"If the worst enemies to England had projected a measure essentially to injure her interests, they could not have been more successful than the right honourable gentleman in bringing forward the present proposition. It proved that we were engaged in a war in which those who offered their lives and fortunes in its support were not serious in one word they said; and the most extravagant railer against the government and constitution of the country could not take better ground than upon the vote of this night."

Mr. Tierney also, in the course of the same session, objected to the measure for preventing and punishing the seduction of his Majesty's sea and land forces. He observed upon this occasion, "That he had thought it his duty to oppose the leave for bringing in the bill, and having in that opposition stood alone, he felt himself called upon to say a few words. The cordial support he had given to the address to his Majesty would prevent the possibility of any improper construction being put upon his motives for what he had done; but, having cheerfully joined in an abhorrence of all violent and disorderly conduct which might endanger the peace and happiness of the kingdom, he could not at the same time but recollect that, as a member of parliament, he was bound to see that, under pretence of repressing violent measures, no unjustifiable means should be adopted. When Mr. Pitt opened his bill, he proposed to punish criminally any person committing any act tending to excite mutiny, and this bill he did not state to be for any limited time. A bill of such a nature he had thought

thought it his duty to reject. If it was meant only to punish persons convicted of conspiring to stir up the army against their commanders, the head of those commanders being the King, he thought the laws of high-treason at present existing rendered the bill unnecessary; if it was meant to punish capitally men who, in the opinion of a jury, had said or done something to excite mutiny, he thought the bill ought to be opposed. Under such a provision a man might incur the severest penalty for a speculative or a loose conversation. By the amendments now proposed to be made the crime was clearly defined, so much so, that no one could be convicted unless he was proved to have maliciously and advisedly conspired to excite mutiny. He still thought the present laws reached that offence; but as the uncertainty of the crime was removed, and the bill was only to continue for a few months, however unnecessary he might look upon the bill to be, he would give it no further opposition. To this he was particularly led by many gentlemen whom he believed to act from motives unconnected with party, and who appeared to attach much importance to the idea of an unanimous vote on the occasion." He accordingly concluded a speech of great moderation by candidly observing, "that having had his chief difficulties removed, he should therefore wave any remaining objections."

In the course of the summer of 1797 the price of butcher's meat experienced an alarming rise, and Mr. Tierney, who was now considered as a man of business, brought up the report of the committee of which

66 com

he was chairman, on a bill to prevent "the forestalling and regrating of cattle." This was opposed by Mr. Dundas, who contended that the measure was founded on ideas long since exploded, and that it militated directly against the principles laid down by Dr. Adam Smith. Mr. Tierney, in reply, plained that these objections had not been urged sooner, as they might have prevented all the trouble of the enquiry which had taken place. He did not like the mode of reasoning employed, nor did he know what pretension there was to new lights on the subject. The house had come to a resolution in 1764, that the high price of provisions was owing to the laxness of the laws against forestalling; in 1767, this resolution was contradicted by one directly opposite; in 1770, all the laws against forestalling had been repealed; twenty-five years experience had intervened, and the price of meat had been found to increase. A committee last year had decidedly pronounced the high price of provisions to be owing to forestalling, so that the lights of the house on that subject were against the principle of reasoning assumed by the right honourable secretary.

"He wished to appeal to facts, notwithstanding the authority of Dr. Smith, however high he rated him. Meat was one penny or one penny halfpenny cheaper per pound sixty miles from London, than it was in the capital; and to what cause was it to be ascribed? The cause was, that Smithfield market was a mockery, for there were places at a small distance from London, which forined a kind of middle

market,

market, where the salesman and the jobber, or the carcase butcher, in collusion, settled the prices to the disadvantage of the grazier and the farmer, who were thus deprived of competition in the market, and to the great distress of the public, who were thus compelled to pay not only the per centage profit to the jobber, but whatever extortion he might also please to add.

"These plain facts he conceived to be better than the speculative reasoning of Adam Smith, whose arguments, however substantial they might be, the public could not feed upon. If an open trade were so necessary for the butchers, why was it not thought equally so for the bakers? and how happened it that the legislature did not suffer them to sell a quartern loaf at tenpence or a shilling, as they pleased, since the market must so regularly find its level? If the poorer classes of the people were to rise in a mass, on account of the high price of meat, he suspected the right honourable gentleman would then prefer the riot act to all the reasonings of Adam Smith. The salesman and butcher, and the clerk of the market, had all agreed that forestalling was the sole cause of the dearth of butcher's meat; and he did not see how the bill could injure the grazier, since its object was to allow every one to send his cattle to Smithfield market. He wished at least that it might pass for a limited time, because if the effects of it were not good, it could be easily altered or repealed. There were scenes of misery among the poorer classes, in consequence of the high price of meat, of which

few gentlemen could have an adequate conception; and he hoped they would reflect upon the necessity of adopting some regulation. He wished, for God's sake, therefore, that they would not scout the bill, but either lend their assistance to render it unobjectionable, or suggest something better in its stead. It was not consistent with humanity to get rid of it by telling the poor that the market would find its level, for they might as well tell them at once that they were not hungry." Notwithstanding these arguments, the bill was opposed by the secretary at war (Mr. Windham), and the chancellor of the exchequer (Mr. Pitt), and it was thrown out by a majority of thirty-two.

Soon after the meeting of parliament, in the autumn of the same year, Mr. Tierney gave notice that he should move the house "not to acknowledge the right honourable Henry Dundas in any parliamentary capacity;" a proceeding which originated in a supposed legal disability on the part of the gentleman in question, in consequence of his acting in the capacity of third secretary of state. He accordingly brought the question forward, and stated, "That if he spoke on that occasion in a style of asperity, it was not bccause he felt any personal dislike or private animosity to the right honourable gentleman, but that he thought the whole transaction of which he complained a most corrupt job-a job not avowed but detected a job that never would have been brought to light if it could have been kept in concealment, and which was at last brought to light by the labours of a committee."

He