Sitting of 4 March 1834

MINUTES.
Bill. Read a first time:—Sugar Duties.
Petitions presented. By Sir JAMES GRAHAM, from several Places, for Amending the Poor Laws.—By Messrs. CHILDERS, TAVLEURE, and RAINES, and Lords MOLYNEUX, and JOHN RUSSELL, from a Number of Places, for Relief to the Dissenters By Mr. C. FITZSIMON, from two Places, for the Repeal of the Union—By Mr. DOBBIN, and Mr. FITZSIMON, from several Places, for the Abolition of Tithes.—By Mr. Alderman THOMPSON, from the Members of the Medical Profession of Sunderland, &c., for Inquiry into the State of Medical Corporations.

COMMUTATION OF TITHES—DEVONSHIRE PETITION.
Lord Ebringtonrose for the purpose of presenting a petition which had been intrusted to him from the owners and occupiers of land and other inhabitants, paying tithes, of both divisions of the county of Devon, and which had been agreed to at a public meeting of the county, most respectably and largely attended. The petitioners stated, that they had presumed to address the House of Commons, in consequence of understanding it to be the intention of his Majesty's Ministers to introduce a Bill during the present Session of Parliament, for effecting certain changes in the existing Tithe-laws. They complained that the demand for the tenth part of the gross produce of the land, by those who contributed nothing towards its production was at variance with the dictates of reason and the principles of justice, and most oppressively grievous, when, as frequently happened, the value of the whole crop did not equal the expense of raising it. They, therefore, prayed, that the subject of tithes might be taken into the serious consideration of

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the House, and that they might be permanently commuted, on the basis of supposing the tithe-owner the tenth-part proprietor of the soil; but, anxiously as they desired a change in the existing Tithe-laws, oppressive and unjust as they considered them, they would nevertheless prefer their continuance, to the enactment of any other measure that would have the effect of exempting the holders of tithe-property from bearing their just portion of all parochial and other assessments, thereby severing their interests from those of the rest of the community. He could not avoid saying, that the petition had been agreed to by an overwhelming majority of the thousands who composed the meeting; and the sentiments it contained were, he believed, the sentiments of a numerical majority of the owners and occupiers of land paying tithe in the county;—he said numerically, because a small portion of the great landed proprietors in the county had attended the meeting, and, of that class, he might say, a majority was opposed to the prayer of the petition. The painful duty devolved upon him of expressing an opinion differing from that entertained by so large a portion of his constituents, and that pain was increased by the consideration that the individuals from whom he differed on the present occasion were those to whom he mainly owed the honour conferred on him of representing the county in Parliament. It was, at the same time, satisfactory to his own feelings to know that his opinions had never been disguised from them on that subject. From the moment he had become a Member of the House, representing that constituency, he had been an advocate for a fair commutation, because he thought that an equitable commutation of tithe would be equally beneficial to the proprietor of tithes and the occupier of the land. He was of opinion, that, had an equitable commutation been effected many years ago, much of the difficulty and discontent which attended the settlement of the question would have been avoided. At the same time he could not admit, that the principle prayed for in the petition, that the tithes be commuted for one-tenth of the rent, was a fair one upon which they could regulate the commutation. Without trespassing further upon the attention of the House, he would move, that the petition be read.
The Petition was read at length.
Lord John Russell, as a member for the southern division of the county of Devon, and from having been requested to support the prayer of the petition, begged to intrude for a few moments upon the attention of the House. He agreed with his noble friend who presented the petition, as to the general feeling among the yeomanry of Devonshire, from whom the petition emanated, which was signed by upwards of 9,000 persons. He had great pleasure likewise in agreeing with their opinion, that tithe, in itself, was both unreasonable and unjust. There could be nothing more unjust, or more impolitic, than a law which tended to discourage the cultivation of the soil, which it ought to be the policy of all good government to promote. Nothing could be more impolitic than to interfere with the skill and capital of those desirous of improving the land, and taking from those persons a great portion, if not all, the due returns of their skill and capital, thus depriving them of all motives for making improvements. He considered, therefore, tithes in themselves, as properly the institution of a barbarous age; and his only wonder was, that it was left to these days to provide a remedy for this great and oppressive evil. He believed that the most perfect integrity, and a sense of fair dealing towards the clergy, animated these petitioners; and though he had the misfortune not to agree with them in the conclusion to which they had come, he believed, in drawing that conclusion, they meant to do full justice to the clergy and the tithe-owners. They had been led into what he considered an error, he believed, by the attempt made to place the property of the Church on too high a ground, and considering it as if it were private property. In his opinion, Church property was intended to be enjoyed and used for the public good. But, having heard this assumption put forward, and having heard it said, that Church proprietors were the same as other proprietors of the soil, the Devonshire yeomanry were doing what was not unnatural for those to do who considered Church property like other property. They thought, that, while claiming only a part, the Church took the whole profit; but if the profit were large, they took a tenth of that large profit, and if the profit were small, they only took a tenth of that small or inconsiderable profit. This reasoning was not

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unnatural, and upon this they proposed a plan of commutation. At this point, he (Lord John Russell) was compelled to differ from the petitioners, and he did so with great pain, because he knew them to be honest and excellent men. He did not think, as the clergy were legally entitled to a tenth of the produce, that this would be fairly commuted by giving them a tenth of the rent. It was said by the hon. member for Liskeard, who, less than any other man, followed the popular opinion, that the rent of the land in Devonshire, was a third of the value of the produce, therefore, what the petitioners asked was, that the legal right of the clergy to the tenth of the produce, should be commuted to the tenth of a third, or to a thirtieth of the produce. He must say, having considered the subject both last year and the present, and wishing, as he did, to see a fair commutation, that he did not think an exchange for a tenth of the rent would be a fair commutation. He would only say again, that he participated with his noble friend (Lord Ebrington) in his regret at differing from the petitioners. He, however, did not find in the other counties of England that the farmers saw the subject in the same light they did not come forward in those other counties; and, as they had manifestly an interest in so doing, he must conclude that the general opinion of the people of England was, that the proposal of the Devonshire yeomanry would not be a fair commutation.
Mr. Bulteeldeclared his decided dissent from the proposition contained in the petition, and, in doing so, he concurred, he knew, with a vast majority of the inhabitants of the county from whence the petition emanated. In adopting this course, he begged it to be understood that he was not arraying himself against the general tenets expressed in the petition; but he firmly believed the great majority of the county were opposed to the plan laid down for a commutation. At the same time the whole county entertained a conviction that the grievances complained of must be removed, and they looked to the Government for some perfect and decided remedial measure. He congratulated the House upon the sentiments which had fallen from his noble friend (Lord John Russell), from which it was to be anticipated that some measure would be proposed by his Majesty's Government
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upon the subject, and he hoped that it might settle the point for ever, and remove all disputes between the farmer and the clergyman. He hoped, that all tithes on productive industry would be done away, and the farmer enabled to improve his farm without being haunted by an apprehension of the clergyman.
Sir William Chaytor, in supporting the prayer of the petition, stated, that he did so being a tithe-owner himself, for he was ready and willing to give them up.
Mr. Feargus O'Connorobserved, that Ministers had repeatedly stated what they would do; but he would ask, in the face of the assertion, what had they done? Why they had admitted the right of the clergy to tithes, at the same time admitting that they had no right to collect them under that denomination. He was happy to see that petition, and to the principles it expressed he gave his most cordial support.
Mr. Parrottbegged leave to put the House in possession of the principle upon which the petitioners asked for the commutation, which had not yet been touched upon. Before he did so, he would notice a few of the observations which had fallen from the noble Viscount (Ebrington) opposite. The noble Viscount said, that the petition was not supported by the great landed proprietors of the county. There was no doubt that the petition was not signed by the great body of the great landed proprietors; but, on looking at the signatures in the very first page, he found those of nine Magistrates of the county; so, that though the great body did not support the petition, it was clear that a considerable portion of them were not averse from it; and, besides those names, there were many others that he recognized as being those of most respectable landowners. Without in any manner intending to speak harshly of the great proprietors of land, he thought he could easily point out one very good reason why their signatures were not attached to the petition. They were almost the only class who were the proprietors of tithes, which properly belonged to the Church; and, of course, were quite contented with the system as it at present existed. He believed there was very little doubt, but that a strong feeling existed against that system in Devonshire. He also believed, that the same feeling prevailed in other counties—in fact, there was an almost

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universal feeling throughout the country against the payment of tithes in kind—and every one now claimed exemption from that payment. But if the tithe-owners were to be paid in money to the full value of the tenth of the produce of the soil, how could there be any redress of grievances? In place of a redress of the grievances, it would be an aggravation of them. If such were to be the measure passed by the House, the tithe-owner would have the whole profit of the land. The prayer of the petition did not seem to be understood. What the petitioners stated was, that, seeing the great difficulty of the tithe question, they came forward in a constitutional manner to point the way in which they thought it might be, and ought to be settled. With regard to what they prayed for, he believed there was some misconception. What they prayed for was this—that the land should be valued as free from tithes, rates, and taxes, and that a tenth should then be taken and set apart for the support of the Church; that tenth also to be liable to rates and taxes the same as the other nine-tenths. The present rent, which was a portion of the nett profit paid for the occupation, might be high or low, but the value of the land as he had described it, was independent of such a bargain. At present the average rate of composition for tithes in Devonshire was 2s. 6d. in the pound; and he believed that the tenth estimated in the way he had described, would amount to a greater sum than the composition. The petitioners did not ask to have tithes valued at one-tenth of the present rent, but at one-tenth of the real value. The petitioners prayed that there should be no commutation of tithes until such a valuation was taken of the land, otherwise the tithe-owners would be doubly taxed. The misconception which existed would be removed by impressing on the House, that it was the desire of the petitioners to have the land valued free of all taxes, and one-tenth then reserved for the tithe-owners, and the other nine-tenths given to the occupiers. This was a simple statement, and would set the matter at rest. He (Mr. Parrott) could not help reverting to the original state of tithes, while on that subject. When a tenth part of the land was first appropriated to the Church, it was in a state of nature—quite uncultivated. The tithes were not then oppressive. They were devoted to four
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different purposes—the maintenance of the clergy, the support of the Bishops, to the necessaries of the Church service, and the relief of the poor. Subsequently, they were used for only three different purposes. When they passed into the hands of the Protestants, they were wholly given up to one purpose. Thus they became a burthen on, and attracted the odium of, the people. It was impossible for him (Mr. Parrott) not to revert to that topic when they were speaking of tithes. Under all the circumstances, he considered the demands of the petitioners to be most reasonable; they praying from his Majesty's Ministers no commutation of tithes, but, in a manner least favourable to themselves, and quite compatible with the subsequent arrangement, for a fair adjustment. They had been most submissive to the law; they did nothing but struggle against a great grievance, and in a constitutional manner. They expected from his Majesty's Ministers that the Reform Bill would be productive of great benefit. The first and paramount object they considered to be, the getting rid of tithes. What was the use of the Reform Bill, unless it led to such alterations as would remove that greatest of all grievances? He concurred fully in the prayer of the petition, and should not have done his duty if he had not supported it with all his power. He would beg to direct the attention of Government to one point. The present was a golden opportunity to attach a large body of the people to them. If it was thrown away, it might not be easy again to find such another. There was not a single measure which could attract and fix the affections of the people so soon and so firmly, as that act of justice which would relieve them from the pressing grievance of tithes.
Colonel Sealesaid, that representing a borough in Devonshire, he had been requested to support the prayer of the petition, and he begged to express his entire concurrence in its prayer. He agreed with the noble Lord who had presented the petition in most of the sentiments he had expressed, and he gave the noble Lord credit for the fairness with which he had stated the manner in which it had been got up. He could bear testimony to the respectability and wealth of the persons who had attended the meeting; at the same time, he must say, that the noble Lord could scarcely have assumed, although

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he had done so from a feeling of candour, that the great landed proprietors were adverse to its prayer. If they were, why had they not come forward and expressed their disapprobation? They had a fair opportunity of doing so. He dissented from the opinion expressed by the hon. member for Devon (Mr. Bulteel), that the great landed proprietors were opposed to the prayer of that petition, and he would put it to the test in this way. He would ask his hon. friend, whether he could get up a petition of an adverse nature? If he could procure 20,000 or 30,000 signatures in that county to a petition of an adverse nature, let him produce them. He had heard the expression "spoliation" applied to the valuation called for by this petition, viz. that the tithe-owners should be one-tenth proprietors of the soil, but he believed such a charge was unfounded. For the last twenty years the maximum of valuation was 2s. 6d. in the pound, and only nine years since, an observation was made that the highest amount that could be claimed by the tithe-owners was from 3s. to 3s. 3d. in the pound; therefore, the charge of spoliation was as applicable to one side as the other. Another charge was brought against the landlords, viz. that the occupiers of the soil were not so much interested in that question as the landlords, who would derive all the benefit from the commutation of tithes, and put the profits into their own pockets. It was very true that where one farm was tithe-free and another paid tithes, the one that was free paid a higher rent in proportion to the amount of the tithe, and if tithes were swept away from the land, rent would be one-third higher in the market. The noble Lord (Lord Althorp) had stated it was his intention to bring in a measure at an early period, which would be consistent with the wishes of the country, and he hoped that such would be the case. He cautioned the noble Lord, however, not to bring in any half measure, for it would meet with general disapprobation. He gave his most decided support to the prayer of the petition.
Mr. Wilbrahamwas willing to concur in any measure for the relief of the agricultural interest, but at the same time he must protest against any particular county dictating to the rest of the country. As to the exact mode of commuting tithes, that mode which might suit the county of Devon might be unjust to the rest of the
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country. It should be left to the wisdom of that Parliament in which the people were fairly represented, and in which (as far as regarded the other House) the clergy were also represented. Although he agreed in the general allegations of the petition, he protested against a particular mode of redress laid down by one class of persons.
Mr. Divetthaving been present at the meeting at which the petition was agreed to, and having been in the minority on that occasion, was anxious to state his reasons why he dissented from the petitioners. He fully agreed with his noble friends as to the high respectability of the petitioners, but he must say, that most of the persons who assembled at the meeting came there with strong opinions previously formed. The petitioners thought that, from the plan which had been proposed by the Government, the farmers would derive no benefit; but he thought they would derive great benefit, for this reason, that in Devonshire there was a great number of small occupiers and leaseholders, and, therefore, they would be greatly benefitted during the continuance of their holdings. It was true that tithes originated in barbarous times, and he attributed their continuance so long to the moderation with which they had been enforced. They had also been greatly extended during the war, when the high prices existed, and they had not been decreased in proportion to the decrease in the prices. He trusted, however, that the measure of the Government would be productive of much good, and that a clause would be introduced for the redemption of tithes. He knew it was of great importance that all the bickerings and heart-burnings between the clergy and the people should be speedily removed. As to the dictation spoken of by the hon. Member who preceded him, he denied that anything of that kind prevailed at the meeting at which the petition was agreed to. He knew that the feeling against tithes was stronger in Devonshire than in most other counties; and he should like to see the question settled so as to remove all the existing ill-feeling upon the subject.
Mr. O'Connellsaid, he had a few words to address to the House in consequence of some observations made by the noble Lord opposite (Lord John Russell), both in that House and at a public meeting in Devonshire. The noble Lord, at that

