Commons Sitting of 11 July 1817

MOTION FOR A NEW WRIT FOR WIKLOW IN THE ROOM OF MR. PONSONBY.
Mr. Lambrose and spoke as follows:—
It having fallen into my hands, in the absence of those upon whom it would more naturally and properly have devolved, to make the motion, unfortunately rendered necessary by the heavy loss which this House and this country have recently sustained in Mr. Ponsonby, it would neither be doing justice to the eminence of him who is gone, nor to the situation which he filled in this House, nor would it be suitable to the peculiar circumstances of the calamity, which has deprived us of him, nor indeed could I reconcile it to the respect, the regard, and the affection, which t bore him, if I were to treat it entirely in the common form, and to content myself with placing in your hands the customary question, as upon an indifferent and ordinary occasion. Some tribute is due to the memory of the dead, and, as far as my observation goes, it is no less required to satisfy the feelings of the living,—and when I say the living, I do not mean those only who were connected with him by the ties of blood or of friendship,—I do not mean his family, his relations, his friends;—I use the expression in a wider sense; I mean the members of this House, I mean the community at large, those who knew him only as a public man by his public character and conduct, and by the
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share he took in the discussion of public affairs; for never upon any former occasion, frequent and melancholy as those occasions have recently been, never have I witnessed amore unequivocal and universal testimony of respect, nor a stronger expression of sincere regret and heart-felt sorrow.
With respect to the events of his life, passed as that life was in the public service and in the eye of his country, it is not my intention upon the present occasion to enter into any detail; particularly not with respect to the earlier period of his career in his native country, with the circumstances of which I must necessarily be very imperfectly acquainted. Suffice it to say that he was greatly distinguished in the Irish parliament; pre-eminently distinguished in his profession, insomuch that in the year eighteen hundred and six he was called to fill the highest judicial situation in that country, I believe I may say, with universal assent and approbation;—this was at a period when party contests ran high, when party feelings were warm, and when, therefore naturally the arrangement and distribution of offices was subjected to a very strict and severe scrutiny and investigation,—yet with regard to this appointment I do not remember to have heard a single murmur of dissatisfaction. The important duties of this station, judicial and political, during the short time for which he held it, he discharged with unquestioned ability and integrity; and when in the changes of politics he retired from it, he was very shortly after elected into this House, and placed in a situation which it would be improper in me more particularly to designate, but which all who hear me sufficiently understand. This station he filled through times of great danger, and difficulty, and embarrassment; through times which have exhibited almost every ruinous aspect and appearance that it is possible for human affairs to assume, and which were consequently fruitful in questions of the utmost difficulty and of incalculable importance.—I believe I may safely appeal to his political adversaries as well as to his political friends, whether, throughout that period, he has not uniformly conducted himself with prudence, with judgment, with temper, with candour and firmness, with an ardent love of liberty, with a thorough understanding of the British constitution, and a warm zeal for its maintenance and preservation, with an anxious desire upon all occasions

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to give the best counsels and to promote the real interests of his country. The manly simplicity of his character was strongly evinced by the style of his eloquence. It was plain and perspicuous; divested of all extraneous matter; entirely free from all effort or ostentation; he seemed only desirous of pressing upon the House the real point of the question, and confined himself to those topics, which appeared to him really deserving of weight and consideration. This unaffected and impressive manner, joined to the mild and temperate firmness of Iris character, gained for him both within and without these walls a well-founded popularity, and produced a general reliance both upon the soundness of his views and the sincerity of his purposes, which is often denied to more laboured and ambitious eloquence.
When we recollect the great diversity as well as the importance of the numerous questions, which have been agitated in this House during the last ten years, we shall at once feel it to be impossible, but that even those, who in general agree the most cordially, and who the most resemble each other in their opinions, must upon some points have come to opposite conclusions. In the consideration of matters of so much doubt and difficulty, the various biasses which affect the minds of men, the points of view from which they contemplate events and their results, the differences of passion, habits, tempers, pursuits, studies and impressions, will produce differences upon principle of such importance, that they can neither be sacrificed, nor reconciled, nor adjusted. It has, therefore, not unnaturally been the lot of Mr. Ponsonby at times to disagree with those, who loved and respected him, and whom he loved and respected; but, while they found themselves unable to assent to his opinion, they never failed to render ample justice to the earnest care and the thorough sincerity with which that opinion had been formed.
These few observations I have thought it proper to make, not with the vain hope of their being considered adequate to the occasion, but as a feeble mark of respect, for the purpose of gratifying my own feelings and of giving to the House an opportunity of testifying that esteem and regret which, from what I have collected in private, I know to be universally felt. The man whom we have lost, was an honour to the family from which he sprung,
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and to the country which produced him, fertile as that country is in distinguished characters, and in great talents civil and military. I will not say that we have lost him at a moment when the exigencies of the state could ill spare him,—I will not say that he is "alienissimo reipublicæ tempore extinctus," but I will say that he is gone at a time when the peculiar virtues which he possessed, when his temper and moderation might have been of essential advantage to the public service. His zeal for that service, and his close application to the duties imposed upon him here may not unreasonably be apprehended to have hastened the event we are deploring; and it adds not a little to the awe and solemnity of that event, that we had seen him so lately amongst us, apparently in all the vigour of health, in the full possession and exercise of his faculties, and from his not very advanced period of life, likely, as far as we could see, to retain for years to come the strength and integrity both of his body and his mind;—under these circumstances, he was struck in the midst of us by the hand of death. He never rose again from the couch to which he was borne from this place. For him we trust in the infinate mercy of God. An awful lesson it is to us who remain behind; and we shall not take the worst means of profiting by it, if we recall and recollect and seek after, and imitate the integrity of conduct, the purity of manners, and the innocence of life, which belonged to him, who has been so suddenly snatched away. I have to move you, "that you do issue your warrant to the clerk of the Crown to make out a new writ for a member to serve in this present parliament for the county of Wicklow in the room of the right hon. George Ponsonby deceased."
Lord Castlereaghfelt it his duty to add his testimony to that of the hon. gentleman who had so eloquently described the loss which the House and the country had sustained, in the person of an able and enlightened advocate in his country's cause. The sentiments which had fallen from him, and which had been so creditable and honourable to himself, had been reciprocated by every member in that House. The feelings incident to the loss of a friend or relative, were undoubtedly acute; but in the next gradation must be placed those attending the decease of a high-minded, candid, and liberal political opponent. Such was the state in which he felt him-

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self now placed. No man in that House, or out of it, entertained more respect for him while living, or more deeply regretted his loss when dead. It had been his fate, both in this, and the late parliament of Ireland, to be almost constantly opposed in sentiment to that right hon. gentleman; yet never had he risen in either House to oppose his propositions, or suggest to him the propriety of his moderating his zeal, without a conscious feeling that the objects he proposed, and the sentiments and arguments by which they were enforced, sprung from the most sincere intentions and the most upright heart.
Sir M. W. Ridleyfelt it his duty to offer on this occasion a few words, as a testimony of respect to the memory of departed worth. The character of the deceased had been always that which had excited in his mind the highest veneration for his principles, and those talents which he so successfully exerted in the cause of his country. The military page of our history would record with gratitude and admiration the achievements and devotion of a Ponsonby in the field; while the historical records of parliament would publish to grateful posterity the self-devotion of the patriot, which prompted him to sacrifice himself to his country's cause, in one of the worst and most critical periods of our history.
A new writ was ordered accordingly.

STATE OF THE NATION.
Mr. Broughamsaid, that if no public principles had been violated during the session, and if at its close they left the liberties of the people on their ancient foundation, and the power of the Crown within its constitutional limits, he would not once more have trespassed on the indulgence of the House; but when the expectations of the country had been so great at the beginning of the session, when the disappointment in its progress was so signal and so afflicting, and above all, when the rights and the liberties—when the personal freedom of every man in the nation was put in the power of ministers, he could not allow the session to close without seeing whether, before separating, they would not be prevailed on to exercise the wholesome duty of self-examination, and to carry to the foot of the throne an humble address, praying that the extraordinary powers which they had given should not be abused. The distresses every where felt at the beginning of the session, all
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must well remember. He would not at tempt to describe them, either in the language used by members on his side of the House, or in the petitions presented by the people. If he were to describe them, he could not wish for apter terms than those used by a noble lord, the member for Carmarthenshire (lord R. Seymour). In the midst of the grievous distresses universally felt, some symptoms might be traced of great discontent, of an anxious desire of change; here and there some disturbances were created by persons, inconsiderable in character and influence, and even in point of numbers—by such persons, who either from defect of intellect, or desire of converting general distress to purposes of plunder, a few breaches of the public peace had been committed. All those symptoms might be traced before the beginning of the session: but there was one symptom universally manifested, and without example in any former period of our history—it was an anxious, universal expectation of redress and relief from our labours. This hope was every where entertained, but was most deeply cherished where the distress was greatest. How did the House answer those expectations? They began, not by relieving, but by restraining them. Ere we asked them their complaints or their wishes, we took away their liberties. When at last we did inquire into their distresses, and found that many means of relieving them were practicable; when ministers themselves agreed that our system of commerce and trade required revision, we immediately passed on to the other orders of the day. In no period of history, in no nation or country, was an instance known of a people, so universally, so strongly, so unconquerably, and in such overwhelming distress and suffering, attached to their natural protectors and guardians, and so confident of attention to their grievances, and of relief from their sufferings. If, when the people met to petition parliament for a redress of their grievances, if when they were evincing their attachment to the constitution by expressing their confidence in the good disposition and wisdom of the legislature, a demagogue had risen up and predicted what had happened, saying "look not to parliament for assistance in your misery, or even a favourable consideration of your sufferings; go not there, the attempt is useless, they will not hear your petitions; they will neglect your representations, and pass to the order of the

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day," the House would have heard of it as a symptom of disaffection, and a menace of rebellion. Innumerable petitions were presented, and allegations ought to have been inquired into. They were, however, neglected, and no measures were adopted but those of coercion and punishment.—As nothing had been done by the House, as no examination into grievances had taken place, and no plan of improvement was adopted, it might be proper to inquire what amelioration had ensued, independent of parliamentary aid; and what the course of events had accomplished, after ministers had refused to direct it to any beneficial result. He was ready to admit, that in looking at our affairs in this way, the prospect was somewhat brightened. The effects of the late scanty harvest were not so severely felt, and were in some degree removed; an increase had taken place in the value of land; and the price of the funds had risen; our trade, too, had somewhat improved, and hopes were entertained of a continued amelioration. In stating, however, that our commerce was improving, he was bound to say, that there was something rather alarming in the accounts of the last two quarters. He alluded to the scanty supply of last harvest and the consequent revival of the importation of grain under the provisions of the corn bill. The opening of our ports for corn had thus operated as a practical remedy for the depreciation of our general commerce, without being an evidence of its growing prosperity. Corn was the only commodity which, under certain circumstances, could be imported duty free; and the demand for it in the season of scarcity was the only cause, it was to be feared, of the additional stimulus given to our export trade or our manufacturing industry. To show this he need only remind the House, that the customs had in the last quarters fallen off instead of improving; which accorded very well with the fact, that there might bean additional import of corn, but was perfectly inconsistent with any improvement in our general commerce or import. Another symptom of our improving condition was stated to be the rise in the funds; an effect which might be attributed to two causes:—the one permanent and beneficial, the other temporary, and rather a sign of distress than a proof of amelioration. The former consisted in the reduction of our national expenditure, and the diminution of our public burthens, by which the savings of
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individuals were increased, and not being required for the supply of their immediate wants, were invested in the funds; thus creating a demand for stock and raising its price. The latter consisted in the want of employment for capital, in the stagnation of trade, and the want of any other mode of deriving interest for money in the possession of capitalists. This would intirely disappear with the revival of commerce; which, when it took place, would lower the funds, by inducing people to invest their money in more beneficial employment. That there was no unequivocal improvement in the situation of the country, or in the general condition of the people, notwithstanding these alleged symptoms of returning prosperity, might be proved from the experience that every man had of what must be the state of our manufacturers, when an able and skilful weaver could not earn more, by his greatest exertion, than six or seven shillings a week; and from the knowledge of the general distress under which our agricultural population laboured. But even admitting that there had been some improvement, was that a reason why we should relax in our efforts to hasten the return of general prosperity? Were we to refrain from taking steps to ameliorate our condition, because it was not just so bad as it was four months ago? Because we had sunk to a point of distress which we could not go beyond, and were now rising out of its depths, were we to be told that no efforts were to be made for our farther extrication? [Hear, hear!] This he, knew was always the answer of ministers to any suggestion or recommendations of improvement—that we were already rising from our difficulties, and that matters would right themselves. If we could be proved not to be so bad as we were six calendar months ago, they were satisfied, and desired to stand still. This principle of conduct he entirely disapproved of. So long as we could improve our affairs, so long as there was one beneficial arrangement unexecuted, it was criminal to tie idle, it was a gross dereliction of duty to stand still with our arms folded and to trust without exertion to the issue of events. It became the House, therefore, to review what was proposed to be done, and what was actually performed.
In this review sufficient subjects of condemnation would occur, without requiring from ministers more than they could have executed, or from parliament more than

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it could have accomplished. No man charged ministers with the consequence of a bad harvest; no man attributed blame to them for those sufferings and evils that must always more or less attend that revulsion of society, and that dislocation of the relations of manufacturing industry, which are occasioned by a transition from war to peace, however liable they were to change from the long continuance or wasteful expenditure of that war; but sufficient subjects for crimination still remained. They were told, that on the return of peace our system required revision; that the world was placed in new circumstances; that our relations with the rest of Europe had changed; that the progress of events required an alteration of our policy; that the great interests of our commerce, and the body of our commercial regulations, demanded examination; and that the state of our finances, so deranged, should be brought fully under the view of the legislature, to see completely how we stood, and what improvements could be adopted. Now what was done in these circumstances? When he (Mr. B.) brought forward the subject of our trade and manufactures, a right hon. gentleman (Mr. Robinson) who was at the head of the board of trade, and from his situation was bound to have entered on the enquiry, had admitted every thing that he stated, and had candidly confessed the errors of our commercial policy. In his memorable declaration in the House, memorable for the candour with which it was uttered, memorable for the liberality of the principles which it sanctioned, and which he showed he so well understood; but still more memorable for the striking admission with which it was coupled—he allowed, that he saw the great errors and pernicious tendency of the narrow and absurd system on which the trade of the country was conducted; but that hostile representations and conflicting interests stood in the way of new arrangements, or any beneficial improvements. To what he had advanced the right hon. gentleman answered—"We admit your principles to be incontrovertible—we confess our present commercial regulations are impolitic, and that a change would be desirable; but when we propose any improvement for the general advantage, in come the shipping interest, in come the conflicting commercial and manufacturing interests, beset the board of trade, and oppose each other before us; and what can we do?"
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The merchants employed in the iron trade, those employed in the wood trade, the miners, the manufacturers, the shipping interests, had all different objects, all prayed for the continuance or enactment of restrictive regulations, and no satisfactory adjustment could be made of their conflicting claims; what, therefore, could be done? The right hon. gentleman confessed the inability of government to control these opposing individuals; and with this confession of imbecility, was contented to adhere to a pernicious and erroneous system, with the full view of its impolicy and absurdity. Nay, even the act imposing a duty on the transit of foreign linen, than which he might say a more absurd regulation did not exist on the statute-book of any country that had a book, was allowed to continue, because, though it confessedly cramped the commerce of the country, and injured the general prosperity, the right hon. gentleman dreaded that its repeal would set the north of Ireland in a flame. Now, when the House saw this miserable weakness, when they heard an admission of just principles, but a confession that, from conflicting interests, they could not be carried into effect; when a minister at the head of the department of trade, with an interesting candour and touching simplicity, allowed that the country was proceeding in an impolitic course; but that when he tried to effect any improvement he encountered an opposition which he could not overpower, was it proper to pass to the other orders of the day? The House should have said, we allow your claim of imbecility, but it ought not to prejudice the welfare of the country—we will back your efforts for improvement, and enable you to overcome those conflicting claims which you confess your incapacity to adjust. But instead of this, the House passed to the order of the day; and now, though we had arrived at the third year of peace, and should have long ago inquired into the commercial policy of the country, no examination had yet taken place, nor had any thing been yet done.
With regard to our financial system we were in a different situation. On this subject there was no admission similar to that of the president of the board of trade. The chancellor of the exchequer did make some opposition to himself (Mr. B.) and his friends. They pressed upon his attention that in peace exorbitant duties could not be raised; and by reducing the taxes

