HC Deb 04 May 1819 vol 40 cc79-107
Mr. Lyttelton

said, that in bring- ing the subject of the abolition of lotteries once more under the notice of the House, he expected to be blamed for agitating a question which had been so often decided that it might be as well if it were for ever abandoned. It was a question, however, neither frivolous nor unimportant; but on the contrary was of such consequence as to deserve the most serious consideration. But certainly he should not have presumed to bring it again before the House had he not perceived that the former discussions had made such an impression on the public mind, that perseverance alone was requisite in order to obtain ultimate success. If, on the one hand, it was discouraging to him to see his proposition disposed of in that House in the manner in which it had been on all former occasions, without even an argument being produced in favour of the system by its warmest advocates;—they thereby implying that they were determined to support it in despite of reason—so, on the other hand, that very circumstance was to him a source of hope, and confidence in the ultimate success of his endeavours. Ultimately, the public voice would be raised, effectually raised, against what was indefensible by sound argument; for in this country, the progress and efficacy of public opinion, though slow, were sure, and this was peculiarly the case with regard to questions of a moral nature. This had been proved by the success of several beneficial measures, which, though on their first proposal they had been opposed by party and by prejudice, had ultimately been carried with scarce a dissenting voice. The manner in which the abolition of the slave trade had been effected, was one glorious instance of the omnipotence of public opinion; and if another were wanted, he would refer to the long and arduous struggle in which those honourable members who were solicitous for a reform in the criminal code, had been engaged, before they could produce that recent and signal alteration in the sentiments of that House which had induced them to appoint a committee to examine into the severities and anomalies of which complaint had so frequently been made.

He ought perhaps to apologize for taking up so much of the time of the House as he inevitably must do in the remarks which he had to submit to their most serious consideration; but he hoped the importance of the subject would be a suffi- cient excuse. It was his intention, on the present occasion, to avoid making any appeal to the feelings of the right hon. the chancellor of the exchequer on the evils of the lottery system, because he was convinced, by experience, that any such appeal would be hopeless; and because, having the highest respect for that right hon. gentleman, he did not wish uselessly to say any thing that might be personally offensive to him, or that might deprive him, even for a moment, of his characteristic good humour. The argumentum ad hominem was good for nothing, if the home did not mind what was said to him. Taking the question however, generally, and without reference or allusion to any individual, he would assert, and would endeavour to show, that the continuance of lotteries was indefensible in principle; whether they were considered with reference to the morals, the finance, or the constitution of the country. This prelude might alarm the House with the expectation of a long speech; but he assured them that he would try to compress and condense what he had to say, as much as possible. The moral reasons for the discontinuance of lotteries were so manifest, that it would really be a waste of time to insist on them at any length.—To raise money by lottery was not only to do that by public authority which it was held reprehensible to do in private life; but it was to act unhandsomely, unfairly, and ungenerously, to that public whom the laws ought to defend and protect. It was one of the grossest violations of its moral duty which a government could commit. In lotteries, all that was base in the practice of private gambling, was recognized and adopted by the state. Nor was it merely gambling—it was gambling combined with fraud. The right hon. gentleman opposite had formerly argued, that as there was always afloat a given quantity (not of Exchequer bills, as the right hon. gentleman thought, perhaps, he was going to say, but) of rank and detestable vice in society he had a right, as a financier, to turn it to the best account. "There is a spirit of gambling," said the right hon. gentleman, "in the community, which I cannot possibly extirpate; and as I derive profit from it, I ought to receive the thanks, and not the censure of the nation." In reply to that argument, he would remind the right hon. gentleman, that the doctrine, that private vices were public benefits, had long been exploded, and as- suredly no argument in favour of it could be drawn from the peculiar effects of the lottery. But if any such argument could be sustained, yet, looking to the present mode of conducting lotteries, he would ask any impartial man who heard him, whether the villainous artifices which were resorted to, in order to provoke and excite the vicious spirit of gambling ought to be tolerated? The right hon. gentleman might try to shift this scandal from himself;—he might say that he did not personally resort to the expedients alluded to;—he might say, that as all ministers had their subordinate agents to do their dirty work, so he negociated with the contractors for the lottery, and the agents of the lottery, to do his dirty work for him. But there was an old adage which the right hon. gentleman might perhaps recollect to have heard at college—"Qui facit per alium, facit per se;" and upon that principle, the right hon. gentleman must be identified with the contractors for the lottery; whose conduct was as fine a tissue of fraud and avarice as could possibly be imagined. The moral guilt and atrocity of the system, therefore, lay at the door of government and of that House, which, by granting to government such a mode of acquiring revenue, were responsible for all the folly and roguery resulting from so impolitic and improvident a proceeding.

Having now considered the question in a moral, he would next examine it in a financial point of view; and here he could not help observing, that he did not expect to hear it argued, that what was morally wrong, might be financially right. The world was not so constituted as to admit of that. In spite of any temporary advantage that the commission of injustice might occasion, honesty always turned out to be the best policy; and experience uniformly proved, that every thing that was immoral was at the same time inexpedient. A tyrant might, by violence and extortion, fill his coffers at any one given time, to a greater degree than could be accomplished by a monarch who acted according to law; but, in general, the exchequer of the arbitrary sovereign would not be so well supplied as that of the prince who exacted only the revenue to which he was justly entitled; for a system of plunder rendered property insecure, and the insecurity of property relaxed industry, and the relaxation of industry diminished the greatest source of revenue that a nation could enjoy. But there was no difference between such a system of rapacity and violence, as that to which he had alluded, and the system of raising revenue by lotteries; except that the former was the less disadvantageous. All inducement to industry was weakened in both cases; but, in the latter, the corruption and vice which sprang from an extravagant spirit of gambling were superadded.

He had now disposed of two of the heads into which he had divided the subject. He was equally prepared to show that the system of lotteries was constitutionally erroneous. On examining the details of the bill annually passed to render lotteries legal, it would appear that the most extraordinary and arbitrary power was vested in one person, Mr. Hesse, the secretary of the lottery; who had from twelve to forty common informers in his pay; and the consequence was, that individuals were frequently imprisoned for offences committed against the Lottery act, on the testimony of those informers, against whose information, no disproof, except an alibi, could be established, was allowed to avail. Under the lottery acts, proceedings of low and excessive tyranny took place, which no supposed public advantage derived from those acts, could redeem. On that ground, therefore, he might denounce the lottery system as unconstitutional. The hon. member then, summing up his general argument against the principle of the lottery, and referring more particularly to its immorality, read an extract from Mr. Davison's well known Treatise on the Poor Laws, stating—"That the efficacy of human laws may be cast perhaps into the following scale:—their direct power to inspire men with the love of probity, diligence, and contentment, by positive command, is small; their power to restrain the opposite vices is far greater; their power to discourage or hinder good habits of character, by mistaken institutions, is greatest of all: because here they act at an advantage; and the institution and the bad part of human nature go together; whereas, in the other cases, they are opposed, and the enactment has to force its way."