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meeting—[Lord John Russell, I did not attend the meeting]. No matter; at some other meeting. Then the noble Lord was reported in the public papers to have condescended to notice so humble an individual as himself, and also to have attributed to him (Mr. O'Connell) a wish not only to abolish tithes, but that he would support a Motion for restoring tithes to their original owner—["No, no," from Lord John Russell]. It was so stated in the newspapers.
Lord John Russellsaid, he did not know what was attributed to him in the public papers, but he was glad to have that opportunity of stating that he did not think that he had said anything resembling what the hon. and learned Member alluded to. The only thing that occurred to him that he (Lord John Russell) did say was, that at some meeting, speaking of abbeys and nunneries, he expressed a supposition that nobody except the hon. and learned member for Dublin wished to see them restored. He said this in consequence of that hon. and learned Member having been represented at some meeting at Kildare to have lamented pathetically over the ruins of the nunneries of that part of Ireland.
Mr. O'Connellsaid, that the noble Lord did him justice. Whatever might be his speculative or individual opinions upon the value of those institutions—and he did consider them very valuable—he had never said even one word that contained any idea of the transfer of that species of property to the original owners, vested as it was under several Acts of Parliament, and settled by a long course of time. For himself, individually, he would add, that the greater part of that property which he possessed was of that nature. There was another observation of the noble Lord which he did make, for he used it in the House that morning—viz. his attributing the origin of tithes to barbarous times. They certainly did not exist in Ireland till they were introduced by the English, so that the English were the barbarous bestowers of tithe upon that country. If they could get rid of that barbarous novelty it would be no small blessing. The noble Lord had promised a Bill to make some alteration with respect to tithes; but it should be recollected that every alteration was not an amendment; they should see whether it aggravated or diminished the evil, and if it did the latter, every one would concur in it; but if it aggravated
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the evil, then it was incumbent on the Government to give up their plan. They were bringing forward a plan, not after speculation, but after a trial and a failure. It had been tried in Ireland and it had failed, for it had aggravated the evils. Whilst the tithe system existed, the tithe-payer had a choice either to give up a tenth part of his corn and potatoes, or to pay it in money. If corn was dear, then, of course, his choice would be to pay it in money; but where the corn was cheap and abundant, then, on the contrary, it would be his choice to pay it in kind. The peasantry in Ireland had very little ready capital, and this choice was, to them, of no small importance. The Tithe Composition Act not only took away the choice, but it gave the clergy many facilities of recovering their tithes which they did not possess before. It gave the clergy a grinding power over the unfortunate farmer—it gave them power to distrain even the growing crop; and whereas, before, the clergyman could enter the ground only once a-year, he was enabled to come twice, and to carry away with him anything he could lay his hands on. Whatever was wanted for daily consumption, the clergyman came and marked for distraint, and the poor peasant might be thrust into gaol for daring to give a potatoe, which he had grown by his own labour, to his family. That alteration, in his (Mr. O'Connell's) opinion, instead of being an improvement, had made matters worse. No good could be effected by a change in commutation. He felt it to be his duty most solemnly to protest against the Government Bill, for altering the levy of tithes in Ireland for it was only calculated to aggravate the mischiefs complained of, as it gave the power of distraining without that of replevying. And he, therefore, implored hon. Members, before they consented to a commutation in England, he had already shown its bad effects in Ireland, to ascertain whether it would be productive of good or evil. He felt great delight that a petition of such a character should have been presented from so great a county, and did not consider that it had been at all disparaged by what had fallen from the hon. member for Cheshire.
Mr. Ruddel Toddconcurred with the last speaker—the discussion would be of a more legislative nature when the Bill was before the House, and would be attended with real advantage.
Sir Henry Willoughbywould not object to the petition being allowed to lie upon the Table, but he very strongly condemned the prayer it contained. He thought that if the House acceded to the prayer of that petition it would be guilty of as great an act of robbery and plunder, as had ever been perpetrated. This was his firm and decided opinion. The average rent of tithe paid in England was 5s. an acre. Well, suppose it was 3s. If they reduced that 3s. to 2s., would they not, he put it to the House, be guilty of a pure and unadulterated act of confiscation? The hon. and learned member for Dublin had spoken a good deal about the origin of tithes. He (Sir Henry Willoughby) thought this question had been long since set at rest; he conceived that it had been consigned to the tomb of the Capulets. If the hon. and learned Member had any wish to revive it—if he were prepared to argue the question in that House—he could find an hon. Gentleman who would discuss it with him, and he was satisfied would be able to prove to the satisfaction of any hon. Member that such a division on the question never existed in England. He could not think that the people of this country, as a people, had any interest in trenching upon those funds dedicated for the support of the Church, religion, and morality. Important questions might arise upon the distribution of those funds; but he denied that the people, as a people, had any interest whatever in the confiscation of a single shilling of the property of the Church.
Mr. Baringconsidered, that the discussion was at that time unnecessary; there was no general view drawn up for the adjustment of that question. Various plans and schemes were proposed, but they seemed to have emanated either from the private opinions of hon. Members, or to have been only the mere instructions of their constituents. His Majesty's Ministers would do well to take warning from the dissatisfaction that was felt throughout the country last year, at the postponement of such an important question as the Commutation of Tithes. It was quite impossible to do justice to the property of the clergy, and make concessions to the people such as they demanded. The question was encompassed with great difficulties; hon. Members should be expected to yield a good deal, and not be so unreasonable as to expect perfection in
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all the parts of a measure, that would require much discussion. It would become the House not to irritate the country, nor to irritate themselves, by useless and premature discussions.
Mr. Sheilwas willing to allow the expediency of not immediately pressing forward to the termination of so important a subject as the Commutation of Tithes, so that time might be allowed to examine into the principle on which the alteration was grounded, as well as to the extent to which it should be carried. He was willing to meet the hon. Baronet opposite on Church property. It followed as an irrefutable consequence, that if the State originally appropriated a revenue to the Church, it was in the power of the State to release itself from that revenue again without any spoliation. As to lay tithes, he would not touch them. They were a distinct property, but the tithes which were set apart for the use of the clergy, the State was justified in applying to its own use, by recurring to the enlightened appropriation of that property in barbarous times. He was not for disturbing the present incumbents. It was not fair to do so. Strong instances were before the House, from former times of incumbents being secured in their then possessions. An Act was passed in the time of Queen Mary, and confirmed by the Pope, which secured Church property to those who then had been invested with it.
Mr. Ayshford Sanfordhoped, that in any measure that might be brought forward, no distinction would be made be-ween the tithes held by lay impropriators, and those in the hands of the Church, but that it would embrace all. If it was the intention of the Government to make any new arrangement for the payment of the Church, that suggested by the petition presented by the noble Lord would be, perhaps, a fair mode; but the sum stated in that petition, would not be a fair valuation.
Mr. Benettagreed with the hon. member for Tipperary, that the lay tithes were different from those in the hands of the Church, but he did not think, that the State would act fairly in appropriating the property of the Church to any other purposes. Something had been said respecting Dissenters, of which body he (Mr. B.) had a great knowledge; and he would say, that he never met with a Dissenter who entertained any idea of doing

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away with tithes without giving a fair compensation to the clergy. That Dissenters were hostile to the payment of tithes, there was no doubt, and he also was hostile to them. He trusted whatever measure might be introduced, the tithes would be fairly and honestly commuted; but for the effecting this, the bargain must not be too high. Church property was now a very hazardous species of property. The resistance to the payment of tithe had lessened its value considerably; and if it were offered in the public market now, it would not fetch more than two-thirds of what it would have brought five years ago. That circumstance should be taken into consideration in any commutation that might be made, and, for his part, he thought it would be exceedingly desirable if a fair commutation were effected.
Sir Robert Peelhoped, in legislating on this question, they would act with great caution, as it had hitherto been, under the salutary control of public opinion. They should bear in mind, that those who were about to dispose of the Church property, were either lay impropriators, or possessed of large landed property, with a direct personal interest in remitting tithes. If anything could sink that House in the public estimation, it would be by affording ground for the imputation, that, in disposing of Church property, they had consulted their own personal interest. He hoped the House would listen with caution to any suggestions establishing a distinction between lay tithes and tithes paid to the Church. They might say, if they chose, that this clergyman or the other had too high a stipend; and they might propose to reduce it; but let them beware not to appropriate the money to any but ecclesiastical uses. An hon. Gentleman had told them, that tithes were State property, with which they might do as they pleased. But while that right of gift was contended for, let them take care, that they did not give this property to themselves. He thus early put in a claim on behalf of the vested interests of the people of England, for whose benefit tithes were intended. They had a deep interest in the appropriation of this property to its original uses, for it was bestowed in trust for them. If the House directed that property to any other purpose, above all, if they turned it to their own advantage, they would be guilty of an act of spoliation which would be
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fatal to their characters. He would not, at present, enter into the question, whether there should be any other appropriation; but, under the pretence of giving a portion of them, the tenth of the rent, or any other portion, they should be aware, that they did not, by making the payment 2s., instead of 5s. or 6s., as it was reported they now were, commit an act of spoliation towards the great mass of the people of this country, who were not individually proprietors, either of tithes or of land, but who were deeply interested in the proper appropriation of Church property. He was anxious, that the Bill of the noble Lord should be speedily brought forward; and he sincerely hoped it would be founded on the principle of strict justice. If it contained a principle of spoliation, he was Sure not two years would elapse before the same principle would be acted on towards other property.
Mr. Harveyremembered, that the sentiments uttered by the right hon. Baronet, were precisely those which he himself had expressed upon a discussion upon Irish tithes, and well remembered, too, that certain of his Irish friends around him were not quite pleased with the view he took upon the subject. The real fact was this—and it was incumbent upon hon. Members to know it—that it was the duty of the House to see, that the funds of the Church were not improperly diverted from their destined purpose. Let the tithes of this country belong to whomsoever they might, whether to the Church or to the nation, of this fact there could be no doubt, that they did not belong to the landlords. The House was greatly indebted to the noble Lord, the member for Devon, for affording hon. Members an opportunity to deliver their sentiments upon that important subject. If the noble Lord brought forward any proposition for a commutation of tithes, which would turn the tithe now levied into money's worth, it would be universally disapproved of. What the people wanted was, the real value of the tithes ascertained, and then dealt with as might be thought proper. No Dissenter wished to put the tithe into his own pocket; but there were, certainly, a kind of nonconforming nondescripts in the country, who did not speak out as well as the Dissenters, who, preserving existing interests, wished to see the revenues of the Church not applied for the purposes of the Church. Notwith-

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standing, he thought, however, that he saw a disposition on the part of the great landed interests, even in that House, to fight their battle quietly, and without any display of what was called dangerous principles, behind petitions of this kind, which ought, properly speaking, to be called petitions pointing out how each man might best help himself to a share of the public property. The tithe which was now paid, was about 5s. per acre, and what these very disinterested, and very respectable petitioners—these nine thousand honourable men—wanted, was to put three of those shillings into their own pockets,—one of the most barefaced propositions he had ever heard. The hon. Member had stated, that tithes were every day becoming more and more unpopular. This, no doubt, would be a very good suggestion from a landlord. There could be no doubt but the landlords would, for their own sakes, take care to propagate this doctrine, because the tithes would go into their own pockets; but, for his part, he would much rather see it in the hands of the Church, than in the pockets of the landlords. But the first thing to be done, was, to ascertain the value of tithes in every parish in the country. This done, let the property be secured and appropriated afterwards to such purposes as might be deemed necessary, provided that House saw the necessity for any alteration.
Sir Robert Peelwished to say one word in explanation, for the purpose of disclaiming a compliment paid him by the hon. Gentleman who had just addressed the House. What had been stated by the hon. Gentleman, would induce the House to believe, that there was a community of feeling between him (Sir Robert Peel) and the hon. Gentleman on the subject of tithes. He certainly agreed with the hon. Gentleman that the property of that great Corporation, the Church, should be sacred. But he was most hostile to the property of the Church being taken by the State, and applied to the purposes of the State. This doctrine he had been always opposed to, and he would contend against it upon all occasions.
Mr. O'Dwyercalled upon the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) in the name of his constituents, who received no spiritual instruction from the Church, to support him (Mr. O'Dwyer), in relieving them from the burthen of tithes.
Mr. Curteissaid, that his constituents sympathised very strongly with the people of Devonshire, and were equally anxious to obtain a fair commutation of tithes.
Mr. Kennedysupported the petition, having been requested to do so by the petitioners. He was glad that the people of Devon had taken the lead upon this occasion, for he was sure that their example would be speedily followed by the rest of the country.
Lord Ebringtonsaid, that he must protest against the expressions used by the hon. member for Colchester with respect to the petition; and he would add, that men more honest, and more incapable of being biased by unworthy motives, did not exist. There was another expression also which gave him great pain; for an hon. Member, whilst he admitted that the sentiments of the great land-owners were not in unison with those of the petitioners, insinuated that, in their dissent, they were actuated by their private connexion with Church patronage, or by their private interest as lay impropriators. On their part he threw back the expression; and be begged leave to say, that they were incapable of being actuated by other than the most honest and conscientious motives in the course which they had thought fit to take.
Petition to lie on the Table.

JURIES (IRELAND).
Mr. O'Connellhad obtained leave more than twelve months ago to bring in a Bill to amend the law of Juries in Ireland. That measure had two objects—one related to the original jury panel or grand panel, an institution which he proposed to have changed into a jury-book. This proposition included Special Juries, and all cases of disputed property between man and man, and of material injuries to the person. The practice in Ireland was for the Sheriff to return the grand panel, which was supposed to contain the names of all the freeholders of the county, and from this panel the officer of the court struck the Jury at his discretion. Such was the state of the law in England previous to the 6th of George 4th, and in Ireland until last year. As he bad before stated, his object was to change the grand panel into a jury-book, and to introduce the principle of the ballot in the selection of the Jury, as established by the 6th of George 4th in England. That object was

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attempted to be accomplished or superseded by the bill brought into the House of Lords by the Lord Chancellor for Ireland last year. The noble Lord brought in a bill to convert the grand panel into a jury-book, and to regulate the selection of Special Juries, which were no longer to be struck by the officer, but to be chosen by ballot. The bill went no further; but he did not mean to cavil at it, especially as it had not yet received a fair trial. His present measure was quite distinct from the noble Lord's bill, and included the second object of his former proposition. It related to all criminal cases above misdemeanors, to felonies of every description; and it included all cases which were tried by common, as distinguished from Special Juries. He wished to amend that part of the law which had been left untouched by the noble Lord. All he desired was, to introduce, in the selection of common Juries, the principle of ballot, as established by the 6th of George 4th. According to the law at present, the Sheriff returned sixty persons, from whom the twelve to try were to be balloted for. The principle of ballot was partially established; he wanted to extend it to common Juries, and to criminal as well as civil cases. He wished to have the sixty persons on the common jury-list selected by ballot, in the same manner as the forty-eight Special Jurors were at present. In the selection of the sixty, the grossest partiality frequently occurred in Ireland, as an instance of which he might state that within the last three days, he had received a letter from a young gentleman, a member of the Munster bar, who informed him that in the county of Cork, of the sixty record jurors (he believed there were two or three relays of them) only three were Roman Catholics. Let the House remember that the Juries so named had to try all cases of crime and of property in which Special Juries were not resorted to; and, therefore, the most strict impartiality was necessary for the peace and satisfaction of the country. What he asked for was leave to lay his plan for the Amendment of the present bad system before the House and the country. Let it not be said, that the application of the ballot to the choice of Special Jurymen was not an argument for its application to the choice of common Juries. Special Juries were composed of men of superior intelligence, and they were originally
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called Grand Juries; and if it was held desirable with respect to them, in order to secure impartiality, to have recourse to the ballot, how much more desirable must it be in the case of common Juries, in which the Jurors were supposed to be less informed and more liable to prejudice? With respect to the mode of naming Criminal Juries, now pursued in Ireland, no one who had not practised in the Irish Criminal Courts could conceive the agony a Counsel even of the slightest feeling suffered in preparing a defence. The Sheriff returned any number of names he pleased, and the Crown set aside as many as it pleased, so that the Crown had in fact the power of naming the Jury. Since Edward 1st, the Crown had not the right of challenge, but the Judges had in effect repealed that law, as they had done many others. The Judges did not allow to the Crown the right of challenge; but they persuaded the Crown to set aside as many names as it pleased, and the panel could never become exhausted as long as there was a freeholder in the county, because the Sheriff had the power of still supplying. He proposed to substitute this plan:—The Judge of the Assize to name, in an order to the Sheriff, the number of the panel—at present the order was given, but no number named, so that the Sheriff returned as many as he pleased—and the panel so made, the ballot to be employed in striking the Jury. That done, he would give to the Crown the same right of peremptory challenge (twenty) as the accused at present had. He would allow, however, of no setting aside, nor one advantage to one party that was not possessed by the other. The hon. Member concluded by moving for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the laws in Ireland relating to Juries.
Mr. Littletonfelt it his duty to oppose the Motion of the hon. and learned Gentleman, whose wish was to introduce into Ireland a practice which was not at present legal. At least, if such were the law, he was convinced it was not the custom. The hon. Gentleman wished to introduce into Ireland a practice totally different from what existed in England, and one which he thought would be extremely objectionable. There was not a topic of the learned Member's speech which he had not introduced in his discussion upon the Jury Bill in the last Session. Only six months

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had elapsed since that Bill had been passed, and before the experience of one Circuit had been obtained, the hon. and learned Member proposed to introduce a new system. He agreed with the hon. and learned Gentleman as to the benefits of a snore equal introduction of Roman Catholics upon Juries; and that principle had been fully recognized by the House, and no person could be more enamoured of it than he was. He could not say, that there was that impartiality in the selection of Juries in Ireland which he could wish to prevail; but he thought it unadviseable to alter the law, which had been passed by that House only six months ago, alter the fullest deliberation.
Mr. O'Connellwould not press his Motion to a division, if the right hon. Gentleman were opposed to it. He had the misfortune, however, to be totally misunderstood, for his present Motion had no connexion whatever with the Bill of last Session, which had related only to Special Jury cases, whereas his proposition was confined solely to those cases that could not be tried by Special Juries. He would withdraw his Motion.
Lord Althorpsaid, that his right hon. friend, the Secretary for Ireland, had not had time given him to consider the proposition of the hon. and learned Member. His right hon. friend now understood that the proposition was to make the Jury Law of Ireland like that of England; but he thought it at least desirable to wait until it was seen how the last Act had operated. He believed, that the principle of the English Jury Law applied to Ireland as far as it was at present possible to apply it. When a fair trial had been given to the Bill of last Session, he was not prepared to say, that much of what had fallen from the hon. and learned Member might not have his approbation. From want of technical knowledge as a lawyer he was not able to give a decided opinion; but he was inclined to think, from what had fallen from his right hon. friend, that, under the present circumstances, it was not desirable to concur in the Motion.
Motion withdrawn.

