Sitting of 28 January 1819

PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT—ROBERT CHRISTIE BURTON, ESQ.
Sir James Mackintoshpresented a petition from several persons, merchants at Hull, represent-
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ing themselves to be creditors of Robert Christie Burton, against whom they had recovered judgment for debt in his majesty's Court of Common Pleas, and who was now confined in the Fleet-prison, by process of execution on the same. They had just learned that the said Robert Christie Burton had applied to that House to be discharged upon his privilege as a member, having previously applied to one of the judges of the court of King's-bench, in chambers, on the same ground, and experienced a refusal. The petitioners submitted, that the privilege of the House did not extend to executions upon judgment previously obtained, but only to mesne process; and that the said Robert Christie Burton was not eligible to a seat in parliament. They prayed, therefore, to be heard by counsel at the bar against his discharge, and that the House would grant them such relief as to their wisdom should seem meet. The hon. mover observed, that he was aware that the first part of their prayer could not be granted, but the second appeared to him to entitle the petition to lie upon the table.
The Speakersuggested, that, independently of the substance of the petition, which he should not examine, there was an irregularity in point of form, which would be fatal to it, the petition having been signed not by the petitioners themselves, but by a person describing himself as agent to the petitioners.
The petition was accordingly withdrawn. Mr. Wynn then brought up the report of the committee of privileges. It was read by the clerk, and stated, "That the said committee have found, that the said Robert Christie Burton is a member of this House, and is in the custody of the warden of the Fleet-prison in execution, and also on mesne process, at the suit of several creditors for civil debts: and the committee have, upon the whole matter resolved, That the said Robert Christie Burton is entitled to privilege of parliament."
Mr. Wynnsaid, he should have contented himself with merely moving two resolutions, expressing the concurrence of the House in this report, had it not been for the petition which had been presented and withdrawn on account of an informality. The substance, however, was as open to exception as the form, for it was a complete error to suppose that there was any distinction between the

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cases of Confinement upon mesne process, or in execution of a judgment. The reason of the privilege applied equally to both, and signified that, as the duty of attendance in parliament was the highest Service which could be required of any man, it ought not to be interrupted by the private claims of any individual. Several cases had fully established this principle, but it would be sufficient to mention two; that of Thomas Brown in the year 1676, who was in custody previous to his election; and that of a person named Asgill in the year 1707,* who, so far from being a favourite with the parliament which liberated him, was expelled immediately after for an irreligious publication. He did not think it necessary to make any further observations on the present case, and should therefore move, that the House do agree with the committee in the said resolution.
The motion was agreed to. It was then ordered, "That Robert Christie Burton be discharged out of the custody pf the warden of the Fleet-prison."

LICENCING SYSTEM.
Mr. Bennetpresented a petition from a person named Brownjohn, complaining of the improper conduct of a magistrate at Bristol, in refusing to renew his licence as a victualler, by which refusal the petitioner had been subjected to grievous loss and injury. The hon. gentleman observed, that he availed, himself of this opportunity of giving notice of his intention to propose, soon after Easter, some alteration of the law as it related to the mode of granting and taking away licences by magistrates.
Mr. Protheroeexpressed his confidence that the magistrate alluded to had not acted from any improper motive. He felt pleasure in testifying to the respectability of his character, as he was in an opposite interest to himself, and because an unfavourable impression was sometimes made by petitions of this nature.
Mr. Hart Davisbore similar testimony to the character of the gentleman against whom the complaint of the petitioner was preferred.
Mr. Bathurstapprehended that the court of King's-bench was the proper place to resort to with complaints of this nature. It was but lately that he had seen a case, in which that court had granted a rule to show cause why a
* See Parl. History, vol. 6, p. 600.
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criminal information should not be filed against a magistrate, for improperly refusing a licence. It did not appear to him fit that cases should be brought under consideration in that House, which might be tried in a court of competent jurisdiction, and investigated by evidence taken upon oath.
Mr. Bennetobserved, that the court of King's-bench would not interfere, except upon a prima facie case of corrupt motive in the magistrate. It held that the magistrate had an arbitrary power of licensing or refusing to license. He was not bound to state any reason for his proceeding, and the burthen of proving a corrupt motive rested upon the complainant. A very considerable amount of property, extending throughout the country, was thus placed in a condition unlike that of any other description of property, and no legal remedy could be obtained against proceedings which were often harsh, unjust, and unwarrantable. In such cases that House was the only authority to which the aggrieved party could appeal. They might reject this petition, but it was his fixed determination to bring the whole subject into discussion in the course of the present session.
Mr. Courtenaythought the observations of the hon. member applied, not to the merits of this petition, but to the general state of the law, with regard to this subject, which he agreed with him in thinking did call for some amendment. But the complaint of this petitioner appeared to him to fall peculiarly within the cognizance of a court of law. There was no doubt that instances of abuse and misapplication of their powers by magistrates occurred, and that parliament ought to direct its attention to the subject. The present case, however, being one which evidently belonged to the jurisdiction of a court of law, he would suggest the propriety of withdrawing the petition.
Mr. Humethought the public highly indebted to the hon. gentleman, for the important part which he had taken in the production of the police report. No man who had read it could deny, that the greatest abuses existed in the licensing system. He was strongly impressed with the necessity of bringing the subject before parliament at an early period. With respect to the petition immediately under consideration, he confessed that he should be sorry to see the doors of the house

