GRANT TO THE EMPEROR OF GERMANY[1] The honourable gentleman [Mr. Wilberforce] who has just sat down, and said he rose only to save himself from misinterpretation, has declared that he has no objection to peace. Now I should expect a warmer declaration from that honourable gentleman, when I recollect his conduct on a former occasion. I recollect a time when he came to rebuke the violence of the Minister. [Mr. Sheridan read a motion, made by Mr. Wilberforce, for an address to His Majesty, praying that the Government of France might not be made an obstacle to peace, when an opportunity should arrive.] Now, as the honourable gentleman is anxious to escape from the charge of inconsistency, I should expect he would state the reason for this difference in his conduct now. Then the Government was a provisional government; a government from its nature not intended to stand; a government of furious Jacobins; and yet the honourable gentleman implored to supplicate His Majesty that it might not be suffered to stand in the way of peace; but now, when it is of a less objectionable description, he justifies his friend from an arrogant, violent, inconsiderate, and I hope he will not find an unfortunate note, refusing to accept peace from such a government. An honourable gentleman who has spoken in the debate put a very just question, whether the country will endure to be governed by words, and not by facts? I admit it right that it should not be so governed, but I unfortunately have the authority of the present Government that it is. The honourable gentleman spoke with great eloquence, I may say irritation; but never did I see eloquence so misapplied. He has shown his dexterity in driving the subject from its proper basis; he guides, urges, and inflames the passions of his hearers on Jacobinical principles, but he does not show how they bear on the present question. He has not dared to say, that so far as respects the restoration of the House of Bourbon, we have suffered by the defection of Russia. What that Power may still do with regard to La Vendée, or reconciling the people of Ireland to the Union, I do not inquire; but with regard to the great object, the restoration of monarchy in France, we are _minus_ the Emperor of Russia: that Power may be considered as extinct. Is it, then, to be endured, that the Minister shall come down and ask for a subsidy under such circumstances? Is it to be endured, that we shall be told we are at war for the restoration of monarchy in France, that Russia is pledged to the accomplishment of that purpose, that Russia is the rock on which we stand, that the magnanimous Emperor of Russia, the gallantry of whose troops, and the skill of whose great generals, place them above all the troops and generals in Europe, is all we have to rest on? Is it to be endured, I say, that this rock should prove as brittle as sand, and that those who held this language should come down in a week after, and say, give