BRIBERY AT ELECTIONS.
Mr. Hardyrose to make a Motion, the object of which was, to promote the purity of elections, and to reduce the expenses which at present were attendant on all electioneer-
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ing contests. He could not but express his surprise that the law had been allowed to remain for so long a time in its very imperfect and unsatisfactory state. He had wished to introduce his Motion at the early period of last Session, for he thought it disgraceful to the country that the House should permit the continuance of practices which were known to exist, and which were of a nature which no man pretended to approve of. A Bill had been introduced in the last Session of Parliament by a noble Lord, and it certainly had gone far to diminish the expenses of elections; but he complained that that Bill had not gone far enough. He gave credit to the Government for a wish to root out every corruption; and he would not in such an assembly declaim against the evils of corruption, for every person present well knew what they were; and he believed that they were very well disposed to adopt every possible means to extirpate them wherever they could be traced and encountered. He feared that this could never be entirely effected but by the diffusion of a moral education amongst the people, and he should therefore avoid laying down rules for a Utopian era that might never arrive. All he now aimed at was, to amend and consolidate the existing laws, and in this attempt he should avail himself largely of the assistance of those who had already introduced Bills with a view of checking corruption in all its wanderings, and under all the disguises that human cunning had contrived for its protection. He asked, whether every man ought not to feel his cheek tinged with the blush of shame at the law being allowed to remain in its present state? He would quote a great law authority, who had said that the House ought to make the law against bribery, not more efficacious, but, for the first time, efficacious. What was the law on the subject? Bribery could be punished by the common law, but the process was so difficult that no man ever resorted to it. Next came the Act of 7th William 3rd c. 3, commonly called the Treating Act; then there was the 2nd George 2nd cap. 24, termed the Bribery Act; next came the Act 49th of George 3rd styled Turton's Act; and lastly the Act 7th and 8th George 4th cap. 37, which, for want of any particular cognomen, might be called the Cockade Act. He contended that all the provisions of the last Act of George

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4th had been obviated and defeated. For instance, the penalty for bestowing any cockade, decoration, or mark of distinction upon electors was 10 l.; but would not the law have been more effectual if the penalty had been levied on all who were these badges? The Act of George 2nd affixed a fine of 1,000 l. to any unsuccessful candidate that was convicted of bribery, whilst it affixed no penalty but the loss of his scat against the successful candidate that might be convicted of the same offence. In the recent case in the Stationery Office the House saw how the law operated, for, whilst the innocent person who had received the place was ejected from his appointment, he who had solicited it, and had obtained it for him, still enjoyed his seat in Parliament. The ancestor of the right hon. member for Montgomery, who had introduced the Bribery Act, had flattered himself that he had spread his nets far and wide enough to catch all kinds of bribery; but the Act was only of a prospective nature, and had been defeated in the case of Lord Hunting tower. The cause, however, was lost upon the ground that the bribery was prospective. The case just now mentioned was one of that class to which he proposed by this Bill to apply a remedy. Hitherto they had been entirely too slow in following up the punishment of bribery at elections. The law hitherto had, in general, been successfully evaded by ingenious and new contrivances. When new schemes were thus introduced to defeat the provisions of existing laws new legislative provisions should be introduced to meet and to defeat such schemes. As the law now stood on the subject of bribery, it tended rather to encourage it, during the whole time before the issuing of the Writ, and twenty-eight days after the election, than to discourage it. So much was this the case, and so great was the difficulty in ascertaining when bribery took place, that Sir Arthur Pigot said, he had for twenty years been in the habit of attending Election Committees, and that he found it impossible for him to say positively under what circumstances it would be adviseable to petition the House of Commons against a Return on the ground of bribery. The Statute against Bribery at Elections passed in 1677. It was designated as "An Act to prevent a too large Expense at Elections for Members of Parliament." By this it was provided that no treating
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should take place except in the dwelling-houses of candidates, and elsewhere not to an amount beyond 10 l. He would submit to the House, whether it would not be proper to provide, that if any entertainment were given during an election, or before or after an election, that circumstance should be taken as evidence that the entertainment had been corruptly given, unless the contrary were proved; and he would throw the onus of proof upon the party giving the entertainment; because it was possible that an entertainment might be innocently given; but there was, nevertheless, the strongest reason to suspect it, when it was given at a time when it was most likely to produce its influence. Another point was the payment of the travelling expenses of voters. The intention of the Bribery Act was to prevent all expense whatever; and, although the Reform Act had, with this view, established different places at which votes were to be taken, yet, if the law were left in its present unsatisfactory and unsettled state, on the subject of voting at different places, no great length of time would elapse before voters would be demanding their travelling expenses. He had heard it said, that a voter was justified in claiming the expense of going to give his vote, because that could not sway him in giving his vote. Could anything be more absurd than this? Was it to be supposed that a voter who had been conveyed to a polling place, for the purpose of giving his vote, would feel himself at liberty to vote for whom he liked? Some persons had attempted to compare the voters to witnesses, whose expenses were paid by the party subpœnaing them. But where was the analogy between the situation of a candidate and a plaintiff or defendant? He thought it was rather to be compared to the case of Jurymen, who frequently came many miles to the Assizes, and sometimes remained there eight or ten days, at considerable expense and loss to themselves. But they were fulfilling a public duty; and if they were not paid their travelling expenses, how much less should they be paid who came to exercise a franchise, which had uniformly been considered as one of the most valuable privileges that could be conferred upon man. He hoped the House would insist that each voter, particularly now, when so many facilities were afforded, should

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give his vote freely, independently, and indifferently, according to the theory of the Constitution. To effect this object, which he thought a very important one, he intended introducing a provision in the Bill which he hoped the House would allow him to bring in. It would be necessary also, in doing this, to have respect not only to individual voters, but also to certain places which had been known to court the exercise of such corrupt influence. It might be said, that the new boroughs were not likely to be affected by any spirit of this kind; but the new boroughs would be composed of the old leaven, and the same tendency to corruption would probably insinuate itself, and prevail in the progress of time as had been found in the three famous synchronous cases of Pittenween, Jedburgh, and Oxford, in 1765, 1767, and 1768. Having thus put a stop to travelling expenses, and in order to get at bribery in the most effectual manner, he would avail himself of the proposition to compel the parties to be witnesses before a Committee, and to give evidence of the transactions in which they were implicated, at the same time granting them a certificate, to exempt them from the consequences of any prosecution in a Court of Justice. He would also extend the right of petition in a case of bribery twenty-eight days beyond the period of which there was proof of any act amounting to bribery. Another subject was a provision, containing an oath to be taken on the part of the candidate, that he had not, knowingly made use of any bribe. He was one of those who thought that there was no advantage in administering an oath to a voter unless it were also administered to a candidate. He was sure that if the law administered an oath at the place of election, or called for a declaration to the effect that the candidate had done nothing corruptly to procure any vote, and had not paid money to procure votes, that the law would strike effectually at all attempts of agents to procure votes by corruption, because an agent would not expend money which he knew the candidate would swear he had never paid. He should feel it his duty to make that part of the Bill. It was his intention to move that the Bill be referred to a Committee, to consist of such Members as had sat on the Committee of the hon. member for Montgomery, Gentlemen who would attend to the business;
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and the Bill might then be moulded into a shape to make it worthy of the consideration of the House. He was sure that those who had guarded against corruption in Ireland would take care to guard against corruption on the polling-booths of England. The hon. Member concluded by moving for leave to bring in "A Bill to Consolidate and Amend the Provisions of the several Acts relating to Bribery, and to Charge and Expense in the Election of Members to serve in Parliament."
Lord John Russellwould not offer any opposition to the introduction of this Bill, and would postpone his observations upon its provisions until he had seen the Bill itself. He would only allude to one observation of the hon. Member, viz., that he had proposed a Resolution as to the practice of paying some time after the election. A Resolution had last year been adopted by the House, and was repeated in the Resolutions of this year, that if a sum of money was paid to a voter for a vote at an election, the Return might be questioned on that account within a period of twenty-eight days after the payment, and at the expiration of fourteen days after a sum of money, which had been regularly stipulated for, had been paid to a voter. Whatever corruptions existed, it was his wish to have totally done away. He fully approved of the Resolutions of the hon. member for Montgomery.
Mr. Williams Wynnhad not the slightest doubt of the general concurrence of the House in adopting the present Bill, which he considered most desirable, not only for the purpose of effectually preventing bribery by new provisions, but by consolidating, to remove all possible doubts regarding those which at present existed. Particularly with regard to the Treating Act, it was most desirable that the law should be made perfectly clear. The law could not render a candidate responsible for the treating practised by his friends, because a person pretending to be his friend, but being actually his enemy, might treat his partizans for no other purpose than to set his election aside. He admitted that this was an extreme case; but he would appeal to such Members of the House as had stood contested elections, and would ask them, whether they thought that any candidate who had zealous partizans—and partizans often took a warmer interest in elections than

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candidates themselves—could venture to answer that he had not violated the provisions of the Treating Act, supposing he were to be answerable for the acts of his partizans. He admitted the difficulty which existed upon this point; for if the law did not shut the door against this treating of the electors by a candidate's friends, it left an opportunity for the grossest and most profligate corruption. What, however, was the House to do? Men would be found ready on all occasions to swear, and to swear truly, "I acted so and so without any communication whatever with the candidate. He knew nothing of the treating which I authorized. All that I did was done at my expense, and I expect no remuneration from him." Would it not, however, be extremely difficult to prevent a candidate from remunerating after an election the partizan who had shown so ardent a zeal in the promotion of his interest? He fully concurred with the hon. member for Bradford, that there was not the slightest ground for allowing travelling expenses to voters going to the poll. He was himself of opinion, that such expenses were already illegal, but he knew that some Committees had decided otherwise. As there appeared to be some doubt on the point, he should be glad to have these travelling expenses to voters declared illegal by Act of Parliament.
Leave given, and the Bill ordered to be brought in.

IMPRESSMENT OF SEAMEN.
Mr. Buckinghamsaid, that, in rising to call the attention of the House to the Motion of which he had given notice, for a Select Committee, to inquire into the practicability of devising some plan for manning his Majesty's navy, without recourse to forcible impressment, he might, perhaps, be permitted to congratulate himself and the House at the removal of many of the objections which were urged to his Motion on this subject last Session. On that occasion, having, at the express desire, and to suit the avowed convenience of his Majesty's Ministers, deferred that Motion several times, he was taunted, in return for his courtesy, with the lateness of the period of the Session at which the Motion was brought forward; and this very lateness, caused as it was by his Majesty's Ministers themselves, was urged as a reason why the Motion could not be ac-
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ceded to, as there was then no time to consider of any substitute for the practice of impressment, which the Motion went to abolish. He had been determined, therefore, to avoid this objection now, by selecting the earliest period of the present Session for a renewal of the discussion, in order that there might be ample time for a Committee to investigate the whole subject, and close their labours sufficiently early to admit of the proper measures being matured before the Session was brought to a close. The interval had afforded him also, abundant opportunities of ascertaining the state of public opinion on this question in the principal seaports of the kingdom, where the subject was best understood: as well as of collecting many new facts illustrative of the evils of impressment, and of the general feeling of abhorrence with which that system of human robbery and violation of all personal right was viewed. As, however, he was anxious, that other hon. Members should be heard on the subject, he would content himself with such a limited statement only of the case, as would show the House the grounds on which he asked their concurrence in his views, and justify to their own minds the granting him that support with which he ventured to hope they would now honour him. At this time of day it could scarcely be necessary to say much as to the cruelty and injustice of such a practice as impressment. The noble Lord, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had, in the last Session, expressed his astonishment that he (Mr. Buckingham) should have compared such a system with slavery. But, after mature reflection, he felt bound to say, that no comparison could be more appropriate, as a moment's consideration would show. Let the House ask itself what were the principal features that characterized the Slave Trade, and Slavery, and what were its chief wrongs and sufferings that roused up the indignation of the whole British people. The answer would be this. Slavery was first characterized by the brutal and inhuman act of dragging a man from his own home and family by force, and compelling him, against his will, to enter a service of which he had a rooted abhorrence. Secondly, by compelling the slave thus dragged from his home, to labour for inadequate wages, for an indefinite length of time, and subject to the lash of the whip, if he offended the regulations im-

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posed on him by his tyrant, or even evinced dissatisfaction with his hard lot. Thirdly, by subjecting to the severest torture of flogging, and sometimes even to the punishment of death, any attempt to desert from the state of suffering to which an act of tyranny and cruelty had alone consigned him. These were the characteristics of Slavery; and to abolish this, the united voices of all classes of people in the British empire had been lifted up and heard. He contended, then, that the impressment of seamen for his Majesty's fleet was characterized by every one of these revolting features. The men were torn from their homes and families by force, and obliged to yield to the terrors of the armed pressgangs, by which they were dragged through the streets. They were made to labour against their will for inadequate wages, for an indefinite period of time, and kept in subjection by the infliction of the lash. And if they dared to desert, in the hope of regaining that home from which they had been thus forcibly torn, they were liable to the severest tortures of corporal punishment, and even to death itself. There was, then, little or no difference between the two systems; for if, on the one hand, it might be said, that the labour of the seaman was not so severe, and his food and clothing better than that of the slave, on the other hand it must be admitted, that the deprivation of personal liberty to a free-born Briton, and especially to one of that profession, the chief charm of which is the liberty of action in the choice of the ship, the commander, and the station, must be far more galling to the mind than the same coercion would be to the native of Africa, to whom captivity in war, and slavery in labour, were familiarized by its being the common lot of all classes of his unhappy countrymen. He thought, therefore, that his Majesty's Ministers, who had brought forward the Bill for abolishing slavery in all the British colonies, could not refuse their assent to a measure for abolishing slavery at home; unless they were prepared to say, that, though adequate wages and good treatment would obtain sufficient cultivators for the colonies without man-stealing and oppression, yet that the same inducements would not supply the fleet with seamen, and, therefore, impressment must still continue. He did not, however, anticipate such a result; and, therefore, he trusted,
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that while his Motion met with no opposition from the Cabinet, it would be warmly supported by all those who had assisted, by their speeches or their votes, to give the death-blow to slavery in the East and in the West. It had been said, however, that the seamen themselves were indifferent to the evil, and that they had never petitioned for its abolition. Supposing that this had even been the case, it was no argument whatever against its injustice. Seamen, from their imperfect education and generally careless habits, were not likely to have investigated the matter with the same care which landsmen would bestow on any grievance affecting themselves. At sea they were too much engaged with their duties, and separated into too small parties to get up public meetings, and pass resolutions or petitions; and, in the few brief intervals which they enjoyed on shore, they were too much under the influence of those short-lived pleasures which their previous state of privation made them relish with more intensity than other men, to give their thoughts to any thing but the impulse of the moment. They had no organization, no leaders, and were destitute, therefore, of all the elements of a deliberative or a petitioning body. And yet, notwithstanding this, there had not been wanting instances in which the seamen of England had given expression to their feelings, in language not unbecoming any class of his Majesty's subjects. He would content himself with citing two instances only out of many that might be quoted. The first occasion was this: Soon after the accession of George 3rd, in 1760, a petition of the mariners of England against impressment was presented to his Majesty by the Duke of Cumberland, who began his career in the navy, and who, on that account, was selected by the seamen to carry their prayer to the foot of the Throne. The other occasion was more recent, coming down indeed, to our own times. It was in a document emanating from the seamen of South Shields, that most extensive nursery for the British navy, including the immense body of coasting mariners that sail from the Tyne and the Wear, which expressed their abhorrence of the system, and their prayer to be relieved from its oppressions. He believed this to be the general feeling of the whole maritime body in every port of the kingdom; and if this feeling were not