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shut against such complaints against the existing authorities, as could not be successfully prosecuted in a court of law.
Mr. Bennet,as the general feeling of the House appeared to be against the reception of the petition, consented to withdraw it.

MOTION FOR ACCOUNTS RESPECTING BANK PROSECUTIONS FOR FORGERY.
Sir James Mackintoshsaid, he should have moved for the returns, the production of which he had in view, without any previous observation, as he understood it was not likely that his motion would be opposed, had he not wished to take the earliest opportunity of making a few remarks on the report of the commissioners appointed for inquiring into the mode of preventing the forgery of Bank-notes. [See p. 73.] Indeed, he had come down to the House yesterday with that intention, but observing that the hon. member for Exeter was not in his place, he thought it better to postpone saying any thing on the subject until that hon. gentleman, a member of the commission in question, should be present. The inquiry for which that commission was appointed, originated in a motion which he had had the honour to make in the last session of parliament*—not with the view of making the forgery of Bank-notes impossible, but with the more humble and more practicable object of rendering the imitation of them more difficult. Those hon. gentlemen who were members of the last parliament would do him the justice to recollect, that he distinctly staled, that the adoption of his proposition would have one of two advantages—either that, on the one hand, it would disclose the means by which the facilities of forgery, and consequently the temptation to it might be diminished, or that, on the other hand, by discovering that no such means could be devised, it would show that the only path of safety was a return to cash payments; and he believed that those hon. gentlemen would also remember, that he pretty clearly intimated his opinion which of the two advantages would in all probability be obtained. Although he certainly had expected from the beginning the result that had taken place, he must fairly own, that he had not entertained so much confidence in his own judgment as to suppose that the in-
* See vol. 38, p. 671.
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clination of his mind on the subject would receive such sanction and confirmation as it had received from the report of the commissioners. Of that report it was impossible for him to speak in any terms but in those of respect. It emanated from individuals, some of whom were eminent in science, and others were as respectable as any men in the country. He could never, therefore, regard the report of such a board with any other sentiment but that of deference. But he could by no means be so sanguine as to think that the report held out any expectations of an attainment of the object which the commission had in view. On the contrary, it appeared to him to demonstrate, that there was little or no prospect of ever lessening the facilities of forgery, removing the temptation to the crime and diminishing all that depravity which accompanied it, by any course but by a return to cash payments. He considered that the report was most decisive as to the expediency of renewing cash payments, with all those who thought that the lives of men, and the morality of the population, ought to be among the highest objects of the deliberations of parliament. Having made these few observations, he now wished to call the attention of the house to the general results of the report. And he was glad to do this in the presence of those who would correct him if he made any unintentional misstatements, as he considered that a great advantage. If he understood the substance of the report, it amounted to—that about two hundred projects for the improvement of Bank-notes had been laid before the Directors of the Bank of England, and before the commissioners; that all those which had been laid before the Directors of the Bank of England, had been, in the opinion of the commissioners, very properly rejected by them: that with respect to those projects which had been laid before the commissioners, only nine deserved serious consideration, although twelve more were praised for their ingenuity; that of those nine (if he rightly understood the report) only one could, under all the circumstances of the case, be recommended by the commissioners as worthy of experiment; and that although, it was not distinctly stated by the commissioners, that the other eight projects were rejected, yet the tendency of the language used in the report amounted to a declaration, that those

