rmed
vessels, and also the fitting out or supplying other vessels with
warlike stores in any of his majesty's ports, These propositions met
with stem opposition. Sir James Mackintosh warned the house, that,
in whatever manner the motion might be worded and its real object
concealed, the bill ought to be entitled,--"A bill for preventing
British subjects from lending their assistance to the South American
cause, or enlisting in the South American service." The statutes of
George the Second, he said, were not to have been laws of a general
nature, applying to all times and circumstances; but, on the contrary,
"intended merely for the temporary purpose of preventing the formation
of Jacobite armies, organized in France and Spain against the peace and
tranquillity of England." He concluded by reprobating the measure as
one which was virtually an enactment to repress the liberty of the South
Americans, and to enable Spain to reimpose that yoke of tyranny which
they were unable to bear, which they had nobly shaken off, and from
which, he trusted in God, they would finally and for ever be enabled
to extricate themselves. In reply, Lord Castlereagh argued that the
proposed bill was necessary to prevent our giving offence to Spain, whom
that house was too just and generous to oppress because she was weak,
and her fortunes had declined. In the subsequent stages of the bill,
ministers avowed that the measure had been suggested by the stipulations
of a treaty with Spain in 1814, and by the representations which the
ministers of Ferdinand VII. had considered themselves entitled by
such stipulations to address to the British government. This admission
excited severe remarks on Ferdinand's character; but the bill was
carried--in the commons by one hundred and ninety against one hundred
and twenty-nine, and in the lords by one hundred against forty-nine. But
though this bill was rigorous in its propositions, it was by no means
rigorously enforced.

SLAVE-TRADE, ETC.

During this session Mr. Wilberforce complained in parliament of
the reluctance displayed by the two great powers to enter into the
arrangements necessary for carrying into effect the total abolition of
the slave-trade. It grieved him, he said, to cast this reproach on a
high-minded people like the French; and he was still more grieved to
find that America was not free from blame; but he still trusted that all
nations would unite in their endeavours to civilize the