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so frequently or so powerfully expressed as might be expected, it was to be ascribed chiefly to the two causes he had previously named; their isolated occupation at sea, and their frenzy of enjoyment on shore. But, it had been contended, and that too, by the right hon. Baronet, the First Lord of the Admiralty, that impressment was not only necessary, but that it was legal, and its legality defended by some of the highest authorities of the land. Supposing, however, that this were undeniable, it could furnish no good reason why a wrong that was sanctioned by law should not be abolished by law also; or why a custom "more honoured in the breach than in the observance" should not be wholly discontinued. If they looked a little closer into this matter, however, they would find, that its legality had been asserted by only one authority of any note, and that a most doubtful one: while its illegality had been declared by many of the most eminent men of the kingdom. Lord Camden challenged the whole profession to prove the legality of impressment; but no one undertook so odious a task. Lord Mansfield admitted, that it had only usage in its defence; and Judges and Juries had repeatedly acquitted men under trial for murder, because they had justifiably resisted the invasion of their personal liberties by press-gangs. The great authority, however, on which the First Lord of the Admiralty relied, was Sir Michael Foster, the Recorder of Bristol; though a more unfortunate selection could hardly be made than of this subservient and promotion-seeking Judge, who stood alone in the infamy of having laboured to defend a system, which all true lovers of rational and constitutional freedom could not but regard with horror. Judge Foster was Recorder of Bristol at a time when an attempt having been made by a gang from the Mortar sloop to impress a seaman named Broadfoot, out of a merchant-ship in the Bristol channel, one of the press-gang, named Calahan, was killed by Broadfoot shooting him dead on the spot. The man who had committed the act of murder, as it was called, was tried for the offence before the Recorder, at Bristol, on the 30th of April, 1743. In the course of the trial, it was proved, that the press-warrant, by virtue and authority of which the attempt to impress the seaman was made, was not, at the time of the death, in the hands of
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the lieutenant to whom it was assigned, nor was the officer present—two omissions which were fatal; and the Judge was accordingly compelled to direct the Jury to acquit the prisoner of the wilful murder laid to his charge, as the act of slaying the individual who had made the attempt to seize him, without the necessary forms of the legal warrant or the presence of the officer, could not be considered as murder, but merely manslaughter. It was on this issue, however, that Foster took occasion to deliver in Court a long argument in favour of the legality of impressment, as established by usage, and being part of the King's prerogative, inherent in the Crown. This argument, or charge, he afterwards revised and published; and, as he no doubt anticipated, it proved so acceptable to the Government of that day, that it obtained for him very speedy professional promotion; for, in less than two years afterwards, he was made one of the Judges of the King's Bench. As a Crown lawyer, and a warm advocate for the King's prerogative, he was, undoubtedly a person of great repute; but, on many occasions, his views were so singular, that he often differed on various points from all the other Judges of the Court, and delivered his opinions against their judgments. As regarded the argument or charge in question, "The King versus Broadfoot," it had never been considered by great constitutional lawyers, or by eminent liberal statesmen, as of any worth, and had rarely been referred to, except to prove the usage of impressment as continuing through several successive reigns. Even Judge Foster, however, qualified his opinions by passages like these. 'The question is—whether mariners, persons who have freely chosen a seafaring life, persons whose education and employment have fitted them for the service, and inured them to it—whether such persons may not be legally pressed into the service of the Crown, whenever the public service requires it—Ne quid detrimenti respublica capiat? For my part I think they may—I think the Crown hath a right to command the service of these people whenever the public safety calls for it;—the same right that it hath to require the personal service of every man able to bear arms, in case of a sudden invasion, or a formidable insurrection. The right in both cases is founded on one and the same principle: the ne-

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cessity of the case, and the preservation of the whole. This personal service, in case of extreme necessity, is a principal branch of the allegiance which every subject of England owes to the Crown.' This was the language of Judge Foster; and who did not see, even in this, that it should be only in cases of sudden invasion—formidable insurrection—or moments of the greatest danger—that every man capable of bearing arms, should be equally liable to the call upon his personal services?—a maxim to which most persons would agree, if the emergency should arise, and the necessity be clearly proved. The error lay in this—that what should only be the exception was made the rule. A standing army was held to be unconstitutional; and therefore we have an annual Mutiny Bill. The trial of civil offences by Courts martial in Ireland, was clearly unconstitutional, and therefore we have a Coercion Bill. The impressment of men for the Navy, except in times of admitted peril, should be declared equally illegal; and if an inevitable necessity should arise, it would be better to pass an Order in Council, as for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus, or the establishment of a censorship on the Press, to be repealed when the danger was over, than to let impressment be considered to be the legal rule, and thus warrant resort to it at the discretion of any single captain, which is the case at all times abroad, and wherever there is a difficulty in getting men to enter at home; though, with a well-organized system of a retaining pay for the navy, registering for the merchant seamen, and ballot for the maritime towns, no such cases of necessity ever could arise. It was said, during the debate on this subject in the last Session, that Judge Foster's argument had never been answered: but, besides a host of minor writers, who undertook its refutation at the time of its appearance, the celebrated Benjamin Franklin entered the lists against him, and gave him a complete refutation. And although a First Lord of the Admiralty could not be expected to read every work on Impressment, it was certainly very remarkable, that so celebrated a reply as that of Benjamin Franklin to the charge of Judge Foster should be unknown to the right hon. Baronet. So much, then, for the authority of Mr. Justice Foster. But, turning from so tainted a source as this, to the opinions of men not seeking preferment,
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by subserving arbitrary power, they would be cheered by the contrast. The great Lord Chatham, in his speech on the occasion of Lord Pulteney's Bill for speedily manning the navy, in speaking of the recent practice of impressment, condemned it in the strongest terms, as illegal, unconstitutional, and cruel. Lord Chatham also quoted the celebrated passage of Magna Charta, which says, "No free man shall be taken, or imprisoned, or outlawed, or exiled, but by lawful judgment of his peers, or of the law of the land." On which passage, the great Lord Coke had made the following commentary: "No man shall be exiled, that is banished, or forced to depart, or stay out of England, without his consent. By the law of the land, no man can be exiled, or banished out of his native country, but either by authority of Parliament, or in case of abjuration for felony, by the common law; and so when our books or our records speak of exile or banishment, other than in case of abjuration, it is intended to be done by the authority of Parliament, and therefore the King cannot send any subject of England against his will out of this realm, for that he should be an exile, and that he should perdere patriam. No; he cannot be sent against his will into Ireland, to serve the King or his Deputy there; because it is out of the realm of England; for if the King might send him out of this realm to any place, then under pretence of service as ambassador, or the like, he might send him into the farthest part of the world, which being an exile, is prohibited by this act." And as it was a generally received opinion in law, that nothing less than one Act of Parliament could repeal another, so, if Magna Charta stood unrepealed, then was the forcible impressment of seamen a direct violation of its provisions, and contrary to the law of the land. Of cases in which the illegality of impressment had been decided by verdicts of juries, it would be easy to cite many: but he would content himself with two only, the particulars of which he had become acquainted with in his recent visit to Hull, and to one of which an hon. Member of this House (Mr. Pryme) had been an eye-witness. In both these cases, the persons who had killed men belonging to the pressgang were acquitted of the charge of murder, on the ground that the power of impressment was illegal, and might be therefore lawfully resisted.

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Let the House observe, then, the position in which such verdicts as these placed both parties in the transaction. It had been well said, that it is an incontrovertible maxim in all oppositions, that one side must be right, and, vice versâ, one wrong. But, according to every authority, the nature of a press-warrant is such, that if the lieutenant of the gang, in the attempt of pressing a man, were to commit murder, he would not be amenable to justice, but would be acquitted, from having done it ex officio: and, on the other hand, if any one whom they were attempting to press, were likewise to be guilty of that crime, neither would he be liable to punishment, but would have an acquittal upon the plea of self-defence. Strange contradiction, when murder on either side is palliable! This at once set the injustice of press-warrants in the strongest light; they were either right or wrong: if the former, no man that came within their tenure could by law resist them, and undoubtedly would (if murder were the consequence of such resistance) be open to the extremest rigour of the law, as much so as if he were to kill a constable, or any other peace-officer, in the execution of his duty. On the other hand, if they were unsupported by law—if they had nothing to justify them but the absurd plea of custom—they were in every respect unwarrantable, and the officers who executed them had no justification for the violence they too frequently made use of, but were liable and ought to be brought to condign punishment. It was high time that such a state of things as this should cease, and give place to some more settled and defined law on the subject: and all that was wanted to effect this was, that the Committee he asked for should be granted, and the subject investigated with that care and attention which should prepare a substitute for the practice he sought to abolish, and preserve, at the same time, the rights of private liberty and the interests of the public service. The inefficiency and expensiveness of impressment, as compared with voluntary service, were topics, however, that required to be touched on as well as its cruelty and illegality; and if he could establish these points in addition to the former, he thought the grounds on which he should ask the support of the House would be irresistible. So long ago as the time of Sir Robert Walpole, the utter inadequacy of impressment to secure the
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full supply of proper men had been forcibly dwelt on, and, from that hour to the present, the difficulties of obtaining the number and kind of men required had been a constant theme of complaint. Indeed, a moment's reflection must satisfy any one, that the agency of a press-gang, at the very name of which men fly with terror from the ports where they are, into all the surrounding country, to escape being seized, must be a most inefficient instrument, when the object is to draw and attract all the scattered seamen of the kingdom to the principal ports where they are required. It might be safely assumed, that, of 20,000 seamen which might be present in the harbours of England at the breaking out of a war, 19,000 might be obtained for the navy as volunteers by adequate pay, limited service, and kind treatment; while the effect of attempting to seize them by press-gangs would be, that 1,000 might be secured by the first sweep of the ships and taverns; but that 19,000 would escape; and either remain in their hiding places, till the impress had subsided, or go off concealed in the holds of merchant vessels, while foreigners navigated them, to swell the navy of France, or Russia, or America, and take up arms against their native land, as had been notoriously the case in past time, and as would be repeated again should impressment ever be attempted to be revived. In consequence, then, of the impossibility of securing by impressment the full number of the best seamen required for the fleet, men of an inferior description were taken; and when these were exhausted, landsmen were impressed, jails and prison-ships were emptied of their criminal inmates, and heterogenous assemblages of all manner of men were thus congregated together, who could only be kept in order by a severity of discipline which would be wholly unnecessary in any voluntary service; and which, besides, endangered the safety of the ship and crew in moments of peril, whether in the face of an enemy, or amid the dangers of a lee shore. Admiral Patten asserted, that he was enabled, from his official situation, as one of the Lords of the Admiralty, to ascertain the fact, that the total number who deserted from the service in the last war, in the short space of twenty-five months, from May, 1803, to June 1805—and that, too, notwithstanding the utmost vigilance exercised to prevent it,

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was no less than 15,000 men. Lord Nelson, in an interesting paper presented by him to Earl St. Vincent, in February, 1803, on the evils of impressment, and the best mode of manning the navy, calculates the cost of procuring the men by impressment, at 20 l. a-head, on the average; and says, that 42,000 so impressed, deserted during the last war, making a loss of 840,000 l. to the nation, besides the cost of supplying their places by others. He asserted, that there was then scarcely a fleet of merchant ships that left England which did not carry off at least 1,000 deserters from the Navy concealed in their holds: and all these, of course, went to replenish the navies of other powers, but especially American, many of whose crack ships were manned, disciplined, and fought, by the skill and valour of British seamen, while the ships of the English navy were left with skeleton crews of the most wretched kind and description. Admiral Ekins gives some account of the number of our seamen who were serving in the American ships, and says, that Commodore Decatur declared, after taking the Macedonian, that he had not a seaman in his ship who had not served from five to twelve years in the British navy. He added, that two of their guns were named 'Nelson' and 'Victory;' and to the former it was the exclusive privilege of men who had been bargemen of the British Admiral to be quartered. Now, in the event of a war with any of the maritime powers of Europe, should impressment not be previously abolished, there could be no doubt that our seamen, driven by the terrors of the press-gangs from our own shores, would escape as speedily as they could to America, and enter into their merchant or naval service. Impressment on shore would be useless after the first day, as the men would have hidden themselves or flown; and impressment afloat, from those American vessels to which our seamen may flee for safety, would be resisted by the Americans to the death; so that we should be shut out from both these sources, and be obliged to depend on voluntary entry, for bounties or increase of pay, after all. The system, then, was not merely cruel, but altogether inefficient, not answering even the end proposed, namely, the speedy manning the fleet, the necessity for doing which effectively on a sudden, was the chief plea for retaining this terrific power. But it appeared, that it was not only on
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sudden occasions, but even in periods of profound peace, that impressment was resorted to. Not more than two days ago, he had received a letter from a gentleman at Liverpool, which stated this fact; and as the letter was so recent and so well authenticated, he would venture to read a portion of it to the House. The writer said: "In the autumn of 1832, the Government ordered the equipment of a fleet of vessels, which were sent to the Scheldt to watch over the movements of the Dutch. To man this fleet, impressment was had recourse to in the Thames, and, through private information, I learnt that the Admiralty had ordered a vessel round to Liverpool for the same purpose. To prevent the completion of their design, I immediately wrote to the Admiralty, and offered to procure 1,000 able seamen, without a bounty, for his Majesty's service within one month, provided they would give to the men, as is customary with merchants of this port, an advance of two or three months' pay. A vessel, the May Flower cutter, lieutenant Morgan commander, came round to Liverpool with forty-five men, an acknowledged press-gang; but I need scarcely add, that no impressment was attempted. Mr. Barrow acknowledged the receipt of my offer, and said, he was commanded to thank me in the name of the Admiralty, and to say, that a sufficient number of men had been procured. The cutter was in the Mersey about a fortnight, during which time she got about twenty volunteers. There were, to my knowledge at the time, many hundreds of seamen, who wanted to ship themselves; and the finest men in the port could, at that, or at any other time, be procured at a bounty of 4l. or 5l. per man." It could scarcely be necessary, he thought, that he should trouble the House further on this point. If the object of impressment were to secure a full supply, not merely of the requisite numbers, but also the best description of men for the King's navy, then had it utterly and entirely failed; for its effect had hitherto been, to frighten and to force from our own shores some of the best and bravest of our seamen, who went to strengthen and improve the navies of other countries—to leave our merchant ships to be navigated almost wholly by foreign seamen in time of war; and to cause our naval ships to be manned by the sweepings of the

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brothels, the outpourings of the jails, and the rejected and condemned outcasts of society, who could only be kept in order by a system of torture and terror, instead of their being, as undoubtedly they might be made, under a better system, homes of comfort and protection, as well as bulwarks of safety and defence. The House would now expect him to show what remedy could be applied to such an evil as this, and what mode of obtaining men he would recommend in lieu of the present. His answer would be, that we should act exactly on the same principle as had guided us in the Abolition of Slavery. In that House, during the last Session, it had been triumphantly shown, that the negroes of the West Indies, being human beings like ourselves, were animated by hopes and fears like us, and, having a love of pleasure and a hatred of pain, they were capable of being swayed by the same motives as other human beings to seek the one, and avoid the other. The question with respect to their condition was comprised in these few words, "wages or the whip." The latter had been tried, and found ineffectual. The former was, therefore, determined to be the proper stimulus to draw forth their willing and efficient services. It was exactly the same with the seamen of Britain. The handcuff of the press-gang, and the lash of the boatswain's mate had each been tried, and the effect of both was to inspire hatred of the service and frequent desertion. Let adequate wages and limited service, free agency and honourable treatment, be tried; and there would be no more difficulty in getting men for the navy than for any other service in which human hands are required. On a former occasion, he had entered into minute details, explanatory of the plan he would propose as a remedy or substitute for impressment. But as his present Motion was not, like the former one, declaratory of any opinion as to impressment, but merely for a Committee to consider of the practicability of doing away with the forced service, and substituting some mode of voluntary entry instead, he should content himself with briefly enumerating the three leading principles on which the plan he suggested was founded, and in the justice of which the first Lord of the Admiralty then concurred, as he doubted not the whole House would now do. The three principles were these:
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The first principle of it should be, to encourage the entry, education, and protection of seamen, in the fishing, coasting, and mercantile vessels of the country; so that no new levies, or unskilled hands, should ever get their first training in a ship of war, but be previously initiated and well seasoned to the hardships and duties of their enterprising profession, in those nurseries already named. The second principle of any such system should be that of rendering the naval service as attractive as possible, and making it the interest of men to seek for employment in his Majesty's ships, rather than in any other class of vessels. The third principle should be, that of progressive advancement in honour and emolument in proportion to the length or the importance of the duties performed, so as not merely to draw men originally into the service, by the attraction of adequate wages, kind treatment, and a reasonable enjoyment of liberty, but also to attach them to the service for ever afterwards, by making their interest and their duty to go hand in hand together, and inspiring them with feelings of honourable pride in a rank obtained by length and value of time devoted to the defence of their country's liberty and honour. On these he would ground a system of registration that should include every individual obtaining his livelihood on the seas, or coming within the fair description of a maritime or seafaring person; and, exempting them from all liability to serve in the army or militia, procure out of their body, by a system of voluntary entry, and fair routine of equal liability to service afloat in turn, any number of thorough bred, able, and enterprising seamen, that his Majesty's service could at any time require; the details of which system he should be prepared to state fully to the Committee, under whose province it would properly fall, to consider of their practicability, and report their opinion thereon to the House. As some prejudices and misconceptions, however, existed, with respect to a system of registry, which, it was contended, had been tried and failed, a brief explanation of the history of that experiment might be permitted to him. There was an act passed in 1696, in the reign of William 3rd, for the registry of seamen, which had often been described as tyrannical and oppressive, though it was wholly voluntary, and authorized no coercion whatever.

