ddress, Fox condemned the whole
of our recent foreign policy. Ministers were reproached by him for not
cultivating continental alliances, and for their negligence in all
their foreign negociations. It was owing, he said, to their criminal
misconduct, that the House of Bourbon had been enabled to conclude their
advantageous compact with Holland, and he maintained that great danger
was to be apprehended from the union of three such maritime powers as
France, Spain, and Holland, in a confederacy against England. Fox also
attempted to prove that the accession of his majesty to the Germanic
confederation, as Elector of Hanover, would give mortal offence to
the Emperor Joseph, and would indispose him to an alliance with Great
Britain in the event of a future war. He argued, that it was our
interest to conciliate and captivate Austria, as the only power in
Europe able to keep France in awe. Fox next adverted to a favourable
opportunity for an alliance with Russia, which had been lost, and then
condemned a commercial treaty, which government had begun to negociate
with France. The experience of past ages, he said, proved that England
always prospered in proportion as she had relinquished her commercial
connexions with that country. He concluded his speech with making some
strictures on the Irish propositions and the India Bill. Pitt replied in
a cold sarcastic tone, and the address was carried without a division.

BILL FOR THE FORTIFICATION OF THE DOCK-YARDS AT PORTSMOUTH AND PLYMOUTH.

On the 27th of February, Pitt called the attention of the house to a
plan, which originated with the Duke of Richmond, for the fortification
of the dock-yards at Portsmouth and Plymouth. In the preceding session,
the commons had expressed their unwillingness to vote any money for
these objects, until they were made acquainted with the merits of the
plan by some competent persons; and in consequence of this intimation,
his majesty had appointed a committee of military and naval officers,
with the Duke of Richmond at then head, to investigate the plan, and to
send in a report upon it, with an estimate of the cost. Pitt had laid
this estimate, which amounted to L760,000 before the house on the 10th
of February, with the ordinary ordnance estimates, thinking that the
house would be disposed to consider it as a mere collateral question.
The report was kept out of sight, but General Burgoyne, who had been
one of the board of officers to investig