'for the election of a new Speaker, and his hon. friend who seconded it, for the many handsome things they had said of him; but he should be an ideot indeed, if he could possibly imagine he merited such compliments, or that his state of health, of which none of the King's ministers had ever received the smallest intimation from him, was the real cause of their moving for a new Speaker, without saying a word upon the subject previously to him. Every man, he was sure, who had the least pretensions to understanding, went before him in feeling that a consideration of his state of health was not the true motive for the present measure. In the course of the last session, when his ill health obliged him to put a temporary stop to the public business, he had, contrary to the advice of his physicians, and at the peril of his life, come down to that House in order to dispatch the affairs then under consideration. He had, when almost overwhelmed with infirmity, struggled hard to forward the business of parliament, and he had done so at the particular instance of those, who moved to have another gentleman appointed Speaker. This was usage he did not expect, and he thought he had a right to very different treatment. With regard to the gentleman proposed, no man thought more highly of his integrity and his abilities than he did; he sincerely hoped neither the abilities of the hon. gentleman, nor his qualifications to fill the chair, might be mentioned in comparison with such abilities and such qualifications as nature had bestowed upon him, because, if they were, he was confident he should be a considerable sufferer. He approved of that gentleman fully, but as the House must be beforehand with him in seeing through the fallacy of the reasons stated by the noble lord, as the grounds of the motion, and as it was an insult to the understanding of every gentleman present, to pretend, that an anxiety for his health was the real cause for moving that another Speaker might be chosen, he called upon the noble lord and upon his hon. friend to tell him, why he was thus disgracefully dismissed? If his conduct in the chair had been objectionable, if it had been criminal, let the criminality be fully known, and let exemplary punishment follow, if there could be any punishment more severe than public disgrace. He should be content, when the fact was undisguisedly acknowledged, and his offence publicly urged; and he could not but think he had a claim upon the noble lord and his hon. friend for this explanation; an explanation which he pressed for the more earnestly, because he did assure the House, upon his honour, that though he had been in town three days, he had never been asked whether his health would enable him to continue in the chair, should the House approve of his continu. ing there; nor had he been applied to, either directly or indirectly, on the subject of choosing a new Speaker. Mr. Fox strongly arraigned the ministers for having made it a system, during their continuance in office, to disgrace every dignified character in the kingdom, and especially to insult and vilify those men whose conduct the House of Commons approved. He gave as instances the treatment of his honourable relation, admiral Keppel, and the treatment of the late Speaker. He paid sir Fletcher the highest compliments, and said, the real and the pretended cause for removing him from the chair, reminded him of a former debate in the last parliament, when a noble lord had mentioned, that the German states, in their treaties and public acts, always made a distinction between the ratio suasoria and the ratio justifica. In the present case, the ratio suasoria was an obvious fallacy, and the ratio justifica the worst that could possibly be urged. The noble lord who made the motion had filled his speech with empty compliments on sir Fletcher, and after asserting that he was the ablest man the House could choose to sit in the chair, had concluded his address with moving, that another gentleman might be elected to fill it; and the hon. gentleman who seconded the motion, had recommended it to the gentleman moved for, as sir Fletcher's successor, to copy the example of sir Fletcher, telling him in the most plain, positive, and direct terms, that his only chance of making a good Speaker, rested on his implicitly following the model of sir Fletcher Norton. God! said Mr. Fox, what pitiful shifts, what shallow arguments are the present ministry reduced to, when they come down to the House, and tell us that our late Speaker is the ablest man in the world, the fittest to fill the chair, and in the same breath, beg us to choose another gentleman Speaker! And why? Not because it is pretended that Mr. Cornwall is superior in ability to sir Fletcher Norton, it is not even said that he is equal, but because, if he copies sir Fletcher's conduct, he may Good possibly discharge the duties of the chair with satisfaction to the House, and credit to himself! Would any other set of men in this or any other kingdom, grasp at a copy, merely because it may prove a tolerable one, when they can have the original? Sir Fletcher Norton, from any thing he has said this day, does not appear unqualified to take the chair; he is in good health now; and when, unhappily for his family and the public, he feels a relapse, it will then be sufficiently early to talk of a successor. Certainly to appoint one at this period, and under these circumstances, is not without a precedent, but it is extremely unusual, and therefore becomes singular. What will people without doors think? What will the world say? Will they not take this measure as an ill omen, as a bad beginning of the new parliament? Will they not see, that all the noble lord in the blue ribbon said last year, on the subject of the late Speaker's health, all his pathos, all his expressions of tenderness, which every body at that time, the greatest part of the House however, sincerely sympathized