The hon. gentleman, proceeding next to the detail of particular objections to the lottery, instanced first the frauds with which it was accompanied. There was a fraud in the gross misrepresentations which were daily circulated of the advantages to be obtained by the purchase of tickets; but that which he was about to mention was of a subtler and more unsuspected nature. It was the constant practice of the contractors to create a supposition among the public that a greater number of tickets was drawn on the first and second of three days' drawing, than actually was drawn. After the first day's drawing they posted placards all over the town, stating in large letters, "Capital wheel; only one prize drawn!"—and then raised the prices of their tickets considerably. After the second day's drawing, a similar farce was acted; and the public were induced to suppose that two-thirds of the tickets were drawn, when it frequently happened, that only one-fifth, and in some cases, not more than one-tenth of the tickets, had been taken out of the wheel. The price, however, was highly enhanced by the manœuvre; and of course much more than it would be if the real proportion of the tickets extracted from the wheel were known. In one lottery of 8,000 tickets, he knew that only 350 had been drawn on the first day; yet puffs were circulated, stating that a third of the lottery had been drawn. For any thing he knew, the gentlemen engaged in spreading these delusions might be honourable men—it might be happy for the credit of the opposite side, if they were not right hon. men.—After the first day's drawing of the lottery to which he had alluded, the price of a ticket rose from 19l. 10s., to 20l. 10s; and after the second day, from 21l. 10s. to 29l. Was not such an enhancement of the price, so disproportionate to the diminished number of tickets, an imposition on the public? Was not that public cheated by it in the most barefaced and impudent manner? Was it fit that the public should be so cheated for the mere addition to the revenue of 250,000l. a year? There could be only one answer made to that question—that it was most unfit and unbecoming. The representation of consols at par was also a great fraud; and another had lately been practised, which, if it was not a fraud in the way he had hitherto looked at the subject, was at least a fraud on a great public institution. Bluecoat boys had formerly been employed in drawing the tickets from the wheel. On a representation of the impropriety of the procedure being made to the governors of that establishment, the governors concurred in the justice of the representation, and entertaining views on the subject different from those expressed by certain persons high in official situations, they prohibited the employment of their boys in that service of vice. The other day he had gone down to Cooper's Hall, the place where the rascally transaction of the lottery was carrying on; and, having with some difficulty obtained admission, he saw across a board, which was placed to exclude strangers, several grave persons (for rogues were apt to look grave, especially in the presence of their dupes), seated in the most dignified manner; and near them two boys, in the garb of the boys of Christ's Hospital, drawing the tickets from the wheel. These boys either were or were not, of that establishment. As he had not made inquiry, he could not positively say that they did not belong to it; but if they did not, and from the governors not being blinded by such prejudices as official gentlemen, he thought they did not, it was a villainous masquerade, adopted for the purpose of inducing the people to believe that the lottery had still the sanction of such intelligent individuals as the governors of Christ's Hospital. This fraud, if fraud it was, was practised in a place where every thing on which he turned his eyes, except the shabby transaction he was reprobating, was solid and venerable. As if to wind up the contrast to the highest pitch, "Love your Brethren," appeared in the old painted glass window above, while the poor were cheated below; the whole being carried on under the superintendence of men paid by the public; of men who were in the receipt of various salaries, from 100l. to 500l. a-year—nay, who every now and then, gained a clear 1,000l. a-year for dragging up some miserable wretches to the police offices; and thus obtaining, as it were, the sanction of the magistrates to their roguery.

So much for the frauds of the lottery system. He would next call the attention of the House to the superstition which it generated. Its effects in that respect on the ignorant portion of the population were most injurious. In various publications, and, as if it were to beard him in his own county, in the Worcester paper, the contractors for the lottery had inserted an alphabetical list of the places to which prizes had fallen, or, to use the language of the newspaper, to which the Goddess Fortune was most propitious. This account was no more doubted by the ignorant individuals for whom it was intended, than the efficacy of relics was in former times, or the truth of a gipsy's predictions at the present moment. But how stood the fact as to that circumstance? What was the result in those places in which speculations in the lottery had proved successful? Among those who heard him, there must be some hon. gentlemen who had witnessed the sad effects in a village or small town of the fatal good fortune of some speculator, whose example, encouraging other adventurers, had spread disappointment and ruin. He knew of one place in which the effect of one of its inhabitants gaining a sixteenth of a 20,000l. prize, had been most mischievous and fatal. Bideford, in the county of Devon, had had the misfortune to be twice visited by a golden shower of that nature from the chancellor of the exchequer. The consequence was, that the spirit of gambling raged there with redoubled ardour, and that the industrious habits of the people were completely destroyed. At another place, the same results had emanated from the same cause; and he did not know whether they had not very materially increased the heaviness of the poor-rates in that place. At Sheffield the lotteries had been productive of such evil consequences, that Montgomery, the poet, who was the proprietor and editor of a paper there (the Sheffield Iris), and of whose talents and virtues every one must speak with respect, voluntarily abandoned the large annual profits which arose from the puffs and advertisements of the contractors, by excluding them from his journal.