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on articles which peace afforded such facilities of smuggling, he would increase the revenue. The right hon. gentleman was, however, of a different opinion, and would do nothing except they would allow his favourite measure of an income-tax. He therefore proceeded with his temporary expedients, now issuing exchequer bills, now treasury bills, now compounding with the bank for a loan without interest, now taking one with interest, varying from year to year according to circumstances, watching the progress of events, doing nothing, and hoping that by the chapter of accidents every thing would come round to his wishes without any exertion. His system was to have no system, his plan of finance was to proceed entirely without plan; waiting till circumstances might change, or till the House, seeing the derangement of our financial affairs, would agree to the revival of the income tax, of which he and the noble lord were nightly singing the dirge; an oppressive tax which had, he trusted, been condemned to perpetual extinction, and which the country would never be so destitute of spirit as to allow to be proposed, nor parliament so abandoned to all sense of shame or duty as to enact. But if our commerce was in a bad state, our finances were calculated to excite greater alarm. The finance committee even could not venture a calculation, but were obliged to resort to an average. He had formerly stated what he would now repeat, that though our commerce might improve, it could never again reach that pitch of prosperity which it had lately attained. This might easily be proved. There was at present an incapacity among the nations of the continent to pay for our commodities, from the exhaustion of a ruinous and protracted war; and, unhappily for us, there existed a growing ability to supply themselves. Our great extent of machinery, our immense accumulation of capital, and our superior manufacturing skill, might ensure us great advantages in the market, but the people of the continent were making rapid advances. Cotton-mills had been erected in the neighbourhood of Vienna, which manufactured twist of the best quality; and at Mulhausen, in Switzerland, a similar establishment was erected. Speaking on this subject, he could not but refer to the policy lately recommended in some petitions, of prohibiting the exportation of cotton-yarn. This appeared to him to be a delusion
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that had been fallen into by a large body who were suffering under the want of employment. A petition had been sent on the subject to the Prince Regent, and one was to have been offered to the House, signed by 200,000 individuals. He proposed to the petitioners to delay sending it up, as he hoped delay and discussion might dispel their prejudices; and to induce them to do so, he held out to them the hope that, if circumstances did not change, their case might next session be inquired into by a parliamentary committee. He wished to hear every thing that could be said; but he deemed it his duty to mention, that he thought the more the subject was inquired into, the greater would the impolicy of the prohibition appear; and that, instead of relieving the class who petitioned for it, it would impede general commerce, ruin the cotton-spinners, injure the importers of cotton-wool, and, by rendering the yarn dearer to the weaver, involve him in the general calamity. It was necessary to attend to the situation of this class of persons, the cotton-spinners, as among them, as well as among the other classes collected in great bodies, there was no permanent connexion between manufacturer and employer.
The next subject to which he should advert was our relation with the South American colonies, and here he found equal subject of complaint against his majesty's government. The impolicy of our conduct was sufficiently obvious—our want of system, plan, or object. In some places we had commercial agents, in others none. In one of the states we had a consul, who received his commission from Ferdinand, but who had not produced his credentials till the state to which he was accredited had declared itself independent, or had, as it was called in some quarters, revolted. Over the whole of South America there was a complaint of a want of communication or of concert and understanding. The governors of our colonies acted in the same way as our government at home, or executed impolitic instructions received from this country. The governor of Trinidad openly opposed the cause of the independents, and took part against them with the mother country; opening letters addressed to them, refusing to admit into the island those who had been opposed to the royal arms; imposing contributions, sometimes to the amount of 200 dollars, on those who sought admission; and obstructing all

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communication between Trinidad and the Spanish main, as much as was in his power. Since he had last spoken in the House on this subject, he had heard that the intercourse between that island and the neighbouring continent had been so completely interrupted, that mules had risen forty dollars in price; and that the price of a pound of food, which was formerly five-pence, had risen to 5 and 6 shillings. Such a difference of price, amounting to a thousand per cent, in districts so contiguous, showed the obstructions offered to all communication or commercial intercourse.
But if the policy of government in this quarter was marked by illiberality, injustice, and absurdity, it had been equally so on the continent of Europe, and we were now reaping the bitter fruits of the noble lord's negociations. He would not enter into any reasoning on the subject, He would state one fact which would be worth a thousand arguments. What he alluded to had happened in the port of Genoa, and disclosed a scene of as great tyranny and injustice on the one hand, as great oppression on the other, and as great imbecility in a third party, as any act that had ever been heard of within the walls of that House! It was well known, that though the king of Sardinia was one of the legitimate sovereigns for whom we established the present order of things, yet that we found him possessed of small territory and of very limited power, and by expanding his narrow dominions, and giving him new subjects, we made him a creature of our own. Our exertions brought him from a barren island, restored him to his continental dominions, and endowed him with Genoa. This city was declared as free, because we gave it him, and because congress declared it free. This petty dependent monarch, imitating the conduct of a greater illegitimate one, prevailed, by the arguments to which the latter was accustomed to appeal, upon the chamber of commerce of that port, to contribute money to him for building a large frigate. The chamber, to raise the money, assessed their own members, and the English, together with the French and Piedmontese merchants, who hate and envy the English, and wish to make the place too warm for them, in order to dislodge them. The English merchants remonstrated, but their remonstrances were not attended to. They applied to Mr. Hill, the British minister at the court of Turin. Finding that this ap-
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plication was unsuccessful, they applied to the British consul, who made a representation to the Sardinian minister. The reply from him was, that the assessment was not at all an affair of government, but an arrangement made by the chamber of commerce, with which he could not interfere, and against which government could grant no redress. The merchants made a representation to the chamber, and resisted payment. This only produced a measure of oppression. A soldier was sent to the house of every English merchant, with orders to remain there till the mandate for raising the contribution was complied with, at the pay of three francs a day, to be levied on the person in whose house he remained. The merchants complained to the consul and the ambassador; the latter of whom disapproved of the proceeding; but added, there was no help for it; that he had done his utmost; and that the only course the merchants had was to submit. The whole of these proceedings were submitted to the noble lord opposite, who must have been displeased at the ungracious return made for our exertions by a sovereign who owed to him the means of oppressing British subjects. But what did he do?—Did he afford that protection which the merchants had a right to expect, and speak to the court of Sardinia with that energy which became the minister of Great Britain? No; he applied to the king's advocate, to know if it was lawful for the king of Sardinia to act as he had done; and even submitted to him a case which did not comprehend a full view of the circumstances. The tax was stated to be a general tax; and, as such, the imposition of it did not authorize going to war, or make it a duty for the British government to interfere. On this legal opinion the noble lord acted. Good God! was it becoming in a British minister, in such a case, to allow an injustice to be committed on a technical opinion; to make no remonstrance to a sovereign who was under such obligations to us, when he oppressed our countrymen, merely because the king's advocate, on a partial representation of the case, said, that it was no ground for declaring war? When he (Mr. B.) read these papers, they excited his greatest astonishment, and, as an Englishman, made him blush for the degradation of the English character. If English merchants were to be thus treated, if they received no protection from the English government when oppressed by

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petty states, they might say with truth. We are a great naval power, a great and enlightened nation; but for all practical purposes we are an insignificant people, and cannot protect ourselves against the smallest aggression, or even send a memorial to the petty court of Sardinia. This could not be expected to be a solitary instance of oppression, and accordingly it was followed by others. The first was a tariff on cloth, which gave so great advantages to the French manufacturers over us, that no British cloth could be imported into Genoa, as he had heard from a merchant of Yorkshire, whom he met at Milan. There was another tax imposed, called annonaria; and another was a duty on goods imported into Genoa for the purpose of exportation, similar to our transit duty on foreign linen. Would not this tame submission invite oppression from other powers? Could Austria and Russia, those great states, be expected to show us any regard, or grant us any commercial advantages, when we allowed ourselves to be insulted and trampled on by a creature of our own, the little king of Sardinia? We had mistaken our proper policy, and descended from our legitimate rank. We were placed as arbiters of Europe, and could have ruled its destinies by throwing our weight into the scale if we chose; but we had surrendered that proud pre-eminence to become a fifth-rate military power—neither our safest nor our most dignified attitude, neither adding to our credit nor our security. The noble lord had boasted of his treaties; but if one attended to the state of Europe, there were evident symptoms of their instability. The state of arms in which the different states remained; the Holy Alliance, which seemed more of apolitical than a religious description; and the circumstance, that it originated with the two powers who bordered on Turkey, and had their views fixed on its dismemberment, together with the misunderstanding between Spain and Portugal, might lead to some interruption of the general peace at no distant date. He could not avoid referring, in this part of his speech, to the Note of the allied powers respecting the situation of Lucien Buonaparte, which so deeply affected the honour and dignity of this country. What he had to lament was, not the mere refusal of passports for himself, but the refusal of them for his son; for, as in the case of Dyott's divorce bill, we had changed his petition into an enactment against him.
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He regretted also to see, not only the name of sir C. Stuart, but that of the duke of Wellington, to this document; regarding it, as he feared he must, to be an indication, that the minister for civil affairs was bound to take his instructions from the military commander. In one part of this note the presence of Lucien was described to be more dangerous in America than in Europe. Although it was some what difficult to conceive the grounds of this proposition, yet supposing it to be literally true, what was the real danger to be apprehended from him in either part of the world? He was a person who, as far as he understood, was a great admirer of French poetry, and who, when not engaged in either reading or writing it, amused himself with digging up the remains of antiquity at Tusculum. When in this country, his whole deportment—and it had been vigilantly observed—was of the most peaceable and inoffensive nature. Was this spirit of persecution adopted in order that the new system of Europe might rival in all respects the treaty of Westphalia? The conclusion of this extraordinary note was, that another abode was necessary to be provided for him in the Roman states. Was it worthy, he would ask, of a great country? Was it worthy, of whatever might yet remain of the ancient liberality of Britain, to be occupied, in conjunction with the other great powers of Europe, in devising a residence to which, when selected, the individual in question must be removed by force? If it had happened in our times, and to the astonishment of an enlightened generation, that a monk, in spite of all the cry and prejudices of the no-popery doctrine, should be drawn from the recesses of a convent, and from amidst his beads and rosaries, to be erected into a temporal sovereign, was the world to understand that he was still to remain the instrument of those who had pretended to leave him independent? Was he to be represented to be so incapable of exercising the functions of sovereignty, that he had no control over the proceedings of an individual residing within his territories, and therefore other nations must interfere to prescribe the spot to which he ought to be confined, before their apprehensions could be allayed? He believed the whole intelligence with respect to his intrigues in Naples was derived from certain diplomatic agents, who thought themselves obliged to be doing something like their fellow-labourers at

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home; and to whom red bags and large I seals were the very luxuries of their existence.
Turning, however, from this waste of our legitimate influence abroad, he felt it his duty to advert to another subject of complaint, which was no less than the mismanagement of the patronage belonging to the foreign department. It was painful to him to bring forward such a charge; and the more painful, as it necessarily affected some persons nearly and intimately connected with the noble lord at the head of that department. Whilst he expressed a hope, however, that a new system of appointments would take place in the conduct of our diplomacy, he was actuated by no personal feeling of hostility or disrespect. No man could entertain the smallest objection to any military distinction or appointment that might be conferred on lord Cathcart or lord Stewart; but other persons than those who were only known to the country as soldiers, and whose education had been purely military, were required to execute the high and difficult trusts of the missions to Peters-burgh and Vienna. He considered that it was sufficient for him to touch generally upon this subject, in order to show that there had been an abuse of this very delicate branch of the public patronage. He had long abstained from alluding to it openly, and it was with sincere reluctance he now stated, that there was but one opinion at Vienna and elsewhere, as to the fitness of lord Stewart to execute the functions of minister at that court. If the noble lord, instead of inquiring in his own person, would delegate another to make the inquiry for him—for many truths might be told to a third party which could not be communicated to principals—he would venture to predict that the result would be a similar representation, He was confident that he had never uttered, nor even heard, a single sentence which reflected on the high personal honour and professional merits of the two noble lords whom he had named, but their education itself afforded a presumption of their inadequacy; and whilst their appointments were a matter of regret, the whole blame of them rested with the noble lord opposite, who conducted the foreign relations of the country. It was observable, also, in the consideration of this subject, that a military person, colonel Stirling, had been appointed British consul at Genoa, although the nomination of Reynolds and
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Manners to similar offices called for much deeper reprobation.
Having commented at such length on these various topics of foreign policy, it remained for him to say a few words on what appeared to him to be the greatest evil of all—he meant the present lamentable posture of the constitution. No man who wished well to the interests and happiness of this country, could turn his eyes back to the commencement of this session, and recollect, without a bitter pang, the hopes which it was then natural and reasonable to indulge in. All who had contemplated the improvement and extension of education, the removal of so many disputed questions, the abatement of party zeal, and the consequent union of sentiment which had grown up in the public mind, must have been grievously disappointed to find a new strength acquired to the cause of bigotry and misgovernment. The anti-catholic had begun to raise his tone, and he thought he could descry the hands from the hand-work of some noble lords, both on the floor and on the table, from which he was induced to suspect a repetition of an old and well-known intrigue, not very favourable to some of the present ministers, and still less favourable to the accession of others, whose principles must for ever prevent a connexion with the authors and promoters of a no-popery cry; but in whatever quarter such designs might be entertained, their existence, or the dread of their existence, was enough to damp the hopes of every friend to the liberties and prosperity of the empire. The Catholic was, in his view of the public interests, the all-important question; it was not, as sometimes represented, a mere question as to individuals, but it was whether Ireland should be well or ill-governed. Until it should be carried, the same principle of distinction which reigned in the West-Indies between the planter and the negro must operate in Ireland to the extent of preventing the Catholic and the Protestant from regarding each other as brothers and fellow subjects. Until this question should be carried in favour of the cause of justice and of liberal policy, our financial resources would derive no augmentation from that quarter, nor would tranquillity be maintained by any other means than by an overwhelming military force. To this disappointment was to be added the melancholy fact, that in this part of the empire we had seen (for the first time

