The trial of Lord Melville before the House of Peers began on 29th April 1806. The charges against him, little understood by the public at large, related to an infraction of his official duty, not as a member of the cabinet, but in his early and inferior station of Treasurer of the Navy. These charges may be comprised under the following heads : That he had allowed Mr Trotter, his paymaster, to take the tempor ary use and profit of sums of money lodged in the Bank for the naval expenditure ; that he had himself par ticipated in such profits ; and, finally, that he had applied certain sums of public money to his private use. All participation in the speculations or profit of his paymaster his lordship positively denied, but he acknowledged a temporary appropriation of the sum of L.10,000 in a way which " private honour and public duty forbade him to reveal." The trial closed on 12th June ; the articles of impeachment had been extended to the number of ten, and on all of them there was a majority of Peers for his acquittal ; but while in regard to the charge of conniving at stock speculations by Trotter, or converting the public money to his private use, the majorities were trium phant, the case was otherwise in regard to his Lord ship's permitting an unauthorized appropriation of the public money by Trotter, and receiving from him tem porary loans, the records of which were afterwards destroyed.
Though the present Parliament had completed only four sessions, ministers determined on a disso lution, doubtless from a wish to have the benefit of the government influence in the new elections. They knew their weakness at Court, and flattered them selves that a decided ascendancy in Parliament would enable them to press, with greater confidence, measures for which they could not boast the cordial concurrence of their royal master. For the time of the new election, they chose the moment of national excitement, caused by the recal of our ambassador from the French capital. The first debate in the new House of Commons related to the abortive ne gotiation for peace, and although the publication of the official papers excited some surprise, and showed that Bonaparte had at one time carried his offers of concession considerably farther than the public had supposed, there prevailed so general a distrust towards him, that Mr Whitbread stood almost alone in the opinion that the negotiation ought to have been continued. After some renewed discussions on Mr Windham's military measures, Lord Henry Petty, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, brought forward a plan of finance, which, assuming the expence of the current year as equal to that of subsequent years of war, professed to provide, with out new taxes, for a contest of fourteen years or more. This plan contained an anticipated calcula tion of the loans necessary for several years to come, and supposed that a sum equal to .10 per cent. on each loan should be appropriated from the war taxes, of which 5 per cent. should serve to pay the interest of the loan, and the other 5 per cent. form a sinking fund, which, by the operation of com pound interest, would redeem the capital in fourteen years ; leaving the whole 10 per cent. again applica ble to the same purpose, should the war continue. That this plan possessed, no more than those of Pitt or Vansittart, the merit of increasing the productive power of our revenue, has been already shown by Dr Hamilton in his well known Treatise on the Na tional Debt. Its merit, had it been tried, would have been found to consist, as that of such plans general ly does, in a support, perhaps a temporary increase, of public credit. It may even be questioned, whe ther the same ministry, had they continued in office, would have restricted themselves to a limited expen diture in 1808, when the Spanish struggle called forth such a burst of our national enthusiasm. There can,-however, be no doubt, that they would have avoided the Orders in Council. which, by de priving us of the unseen but powerful aid of neutral traffic, gave the first great blow to our Beak paper, and consequently to our public funds.
The bill for the abolition of the slave trade was now brought forward with all the weight of govern ment support, and carried by triumphant majorities; in the Lords by 100 to 86, in the Commons by 283 to 16. This prompt termination of a straggle of twenty years showed how easily the measure might have been carried had not Mr Pitt declined to give it ministerial support ; a course. suggested to him, probably by a dread of offending the West India planters, but founded, in a great measure, on misap. prehension, since the most respectable part of that body (the proprietors of long settled estates) were far from adverse to the abolition, calculated as it was to prevent that superabundance of produce which to them is the most serious of evils. This proved the last important bill of the Grenville ministry, whose removal from office took place very unexpectedly in consequence of a difference with the sovereign about the Irish Catholics.
The bill which produced this sudden change was introduced by Lord Howick on 5th March, and titled, " A bill to enable his Majesty to avail him self of the services of all his liege subjects in his na val and military forces, in the manner therein men tioned ;" that is, by their taking an oath contained in the bill, after which they should be left to the free exercise of their religion. Here, as in the case of the American intercourse with the West Indies, die intention was less to introduce a new practice, than to permit by law what was already permitted by con nivance. The draught of the bill had been previ ously submitted to the King, and returned by him without objection ; but the royal attention was more closely drawn to it on its introduction into parlia ment, and on a vehement opposition from Mr Perce val, who described it as part of a system of danger ous innovation, and as a precursor of the abolition of all religious tests. The king now intimated his dis approbation of the bill to ministers, who endeavoured to modify it, but still without succeeding in render ing it acceptable to their sovereign. They then felt the necessity of withdrawing the bill, but inserted in the cabinet minutes a declaration, reserving to them selves two points—the liberty of delivering their opi nion in Parliament in favour of the proposed mea sure, and of bringing it forward at a future period. This minute was unfortunately couched in terms too positive, if not disrespectful to the King, who, al ways tenacious on the Catholic question, and never personally cordial with Lords Grenville and Howick, insisted that they should pledge themselves in writ ing never to press him again on the subject. Mi nisters declining to comply, the King consulted with Lord Eldon about forming a new ministry, and, re ceiving a ready assurance of the practicability of such a measure, refused to listen to a modified ac quiescence with his late order, offered rather tardily by Lord Grenville. Ministers gave up the seals oP office on 25th March; and, next day, the change and the causes that led to it were fully discussed in Parliament. A short adjournment now took place, after which there occurred some remarkable trials of strength between the two parties. An independent member (Mr Brand), with reference to the condi tions on which the ministry had come into office, made a motion that it was contrary to the duty of members of the cabinet to restrain themselves by a pledge from advising the King on any subject. This .motion produced a very long debate, but was lost by 258 against 226; while a corresponding motion in the Lords was lost by 171 • to 90. A subsequent proposition, to express the regret of the House at the removal from office of so firm and stable an ad ministration, was lost by 244 against 198 ; and it be came apparent that in Parliament, as at Court, the fall of the Grenville ministry was decided.