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other eight projects were not thought by the commissioners to be above the reach of easy imitation. The house, therefore, must consider the result of the whole to be, that of all the projects laid before the Directors of the Bank of England during twenty years, not one was thought to hold out any prospect of amending the present system; and that of all those which had been since submitted to the commissioners, only one was deemed by them to be worthy of experiment—and here he must observe, that the commissioners, very creditable to themselves, had stated their opinion even of this single favoured project in very cautious language. It was evident that they were laudably solicitous not to excite hopes which might eventually be disappointed, and that they had, therefore, qualified even the glimpse of expectation which they held out to the British public. They told the public that they had received only one project which they could recommend—not for immediate execution, but "to be put in course of trial with a view to combination with other improvements." There was one pact of the report which he confessed he had read with much surprise. It was that in which the commissioners expressed their apprehension that any advantage to be derived from an improvement in the construction of the Bank-note would probably be much abated by the carelessness of the public in taking notes without sufficient examination. He owned his astonishment at this declaration; for he had always considered that carelessness as one of the conditions of the problem that was to be solved—one of the facts that were to be assumed by the commissioners in their investigation—one of the circumstances that rendered the attainment of the object in view in a considerable degree difficult. It was vain and useless to talk of the carelessness of the public as an impediment in the way of success. Any invention for the purpose in the question would be utterly useless, unless it possessed such obvious and distinctive marks as would put the public at once on its guard, and would be obvious to the hasty glance of a common observer; an observer as careless as the great majority of men ware found to be. It was almost to state that all the remedy for the evil was unattainable, to state that the carelessness of mankind, was, an obstacle to its attainment. The carelessness off mankind, as operating in the exchange of commodities by
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barter, rendered the establishment of a standard currency an object of importance to all nations.—With respect to the two last sentences of the report, they seemed to him so framed, as to throw a damp on, and extinguish even the little hope which it had previously raised. To press the matter further, he felt would be to waste the time of the house. He could not believe that any hon. member would be persuaded to commit the property of the whole people, and the lives of a great many of them, to the expectation of the success that might attend a single untried experiment; more especially after the failure of so many ingenious plans, the advantages of which had no doubt appeared to their inventors to be certain. He could not but think, that the result of the investigation that had taken place must satisfy the house (as far as that part of the question went), that all hope of diminishing the facilities and temptation forgery, by any amendment in the struction of the notes, was so slender as to be practically nothing. The question, therefore, was reduced to this:—the report had shown that there was only one, and that a very slight expectation of diminishing, by any new plan of preparing the notes, the forgeries, the executions, and all the other horrors attendant on the existing system. Would the house, after hearing this, and having other means in their power by which the crime of forgery and its consequent miseries might be most materially diminished, nevertheless vote for their perpetuation? Would they for a moment think of balancing that crime and those miseries in one scale, by throwing any supposed financial advantage into the other? The right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer would probably urge them to do this. All he should say was, that the former House of Commons listened to the right hon. gentleman's voice on the subject, and the melancholy results were but top well known. In 1816, when the difference between the market and the Mint prices of gold and silver was only 7-8ths per cent, the question arose whether or not money payments should be re-established. The chancellor of the exchequer prevailed on parliament further to restrain them. The consequence was, that in the three years which had intervened, fifty capital punishments for forgery had taken place. This was one of the many sad results of the fatal confidence reposed by the last par-

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liament in his majesty's government. It was the more to be regretted, because at that very moment the country had passed through the greatest shock and revulsion of a return to cash payments, by the Bank of England withdrawing its issues, and the failure of the country banks. Not having the courage to take one wise step, the country was again plunged into all those horrors from which it was now found so difficult to extricate it. The question was, whether, after the experience of the last House of Commons, the present House of Commons would follow the guides who had misled their predecessors, and vote for the continuance of a measure which had been attended by such consequences, unless the necessity for it were proved on the grounds of a policy superior (if any such policy there could be) to the calls of humanity, by a full, impartial, efficient, and public inquiry into the reasons and considerations of expediency urged in its favour. He would now move, "That there be laid before the house, an Account of the number of Persons prosecuted for forging notes of the Bank of England, or for knowingly uttering or possessing forged Notes, from the 10th of April 1818 to the '28th of January 1819; distinguishing the capital Convictions from those of an inferior nature, and the number of those Prosecutions which relate to notes of 51. and upwards, from the number of those which relate to notes of 1/. and 2l.
Mr. Courtenayobserved, that the members of the commission, whose report had been adverted to by the hon. and learned gentleman, had felt it their duty to ascertain, as far as they could, the value of the respective inventions submitted to them. What might be the weight of the opinion which they had formed and delivered, it was not for him to say. The hon. and learned gentleman, however, had a little misconceived the report of the commissioners. They had been fully aware that their report must create much disappointment. It was clear that the ingenious projectors of those plans they had not been able to approve, were likely to think the seven commissioners rather than themselves to be in the wrong. But the commissioners were also aware, that the longer the public were kept in ignorance of their opinion, the longer would those individuals be kept in a state that must tend to increase the disappointment when it arrived. In that view of the sub-
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ject, the commissioners, Anxious so far to make a report of their proceedings, were nevertheless unable to state fully the result, which they hoped ere long to do. In the report which the commissioners had made, he agreed with the hon. and learned gentleman, that they had used language, calculated to show the house and the country, that the desired object was not so easy of attainment as by some it was supposed to be. And this they were the more solicitous to do, because the belief had been fostered throughout the country, that nothing but the grossest ignorance and negligence on the part of the directors of the Bank, could have prevented the adoption long ago of some scheme by which the evil complained of might have been remedied. They owed it to the House and the country to state, that not one of the plans presented could be adopted with solid advantage to the public. It was, he conceived, his duty to state that opinion; but the commission at the same time felt it their duty to distinguish particularly some of the projects which were presented to them. It was stated in the report, that not more than nine of the projects deserved to be more particularly mentioned. Many of the plans certainly possessed very great merit. The degree of talent which had been displayed was very great indeed. Several of the plans of individuals, both of this country and abroad, and more particularly of the united states of America, possessed very extraordinary merit. He mentioned this to show that no communication on the subject had been overlooked by the commissioners, and that those were deceived who thought that some of the specimens presented, if attended to, would have produced the desired effects. In many of the plans submitted to them, complicated machinery was necessary to produce the notes, and it was supposed by the projectors, that these notes could not be well imitated but by that machinery. But these persons forgot that a great number of imitations, not so excellent indeed as the original, but sufficient for the purposes of forgery, might be made, without the application of the same extensive machinery.—He could not sit down without remarking, that his- hon. friend had said more than the commissioners meant to say in the report, when he alleged that they were anxious to repress the hopes of the public, and that they themselves despaired of success.

