at the object of our solicitude honourably and peaceably. Was this mode of proceeding unsatisfactory, because there did not exist in the archives of his office a single document relative to this question which Spain had not seen, and of which the powers in alliance with this country had not been supplied with copies? Was this transaction deemed unsatisfactory, because Spain was told, that if she would take the precedence, in recognizing the independence of the colonies, this country would be content to follow her steps, and to allow to her a superiority in the markets of those colonies? Was the arrangement unsatisfactory, because, proceeding alone, England disdained to take any unfair advantages of a friendly state? Was it unsatisfactory, because we saw, that whoever might follow us in recognizing the independence of those states, would be placed by our side, and would enjoy equal advantages with ourselves? The hon. and learned gentleman admitted that he approved of the measure, but he stated that he disapproved both of the mode and the time. Now, he would say to the hon. and learned gentleman, in return, that the credit of the measure might be his, or it might be that of his hon. and learned friend (Sir J. Macintosh); but he (Mr. Canning) would claim for himself the merit of that to which the hon. and learned gentleman affixed blame-the merit of selecting the time, and of devising the mode, in which this object was to be effected. And he trusted, that by this plain conduct, by this temperate, this tardy policy, if they pleased so

to call it, the country had got rid of all the dangers which otherwise would have accompanied the recognition. Did they not know, could he attempt to conceal, that, by this step, England had offended many interests? Had she not called forth many regrets? Had she not excited much anger? Had she not raised up considerable ill-feeling? Had she not created passions of no favourable nature? This was the fact. Still, however, he entertained the most sanguine hopes that those evil feelings and angry passions would exhale themselves, and subside in mere words; and that the peace of the world would continue to be preserved. Notwithstanding the unsparing blame which the hon. and learned gentleman had cast on the work which had been just completed, he (Mr. Canning) thought that ministers had done their duty, on this point at least; and he was ready to abide the judgment of the house and the country. He did not think there was, in the speech of the hon. and learned gentleman, any other topic that called for particular notice. The hon. and learned gentleman had satisfied himself, by entering his protest with respect to the only measure that was likely to grow out of this address. He was ready, when the proper time arrived, to meet the hon. and learned gentleman on that subject, feeling perfectly confident that he should be able to show that the interposition of the legislature was absolutely necessary. There were one or two points which he was not exactly called on to notice, but on which it would, perhaps, be proper that he should say a few words. He alluded

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alluded more particularly to the treaty with the United States of America relative to the slavetrade. The house would recollect that, at the beginning of the last session of parliament, a proposal was received from the United States of America, to carry into effect a measure for putting an end to the slave-trade, by giving to each power the right of mutual search. The treaty was drawn up by the ministers of the United States; and in the course of the negociation, some alterations in the treaty were made here. By the constitution of the United States, the right of ratification was placed, not in the executive power, but in the executive power and the senate also. This country, therefore, had no right to complain, when a treaty, regularly negociated and signed by his Majesty, was refused by the American authorities, unless alterations were made in it by the United States. But the sin gularity of the case was thisthat the alteration proposed by the United States had no reference to the alteration introduced by the British Cabinet, but was an alteration of their own original draught of the treaty. It was an alteration, too, which withdrew the principle of reciprocity-of the right of mutual search, on which the treaty had been founded. By the original treaty, the Americans were to be permitted to search our ships in the West Indies, and we in return. were to be allowed the right of searching their ships off the coast of America. They withdrew from the treaty the clause which empowered us to search their ships off the coast of America, but

they retained that which gave them liberty to visit our vessels in the West Indies. The mutual right of search was thus destroyed, and it was impossible for this government, either as a question of policy or as matter of justice to the West-India proprietors, to allow such an alteration; for it would be a tacit admission that our slave laws were evaded by the colonies, but that the American slave laws were not so evaded. This government, therefore, could not sanction an instrument which said, on the face of it, that we on our part committed a crime which the Americans refused to perpetrate. Under these circumstances, the course government took was this-the Americans made an alteration; we could not admit it; and we therefore proposed to cancel that treaty, and to send a minister for the purpose of forming a new one, which should be drawn up verbatim as the treaty originally stood before the objectionable alteration was made in it. This was the situation in which the matter was now placed, and he did not think that a refusal to accede to so reasonable a proposition could stand the test of public discussion in America. The first step this government took in the business was to consider as piracy the trading in slaves. We thus placed ourselves on a level with the Americans; and he thought the Americans themselves must feel that they had no choice left but that of adopting the expedient which the British government had pointed out. The whole discussion had been carried on in a spirit of the most perfect amity; and he believed the personal feelings of the executive

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government of the United States were in favour of this arrangement. There was no other topic, he apprehended, which it was necessary for him to introduce; and as he had addressed them at such length, he would not trouble the house any farther.

The Speaker then put the question, which was carried unanimously, and a committee was appointed to prepare the address of his Majesty.

armies into France, and from thence proceed to annoy our shores. It was impossible to allow such topics to be introduced and embodied in the address, without calling the attention of the house to them, and protesting against them in the most solemn manner. The hon. gentleman next spoke in favour of the Catholic Association, which, he said, was the faithful representative of the catholic population of Ire

House of Commons, Feb. 4.Lord F. W. Leveson Gower appeared at the bar with the report of the committee appointed to draw up the address to his Majesty.