in, were nothing but empty words, compliments without meaning, and professions without foundation! Will they not say, that the true cause of such unparalleled ill treatment, is that speech alluded to by my hon. friend? a speech which did sir Fletcher the highest honour, and which was a noble and manly proof of his true regard for his country, and his feeling for her distresses. I desire, if I am in order, that the clerk may read the thanks of the House to the Speaker, which were almost unanimously resolved on that occasion, and they will then see the baseness of this attempt to disgrace a man whom the House has honoured. Let them add to the impression, the present conduct of ministers. Sir Fletcher feels himself insulted; he complains of the insult, and he demands, honestly demands to know the cause. Do ministers answer him? Does the noble lord in the blue ribbon speak out, and fairly avow the cause of his removal? No. He shifts his head in some sort out of the collar, he gets a colleague to make the motion for the dismission of a man who had rendered himself offensive to him, because he nobly and manfully stood up for the people, and declared what afterwards appeared to be the sense of the House of Commons," that the influence of the crown had increased, was increasing, and ought to be diminished;" and when he [VOL. XXI.] now appeals to the minister to avow his offence, and state the part of his conduct which had induced this attempt to disgrace him, the noble lord takes refuge in a cowardly silence. Mr. Fox continued speaking some time longer with his usual asperity and ability. Mr. Hatsell then read the entry of the 9th of May 1777, containing the thanks of the House to the Speaker, for his speech to the King. Mr. Byng condemned the motion made by the noble lord as an insult to the late Speaker, and complained that the last parliament had been dissolved but two days after sir Fletcher set out for Yorkshire, without the least intimation being given to him of any such design; though he was the representative of a borough so near town as Guildford. He also mentioned the rudeness of the minister's telling all his friends who attended at the Cockpit, of the intention of moving, that Mr. Cornwall might be elected Speaker, without giving the smallest intimation of such intention to sir Fletcher Norton. Mr. Cornwall said, that if the House thought proper to elect him to the chair, he should exert his endeavours to give them satisfaction; but that he could not bring himself to think it would be in his power to come near the partial expectations of the noble lord who made the motion, the hon. gentleman who seconded it, or his learned friends. With regard to the subject under discussion, it would be improper for him to say a syllable upon it; he should therefore sit down, submitting the whole business to the wisdom and judgment of the House. Sir Fletcher Norton rose again, and declared, if any thing could induce him to accept the chair again-he begged pardon for the expression-to aspire to it, it would be the contempt with which he was treated. He thought he had a right to an explanation. If it was his conduct last session that had rendered him obnoxious, let them say so, and he should be content. He never would speak in that House but as he thought; and as he was conscious that every man must abide by the consequences of his conduct, he cared not what issue followed his conduct; but he surely had a right to complain of such usage, and if neither the noble lord nor the hon. gen tleman would favour him with the explanation he called for, he should leave the whole to the judgment of the House, who, he was sure, would put a true construc[3 F] tion upon the treatment he had received, This, he said, was the very first debate in and the silence of ministers respecting it. which he had heard it asserted, that there Mr. Ellis declared, that he conceived was any thing of insult, disgrace, or conevery member had an undoubted right to tempt to any man, in appointing a Speaker, vote for a new Speaker as he thought pro- or that any gentleman was either to be per; that he had no intention either to in- called on, or expected to state his reasons sult or disgrace sir Fletcher Norton, of why he recommended, or why he voted whom he had before spoken his sincere for this or that particular candidate. He opinion, but that the public good was the had always understood that when a new great director of his vote, and he did not parliament was summoned, every indivithink, after the alarming state of the late dual member had a right to give his vote Speaker's health last session, that it was as he pleased for a new Speaker, and he either respectful to him, or consistent with defied the most learned in the law to prove, the public good, to put him again in the that it was any part of the constitutional chair; but that it was better to choose a law of parliament, that when a member Speaker of fresher health, and who, from was once elected to the chair of the House, his time of life, had more vigour, and was he was to sit there just as long as he pleased, better able to encounter and sustain the unless some charge of criminality could fatigues of the office. be made out against him. He had sat in that House a great many years, having been sent to parliament when he was only 22 years of age, and he had seen several Speakers chosen, but never before heard such doctrines broached, as he had heard that day. With regard to the vote of thanks to sir Fletcher Norton, read from the Journals of 1777, he had at that time expressed his disapprobation of it and of the speech which occasioned it; he thought then that the Speaker went too far, that he was not warranted to make such an address to the throne, and that it was flying in the King's face, and he thought the same now. [A cry of Order, order!] He insisted upon it, he was not disorderly in what he had said, he had a right to speak of the last parliament. He