LORD BROUGHAMsaid, that he had received a great number of letters on the subject of imprisonment for debt, and they all originated in a complete misapprehension of what had fallen from him. He had stated distinctly more than once last week, that persons who were in debt from misfortune had not the slightest ground to be alarmed by the statement which had appeared in a Sunday paper, which alleged that he had altered his opinion on the subject of imprisonment for debt, and that he had brought forward a measure for the restoration of the old law on the subject. Nothing was more groundless than such an assertion, and he had never said one word about the matter in connexion with the Bill. His noble Friend on the woolsack knew as well as himself that it was utterly impossible for the Legislature ever to retrace its steps on the subject of imprisonment for debt. A most respectable witness had that day been examined before the Committee on the Execution of the Criminal Law—he meant the governor of Lancaster Castle—who said that there 614 were between seventy and eighty prisoners at present confined there for debt. Now there was no reason why the far greater portion of them should be there, for it appeared that they had been imprisoned in consequence of a bad and mistaken construction put on the Act of 1844: several persons also, it appeared, were imprisoned by order of the courts of request at Lancaster, for alleged contempt. He repeated that nothing could be more entirely wrong than the change of opinion on the subject which had been attributed to him.