—A petition of several freeholders of the county of Bedford, was presented to the house and read; setting forth, "that the petitioners unite with their constituents at large in thanking the house for their resolutions of the 8th and 10th of April, founded on the tenth report of the commissioners of naval enquiry: by the first of those resolutions the house vindicated the character of their country, by censuring a minister proved to have been guilty of a gross violation of law, and a flagrant breach of duty; by the second, the house laid before the sovereign the sense of his people, and enabled him, by a ready compliance with their wishes, to endear himself more than ever to their loyal and affectionate hearts; and the petitioners implore the house steadily to persevere in detecting all other abuses which are pointed at, as well in the tenth as in the eleventh report of the said commissioners, attentively to investigate all irregularities which may be brought to light by any of their succeeding reports, impartially, minutely, and resolutely to examine into the public expenditure in all the 620 other branches of administration, and to inflict exemplary punishment on all who shall be found guilty of, or in any wise aiding, abetting, or conniving at similar frauds and depredations; and that the petitioners are thoroughly persuaded that it is needless for them to urge any fresh motive to the house in order to induce them to adopt such measures; they rely upon the knowledge the house have of their duties, and upon their sympathy and fellow feeling with their constituents, who, during a long, a difficult, and trying period of war, in times of severe hardships and scarcity, have chearfully submitted to the heaviest burthens; that what they granted liberally should be applied honestly was the least the petitioners could hope from men whose consciences and bounden duty enjoined a faithful discharge of the great trust reposed in them. Disappointed of this hope, and finding on the contrary that a minister filling many great and lucrative offices, high in the confidence of his sovereign, one of the foremost in his pretended efforts to reform abuses, has been at length himself detected in conniving for a series of years at the foulest peculation; the petitioners now approach the house with their claims to protection and justice; and they trust, therefore, that in prosecuting the inquiries necessary for these ends, the house will proceed in that spirit of firmness and integrity which dictated the resolutions of the 8th and 10th of April; and that they will not trust this great cause out of their own hands, nor again suffer themselves to be deceived by the plausible promises of men who openly violate the laws of the legislature, and hold in defiance and contempt the wholesome guards they enact against the possible malversations of office; and that the petitioners also trust that the example of the past will act upon the house as a warning for the future; that they will see and acknowledge the just value of those principles on which our ancestors established the power and authority of the house of commons; that the house will feel their office to be that of control over the servants of the crown; and that jealousy and vigilance instead of confidence and compliance, are their true and distinguishing characteristics; to this system the petitioners humbly hope that the house will direct their immediate and unvarying attention, as the system, by which the country may best be defended, and as the only one under which the constitution can be safe."