could not, he said, but remark the particular epoch, when the late Speaker became the great favourite of those who were this day so loud in his praise. It had been hinted at by a learned gentleman (Mr. Dunning) and more directly alluded to by his hon. friend opposite (Mr. Fox). The epoch was no other than the period at which the late Speaker joined those gentlemen, and voted, as they termed it, with the House of Commons. Let the gentlemen remember, however, that towards the close of the last session, the House altered its opinion and its decisions. A great deal had been said about the conduct of sir Fletcher, while Speaker: perhaps he did not perfectly coincide in all that had been urged on that topic; and for this, and other reasons not fit to be given in that House, was disposed to support the nomination of Mr. Cornwall. He observed, that only two matters were urged against the appointment of Mr. Cornwall as objections, Lord Mahon said, possibly it might be supposed that no person who had not been a member of the last parliament, was qualified to speak to the question; but though he was newly come within those walls, he could not consent to give a silent vote on the present occasion. His duty to his country and his own feelings forbad it. His lordship then made an energetic eulogium on the virtues and integrity of sir Fletcher Norton, advising the noble lord who made the motion, to leave the late Speaker's health to the late Speaker's own care, and declaring that he would oppose the motion, if there were no other reason for his doing so, than merely because it was made by a member of administration; that administration, whose baleful measures had loaded their country with disgrace and distress, had abridged the inheritance of the prince of Wales, and intailed ruin on the House of Hanover. Before his lordship sat down, he menaced the Treasury-bench with a threat to oppose every measure they suggested. Mr. Rigby said, he did not rise to advert to any thing let fall by the noble lord who spoke last, because the question was not now, how to dispose of the ministry; when the ministry were to be pulled down, and that was the consideration of the House, he did not doubt but the noble lord would assist in the work, as indeed he was bound in honour to do. Nor did he rise to talk of the late Speaker's good or ill health, as neither the one nor the other was, as far as he saw, a part of the present question. The House had a motion before them for the election of a Speaker, to which office the motion recommended Mr. Cornwall, and to that motion he meant to speak. and those were, his representing a Cinque Port, and his being a placeman. With regard to the latter, an hon, friend of his had mentioned Mr. Onslow, but he had forgot that Mr. Onslow was for some years treasurer of the navy, a much better place than that held by Mr. Cornwall, and therefore more desirable. Why Mr. Onslow lost that place, was a matter which his hon. friend would, perhaps, rather talk over with him in private. As to Mr. Cornwall's representing a Cinque Port, that was to him a very extraordinary objection indeed, and he believed it was the first time it had ever been brought forward in the shape of an objection. He had always understood that there was no local representation within those walls, and that gentlemen were to consider themselves in a different light while they were in the House. He, for instance, was chosen for the town of Tavistock, but while he was then speaking, he considered himself as the representative of the people of England, and this idea he had always understood to be the true constitutional idea of the House of Commons. In this view, therefore, the baron of a Cinque Port, and the member for Old Sarum, was either of them as eligible to the chair as the member for the county of York. Grantham was the place which sent sir John Cust to parliament, but it was never talked of as a plea of eligibility or ineligibility, when #sir John was recommended to the chair. Why then start the objection now? The conduct of sir Fletcher had been loudly applauded, and yet it might not strike every gentleman as it did those who had been so lavish in delivering its eulogy. #One part of his conduct had often appeared to him extremely wrong, and that was, his relaxation of the rules of proceeding with the ordinary business of the House, and his want of strictness in observing order, and keeping gentlemen within due bounds. This he had spoken of to the late Speaker more than once, and he hoped it would be a main object of Mr. Cornwall's attention to restore parliament to its dignity, by restoring a strict observance of all the forms of the House. He remembered Mr. Onslow was remark able for an opposite conduct, and was said to have too much buckram in his manner. The younger part of the House complained, that he carried matters with rather too high a hand; the fact, however, was, the House had then more dignity, its proceedings were more grave and solemn, and people without doors treated it more respectfully than they had done since sir Fletcher had filled the chair. He did not mean this as a severe censure on the late Speaker, nor did he mean to set up his understanding in competition with that of sir Fletcher; he should be a fool to attempt it: he only mentioned it, because he thought, though Mr. Onslow might be too pompous, the extreme opposite line of conduct was infinitely more liable to be attended with bad consequences. Sir Fletcher Norton's relaxation in the points he had mentioned, he was aware was ascribable to that large share of good humour and good nature, which all who knew him, knew he was possessed of, and to his having a more elevated turn of mind, than could descend to the observation of such minutia.