, for an addrefs to the king, requesting he would direct the papers, concerning the maroon-war, to be laid before the houfe. He grounded his motion on a letter from Jamaica, ftating the facts above-mentioned: he deScribed the maroons as a free people, proprietors of the country they inhabited. He mentioned it, as cuftomary among the Spaniards, in Cuba, to feed their blood-hounds on human flesh, in order to render them ferocious but could a British parliament, he faid, connive at fuch atrocities, and encourage fo inhuman a spirit in British officers and foldiers?

Mr. Dundas replied, that the maroons had commenced hoftilities againft our people, at Jamaica, without any reafonable provocation, and had exercised great barbarities in profecuting them. It was their practice to fally forth from their faftneffes in the night, and to furprize the planters; multitudes of whom they maffacred: after which, they retreated to the woods and mountains, the paffes to which were

inacreffible. In fuch circumstances our people could not be blamed for employing the neceffary means to fecure themselves, and to annoy fo ferocious an enemy. The motion, therefore, he faid, was not fufficiently grounded, to comply with it, without an accurate inquiry into particulars. The mere rumour, however, he acknowledged, had induced miniftry to fignify its difapprobation of fuch a meafure to the government at Jamaica.

On Mr. Dundas's affuring the general that difpatches of this tenor had been fent, he withdrew his motion: not however till Mr. Sheridan expatiated on the fubject, in answer to Mr. Barham, who had reprefented the maroons as rebels; but whom the former justified, in their refentment of the punishment inflicted upon one of their people, who ought, according to treaty, to have been delivered up to his countrymen, to be tried and punished by them for the mifdemeanour of which he had been guilty.

In the mean time, a report was daily gaining ground, that the plans of miniftry embraced fuch a multiplicity of objects, that new demands would fhortly be made of means to carry them into execution. Their opponents thought it expedient, for that reafon, to call the attention of the public to the fituation of the national finances, in order that a juft idea might be formed of the conduct of minifters in this effential department. the tenth of March, this fubject was brought into the house of com mons, by Mr. Grey: who obferved, that, in whatever circumstances the country might be placed, whether of war or of peace, the ftricteft economy was become more difpen

On

fible than ever. France would indubitably aim at the formation of a refpectable marine, and fo would every power that could in any degree maintain its confideration at fea. Our inconteftible fuperiority on the ocean rendered us an object of univerfal envy and dread; and these were cogent motives with all the Europeans to feek for our depreflion: but they were no lefs urgent to induce this country to preferve that fuperiority, without which our internal fecurity was evidently precarious; but, had we been fufficiently attentive to the means of preferving it? Had we not lavished, with fcandalous profufion, immenfe fums, for which no adequate fervices had been performed? Seventy-feven millions had, in the courfe of the last three years, been added to the public debts; to pay the intereft of which, taxes had been laid, amounting to two millions fix hundred thousand pounds. The expences of former wars, however great, did not equal thofe of the prefent; and yet thofe wars were more extenfive and important in their object than the prefent. In the conteft that loft us America minifterial profufion was notorious; the debt contracted did not, however, exceed fixty-three millions, notwithstanding the duration of that fatal quarrel was twice what this had now been; and we had all Europe to contend with. When the prefent war began, the minifter engaged, in a folemn manner, to obviate, by every poffible means, extraordinaries of all kinds; but how had he kept his word? notwithflanding the moft liberal grants that ever minifter had experienced, the extraordinaries of the navy amounted to thirteen millions feven

hundred thousand pounds, while the commerce of this country had fuffered more from the enemy than in any preceding quarrel; the extraordinaries of the army were nine millions. These were uncontcionable expences, as, notwithstanding the advance of price in all articles of public or private demand, they had not rifen to fuch a height as to juftify the difference between the cost of the present and of former wars. The extraordinaries of the nine years war, from the revolution to the peace of Ryfwick, in 1697, were twelve hundred thoufand pounds. Thofe of eleven years war, in the reign of queen Anne, were two millions. They did, not together amount to one-half of the extraordinaries of the prefent year: the caufe of this increase of expence was not fo much the difference of price in neceflary articles, many of which continued the fame in this refpect as at that day, as the addition of unneceffary expences. The extraordinaries and the votes of credit, in 1778, 79, and 80, were lefs by three millions two hundred thousand pounds than the prefent: in the ordnance, the extraordinaries arofe to near three millions. These augmentations in the national expences were obvioufly unconftitutional, as they were made without parliamentary fanction. The total of the money thus expended was upwards of thirtyone millions; and together with that voted by the parliament amounted to fixty-fix millions eight hundred thoufand pounds. This immenfe fum had been expended in three years of an inglorious and ruinous war. Another unconftitutional proceeding, of a moft alarming nature, was the erection of barracks. Thefe

were

ftate of debility he had ever experienced on that element: it was, therefore, neither just nor prudent to reprefent this country as diftreffed, and its minifters as unworthy of confidence, and incapable of difcharging their duty. They had fhewn themselves adequate to the various talks impofed on them by the arduous contingencies of the war, and had not merited the afperfions fo repeatedly caft upon them. There had been a time when far greater ftretches of minifterial power were beheld without complaint. In the reigns of George I. and II. fuch was the implicit truft of the times in their integrity, that millions had paffed through their hands for fecret ervices, of which an explanation was not required. Hence it appears, that, the vigilance of parliament in former days, however exalted above that of the prefent, was, in truth, not to be compared with that anxious and groundlefs jealoufy with which the opponents to miniftry watched over all its proceedings, in order to discover how they could render them fufpicious to the public. On thefe grounds, he confidered the motion as illfounded, and deferving no fupport from those who viewed the conduct of minifters impartially, and with a determination to liften without pre-, judice to what they allege in their defence, as well as to the imputations and furmifes laid to their charge.

Mr. Curwen, Mr. Robinson, and Mr. Martin, fupported the motion; Mr. Steele oppofed it, and ftated the extraordinaries to be much lower than represented by Mr. Grey. The expence of the barracks had not, he affirmed, exceeded fix hundred and ten thousand pounds, and one

hundred and fifty thousand would fuffice to complete them but Mr. Grey infifted on the accuracy of his own ftatements, and particularly reprobated the mifapplication of the money appropriated by parliament. to fpecific purposes; a practice, he obferved, fo unconftitutional, that it had been condemned, in terms of the greatest severity, even fo long ago as the reign of queen Anne, on fo flight an occafion as the applying of fix thoufand pounds to the ufe of the army, inftead of the navy, for which it had been intended. His motion, however, was negatived by another for the order of the day, which was carried by two hundred and feven votes, against forty-five.

The plans formed by miniftry were fo extenfive, and the determination, to carry them into the fpecdieft execution, founded upon fo fanguine a hope of fuccefs, that the fupplies already granted not appearing fufficient, parliament was again reforted to for the raifing an additional fupply, and the fanction of another loan. A circumftance fo new and extraordinary excited univerfal astonishment: two budgets and two loans in the fame feffion, to use the common phrafe, were a novelty, in the political fyftem of this country, of an alarming nature, and which the maxims of good economy did not appear to warrant in the difficult pofition in which it now ftood.

Mr. Pitt was duly fenfible of the repugnance to fo unprecedented a meafure. After apologifing for the neceffity that compelled him to adopt it, and expreffing his confidence that the refources of the country would render it much lighter on trial than it feemed in the ap prehenfion of many, he proceeded

to