BOOK the remaining seven millions, taxes were to be XXIV. provided, which, with a large increase of navy1798. debt, amounting to about four millions, required the sum of 763,000l. in addition to the annual burdens already sustained by the public. And thus terminated the first great effort of this vaunting minister, to introduce a new and SOLID SYSTEM of FINANCE-an effort which imposed upon the nation temporary taxes, for three years, to the amount of four millions and a half; perpetual taxes to the amount of nearly 800,000/.; and which created a new additional capital of forty-four millions of debt for twentytwo millions actually paid into the public Exchequer. Invasion threatened Though a message had early in the year been by France. sent from the king to the two houses, stating the preparations making by the enemy for the invasion of these kingdoms, and soliciting the attention of parliament to the subject, it was some time before any regular plan could be matured for the national defence. At length, Mr. Dundas moved for the introduction of a bill, to for the na- enable his majesty to call out a certain portion of the supplementary militia; and, after an interval of some weeks, for a second bill, to enable his majesty to take measures for the more effectual security of these realms, and to indemnify persons who might suffer injury in their property Vigorous preparations tional deknce. XXIV. by the operation of such measures. This bill, BOOK which contained a great variety of regulations, proper and necessary to be adopted in case of 1798. actual invasion, was received with very general approbation. A third bill was brought into the house by Mr. Secretary Dundas, to revive the suspension of the Habeas-Corpus Act, which, when a rebellion was impending in one kingdom, and an invasion in the other, could not be objected to. The chancellor of the Exchequer, upon this occasion, declared, that at no former period of the war were the preparations of the enemy for a descent upon this country so ripe, so extensive, or so truly alarming, as at the present crisis. The French government, freed from the perplexities and struggles in which it had been involved, by the military exertions of the continental powers, was now at liberty to employ its troops directly against us. Some difference of opinion took place respecting the duration of the suspension, but it was at length fixed for the 1st of February. The alarm of invasion not only continuing, but increasing, and the French having by this time assembled a vast force on the opposite side of the channel, the chancellor of the Exchequer, on the 25th of May, moved for a bill for the more effectual manning of the navy. The chief XXIV. BOOK object he had in view was the temporary sus pension of protections, and it was his wish that 1798. the bill should that day pass through its different stages in that house, and be sent up to the lords for their concurrence. Mr. Tierney expressed his belief that the augmentation of the navy might be provided for in the usual way. No arguments had been offered to prove the propriety of such an extraordinary deviation from the common practice of that house; nor was he prepared to give three or four votes without some deliberation and reflection in favor of a bill which, like all the other measures of ministry, he considered as decidedly hostile to the liberty of the subject. Mr. Pitt rose in great warmth, and said, "that if every measure adopted against the designs of France was to be considered as hostile to the liberties of this country, then indeed his idea of liberty differed widely from that of the honorable gentleman. Were the present bill not passed in a day, it was obvious that those whom it concerned might elude its effects: but if the measure was necessary, and that a previous notice would render it inefficient, how could the honorable gentleman's opposition to it be accounted for, but from a desire to obstruct the defence of the country?"-Mr. Tierney now rose, and called the chancellor of the Exchequer to XXIV. order: and the Speaker interposing, with that BOOK dignified impartiality which on all occasions marked his conduct, observed, that whatever 1798. had a tendency to throw suspicion on the sentiments of a member, if conveyed in language that clearly marked such intention, was certainly irregular. This the house would judge of, but they would wait to hear the honorable gentleman's explanation. Mr. Pitt replied, "that if the house waited for his explanation, he feared it must wait a long time. He submitted what he had said to the judgment of the house, and would not depart from any thing he had advanced, by either retracting or explaining his words.”—This peremptory refusal to explain a most unparliamentary and injurious expression, a refusal no less disrespectful to the house than unjust to Mr.Tierney, occasioned a sudden silence; and no person having the presence of mind to move a resolution of censure upon the minister, Mr. Tierney immediately left the house. The consequence, was, that a challenge was sent from that gentleman to Mr. Pitt, and a duel fought between them on the en- Duel besuing Sunday; when two cases of pistols being Pitt and Mr. discharged without effect, Mr. Pitt firing his last pistol in the air, the matter was accommodated by the respective seconds. The bill in question having passed through all tween Mr. Tierney. BOOK its stages, the chancellor of the Exchequer proXXIV. posed that it should commence from the 24th 1798. of May, instant. This was objected to by Mr. Motion of the slave trade Wigley, who, with good reason, thought it a most unjustifiable thing in itself, as well as dangerous in precedent, to make any law which should operate in an ex-post-facto manner. The objection nevertheless was over-ruled, and the bill, with its odious appendage, finally passed into an act on the same day. Certainly, in every country, ex-post-facto laws are the most iniquitous, and, in a free country, the most hateful and heterogeneous of things. Whence! from what legitimate source, is this power derived, of subjecting men to the operation of laws before those laws began to exist,-by an infernal device thus binding their victims in an invisible necromantic chain? In the course of the session, Mr. Wilberforce force for the again renewed his unfortunate motion for the abolition of Abolition of the Slave-Trade. It was supported in two very eloquent speeches, each excellent in its way, by Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox; the latter of whom, influenced by his native generosity and humanity, would not absent himself from this discussion. "The great plea (Mr. Pitt remarked) for the continuance of the slave-trade was the necessity of a free importation, in order to enable the planter to bring his waste lands into |