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The seamen of that day, however, would not enter themselves in such registry: first, because there being no legislative provision for the abolition of impressment, they regarded it as a decoy to induce them to enter themselves for the purpose of assisting towards their own seizure, if their services should be needed; and secondly, from the deep-rooted aversion they then had to the naval service, in which all manner of abuses prevailed. Ralph, in his History of England, states, that in 1703, Queen Anne, after prevailing on the sailors to man the fleet, by the most solemn promise, that their wages should be paid up to a certain period before they sailed, totally neglected the fulfilment of her pledge: for, by accounts laid before the House of Commons at that time, it was shown that no less a sum than 1,036,415 l. was due to the fleet for arrears of pay; and so great, he says, was the discontent among them, from this arrear of their pay, bad provisions, and cruel usage, that the most severe discipline, nay even death itself, (for many of them were hanged for desertion, and some even for demanding their wages, which was called Mutiny!) could not prevent its breaking out. In 1706, however, a new mode was tried of compulsory registry, under the most odious and oppressive provisions. The Act was passed through Parliament in four days. It authorized the levying of 20,000 men; and it empowered Magistrates to hunt out seamen wherever they could be found. Twenty shillings a-head were to be given to constables for apprehending them; and if they deserted after being delivered over to the officer, they were to be deemed guilty of felony. As an encouragement to dishonest men to join the royal standard, all insolvent debtors who entered to serve in the fleet were to be released from their imprisonment and liabilities. The enforcement of this Act was found impossible; for though every means were tried to hunt out and seize the seamen, they secreted themselves in all manner of hiding places, and the people on shore gave them ready shelter, till at length, in despair of manning the fleet by such means, the Act was repealed, on the very ground that it had been found oppressive, expensive, and wholly inexpedient. It was about this period, too, that piracy in the East Indies, and buccaneering in the West Indies, were so prevalent; and it was a matter of
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certainty that this horrid system of forcible impressment, ill-usage, and excessive cruelty at home, drove the best and bravest of our seamen abroad, who, being unable to gain an honest livelihood in the peaceable pursuit of their profession, manned and fought some of the finest vessels that ever swam the seas, and performed prodigies of valour, accompanied by mercy in many instances towards their captives, bespeaking the noble and generous nature of the men themselves, which, under kind treatment and a liberal system of inducement and rewards, would have made thousands of them useful and honourable defenders of their native land. Let the House assist him then in his endeavours to prevent a recurrence of all these evils, by the abolition of that cruel practice which had been so fruitful a source of misery and crime. If the difficulty of finding a substitute were alleged, he would say that a nation which should have the hardihood to attempt to govern an empire of a 100,000,000 of conquered subjects at a distance of 10,000 miles, and yet shrink from undertaking to devise a plan for organizing 100,000 seamen for the supply of our navy at home, must have a strange conception of its own strength and weakness. If the expense of paying bounties and adequate wages formed the principal obstacle, he would point to the grant of 20,000,000 l. for the abolition of slavery; and contend that the abolition of impressment ought to be an object fully as dear to us as the abolition of slavery. And if the King's prerogative, or immemorial usage, were pleaded in objection, he would point to the annihilation of ancient boroughs, with their Royal Charters, and vested rights, to the reform of Municipal Corporations, whether given by Royal Charter or otherwise, and to the generally recognized doctrine, that to the great and paramount consideration of the happiness of the people, all privilege, prerogative, and custom must be made to give way. He would leave the subject, therefore, in the hands of the Commons of England, the most appropriate protectors of the rights and liberties of all classes of his Majesty's subjects: in the full assurance, that the seamen of Britain, the brave and generous defenders of their country from all foreign aggressors, who wielded the thunders of the British Navy on every hostile shore—and who manned those floating bulwarks to which we looked as the guardians of

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our sea-girt home—would receive at their hands, the justice of which they had so long been deprived. They desired not to be placed above any other class of the King's subjects. But they had determined that they would no longer submit to be placed below them all; and the world at large would concede to them the justice of their demand; when they simply asked, before they took up arms and shed their blood in defence of their country's liberties, that that country should no longer sanction a violation of their own. If they were to fight the battles of freedom, it was necessary that they should themselves be free; and in the progress of improvement and reform, though they were content to be the last of all the classes emancipated from their chains, yet they could not endure their galling pressure longer; and demanded, before they lifted up the arm which they held ever ready to strike down their country's foe, that that arm should be unmanacled, unfettered, and completely free; as they would then be best enabled to protect the liberties of others, when they had been taught to preserve and respect their own. He begged leave, therefore, to move, "That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the practicability of devising some plan, by which his Majesty's navy may be manned in time of war, without recourse to the practice of forcible Impressment."
Mr. George Frederick Youngrose, with a deal of pleasure, to second the Motion. He had hoped that the necessity for bringing it forward would have been superseded by the concession of the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Admiralty, for he was sure the right hon. Gentleman could not have forgotten the unequivocal expression of feeling on the subject in that House, when it was last under discussion. This hope had been greatly encouraged from the new regulation which it was proposed to adopt, of discharging 500 men from the navy, and rearing 1,000 boys; and from the Bill introduced by the Government, to do away with service in the navy as a punishment for the crime of smuggling, thus enhancing the character of the service, and holding out inducements to men voluntarily to enter it. Impressment had been upheld on the ground of necessity, that had been hitherto the only plea for its continuance, but he, for one, denied that that necessity existed. That was the only argument used by the right hon.
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Baronet the last time the subject was under discussion. The right hon. Baronet adopted the opinion of Lord Chatham, and rested contented with that. But the plea of necessity had never been made out, and as was well known, both Lord Nelson and Lord Exmouth doubted it. The gallant Officer opposite (Sir Edward Codrington) too, who while he entwined his brows with laurels at Navarino, had made his claims known to the world to be considered a high authority on all naval matters, asserted that impressment was not necessary. It had been asserted that the sailors were themselves quite indifferent on the subject; in answer to which he would refer to the petition he had the honour that day of presenting to the House, from 805 sailors of North Shields, and the strong terms of reprobation which they used as to the system of impressment. As a proof, too, of the progressive advance which they were making in civilization, he begged to state, that out of the 805 subscribers to the petition, there were only thirty who made that mark which proved them to be incapable of writing. He trusted the time was fast approaching when the British sailors would be released from this cruel and degrading system—when proper inducements to voluntary enlistment would be employed—when promotion would be by merit, and when prize money would be more equally distributed. He believed it would be impossible to continue the system of impressment, that, indeed, it would be openly and generally resisted. A case for inquiry had certainly been established, and he could only repeat his expression of regret that the Government had not thought fit to grant the Committee which had been called for. He felt bound, from his view of the case, to support the Motion to the utmost of his ability.
Sir James Grahamsaid, that in ordinary circumstances he might have been induced to request the hon. member for Sheffield to postpone his Motion; but, under present circumstances, as the hon. Member appeared to think that he had imposed on the hon. Member's courtesy last Session, by such a request, he could not think of again appealing to the forbearance of the hon. Member. Besides, he should not have deemed a postponement of the final decision of the question consistent with his duty, when he looked to the high importance of, and its intimate connexion with, the public weal; for there could be

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no doubt the question was one which particularly concerned us as a maritime nation. He was, therefore, anxious to answer the speech of the hon. Member, and he felt confident that the calm deliberation of the House would be given to a matter so deeply concerning the welfare of the people of the country of whom they were the representatives. There was no one point of the hon. Member's speech in which he more fully agreed with him than this—that every prerogative of the Crown was held for the benefit of the people, and unless the Representatives of the people felt satisfied that that prerogative was so exercised, they were not only entitled, but bound, to hold the advisers of the Crown responsible. He believed it was scarcely necessary for him to add that if his Majesty's Ministry, of which he formed a part, were not convinced that any one prerogative of the Crown was consistent with that welfare and those interests, they were not the persons who would advise the maintenance and enforcement of such a prerogative. The prerogative in question was one which, in a moment of public emergency, had been always considered to be eminently conducive to the public safety. The hon. member for Sheffield had, in the course of his speech to-night, appealed to his Majesty's Ministers, and to himself in particular, to do that which he said he firmly believed would render them extremely popular out of doors. Now, however desirous he and his colleagues were of doing that which was agreeable to the public, and however grateful they felt for the great and important support which, in their projects for the reform of abuses, and the amelioration of the condition of all classes in society, they had so happily experienced at the hands of the public, they were by no means disposed to make concessions to the desires of either classes or individuals which might endanger the real and best interests of society through an over eagerness to attain a fleeting and fugitive popularity. They were prepared to do fearlessly that which they conceived to be their duty upon their high responsibility, and to the best of their judgments, trenching as little as possible upon the rights of individuals in order to ensure the safety of the State. The hon. Member had stated that he had had interviews with a great many persons in the outports and in the north of England, who agreed in opinions which he had
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expressed, that the practice of recruiting the navy by Impressment was inexpedient and unnecessary. But though the hon. Member might have benefited by their opinion, he was bound to say, that the hon. Member had not adopted their language. He must praise the manner in which the hon. Member had brought forward his Motion this evening, when there were not wanting inducements to follow a course which might be more likely to excite popular feeling. He was bound to admit that the hon. Gentleman, in abstaining from topics of an inflammatory and exciting character in support of his. Motion for adopting a different course, in cases of emergency, for manning his Majesty's navy, had offered some and no inconsiderable atonement for the excitement which the hon. Member according to report, had endeavored to raise elsewhere by his harangues on this very delicate but important exercise of the prerogative of the Crown. The language which the hon. Member had used out of doors, it was, however, fair to infer, had, in point of fact, occasioned no very marked expression of feeling on the part of the classes supposed to be most interested upon the subject of impressment. This inference he was authorised in making, in consequence of the silence of those who otherwise would have felt this a fit opportunity to cover the Table of the House with petitions upon that subject. It was always his opinion that the right of impressment was at once a question of great delicacy, and of vital importance to the public welfare. Had he thought that the hon. Member was very likely to obtain what he professed to seek through the instrumentality of a Committee he should have had little difficulty in agreeing to the Motion of the hon. Member. The hon. Member had asked if the House were competent to institute such an inquiry? Without questioning that right, but assuming that the House was properly competent to go into that inquiry, he would suggest to the hon. Member whether it would not be a better course, instead of going into a Committee, to inquire generally, and without some determinate object being pointed out to which its inquiries should be addressed, that the House should have a distinct and specific plan for remedying the evils complained of, as far as that object was safely attainable, and that a measure to attain all that was possible should be brought forward

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upon the responsibility of his Majesty's constitutional advisers? Having stated this much of the course which he thought might be advantageously pursued, and to which he should again refer, he should proceed to answer some points of the hon. Member's speech, which he felt ought not to pass without observation. The first of these was, perhaps, the most important, and that of which he felt he had the most right to complain as extremely unfair, and calculated to cast great odium in the eyes of superficial observers, upon the exercise of the right denounced by the hon. Member. He alluded to the comparison, and a highly injudicious and unjust one in his mind, and not essential to the hon. Member's argument which he had instituted between impressment and slavery. In instituting that comparison, the hon. Member had altogether over looked what constituted a most important distinction between the things compared. It had, he believed, been always conceded that the great blot in slavery consisted in the labour of the slave being performed without remuneration. But the hon. Member had overlooked that, in the case of sailors impressed, they received equally remuneration in pay and allowances for their services as other men, who were volunteers, received. The next observation of the hon. Member which he felt it his duty to answer was, the allegation that the practice of impressment would be a general subject of complaint in the service, only that the sailors had not opportunities afforded them of meeting together in bodies, to represent their grievances. Now this he denied, for the House would recollect it had happened that the seamen had, on some occasions, actually met, in order to remonstrate or petition for redress of grievances. It was important that these assertions should be distinctly met and calmly and dispassionately argued. The most remarkable of these assemblies was that which took place at the Nore, at a period of our history deeply interesting to every well-wisher of his country, when the seamen, as a body, drew up a statement of their grievances; and though that statement or remonstrance consisted of eight or ten different topics or heads of complaint, the practice of impressment was not complained of by the seamen. The hon. Member had discussed at some length the question of the legality of impressment. In his exposition of what
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was the law as to impressment, the hon. Member had remarked that the observation of Sir Michael Foster had applied only to the special case then before him. He, however, was prepared to contend that the judgment of that learned Judge went at large into the question of the legality of impressment, and condensed in it all that which had formerly been law, as well as what were the opinions of lawyers in his day, upon the legality of the practice; and stated, in the first instance, that it had been, from the early periods of the monarchy, the undoubted prerogative of the Crown to recruit the navy by means of impressment in times of emergency; that the usage had since been uninterrupted down to the time at which the learned Judge spoke; that the usage had been confirmed by not less than thirty Statutes from the time of King William 3rd; that it was clear in law, that no right of the subject would stand on firmer ground than that of a right based upon custom, supported by concurrent Statutes recognizing the usage. The legality of this exercise of the prerogative was recognized by some of the highest constitutional authorities. Amongst others, Lord Chatham had, in his place, said, "that this was a prerogative of the Crown, and as such ought to be upheld, and never questioned." He certainly doubted, that this was the fittest tribunal to entertain and decide upon the legality of the practice founded on long usage. If those objects contemplated by the hon. Member were desirable, or there were any doubt as to the law on the subject, would it not be the better way for him to attempt to fix the law by some declaratory Act? The hon. Member had hazarded an assertion which he confessed struck him with surprise and astonishment, acquainted as he necessarily and officially was with the orders issued at the Admiralty—namely, that the practice of impressment had been resorted to lately in a time of profound peace; his astonishment was much increased when the case was quoted as having occurred in 1832, at the time of the Dutch embargo, when it was alleged the Admiralty had issued orders to impress men in the river, and that a ship had been sent round to Liverpool for the same purpose. Now, on these points, he assured the House the hon. Member was altogether misinformed, for there had been no such warrant issued in 1832, nor, indeed,