He must also say a few words with respect to another way in which endeavours were made to debauch the morals of the people. It was a great aggravation of the dirty system, that it was promised to pay the winners of certain prizes in wine. Had gin been offered, the public would have been shocked at once; but wine was presumed to be a gentlemanly and attractive liquor. "Wine and Gold" were the baits thrown out to catch the populace. The right hon. gentleman's financial operations had rendered the latter so rare, that a Jew in a corner would give a good premium for it over and above its legal price; and the offer of it by the contractors operated therefore as an additional temptation. They called out to the public "Come all you sots and misers as well as you foolish fellows; take out of our bag, and make yourselves happy;" He had nearly forgotten to mention one of their frauds—the misnaming of prizes. That was called a prize, by which a man lost only half his money. It would puzzle the most ingenious members of that ingenious profession the law, to persuade a man who had been robbed of only half the sum taken from another that he was a favourite of fortune; yet that was what was daily done with regard to the lottery. The contractors did not entirely pick the pockets of the purchasers of tickets: but they half picked their pockets; and in his opinion they deserved to be half hanged for it. Whoever said that a man who, having paid 20l. for his ticket, received 10l. at the lottery office, had got a prize, lied; and whoever believed such an assertion, was an arrant fool. He held in his hand a copy of the Gazette, which contained a scheme of the lottery drawn in November and December last; from which it appeared it consisted of 14,000 tickets, of which 2,865 were prizes; and consequently that there were 11,135 blanks. But of the 2,865 supposed prizes, 2,810 were prizes of only 10l.—that was they were prizes the purchasers of which having given 20l. for them were cheated out of only half their money—so that in reality there were but 55 prizes deserving of that name. As the number of tickets was 14,000, it was therefore 253 to 1 that the purchaser of a ticket obtained a bona fide prize. Was not this most barefaced and villainous cheating? Did ever any man keep a pharo table on such terms? Was there ever any description of gambling like it? Ought such a system any longer to be endured? It was the most lavish mode that could be devised of raising money for the service of the state; for it was a mode by which the public were made to pay largely, while the Exchequer received but a comparatively 6mall sum. The profits of the contractors were enormous. In the lotteries for the whole year, in which 60,000 tickets were sold, while government received only 300,000l., the public were made to pay between 600,000l. and 700,000l.; the difference, after deducting the necessary expenses, going into the pockets of the contractors.

But, supposing the sum raised by the chancellor of the exchequer from this source were much greater; what could compensate for the infliction of so much vice and misery upon the people? What could warrant a government in being the instruments of degrading and debasing a people? If the nation were pressed with difficulties, it was more than ever bound to adhere to the rules of the strictest rectitude; it would then maintain a grandeur in its distress—a magnificence even in its ruin. Much better would it be to act on a system diametrically opposite to the present: instead of having recourse to measures which corrupted the people, to reject every proposition of a questionable character; to adopt a simple and consistent course of legislation; and to endeavour to improve and enlighten the people by the establishment of schools and other suitable means for that purpose. It was an incontrovertible truth that a high sense of virtue and justice was the strongest safeguard of national independence. The strength of a country was essentially connected with its morality, and such resources as were derivable only front a violation of morality ought to be rejected as beneath the dignity of a great nation. He once more entreated the House to reflect on the inexpediency of such an excusable and temporizing system. He hoped that the public voice would be raised against it. If hitherto that voice had been silent, it was attributable to the arts which had been practised, and to the success of those infamous contrivances which had been so long pursued, but which he trusted would soon meet with general reprobation. Nearly all men of sense and character out of doors were united in their opposition to this most odious mode of raising money; and he did not despair even that night of seeing the! House of Commons come to a vote that would free the nation in future from this infectious visitation.—The hon. gentleman concluded by moving the following Resolutions:

  1. 1. "That by the Establishment of State Lotteries, a spirit of Gambling, injurious in the highest degree to the morals of the people, is encouraged and provoked:
  2. 2. "That such a spirit, manifestly weakening the habits of industry, must diminish the permanent sources of the public revenue:
  3. 3. "That the said Lotteries have given rise to other systems of Gambling, which have been but partially repressed by laws, whose provisions are extremely arbitrary, and their enforcements liable to the greatest abuse:
  4. 4. "That this House, therefore, will no longer authorize the establishment of 89 State Lotteries under any system of regulation whatever."

The first Resolution being put,

The Chancellor of the Exchequer

said, he was astonished that any man in the present state of the country could seriously propose to abandon a sum of nearly 300,000l. raised by means which were less felt by the people, than any other which could be resorted to. The advantage to the revenue from the lottery on the whole, independent of all collateral advantages, amounted to between 2 and 300,000l. a year, and a saving of interest of 30 or 40,000l a year; in all a sum of about 300,000l. He really did not see why a man might not invest a small portion of his savings without blame in the purchase of a ticket for the lottery. If he were obliged to admit that the principle of gambling was called forth by a state lottery, he should think the objections of the hon. gentleman to it good to their utmost extent; but the hon. gentleman, forgetting that the principle of gambling existed, independent of the state lottery, very unfairly argued, that it was attributable to the lottery. Now, he was prepared to contend, that the spirit of gambling, instead of being called forth, was kept in check by the state lottery. The state lottery offices were obliged to keep up establishments, which operated as checks on the little-goes, which were much more ruinous to the common people. This was proved by the papers on the table. From these it would be seen, that for the last three years, while the prosecutions for insuring in the state lottery had decreased, those for private lotteries had increased. In 1816, there were forty-five prosecutions, for insuring in the state lottery, of which thirty were convictions. In the little-goes, in the same period there were twenty-six prosecutions, and twenty convictions. In 1817 there were twelve state lottery prosecutions, and eleven convictions; thirty-four little-goes, and twenty-nine convictions. So that it was evident the decrease in gambling was not to be affected by the relinquishment of the state lotteries. It was said that last year additional inducements were held out in the shape of prizes in wine; for this the government were not answerable, for the contractors had held out this additional inducement to purchasers, and so far from its being a fraud, it was an actual bonus intended beyond the ordinary amount of the regular prizes. He would yield to no man in a wish to promote the best interest of the public, and the best morals of all classes of the people, and he hailed the benefit which education conferred upon the habits of society; but until the improvement became more generally operative, so as to prevent the evils of gambling upon different speculations among the Tower classes, he could see no reason, standing in the official situation which he held, to abandon so lucrative a branch of the revenue without having some equivalent held out by which the public would derive an equal benefit. He did not mean to oppose the arguments which the hon. gentleman had advanced against a lottery, but he could not now consent to renounce a sum, the place of which must be supplied by some tax, which would operate more oppressively on the people.

Mr. Agar Ellis

agreed with the hon. mover in thinking that a state lottery was attended with the worst effects on the morals of the people; and that it held out a temptation to gambling. He concluded with expressing his determination to support the motion.