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since the Revolution, in a period of foreign an internal peace), with hardly domestic dissension enough to scare a child, the liberties of the country abandoned, not for a limited time, but durante bene placito, to the government. Such a proceeding, fearful under all circumstances, was a matter of peculiar jealousy and alarm, when it was considered to whom this power was intrusted, and by what hands it was to be exercised. With regard to the noble lord opposite, it could not be forgotten with what scenes his administration in Ireland had formerly been attended. He presumed that the noble lord had been ignorant of them at the time of their occurrence, but the circumstances were on record! it was not now a fact that could be controverted, that men had been flogged with a merciless spirit, which was not satiated till their bones appeared to the face of day. It was not to be denied, that one man who had been thus lacerated had been rubbed over with gunpowder, in order to be a second time mangled, till his bowels burst through his wounds, and was then abandoned without medical aid. When this man afterwards brought his action against the individual who had inflicted the punishment, it was equally true that that individual petitioned the Irish parliament for a bill of indemnity, on the avowed principle of his having employed torture in order to extort truth. He alluded now to the case of Wright versus Fitzgerald, in which the attorney-general had supported the application, and the petitioner had been afterwards made a baronet. If all this took place, and the noble lord remained in ignorance of it, although in his immediate vicinity, how was he, sitting in Downing street, to prevent similar barbarities in Cornwall, and in Yorkshire? If the government was substantially the same as it was at that period, what greater security was there against the abuse of such unlimited authority? He knew not how the sagacity of lord Sidmouth was to operate more effectually than that of his colleagues or predecessors, to prevent an innocent man from being dragged from his family, and immured in a loathsome dungeon, on the information of such persons as Oliver and Reynolds. All that now remained however, for the House to do, after having vested such powers in the executive government was, to address the Crown, and to press upon its attention the necessity during the recess of parliament of at least
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exercising them with caution, forbearance, and moderation. The hon. and learned gentleman concluded by moving,
"That an humble Address be presented to his royal highness the Prince Regent, humbly to represent to his Royal Highness, that his majesty's faithful subjects, the Commons of the united kingdom in parliament assembled, beg leave to approach his Royal Highness with sentiments of attachment to his illustrious family, and to the sacred principles of civil and religious liberty which seated them upon the throne of these realms:
"That arrived at the close of a session, the commencement of which had filled our constituents with the sanguine expectations that some of their grievances would be redressed, we deem it incumbent on us to express our deep concern that the measures of his Royal Highness's advisers, have neither been calculated to fulfil the hopes, to alleviate the sufferings, nor to recover the affections of the people:
"That it is with deep concern that we observe in every part of his Royal Highness's dominions nearly the same pressure of distress, which at the beginning of the session was lamented as unparalleled in the history of the country; and that although we are disposed to hope that some portion of the evil may be temporary, we should trifle with his Royal Highness did we not declare our fixed opinion, that the changes which have happened in the world will prove permanently ruinous to a great part of our foreign commerce, if they are not counteracted by corresponding alterations in our commercial policy, and by the extension of our intercourse with countries removed from the influence of our rivals; but that we have heard with surprise and regret, from his Royal Highness's advisers, an avowal of principles, which remove to a hopeless distance all expectations of seeing so salutary a system adopted; that we find that they dare not oppose themselves to the conflict of the mercantile interests, by which they represent themselves to be surrounded; that to the menaces and importunities of individuals they sacrifice their own declared opinions: and that, instead of anxiously seeking for the means of restoring the healthful state of British commerce, they remain passive spectators of its progressive decline, and abandon their duty towards the whole empire, in order to escape the interested clamours of a few:
"That equally great has been our dis-

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appointment at finding that no measures have been adopted for lessening the enormous weight of the taxes, grievous even in prosperous times, but at a period like the present, hardly to be endured. That, when we consider how heavily those burthens press on the trade of the country diminishing at once our home consumption and our power of competition in foreign markets, and reflect that, in a season of general distress, the operation of the poor laws inevitably throws an unequal share of the load upon the land, we are at a loss to conceive more powerful reasons for reducing the excessive amount of taxation; the more especially because experience has proved the revenue itself to have been injured by that excess: that after the return of peace we had hoped that a new and permanent arrangement of our financial system would have been attempted on sound and liberal principles, alike favourable to the resources of the state, and to the private wealth of the people, in which alone the foundations of public revenue can be surely laid: but that here again we are disappointed: that his Royal Highness's advisers, with the evidence before their eyes of trade sinking under the pressure of taxes, and the income of the state constantly declining, as the difficulties of the people increase and their industry decays, seem resolved to defer the settlement of the finances, as if they waited for some opportunity of restoring the income tax, which we trusted that our vote of, that session had for ever destroyed; nor is it amongst the least of the grievances whereof we complain, that, while the deficiency of the revenue is acknowledged, no effectual steps are taken to reduce the public expenditure, which is kept upon the footing of former wars in order to support unprecedented military establishments, equally strange to the habits ruinous to the wealth, and fatal to the liberties of the country.
"That, while the measures of his Royal Highness's advisers at home are calculated to a fiord no relief either to the labouring finances of the state, or the insupportable sufferings of our countrymen, we regret to observe, that a course of policy has been pursued towards foreign states, at once injurious to the prosperity, and degrading to the character of the nation: on the one hand we see, with humiliation, that all the blood and treasure so lavishly bestowed, and all the triumphs of our arms have failed to secure to us the most ordi-
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nary share of influence with the very powers which owe their existence to our efforts,—while, on the other, we perceive with shame and disgust the authority of the British name prostituted to sanction every abuse of power;—every invasion of national independence;—every encroachment upon popular rights;—and that lately we have witnessed, nearly at the same time, the humbling sight of British merchants oppressed, without the hopes of redress, by a petty tyrant whom our influence had raised to power, and an authorized British minister joining in the boot-less persecution of an unoffending individual, for the purpose of courting more powerful sovereigns:
"That it is a farther consequence of the same false principles, and the same imbecility, which mark the administration of our foreign affairs, that laying down no certain line of conduct respecting the intercourse with South America, but swayed by the groundless prejudices against colonial rights, which have survived the first American war, his Royal Highness's advisers have succeeded in disconcerting the commercial plans of our own countrymen, and exciting the universal distrust of the independent party, while they have failed in giving satisfaction to the Spanish and Portuguese governments: nor can we refrain from lamenting, that, after the unparalleled sacrifices made to preserve the existence of those dynasties, it should be found impossible to obtain from them a renunciation of the execrable traffic in human flesh, carried on, by their authority, to an extent beyond all former example, and very far surpassing, in its repugnance to the law of nations, the French aggressions against themselves, which we interfered to repel:
"That when indeed we recollect the prodigious efforts made by this country during the late contest, and contemplate the intolerable burthens which they have entailed upon all classes of his Royal Highness's subjects, however gratifying may be the reflection, that the triumphs of our arms exalted the character of the British nation, it is truly painful to mark the truth which every day's experience forces upon our belief, that the fruit of those costly victories hath been thrown away by the incapacity of his Royal Highness's confidential advisers: even the arrangement of the continent, which they claimed as their own, and boasted would be permanent, offers no prospect of stabi

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lity to counterbalance the narrowness of the principles on which it was founded, and the profligacy of the means by which it was effected: for, besides the weakness naturally inherent in every such transaction, and the universal discontent of the people, whose interests have been sacrificed to it, we observe the greater continental powers rather extending their armaments than returning to peaceable pursuits;—the inferior sovereigns striving to follow their example; and leagues of a mysterious nature, with unexplained views taking place of the ancient and known relations between friendly states, while Great Britain, instead of trusting for her influence to the weight of her high character, the popularity of pure and liberal principle, the knowledge of her commanding resources, and above all the incalculable effect of her entire disinterestedness, has been involved in all the intrigues of foreign courts, has submitted to take her rank among them as a second-rate military power, and adopted a system of constant intermeddling, beneath her dignity, as it is destructive of her authority; and that we observe with astonishment and regret, that in order still more effectually to insure the failure of such schemes, their execution has in many instances been intrusted to incapable hands, according to the novel and reprehensible plan, which seems to be followed, of bestowing the higher patronage of the foreign department upon persons recommended by family connexion or by military rank, and rewarding with its inferior posts the basest species of political service:
"But that when we turn from surveying the effects of mismanagement upon our national wealth and our influence abroad, to contemplate the blows which have been sustained by the civil and religious liberties of his Royal Highness's faithful subjects, we are filled with a concern so much the deeper, by how much those interests are inestimably dearer to a free people: that to serve the unworthy purposes of a court intrigue, for diminishing the influence of some distinguished men, and widening the difference that unhappily divides others from his Royal Highness's confidence, we have seen the attempt, already partially successful, to revive the senseless clamours of a misguided multitude against his Royal Highness's Roman Catholic subjects, and to embody, as the principle of the government, those bigotted doctrines, which,
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after weakening the strength of the empire in war, occasion the necessity for a standing army, that exhausts its resources and undermines its liberties in peace: nor is it one class of his Royal Highness's subjects alone who have to lament the injury to their constitutional rights which this fatal session has brought about: that the measures so disastrous to public liberty, which his Royal Highness's advisers have prevailed upon parliament to sanction, are all the answer that has been given to the petitions of the people; all the return made for their unalterable attachment to the constitution; all the means taken to justify or fulfil their anxious expectations: that on the eve of a prorogation, which will leave, for the first time since the revolution, the most precious of their rights at the absolute disposal of those advisers, we deem it our duty, alike towards his suffering but faithful subjects, and towards his Royal Highness, solemnly to desire that so vast and perilous a trust be no wise abused: that when we consider into whose keeping the personal freedom of each individual in the kingdom is delivered, and reflect that among the confidential servants of his Royal Highness, are to be found both those who exercised the powers of government in Ireland during the darkest period of her history, those whose general incapacity has been recorded by their colleagues, and those whom recent proceedings have stamped as inadequate to contend with the wiles of their own agents, we may well be alarmed at the prospect of the approaching recess; but we deem it a sacred duty not to separate without expressing our earnest expectation, that His Royal Highness will discountenance, by all means, the employment of persons pretending to be spies, and in reality contrivers of sedition for the sake of gain, the encouragement of whose unworthy artifices must end in the destruction of innocent individuals, endanger the public tranquillity, and irritrievably alienate the affections of his faithful subjects: and that we pledge ourselves to institute a rigorous inquiry at the beginning of the next session into every thing that concerns the execution of I the new laws during the prorogation of parliament."
Lord Castlereaghbegan with observing, that after the speech delivered by the hon. and learned gentleman, and the address which he had thought proper to submit to the consideration of the House, he

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felt himself entitled to trespass for some time on their indulegnce. If the object of the hon. and learned gentleman, indeed had been deliberation, and not inflammation, his speech would have been unnecessary; for one part of it consisted of Statements which formed a proper ground of inquiry, and another of assertions, which, if true, ought long since to have Jed to an impeachment. But the hon. and learned gentleman had not stated either to be his object on this occasion; and he could not but think it singular, that he should have occupied himself the whole session in preparing an extended pamphlet, in the shape of a speech, and embracing a considerable quantity of libellous matter which he had reserved, not much to the credit of his generosity or candour, to be directed against him and his friends on the last day of the session. It was only the day before that he had been given to understand that the intention of the hon. and learned gentleman had been merely to place his proposed address upon record, without going into any elaborate review of the foreign and domestic situation of the country. He disdained to accept the assurances of the hon. and learned gentleman's liberality towards either him, or those who were dear to him, although he relied confidently on the liberality of the House. It was his wish, not only to protect himself, but parliament from that system of running it down of which they had that night witnessed so conspicuous an instance. A more opprobrious or unjust reflection could not be thrown on the character of parliament, than to declare that it had been insensible to the distresses of the people. Every man with whom public duty was the basis of conduct must admit, that the attention of parliament had been directed to this subject with a diligence unexampled; with the most lively sympathy; and that it had led not only to the most useful investigation, but to measures of the greatest practical utility. It was true, that parliament had been called together at a moment of general suffering; and without referring here to the direct steps taken for alleviating it, he must contend that those measures which were reprobated as an invasion of liberty had afforded substantial relief in protecting the honest and the industrious against those who hoped to make a pretended reform the instrument and means of disturbing the public peace. These were the pro-
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ceedings which had sustained the confidence of the country, and enabled the man who loved it to labour for the support of his familly without dreading the dagger of the assassin. Parliament, he repeated, would have acted the part of a driveller, if it had listened at such a time to the hon. and learned gentleman's projects of reform. The difference between his views on this subject, and those of the hon. and learned gentleman, proceeded probably from the different grounds on which they were formed. He considered the hon. and learned gentleman as desirous of introducing changes into the practice of the constitution of a revolutionary nature. His own principle, on the contrary, was, that it would be dangerous to yield to any but gradual improvement, arising from, and dictated by experience. The hon. and learned gentleman contemplated as desirable, or at least favoured, the progress of alteration which he was satisfied would subvert instead of maintaining or improving the constitution. The salutary operation of the policy pursued by parliament was manifested not only in the increasing value of the funds, which in the course of the session had risen from 62 to 79, but in that of every other description of property. There never, in fact, was a session during which the wisdom of parliament had been more successfully applied in devising the means of practical relief to evils of great magnitude and extent; or at the close of which more triumphant evidence of it was disclosed. Nothing but a perverted mind, or an uncandid spirit towards parliament, could induce any one to regard their proceedings as indicative of any hostility to the liberties of the people. But had the hon. and learned gentleman who, at a former period of the session, had read to the House another elaborate pamphlet on the miserable state of the country, ever started one rational idea, or submitted a single plan, for the diminution of the public burthens? No; but his constant complaint was, that nothing had been done; and that the establishment was not lowered. This assertion was repeated, although the establishment had been reduced from 20 to 18,000,000 l.—a reduction larger than had been anticipated by the most rigid criticism. Was it a proof that nothing had been done, that no report had yet been presented from the committee appointed to examine the best means of improving

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the state of the poor-laws, an inquiry so difficult and so extensive? If it had been found impossible to prepare and digest a better system in so short a time, the issue of exchequer bills, for the purpose of giving employment to the poor, showed that parliament had exerted itself to supply immediate relief to the distress of the lower classes. The hon. and learned gentleman appeared to have assumed the disguise of a dissertation on our commercial policy, for the purpose of making an exclusive attack upon his public character. He did not believe that his object was inquiry; because if it was, he must give him credit for the ability to carry it into execution. He had taken the opportunity of animadverting on the proceedings of congress, and of the allied powers subsequently; and it was no matter of surprise, considering the anxiety with which some persons had watched over the fate and fortunes of a certain family, that those who had achieved their overthrow should be the objects of suspicion and obloquy to them. But with reference to our commercial policy, he must deny that his right hon. friend (Mr. Robinson) had ever supported the abstract principle of a system of exclusion. All he had maintained was, that we could not adopt such liberal principles, as it was desirable that the world should act on generally, whilst the system of protection and counter-protection was maintained in other countries; that a more enlarged policy must be progressive and mutual, and could not be adopted per saltum, as the hon. and learned gentleman appeared to think. Had he, however, proposed an inquiry into any particular branch of the system, it would not have been refused. He now came, certainly labouring under great disadvantages, to notice in detail those charges which were personal to himself or to those who were dear to him; and he must declare that he saw nothing in the hon. and learned gentleman's mode of treating this subject which called upon him to view it in the light of grace, or courtesy, or liberality. His description of the alleged cruelties which had been practised during the administration in Ireland, of which he had been a member, ought long since to have been made the foundation of an impeachment, if they were believed to be true, and not have been reserved to be brought forward in a strain of black, malignant, and libellous insinuation on the last day of a session—
Mr. Broughamrose to order, and submitted, that these were expressions which were not consistent with the decorum and dignity of their proceedings. He considered that the noble lord was exceeding the usual licence of parliamentary language.
Lord Castlereaghinsisted that the hon. and learned gentleman had employed insinuations which he was bound to expose and to repel.
Mr. Bennetcontended, that nothing had fallen from his hon. and learned friend which could justify the noble lord's asperity of observation.
Mr. Canningapprehended, that there was no doubt that the word libellous was strictly applicable to whatever was said in parliament which, in the case of its being printed, would constitute a libel.
Mr. Broughamadmitted, that his reflections on the noble lord's conduct called for explanation from him, and even excused some warmth in the conduct of his defence.
Lord Castlereaghresumed. He would not shrink from asserting that the expressions of the hon. and learned gentleman, applied on the last day of the session to transactions which took place twenty years ago, were unjust to individuals, prejudicial to the public service, and calculated to lend countenance to the machinations of traitors. He must protest against another abuse of the privilege of speech in the hon. and learned gentleman's observations with regard to Genoa, nor could ministers be responsible for our foreign relations under such a perversion of the purposes of that House. He would maintain, in opposition to the hon. and learned gentleman, that nothing was more strongly to be deprecated than the policy which he recommended, of the greater powers making use of their influence to force commercial regulations on weaker states. It would be an equally unjust and unsound principle of commercial intercourse for this country to aim at the establishment of a distinct cast of British merchants in foreign states, enjoying particular exemptions, instead of those reciprocal advantages which were essential to the rights and interests of every people. He would zealously maintain the privileges of our merchants, in conformity with subsisting treaties; but he never would adopt the hollow, despotic, and illiberal policy—a policy directly contrary to every principle of national law—of ex-