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had there been any such order since the peace in 1815. There had been found no difficulty during the whole of that period in obtaining-volunteers to man the navy. He repeated the assertion; and the only reason for sending: a vessel round to Liverpool was, to be ready to remove seamen who were willing from preference to quit the merchant service and enter the navy. An hon. Member, by his "hear," seemed to think this admission was triumphantly conclusive of the question as to the necessity for impressment. It would, perhaps, be so, if the subject were the broad and abstract question of the propriety of impressment. He was not arguing any such abstract question. He confessed he thought that impressment was amongst the greatest evils of a state of war, and should never be resorted to but on the greatest emergencies. The principal features of the hon. Member's plan for the improvement of the service, and substituting other motives for enlistment into the navy, consisted of four or five regulations:—Encouragement to serve by an increase of pay; encouragement to be given to seamen in the merchant service to enter the King's service; rewards for seamen proportioned to length of service, and faithful discharge of duty; service to be limited in duration; leave of absence to be given, and also aid to be afforded him in his emergencies. To show how amply the hon. Member had been anticipated in securing many of those objects to the British seaman, he must state what had been done since 1815 by the Board of Admiralty, and particularly what had been done since he presided at that Board, actuated as he was, by the conviction of the soundness of the principle, if it could be carried into effect, of avoiding altogether having recourse to compulsory enlistment into the navy. In the first place, the pay of the seaman had been actually increased by the altered value of money since the war, and our return to a metallic currency; and his wages had not only been thus positively increased, but, since 1825, they had been also nominally increased; so that now the difference between the pay of seamen in the King's ships and of merchant seamen, did not amount to more than an eighth, which the seamen were of opinion was more than compensated by the superior allowances they received on board of King's ships. The men had formerly
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been subjected to a deduction from the pay, called the King's sixpences, which was known no longer, and the profit on slops, delivered out by the purser, formerly very considerable, was now diminished to its minimum—that was so as merely to guard against loss. There had been a change very much to the advantage of veteran seamen made by the new pension regulations. Seamen, after twenty years' service, were entitled to pensions of from 10 d. to 14 d. per diem. To all persons injured or disabled, though for short services, pensions in similar proportions were given. He should now state what had been done by his Majesty's Government since he had last addressed the House on the subject, with a view to render the service more acceptable to the seamen, A considerable grievance of which the sailors had complained, and of which they might justly complain, was, the difficulty they had of obtaining a fair share of their pay, when out for perhaps two or three years, on a foreign station. The former Board of Admiralty had felt this to be a grievance, and had allowed the seamen in such cases, to draw 4s. per month, whilst abroad. He thought this allowance was still too little, and that, when a man had 40 l. or 50 l. owing to him, it was likely to beget dissatisfaction if he could not enjoy any of the little luxuries which might be procured on a foreign station; he had, therefore, arranged, that the seamen should be allowed to draw to the extent of 1l, per month, without at all interfering with the right of allotting, as was usual, to their wives or friends a portion of their pay. Thus the seaman abroad, if he wished to avail himself of this privilege, in both allotment and monthly allowance, would very nearly draw month by month the whole of his pay. Another subject in which improvement was to be effected, was prize money. The distribution of that had been, on consideration, deemed not so just and fair towards the able seaman as it should be, which had often proved, on the commencement of a war, an inducement to men to give a preference to, and enter on board of letters of marque. He had, as this was a very important and difficult matter of adjustment, thought it would be better that the adjustment should take place in a period of peace, when claims to share prizes were not likely to arise. In consequence, a proclamation fixing the right and the

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rate of seamen to share in prizes taken, had been lately prepared on quite a new scale, by which the seaman, who, on a capture of 10,000 l. value, would have been only intitled to 5l. as his share, would in future be intitled to 15 l.; and he had the pleasure to say this was done without any deduction being made from the shares of the officers of an inferior rank, but only from the formerly exorbitant and disproportionate shares of the Admirals. To meet the objections entertained against the service, and made in that House, and in order to render the service as attractive as possible, the practice of making his Majesty's ships serve as places of punishment and prisons for smugglers and offenders under the revenue laws, was to be done away; and a Bill was now in progress through that House, to carry that into effect. When the Ministers evinced such a disposition to attend to the subject, he put it to the House whether it might not with safety be left in their hands? It had been observed, that youths who had entered and served their time under a pennant, were sure never afterward to enter on board merchant ships, and were generally good seamen. It was considered proper, therefore, to make the King's ships a nursery for seamen; with this view a plan had been arranged for entering one thousand boys on board his Majesty's ships. He had already referred to that alteration on bringing forward the Navy Estimates. He believed that from this source the necessity of compulsory service would be considerably lessened; for after all that was said of the cruelty and hardships inflicted upon them, in ninety-nine cases out of every 100, where a boy had been in the King's service, he could never be induced to quit it for the merchants'. He would now proceed to offer some further reasons which he thought would convince the House that his Majesty's Government were not insensible to the principles which they had avowed on former Debates—that they were not content with the mere avowal of those principles—and further, that if the question which the hon. Member proposed to refer to a Committee without any definite objects were left in their hands, it would be much more likely to be so dealt with as to produce such practical results as would best satisfy the wishes of the country, as well as ensure the protection of its best interests. On a former occasion, he de-
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clared to the House his firm conviction that it was of the greatest importance to render not only the King's service acceptable to seafaring men; but as the merchants' service must be a principal source from which to transplant seamen as they should be required, it was most advisable to make that attractive also. In adherence to those opinions, and with those views, he had devoted himself during the recess, to the consideration of a Bill to consolidate and amend the whole of the laws relating to the merchant service. He intended to embrace in the provisions of that Bill a complete register of all the seafaring men throughout the United Kingdom. This was an object which had been deemed highly desirable by no less an authority than Lord Nelson. In a letter addressed by him to Lord St. Vincent in 1803, he recommended it, but, at the same time, Lord Nelson declared his opinion that, although a complete register should be established, yet that it would be necessary to retain the power of impressment, and that that compulsion might, and ought to be kept up. Upon that authority, he had endeavoured to frame his Bill, so that it would provide an efficient register, from which he hoped to supply the navy, but that, in case of necessity, the power of reverting to impressment should be retained. The Bill would provide that every seafaring man should be obliged to hold a certificate that he was upon the register; and the penalty of his not possessing it upon the breaking out of a war, would be, that he would be compelled to serve. Except in that case, and in the event of sickness breaking out when a ship was stationed at a colony or elsewhere, in which he did not see how the deficiencies could be filled up, otherwise than by impressment, he hoped that the register would supply a sufficient force for the navy. The ballot would be applied to the register in the same way as it was now for the militia. These were the objects which he had formerly professed, and which he now hoped to attain by the means he had stated to the House. The Ministers of the Crown were certainly determined to deal with the subject as cautious men should do, where interests so important were at stake. At present they possessed a power which certainly had been efficient for its purposes, whatever other objections there might be to it. After all that was said of the injurious in-

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fluence of impressment upon the character of our seamen, the victories of Copenhagen, and Trafalgar, and the Nile, and all the most glorious deeds which had rendered our navies illustrious for all time, he would contend had been achieved by seamen, who, for the most part, had been provided for the service by impressment. The system of impressment was undoubtedly effectual, for it had been proved effectual. He did not believe that impressment alone would be effectual in manning our navy; but he asked the House, before they denounced the present system, that they would take into their consideration the assurance that had been given to the Board of Admiralty, by men of the greatest weight and experience in the service, that any substitution for impressment must, to be effectual ill procuring a supply of seamen, be founded upon a system of registration; and he would, backed, as he felt himself, by such high recommendation and authority, ask the House to be permitted as a responsible member of the Administration and Minister of the Crown, to submit his plan in the shape of a Bill, the principle and details of which had occupied him for the greater part of the last six months, aided by the co-operation and experience of all those official and professional authorities which he, from his situation at the head of the Admiralty, could procure. The object of his Bill would be the consolidation and amendment of the laws relative to merchant seamen, and the registration of seafaring men in the ports of the United Kingdom. He had been informed by competent authorities, that this system would be found to work effectually, always reserving impressment as a means in the last resort. The provisions of this Bill would be various, perhaps requiring another Bill to complete all the objects he had in view. It would, in the first instance, contain a provision for binding to the merchant and King's service, as apprentices, such children as received parochial relief; it would, secondly, provide for a complete registration of merchant sailors in the ports of the United Kingdom, which would form the ground-work of the substitution of a mode of recruiting the navy other than by impressment; keeping impressment still as a reserve in the last resort. The third part of his measure would go to the encouragement and protection of the merchant service of Great Britain, and
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for the enforcement of the payment of their wages in ports abroad,—a most important object in itself. A fourth object would be to secure protection to the master in the discharge of his duty and the due subordination of the crew. This part of the Bill would also provide against a practice wnich he had reason to know was increasing, he meant the practice of masters leaving men on foreign stations utterly unprovided for, by which they were either driven to acts of piracy or left to be brought home at the public expense. If he were permitted to bring in a Bill grounded upon these objects, he thought the House by that course would be best carrying into effect the principles upon which the hon. Member had brought forward his Motion. When the Bill was before the House, he should have no objection to its being sent to a Committee up-stairs in order to be rendered as effectual as possible for the enforcement of those principles. Thus, he thought; they might, without throwing, as they were now requested to do, any discredit on the present system of having recourse to occasional impressment, obtain all the more desirable objects, and abolish all the evils of the British naval system. He assured the House he had, with great attention, and indeed considerable pain, discharged the arduous duty which thus had fallen upon him; convinced, as he was, that by following another course than that which he had the honour to recommend, they might do an irreparable injury to that service on whose discipline, spirit, and efficiency depended the safety and honour of this great empire. The right hon. Baronet concluded, by moving, as an amendment, "that leave be given to bring in a Bill to consolidate and amend the laws relative to the merchant service, and to keep up a registry of seafaring men throughout the United Kingdom."
Mr. Robinsonsupported the Motion. He asked whether the proposition for a Committee up stairs did not receive an inconceivable addition of force from the announcement of this measure on the part of the Government? He, however, was against any such measure being intrusted to one person, though, if it were to be given to any individual, none could be more worthy of that trust than the present First Lord of the Admiralty. The right hon. Gentleman had asked, "Would you take away from the Crown in times of great emergency this prerogative?" Now,

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he (Mr. Robinson) confessed, that he would not. Speaking from the knowledge which his long connexion with the commercial interest of the country had afforded him, and from the experience which he had on board various King's ships, he would say, that he entertained great doubts whether it would be expedient to take away from the Crown the exercise of this power in all cases and at all times. Did it follow, therefore, that matters should remain in the way they were, or even in the state in which, if the well-intentioned propositions of the First Lord of the Admiralty were carried into effect, they would still be left? One of the complaints which they had to make against this power was, that it was not exercised in times of great emergency, but that, being a power vested in the Crown, it might be and was exercised by every commissioned officer in the navy when it suited his caprice. Without at all wishing to say anything derogating from the merits of the navy, he must acknowledge, that his experience had shown him that this power had been not unfrequently exercised most harshly and most capriciously. It was true, that cases of this kind occurred more rarely at present, in the time of peace, than formerly; yet, was that any reason why the House should not interfere with the unconstitutional principle of the system itself, with a view to the prevention of wrong in the event of another war breaking out? The right hon. Baronet need not fear, that the House would take up this inquiry rashly, and upon theoretical principles, merely to destroy a power which could be shown to be practically necessary. The Committee now moved for, might probably determine that this power should be retained to the Crown; yet they might also, at the same time, propose such modifications in its application, as, without impairing its general efficacy in time of need, would render it less repulsive to the national feelings of the people. The right hon. Baronet had very truly said, that the naval service had lately lost very much of the disrepute formerly attached to it. It was true, that the Government and the officers themselves had done much to render the service as acceptable as possible to the sailors under their command, and remove the opprobrium which had been cast upon the profession; yet, notwithstanding all these laudable attempts at liberality, the service could never come fairly into favour
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as long as the present odious practice of impressment was continued. The right hon. Baronet had said, that, in consequence of the altered value of the currency, the sailors in his Majesty's service had now the same pay as in the merchant service. That was true in the time of peace, but in time of war the case was different; and he, therefore, thought the time of peace a favourable opportunity to inquire into the hardships which pressed upon his Majesty's servants in time of war. It was well known, that, although the pay in the two services was now pretty nearly equal, if a war were to break out, the pay in the merchant's service would immediately be increased four or five pounds per month, and the consequence would be the same, disinclination, on the part of the men, to enter his Majesty's navy as formerly. And it was very natural, too, that men should feel a distaste for a service into which they were not only compulsorily impressed, but at lower wages than they could get in another to which they were admitted by their own free-will and agreement. Under circumstances like these, the practice of forcible impressment was an unjustifiable interference, not only with the personal liberty of the subject, but also with his only property—his time and his labour. Another serious inconvenience in the time of war which deterred the sailor from the national navy was the indefinite period of his service in it. When a sailor was ordered upon a foreign expedition, whatever might be his natural disinclination against that particular destination, or against the officer who commanded, or the rest of the crew who worked the ship, there was no help for him; go he must. And very often it would happen, as in the late wars, that the whole of his life would be spent in this forced banishment. Another principal point upon which the naval service laboured under popular disrepute was the nature of the discipline which, it was alleged, the efficiency of the service demanded. Whatever might be his opinion upon this subject in principle, he was bound to state, that he had been, from time to time, in many of his Majesty's ships, and that, from all his own experience there, he had no reason to believe that the powers vested in the officers in command had been exerted with any undue severity. But he would relate one circumstance which had fallen within his own observation, and which was a striking

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instance of the hardships entailed on the seamen by this system of forced servitude. It occurred that when the fleet was at a foreign station, the admiral, fearing that desertion would be attempted, issued an order to the whole fleet to prevent any sailor from going ashore during the whole of their stay. Now, how could it be supposed, that such an excessive interference with the liberties and the enjoyments of the men could be tolerated with any degree of good-will on their part, or with any credit to the service? The right hon. Baronet said, he had devised means by which the grievances at present complained of might, one time or other, be alleviated, as by the use of ballot, or otherwise, though he was not very clear upon these points. But he hoped the House would not give its support to the amendments of that right hon. Member, which would totally defeat the object of the original Motion. The right hon. Baronet, doubtless, felt a little jealousy at an interference with him in matters which fell directly within his office, and he was, therefore, not the person whom he could expect to find voting for a Committee of this sort. He did entreat the House, however, not to be carried away by the plausible arguments of the right hon. Baronet, but to vote in favour of the Motion before them for the appointment of a Committee. The inquiry before such a Committee would, no doubt, be calculated to put matters in a train, so as to bring about that result which the Government, upon principle, were anxious to effect. If, on the contrary, the House should consent to the Motion of the right hon. Baronet, it would leave the question of impressment, and all the objections that applied to it, precisely in the same situation as before. All that the House was now called upon to do was, to express a general opinion that the time was arrived when, not that impressment should be abolished, but when a case was made out for inquiry, in order to see whether it could not be superseded by a better system for manning the navy. This system of impressment, as he had already said, while it imposed a severe tax on the merchant service in the time of war, by rendering it necessary to increase the wages of merchant seamen, rendered it proportionably difficult for the Admiralty to man the navy then. The sentiments which had been expressed by the right hon. Baronet did him great honour, in
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reference to that service over which he so ably and honourably presided; but he must contend, that there was no excuse left for the House not to take the step which was now proposed.
Sir Edward Codringtonsaid, he would support the Motion, not only on account of the use made of impressment, but on account of the abuses which arose out of the system. The use of it he considered not at all consistent with the liberty of the subject. Sailors had a right to be put upon the same footing as the rest of his Majesty's subjects. His objection was not to the leaving such a power in the hands of the Crown; his objection was this,—that sailors alone, of all the subjects of the King, should be exposed to the exercise of this tyrannical power. He would just give the House an instance of the extreme hardship and injustice arising out of this system of impressment. A man who had been originally pressed served with him (Sir E. Codrington) for eight or nine years; he discharged his duty during that time in the most reputable manner possible, and, at the expiration of that period, from motives that would do honour to human nature,—namely, from a desire to support an aged father and mother,—he applied for his discharge, and offered eighty guineas to obtain it, It was refused him. Now, he really thought, that if this power of impressment were not to be used, some equivalent remuneration must be given to the seamen for services which were so imperatively demanded. In the army it was so. A man in a smock-frock got sixteen guineas to enlist as a soldier; and if a seaman was wanted by the State, why should he not be equally well rewarded? His conviction was, that if the men were not, in consequence of the existence of impressment, treated with a certain degree of harshness on board men-of-war, they would much rather enter the navy than the merchant service. He was certain, that such would be the case, provided they were allowed the indulgence which was given to them on board merchant ships, of going on shore. The restrictions and comparatively harsh treatment to which they were subjected on board men-of-war were attributable to the existence of impressment. The work which seamen had to do in merchant vessels was double that which they had to do on board men-of-war; but then they had on board merchantmen the opportunity of going on