Mr. Fowell Buxton

observed, that the chancellor of the exchequer had by no means replied to the charges advanced against the lottery. The right hon. gentleman did not venture to assert that it was a wise and virtuous system; but merely that it was not so deplorably vicious as it had been represented by his hon. friend. There might be differences of opinion as to the extent of the evil; but that the lottery was an evil, that it produced crime and diminished industry, was admitted by the right hon. gentleman; for he had not attempted to deny it. The right hon. gentleman had begun his address by saying that he would speak first as to the revenue, next as to the morality of that tax; but, as if a certain fatality hung over every assurance upon that subject, as if no hope was to be realized and no promise to be performed, to which the lottery gives birth, the right hon. gentleman had been abundantly copious in proving its productiveness, which no man disputed—silent, however, in defending its moral consequences, which every man, impeached. That silence on this material part of the subject must be construed into a confession of the truth of what had been advanced on the other side. The question might now, therefore, be brought to a short issue. All were agreed as to the facts; and the only difference was as to the inference to be drawn from those facts. It had been stated by the right hon. gentleman, that the lottery produced a great revenue—it had been said by his hon. friend that that mode of raising revenue produced great immorality. The simple point in dispute therefore was, whether the House set more value on the morality which they surrendered for the money, or on the money which they gained by the immorality? Whether the country, even in its present burdened state, was so reduced and distressed as to render it indispensable that it should sell its morals for 300,000l. Here was a tax which impaired the integrity of the people; which was injurious to their industry, and which excited in them the most delusive and ruinous expectations. The only answer of the right hon. gentleman was, the set off of 300,000l. Now, if the House thought that a proper set off, they ought to reject the motion of his hon. friend; but if they thought that no pecuniary compensation ought to induce them to countenance an acknowledged evil, to encourage fraud, to impair the industry and degrade the character of the people, then he trusted his hon. friend would gain a triumph and the right hon. gentleman sustain a defeat, both of which would be entirely merited. His hon. friend had stated, that the existence of village lottery clubs had not come immediately within his own knowledge, but that he had heard of their existence. His (Mr. Buxton's) principal purpose in rising was, to mention some facts that had come under his own cognizance, as to the demoralizing tendency of lotteries in country villages. A benefit society for the support of the sick and the aged had been established, a number of years ago, in a village in which he had spent much of his early life. One of the members of it was a person he knew very well, the gamekeeper of the family; and he and others paid their weekly contributions with cheerfulness, and satisfaction, confident that the result would be, in case of misfortune or ill health, to avert the greatest calamity and degradation which they thought could befal them; namely, that of becoming chargeable to the parish. It happened, however, very unfortunately, that in a town only a few miles distant an association of a very different kind had been formed for the purpose of speculating in the lottery. By that association a prize was gained of between two and three thousand pounds. No sooner was this news heard in the village, than the benefit society fell into disrepute. All became impatient of the slow mode of accumulating the savings of their earnings as a resource for their age, and anxious to obtain wealth with the rapidity of their neighbours, a lottery club was established, and old and young subscribed with alacrity. Fifteen years had passed, during which time he had heard nothing of either establishment, but with a view to the question before the house, he had lately taken the pains to inquire into their fate. He found that the lottery club had failed. His old friend the gamekeeper, who had belonged to it, told him that fortune had been singularly unpropitious to them, that they had drawn a great many blanks, and that, what was still more incomprehensible they had been ruined by their prizes as well as by their blanks. In the end, the club had been abolished, and in its fall it had drawn down with it the benefit society; that most useful establishment which, with a wise foreknowledge, was to provide for the decrepitude of age out of the savings of youth and industry. That valuable institution had failed; and it had failed entirely in consequence of the infatuation and system of fraud encouraged and sanctioned by government; and he had no doubt that many of the members of it were at that moment suing for relief from their parish, who would have been receiving back their own savings if government had not encouraged their folly. The right hon. gentleman supposed, that there was a certain quantity of the spirit of gambling in the constitution of every man, and that wisdom was shown in so directing that spirit as to make it contribute to the revenue. But in the village to which he alluded no such spirit existed, or if it did exist, it remained latent until it was brought into action and fostered into fruitfulness by the circulation of lottery schemes, and the prospect which they held out of rapid aggrandizement. Perhaps it might be said, that there were but few instances of that kind in the country. It was however impossible to enter any village within a few miles of London without seeing those large dazzling red letters and enormous placards, sometimes pasted on walls, and sometimes on travelling caravans, but always full of lavish promises of unbounded luck to early adventurers. He held in his hand a curious document, which, with the permission of the House to whom he was bound to apologize for having so long detained it, he would read. It was the prospectus of a lottery issued some time ago, and published by the editor of a paper who he believed was a man of strict integrity, and whose account might therefore be depended on. The grand total of the scheme was 10,400 tickets. There were 54 prizes, some of a larger and others of a smaller amount; and there were 10,200 blanks, including some prizes of a very low denomination. The fact appeared to be, that of those 10,200 blanks, 10,000 were, on a fair calculation, held by about 100,000 persons. He would here remark, that it was a most important question, who were the principal sufferers in a lottery. The editor of the paper in question gave a description of the shares sold by him in that lottery of a particular number; and the station, employment and address of those who bought them. That single ticket was held by 28 persons, an important fact; because it showed that the lowest persons were those who most generally became the dupes of the lottery; and a fact to which he particularly adverted, because it was lately proved in the evidence given before a committee of the House, that in the workhouse of the parish of Spitalfields; that was, in the very poorest spot in London, the poor actually subscribed to buy a lottery ticket. The money was raised by those unfortunate people after some time and with some difficulty, by instalments of from one halfpenny to sixpence each, was so expended; and was lost. Returning, however, to the paper, he there found it stated, that one sixteenth of the ticket in question was sold to a young woman in servitude residing at Camberwell, formerly in better circumstances; one to the female servant of a tobacconist where another servant had resided to whom not long before a share of a 20,000l. prize had been sold; another sixteenth to the servant of a gentleman in Mark-lane; two others to two poor widows; and two more to other persons in situations equally inferior. Now, all this went to show that it was exactly the most poor and the most ignorant who were the dupes of lotteries. It was most cruel, by such a system of delusion, to make a poor female, said to be born to better expectations, only the more miserable, in consequence of the distraction of mind caused by the disappointment of unfounded promises; It was indeed a cruel, a mischievous tax, of which, two poor widows were made the victims. Among the names cited in the little record which he had described were those of two tradesmen. On that point, seeing in their places a worthy alderman who had paid much attention to the subject of insolvent debtors, and an honourable friend of his who had devoted much of his time to the consideration of the bankrupt laws, he would at once refer to them whether adventuring in the lottery was not that step which but too frequently led to bankrupts and insolvencies? A case of that kind had very lately come under his inspection. From particular circumstances it became necessary for him to look into the affairs of a person who had become embarrassed; and he found that what by postponing payment to some of his creditors, paying others in part, and borrowing of his friends, he had raised a sum of 400l. all of which was lost in the lottery. Then as to confidential clerks, it was notorious that they were often the greatest speculators in the lottery. A friend of his a banker (than whom the kingdom did not produce a more experienced banker, or a more respectable man), had told him that he never knew an instance of fraud among his clerks, without finding that the parties by whom it was committed had had some previous concern with the lottery. Inshort, the system was productive of the greatest evils. Lotteries absorbed the earnings of the poor; and what was worse they absorbed their principles of honest industry; for it was well known, that when a man once engaged in gambling speculations, he became averse to the performance of his ordinary duties, and indifferent to the petty earnings of his original avocation. The whole of the lottery system was one of fraud, seduction, and specious robbery, intended to intoxicate the minds of the poor and ignorant, to inflame their passions, and to excite their cupidity. He had no doubt himself that gambling was a passion which when once excited could not be destroyed. It must find a vent; he had as little doubt that, of the thousands and tens of thousands of instances wherein the tradesman had defrauded his creditor, the servant robbed his master, and the clerk embezzled the property of his employer, the greater number had been the result of the delusion thus held out by government. It was singular that the right hon. gentleman had asserted that the lottery put an end to little-goes and had nevertheless stated that 55 detections of persons engaged in the latter practice had taken place during the present year. The right hon. gentleman had also said that the lottery brought in yearly 300,000l. Now, for the seven or eight hundred thousand pounds extracted by the lottery from the pockets of the public, only 300,000l. reached the light hon. gentleman; and from that sum certain very material deductions were to be made. The direct tendency of the lottery was to produce paupers, and to make rogues. He would therefore call on the right honourable gentleman to deduct from his estimate the money necessary for the support of those paupers and rogues. Whether the sum was large or small that government derived from lotteries might perhaps make a difference to some honourable gentlemen. To him it made none. No one—not even the right honourable gentleman could deny that the lottery was a system of gambling; and therefore a financial expedient altogether unworthy of a great nation.

