nothing had been obtained. If security was the object of the war, we now remain, said his Lordship, in a greater state of insecurity than ever; but the question was not whether the peace should or should not be agreed to, for the honour of the nation was now pledged to the observance of its conditions; and, as so many sacrifices had been made, he should be the last man to propose the sacrifice of national honour. France, his Lordship said, by taking the Rhine for her boundary, and annexing Savoy, had extended her empire beyond what the most ambitious of her monarchs had ever conceived. On our side our successes were no less important we had rescued Egypt, taken Malta and Minorca-shut up the Mediterranean against the ships of France and Spain; we had the Cape of Good Hope--the key to the East Indies; we had Trinidad and Martinique; and on the continent of South America, Demerara and Surinam,—an empire almost equal in extent and importance to the power, to whom we restored it. Although the war had not been undertaken for colonial acquisition, yet it was wisely directed to that object, as being the best means of crippling the marine of France, by contracting her commerce. If the present treaty were compared to the projet of 1797 (at Lisle), it should be remembered, that the present treaty gave up Surinam, Minorca, and Malta, after four years' additional war and expense. We had given more to receive less; besides, we should have remembered, in what a

period of despondency those negotiations began; during the stoppage of the bank, the defection of our allies, and the mutiny of our fleets. His Lordship condemned the conduct of ministers in sacrificing the Prince of Orange, and the integrity of Portugal. In the East Indies we had suffered much; for when the enemy should have the power of excluding us from touching at Brazil or the Cape of Good Hope, and should place strong garrisons in Pondicherry and Cochin, they would have great advantages in an Indian war, by sending out armaments, which for want of an intermediate port to touch at we could not. In the West Indies we had given up Martinique, which was certainly of greater value than Trinidad (in this we entirely differ with his Lordship); in the Mediterranean we had given up every thing, Minorca, Malta, Egypt, and Elba; and by a treaty with the Porte, France was to be as much favoured as ourselves. With respect to The situation of

Naples we had gained nothing. France did not entitle her to make such exorbitant demands; there was no reciprocity in the treaty, all the sacrifices were on our part, and none on theirs. His Lordship concluded by saying, that we had given every security on our part, and had none to depend on but the word of France; and whatever delusive confidence the country might entertain of the continuance of such a peace, yet that a stand must be made sooner or later; having incautiously surrendered the out

works, we had retained the citadel, and must bury ourselves in the ruins before we surrendered.

The Earl of Moira said, that the security of England rested with her navy, but however glorious and brilliant her victories both by land and sea, a peace was absolutely necessary to her existence. His Lordship asserted, that all our acquisitions in the West Indies, were not equal to Savoy, which was but a small portion of the acquisitions of France; he, however, considered the peace the best that could have been made, under all the circumstances.

Lord Mulgrave defended the peace in a very eloquent and animated speech, in which his Lordship highly eulogised the valour of our soldiers and sailors.

The Earl of St. Vincent considered Ceylon and Trinidad, both in a political and commercial point of view, as two of the most valuable islands in the whole habitable globe.

Lord Nelson thought Minorca of little value to us, being too far distant from Toulon to be a naval station. Malta he did not consider likely to be of any importance to the country: it was taken to rescue it from the French, and provided they were kept out, it was of little importance in whose hands it remained; it would require a garrison of seven thousand men to defend the works. His Lordship did not consider the Cape of Good Hope as a settlement of very great value, since

the improvement of our East India shipping enabled us to run the whole voyage without touching at that port. Differing with that celebrated officer, as to the value of the places which he enumerated, we leave the discussion without farther comment. Ministers, we are quite sure, made the peace, more as an experiment, than from any conviction of its advantages or hope of its continuation; and it was clear, that the Chief Consul never intended it should last beyond the period suitable to his views and insatiable ambition.

When Lord Romney moved the address in the house of peers, his Lordship observed, that as the war was necessary on our side, so far as we were concerned, it was attended with the most brilliant success. Glorious as that war was, in which the immortal Chatham presided at the helm of affairs, this was no less splendid. Our fleets had been victorious to a still higher degree, they had crushed the navy, and annihilated the commerce, of the enemy: the whole of maritime Europe, jealous of our naval power, had conspired its ruin, and found their vain endeavours recoil upon themselves.

Earl Spencer said, he disapproved of the peace, and had he not felt himself called upon, from a sense of duty, to deliver an opinion opposite to that of other noble lords, he should much rather have deplored in silence the calamity of the present peace, and the enthusiastic joy with which the people had received it. He should rather have

suppressed the mortification he felt at the degradation of his country. His Lordship thought, that no single object of the war had been gained, and that we had sacrificed every means of protection. We had in every part of the world made cession of countries, which the valour of our forces had conquered, and which would have secured us from the effects of the aggrandizement of France on the continent. It had been said, that we had protected our allies. What was the fact? How had we protected Portugal? It appeared that it was only a portion of her territory, whose integrity was to be preserved. A part of the important province of Olivenza was to be ́ceded. Our ally, the Prince of Orange, was not even named in the preliminaries, although from his faithful attachment to us he had lost both his territories and his station. Could it be said that Ceylon and Trinidad gave either sufficient indemnity for the past, or security for the future? In India, the bravery of our army had subdued Tippoo Saib, and placed that country out of danger; but by this peace, which surrenders to the enemy the Cape of Good Hope and Cochin, we afford them an entrance into Malabar; while in South America we have permitted Portugal to cede to France a strong military position at the mouth of the river Amazon. In the West Indies we had surrendered Martinique, and left the French in the possession of St. Domingo. In the Mediterranean we had surrendered every thing, to our own exclusion ;