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shore and visiting their families, which, often in the navy, particularly in ships where the crews had been impressed, was denied them. The hon. Member who had last spoken, had spoken of the hardship of preventing the men from going ashore at a foreign station. He was, however, prepared to maintain, that seamen had been sent abroad on purpose to prevent them from deserting. The poor fellows had been in the constant habit of communicating with their families, and had constant temptations to return to them, and they were sent abroad on purpose to cut them off from these domestic ties. As to the odium and other evil consequences produced by our system of impressment amongst foreigners, he would just mention an instance bearing out the statement on that point of the hon. Member who had brought forward this Motion. At the battle of Trafalgar, the primest seaman which he (Sir E. Codrington) had on board his ship was an impressed American. He had been taken out of an American ship, on the pretence that he was a British subject, brought to England, and thence transmitted to him amongst other impressed seamen. On account of his admirable conduct in the battle, he (Sir E. Codrington) made him a warrant-officer. He afterwards told him that he would be glad to remain in the English service, but that he had a wife and family in America, whom he had not seen for many years. This seaman, like many others, had been kept in ships stationed abroad, in order to prevent them, having been originally impressed, from getting their discharge. That was but an instance of the odium which the maintenance of this system got us into with foreigners. The system was extended to forcing those who were known by the name of "civil-power men" on board ships of war. Such persons were, in other words, the rogues and vagabonds of the country; and while they were utterly useless as effective men, they did much to contaminate the rest of the crew. He recollected having twenty-seven such men forced on him. He went to the Admiralty to remonstrate on the subject, but he was there told that he must take them to make up his ship's complement. He was not ashamed to own it, that in proceeding to sea he took the first opportunity that offered to man the boats with these fellows and let them run away, thus getting rid of a parcel of vagabonds, The
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naval service should not in this manner be made a vent for the common gaols of the country. Then as to the pay of the navy, he begged to say that whenever the question of the paper currency should be discussed, he would be prepared to show that during a great part of the late war the navy had been paid 6s. in the pound less than it was entitled to, and he should then claim for the navy that 6s. in the pound. The manner in which it had occurred was this—the ships with impressed men on board were ordered abroad, and when they got to Gibraltar, on getting their pay, the sailors received only 14 s. for the pound, in dollars. He recollected an instance where, under such circumstances, the whole ship's company came to him on the quarter-deck to complain of such treatment. He must acknowledge, that in that instance he practised a little piece of imposition upon them, for he feared the consequences should he act the part of agitator. He asked the steward what was the nature of the complaint? His reply was, that they only gave him 14 s. in dollars for the pound. He (Sir Edward Codrington) said in answer "What scoundrels they must be! But you know we are all treated in the same manner." The result was that they went away satisfied. Now if he had acted the part of agitator, and had said that this was a robbery on the part of the Government, he should probably have caused a mutiny in the fleet. To return to the subject of impressment, he (Sir Edward Codrington) had never had the honour, had never impressed a man in the whole course of his service, and he never would have an impressed man in his ship if he could help it. The practice was held in such horror by those whose calling subjected them to it, that they were known to submit to all sorts of privations and tortures to avoid it; frequent cases having occurred of men being headed up in casks, and so shipped away from the reach of his Majesty's officers. He would further state that when the fleet was at Gibraltar, during the war, several soldiers joined the ships who had been originally seamen, who had been driven from that profession by the fear of impressment, and who afterwards finding the life of a soldier unsuitable to their habits, were allowed to exchange into the navy. Could there be any thing more cruel than the practice which prevailed in times of impressment?

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It was well known that in the river or the Downs, whenever a fleet of traders came in from the South Seas, or elsewhere, the boats of the navy were manned, went on board, and took all the men out of those ships, which they then sent up the river under a convoy of their own. These men whom they so impressed, returning as they did from a long voyage, were again sent abroad, without being so much as allowed to go once on shore to see their friends. Such practices as these could not but lead to disaffection and mutiny, of which some memorable instances were recorded in our own times. It was not to be supposed that the famous mutiny of the fleet at the Nore was got up by the regular seamen. It was first planned and set a-going by fellows who had not any pretensions to the title of seamen—"the civil power men"—the scum of the earth. These were the concoctors of the mutiny, who afterwards forced the real sailors to join with them, by means of tyranny and intimidation worse than that they themselves complained of. The House would now, perhaps, allow him to state his opinion upon the subject of corporal punishments. When that question in respect to the army, had been brought before the House, he had felt it his duty to oppose the abolition of that practice. It was not with any view of keeping up his own authority, for he thought that it could not be felt otherwise than as a degrading and unpleasant task for an officer and a gentleman when obliged to enforce it. All he would say was, that he should be glad if any one would tell him what other method of discipline, what other more agreeable punishment, could be adopted in its stead? There was no black hole in the ship; and he knew enough of the feelings of the men to assure the House that they did not view with any relish, the schemes of commuted punishment which had sometimes been proposed in their behalf. But the fact was, that a good regular seaman was never punished; they never had occasion to punish them; it was the civil power men, the scum of the earth, to whom he alluded before, who came in for this. This was another of the cruel features of the service that arose entirely from the system of impressment. At the end of the war, when the ships were in the Downs, it had been found necessary to give up the plan of lowering a sail into the water to make
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a kind of swimming-bath by the side of the ships, lest the men should swim ashore, thus depriving the whole body of a very reasonable source of enjoyment. It had been urged by the advocates of the present system, that the very men who had been impressed themselves would be found assisting to impress others. This certainly did appear extraordinary; yet those very men would afterwards, when the occasion offered, desert with the very men they had assisted to impress. Looking at the question in all its bearings, he must say, that he thought some plan might be devised to rid the service of much of the cruelly and odium now attached to it, taking care still to leave his Majesty the power of using his extraordinary prerogative in case of extraordinary necessity. He should therefore conclude by giving his cordial support to the Motion before the House.
Captain Elliotrose to offer a few remarks to the House, in consequence of what had fallen from the hon. mover, and in consequence of some errors into which he had been led, both on the present and on the former occasion, when he had brought this question under the consideration of Parliament. On a former occasion that hon. Member had drawn a most affecting picture of the injustice and inhumanity of impressment. He had proved himself a great artist in the picture he then drew, but he had taken the liberty of an artist in colouring that picture for effect. He was sure of this, that no commander could keep his ship effective in time of war, and with the requisite number of men, without the aid of impressment. He did not mean to say, that a better system might not be substituted, but as matters stood at present, it was impossible to keep a ship's company in time of war, effective, without the aid of impressment. It was stated on the other hand, by the hon. mover, that Lord Ex-mouth did, without the assistance of impressment, and the gallant Admiral opposite had also told them that he had kept up his ship's number without it.
Sir Edward Codringtonbegged to explain, that what he had said was, that he had not impressed men. He did not say that he had not received impressed men on board.
Captain Elliotsaid, he would just refer to the returns as to the ships commanded by the gallant Admiral, in order to show

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the House how far the gallant Admiral had done without the aid of impressment. The number of men impressed by the ship first commanded by the gallant Admiral in the course of the war was certainly only seven. She was commanded by him for two years and a half, and during that time she received 616 men on board from other ships. She obtained only five volunteers during that period, and seven men who had been impressed, deserted. There were therefore 609 men serving on board the gallant Admiral's ship who had been forced to serve there from the receiving ships. Now, if every officer in the service had followed the example of the gallant Admiral, and had not impressed, what would the gallant Admiral have done for men to man his ship? He for one did not follow such an example. He thought it his duty to do as the other officers in the service did, and he did not throw himself on other ships for supplying men to keep his own in an effective state. Then as to the case of Lord Exmouth. He had been employed as Captain Pellew during the peace, before the breaking out of the revolutionary war. He commanded a frigate at the time, and there was not a man on board impressed, as of course then, as now, impressment was not practised in time of peace. That vessel continued under his command for ten months after the breaking out of the war. Now, the hon. member for Sheffield, amongst the other evil effects which he attributed to impressment, had stated that it was the cause of great desertion from the ships in his Majesty's service. Out of this ship, commanded by Captain Pellew for ten months, with a volunteer crew, fifty-one men deserted, being an average of one man in three and a-half during that time. He would follow Lord Exmouth to another ship—the next he commanded,—the Indefatigable. The ship's company then was composed of one-half volunteers and one-half impressed men, and the desertion in it was only one man in nine. The next ship his Lordship commanded, was manned entirely by impressed men; he commanded her for three years, and during that time the desertion from her was only one man in fifty. Those facts, he thought, furnished satisfactory proofs that desertion did not depend on the circumstance whether the men were impressed or volunteers, for here was the same officer, going on with the same course of
1100
discipline, and the desertion was found to decrease in proportion to the increase in the number of impressed men in the ship's company. He (Captain Elliot) had, whenever he wanted men, impressed them whenever and wherever he could, as he conceived that his first and paramount duty was to keep his ship effectively manned. He repeated that he never hesitated to exercise that power when he could not get volunteers. He would add, that he had never hesitated, when he thought the good of the service required it, to inflict corporal punishment. He commanded a ship for five years, from 1807 to 1812, with a complement of 280 men, all of whom had been impressed. In Captain Pellew's ship, with a company consisting entirely of volunteers, the desertion was one man in three; and in his (Captain Elliot's) it was one man in seventy-one. That was a clear proof that desertion did not depend on impressment. Captain Pellew, in the Nymphe, the first ship he commanded, received, in the course of ten months, ninety-five men in forced service, in order to keep up his complement; in his next ship he received 341 men from the receiving ship; and in his third ship he received 126 men who had been impressed, and twenty-six who volunteered. These facts proved that if his Lordship had been left to man his ship with volunteers, it would have been impossible for him to do so. In his (Captain Elliot's) ship, during the period he commanded her, he received 150 men to keep up his complement; but he would not lead the House to suppose that they were all impressed men, for they volunteered afterwards, as they had no other alternative left them. Those who so volunteered got 5l. each as a premium or reward for doing so. He felt satisfied that the merchant service would be amongst the first to complain if the system was abrogated. Indeed it was a circumstance not to be denied, that seamen had never made any allusion to the impressment as a ground of complaint, but had merely desired that the Legislature should place pressed men in the same situation in every respect as volunteers. He repeated that he had never known the navy to complain of impressment or of corporal punishment, but, on the contrary, their complaints had been confined solely to the abuse of the power of carrying in to effect the administering and inflicting both. He would instance

1101
the case of the mutiny at the Nore, during which the mutineers never dreamt, though impressment was then very much in vogue, to make it one of the causes of their mutiny. He was happy also to add that every complaint then made, and every grievance at that period complained of, had since been remedied or removed. He could not avoid, also, reminding the House, that there was no country in Europe which did not pursue the same plan of manning their ships. Certainly he admitted, that if hon. Gentlemen would go to America, they would find quite a different state of things in this respect; but in Europe such was the practice. In Spain for instance, and especially in Holland, where, though there was no power to press a man for the navy, yet the government had power to press for soldiers, and then give the pressed men the choice to go on board ship as a sailor, in preference to serving in a military capacity. In Russia, also, the power was retained of pressing whole hordes, and by these means alone was the naval service of that nation filled up. With reference to the case of impressment which had been stated to have occurred in Liverpool, he could state that so far from impressment, the full complement of men had been made up by volunteers without bounty. He should not detain the House further than to express his strong feeling that the navy of this country could ever be manned by volunteers, but he was satisfied, that on an emergency, a very great force might be wanted within a very short period of time, and that, without the power of impressment, it would be very difficult to get such a force collected.
Colonel Torrenssaid, that from the clear statement and the promises made by the First Lord of the Admiralty, he was sure that the impressment would be rendered unnecessary, and that the power granted by the present harsh Act would lie dormant. The object was to prevent cruelty, consistently with the preservation of an effective naval force. Both, he thought, could be done by the proposition of the noble Lord. With this impression upon his mind, he was decidedly of opinion that the power to impress seamen for the naval service could be most properly retained in the hands of Government with perfect safety to the community and with advantage to the nation. He would support the Amendment.
Mr. Warresaid, so strong were his feelings on the subject of impressment, that if the Motion of the hon. member for Sheffield were to stand or fall by its own merits, in place of being met, as it was, by the First Lord of the Admiralty, he would certainly give it his cordial support. But, after the statement made by the right hon. Baronet, he hoped the House would accede to his proposition, as he (Mr. Warre) thought that the original Motion would be rendered unnecessary. He concurred in most of what the hon. Member (Mr. Buckingham) said, as to the cruelty and the injustice of dragging innocent men from their homes to be forced on board King's ships, and the impolicy of keeping up such a system; and he especially concurred with him in his statement that, if we were involved in war to-morrow, while the impressment continued in operation, the feelings of the people would become changed about the navy as they were about other institutions; and that was a state of things that was much to be deprecated. It was not from any indifference about the subject, but from having heard and weighed the arguments advanced, that he came to the conclusion that the object of the hon. Member would be gained without pressing his Motion. The hon. Member declared his intention of supporting the Amendment.
Mr. Inghamwished to ask the right hon. Baronet, whether it were intended by the Government to introduce a clause in the projected Bill of Registration rendering it legal to man the navy with those included in the registration in case a sufficient number of volunteers could not be procured?
Sir James Grahamsaid, that, in the Bill which it was intended to introduce, no provision would be made for regulating the wages of those engaged in the merchant service. Secondly, that the Bill would be exclusively limited to simple registration. For the last century the imperfect state of the registration was complained of, and efforts were made to complete it. He (Sir J. Graham) would not say, that he had an entire confidence in his own powers. But, from the inquiries he made, the attention he paid to the subject, and the assistance he attained, he trusted that his registration would be a complete one.
Admiral Flemingsaid, he came to the

1103
House to listen dispassionately to the statement of the hon. Member, (Mr. Buckingham), and he would say that that statement had made an impression on him. As he was no advocate for impressment, he would be glad that a safe and radical scheme was adopted for removing the evils that attended it. And, after the statement of the First Lord of the Admiralty, he thought that a safe and gradual scheme for manning the navy could be resorted to without impressment. He would support the Amendment.
Mr. Lyallconcurred in most of the statements of the member for Sheffield. He thought it was proved that there existed generally a strong reluctance in men to join the navy. That reluctance to any connexion with the service existed not only before impressment, but even after. Impressment was not calculated to make the service palatable. To show how unwilling men who were forced into the navy were to remain in it, he would mention that there were 15,000 deserters in two years during the war. Now, if a system that caused such repugnance to the service and so much desertion were not corrected in time of peace, what, he would ask, would be the state of our Colonies during war, when they required protection? But it was not alone the navy or the Colonies that would be injured: the mercantile interest of the country, which stood in need of protection on the seas, would also suffer. The merchant service would require more men during the war than in peace. At all times, whether in peace or war, the same preference would be given to the merchant service over the King's service, and, of course, greater facilities would be afforded for supplying it with hands. Merchantmen possessed many advantages and offered indulgences to sailors which, on board ships of war, they could not enjoy. They were allowed more wages, were under less rigid discipline, and could oftener get on shore and return home; young and old could in a few months return to their families, and bring back their earnings. Such being the case, the repugnance to the King's service would still continue. And he (Mr. Lyall) thought that it would be highly desirable to remove it. He was not sure that registration would effect that object. Registration was impressment under a different name. It would not prevent the necessity of impressment. He had
1104
consulted several authorities of high legal character, and from the opinions they gave, he had no doubt that impressment was legal. In order, then, to meet the evils of repugnance to the naval service, and of an inefficient force in time of war, he (Mr. Lyall) thought the best course was to make preparation in time, and increase the navy during peace. If war broke out, the country would want about 100,000 men. He contended, that not less than from 120,000 to 150,000 men would be of any use during war to protect all our mercantile interests; and surely those interests were not to be neglected by such a nation as England. There was no remedy for the evil complained of but to increase our naval force in time of peace; for then would the country be best prepared for the time of war—otherwise impressment should be adopted—a system that was justified by necessity and immemorial usage.
Mr. Humewas prepared to contend, that the services of seamen were to be bought as well as the services of any other class of men; but it was most unjust to expect that men who could get 5l. for their wages in the merchant service should serve for a less remuneration in the navy of the nation. He demanded for the British sailor equal treatment with that of a fellow-countryman in the merchant service, and on these grounds alone he hoped the Government would not object to a Select Committee being appointed to go into a full and complete inquiry into the subject, with a view to the removal of the difficulties, grievances, and hardships to which the sailor was exposed. The hon. Gentleman opposite (Captain Elliott) had defended the system of impressment, and had boasted that during the war the navy had been manned almost solely by the means which that system had afforded; but, said the hon. Member, "Good God! now that we are on terms of peace, are we not to look, inquire, and ascertain how far the evils of that system can be remedied?" The right hon. Gentleman ought to have been prepared distinctly to say whether or not it was fit that such an inquiry should be entered upon, and not have met the question by that sort of mere parliamentary trick which was only resorted to when difficulties arose, and when the Administration were not prepared to state the course which was deemed advisable to