On the question that it be brought up, Mr. Hobhouse said he could not allow this opportunity to pass without offering a few words on the subject of the address. In the speech it was prominently put forth, that his Majesty congratulated parliament on the prosperity of the country, and also on the tone of amity which prevailed in our relations with foreign powers. But after these consolatory remarks, what did the speech recommend parliament to do? Why, notwithstanding our general prosperity and tranquillity, and that, too, even in Ireland, it recommended a change of the criminal code, not merely of Ireland, but also of England; and, notwithstanding the peaceable aspect of foreign affairs, it also recommended an increase of our standing army--as if it was meant that Ireland would in a short time break out into open rebellion, and that the Holy Allies were disposed to march their

state of India, Greece, America, and to the augmentation of the standing army. Without desiring to pry into any secrets which the cabinet might think it necessary to conceal, might he be permitted to ask whether the augmentation had any reference to the new line of policy, if, indeed, it were new, which had been adopted with regard to the Holy Alliance? We had now a standing army of 73,000 regular troops-a number of men, which, twenty years ago, nobody would have contemplated as possible to be kept up in time of peace. The country had, therefore, a right to information upon two points on which it was now purposely kept in the dark. The first was- -how much was the army to be augmented-— by 5,000, by 10,000, by 15,000, or, as he heard it stated, by 20,000 men? And the next― let the augmentation be what it might-for what purpose was it made? Was it, he would ask, on account of the continued occupation of Spain by the French troops? Whilst he was upon that subject, he must be permitted to express his astonishment at finding that there was no allusion made, either in his Majesty's

speech,

specch, or in the address which had been voted in reply to it, to the continued occupation of the territory of one power that was friendly to us, by the troops of another power that was also friendly to us an occupation, too, that had arisen out of an act of aggression, which the right hon. gentleman had himself declared to be one of the most unjustifiable that could be found in the history of nations. They had not even been told that Spain was not to continue till the end of time a mere district and province of France. Had not the people of England a right to know whether so great and crying an injustice was to be consummated and perpetuated for ever? We had suffered one of our allies to annibilate the independence of Italy; but there had been no call for arming them: on the contrary, it was contended in that house, that every thing which Austria had done, had been done with a justifiable view of consolidating her own power, and preserving her own dominions from danger. We had suffered another of our allies to subjugate the independence of Spain; but there had been no call for arming them, or at least only from that side of the house whose calls were not often attended to by the majority of it. But now, because the Burman empire, of whose very existence few men knew any thing, chose to attack the East India Company, and because there were other circumstances connected with our foreign possessions, which were not specifically mentioned, and of which nobody knew any thing, our army was to be augmented, and no inconsiderable additions were

to be made to it. He contended that the house would be guilty of an act of flagrant injustice to the people of England, and of a gross neglect of its own duty, if it permitted the address to be brought up, without demanding from ministers a further explanation than any which they had hitherto thought proper to give. There was another topic on which he had heard no observations made, and to which he wished to call public attention. This augmentation was not to cost the country much, because the East India Company was to pay most of the troops of which it consisted. He cared not who paid them; he had rather, however, that the people of England did not: his objection went deeper, and was to the army itself. It must, however, at any rate, cost something; and he thought that the right hon. gentleman, (the Chancellor of the Exchequer,) when he came to explain his budget, should tell them how far his intention of making further reductions in the weight of taxation had been paralyzed by this scheme to augment the army. He hoped that some of the reductions which the right hon. gentleman intended to make would apply to the direct taxation of the country. Much as the people were inclined to applaud the liberality of his policy towards them, still they laboured under a conviction that a reduction of direct taxation was imperiously called for. He had thrown out these observations, not with any intention of dividing the house, but that he might not be supposed to concur in many of the topics which the speech contained. He joined, however, in the congratulations which it contained upon the improvement of

the

the agriculture and commerce of the country; and, he might also add, upon the improvement of ministers. He cared little who was to have the credit of the changes which had taken placehe minded not whose was the thunder: if it spared the subject, and beat down those who were proud, he was glad that it had descended, and was perfectly regardless as to the quarter from which it had come.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer should postpone his explanation to a future day; at present he would merely observe, that though the augmentation of the army seemed to him absolutely necessary, he should be able to accompany it with a reduction of taxation, which he trusted would appear to be founded on sound principles, and to be generally acceptable to the country. The whole burden of the speech which the hon. member for Westminster had just made was contained in these words-" What are the grounds on which you, the ministers, call upon the house to sanction this increase of the army?" The hon. member, in putting that question, had alluded to what had fallen from the noble mover of the address, namely, that there was nothing in the state of Ireland to require an increase of our military establishment. His Majesty's government did not pretend to say that there was any thing in Ireland which required the presence of an additional soldier. The same was also the case in England. Indeed, his Majesty's speech distinctly stated, that the augmentation of the army had reference, not to the internal, but to the external circumstances of

the country. The hon. member had also treated the Burmese war as a matter of great indifference: and that was not surprising, considering that most people treated with indifference a distant danger. The hon. member had also said, that he knew nothing of the Burman empire, except its geographical situation; but for all that, it might be a very formidable power, and calculated to inflict no small detriment upon our possessions in India. Any man who considered the peculiar nature of our empire in India, and how it had arisen, almost in spite of its rulers, into its present extent and magnitude, would see that whatever tended to disturb the tranquillity of any part of it, might produce, and indeed was calculated to produce, effects much more important than any which would enter into the imagination of a mere casual observer, or of one who only knew the Burman empire by mere hearsay. It would be time enough for him to enter into some explanation of the nature of the Burmese power, when the matter was regularly brought before the house; and he had no doubt that whenever it was so brought before it, he should be able to convince it that this increase of the army was dictated by sound policy, and was not liable to the objections which the hon. member for Westminster had urged against it; for it was not an increase made in time of profound peace, but an increase made in time of active war. With regard to the words, "our other foreign possessions," he referred him to the time of the debate for information of the details regarding them, which his right hon. friend

would