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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 312: CENSURES ON RODNEY AND VAUGHAN.
By Edward Farr
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The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

CENSURES ON RODNEY AND VAUGHAN.

On the 4th of December Burke moved for a committee of the whole house, “to inquire into the confiscation of the effects, wares, and merchandise belonging to his majesty’s new subjects of St. Eustatius, and further to inquire into the sale and distribution of a great part of the said effects to the islands belonging to France, and to other parts of the dominions of his majesty’s enemies.” In making this motion, Burke represented the attack on Eustatius as wanton; maintained, that by means of the effects and stores which had been sold there, the enemy had been supplied with what they otherwise could not have obtained; and accused Rodney of promoting the success of the French by lingering at the island while their fleet was reinforced, so as to enable them to take Tobago. Rodney and Vaughan were both in the house, and the former replied to this attack. The residents, who called themselves Englishmen, he said, were chiefly Jews of the worst character, who had been in the habit of supplying the enemies of England with warlike stores, and therefore were unworthy of favour. As to the charge of neglect, he remarked, that he had taken every care to see the stores found at St. Eustatius safely conveyed to his majesty’s store-houses at Antigua, and that he had, under every circumstance, made the best use of the inferior fleet at his disposal: this he proved by narrating how he was situated at the time. Vaughan, in his defence, declared that he had not been benefited to the amount of a single shilling by the capture of St. Eustatius; that he had treated the enemy with great lenity; and that he had acted to the best of his judgment for his country’s welfare. The motion was negatived by one hundred and sixty-three again st eighty-nine.