Mr. William Parnell

thought the chancellor of the exchequer could have no difficulty in giving up this tax, and substituting some other in its stead; in the mean time, if the money remained in the people's pockets, it was as much as was necessary according to the good old maxim of queen Elizabeth, who considered it, when there, as secure as if it were in her own keeping. The right hon. gentleman would only have to exercise a little of his accustomed ingenuity in devising new plans. The right hon. gentleman had defended the establishment of a large lottery as necessary to catch small lotteries; he had often heard the maxim, "set a thief to catch a thief;" and improving upon this maxim, the right hon. gentleman, thought the only way to catch little-goes was, to establish great-goes. The chancellor of the exchequer had a great quantity of public and private integrity; he was in the possession of such a degree of character as would allow him to change his mind without being ridiculed. His character stood high for integrity in the largest sense of the word. The perceiving in such a character, a blot like that of encouraging gambling and immorality struck one with a harsh and disagreeable surprise. It was something like a moral tooth-ach. It was a surprise like that felt by the readers of a well-known novel of Fielding, his Amelia, who, after taking a warm interest in the heroine, finds out in the middle of the novel that she had lost her nose. It was astonishing to see what things could be done by the best characters with a good conscience. The conscientious opposition of many to the Catholic claims, and the encouragement of the lottery by the right hon. gentleman might be illustrated by a circumstance mentioned in a work with which the right hon. gentleman might perhaps be acquainted—it was the Life of a Mr. Newton, who he believed was a Methodist preacher, written by himself. This religious man had afterwards a better sense of these things, but he went on with the Slave Trade for three years, before he found out that he was wrong. When he found out that he was wrong, he gave up his slave ship, and anathematized the trade. Such, he had no doubt, would be the case with the chancellor of the exchequer. The most extraordinary argument in favour of lotteries adduced by that right hon. gentleman was, as to the relative quantity of vice resulting from lotteries and little-goes; thus turning vice to account, as was done in Holland, where certain establishments were licensed by government which he dared not name. Seriously speaking, he did not think the character of the chancellor of the exchequer was worth more to the country than the 300,000l. raised by the system he supported. But that right hon. gentleman he observed, always connected the character of administration with the moral and political character of the whole country. The system was one that was absolutely an anomaly. He had often been surprised why religion should be regarded with something like indifference by large classes of the people. He accounted for it by supposing the existence of some such inconsistencies as these. He did not often pry into the secrets of government, but he should like to ask the right hon. gentleman whether he ever bought a lottery-ticket himself? If not, why would he recommend to others that which he himself rejected?

Mr. Alderman Wood

considered it very extraordinary that the chancellor of the exchequer should have talked of the suppression of little-goes, when his own statement had shown a large increase of them during the last three years. He was prepared to show, on the contrary, that little-goes were encouraged in consequence of lotteries. The worthy alderman proceed- ed to detail the manner in which fraudulent insurances of numbers were effected; the infatuation being so great, that in the house of one of those wretches who existed by these nefarious means and who had accumulated, from the credulity of his dupes, 100 guineas in gold, 75l. in silver, and a large hoard of copper, which were discovered at the same time, a paper was found, containing a list of the names of the insurers: they were of various classes—clerks in public offices, merchants, and tradesmen. The wife of a servant of his, an industrious man who earned at his employment two guineas a week, had carried her conviction of the efficacy of those insurances and the certainty of her obtaining a prize so far, that she completely ruined him, and he died amidst want, disease, and wretchedness, of a broken heart. There were various ways in which the money of the lower classes might be applied with much more benefit to their interests than by dealing in lotteries. The saving banks, for instance, were calculated to promote a moral and virtuous feeling among them. He himself had used his utmost efforts to have a saving bank established in his ward, and he hoped ultimately to do so; but, where lotteries were established, little-goes were to be found in abundance, in consequence of which the lower classes were induced rather to speculate with, than lay by the surplus of their earnings. It was extraordinary that the chancellor of the exchequer, who was found the first to support all public institutions, should support this system; that he should advocate the expenditure of immense sums for the building of churches, and at the same time support a measure which was calculated to keep a great portion of the public from approaching them. He felt himself bound, on every view of the subject, to give the motion his support.

