led to a deviation from former principles, to the circulation of the most pernicious sentiments, and which ultimately degenerated into an undisguised and culpable system of creating despondency, of disarming public virtue, and discountenancing public spirit. The evil became unpardonable when you set at defiance the moral and physical resources of your countrymen, depreciated their power, and encouraged the basest and most unnatural of paricides to prónounce them unworthy of being saved.

In order that you may no longer deceive the country or yourself with a belief that such a policy is conducive, either to its glory or your ambition, I shall briefly sketch the conduct of those whose administration you have arraigned with the utmost vehemence of personal and unmanly abuse. Nothing can be more simple than the inference to be drawn from it, as a guide to public judgment. If, during three years of a most arduous and troubled ministry, their general system has proved commensurate to the public expectation; if they have disappointed. the wishes neither of their sovereign nor their fellow-subjects; if they have endeavoured to study the wants of their country, and to supply them; to harmonize their actions in conformity

with the public feelings; to still the raging storm of war, by a judicious mixture of forbearance and firmness; and if frustrated in their pacific views, by the wild, abrupt, and menacing movements of a meteor, which has effectually terrified the rest of Europe, and whose erratic progress it was beyond the power of man to esti mate by any previous calculations, they have appealed with spirit and dignity to the justice, honor, and patriotism of the people to seek redress; if they have placed the nation in a position which is invulnerable to the assaults of ag gression, and prepared us to repress it with vigor, courage, and resolution--then do I assert, that they are justly entitled to a continuance of our confidence, and that the opposition their measures have experienced, and do still experience, is the offspring of the most hateful faction, abetted by the foulest and most rancourous calumnies. If, on the contrary, their measures cannot stand this test, then I am ready to admit, that their opponents are not calumniators, factious demagogues, insolent pretenders, aspiring at power, nor do they deserve the execrations of all honest men.

The question at issue must be determined by an exposure of FACTS, not by the sophistry of argu

ments; and these facts I shall comprise under the following heads, namely, the time, manner, and circumstances of the appointment of the pre.sent administration--their conduct from that epoch to the present; in war as well as in peace

their general character and relative merits, -compared with the character and merits of those who are straining every effort of public misrepresentation and private intrigue to supplant them and lastly, as a corollary to the whole, the prospect which their continuance in office holds out to this empire and to mankind.

First. Of the time, manner, and circumstances of the appointment of the present administration.

The month of March 1801, will be recorded by the future annalist of our empire, as an æra of greater difficulties, more threatened dangers, and, consequently, of more general alarm than had ever occurred in any period of the history of our country. Flushed with continental victories, and exalted by the prostration of the most warlike powers of Europe, the Corsican free-booter had no other employment left for his conquering hordes, than the war against Great Britain. His sole remaining occupation was to

unknown.

collect his force, and to pour its bursting passions on the most stubborn and most powerful enemy with whom he had ever contended. The difficulty of a contest, single-handed, with us was readily foreseen by the crafty tyrant of the continent:-he, therefore, employed intrigues where force could not avail. Hence the Northern Confederacy; an event more calculated to create alarm than the accumulated power of the Republic itself. Our allies had grounded their arms; the rest of the world were in array against us. The event of our expedition to Egypt was yet Such were our foreign prospects. Our domestic situation was not less gloomy. Ireland was unsettled; a general scarcity prevailed*: the indisposition of our beloved sovereign; the severe burthens of a protracted war, which the people had sustained with matchless valour, fortitude, and resignation; the prevalent opinion that some of the objects of the war were unattainable, while others had been accomplished; the universal desire for peace; the sudden and unaccountable resignation of the ministers, who had directed the affairs of the nation during eight years of

*The quartern loaf was 1s. 10d. it is now 8d.

D

unexampled contest; in short, numberless complicated and increasing difficulties, familiar to every one who thought and felt for his country, during those days of gloom and despondency, had contributed to cast a general melancholy over the countenances even of men who possessed the stoutest souls, and to damp, in some degree, the desire of prolonging the conflict, though by no means to diminish the loyal efforts which had uniformly accompanied its progress. Such was our internal condition when Mr. Addington was CALLED by his Sovereign to relinquish the honors and dignity of a station which he had filled for twelve years with unrivalled ability and applause, without having raised one personał or political enemy, to another of high and complicated difficulty; to one ever open to envy, uncharitableness and animosity.

The offer of the government under such disheartening circumstances, was enough to appar the strongest and most ambitious mind-the acceptance of it, an unequivocal proof of probity, courage, and devotion to the public. There was no field of glory in reversion, no-human prospect of gathering fresh laurels; the widely extended range of conflict had been hotly disputed, and nobly trodden. It was not like entering on the