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torting concessions of mercantile advantage by means of political superiority. If there was any thing on which he could undertake to justify himself to the House and to the country, it was with respect to the policy which had been pursued towards Spain and South America. His majesty's ministers had nothing to reproach themselves with on that subject. If the hon. and learned gentleman meant that the country had not the same commerce with South America that it ever had, he denied the statements in which the hon. and learned gentleman had indulged himself. He firmly believed that the country had nothing left to desire with that portion of the world. Did the hon. and learned gentleman mean to say, that he would have been able to effect any course of policy by which South America would have been more friendly to the interests of Great Britain? On the contrary, he (lord C.) was afraid that much injury had been done, not only by the hon. and learned gentleman, but by others, from the speeches which had been made in that House. The hon. and learned gentleman, with the peculiar feelings which he displayed on several occasions, had stated, that all personal liberty had been invaded; but he (lord C.) could only say, that those individuals who consulted the best interests of the nation essentially differed from him. In his opinion, the hon. and learned gentleman was a very bad guardian of the liberties of Europe. The duke of Wellington had acted precisely as the treaties intended he should act. He never heard any impeachment of the conduct of that great captain; and regretted, no less than he was surprised, to hear the learned gentleman say, that we were trying to manage our affairs rather by military than by civil operations. He begged leave to say, that ail those who regarded the welfare and tranquillity of Europe, had acted with nothing more than a becoming precaution; they had merely entertained those ordinary jealousies which existing circumstances so imperiously demanded. But the hon. and learned gentleman has talked of that individual to whom the document referred (Lucien Bonaparté), being solely engaged in literary pursuits in writing verses, in arranging an heroic poem. It did, however, happen that that same individual wag fired by a spirit of a very different kind on the return of Buonaparté from Elba. The same cha-
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racter and energy that at a more early period he had exerted, and which led to the usurpation of his brother, was not less ardently operative in those latter days, when the world was so near being replunged into all its recent horrors, and Europe being again shook to its centre. We should indeed be drivellers if we had suffered men of that description, influenced by their views and passions to traverse the world at their pleasure, and after having matured their schemes, and revisited us with the calamity, to come here and receive the meed of the hon. and learned gentleman's approbation. We pursued another course, and being reduced to the painful necessity of imprisoning the head of that family, we did not push our precautions farther with respect to other branches than a sound discretion warranted. If the hon. and learned gentleman proceeded on the assumption that the hopes of the partisans of that system were extinct, he begged to assure him he was mistaken. The perverse spirit was yet alive and active; it went on perseveringly in various parts of the continent, to combine all possible means for its object, and a large and active branch of the conspiracy had passed over to America. A passage across the Atlantic was not likely to neutralize it. The House and the country, therefore, would take the authority of those who felt it necessary to prescribe the restriction adverted to—they were best enabled to judge of the prudence of the precaution, and the country would, no doubt, respect the decision. The hon. and learned gentleman had in the same spirit of indulgence, expressed his fears for the duration of the repose of Europe. It was most probable that the speech about to be delivered from the throne, would advert to the nature of our prospects on that head. But he (Mr. B.) who looked with such gloomy views at the possibility of its continuance, was anxious to spread the alarm by his prophecies and fearful apprehensions. He saw with terror she 'continuance of large armies, and on these he founded his alarms for the continuance of peace. But he (lord C.) would ask, whether it was not natural, that, rescued as the powers of Europe were by the efforts of public force, they should be still disposed to continue a considerable part of that military establishment, to guard against the machinations of the friends of revolution? It was the alarm that the

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danger was not yet over—that the spirit yet stalked abroad, and was intent on its objects, that operated to delay the reduction which the state of the finances rendered necessary, and not any spirit of conquest. The noble lord next proceeded to defend the particular diplomatic appointments in his official sphere. The discretion which I have used in making certain appointments in foreign countries, has, (said the noble lord) been referred to, but I am not disposed to treat this part of the subject with any acrimony. I however deny any intention of giving a military character to our foreign diplomacy, or that it was the principle of the treaty of Paris to abandon our insular policy, or assume the tone and port of a military power. The appointment of lords Cathcart and Stewart, has been censured by the hon. member, because they had not been brought up regularly for the diplomatic service of the country. They were, however, selected, when unfortunately the military relations of the country were so mixed up with the diplomatic, that if the government had sent out one of the old trained diplomatists, they must also have sent with him a general officer, and nine-tenths of the power would have been exercised by the latter. It was on these grounds that these two individuals were attached to the head quarters of the allied armies. I hope I am not so blinded by my attachment to a brother whom I sincerely love, as not to perceive any insufficiency in the powers of lord Stewart to fulfil his office. To me his zeal and good sense appeared calculated to serve the public interests; but were ignorant of his faults, they would not have escaped the observation of my colleagues. The two other appointments alluded to, were those of Mr. Reynolds and Mr. Manners—As to Mr. Reynolds, he had never heard any thing to his prejudice; he had originally engaged in treason, and by his discovery made the atonement. It was inconsistent with the honor of government to allow such a man to wander through the country, and at a moment, too, when these frequent denunciations could not contribute to his personal safety. He (lord C.) was not secretary in Ireland when Reynolds gave his information. It was to Mr. Pelham that the disclosures were made. Three juries had believed his testimony, and the Irish House of Commons considered it unimpeached. That in the estimation of the hon. baronet (sir
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F. Burdett) such a man appeared in a degraded light, was, without imputing improper motives, not unnatural, from the habits of personal association that hon. baronet had with persons to whom Mr. Reynolds could have no recommendation. The prejudice was not, however, general. Lord Chichester thought so well of his character, as to appoint him to the respectable situation of postmaster-general at Lisbon. The corporation of Dublin did not deem him unworthy, and gave him for his services the freedom of their body. The Guild of merchants, who voted him the honour of their Guild, did not concur in those feelings of reprobation. His testimony was not alone unimpeached, but was supported by the confessions of the traitors themselves. O'Connor and 251 other traitors confessed their guilt and upheld the truth of his statement. Mr. Reynolds was also, a man in respectable circumstances, and by no means likely to prostitute his talents for the public service. He considered him, therefore, as an individual assigned unjustly to persecution, and in truth as an object against whom the most unfounded insinuations had been brought. Now, (said the noble lord) we come to the case of Mr. Manners. The learned gentleman speaks of "the notorious Mr. Manners, the gross libeller—the editor of the Satirist!" However notorious he might be I can assure the House, that I knew nothing of Mr. Manners. The learned gentleman has trumped up tin's appointment as a very important thing—whereas the office is one of merely 200 l. a year in the state of Massachussets. I knew not that Mr. Manners was engaged in any literary work, and I was equally ignorant that his character had ever been arraigned in any court whatever. All I did was, to desire Mr. Hamilton, the under secretary of state, to converse with Mr. Manners, and to report whether he was calculated to perform those functions which were attached to the situation of consul. From him I understood that Mr. Manners was a very well educated man, and perfectly qualified to discharge the duties of the office. The learned gentleman says, that Mr. Manners received the sentence of a court of justice, on the floor of the King's bench. Now, Sir, the conduct of the society of which Mr. Manners was a member, would prove the trivial nature of his offence. In the year 1812, Mr. Manners who was studying the profession of the

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law, applied to be called to the bar. The benchers of Lincoln's-inn mooted a point in his case; they doubted whether he had a right, in consequence of the prosecution in question, to be enrolled in that highly honourable profession. They decided in his favour; and I am sure the learned gentleman will not deny that if he be fit to be a lawyer, he is fit to be a consul. The benchers of Lincoln's-inn informed him, that they would not appoint him until the whole case was seen into. The individual who objected to him was called to give his statement in writing, and Mr. Manners was directed to send in his answer. Mr. Manners requested the present attorney-general, then Mr. Shepherd, who was on the occasion alluded to, counsel for the prosecution, to state whether there was any thing in his conduct, as it appeared on the trial, which ought to operate to his disadvantage as a candidate for the robe. Such an answer perfectly satisfactory. When the benchers of Lincoln's-inn investigated the case, they considered the character of Mr. Manners perfectly established, as that of a person worthy of being called to the bar. Tile case to which allusion has been made was that of Finnerty v. Manners, for a libel. In mentioning this case, I disclaim any personal feelings on this occasion. On a recent occasion, I felt myself bound to call Mr. Finnerty to a court of justice, for what he said respecting me; but I now declare, that nothing but a deep sense of the duty I owed to the public could on any account have induced me to undertake that action. The next appointment objected to by the learned gentleman is that of an individual at Genoa. The complaint here was, that this gentleman had been in his majesty's military service, and was, therefore, unfit for the civil office to which he had been nominated. I do not think the appointment at all improper. I have known the individual alluded to for twenty years, and, as far as I have had an opportunity of judging a more honourable individual does not exist. The idea that mercantile business should only be conducted by men regularly bred to commerce, is not good to the extent to which the learned gentleman pushed it. In situations, such as that to which this gentleman is appointed, the less partiality that is apparent the better. The learned gentleman as alluded to the appointment of a consul at Buenos Ayres. Mr. Stapleton's ap-
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pointment was made during the administration of marquis Wellesley, and certainly I conceive that it was a very proper one.
Lastly, to make his pamphlet complete, the learned gentleman has entered into an argument on the Catholic question. Now that the question has, for the present, gone by, the learned gentleman comes forward as the great friend of the Catholics, as their determined liberator—now, when the time of exertion has elapsed, he declares, that the country can never be safe or happy, until their claims are acceded to. I wish the question to be settled—I am anxious that the Catholics should be relieved—but, if this question is to be used, as it has been used by the learned gentleman this night, for the purpose of exciting angry feelings against those who were most zealous in promoting its success—then, I say, it is better that it should not be mentioned. With respect to Ireland, I know I never hall be forgiven. I have, with many others, incurred the inexpiable guilt of preserving that main branch of the British empire, from that separation which the traitors of Ireland, in conjunction with a foreign power, had meditated. We know how far the treaty on this subject was carried into effect—we know how solemnly it was made—we know the dreadful dangers which were attendant on it. Those who were foiled in their attempt, have consoled themselves by endeavouring as, far as they could, to throw calumny on my name and character. For what reason? because I exerted myself to defend the people of Ireland from the conspiracy which surrounded them. My conduct has been the constant theme of invective. But I think those who are acquainted with me, will do me the justice to believe that I never had a cruel or an unkind heart. I believe they would not think that I went farther in prosecuting even the guilty, in Ireland than necessity required—or that I had recourse to measures beyond what the danger of the times imperatively demanded. If there were cruelties committed in Ireland (and I never denied that there were), they must fall on the heads of those who provoked that guilty and unnatural rebellion. I say, if the loyal men of Ireland took steps which they abhorred and ever must deplore, it was because they were the persecuted and not the persecuting party. Standing in that situation, they were authorized to

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use those means which God and nature had placed in their hands, for the protection of their lives and properties against lawless force and violence. When, in consequence of the state of the country, martial law was proclaimed—when the rebels were in the field—government had no power to repress the excesses of loyal men. Those who knew of these enormities (for it must be admitted that enormities were perpetrated) must admit, that the loyal part of the community took the exercise of this power into their own hands, when government could not protect them, and when, in consequence, their arms were strengthened by the operation of martial law.
It was a most ungenerous and a most ungracious task, for individuals, after a long lapse of time, to introduce subjects of this kind [Hear], It was most unjust, when the means of proving the wisdom and propriety of the acts of government were gone, for those individuals, who, in myriads, might have perished under the lash of the law, to become the calumniators of that government, from whom they had received mercy and forgiveness. With respect to Ireland, he conceded that he was guilty of the inexpiable offence (as it would doubtless ever appear in the eyes of the hon. and learned gentleman) of having prevented the separation of that part of the empire, and of having assisted the efforts of the loyal population of Ireland against the conspiracy of rebels and traitors; but he was satisfied that none who were acquainted with his disposition could accuse him of cruelty: and if cruelties and atrocities were perpetrated at that period (a fact which he did not deny), the blood which had been spilt was on the head of those who had encouraged and sanctioned that guilty and unnatural rebellion. At that eventful period, the loyal were a persecuted party, and they struggled with such arms as nature and resentment gave them, to save themselves from attacks on their lives and property. It was not to be wondered that, in the heat of self-defence and justly excited anger, they should be carried beyond the strict bounds of discretion or mercy, and in the heat of the struggle government had no power to repress their loyal indignation. But it was most invidious and unmanly, at this distance of time, when every individual who had then conducted himself ill, might so long since have been brought to punishment if he deserved it,
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to stand up as the advocate of those whom government, if it chose, might have consigned long since to the lash of the law. How could any man who had sat silent during the last twenty years now rise up and expatiate on facts which, if true, ought to have been, and would have been, long since the subject of impeachment. It was unmanly thus to countenance that spirit of calumny out of doors, which had long prevailed on this subject, though without any just foundation.—He felt he had been led into a subject too extensive for the House to follow him through, and complained that the hon. and learned gentleman had, on the last day of the session, brought forward this motion, almost without notice, for the sake of entering a protest, as he called it, to rescue his honourable name from the disgrace he chose to attach to the proceedings of the House [Loud cries of Hear, hear!]
Mr. Broughamsaid, that the case of Finnerty v. Manners was not that which he alluded to. He adverted to the case of the king, on the prosecution of Hallet, v. Manners, where it appeared, that the defendant searched into, and exposed the secrets of the plaintiff's family, and threatened to do so, from month to month, evidently with the intention of procuring money.
Sir F. Burdettwould not perhaps have made any observations on the present occasion, but for the remarks in which the noble lord had indulged relative to his conduct. Subjects of great interest had been that night brought under consideration; but there was one of paramount importance—he meant that which respected Ireland—particularly as it bore on the character of Mr. Reynolds, and the general employment of spies and informers by government. If the noble lord had made a much less eloquent defence than he had done—if he had acquitted himself less satisfactorily, than his friends seemed to suppose he had done—still no doubt could be entertained but that he would carry his point. This could not be wondered at, when they considered what bench he sat on. There was, from some cause or other, a sympathy between the opinions delivered from that bench, and those adopted by the majority of the House. This might perhaps be explained, if the bench could speak, as a block appeared to have done in former times—
"Olim truncus eram ficulnys, inutile lignum;

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Cum faber incertus scamnum, faceretne Priapum,
Maluit esse Deum."
But he doubted very much whether the Treasury-bench could proceed to say with that honest piece of wood—"Deus inde ego, furum, aviumque, maxima formido." The noble lord had endeavoured to justify the scenes that had been acted in Ireland; and complained, that silence had been observed with respect to them for twenty years. This he denied. The conduct of the Irish government was the common subject of remark in that House at the time; and he was old enough to recollect that a specific motion was made, to bring the House to the declaration, that it was highly unconstitutional, illegal, and inhuman, with other epithets of the same description, to countenance the infliction of torture. The persons who then filled that bench, the ministers of the day, felt with the noble lord, and the motion was negatived. But silence was by no means kept on that occasion. If, however, silence had been then observed, he contended that the lapse of twenty or even of forty years, did not oppose a bar to the investigation of the conduct of a minister. The noble lord had pronounced an eulogium on Reynolds. He could not, on this occasion, mention Oliver, Castle, or other persons, of the same stamp, who had signalized themselves in this country—but of course they were "all honourable men." The noble lord knew nothing, it appeared, of Reynolds, but that he was engaged in a conspiracy in Ireland, and had repented of his conduct. Now he (sir F.) would relate a plain tale, which would throw some light on the history of that infamous ruffian Reynolds. [The hon. baronet then read the following evidence given by Mr. Valentine O'Connor, major and captain Widdrington, Thomas Warner, & c. on the trial of Oliver Bond, in 1798, against whom Reynolds was the principal witness.] Mr. Valentine O'Conner, a merchant of great wealth and high character (which can be vouched for by the present lord Rendlesham), swore that Reynolds to his knowledge was of so bad and infamous a character, that he was not to be credited upon oath. That he had good opportunities to be acquainted with the conduct and character of Reynolds, as he was nearly connected with him by marriage. Major Witherington, and his brother captain Witherington, whose sister is married to Reynolds, swore that they did not enter-
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tain any doubt, but that the death of their mother was occasioned by poison having been administered to her by Reynolds, and that in order to conceal any traces of the real cause of her death, he (Reynolds) had her corpse wrapped in a pitch sheet, before they, her sons, arrived in Dublin; and they further swore, that Reynolds robbed her desk and private drawers of several hundred pounds. Thomas Warren, who was a partner with Reynolds' mother, in a manufacturing concern in the liberties of Dublin, swore, that he had detected Reynolds at various times of having robbed their warehouses of property to a considerable amount, and that he was not entitled to credit upon his oath, and when the counsel for the prisoners asked Reynolds if he could deny this charge, he replied with much levity and indifference he would not, that he did steal the goods, and that he made use of the value to maintain a whore, whom he had at the time in keeping. Reynolds at the time he became the agent of the government of Ireland to foment the rebellion and to endeavour to entrap men to treasonable acts and conversations, was in the most indigent circumstances; but after he had consigned to death, by his evidence, as many as the government considered sufficient for their purpose, he was rewarded most bountifully with pensions and money which have enabled him for the last seventeen years to live in splendour. On the day of the arrest of Bond and many others, on the secret evidence of Reynolds, he (Reynolds) called and dined with Mrs. Bond, and in the course of the afternoon endeavoured, as much as possible, to cheer the spirits of herself and her children and to elicit from her any knowledge which she possessed of her husband's treasonable practices; previously to his departure from the house he took up one of Bond's children upon his knee, assured the child he would soon deliver his father from prison, and drank a glass of wine "to the speedy destruction of the infamous government which tyrannized over Ireland." That the noble lord had not heard of these facts was astonishing, but, having heard of them, that any man should speak of Reynolds as an honourable character, as a person fit to be trusted by government, was still more amazing. Let the House look to the situation in which Reynolds was found in this country. He was not dragged before the public from an obscure situation, but, living in affluence, he was

