Sitting of 23 March 1805

MINUTES.
—Counsel were farther heard relative to the Scots Appeal, Rocheid v.Kinlock, bart. viz. Mr. Clark in continuation, and at great length, on behalf of the respondent. The farther consideration of the case was adjourned till Monday.—The
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Irish Promissory Notes, and Sugar Bounties Drawback Bills, were read a second time, and the committees thereon negatived.—The various bills before the house were forwarded in their respective stages. Among these, the Exchequer Bills bill, the Sugar Duties Drawback, the Spirits Warehousing, the Irish Stamp Duties bill, Postage Rates, Excise Duties, Malt Tax, Custom Duties, and Expiring Laws bills, were severally read a third time and passed.—The order for summoning their lordships, for taking into consideration the 26th and 155th standing orders, with a reference to suspending the same, as far as related to the two last mentioned bills, being read; lord Walsingham addressed a few words to their lordships on the occasion. He expressed his unwillingness to come forward in such instances, save where the necessity of the case justified a casual suspension of any of their Lordship's Standing orders; such a proceeding was, he conceived, necessarily called for in the present instance; he should therefore move, that the said standing orders be suspended, as far as related to the bills in question.—The Lord Chancellor quitted the wool-sack, not for the purpose of opposing the motion; for that, he thought, was called for by the particular circumstances of the present case, and he was aware of the importance of the bills in question to the revenues; but, in discharge of the duty he owed their lordships, to endeavour to impress on their minds the general necessity of scrupulously adhering to their standing orders, on which so much of the dignity and correctness of their lordships' proceedings depended. On that ground, he had therefore to express his earnest hope that no similar occasion would again occur where it might become necessary to suspend the standing order of the house. Sufficient time ought to be given for the due consideration of bills in that house; and he regretted that tow or three instances had occurred this session in which the standing orders had been suspended. He was aware that the calculations respecting the accounts between England and Ireland were difficult and complicated, and might probably take up much time. He repeated however his hope that a similar instance of suspending their standing orders, for want of sufficient time to go through a bill in its ordinary stages, would not again occur.—The question being put: the Irish Sugar Bounties Drawback, and Promissory Notes bills, were, on the motion of lord Walsingham, accordingly forthwith read a third time and passed.—Adjourned.