had refused redress.  Instead of this fair course, the complaint is carried to the Court of Directors.—­The above is one of the documents transmitted by the Nabob, in proof of his charge of corruption against Lord Macartney.  If genuine, it is conclusive, at least against Lord Macartney’s principal agent and manager.  If it be a forgery, (as in all likelihood it is,) it is conclusive against the Nabob and his evil counsellors, and folly demonstrates, if anything further were necessary to demonstrate, the necessity of the clause in Mr. Fox’s bill prohibiting the residence of the native princes in the Company’s principal settlements,—­which clause was, for obvious reasons, not admitted into Mr. Pitt’s.  It shows, too, the absolute necessity of a severe and exemplary punishment on certain of his English evil counsellors and creditors, by whom such practices are carried on.

SUBSTANCE OF THE SPEECH

IN THE

DEBATE ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES

IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS,

ON TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1790

COMPREHENDING

A DISCUSSION OF THE PRESENT SITUATION OF AFFAIRS IN FRANCE.

SPEECH.

Mr. Burke’s speech on the report of the army estimates has not been correctly stated in some of the public papers.  It is of consequence to him not to be misunderstood.  The matter which incidentally came into discussion is of the most serious importance.  It is thought that the heads and substance of the speech will answer the purpose sufficiently.  If, in making the abstract, through defect of memory in the person who now gives it, any difference at all should be perceived from the speech as it was spoken, it will not, the editor imagines, be found in anything which may amount to a retraction of the opinions he then maintained, or to any softening in the expressions in which they were conveyed.

Mr. Burke spoke a considerable time in answer to various arguments, which had been insisted upon by Mr. Grenville and Mr. Pitt, for keeping an increased peace establishment, and against an improper jealousy of the ministers, in whom a full confidence, subject to responsibility, ought to be placed, on account of their knowledge of the real situation of affairs, the exact state of which it frequently happened that they could not disclose without violating the constitutional and political secrecy necessary to the well-being of their country.

Mr. Burke said in substance, That confidence might become a vice, and jealousy a virtue, according to circumstances.  That confidence, of all public virtues, was the most dangerous, and jealousy in an House of Commons, of all public vices, the most tolerable,—–­ especially where the number and the charge of standing armies in time of peace was the question.