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summoned, and acted on a grand jury, for the purpose of finding bills, by which the lives of men in this country were placed in jeopardy. The character of this man was so infamous, that he thought lawyers would entertain very great doubts, whether a bill found by a jury on which such a man was placed, could be acted on. Lord Coke was of this opinion, who stated, that he who acted on a jury should be probus et legalis—and, in his (sir F.'s) opinion, the appearance of such a person on a jury vitiated all their acts. Was he, then, a man fit to be rewarded by government? Could such a person be held up, by any government, as a praise-worthy character, without exciting that feeling of disgust in the country, which honest minds could not suppress, and which must be highly disadvantageous to the government itself? But the system of spies and informers was now generally acted on. Informers were sent through the country to rake up discontent in the haunts of misery and wretchedness. When a number of those persons were traced from the secretary of state's office into remote parts of the country—when those miscreants were found endeavouring to promote those disturbances, on which ministers built the overthrow of the rights and liberties of Englishmen—the prospect became indeed alarming. All that his learned friend had said, with respect to the conduct of parliament during this session, was perfectly true. They had exerted themselves, not for, but against, the liberties of the country. They had destroyed, ministers would say, suspended, the liberties of the country. But, in his mind, it would be better to strike the act of Habeas Corpus at once from the statute book, rather than, by making a parade of the necessity of suspending it, to give to ministers an opportunity of introducing other laws, in the highest degree arbitrary and despotic. Here the hon. baronet, as a proof of the means which spies and informers were constantly adopting, in order to entrap the unwary, instanced the case of a printer, who was applied to for the purpose of striking off a number of inflammatory bills, which he was ordered to enclose to a person of the name of Nicholls. He very prudently gave information of the circumstance at state's office, but was at that office, the very whom he had been directed to transmit the seditious bills. Sir Francis denied that there was any
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discontent in the country, approaching to treason. He knew that dissatisfaction and discontent existed. They naturally grew out of the arbitrary measures of government, the shameful taxation by which the people were weighed down, and the notorious corruption of that House.—When the noble lord spoke of individuals countenancing traitors, he would tell him, that it was he who countenanced traitors; and he ought to bring some of them to trial, in order to show, that he had no hand in those vile, and wicked transactions, of which he might say he knew nothing, as he had already done, with respect to Reynolds and Manners—the latter of whom was the most detestable private calumniator that ever appeared in the country. Castle and Oliver, and men of that description, were the real traitors. Heaps of letters had been sent to him, describing their conduct; but those who sent them, declined giving their names, while the constitution of the country was suspended—[Hear!] The noble lord might smile; but those who were imprisoned throughout the country, who were dragged from gaol to gaol, who were plunged in solitary confinement, and, from the acuteness of their feelings, were threatened with a deprivation of reason, they had no reason to smile. The noble lord, after the scenes he had witnessed in Ireland, might consider these as trifling punishments, not worth the attention of the House. The noble lord expressed a great veneration for the law of nations. But had he shown any respect for that law, when he transferred men, like herds of cattle, to different despots in Europe—for so he would call them? The noble lord had not yet placed a shackle on the mouths of the members of that House, and he would make use of the privilege he enjoyed to; speak his sentiments fully. Perhaps it might be said, that it was impossible to place the different states of Europe on their ancient footing. It might be so; but no difference of opinion could exist on that part of the subject which respected those infamous characters whom the noble lord unfortunately selected for his employment in different parts of the world. The noble lord had observed, that Reynolds was placed in a situation of trust. This was an aggravation of the circumstance; for such a man was utterly unworthy of confidence. He should have I been employed as a spy, for he was a very proper person to fill such an honourable

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post. He supposed, an order of spies would soon be created. As the grand torturer, Sir, what was his name, Fitzgerald, had been made a baronet, so it was probable Mr. Reynolds would be made a grand-cross of this new order. The system was a new one in this country. It excited general disgust; and if it could be thought necessary to employ such persons in an honourable and free government, at least they ought to be kept out of sight, and all moral feeling ought not to be shocked by such panegyrics upon them as those which had been uttered by the noble lord. All writers agreed in stating, that the employment of spies and informers was a proof of tyranny. They were employed in the times of the worst of the Roman emperors. They were employed by Nero and Caligula. No doubt there existed conspiracies against those despots; and if the noble lord had been a minister of Nero he would probably have made the same panegyric that was made in the senate of that period on the infamous wretches who were employed, and would have equally justified the horrid cruelties that were exercised. No doubt there was a conspiracy against Nero, and no doubt there would be a conspiracy against every vile and infamous government until every manly feeling should be expelled from the human bosom, and fear should be the sole motive of human action. We were positively at present under a military government—a government of the naked sword; for soldiers were every where used, and the old constitutional laws were disused. More especially now that parliament was about to separate, the country would be at the mercy of the executive government; a situation which was intolerable to a man of any generous feeling. To hold one's liberty at the pleasure of another man was a state of life scarcely preferable to death. No evil could be greater than solitary, arbitrary confinement. Had there not been a petition that night presented from a person who had been imprisoned for seventeen weeks, who was taken up because he promoted a petition for parliamentary reform—who was sent to gaol, put in irons, and yet against whom, when he was brought to trial, nothing could be substantiated. If to petition parliament for reform was high treason, let it be at once declared so. Let the country know to whom allegiance was to be considered as due. Let it be proclaimed by what rule men held their
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lives and liberties. In the greatest tyranny on earth the law was published; and no attempts were made to entrap men and circumvent them, and put their lives in jeopardy, when they were doing that which they did not consider at all as drawing on them the imputation of crime.
The Attorney-Generalsaid, he was quite unacquainted with Mr. Reynolds, but thought he had been unfairly dealt by. When Mr. Reynolds was a witness on the trials alluded to in Ireland, all the attacks now made on him were made to induce the juries not to believe his testimony; but, after the fullest investigation of the circumstances of the case, the veracity of Mr. Reynolds was confirmed before three different juries, and on his evidence principally the persons tried were convicted of the offences of which they were accused. Afterwards, on Mr. Reynolds's evidence at the bar of the House of Commons, bills of attainder were agreed to. Thus had Mr. Reynolds's character passed through a very fiery ordeal without injury; unless the verdict of juries were not to be attended to when they convicted, but only when they acquitted the persons charged before them. The great fault of Mr. Reynolds was his having entered into the conspiracy, for which he afterwards made an atonement. He (the attorney-general) was one of those perverted beings who did not think that it was criminal in a man to come forward, and make an atonement for a previous offence. So far from thinking such conduct a crime, he was one of those wrong headed persons who called it a virtue. As to the appointment of Mr. Reynolds on the grand jury, government knew no more of his having been so appointed than the hon. and learned gentleman himself. He had been informed, that on Mr. Reynolds's being summoned on the grand jury, he was anxious to get rid of the burthen, and asserted that he ought to be excused on the ground of his being appointed a consul to a foreign state; but this was refused by the summoning officer. With respect to Castle, it was not until a considerable time after the 2d of December, that a single individual connected with government, was aware that such a person as Castle was in existence. He had nothing to do with Castle's general character; but he had stated facts, and without wishing to comment on the verdict of the jury, he thought, and should

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think as long as he lived, that the law officers of the Crown would not have been justified, had they not put the persons on their trials who had recently been acquitted. Adverting to the case of Mr. Manners, he repeated the statement which the noble lord had made on the subject of the trial of that gentleman for libel. Was it because a man wrote an angry answer to an attack made upon him, that, however erroneous he might be in doing so, his character was to suffer, unless it could be shown that his moral feeling was impeach-fed? If such attacks as those which had been made on Mr. Reynolds and Mr. Manners were listened to, there was no man, however honourable, who had political enemies, that might not be so assailed by affidavits and similar statements. The hon. baronet had said, that the employment of spies and informers was a system of a tyrannical government. This might be a very convenient doctrine for those who were no enemies to conspiracy and treason. It would be very convenient for persons who were engaged in any criminal proceeding to establish that he who was a spy, a partizan, or an informer, ought never to be believed. That once established and complete, impunity would be established for all kinds of guilt. He allowed that the testimony of such an individual ought to be received with great caution, but when confirmed by that of other I witnesses, and by the circumstances of the case, to reject it would be to grant an indemnity to crime.
Mr. Bennetsaid, that he could not listen to the declaration of the noble lord that those who differed from him on this subject were abettors of treason and malignant calumniators, without repelling the accusation with all the scorn which it merited. As long as he had a seat in that House, he would exercise his right to inquire into the conduct of our government.—With reference to the surrender of Genoa to the king of Sardinia, and the transfer of upper Saxony, he could not remember without indignation and shame; the share which our government had in those infamous transactions; and he was persuaded, that although the votes of that House might carry the noble lord through at present, future historians would represent those transactions as blots and stains on the administration of the noble lord, and on the character of the parliament by which they had been sanctioned. It might suit the system of the noble lord to
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put down by clamour what he could not refute by argument. But he begged leave to tell that noble lord, that he was not to be intimidated by his boastings or his threats from doing his duty. That he considered the conduct of government as a disgrace to the nation, and thinking so he was not to be deterred from publicly, here and elsewhere, proclaiming his opinion. The noble lord had said much about his own feelings, and for himself he had no doubt that the noble lord had a kind heart; but certainly if the Irish government had not encouraged the horrible practices so often alluded to in the course of the evening, they had winked at them. He did not accuse the noble lord and the Irish government of having personally inflicted torture, of having flogged their miserable victims with their own hands,—but he accused them of having not only not punished those who perpetrated these enormities, but of having singled them out as fit objects for reward. When he looked, therefore, at the power given by the suspension of the Habeas Corpus, and considered to whom it was given, he was filled with alarm at the recollection of the cruelties that had taken place under a similar superintendence. The noble lord had certainly identified himself with some of the worst proceedings in Ireland, by his having consented to make Mr. Judkin Fitzgerald a baronet. It was to prostitute the honour, thus to bestow it on a man against whom he could not find terms sufficiently forcible to express his indignation. He instanced several cases to prove the cruelties of which he had been guilty. One was of a schoolmaster who had been flogged because a French note was found on him; although when that note came afterwards to be translated, it turned out to be merely the apology of a French teacher for non-attendance! This infamous character whom the noble lord rewarded for his crimes with the honour of rank and title, not only never denied the atrocities to which he had alluded, but avowed on his trial, that he had tortured for the purpose of extorting confession, that he had so done often, and that he gloried in the deed.—On the trial, the report of which he then held in his hand, between sir Judkin Fitzgerald, the noble lord's baronet, and Mr. Francis Doyle, this sentiment was repeatedly avowed, to the honour of the judge who tried, and the auditors who heard the cause; and yet to a wretch of this class and

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description, the honours that the Crown ought only to bestow on the meritorious public servant were prostituted. Judging then what the government might do, from what they had done, he could not contemplate without alarm the powers that were placed into such hands. He had in his hand two depositions to acts of a similar kind. One was the affidavit of John Clare, of Essex-street, Dublin, merchant-taylor, sworn on the 31st of October, 1810, and stating, that in the memorable year 1798 a number of floggings, half-hangings, &c. took place at the Royal Exchange, immediately adjoining the Castle gates, at the lower Castle-yard, at the Barracks, at Essex bridge, &c. all of which must have been known to the noble lord opposite. Among other things the deponent declared that he had seen men pitched and tarred, and hunted through the streets, on whom torture was afterwards inflicted. Another affidavit was from Timothy Brophy, who deposed, that in 1798 he had been offered a commission to give information, but that, having no information to give, he had been tortured. He was stripped naked, tied hands and feet, and whipped to the amount of 100 lashes. His raw back was then rubbed with salt and gunpowder, and the whipping was renewed, until he became insensible. They had heard a great deal about the excellent moral character of Reynolds. He was the last man in the world to wish to attack the character of individuals, or to drag them unnecessarily before the public. He would admit too, that under the circumstances of the rebellion in Ireland, it was perhaps the bounden duty of the administration of that country to avail themselves of the evidence of such persons as Reynolds. But when speaking of the character of such a person, it was always to be remembered that he had sworn a solemn oath to the United Irishmen—he had sworn a solemn oath to be true to them, and that he afterwards turned round and swore away the lives of those persons to whom he had thus sworn to be true. But it was said his character had been completely white-washed—that he was quite regenerated—that his conduct subsequent to that time had been most exemplary, and that all that he stated on the trials of the United Irishmen had been most satisfactorily established by the most undoubted authorities. All that Reynolds stated at the trials of Oliver Bond and others might
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be perfectly true. But the circumstance of his being believed by juries at these trials did not necessarily establish his character. The greatest liar might sometimes speak truth. The most infamous characters, such as Reynolds, Castle, and Oliver, and the 100 other agents of the same class and description, might give true evidence on their oaths. But did their speaking truth make them less infamous and degraded—did the circumstance of their being credited by juries, wash out their former crimes in the infamy of their new trade. There were many instances in our history of men having been believed by juries, who were not on that account considered less infamous characters. In the Popish plot the evidence of Oates and Bedloe and Dugdale was not only believed by juries, but even by the House of Peers. But were the characters of these persons attempted to be set up, because juries and the House of Peers believed their evidence [Hear, hear!]? Would any person attempt to set up Castle—would he be less the bully of a brothel—would he be less the person who was guilty of forging bank notes, if his evidence had been believed by a jury, as it happened not to be believed? This man had been before employed by government as a spy, though it had been stated that government knew nothing of him till a considerable time after the transaction of the 2nd of December. He could not, however, believe that the secretary of state for the home department was ignorant of it. He happened to know that the noble lord at the head of the home department, and the chief justice of the court of King's-bench, knew of this. A letter was written to the noble secretary, informing him of this man having appeared as a spy, by the transport board. For transactions in which he was implicated he would have been convicted in a court below; but he was brought up to the court of King's-bench by a certiorari by lord Ellenborough. As this was a government spy, he was not to be punished, but rewarded—he was kept till another opportunity, that he might again be let loose on the public. He knew that the noble secretary of state for the home department was acquainted with this by a letter from a magistrate; and therefore, when a right hon. gentleman said government knew nothing of him till a considerable period after the transactions respecting which he gave

