§ A petition of the inhabitants of the city of York, convened, pursuant to request, by the right honourable the lord mayor, and assembled in the Guildhall of the said City, on Monday the 13th day of May, 1805, was presented to the house, by Mr. L. Dundas, and read; setting forth, "that the petitioners feel the deepest gratitude to the house for its patriotic votes on the 8th and 10th days of April last, founded on the tenth report of the commissioners of naval enquiry; the one declaring lord viscount Melville to be guilty of a gross violation of the laws, and a high breach of his public duty; and the other ordering such resolution to be laid at the foot of the throne, the whole house attending; the petitioners are convinced that no act of any branch of the legislature has ever been received with more satisfaction by the peo- 12 ple of this country than the said votes; and they are further convinced that nothing can possibly be a greater disappointment to the people than any remission in the house, of the vigorous and necessary efforts with which they have thus commenced the career of public justice; and that the faithful and dignified discharge of the powers vested in the commissioners of naval enquiry, their indefatigable industry, their resolute perseverance, their unexampled fortitude, and their incorruptible integrity, have demanded and have obtained the admiration and applause of the whole nation; and a continuance at least, if not an extension of the powers vested in them, and also a general enquiry into the conduct of every other department of finance, are essentially requisite to the prosperity of the British empire; and the petitioners anxiously request of the house, that whenever hereafter this subject may come before them, they will fix their attention on the obstructions to full enquiry, so evidently pointed out in the said tenth report of the naval commissioners; and they intreat the house that they will, in the institution of other enquiries into the public expenditure, take especial care that the power they shall delegate be equal to its object, both as referring to the facility of enquiry and to the integrity of those to whom enquiry shall be committed; for the petitioners submit to the house whether any thing short thereof will not be deemed illusive and unavailing, and rather contribute to the continuation than the prevention of future abuse and peculation; and that on all these matters the petitioners request the house steadily to pursue what they have with so much honour begun, and not to relax their efforts till guilt, wherever it exists, shall be pursued to detection, and till exemplary and deserved punishment shall have overtaken, as well those who have themselves been fraudulent, as those who have connived at fraud."