. He concluded
by recommending the house of commons to consider of such measures as
the flourishing state of the funds and of public credit might render
practicable and expedient, for a reduction in the rate of interest
of such of the annuities as were now redeemable; by stating that he
entertained the pleasing hope of their being enabled to enter upon a
gradual reduction of taxes, giving at the same time additional efficacy
to the plan for the reduction of the national debt; and by recommending
a steady, zealous, and confirmed attachment to the British constitution.

The debates on the address principally turned upon the line of policy
pursued by the ministry in their interference in the quarrel between
Turkey and Prussia, and in the hostility they had displayed towards the
latter power. Ministers were loudly condemned for this interference by
the opposition; Mr. Grey and Fox taking the most prominent part in
the attack. Fox, as usual, introdued France and her revolution and
constitution into his speech. The frequent eulogiums on the British
constitution which had been introduced into parliament, he said, had
been introduced in order to reproach him and his friends for their
admiration of what had been done in France, and to suggest the suspicion
that he and his friends were hostile to our own form of government.
The French, he contended, had done perfectly right in overturning a
constitution so radically bad as that of France; but that of Great
Britain was so good, though not absolutely perfect, that it merited the
efforts of all honest subjects to preserve it. It was hence most unjust
to insinuate that those who approved of the destruction of despotism in
France, would rejoice in the downfall of the British constitution.
Fox concluded by condemning the Birmingham riots; asserting that the
outrages had been committed through the laxity or tacit approbation of
the magistrates. He remarked:--"It would have been well if his majesty
in his speech had spoken of those riots in the terms they merited. They
were not riots for bread; they were not riots in the cause of liberty,
which, however highly to be reprobated, had yet some excuse in their
principle; they were riots of men neither aggrieved nor complaining--of
men who had set on foot an indiscriminate persecution of an entire
description of their fellow-citizens, including persons as eminent for
their ability, as blameless in their conduct, and as faithful in their
alleg