Mr. Wilberforce

could not help congratulating the House on finding that no gentleman on the other side, save the chancellor of the exchequer, had attempted to stand up in support of the lottery system. He considered this system as a fraud which was carried on to the injury of the country, and which ought to be put an end to as soon as possible. When he saw his hon. friend (Mr. Buxton) upon his legs, he really thought (not having been in the House at the opening of the discussion) that the question related to the state or gaols; but when he had listened a little to his hon. friend, he found that the subject was one which only related to the manner in which the avenues to those gaols were filled. He concurred with his hon. friend in the drawback that ought to be made from the nominal amount of revenue, which the lottery was said to produce. The system itself was a great evil—it was at variance with the principles of the best system of public economy—it went to paralyze the vigour of industry—it went to attack the social independence which a statesman ought to cherish in a free state. A calculation had been made of the sum which was to be raised by this system, and it appeared that it amounted to about 300,000l.; but what was this sum compared to the virtue, morality, and industry of the people? How was it to be valued by those who considered how much the one tended to lower, and the other to raise the grandeur and independence of society? Much argument had been used against the poor laws, as tending to demoralize and destroy the independent feelings of the lower classes; but how could any argument be used against those laws, by those who supported the lottery system? If the principle of the argument against the poor laws was to be followed to its conclusion, where could a sacrifice be made with more propriety than in the present instance? If the necessities of the state required that the deficiencies should be made up, let it be done by the public. In whatever manner it was done, it must be a much less exceptionable mode than the present. Why should they, acting like the foolish man, who, though accustomed to give away large sums of money, when he saw a treasure put out on his table intended for a friend, could not persuade himself to part with it—why should they hesitate to give up 300,000l. because it was not perhaps convenient? At the same time, he thought it but fair, when they demanded a sacrifice of the minister for the public good, to substitute some other measure of fair principle in its stead. There was now, he thought, a reasonable prospect of the lottery being abolished; since it had been long almost entirely supported by his right hon. friend the chancellor of the exchequer.

Mr. Canning

thought, the question had been taken up on most unfair grounds, and treated in a manner quite foreign to the subject. The object of this motion was, to deprive government of 300,000l. yearly, and to abolish, one of the oldest taxes existing in this country. His hon. friend had said, that if the chancellor of the exchequer gave up the tax, it was their duty to provide him with a substitute; that if this tax were given up on moral grounds, they were to provide an unexceptionable one in its place; but it should seem now, that the burthen of finding a substitute was to fall, not upon those who took away the old tax, but upon those who were to lose it. But his hon. friend well knew, for among all the transcendent abilities which he possessed, he thought his tactic in debate one of his greatest—his hon. friend knew as well, and better than he did, that lately they were asked to repeal the salt tax, because it was injurious to agriculture, commerce, and the morality of the people. They were asked also to repeal the leather tax, because it was highly injurious to the agriculture, commerce, and morals of the country. Nay, among other immoral taxes, very lately they had been applied to, to abolish the spirit tax in Ireland, as exceedingly injurious to the agriculture, commerce, and the morals of the people. Even the window tax was thought to be equally hostile to the morals of the people. Now, he wished those gentlemen who were for repealing all these immoral taxes, would take the trouble of putting their amount together, and to see whether, having done so, they could suggest a pro rata for the quota furnished by immoral statutes; for, in spite of all the declamations they had heard about the life and adventures of a servant maid, every body well knew that taxes always bore hard on the people. To abolish those taxes now, one by one, without at the time providing sufficient substitutes for each, and without waiting for the period at which a general remission of the taxes might take place, would be to wander in the dark, and uselessly to incur the risk of discovering that they had parted with means which were indispensable to the safety of the country. Now, did the hon. gentleman suppose, that he had said one word about the tax in question, which he (Mr. Canning) could not say, mutatis mutandis, of the spirit tax? His hon. friend, no doubt, well knew Hogarth's two celebrated prints, in which the effects of gin are so strikingly pourtrayed, possibly with the view of inducing a severe tax upon that article. But what ought to be done? If they followed up their reasonings against the mischief of spirits, let them abolish under penalty the use of them. He was not quite sure that he was correct, for he spoke without book, but he believed the lottery had existed ever since the revolution. The whole industry of late times had been employed to reform, as fast as possible, the abuses growing out of old statutes; and if any body could, he wished he would find out the practicability of correcting the abuses and excrescences growing out of this and other taxes. Supposing those excrescences taken away, he could not conceive one, as to the manner, amount, or time of payment, less exceptionable than the lottery. The evils which had been adverted to, arose either from insurance, or from the small division of the tickets. Now, in former times, he recollected tickets being divided into 32 parts: and he believed they had even been subdivided into 64 portions. The number of shares had since been contracted to 16, and the temptation which had been held out to the lower orders to purchase was thus considerably narrowed. If the hon. mover thought it would ameliorate the system to withdraw 16ths, he believed his right hon. friend would not be unwilling to adopt the suggestion. But, if they wished to remove the source of a tax that existed in all countries, and which had been tolerated here for a hundred years, gentlemen must make use of stronger arguments than those they had adduced. Throughout the debate a personal appeal had been made to his right hon. friend; and, because his right hon. friend was known to possess a strong sense of moral duty, ridicule was attempted to be cast on him, for maintaining a tax which he had not created, but which he found long formed and established when he came into office. The feelings of the man were assailed, in order to make him morbidly sensible of the difficulties which intervened in the performance of his duty as a minister. Those who knew him not might ridicule him for that which was, in truth, the ornament of his character—for that which gave an assurance to the country of his honour and integrity—for that which might stand in the stead of qualities, that he might not be supposed by some to possess in an eminent degree. He hoped, however, that no taunts addressed to him, as an individual, would lead him to forget that he had great public duties to perform, one of which was to provide for the exigencies of the state—and that he would feel that his conduct was not open to blame because he adopted the inherited expedients of the greatest men in this country, who had filled the situation before him.

