a personal contest with Mr. Hastings?" Irresistible as this reasoning was, and preposterous as it would have been to arm an inveterate enemy of the accused party with the powers of a public prosecutor, when his proper station was that of an evidence, the motion was persisted in with great tenaciousness, and advocated by Mr. Sheri dan with his wonted spirit, but certainly in a manner that did no more credit to his own judgment than to the liberality of his colleagues. In pleading for the appointment of Francis, he appears to have merely performed a task that had been set him by the party with whom he acted; and his alternate efforts to persuade the assembly, and to ridicule the minister, plainly evinced the difficulty under which he laboured, and the sense he had of his utter inability to shew, by any sophistry or humour, that what was morally wrong could be politically right.

CHAPTER XIII.

Commercial Treaty with France.-Debates on Financial Questions.-Affairs of the Prince of Wales. Reported Marriage of his Royal Highness to Mrs. Fitzherbert.-Abuses in the Post-Office-Difference between Pitt and Grey, Conduct of Sheridan on that Occasion.

AMONG the various subjects which engaged the serious consideration of parliament during this session, the commercial treaty that had been concluded with France in the preceding year was one of the most important. This was the favourite measure of Mr. Pitt, who defended it with parental partiality, and explained it in a manner that evinced a most extensive knowledge of foreign and domestic trade. The treaty, however, was investigated with equal acuteness and asperity by the leading members in the opposition, of whom Mr. Fox and Mr. Burke were by far the most considerable. Their reasoning was grounded principally on the ancient jealousy which divided the two countries, and the spirit of rivalry that naturally rendered them hostile to each other's interests as well in peace

as in war.

This enmity on our part was justified by Mr. Fox in a strain of vehement indignation at the attempts made on the side of government to remove the prejudices which had so long prevented the two nations from entering into a state of commercial amity on a regulated basis and the principle of mutual confidence. It was earnestly contended that no change of circumstances could render the friendship of France desirable; for that the bad faith of the people was inherent, and their hatred to the English inveterate. The aversion of Mr. Fox to this connexion was expressed in the most unqualified

terms of harsh severity towards the Gallic nation, with whom, according to his statement, it was impossible to form any league of long continuance or advantage. The violence with which this great orator treated France was not more remarkable than his tender feeling for the interests of Portugal, which he considered as materially injured by the present junction, and that in open violation of an express treaty. Such were the opinions of this eminent statesman at that period, before the tremendous revolution in France induced more favourable sentiments respecting that nation. Yet if ever his ideas of any people were completely realised and illustrated, it was in the progress of this great moral explosion, which threatened the utter destruction of social order throughout Europe, and the establishment of a universal system of despotic barbarism, beneath whose baneful sway all the energies of virtue would have withered, and every state within its grasp would have lost even the semblance of political independence. But it was not one of the least remarkable consequences of that extraordinary event that it occasioned a revolution in the minds of many intelligent and upright men, who, from viewing the French national character with suspicion, began all at once to regard it with extreme partiality. Among these was Mr. Fox, who reprobated the commercial treaty not merely in the terms, but in the principle, out of a radical dislike to the French ; but when that people exhibited themselves to the life, as he had described them, this great man could see no harm in their doings, nor any danger in their friendship.

Throughout the discussion of this subject, Mr. Sheridan distinguished himself with considerable activity; but his opposition to the commercial treaty was almost exclusively confined to the supposed injury rendered to the trade and manufactures of Ireland. His arguments, however, were of little weight, and he could scarcely supply the lack of matter by the display of wit; because,

in so doing, he must have laid himself and the Irish people open to ridicule for having resisted the boon held out by the British parliament some time before, as an encouragement to the improvement of commerce in that kingdom, far exceeding any advantages to be derived from an intercourse with France, which country wanted none of her commodities. But if there was a deficiency of reasoning and humour on this question, it was amply made up by offensive personality. Mr. Sheridan appeared as if he lay in wait to catch at that part of the minister's statements which would furnish him with some keen strokes of attack and exultation; accordingly, when the reduction of the duty on brandies was mentioned, and Mr. Pitt observed that he meditated a still greater reduction at an early day, with a view to extend the system so happily commenced three years before, to the great prevention and abolition of smuggling, his antagonist arose, and in a tone of triumph declared, that the right honourable gentleman had now confessed the utter failure of his famous commutation plan for the abolition of smuggling. This was certainly taking great liberties with the declaration of the minister, who, whatever might have been his error in regard to the efficacy of the measure, had by no means spoken of it as an absolute remedy for the evil which it was calculated to redress. Mr. Pitt, in his reply, could not avoid uttering some warm expressions; and, among others, in accusing Sheridan of gross misrepresentation, he said, that he could hardly tell which most to admire, his ignorance or his confidence. This seems to have been what the other aimed at; for it furnished him with an opportunity to retort in a style of equal asperity upon his great opponent, observing, "that the ill manners of the right honourable gentleman were not more conspicuous than the weakness of his conduct, in charging him with confidence and ignorance, without a single argument to prove the foundation of any such charge." Mr. Sheridan, however,

in saying this, had forgotten that argument was out of the question on a simple matter of fact, in which he was himself the asserter and Mr. Pitt the denier of words alleged to have been used by the minis▾ ter in former debates. Even on the supposition that the benefit of the commutation tax had been anticipated beyond its merits, the error was very excusable; nor could there be any occasion for adverting to it in the present instance, unless it was to take advantage of an oversight for the purpose of embarrassing the minister in the prosecution of one great public business, by charging him with having fallen into a mistake in the operation of another. Mr. Sheridan accused the minister of quibbling about words; but in reality the quibbling belonged to himself, in garbling a speech delivered on a former occasion, to suit his present object. This he was forced to acknowledge in his explanation, by saying, that if Mr. Pitt did not make use of the word "entirely," when predicting the effects of the commutation act on smuggling, he had certainly gone so far as to say that the plan would put an end to the contraband trade" in a very great degree;" or words to that effect. Now it must have been obvious to all who heard him, that this last qualification completely refuted what he had so peremptorily advanced, and justified the chancellor of the exchequer from the charge of having ventured to give a positive assurance upon the subject.

Yet the remembrance of this altercation seems to have been very unpleasantly felt by Sheridan, for in a renewed debate on the commercial treaty, three days afterwards, he made another effort to grapple with the minister on the correctness of his statements, the extent of his knowledge in trade, and the deficiencies of his plan, by which the interests of this country, and particularly those of Ireland, were capriciously sacrificed to indulge an unnatural connexion. Having attacked the measure in general terms, he concluded with expressing a hope that he should hear no more the charge of confi