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evidence, from the courtesy due from one member to another, he was bound to say, he believed that the right hon. gentleman knew nothing of the circumstance in question; but the noble lord (Sid-mouth) knew about it from the correspondence with the magistrate; and Castle was known to government as one of the most wicked and profligate characters ever let loose on the world [Hear, hear, hear!]. They could therefore no more disclaim their connexion with this man, than they could with their new Protegé Oliver. He was entitled to think, that the employment of spies and informers reflected discredit on the government. When the affairs of a country went on smoothly, a government were always very willing to take credit for the circumstance; and certainly on the other hand discredit was due to a government when a country was in such a disordered state as this now was. We now witnessed something which had never been heard of before. Men were let loose on the country of a most infamous description—men who lived by the existence of disorder, and whose interest it was to create disorder if they found none. With all the respect which he had for the noble lord at the head of the home department, he could never think of the circumstance of Oliver having been let loose on the country in the manner he was but with abhorrence. In his progress from Birmingham to Wolverhampton, for he himself knew that he was there, and to Nottinghamshire and Lancashire, he had been guilty of stimulating unfortunate wretches to acts for which their lives were forfeited. Whenever Oliver withdrew from the scene, a complete change took place. Had his majesty's government, in 1812, stimulated the people in the disturbed counties in the manner in which Oliver and men of that description had lately stimulated the people—had they sent delegates among them to inflame them, as men's minds were more disturbed than now, the results would have been very different. And he would caution government during the recess not to play the same game over again—not to stimulate the people to acts of violence, that these acts might serve as a justification to further encroachments on the liberties of the country [Hear, hear, hear!].
Lord Casllereaghsaid, after what had fallen from the hon. gentleman who had just sat down, and after the affidavits which
1420
he had introduced to the notice of the House, he hoped the House would indulge him a few minutes while he called their attention to the subject of those affidavits. Some years ago he had conceived it incumbent on him, as a public duty to prosecute Mr. Finnerty for a libel. He put it to the hon. member, whether he had not received these affidavits from Mr. Finnerty? He had declined the offer of government to carry on that prosecution, and on that occasion, as well as in the case of Jones, he had gone before a grand jury himself. He had not from any private feeling, but as a public duty, felt himself called on to prosecute Mr. Finnerty. Mr. Finnerty thought that he (lord C.) was the individual who kept him from going to Walcheren; an imputation on his loyalty, as he conceived. After the prosecution was commenced an hon. officer, now in India, called upon him, and told him that Mr. Finnerty was sorry for what he had stated, with respect to him (lord C), that he was unwilling to go into the King's-bench, and that he wished him to desist from the prosecution. He then told the officer alluded to, that he could not consent to hush up the prosecution, as that might give rise to inferences which he could not wish to be made; and that Mr. Finnerty might go into the King's-bench, and state what he could in his defence. Mr. Finnerty shortly afterwards went to Ireland, and collected there those extra-judicial affidavits from some of which passages had been that evening read to the House. Mr. Finnerty was a convicted libeller himself—he was convicted of publishing a treasonable and seditious libel; and under these circumstances he was perhaps not unfitly removed from Walcheren; but Mr. Finnerty was mistaken in supposing that he (lord C.) had any thing to do with that removal. Mr. Finnerty's character, therefore, did not stand particularly high as a loyal subject. Because, therefore, he would not compromise with him in a court of justice—not that he bore any resentment towards him, but because if he had done so, it would have been thought that he shrunk from inquiry—he had thought proper to collect these affidavits. He was stopped by the court from reading them. He, however, had read two of them. In one of them he (lord C.) was charged with having sent a man to Botany Bay on his own authority. What, he would ask, would be the situation of public men, if in this man-

1421
ner affidavits were to be got up, and read in the House with respect to the various transactions in which they happened to be engaged, and they were obliged to prove a negative in every case. He believed the hon. member (Mr. Bennet), a most respectable individual, and a man of honour—he was astonished, therefore, how he could bring such an affidavit as this before the House. A fortnight after the affidavit alluded to had been read in court, he had received a letter from lord Bantry, and captain Sutherland, stating their astonishment at this charge, and that they were two of fifteen men who had tried the man alluded to under martial law, and sentenced him to fourteen years banishment to Botany Bay. In the other affidavit he was charged with having been present at the infliction of torture; but though he could not consider the military punishment of flogging as torture, yet if that punishment had not been inflicted, recourse must have been had to the sword, which would have wasted a great part of the population; he went along with the hon. gentleman in considering the use of flogging to extract evidence from men as most wicked and unjustifiable torture. He could only say that he had never seen any man punished in this way in his life, except a soldier in his own militia regiment. This was the only two charges which were known to him, because they were the only ones which were dragged out of a bundle which Mr. Finnerty had thought proper to get up, because he (lord C.) would not compromise the prosecution against him.
Mr. Hiley Addingtonsaid, that an hon. gentleman had stated, that his noble relative was acquainted with Castle before the late transactions. He could only say, that he had distinctly heard his noble relative state that he had never known any tiling of Castle till January last. An hon. baronet had read an extract from a pamphlet, the name of the author of which he had not mentioned. As to the facts stated in the extract, he knew nothing of them. But this he could say, that although Mr. Nicholls might be once or twice in the secretary of state's office, he did not in any way come under the sweeping stigma of having been employed by government. He rose principally to do an act of justice which he should be ashamed of himself if he shrunk from, towards an injured individual who had been most cruelly treated both within doors
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and without—he meant Mr. Oliver. Within the last fortnight, two or three most respectable magistrates of Yorkshire, who had taken an unfavourable impression against government, and conceived that Oliver had instigated the insurrection, requested that that individual might be examined at the home office in their presence on the subject. Their request was complied with, and that individual did undergo an examination during two mornings in their presence. One of them was a respectable magistrate of Yorkshire, and the other a member of the House, not now present. They took the examination themselves, in presence of the individual who principally brought the charge against Oliver. What was the result? Both of them declared to his noble relative, that they were completely satisfied the charges against Oliver were unfounded, and that there was not the smallest reason for supposing that the insurrection was instigated or promoted by any thing he had either said or done. Such was the result of the examination, and he was sure the House would think that he had only done his duty in rising to vindicate the character of that calumniated individual. He begged leave merely to add, that Mr. Oliver had come to the home office with the most respectable references in April last; he came to give information which he had accidentally obtained; he had never been a party to any treason; he had never made any bargain with the government for the information—he had never made any charge—he had never received any thing from government up to this moment but payment of his travelling charges. Previously to the 23d of May, most respectable magistrates from the neighbourhood of Nottingham, Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, had sent information to government that a rising was expected to take place on the 9th of June, and all the accounts wonderfully coincided. Mr. Oliver was sent down principally with a view to gain information respecting that rising.
Mr. Barhamdoubted much whether the country, or even that House, would concur in the judgment of acquittal which the secret tribunal to which the right hon. gentleman referred had pronounced on the spy, Oliver. For his part, his judgment could not be on the favourable side, when he recollected what he had beard from departed right hon. friend of his, whose memory had been so justly eulo-

1423
gized that night. The late Mr. Ponsonby had told him, that he believed, in his conscience, the insurrection would not have taken place had it not been for Oliver. He had been so struck with this observation, that he asked his right hon. friend to repeat what he had stated, and he did repeat it.
Lord Cochranedeclared, that parliament had been, since the commencement of the session, employed, not in redressing the grievances of the people, but in repressing the expression of their sentiments. None of the allegations of the petitions on the table had been inquired into: but when green bags were introduced by the noble lord opposite, they were, without delay, referred to committees, and reports made to the House, without any opportunity being afforded to show the falsity of the allegations in the evidence. He had intended to have moved some resolutions expressive of his opinion of the state of the country, during the session, but had never had an opportunity of bringing them forward.
Mr. W. Smithcould not help expressing his satisfaction at hearing the condemnation of torture to extract evidence which had been pronounced by the noble lord. With respect to sir Thomas Judkin Fitzgerald, he knew not whether he was dead or alive, but he held in his hand a pamphlet bearing to be a report of his trial. This report contained the defence of Fitzgerald by himself, in which he expressed sentiments most opposite to those which the noble lord had expressed: for he declared to a jury, that on a variety of occasions he had ordered to be flogged persons who afterwards proved to be innocent, for the purpose of extracting truth. If this was not true why had it not been contradicted? Was it not true that the man who had stated, in a court of justice, that he had made use of torture in a number of instances for the sake of obtaining truth, had afterwards been made a baronet? If this was true, would not the fair inference be, that government not only wished the infliction of torture, but had rewarded this individual for doing that which they were ashamed to do themselves?
Mr. Canningsaid, he was as unwilling as the hon. gentleman (Mr. W. Smith) to prolong the debate; but after the revival, not for the first nor the twentieth time, of charges which had been as often refuted as they had been brought forward—after the renewal of calumnies which,
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generally from their nature, and particularly from the appearance of candour and moderation with which they were now introduced, were calculated to make an undue impression, he could not suffer the question to go to that division which must consign it for ever to the contempt of the House and of the country, without offering a few observations upon the matters and the conduct of the discussion. Every man who had witnessed the course lately adopted, on more than one occasion, by the hon. member who spoke last (Mr. W. Smith), must have been surprised at hearing him profess his ignorance, whether the defendant in the cause to which he referred was alive or dead.—The dead or the absent had been, in late instances, the objects of the hon. gentleman's attack. The former, he had found, might sometimes make reprisals,—[Hear, hear!]—the latter were wholly precluded from reply, and for the satisfaction of the hon. gentleman, he (Mr. C.) could assure him that the person be had named on this occasion was now no more. But however convenient this species of hostility might be, it would at least be more fair and more generous if the hon. gentleman were to confine his future attacks to the living, if not to the present—[Hear, hear, hear!].—The hon. gentleman had entirely mistaken the nature of the plea of his noble friend (lord Castlereagh). He (lord Castlereagh) had not endeavoured to evade inquiry; on the contrary, he had most assiduously courted it; and that too in the manner which would be best calculated to elicit truth. He had courted a distinct examination into the matters charged. It was the present mode of introducing the accusation against him which his noble friend deprecated. He required what justice dictated, and what no man who had a feeling of justice could deny-that the matters of charge should be distinctly brought forward,—that he might be sent to his trial fairly, and with due notice,—and that his conduct in Ireland might not be mixed up with that infinity of detail, that mass of irrelevant matter, from foreign politics to cotton twist,—(a laugh)—with which they had been jumbled on the present occasion. His noble friend had justly to complain of the manner in which this accusation had been brought forward; for how did he stand with respect to it? He was now—not during the currency of a session when there was space for discussion and opportunity for

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refutation, but on the very eve of a prorogation, when reply was almost impossible, at least was thought to be so—charged with what, if true, would not only render him unfit for the high situation which he filled, but would justly expose him to the most severe animadversions of parliament, and to the execrations of his country— [Hear, hear!]—He (lord Castlereagh) had to complain, not only that the transactions to which allusion had been made, were those upon which a period of twenty years had closed, but also, that the charges extracted out of them were thus incidentally thrust forward for no other reason than because there was some chance of their remaining unrefuted [Hear, hear!]. But let the House examine a little farther into the sources from which these charges emanated. Had the hon. member (Mr. Bennet) ventured to give a direct answer to the question of, from whom he procured his affidavits? Had he informed the House whether it was from a pardoned traitor or a pilloried libeller?—[Hear, hear!]—He (Mr. Canning) did not presume to assert that information procured from such sources was altogether to be discredited; but, conforming to the generally received opinions of mankind, it might have been as well, if the hon. gentleman had stated to the House what the nature of those sources was—that though to him they might have appeared perfectly pure and acceptable, yet still they were such as, to ordinary minds, would carry with them an aspect of suspicion. [Hear, hear!].—Calumnies, founded on the authority of a traitor who had been pardoned, or of a libeller who had had the advantage of standing in the pillory, might, no doubt, be very satisfactory to some gentlemen's minds: but still it seemed right to disclose the channel through which they were procured, from compassion to the poor, feeble understandings of those who, not yet up to the times, thought, as of old, that the less polluted the sources of intelligence, the better.— [Hear, hear, hear!]—Putting these considerations for a moment out of view, and wholly abstracting the transactions to which these affidavits related from the connexion which had been endeavoured to be established between them and his noble friend, he would ask, was this the time when such circumstances ought to be brought forward for discussion? Was this the time when we were to go back to that unhappy period in the history of
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Ireland—to take up and bring to view all the disgusting effects of those dissensions, which, unhappily, convulsed that kingdom twenty years ago? [Hear, hear!]—No doubt it was possible, it might even be easy, to drag forth instances of atrocity, of public treason, and private violence, to equal if not to exceed the crimes of the present day; but what purpose would that answer? Was there a man who valued the tranquillity of his country, or had at heart its security, who did not wish that the veil of oblivion should be drawn over scenes so long passed and so deeply to be lamented: or, who if he should feel it to be an act of duty to call back the public attention to them, would not wish to do it with all the solemnity of a judicial inquiry? [Hear, hear!]. What was this night, and in this place, the apparent object of their introduction? Was it satisfaction and reparation to the individuals said to be injured? That could not be; for the House of Commons was not the proper place where such reparation could be made. Was it to bring the individuals said to be concerned in such atrocities, to justice? Why then was not the proper form resorted to?—Why was not an inquiry proposed, or an impeachment instituted? The present mode of noticing these transactions could lead to none of these ends. For let the fate of the motion be what it might, the imputed guilt or real innocence of the individuals thus collaterally accused would still remain undecided [Hear, hear!]. The only object that could by possibility have been attained, was one which the answer of his noble friend (lord C.) had defeated—that of giving a temporary triumph to unfounded calumny. But notwithstanding the advantage which truth and justice had given to his noble friend on this sudden and unprovoked attack upon his character, what was the situation in which the present charges had placed him, compared with his un-named accusers?—They who, perhaps, had shared in repeated pardons, who had hid their heads beneath a general amnesty—[cheers]—what is the generous use now made of their immunity from punishment?—Pardoned traitors, who are indebted for their safety, perhaps for their existence, to the clemency of his noble friend, were produced as his accusers! as witnesses on whose evidence he was to have been convicted, if, in his oblivion of the heats and animosities of those days, he had also (as well he might) cast aside the

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memory of his own individual acts, and of the means of his own justification [Hear!]. If the legislature had consented to bury in oblivion the crimes of rebellion, was it too much to expect that they who owed all to that circumstance should also permit their's to be forgotten? Was it too much to expect, that after twenty years, rebels themselves should forgive to the Irish government the crime of having forgiven them?—[Much applause]. On this part of the subject there was one circumstance which the personal delicacy of his noble friend, particularly with regard to one individual, had hindered him from mentioning. His noble friend, on the change of government from lord Camden to lord Cornwallis, had made strenuous and successful exertions to screen one convicted libeller from the remnant of his merited punishment, and the House had that night witnessed the reward of those exertions—[Loud cheers].
If the manner of introducing this personal attack has been extraordinary, the occasion on which it was brought forward was not less remarkable, nor less deserving of censure. Was there, he would ask, a single member in the House, not previously informed of what had been intended by the present motion, who would have supposed, from the notice given by the hon. and learned gentleman that it was to be made the vehicle of a personal attack on his noble friend? Was there one member who could for a moment have imagined, that instead of a retrospect of the business of the session, and perhaps a general censure of the conduct of ministers, he should be obliged to listen to a gross personal attack on one individual? An attack which, had not that noble person been unfortunately enabled from recollection of circumstances to repel it, might have consigned him to a misconstruction of five months,—to the obloquy of a whole recess,—during which he might have been held up to the contempt and abhorrence of his fellow-subjects—[Hear, hear!].—He would, however, do the hon. and learned mover of the address the justice to say, that he had only sketched the outline which the hon. members who followed him had filled up. But did it, or could it, enter into the mind of any man, that even if the avowed object of the motion had been (what it was not) to examine the conduct of his majesty's ministers of the present day, he should hear only an inquiry into the conduct of the
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government of the year 1797? [Hear, hear, hear!] If no consideration of justice to his noble friend could have weight with gentlemen on the other side, was the conduct of the government in Ireland (if that were to be made matter of inquiry) of such trifling import as to be thus introduced collaterally, and without any previous notice? Did gentlemen conceive that the conduct of successive administrations in Ireland 20 years ago was of such notoriety, and so fresh in the memories of all, that facts and dates could be quoted as if they were the occurrences of the last month? If these matters, therefore, were to be discussed at all, were they not of importance enough to engage the attention of the House separately, and to be brought before them upon due notice and with due deliberation?
He would admit with the hon. member (Mr. W. Smith), that a reference to the affairs of Ireland at the period alluded to might afford a warning lesson to future governments; but he denied that it was such a lesson as that hon. member inculcated. The example of Ireland did, indeed, show how cautiously the executive power should watch the slightest indication of an approach to that condition in which, for want of sufficient authority and protection in the state, man takes arms against his fellow man in civil contest. It showed how promptly it was the duty of a government to come forward on the first menace of such an alarm with precautionary measures to insure the public tranquillity— [Hear, hear, hear!].—Had the subject been introduced at an early period of the present session, it might, therefore, have been useful in stimulating parliament to adopt measures adequate to the suppression of rebellion in its infancy—[Hear, hear!]—but, except for such purpose, it would, he must confess, be difficult to conceive its utility. He knew no lesson of moral or political utility that could be derived from the contemplation of sufferings and inflictions that make the heart shudder—from exhibiting in detail those violences and cruelties of which, whoever were the perpetrators, the nation must seek to efface from the feelings of this generation, and from the recollection of mankind (if possible) the sorrow and the shame.
He should now say a word or two on the proposed address. In his opinion, were even all the matters that it contained in themselves unobjectionable, it would be