-Much had been thrown out about the influence of the crown, and the secret reasons for moving to elect a new Speaker. To him, who was an old member of that House, all that had been said on that head made not the smallest impression. It might have its effect on younger men, and those who had just entered those walls, but he had so often heard the same sort of language from different sets of men on different occasions, that it was thrown away upon him; and as to the mighty secret, the true cause of moving for a new Speaker by one side of the House, and supporting the old Speaker by the other, it was reducible to a very simple fact, and when put into plain English, and stripped of the dress of eloquence, and the ornaments of oratory, was no more than this, "We'll vote for you, if you'll be for us." As to the idea of places and placemen, that language would ever be held, while parties continued, but he should hear it with great indifference, till he was told that no persons were seeking places. He voted for ministry, and so did others, because he and they thought well of them, at least they knew not where to look for better men to put in their situations; but whenever an administration could be found out, capable of restoring unanimity to the country, he, for one, would most cheerfully give up his place to the support of such an administration. Mr. Fox said, that side of the House did not call the hon. gentleman to order for speaking of the last parliament, but for using the King's name; that he hoped the young members would now see, that what the newspapers and the country said, was true, that the King's name was gence, the Commons had proceeded to the exercise of their ancient and undoubted right, the election of a Speaker; that their choice had fallen upon him. He could not refrain from expressing the apprehensions of his mind, that his abilities were not adequate to the discharge of that weighty and important trust; and therefore he must intreat his Majesty, that he would give his commands to the Commons to proceed to another election. on every occasion used as a shelter and a screen for ministers. With regard to the last parliament, most certainly, he, for one, was disposed to speak worse of it than the hon. gentleman probably would do; he held it in detestation, and he hoped every man in England would do the same. Mr. Fox dwelt for some time on the King's name being brought forward on all occasions, indecently, and said, it was now so hackneyed, that it was heard of at elections. Having pursued this idea, he very ingeniously turned what Mr. Rigby had said respecting sir Fletcher's having too elevated a mind to attend to the minutiae of parliamentary business, against Mr.grity. He highly approved of the able Cornwall, arguing that the hon. gentleman had recommended Mr. Cornwall to the House, because he was inferior in understanding to the last Speaker. Sir Edward Astley said, he should vote for the late Speaker, because he had acquitted himself in the most fair and impartial manner. The question was put by the clerk, "That Charles Wolfran Cornwall, esq. do take the chair of this House as Speaker." The clerk declared the Yeas had it. The House was divided: the Yeas on the right hand; the Noes on the left. The Tellers were appointed by the clerk, viz. for the Yeas, Mr. Secretary at War 203; for the Noes, Mr. Byng 134. So it was resolved in the affirmative. Whereupon Mr. Cornwall was conducted to the chair by lord George Germain and Mr. Ellis; where, standing on the upper step of the chair, he returned his humblest acknowledgments to the House, for the great honour they had been pleased to confer on him; but as he found the circumstances he had mentioned, with respect to himself, when he before addressed himself to the House, had not had sufficient weight with the House to prevent their seating him in that chair, he hoped the House would permit him to state them in another place. But the members cried No, No. And thereupon he sat down in the chair; and then the mace (which before lay under the table) was laid upon the table, Nov. 1. The King went to the House of Peers, and being seated on the throne, the Commons were sent for. When they came up to the bar, Mr. Cornwall, their Speaker elect, addressed the throne in a short speech, in which he said, that, in consequence of his Majesty's royal indul The Lord Chancellor said, he had received the commands of his Majesty, to express the confidence which his Majesty had of his abilities, knowledge and inte choice of a Speaker which the Commons had made; and it was his Majesty's pleasure that he should take upon him the high and important trust. Mr. Cornwall then declared, that the best manner which he conceived he could take to make his acknowledgments of the high sense which he had of the honour which his Majesty had been pleased to confer upon him, would be the most zealous and steady exertion of his abilities, weak as they were, and the truest integrity of heart, in the discharge of the employment. He must intreat for himself, that his Majesty would be pleased to put the most favourable construction on all his words and actions, and honour him with his royal forgiveness for the frailties and errors of his nature. And he must claim for the House of Commons, the continuance of all their ancient rights, privileges and immunities; particularly, that the persons of the members, their estates, and servants, should be free from arrest and molestation; that they should enjoy freedom of debate; and have ready access to his Majesty's person. The Lord Chancellor replied, that he was commanded by his Majesty to declare, that though he has small occasion to request the royal indulgence on account of his abilities, yet his Majesty gave him his royal assurance of the most favourable interpretation of his conduct; that his Majesty likewise gave his assurance to preserve and confirm, in the most full and ample manner, all the ancient privileges, rights and immunities of the House of Commons. The King's Speech on Opening the Seșsion.] His Majesty then opened the Session with the following Speech to both Houses: |