Mr. Wodehouse

declared, that after all he had heard, and anxious as he was to support the finances of the country, he could not give his vote in favour of a tax, which added to the revenue only in proportion as it spread immorality and crime amongst the people. Amongst the lower orders, the spirit of gambling sometimes led to robbery, and in some cases to suicide. It destroyed the only source of a poor man's character and happiness. In the present situation of the county, he was ready to support the continuance and imposition of any taxes which, without corrupting the morals, might be necessary to enable the government to meet the difficulties with which it had to contend. But the right hon. gentleman's comparison of this mode of raising money to the duties on spirits, appeared extraordinary when proceeding from a person of his talents and acuteness of mind. The lottery was not so much a tax as an invitation to crime; the tax on spirits had, in fact, an opposite tendency, and served to discourage the abuse of them. With regard to the observation, that lotteries were resorted to in other countries, it might be said, that so were expedients, at which it was impossible for Englishmen not to be shocked. Both at Paris and Spa considerable revenue was derived to the state from licensed gambling tables: but this system, bad as it was, appeared to him less disgraceful and pernicious than that of our own lottery, because it affected only the higher orders, whilst the lottery operated chiefly on the lower.

Mr. Plunkett

wished to offer but a very few observations, after the able manner in which the subject had been discussed by several of his hon. friends. He found it impossible to sit silent on hearing the doctrine avowed by his right hon. friend, and finding what the ground was on which the lottery was defended by his majesty's ministers. It was not denied—that it produced crime, and that by such production it contributed to the revenue. He admired the talents of his right hon. friend, if he would allow him so to call him, and he knew it must be foreign to his sentiments to overlook the eternal distinction between right and wrong; but the truth was, that the whole of this argument resolved itself into a question of moral feel- ing. The question was, whether the House could be induced to foster the propagation of misery and crime, for the sake. of an apparent benefit to the revenue? They had been told of the long continuance of this system; but the age made no impressions on his mind in its favour: if it were as old as the foundations of the world, this was no reason for protracting its existence. He was sorry to hear the right hon. gentleman attempt to treat with levity the allusion which had been made to female servants, as if that class of society were unworthy of regard, and their morals or happiness not the objects of legislative protection. It was not easy to discover the analogy between a lottery and the taxes on salt, windows, or spirits. These were not the direct causes of immorality; and although impoverishment must always tend to weaken moral principles, it could not be said of those taxes that they created a vice, in order to make a revenue out of it. Of all the duties incumbent on a government, there was none more sacred or pre-eminent than to act as the guardian of public morality; but the system which he now deprecated served only to undermine it, and to introduce every species of misery and disorder amongst the humbler classes of society.

Lord Castlereagh

thought he had some right to complain of the mode in which the hon. and learned gentleman had treated the argument of his right hon. friend, whose observations must be fresh in the recollection of the House. It was quite a misconception to suppose that his right hon. friend had defended the lottery, on the principle of its being productive of crime, and that its mere advantage to the revenue was notwithstanding a sufficient justification of its continuance. AH that had been urged by his right hon. friend was, that evils might grow out of the lottery as well as from the use of spirituous liquors, which when taken in moderate quantity might conduce to health. In Ireland spirits had been found extremely beneficial in the fever which had lately prevailed; but when an indulgence in them was pushed to excess, and became connected with perjury, conspiracy, and other offences attendant on illicit distillation, what would otherwise be a wholesome beverage, or innocent recreation, was changed into a source of mischief. Gambling was no doubt not a thing to be approved, but it afforded a resource which, all nations had adopted, and the adoption of which was sanctioned by the highest names. He was far from wishing to see the House stand still upon questions of moral improvement, but he trusted that it would not be led away by the refinements of a spurious and false morality, which would seek to connect every tax with some deterioration of character among the people. For his own part, he believed that such views were not calculated to promote the real interests of virtue in society. Many abuses in the lottery system had been corrected; but if the details of individual life were to be gone into, no doubt some instances might be produced in which, by transactions of this nature, persons had brought suffering on themselves. But in every line and pursuit, imprudence or vice might be discovered, and were commonly followed by similar consequences. There was no branch of revenue which would remain, if its operation in sometimes leading to a voluntary sacrifice of individual happiness was to be considered as a sufficient condemnation of it. His right hon. friend was fully aware of the importance of public morality, and regarded it as one of the most sacred deposits with which a government could be entrusted; but he knew also that the strength of the country ought not to be sacrificed, that its revenue was its strength, and its strength the best security for its morals.

Mr. F. Douglas

said, the House he hoped, would recollect, that it was conceded by ministers that they had no other way of raising the sum of 250,000l. than by adopting a measure, which tended to subvert the morals of the country. A right hon. gentleman had challenged those who opposed this tax to find a substitute for it. They had found substitutes for if—they had done so, four years ago, when they proposed a diminution of the army—they had done so on every occasion, when they called on ministers to adopt some measure of retrenchment. If their advice had been taken, ministers would not now have been compelled to defend this measure on such weak and futile grounds. The right hon. gentleman had complimented the chancellor of the exchequer on his virtues, and had complained, that an attempt had been made to cast ridicule upon him. He did not mean to ridicule those virtues for which the private character of the chancellor of the exchequer was said to be remarkable; but he begged leave to ob- serve, that, if such an attempt had been made, it was not peculiar to that side of the House from which he spoke; for he believed the right hon. gentleman who made the remark, had often indulged in the same propensity, at a time, indeed, when he was not the colleague of the present ministers. The chancellor of the exchequer, in arguing this question, threw himself on the commiseration of the House. He admitted all the evils to which the tax gave birth, but he pleaded the necessity of the state. The right hon. gentleman and the noble lord defended the measure, on the ground of its antiquity and its generality. But the slave trade was as old and as extensively patronised, before England took the first step towards its abolition, and declared that she would not be bound by precedent, where morality and justice were, concerned. The noble lord said, that the drinking of spirits might produce all the evils which were derived from this measure. This was very true. The evil, in that case, however, flowed from the abuse; but the lottery was clearly an evil in itself. When gambling-houses were licensed abroad, the tax was laid on the keepers of them; but here the chancellor of the exchequer was himself the keeper of the gambling-house, and received the profits for the use of the state.

Mr. W. Williams

deprecated in strong terms the encouragement of lotteries, as giving rise to a spirit of gambling, and tending to demoralize the lower classes of society. They were condemned as a nuisance by an act of king William, and he doubted, therefore, whether their antiquity could be very great. He strenuously supported the resolution.

