Lords Sitting of 20 May 1805

MINUTES.
Their lordships proceeded further in the appeal Redington v. Redington. Mr. Romilly was heard in continuation, and Mr. Agar on behalf of the respondent.—On the second reading of Moore's Divorce bill, Mr. Adam was heard on the part of the applicant, and evidence was examined to prove the fact of adultery committed by Mrs. Moore. After which the bill was ordered to be committed on Friday.—The Land Tax Commissioners Name bill, the Property Tax Amendment bill, and Irish First Fruits bills were read a second time.—Mr. Alexander brought up the Irish Commonable Lands bill, the Slate Duty bill, the Pancras Poor bill, and several private bills, which were all read a first time. On the Irish Commonable Lands bill, the lord chancellor said, he felt it his duty to call most emphatically their lordships' most serious and cautious attention to the measure. It was a bill which went, or rather attempted, to divide and partition, by one

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sweeping act, the common lands of Ireland. It seemed to proceed upon an assumption, that it was as easy a matter to parcel out and divide those lands, as it would be to divide an estate between three or four members of a family. In the bill before them, there seemed to be no attention paid to the rights of lords of manor; no regulations with respect to tithes or moduses; no provisions with respect to roads, or other inclosures, which, in this country, were, upon the particular cases arising, made the subject of separate bills; no provisions for reference to juries, with respect to contingent questions of private or individual property arising, in that most of those necessary provisions or regulations which were uniformly introduced into bills of the kind in this country, were omitted, and this, in a general bill, which professed to do that, which was made the subject of distinct and separate legislative measures in this part of the united kingdom. These were considerations which their lordships would have most seriously to attend to, when the bill should come to be read a second time. For his own part, he felt these objections to the measure so strongly, that he could not suffer it to go even through its first stage, without expressing them. The bill lies over for a second reading.—The Earl of Radnor, moved, that the recent message from the commons respecting the attendance of the Earl of St. Vincent, on the select committee of that house, be taken into consideration tomorrow. Ordered.—Adjourned.