in giving his approbation and assent, and putting the question in every successive stage of the bill to a measure, sitting on that Woolsack as President of this august assembly, which he has asserted in the course of this night’s debate will be the certain ruin and destruction of this country?

The Duke Richmond replied to the observations made on his speech; and the question being put,

It was resolved in the negative.

Contents 29, Proxies 3. Non-Contents 79, Proxies 21.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

Friday, March 1, 1776.

Mr. Temple Luttrell moved, “That the proper officers do lay before this House the last Weekly Accounts received at the Admiralty from the Admiral or Commander-in-Chief of his Majesty’s Ships and Vessels at the several Ports of Chatham, Plymouth, and Portsmouth; together with the last Weekly Accounts of the state and condition of all such Ships and Vessels-of-War as are now employed upon Channel service, or on the Coasts of Great Britain or Ireland.”

He introduced his motion with some strictures upon the Admiralty, for the little care that had been taken in manning the men-of-war for the American service, by which misconduct some of the frigates had run ashore, and others been impeded in their voyage, &c. He insisted upon it, that so numerous a fleet as that, which, it is said, would amount to near one hundred sail, could not possibly be fitted out without press-warrants; yet he did not condemn the withholding such expedient; for next to the compelling Americans to serve against Americans, nothing could be worse than to force Britons to fight against them. He asked if it would not be wiser to have fifty men-of-war on that service properly manned, than one hundred in so wretched a condition. The fleet in America, including store-ships, victuallers, and small craft, must require upwards of twenty thousand men, which would be more than could be spared at so remote a distance, consistent with the safety of these Islands, when your resources of men for land and sea service were so reduced, and the French and Spaniards actually fitting out large naval armaments, and increasing their military establishments. Some Ministerial gentlemen had asserted, the evening before, that we had twenty sail of line-of-battle ships fit to encounter any enemy whatever at a few days notice. This was absolutely a false state of facts. He would engage to prove, by indisputable evidence at the bar, that when the rest of the ships destined for America shall have sailed, there will not be seamen sufficient, in all the ports put together, to complete the complements of fourteen sail of the line. The Spaniards will in less than six weeks have a greater force than that within two days sail of Gibraltar, and we have only one ship of the line in the Mediterranean. The French are now superior to us in all parts of the world excepting North-America. We have not a single line-of-battle ship either in the East or West-Indies; France has a squadron at Hispaniola, and ten thousand land forces. Are we, then, henceforward to hold our very existence as a nation by no better tenure than the impolitick faith or com-misseration of the House of Bourbon?

Right Hon. T. Townshend seconded the motion.

Sir Hugh Palliser replied, that the Navy was in a most flourishing state at home; and said that the American ships were manned in a most satisfactory manner. The guard-ships had supernumerary hands, and seamen came in faster than was requisite.

Lord Mulgrave supported these assertions, and declared, as a professional man, that we could have a fleet of forty sail of the line in a few weeks, and sixty in a month’s time, if necessary.

Governour Johnstone replied, and showed that there was but too much reason to apprehend we were going to our lowest ebb as a maritime Power as well as a commercial one.

Mr. W. H. Hartley expressed his concern that country gentlemen should encourage Ministry in the unconstitutional practice of withholding information from the Representatives of the people.

The House divided.

So it passed in the negative.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

Monday, March 11, 1776.

The Order of the Day being read, for the House to resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole House, to consider further of the Supply granted to his Majesty,

Ordered, That the account of Extraordinary Services incurred and paid by the Right Honourable Richard, Rigby, Paymaster-General of his Majesty’s Forces, between the 9th of March, 1775, and the 31st of January, 1776, and not provided for by Parliament, be referred to the said Committee.

Then the House resolved itself into the said Committee.

Lord Barrington moved, “That eight hundred and forty-five thousand one hundred and sixty-five Pounds fourteen Shillings and eight and one-fourth Pence, be granted towards defraying the Extraordinary Expenses of the Land Forces, and other services incurred, between the 9th of March, 1775, and the 31st of January, 1776.”

Colonel Barré said the annals of this country did not furnish another instance in which a nominal body of eleven thousand men, never amounting at any time within the period mentioned in the resolution to above eight thousand five hundred effective men, had cost the nation so much money. The campaign of Bunlcer’s Hill and Lexington was ludicrously compared with the glorious campaigns of the immortal John Duke of Marlborough; and the forcing the lines thrown up by a mob in the course of a summer’s night, opposed to the victories of Blenheim, Schellenburgh, the conquest of Gibraltar and Minorca, the traversing the vast circuit of the kingdom of Spain by Lord Peterborough, and the renowned impressions made by the Duke of Ormond at Vigo and Port St. Mary. Mystick River was compared to the Danube; and the operations of a war that pervaded half Europe, and in which a British army, and foreigners in British pay, amounting to seventy thousand men, had rendered the power and glory of the British arms immortal, was balanced against those carried on within a circuit of little more extent than what is taken up by the site of this Metropolis. The expense of the former was shown to amount to a sum not more than two millions, while the other, including the expenses of the fleet, cost nearly three millions, the very extraordinaries and ordnance service alone amounting to one million three hundred thousand pounds. He eulogized General Montgomery, the account of whose death in an attempt to take Quebeck by escalade, had arrived but a few days before.

Mr. Burke drew several comparisons between the victories of Mr. Pitt and those of the noble Lord, [North,] and contended that the campaign which gave the great continent of North-America to this country, though the force consisted of forty thousand men, fell considerably short of the expense of maintaining eight thousand wretched men, starved, disgraced, and cooped up in the single town of Boston. He paid very high compliments to General Montgomery, who had conquered two-thirds of Canada in one campaign.

Mr. Fox vied with Mr. Burke in his eulogium of General Montgomery.

Lord North censured what he called this unqualified liberality of the praises bestowed on General Montgomery by the gentlemen in Opposition, because they were bestowed upon a Rebel; and said he could not join in lamenting his death as a publick loss. He admitted, indeed, that he was brave, able, humane, generous; but still he was only a brave, able, humane, and generous Rebel; and said that the verse of the tragedy of Cato might be applied to him—

“Curse on his virtues, they’ve undone his country.”

Mr. Fox rose a second time, and said the term “Rebel,” applied by the noble Lord to that excellent person, was no