Mr. Colclough

said, that although a residence of five and twenty years on the continent might, in some degree, have affected his fluency, his sentiments on the subject of lotteries was perfectly unaltered. He recollected being asked by certain foreigners, in the year 1795, what price the public, in this country, paid for the lottery, and what benefit they were entitled to reap from it? On calculating, he found, that the lottery in England cost the public about one-third. He then looked to the Genoese lottery, which was introduced into France, and on which Mr. Professor Bertram, at Geneva, had written a very curious treatise. That lottery consisted of 90 numbers, of which five were drawn every month, and those five numbers, as combined or taken separately, were prizes. This cost the public but one-fifth. He next examined the lottery of the Hanse Towns of Germany and of Switzerland, and he found the expense only one-tenth. Comparing this with the English lottery, which cost one-third, ministers could not maintain it on a financial principle. In Italy, the whole sum received was expended in prizes—and the person claiming a prize, paid one-tenth on receiving it at the office.

Mr. Ricardo

supported the motion, and pointed out the evils which arose from the drawings of the lottery so often in the year. He quoted the resolutions of a society to which many of the ministers belonged, deprecating the lottery; and observed, that they were thus condemning, as individuals, the law which they came to support by their votes.

Mr. Tierney

said, he would vote for this motion, not because it was brought forward by his hon. friend, or by any person who was in the habit of thinking as he did on political subjects; but deliberately, from the best consideration he could give the subject, connecting the morals of the country with its financial arrangements. He conceived so trifling a sum as 250,000l. was badly, not to say disgracefully purchased, by a measure which had so pernicious an effect on the morals, comfort, and peace of society. No man was less willing to take from the resources of the country than he was, knowing the greatness of the expenditure, and nothing but the immoral effect of this tax could induce him to call for its abolition. The sum was trifling; and, if the ordinary loan for the year were to be 20,000,000l. there could be no great difficulty in adding 250,000l. to it. The right hon. gentleman said, that those who opposed the tax ought to find a substitute for it. That was not the case; but, if there were an addition of this kind made to the loan, they certainly were bound not to oppose it. The president of the board of control had said, that the chancellor of the exchequer was not to be charged with any evils that flowed from the lottery system. He denied the position; for lotteries now were very different from what they had been. The same right hon. gentleman said, the chancellor of the exchequer would have no objection to withdraw the sixteenth shares. But he was sure the right hon. gentleman would not agree to any such thing. What he greatly objected to was, that the right hon. gentleman left the arrangement of the lotteries solely to the contractors, who were at liberty to deal out the prizes just as they thought fit. It was a singular thing, that this was the only measure that had been brought forward on which his majesty's ministers acted together. The question was, the morality of the country in one scale, and the money in another; and on this point ministers were all agreed. "Take the money," said they, "and let morality provide for itself." But the chancellor of the exchequer had gained a great prize—he had drawn a prize more pleasing to him than the 250,000l.—he had excited the admiration of the president of the board of control!—He advised him, however, not to be too much elated; for he rather thought, if the right hon. gentleman embarked in that little-go he would live to repent it [A laugh!].

Mr. Huskisson

said, that under the present plan of the lottery there were only 12 days of drawing, however they might be divided; but under the old plan there were 40 days of drawing in London, besides another lottery with 40 days drawing in Dublin, and in each place insurances were effected on the lottery in the other. The evil of these insurances was, as had been proved to a committee of the House, fifty-fold as great as those which arose out of the lottery itself, and it was on that account that the present system was adopted. He argued, that the rage for gambling was not created by the lottery, but would, if the lottery were abolished, break out in some other direction; that the evils of smuggling were as great as those of the lottery, and might also be remedied by abolishing all taxes. It was easy to say, add 250,000l. to the loan. When it was proposed to abolish the window tax in Ireland, it might be said, add 300,000l. to the loan; but the persons who lent their money would expect to have their interest paid, and the question still remained, How the necessities-of the country were to be supplied?

Mr. Lyttelton

replied. He said, it would be impertinent in him to attempt to add any thing to the forcible arguments which the House had heard against the lottery. He had not appealed to the virtue of the right hon. the chancellor of the exchequer, or founded his argument on his character as a man of piety. He had purposely abstained from such appeal, and he wished it to be so understood. The report of the committee in 1809, of which the late Mr. Whitbread was chairmain, stated the lottery to have been productive of "idleness, dissipation, and madness." Was the tax which produced such evils to be compared to the leather tax? He called upon the House to put a stop to what destroyed the morals of the country, and would finally destroy its revenue.

The House then divided. Ayes, 84; Noes, 133. The other Resolutions were negatived without a division.

List of the Minority.
Abercromby, hon. J. Morland, sir S. B.
Althorp, visct. Macleod, Rod.
Baring, sir Thos. Monck, sir C.
Barnett, James Mildmay, P. St. John
Benyon, Ben. Manning, Wm.
Bernal, R. Newport, sir John
Browne, Dom. Ord, Wm.
Burdett, sir F. Parnell, sir H.
Burroughs, sir W. Parnell, Wm.
Buxton, T. F. Plunkett, rt. hon. W.
Colburne, N. R. Philips, George
Colclough, C. Philips, Geo. jun.
Crompton, Sam. Phillipps, C. M.
Carew, R. S. Price, Robt.
Clifford, Aug. Primrose, hon. F.
Cooper, Bransby Phillimore, Jos.
Calthorpe, hon. F. Power, Rd.
Douglas, hon. F. S. Palmer, C. F.
Davis, T. H. Prittie, hon. F. A.
Denman, Thos. Pares, Thos.
Daly, James Ridley, sir M. W.
Ellis, hon. G. A. Ricardo, David
Ebrington, visct. Sefton, earl of
Evans, Wm. Smith, Sam.
Fazakerley, Nic. Stewart, Wm.
Gipps, George Tierney, right hon. G.
Grant, J. P. Thorp, John Thos.
Grattan, rt. hon. H. Waithman, Robt.
Grenfell, Pascoe Wilberforce, W.
Gaskell, Benj. Wood, Matthew
Gordon, Robt. Williams, Wm.
Howard, hon. W. Whitbread, W.
Honywood, W. Walpole, hon. G.
Hornby, Ed. Williams, sir R.
Harvey, D. W. Wodehouse, hon. col.
Hutchinson, hon. C. H. Wilkins, Walter
Hurst, R. Wilson, sir Robt.
Hill, lord A. White, Luke
Heathcote, T. F. TELLERS.
Hume, Jos. Lyttelton, hon. W.
Knox, hon. Thos. Bennet, hon. H. G.
Kennedy, T. F. PAIRED OFF.
Lamb, hon. G. Duncannon, lord
Latouche, John Mackintosh, sir J.
Latouche, R. Hughes, W. L.
Martin, John Madocks, W.