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a sufficient ground for its rejection by the House, that, professing to be a faithful review of the proceedings of the session, it omitted many most material transactions of the session altogether. Many, and those {he thought) the most remarkable of the decisions of the House were wholly passed by.—Was it not somewhat strange, for instance—did it not, he would add, show some want of respect to the noble lord (Cochrane) and the hon. baronet his colleague, the members for Westminster—might it not disappoint, in a great degree, their hopes of future fame—that on the subject of parliamentary reform—that one great and important topic, on which they had bestowed so much of their valuable labour—the address should be silent as the grave? Was it not wonderful that that interesting question, with speeches on which the House rung at the early period of the session, should now be thrown into oblivion, as if its hon. and learned advocate were ashamed of his half-adopted child? Surely the noble lord (Cochrane) and the hon. baronet (Burdett) must deeply deplore that not even an allusion had been made to the countless petitions which they had the honour of presenting in favour of universal suffrage, and annual parliaments—[Hear! and laughter].—That fatal omission would be a sufficient reason for his (Mr. Canning's) voting against the present address. He had no objection to a statement (call it address if you will) being made at the end of the session, as a review of the proceedings of parliament, and as a counterpart to the speech from the throne; but it was quite essential to such an address that it should contain an accurate review of those proceedings. Great care should be taken that if such a practice were to be established, the precedent should, in the first instance, be scrupulously correct. But what was the instance before the House? Could this address be called a fair review of the labours of the House since the opening of the session? What was the business with which the session opened,—and with what was it occupied day after day, week after week, and month after month, without respite or intermission?—With petitions for reform in parliament,—poured in by hundreds at the door, and raised in pyramids before the table. These, though nominally for the same object, exhibited, nevertheless, that beautiful diversity by which the House was relieved in some degree from the tediousness
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of repetition—[A laugh].—Of them, it might be truly said,
"—Facics non omnibus una
"Nee diversa; tamen qualem decet essa sororuin."
Exactly alike assuredly they were not; but there was such a resemblance as well became the children of the same parent—the works of the same hand.—There was in truth a wonderful sympathy in this respect between the most remote parts of the country; a miraculous conformity of thought and action among all the sentient puppets in various and distant provinces, which were kept in motion by the skilful master of the show in town—[Hear, hear!].—The pulsations in the extremities responded with surprising regularity (by the intervention of the mail coaches) to the beating of the old heart in the centre—[Hear, hear!].—But all these important considerations seemed to have been forgotten by the hon. and learned member. When he took his Pisgah retrospect of the session and its business gazing at it as a land of promise, (which, however, had not been, and in the hon. and learned gentleman's sense, God forbid that it ever should become a land of performance), the hon. and learned gentleman, standing on the lofty eminence to which his imagination had raised him, had altogether overlooked that mountain of petitions which he and his friends had piled upon the floor. Was it possible that the noble lord or the hon. baronet could be contented to adopt an address so defective? To recognize a portrait of which the most prominent feature—the very nose was left out?—[Much laughter]. How was it possible to account for the fatal deficiency? The mystery was one which he (Mr. C.) believed it would puzzle the sagacity of even the worthy magistrate opposite (the lord mayor) to solve [Laughter].
If he recollected rightly, Pope, or some earlier poet, had these lines,—
"Authors lose half the praise they would have got
"Did but their readers know how much they blot;"
and most applicable were they to the address before the House. Judging from the many erasures, alterations, blots, and blurs, he should take it to be the work of many heads, and of many hands,—[Laughter]—and it formed a singular illustration of the hon. and learned mover's notions of political economy. The divi-

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sion of labour was, the House knew, the true principle of successful workmanship.—[Continued laughter]—But with the venerable major at his side, was it not somewhat singular that the hon. and learned gentleman should have divided the labour so unequally and unfairly as to have assigned to his ancient and respectable friend, the manufacturer of 500 or perhaps 500,000 petitions for parliamentary reform, while he himself, and all his able co adjutors, should employ themselves upon an address, which at last was but a wretched specimen of composition and penmanship?—[Laughter].
Generally speaking, nothing was more easy than the drawing up of an address on the opposite side of the House. It was only necessary that the parties should agree upon some certain point of crimination against ministers,—that they should remain firm in the negation of some general principle, or in attack upon some particular measure. It was an old and a very wise observation of a celebrated leader in that House, that opposition should never venture from the negative to the affirmative; and he (Mr. C.) thought that it was this principle which must have operated with the framers of the present address, to avoid launching forth on the boundless sea of parliamentary reform. No unanimity for them on that question. Indeed, he could not conceive a more amusing scene than would have been presented by this attempt to turn a sentence upon that subject, with which they might all be satisfied—[Hear, hear!].—There were first the noble lord (Cochrane), and the hon. baronet (Burdett), who went straight forward for annual, parliaments and universal suffrage—that constitutional system of representation, simple and pure as it existed in the days of Hugo the Great—the conqueror of the Picts—[Much laughter].—That celebrated legislator, as every member of the House knew, while he built the great wall with one hand, dispensed universal suffrage with the other.—[Continued laughter].—A true reformer of the good old school.—[Hear, hear!]—Sucli (Mr. C. presumed) was a fair specimen of the historical truth for which the House was indebted to the valuable antiquarian researches of the hon. baronet (Burdett) and his followers. Coming down, however, to more modern times it was found, that, certain Anti-Hugonians existed, who quarrelled with universal suffrage, and even had the hardihood to dispute its existence,
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as a vital principle of the constitution, and to doubt whether it was indeed for this invaluable blessing that the Picts painted themselves, the Saxons fought, or the Normans conquered—[Hear, hear!]. It was doubted even by some obstinate controvertists, whether the much-calumniated curfew might not have been the signal for an annual election. Here were points of difference enough to embroil the radical reformers;—but, alas! after all their historical and constitutional knowledge had been adjusted and moulded by their common consent, into one grand sentence on reform—then would come the moderate reformers, and quarrel with all their learning—speaking most irreverently of the talents and erudition by which it had been brought to light. They, disregarding the wisdom of their able coadjutors, would hold that annual parliaments meant annual disturbances, and universal suffrage, general disorganisation—[Hear!]. If they were to agree to the address, the sentence as framed by their two friends of Westminster must be erased altogether, without substituting any thing very definite in its room—[Hear, hear!].—Last would follow the hon. and learned mover of the address himself, with an opinion differing wholly from those of most of his friends, and having a shade which distinguished it from all—[Hear, hear!].—Like a conqueror who "led many nations to battle, whom he had previously reduced to humiliation in the field," his ranks were filled (as the House perceived) by those whose doctrines and opinions on reform he had scouted in a strain of irony, contempt, and ridicule, which he (Mr. C.) could never attempt to imitate, and which it might not be safe for any member but himself to employ. He (Mr. C believed) was for a right of voting commensurate with taxation; but whether with direct taxation, or taxation with "direct": omitted, was not (Mr. C. thought) quite; so clear. Thus it was that there could be no agreement as to the sentence in which the proceedings of the House respecting; parliamentary reform were to be recorded; and hence the subject which had been the daily food of the House,—that question with which the session began, continued, and, but for the present motion, would have ended—had been altogether left out of this most comprehensive and elaborate address.
This he should hold to be a fatal objection to the address, if he agreed with those

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who thought parliamentary reform essential to the salvation of the country: but with his opinions, how much more strongly must he object to an omission which excluded that part of the labours of the House which he conceived to be the proudest and most magnanimous proceeding of the session—which failed to record that whatever dangers impended over the country, whatever menaces had been not obscurely intimated to the House, unless they should fall in with the views of the reformers, the House nevertheless had stood firmly by the constitution, and had indignantly rejected those measures of innovation which, if encouraged, would have led to its subversion—[Continued cheers].
But this was not his only objection to the address. He objected to it farther because it did not embrace a fair view of the present state of the country. It alluded strongly to the distress which had existed, and which (it would inculcate) still existed, but it made no mention of the hope which the present time held forth of a speedy amelioration—[Hear, hear!].—He would admit with the hon. and learned mover, that distress, severe and extensive, had existed; he would also admit that a part of it might have been produced by removable causes; but he could not shut his eyes to the conviction that the far greater part of what distress had existed had arisen from causes over which human power had no control. And though designing and evil-minded individuals had endeavoured to turn those public misfortunes into so many sources of disaffection and despondency, yet, God be thanked, the gloom thus created had begun to subside.—A bad harvest in one year had enhanced, perhaps had created, in no small degree, the difficulties of the country; but the fair promise of the approaching harvest warranted the most sanguine hopes, that those difficulties would, in a short time, be removed. He could not therefore consent to an address in which those facts relative to our situation were not accurately stated. It would be a most culpable oversight if, in sending forth a retrospect of our despondency, the House did not notice at the same time the more bright and cheering prospect which had begun to break upon the country.—[Hear, hear].
But besides those omissions to which he had before alluded, there were others not less objectionable. What were the several subjects to which the voice of the people
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had, at the commencement of the session, more particularly called the attention of parliament. It was ever easy to distinguish between the genuine sentiments of the people and the clamours of the seditious; and if ever those sentiments had come fairly before the House, most undoubtedly the call of the people at the commencement of this session for retrenchment in the public expenditure, for the abolition of sinecures, and for some revision of the poor laws, was loud, general, and genuine.—The fourth question (which he, Mr. Canning, had already disposed of), to which, by great contrivance and intrigue, a clamour resembling the voice of the people, but he was confident only resembling it, had been improperly attached—was parliamentary reform. Leaving the other topics for a moment, he again asked, whether the ill success of that proposal was considered as a grievance? If so, why was it not mentioned in the address?—[Hear, hear!]—As it had not been so mentioned the House might naturally conclude that in the opinion of the hon. and learned mover himself, parliament had decided most wisely against parliamentary reform. [Loud Cheers.] [A member on the Opposition side, Mr. W. Smith, was observed to smile. Mr. C. continued]. He perceived by the incipient smile on the lips of the hon. member, that he did not agree with that assertion. If so, there was the address; and let the hon. member move an amendment to it, expressive of his opinion that the rejection of parliamentary reform was a grievance. If he did not do so, he (Mr. C.) must take it for granted, that he also approved of the decision upon reform—[Hear, and Laughter].—Upon the other subjects, on which, as he had admitted, the genuine voice of the people had been heard, he would ask the hon. and learned gentleman had the House been inactive? The consideration of the poor laws had occupied a very large portion of the time and attention of parliament, and though no immediate legislative measure had resulted from their labours, yet still the fruits of those labours had not been inconsiderable or unimportant. Much had been done in the information laid before the select committee, to facilitate any measure which might be deemed necessary in the ensuing session. The time and opportunity afforded by the recess, would give members the best means of ascertaining its accuracy from local inquiry. He believed that there were few—not even the

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hon. and learned mover—who would think that parliament had been remiss because it had not hurried through any legislative enactment on a subject of such magnitude and importance as the poor laws.— [Hear!]—But notwithstanding the admitted utility of what had thus been done, the address did not contain a word upon the subject, though it purported to be a review of the whole business of the session—[Hear, hear!].—With respect to retrenchment, a great deal had been done in almost every department of the state. He would admit that, low as the expenditure might be reduced, and closely as it might be pared, there would still be found some persons disposed to maintain that it might be cut still lower and closer; yet he appealed to the House whether, even before the call of the people—before the committee of finance had commenced its inquiries, ministers had not shown every disposition to diminish the expenditure to the lowest possible scale? He asked, whether, after the House was in full possession of the subject, and after it had been examined in detail, ministers had not evinced their perfect acquiescence in those reductions which had been suggested, or which could reasonably be desired?
With regard to sinecures, had nothing been done to satisfy the wishes of the people? Had no bills passed the House abolishing or regulating almost all those obnoxious places, about the existence of which so much clamour had been excited? Had the hon. and learned mover of the address already forgotten the part which he had taken in the discussions on those bills? or was it because they were wholly effaced from his memory, that he made no mention whatever of them in his address—in his retrospective address to the throne?—[Hear!]—If that address were adopted what would be the perplexity of the future historian, who might wish to hand down the transactions of the present day to a more distant age? What would not be his amazement when, after poring over scattered records, and searching statutes with imperfect indexes, he should find that sinecures had existed for centuries—that they had been the cause of much dispute and great political difference for years—that session after session the abolition of them had been attempted in vain—but that at length, in the year 1817, they were abolished;—and that in that year there lived a sagacious seer, who, taking upon himself to characterize parliaments, and to
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purvey for history, had yet been so little alive to the importance attached to sinecures in the public feeling, as to omit any mention of their abolition in his retrospect of the transactions of the session?—[Hear, and laughter].—The abolition of sinecures had been a favourite theme with some of the hon. members opposite in 1810 and 1811; he (Mr. C.) voted in that year for the bill introduced by an hon. gentleman (Mr. Bankes). He thought at that time, as he thought now, that there was more of mistake than of sound policy in the cry for abolition; yet he voted for it because he conceived it expedient to get rid of what was become, in the eyes of the people, (whether justly or unjustly) in some degree, a blot in our political system. He should not, however, have given his support to that bill, had it not preserved to the Crown a power of remunerating faithful public services, proportioned to that which it took away.
He (Mr. C.) remembered well with what acclamations of thankfulness his vote was then received by the hon. members opposite. They were then quite enthusiastic in favour of a measure which was described as the most important that had ever passed the House. That measure was the bantling of the hon. member's (Mr. Bankes) begetting—and though it might have been a little ricketty in its infancy, it was amusing to perceive the tenderness with which it was nursed by gentlemen on the other side—[Laughter]—and to learn the extraordinary hopes which were conceived of its maturity—[Hear!].—Every tongue and every pen over which the hon. members had any influence, ran riot in the praises of this new measure. It was the theme of popular declamation in every moving rostrum all over the country. Old women were almost mad with joy, and devoutly believed that heaven would rain down manna on them, provided lord Camden was stripped of his tellership,—[Hear, and much laughter].—But how striking was the contrast now? No sooner did the government come into the measure, than all that enthusiasm in favour of it among the hon. gentlemen opposite instantaneously subsided. With what repulsion had it not been met this year on the other side of the House? They who, in 1810 and 1813, were so ardent in support of it, now turned from it with contempt. Sinecures had now been abolished, on better terms than by the bill of 1813: but that abolition, which was then to be omni-

