elson's cannon; and for the Peace of Amiens, severely criticised in
Parliament, as that of Utrecht and every subsequent treaty with a
similar object had been, but defensible both on grounds of domestic
policy, as well as on that of affording us a much-needed respite from
the strain of war; though it proved to be only a respite, and a feverish
one, since at the end of two years the war was renewed, to be waged with
greater fury than ever. But it was too short-lived for any
constitutional questions to arise in it. And when, in 1804, Pitt resumed
the government, his attention was too completely engrossed by the
diplomatic arrangements by which he hoped to unite all the nations east
of the Rhine in resistance to a power whose ever aggressive ambition was
a standing menace to every Continental kingdom, for him to be able to
spare time for the consideration of measures of domestic policy, except
such as were of a financial character. But, though his premature death
rendered his second administration shorter than even Addington's, it was
not wholly unproductive of questions of constitutional interest. It
witnessed a recurrence to that which cannot but be regarded as among the
most important privileges of the House of Commons, the right of
impeaching a minister for maladministration. A report of a commission
appointed for the investigation of the naval affairs of the kingdom had
revealed to Parliament a gross misapplication of the public money
committed by the Paymaster of the Navy. And, as that officer could not
have offended as he had done without either gross carelessness or
culpable connivance on the part of the Treasurer of the Navy, Lord
Melville, who had since been promoted to the post of First Lord of the
Admiralty, the House of Commons ordered his impeachment at the Bar of
the House of Lords; the vote being passed in 1805, during Pitt's
administration, though the trial did not take place till the year
following. In reality, the charge did not impugn Lord Melville's
personal honor, on which at first sight it appeared to press hardly, Mr.
Whitbread himself, the member for Bedford, who was the chief promoter
and manager of the impeachment, admitting that he never imputed to Lord
Melville "any participation in the plunder of the public;" and, as Lord
Melville was acquitted on every one of the charges brought against him,
the case might have been passed over here with the barest mention of it,
were it not that Lord Campbell h