Mr Grattan, in a subsequent debate, severely repre hended the ex-minister, for presuming to shelter him self behind the authority of Lord Chatham, whose wis dom and vigour formed so striking a contrast to the lolly and weakness of his own administration. It had been avowed, that the armament was resolved upon, and prepared before ministers received intelligence of the fatal battle of \Vagram, and the signing of the armistice ; and that even after that intelligence, it was thought right not to stop it, but to send out the expedition ; that was to say, that it being proper to send an army to cre ate a diversion in favour of Austria while at war with France, it was also proper to send it after Austria had been compelled to make her peace. The arguments on the other side amounted pretty much to this, that hav ing a disposeable army, it was absolutely necessary to make use of it ; that was, to get rid of it. Ministers had said, that they were not bound to abide by military opi nions ; and yet in effect they had relinquished that asser tion, by contending that the opinions of military men were divided. lie would contend, that the opinions of the hest authorities were neither dubious nor equivocal. Sir D. Dundas had stated great risk. Sir John Hope had declared that, as soon as he saw the state of things, he was persuaded that the attempt was impracticable. Lord Roslyn was of opinion, that the expedition could not at any time have succeeded. Lord Chatham enter tained doubts on the subject, hut those doubts were borne clown by orders from the admiralty. Sir Richard Strachan had expressed his conviction to Lord Mul grave, that the expedition would fail. But ministers pretended that they had secret information, which forti fied them against the fears and doubts of professional men. Take an example of this secret information, as delivered in the report of the secret committee. They had been secretly informed that Cadsand was without troops. On his arrival at Cadsand, the Marquis of Huntly found a landing impracticable, from the superior force of the enemy. Such was their secret information. The same credit was due to the representations of the dilapidated state of Antwerp, on which they founded the ulterior object of this ruinous enterprise. Ministers had sent out an expedition of one hundred thousand men, of the result of which the general had great doubts, of which the admiral had no hopes, without a plan of Ant werp or of Lillo, and without a plan of co-operation. It was in vain for them to say, that they hoped for every thing from the spirit of British soldiers, for they sent them to encounter the plague, over which no spirit could triumph. Long after a necessity for retaining Walchcren had ceased to exist, (if a necessity ever ex isted,) they had persisted in retaining it. In the whole transaction, said Mr Grattan, government could only be exceeded in their guilt by that parliament which would excuse them.
The result of these debates was a resolution of the house, (carried, however, by majorities smaller than usual,f) on the 30th of March, that, considering the value of the objects of the enterprise, the apparent pro bability of its success, his majesty's ministers were blameable neither for sending out the expedition, nor delaying to evacuate Walcheren. The army and navy were, by the same vote, absolved from censure ; and the whole blame was laid on the state of the wind and wea ther, altogether unusual at the season of the year. In this opinion of the army and navy, it is probable that the na tion fully coincided with its representatives ; but it may well be doubted whether they were satisfied with the wind and weather being exclusively to blame, and, like Lear, they might exclaim, in their mortification, " I tax not von, ye elements, with unkindness !" The discussion of the Scheldt expedition was closely followed by another question, of which the issue, in the opinion of one part of the community, dangerously af fected the liberty of the subject; but, in the opinion of others, was a necessary assertion of the constitutional privileges of parliament. On the 21st of February, Mr
John Gale Jones had been committed to Newgate, by an order of the House of Commons, for a libellous hand bill, containing general and individual reflections on the members of that house. The offender had not been three weeks in confinement, when Sir Francis Burdett moved the house for his liberation, not upon the prin ciple that he had been sufficiently punished, but that the house had no right to assume such a power of pun ishment. The warrant of committal, Sir Francis said, was illegal in all its parts, but eminently so in its con clusion. A legal warrant must conclude with the words, " till the party be delivered by due course of law." This warrant ended with the words, "during the pleasure of the house." He valued the rights of the house ; but from whatever part of the constitution an exertion of arbitrary power came, it was the high and solemn duty of every Englishman to oppose it. In such a matter there were two obvious questions of justice, " crime, or no crime ?" The next question was committal. The house, he said, by such a proceeding, assumed at once a judicial, executive, and legislative power. This was in the very teeth of law. In the due administration of the law, it is provided that the same men shall not take two steps together. One set find the bill, another de cide on the Let, another on the law ; but that house, which administers no oath, which squares itself by no form, which makes no previous examination of the fact, Jumps at once upon its dangerous and most alarming conclusion, and finds the accused guilty. Contending, therefore, that this committal was in principle an in fringement on the royal authority, as well as on the right of the subject, and a violation of the law of the land, he moved, that "Gale Jones should be discharged." The attorney general, after sheaving several cases which Sir Francis Burdett had quoted, of the power of the house being resisted by the judges, to be inapplicable to the present question, contended, that Jones might have ap pealed legally for redress, if he thought himself illegally committed. He might demand to be brought up to the King's Bench on a habeas corpus, and then the question would be set at rest. The court would then decide, not on the privileges of the house, whether the particular libel was a violation of them, but whether he had been committed according to the law of the land. The ques tion, however, had been tried before in the Common Pleas, in the case of Mr Wilkes, where the then lord mayor was committed, for committing a servant of the house in contempt. It was then alledged, that the house had no right to commit for a contempt ; but Chief Jus tice De Grey expressed, as his own and his brother judges' opinion, that the house had a right, by the law of the land, to commit for all contempts. Mr Sheridan, and some other members, moved an amendment, that Mr Jones should be released from Newgate, his punish ment having already been sufficient ; whilst they dis claimed the principle of Sir Francis, that the committal had been illegal. The original motion was however put, and rejected by a very large majority.