Lords Sitting of 8 April 1805

MINUTES.
Counsel were further heard relative to the Scotch Appeal, Cathcart, bart. v. the Earl of Cassius, viz. Mr. Erskine, at considerable length, as second counsel, for the Respondent. The hearing of counsel was rather earlier postponed than usual, in consequence of the sudden indisposition of the lord Chancellor, on account of which an adjournment of the house, during pleasure, took place. In the course of about half an hour, the house resumed, and the lord Chancellor took his seat on the Woolsack; and the farther consideration of the appeal was adjourned till to-morrow.—The bills upon the table were forwarded in their several stages: among these, the Neutral Ships and Innkeeper's Allowance bills were read a third time and passed, and the Irish Spirits Permit bill went through a committee of the whole house.—The indisposition of the lord Chancellor continuing, it was moved, his majesty's commission under the great seal, be read; authorising and appointing Edward Lord Ellenborough, Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench, to act and officiate as
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Speaker of the House of Lords, during the absence of the lord Chancellor, &c. The same was read accordingly. The lord Chancellor then put the formal question upon the proceedings, and retired from the house, and lord Ellenborough shortly after took his seat upon the woolsack, as Speaker pro tempore.

MILITIA ENLISTING BILL.
The Militia Enlisting bill, was then read the third time; and on the question being put that the bill do pass;
Earl Spencerrose, not oppose the passing of the bill, but merely to enquire of the noble secretary of state what arrangement was intended with respect to a matter which his lordship conceived to be highly important, but for which no provision was made in the present bill, that he could observe; namely, with regard to the officers now attached to the several regiments of militia, but who would be superfluous or supernumerary, when those regiments should come to be reduced to their intended limitation; his object was, to be informed whether they were to be continued on full, or reduced to half-pay.
Lord Hawkesburyanswered, that the bill was not intended to affect the pay of any officer now attached as such to any regiment of militia, in consequence of the reduction, so long as the militia continued embodied.
Earl Spencersaid, his only difficulty wag how such supernumerary officers couldlegally continue to receive full pay after the reduction of the militia to its original standard. Such a principle he was sure must be contrary to the spirit of the original Militia law; and without a special clause in the bill (which certainly might be amended any time in the course of present session) he did not see how that principle could be dispensed with.—The question being put, "that the bill do pass," the house divided;

Contents

55

Non-contents

40

—

Majority for the Bill

15

Adjourned.