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Now, they did anticipate that a note would be produced, the introduction of which would answer the purpose desired. His hon. friend would allow, that it was their duty to select from among the specimens presented to them, the one which was the best and most likely to preclude the possibility of imitation. They had accordingly selected one which they had every reason to believe would succeed. But, even on this plan, they had thought that an improvement might be made; and he had the satisfaction of stating, that since the date of the document which had been alluded to, they had had additional reason to anticipate success. A gentleman of the commission was of opinion that a combination of this design with paper of a particular fabric would render imitation almost impossible; and a respectable manufacturer was now employed in making paper for the experiment. Although he denied, therefore, as had been improperly alleged in some of the public papers, that forgeries, and executions for forgeries, could have been prevented sooner, he had still reason to believe that the attempts to prevent them would ultimately succeed. The commissioners were not desirous to raise too sanguine hopes, but at the same time they had no reason to despair of success.
Mr. Tierneysaid, if he understood the hon. and learned gentleman correctly, the substance of what he said was—that though some improvements on the existing system had been presented to the commission, yet no projects had been presented to that body which allowed them to entertain any thing more than a hope that some device might be hit upon which would tender the crime of forgery infinitely more difficult. He wished to learn from him when they might expect the ultimate opinion of the commission on the experiments they were now making—when they might expect something more definite on the subject than mere hope. It was material that the commission should report whether they had merely a hope, or whether they had something more than a hope, that the crime of forgery could not be committed with the same security as heretofore.
Mr. Courtenaysaid, that many of the specimens shown to the commission possessed great merit, and were in themselves an improvement on the existing system; but it had been suggested by a member of the commission, who was at the same time a member
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of that House, that any of the plans might be very much improved by combination. The experiment which had been suggested, was now in progress. They had every reason to believe that the improvement in the form of the note, combined with the improvement in the paper which had been suggested, would render, imitation extremely difficult. The paper was now making by a paper-maker of great skill. In a month's time, he had no doubt, a note would be produced of such a form, as to justify them in recommending its adoption, and which would render forgery extremely difficult.
The motion was agreed to.
Sir James Mackintoshthen moved for an account of the number of forged notes which had been detected by the Bank of England, from the 10th of April 1818 to the 28th of January 1819. In making this motion, he wished to say a few words on what had fallen from his hon. and learned friend. It appeared that the only result, after six months' labour on the part of the commission was, that they might expect something from one untried experiment. They were now in a very different situation from what they conceived themselves to be in before. It was conceived that many means might be devised for the diminution of forgeries; but now all their hopes of success rested on an experiment which was yet untried. The House would greatly mistake him, if they thought that he undervalued the inquiries of the commission. Even after the resumption of cash payments, such an improvement in the construction of bank notes as would render it more difficult to imitate them, would be a very great improvement. As the paper which would continue in circulation after the resumption, would continue to be attacked some time from the habit of forgery contracted during the stoppage of cash payments, it would require all possible improvements to protect the public after the resumption. Any improvement, even the slightest, would therefore, in his opinion, be desirable.
Mr. Courtenaysaid, he meant to state that the note on which experiments were making, was in such a state, that they thought it already a considerable improvement on the present note; but they thought that even that note might be improved, and that improvement was now under experiment.
The motion was then agreed to.