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potent for the public good, was now represented as altogether insignificant and unimportant. He (Mr. C.) recollected in that admirable work, from which (though, perhaps, he ought to be ashamed to confess that his taste was so infantine) he could still derive delight, second only to that afforded by the classics,—in The Arabian Nights Entertainments, he recollected to have read of a casket which a fisherman dragged up from the sea, from which, when opened, sprang a giant, ninety feet high! Presently the giant shrunk into the casket again—was sealed up, and flung into the sea. Not more extravagant was the exaggeration of the benefit to be derived from a bill abolishing sinecures. Not more suddenly had that expected benefit shrunk into nothing when the seal of government had been placed upon the measure; and the hon. gentleman would willingly fling it into the ocean of forgotten things, to be wondered at and talked of no more.
In addition to these salutary measures of economical retrenchment, was it no consolation to the people, was it no marking feature in the session, that the services of the year, prophesied to be utterly unprovidable, had been provided for without any fresh burthen of taxes? Was it nothing, in more than a financial point of view, that the funds, the index of public credit, had risen nearly 20 per cent, during this session of despondency and alarm; Was not that circumstance alone a satisfactory refutation of the gloomy lamentings over our prostrate constitution? When did improvement of public credit grow out of the deterioration of public liberty? He should like to hear the hon. and learned gentleman descant upon this subject; he should like to hear him show, as he no doubt would do, with an energy and eloquence peculiarly adapted to the topic, how God and nature had connected political freedom with financial prosperity, and disjoined public credit from slavery for ever. But were there no other impediments to public credit?—Could it consist with slavery?—No. Could it consist with anarchy?—Just as little. And just in that proportion and on that principle it was that public credit, which in January was weakly and unconfirmed—wavering with every blast of popular violence and public alarm—had gradually gathered strength from the decisions of parliament; had grown and thriven under those measures which the hon. and learned gentleman denounced
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as in their nature destructive of all freedom, and had thus testified, by no erring evidence, to the true character of those measures as conservatory of that pure and hallowed blessing—a temperate and rational liberty—which the madness of revolutionary doctrines, and the subtle machinations of treason, are no less calculated than the sternest despotism, to endanger, and, if successful, to extinguish.
Were there no other indications of this happy change from the beginning to the end of the session—no other evidence, that the nation, properly so called, looked on that interval, and on the fruits of it, with other eyes than those of the hon. and learned gentleman? Such indications, such evidences met us wherever we turned our eyes. Observe the signs of the times;—and let the line of an ever-living poet describe them as they were at the beginning of the session—
"Good men look sad—while ruffians dance and leap."
So it was in January. How stands the contrast in July? Was not the ruffian now abashed? and did not the good man feel confident in his security? And to what was this contrast owing? To what, mainly, but to those proceedings of parliament which the hon. and learned gentleman had condemned, and to those which he had omitted in his proposed address: to the vigour with which parliament had enacted what was necessary, and to the firmness with which it had rejected what was pregnant with ruin.
Such, in his conscience, he believed to be the fruits of this calumniated session: such was the true character which history would assign to it. After the performance of their tasks the House might separate with a consciousness of well doing, and might meet their constituents with an honest assurance of approbation. For his own part, he should have no difficulty in declaring to a body of constituents, as numerous as those by which most gentlemen were sent to that House, and as capable as any of estimating the value of public measures, and the declarations of public men, to the temper, firmness, and fortitude of parliament—to its patient diligence—its measured concessions to the true sense of the people—and its vigorous resistance to the mischiefs attempted in their name, the country was indebted, under Providence; for the happy change now taking place in its affairs:—for the security of the kingdom's peace, and

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for the salvation and support of the constitution.
Mr. Broughamrose to reply. He began by stating, that had it not been for the right hon. gentleman's speech, he should not have availed himself at that late hour of the claim to a reply, which the usual courtesy of the House gave him, but have left the arguments urged by the noble lord in his defence, without much anxiety for the result, to the decision of those who had honoured him by attending to his statements. Now, however, he felt it due to those who supported the address, to himself, and to the question, to rescue it from the misapprehensions of the right hon. gentleman, who, of course, could not be supposed capable of misrepresentation; and he really must say, that had he no other reason for again offering himself to the attention of the House, he should feel called to do so in order to express his gratitude for the amusement he had received from the very lively and witty, he might even say funny, speech they had just heard. The right hon. gentleman had charged the Address principally with omissions, and above all with leaving out the subject of parliamentary reform. Now, for his part, he could hardly regret this, as it had afforded the right hon. gentleman an occasion for letting off his long meditated speech on that question, which for some odd reason or other he had not chosen to speak in the debate on the worthy baronet's motion upon the subject—and he must say the right hon. gentleman himself was rather ungrateful in making such invectives against an omission which he had turned to so much account; to be sure, had it been otherwise, he did not at all know that he would not have contrived to bring in the speech which he had ready for use. That was his way of debating. He had honoured him (Mr. B.) by comparing him to a commander, and had given a very distorted account of his operations; and, it was said, that chiefs accustomed to be opposed, got to know one another's tactics very precisely. Now, he could not have the presumption to say it of himself, but the little legion—the band on that side, who were generally opposed to the right hon. gentleman, as one leader is to another, had learned pretty accurately his course of tactics. It was this—he took care to have magazines well stored with ready-made, cut and dry speeches, prepared for future occasions, and adapted as replies to the
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topics he supposed might be used. Indeed, he had not left them to guess this, for he had once let his secret out in plain terms. He had said, that in most debates, one could, by thinking on the subject beforehand, anticipate the arguments that would be used on the opposite side; accordingly, this was the right hon. gentleman's method. He deemed it more convenient, better suited to the importance of the subjects, and more becoming the dignity of the place, to weigh well what his adversaries were to say, and be ready with an elaborate—answer might not be always the fit word—but harangue or merriment, perhaps, than trust to the moment. It was impossible to deny that this plan had great advantages; but it had, he was afraid, its inconveniences also. While the expected topics wee used, for which the replies were ready got up, all went well. But if, as would now and then crossly happen, they never were used at all, then came the difficulty how to get in all the fine things prepared with so much labour to meet them. That all this work should be thrown away—all the hours of day and midnight oil consumed in vain—was too hard, and in common humanity could not be expected—so the passages got up must at all events be introduced, and if the expected topics did not come on the other side, they must be supposed to have come. Accordingly, this was exactly the right hon. gentleman's way—he fancied his adversary had used the arguments he himself was prepared to meet—he put them in his mouth, and answered them; or he supposed something to be left out which was not, and he amused himself and the House with being very droll upon the omission. Both these ways of discussing the question he had resorted to on the present occasion. It happened that the refusal of the petitions of the people by the parliament was stated distinctly, though generally, in the address. He should like to know, what would have been said had it specially complained of an act of the House of Commons in particular? Would not the right hon. gentleman have been the first to ridicule so strange a solecism as the House going up with an address to the throne complaining of what it had done itself? Because this absurdity was avoided in the only practicable way of stating the point, the right hon. gentleman had come out with all his collection of matter, extremely droll and laughable no doubt—well adapted to the lateness of the

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hour, whether it might be suitable or not to the gravity of the subject, and move conducive to merriment, certainly, than to instruction. With Hugo the Pict—and the wall—and the Saxons—and mail coaches—and Cataline (who, oddly enough, proved to be what he called the old major)—and old women gaping for manna—and scenes, and trumpets, and moveable rostrums—a very queer allusion from such a quarter, for the right hon. gentleman must really be the most ungrateful of men so to treat those convenient vehicles of itinerant oratory, to which he was more indebted than any individual in the country, Cataline himself not excepted.
The right hon. gentleman next complained, that the labours of the finance committee and the sinecure bills, were not mentioned in the address. The reason was plain—when coupled with the system of compensation pensions, the abolition of sinecures was a measure of a very different complexion from their simple abolition. Many persons thought this measure, as it now stood, worse than the old system. The most prevalent opinion was, that it did as much harm as good—while only a select few, with the member for Corfe Castle (Mr. Bankes) at their head, deemed the change an improvement, and even they did not think it a very great one. Those, however, who with him (Mr. B.) and he believed with the majority, he was sure with the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Canning), held it to be a matter of almost entire indifference, could not be expected to testify much gratitude for it; and as it appeared to them neither one thing nor another, it seemed better to say nothing at all about it. The right hon. gentleman who viewed it precisely in this light, somewhat strangely complained because it was not highly praised or pointedly censured.
The noble lord had entered on a great variety of topics conducive, as he supposed, to his own vindication. He was confident that the House, by attending to his (Mr. B.'s) opening speech, would find almost all those topics answered by anticipation. But there were one or two charges launched at him by the noble lord, which he felt it necessary to repel. He had been accused of harbouring dangerous designs—of befriending reforms of a violent complexion—nay, of supporting, or at least countenancing, opinions of a revolutionary tendency. He could not help thinking this charge somewhat hard
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on the present occasion; and he felt that there was no pleasing any two of the ministers he stood opposed to. The right hon. gentleman had made it the burthen of his whole speech, or song (he hardly knew which to call it), that he said nothing at all of reform. The noble lord inveighed at him still more loudly, or at least as loudly (for to be more loud was impossible), as one whose speech countenanced the wildest of the reformers. So, again, when he had carefully explained the absurdity of the delusions prevailing among hundreds of thousands in the country, respecting the exportation of yarns, with the express intention of allaying the ferment he perceived to be arising out of those mistakes, all the thanks he got for his pains from the right hon. gentleman was, a broad sneer, that he had made a speech about foreign politics and cotton twist. Really he (Mr. B.), fared as ill between the two colleagues, as if he were one of the cabinet. He could hardly have been more roughly handled by those ministerial oracles, if he had been any of their own fellow ministers. They had fallen upon him and plucked him almost as much as they were wont to do some third man among them, or as the one of these two belabour the other. Nevertheless, in spite of the right hon. gentleman's merriment, he should still hold the subject even of cotton twist, as an extremely grave one. He heartily wished they might not all find, before a few-months passed over their heads, that it was any thing rather than matter of jesting: and he was anxious once more to avow his opinion, that the desire so generally entertained in the manufacturing districts, to prevent the exportation, was a delusion—was, what the right hon. gentleman would, after his manner, term a mere twist. He was anxious to state this, because he had been applied to by the unfortunate and highly meritorious persons who laboured under this mistake, and for whose great distresses he felt deeply; and because, whatever little weight his authority might derive from their confidence, he felt it his duty to throw into the opposite scale. This he did, in order to prevent the rising ferment, at the risk of forfeiting, at the certain cost of weakening their favour, and injuring that darling popularity he was accused of seeking. And for this he was rewarded by the noble lord with the epithet of revolutionary—by the right hon. gentleman,

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with broad laughter at his foreign politics and cotton twist. Such things did not discourage him; on the contrary, he would now add, with similar views of anxiety for the internal peace of the country, what he had before accidentally omitted; that the recent proceedings, both of the master hosiers and workmen in Leicestershire, were, in his opinion, extremely unwise. Here Mr. B. entered into some farther details relative to this subject.
Reverting to the noble lord's charge of violent innovation, he must say he felt no sort of resentment at it—he ascribed it to the manifest agitation, or perhaps he ought to call it animation of feelings, under which the noble lord had delivered his speech, and which had naturally led him somewhat beyond what he might have seriously intended to state. But in justice to himself, he must appeal to the House, whether either that night, or on any one other occasion, he had ever brought forward a single measure, or uttered a word, that betrayed a leaning towards plans of a sweeping, rash, or violent reform. On the contrary, it was his conscientious opinion, that in effecting improvements in our political institutions, we ought to proceed warily and even slowly, seeing how much easier it always was to pull down and destroy, than to build up and to restore. These were his principles—to these he had steadily adhered, and he defied any man to show him one exception. To be sure he belonged not to the class of reformers in which these ministers were to be found; he was not for sitting passive and idle spectators of the ravages of time upon the constitution, and expecting that time would repair what time alone had destroyed—in other words, doing nothing and trusting to blind chance. But a rash, hasty, wholesale system of change, was utterly abhorrent to his views.
Then the noble lord accused him of partiality towards the Buonaparté family, because he objected to the mean and pitiful conduct of the government in Stooping to annoy a private individual of that House, who could do harm to nobody. The noble lord was as much mistaken here as in his allegation that he (Mr. B.) could not forgive those who put Buonaparté down. He thought of these charges he had some right to complain—for it did so happen, that he had been the only member, certainly the very first, who seconded the bill for enabling government to keep
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Buonaparté in safe custody. He had always regarded the power and ambition, and tyranny of that person, as incompatible with the independence of Europe as with the liberties of France. He had uniformly recommended the most vigorous measures against his power. He had blamed the government, not for opposing him, but for opposing him inefficiently—for dividing their attacks—for splitting their forces—for carrying on the war, as they waged it during many years, in a feeble manner, upon narrow views, the failure of which was certain.
The noble lord and right hon. gentleman had both expressed great indignation at such a motion as the present being brought forward so late in the session. But was it any thing very new? Did not every year of war terminate regularly with a debate on the State of the nation, as certainly as a vote of credit was proposed? Now, to him it appeared that the country was at present more in a state to render that discussion necessary, than at any period of the war. He rejoiced that he had brought forward the subject; all the anger which it had excited on the opposite side only confirmed him in this feeling; and he trusted that the same question would always be brought forward as regularly as the session closed in each succeeding year. If abler persons refrained from doing so, his feeble services should always be at the command of the country in this way. The noble lord was equally annoyed at what he termed being taken by surprise upon the Irish questions. Had he (Mr. B.) not given notice of an address upon the state of public affairs? Then are Ireland and Irish affairs no part of public affairs? How could a State of the Nation be mentioned without giving the noble lord this notice? But his right hon. supporter inveighed against the use of the affidavits read by his hon. friend (Mr. Bennet), and demanded with the air of one going to dispose at once of those documents, whether he had not received them from Mr. Finnerty, who had been prosecuted by the noble lord? But what could it signify whose hands gave in the affidavits! The question was, who signed and swore to them? Now they were the testimony of eye-witnesses and of sufferers—of persons who had seen, and persons who had undergone the torture. But the noble lord called them extra-judicial. They were no such thing: they were sworn before judges in Ireland, and when

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tendered in the court of King's-bench here, were not at all objected to for any irregularity in the jurats, but only because a new and very doubtful rule excluded matter of justification in a question of mitigation of punishment.—Much had been said of the appointments of Reynolds and Manners. Of the former he willingly left the merits upon the very facts urged by the noble lord. Of the latter, he must repeat, that his objections remained undiminished; and he had felt it his duty to the public to state them openly. It was admitted that Mr. Manners had been for some years the editor of a most infamous publication. He (Mr. B.) was the last man to censure, as unworthy of promotion, those who were guilty of excess in political discussion. Political libels might be blameable, but they belonged to o very different class from private slander. He said nothing against the principles espoused by the work in question, nor even against the discussions of a political nature which it might contain. But he had happened to see two numbers of it some years ago (and friends whose accuracy he could trust, who had seen more of it, assured him all was of a piece), and he ventured to say, that those publications abounded in private defamation of the most base, scandalous, and disgusting nature. He needed only to mention the details of what passed in the recesses of a noble family's bed-chamber, that family being of an opposite side in politics to the party favoured by the work. He still thought that the appointment of a man who had been imprisoned as the editor of such a publication, for another private libel contained in it, did very little credit to the government. The right hon. gentleman (Mr. Addington) had mistaken the drift of the attacks made upon the home-department, upon himself, and his noble relative. He set all down to the score of their great vigour and efficiency in the public service. "Good lack," said he, "see what it is to be an able and successful minister in difficult times—you are run down by the disaffected." Now, this was not quite the ground of complaint, but when the due exercise of the new laws depended on the intellect of that kindred pair, it was natural to exclaim (in the words of the right hon. gentleman's quotation), "O miseram hominum conditionem!" where each individual holds his liberty upon so frail a tenure as the eminent sagacity of the right hon. gentleman, and
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the no less eminent sagacity of his noble relation, in discerning the tricks of their own Olivers.
Sir F. Burdettsaid, he was authorized to state that Mr. Finnerty disclaimed having offered any compromise, directly or indirectly, to lord Castlereagh, in order to prevent his being brought up for judgment in 1810.
Lord Castlereaghsaid, that a message had been delivered to him, stating, that Mr. Finnerty was ready, upon such a condition, to make an apology.
The address was then negatived;