1105
pursue. After the answer which had been given to the Motion of the hon. member for Sheffield by the Government on this occasion, it was evident—and it would be so held by seamen—that the proposed plan of registration was only calculated to catch them more securely, and would only serve to make the evil greater and the system still more unpopular. He (Mr. Hume) was not prepared to say, that impressment was a prerogative to be exercised by the Government; but, if exercised at all, it should only be so in times of emergency, difficulty, and danger; and it was a duty befitting the Legislature to shield and guard so meritorious a class of the subjects of the realm from so great a grievance falling too harshly and severely upon them. He could bring forward men who had been forty years in the service, who neither sought nor had they any wish to do away with the system of impressment; indeed he had been told within the last few days by a man who had served eighteen years in the service, and had been as many years in merchant ships, that as the country must be protected, and as ships must be manned for that purpose, impressment was necessary; but his informant had added, "Let impressment be understood to take place under a fixed law, let it be legalized under the authority of Parliament, and let the period of service be fixed and established by the Legislature, and then if I or any other man should be pressed "[laughter]—That laugh was most childish, and utterly unworthy of men. He spoke in the language of his informant, who had proceeded to observe, that if he or any other man was pressed on an emergency such as would warrant such a proceeding, the period of service should be fixed and limited, and in case of those limits being exceeded, a provision should be made for a recompense in the way of increased wages until the Government should be enabled to find means to relieve those whose period of service had expired. Nothing could be more fair or reasonable than such a proposition, and, as a means to carry it into effect, he fully concurred in the Motion of the hon. member for Sheffield, and in doing so he must also add his expression of regret that any man could be found who would refuse to accede to so fair, just, and equitable a course.
Captain Elliottdenied, that he had prided himself upon the fact that the
1106
British navy had been manned during the war by impressment. So far from entertaining any such feeling as had been attributed to him by the hon. member for Middlesex, he had ever regretted that impressment had not been confined to cases of great emergency, instead of being resorted to as a general practice.
Lord Althorpsaid, that it must be satisfactory to the House that the Motion of the hon. member for Sheffield had been so fully and fairly discussed. Without entering into the various topics which had been introduced during the discussion, he must remind the House, that the present Motion was not a Motion for the abolition of the system of impressment, for, on the contrary, every hon. Gentleman who had spoken upon the subject, had admitted that the system was necessary to the effective service of the State; but was merely for the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire whether any means could be devised and adopted to mitigate the evils attributed to the present plan, and to make the naval service of the nation more popular by rendering instances of impressment more rare than at present. His right hon. friend at the head of the Admiralty had stated, that he was himself already proceeding in the same course as that suggested by the hon. member for Sheffield. His right hon. friend had also stated several measures which be had adopted, and which it was admitted were well calculated to increase the popularity of the naval service. What possible good could ensue from abolishing the system of impressment, until the proposed registration was proved to be an efficient measure? Would it not rather be an instance of most improvident legislation to destroy one source of obtaining men for the service of the navy before another could be tried and adopted? The Government had in preparation measures intended gradually to effect the object which it was now attempted, most unwisely, to attain by one step; yet hon. Members came down to the House, asked for a Committee of Inquiry, and took the measure out of the hands of Ministers, when it was in the proper train for arriving at eventual success. More than one hon. Member, however, had stated, in the course of the debate, that when he came down to the House he had entered it with the intention of voting in favour of the Motion, but that the clear statement of

1107
his right hon. friend had been so perfectly satisfactory that he had determined to vote for the Amendment. The hon. member for Middlesex, indeed, called this Amendment a trick; but in what sense that Amendment could be called a trick, he was at a loss to conceive. Ministers proposed an alteration in the present system of manning the navy, but till that alteration was carried into effect, he was prepared to show that impressment, though an evil, was a necessary evil. The hon. Member who seconded the Motion had said, that it was not a necessary evil. [Mr. G. Young: I said it might be a necessary evil.] Well, he would ask the hon. Member, who was a gentleman with extensive mercantile connexions, whether he would feel very comfortable, in time of war, when the ships of an enemy covered the ocean, if this power were not for the present, at least, vested in the Government? He admitted this power ought only to be exercised on occasions of strong necessity; but when that necessity was felt, how would the country feel without a maritime force properly manned? Before a fleet could be got ready for sea, the prisons of the enemy would be filled with the sailors of merchant-men. The hon. member for Worcester had truly stated that this question referred to times of war as well as peace; and as he admitted that the high wages offered in time of war by merchant-men tempted sailors to enter on board them instead of the royal navy, he thought that a stronger argument could not be employed to prove that some degree of compulsory service was necessary. The power of enforcing such service might certainly be better exercised than it was at present. The period, too, of general service might be limited, and certain classes of seamen might be taken for a limited time. He thought much good would result from the intended mode of registration; and he hoped the House would give that confidence to his right hon. friend which his proposition so well deserved, and the Government credit for pursuing the course best adapted to carry their intentions into effect.
Mr. Buckingham, in reply, said, that as the House had already extended to him their unbroken attention during his first address, and must by this time consider the snbject nearly exhausted, he should trespass but a few minutes only on their time. As, however, he was anxious to
1108
avoid the imputation of factious motives in persisting to divide the House on his original Motion, he would frankly say, that if the amendment of the right hon. Baronet had in any way met the case, he would have yielded to him without hesitation. But it went altogether wide of the mark; and this he thought he should be able to show—so as to justify his perseverance in asking the House to grant the Committee required. The right hon. Baronet had done him the kindness to compliment him upon his opening speech, and to praise it for the talent and discretion which he was pleased to say it displayed. He contrasted this, however, with the tone of certain speeches delivered by him elsewhere, and thought the present an atonement for past indiscretions. He thanked the right hon. Baronet for thus reminding him of what might otherwise have escaped his recollection, namely, that there was a still wider contrast between the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman delivered to his former constituents at Hull, when a candidate for the representation of that seaport town, and his speeches as First Lord of the Admiralty. In his latter capacity he had defended the practice of impressment, both in the last Session and the present; while, in his former capacity, he had denounced the system as cruel and unjustifiable; and obtained great popularity among the electors of Hull as its determined enemy. [Sir James Graham intimated, that the hon. Member had been misinformed.] Such was the statement which he had himself repeatedly heard from the electors of Hull themselves: and if a total difference of principle should mark the speech of any hon. Member in different situations, it was rather extraordinary that such hon. Member should complain of a mere difference of tone in the speeches of another. He would come, however, to the main points of the debate. The first Lord of the Admiralty had proposed a Registration of the Merchant Seamen of England, which was to be compulsory, or at least to subject to certain disabilities those who did not act upon it. Now, if this were to be preceded or accompanied by a distinct declaration, that impressment was not to be resorted to but in extreme cases of invasion or insurrection, and then under an Order in Council, for a limited time, and with adequate pay, he should not object to such a Bill as a first step to

1109
improvement: or if it had been accompanied with an admission, that when the registry was complete, some plan of service by rotation or ballot, was to be substituted for impressment, he would have consented to its adoption. But as the right hon. Baronet had admitted, that neither of these provisions were to be embraced by the Bill, he was quite certain that the seamen of England would consider such a registry as calculated only to facilitate their seizure whenever impressment should be resorted to: and, under this feeling, not 1,000 men in all England would be found to register themselves, They would regard it as a mere snare to entrap them into a description of their names, ages, and places of abode, that they might be the more readily found when the press-gangs were sent in their pursuit. A striking proof that this proposed registry would not abate impressment in its most oppressive form, was this: that the First Lord of the Admiralty admitted it was not intended to abate in any degree the power of impressment on foreign stations, where it must be allowed to exist in full force. The right hon. Baronet had said, that, in the event of ships of war losing men by battle, or disease, on foreign stations, they must be allowed to supply their losses by impressing the first men they could find; and it was asked, how could they otherwise repair their crews? This question might, he thought, be well answered by asking another—namely, this: Supposing a ship of war to be disabled on a foreign station, by losing her masts, yards, anchors, or cables, how was she to repair her loss? Certainly not by seizing those indispensable requisites from the first merchant ship she meets, nor by robbing them from the first dock-yard she can find; but by honest payment of the fair market value of these supplies, to the parties who furnished them. Would the House sanction the monstrous doctrine, that it was dishonest to steal by force the materials for repairing a ship's hull or rigging, without paying their full value; but that it was legal and just to rob as many men as could be found—to deprive them of their liberty—to rob them of the value of their only property—their skill and labour; and to punish them with torture if they dared to refuse. No! If the merchant service is in need of men, they cannot seize them by force, under the plea that the national commerce must be main-
1110
tained; neither should the King's Navy be thus supplied, on the plea that the national defence must be unimpaired. If the navy must be kept up for defence, commerce must be sustained to pay the cost; but let both bear their fair share of the burthen, be it what it may; and for himself he believed there was too strong a sense of honesty and justice in the nation, to refuse to seamen their full remuneration for their services, which all other classes asserted and enjoyed their right to command. This power of impressing abroad surely could not be defended, on the ground of the King's prerogative. That was expressly restricted to the manning the fleet in times of danger, and only in the narrow seas:—that is, in the channels around the island, where defence against invasion would have to be made. But if impressment were to be allowed on all our foreign stations and colonial possessions abroad, this would embrace nearly half the globe; so that every single commander, whether of a line-of-battle ship, or a cutter, would, without any delegation of the King's prerogative—without a press-warrant—without any authority in short but his individual caprice,—be enabled, whenever he thought proper, to press any number of men out of any ship he met, and be accountable to no authority for any such abuse of his power. The First Lord of the Admiralty had himself, however, furnished the strongest reasons to show that impressment would in future be wholly unnecessary, and that therefore it might be safely abolished. He rejoiced at the improvements which had already been introduced into the naval service; he was glad to find that still more improvement was to follow; and if, as was alleged, the wages of the navy were already nearly equal to that of the merchant service, and the treatment better, was it not an ill compliment to themselves, for the Ministers to suppose, that, with this superiority of attraction, his Majesty's ships could not obtain men? Why, was it not notorious that privateers, where all the dangers of war, and very many inconveniences not suffered in the navy, were to be endured, could get men in large numbers at any time by voluntary enlistment? Nay, that Don Pedro, or Don Miguel, or any other person in want of seamen to fight their battles, might ship as many men as they wished in the Thames and the Mersey without impressment? These were mat-

1111
ters of universal notoriety; and it was an insult to the King's service to suppose that, if the same system of fair bounty, limited time, and adequate wages were tried, men could not be as readily obtained for his Majesty's fleet, as for the squadrons of any other warlike power. The truth was, that seamen generally, so far from disliking danger, rather courted it. A voyage of entire fair weather, unrelieved by any incident or adventure, was to them tame and tiresome. They liked an occasional struggle, either in the battle or the breeze; and would generally prefer the hazardous and the enterprising, to the dull regularity of an unvaried round of safely and peace. But though they had no aversion to danger, they abhorred being dragged into it by coercion. Only remove this, and leave it to their own free wills, and the seamen of England would never be found backward to serve their country, at the peril of their lives, whenever their services were required. The hon. Secretary to the Admiralty (Captain Elliott) had paid him (Mr. Buckingham) the high compliment, for so he considered it, of replying in detail to the speech delivered by him on this question a year ago—to this he had no objection—he only regretted that the pledge under which he felt himself bound to the House to be very brief in Ins reply, prevented his following the hon. Secretary so closely as he could wish. Judging from the speech of the gallant Officer, he should say, that if his views were correct,—that volunteers were more likely to desert than pressed men, the House ought to pass a resolution declaring, that no volunteers should ever be received, since they were so liable to desert, but that pressed men, and pressed men only, should be employed. There was an important omission, however, in the gallant Captain's statement, respecting the comparative desertions of volunteers and pressed men. He did not explain the different circumstances under which the ships or their crews were placed in either of the cases—so that there might be other causes for their deserting in one instance and remaining in another, besides that of their being volunteers or impressed men. If the argument of the hon. Secretary were worth anything, however, it would go to prove that forced service was more agreeable than voluntary, and therefore ought to be resorted to in all cases. The gallant Captain asserted, indeed, that King's ships could not be manned by
1112
volunteers, and added that all the civilized nations of Europe adopted some system of impressment or other to man their fleets: none but the Americans being able to equip their ships of war without. This contrast was unfortunate, however, for the gallant Officer's case, for the superiority of the American navy, manned wholly by volunteers, to all the navies of the old countries of Europe manned by impressment, was as striking a proof as could be cited, of the superiority of the free system to that of compulsory. But it was sufficient for him, he thought, to appeal to the good sense of the House, and to ask hon. Members, whether any serious argument had been offered against going into a Committee of Inquiry at least. The Bill proposed as an Amendment might be a very good Bill for effecting its particular object, to register the seamen of the mercantile marine, but it had nothing whatever to do with the subject of impressment, except, indeed, to make it more easy to press seamen than before; for the hon. Secretary to the Admiralty had admitted that registration was only impressment in another form; and undoubtedly, unless accompanied with the limitations of that power which the First Lord of the Admiralty was unwilling to admit, it would be so received by the seamen of England generally. But while officers, who had passed their lives in the service entertained such opposite opinions as they had heard that evening, while great doubt existed as to the legality, and still more as to the efficiency of the practice, he could not conceive a stronger case for a Committee of Inquiry at least, before which the conflicting evidence would be sifted, in which the right hon. Baronet's Bill might be considered, and the result of the whole reported to the House. In the name, then, of the seamen of England, and of the large body of landsmen who, as their fellow subjects had sympathised with their wrongs and petitioned on their behalf, he intreated the House to yield to the justice of their claims, and grant him the Committee of Inquiry.
The House divided on the original Motion—Ayes 130; Noes 218: Majority 88.

List of the AYES.

ENGLAND.

Baillie, J. E.

Adams, E. H.

Bainbridge, E. T.

Aglionby, H. A.

Baines, E.

Anson, Hon. G.

Barnard, E. G.

Attwood, T.

Beauclerk, Major E.

1113

Bewes, T.

Rider, T.

Bish, T.

Rippon, C.

Briscoe, J. I.

Robinson, G. R.

Brodie, B.

Roebuck, J. L.

Brotherton, J.

Romilly, J.

Bulwer, E. L.

Romilly, E.

Bulwer, H. L.

Rumbold, C. E.

Chaytor, Sir W.

Scholefield, J.

Chichester, J. P. B.

Shawe, R. N. E.

Clay, W.

Simeon, Sir R. G.

Clive, E. B.

Staunton, Sir G. H.

Codrington, Sir E.

Stuart, Lord D.

Collier, J.

Strutt, E.

Curteis, H. B.

Thicknesse, R.

Curteis, Capt. E. B.

Thompson, Alderman

Davies, Colonel

Throckmorton, R. G.

Dawson, E.

Trelawney, W. L. S.

Dundas, Hon. J. C.

Vernon, G. H.

Ellis, W.

Vincent, Sir F.

Evans, W.

Walker, R.

Ewart, W.

Warburton, H.

Faithfull, G.

Wason, R.

Fancourt, Major

Whalley, Sir S.

Fort, J.

Wigney, J. N.

Fenton, J.

Wilks, J.

Fielden, J.

Wood, Alderman

Gaskell, D.

Young, G. F.

Grote, G.

SCOTLAND.

Gully, J.

Colquhoun, J. C.

Halcomb, J.

Ewing, J.

Hall, B.

Johnston, A.

Hardy, J.

Maxwell, J.

Harland, W. C.

Oswald, R. A.

Harvey, D. W.

Oswald, J.

Hawes, B.

Parnell, Rt. Hon. Sir H.

Hawkins, J. H.

Sinclair, G.

Hughes, H.

Steuart, R.

Humphrey, J.

Wallace, R.

Hurst, R. H.

IRELAND.

Hutt, W.

Barry, G. S.

Ingham, R.

Bellew, R. M.

Jervis, J.

Blake, M. J.

Kemp, T.

Evans, G.

Kennedy, J.

Fitzgerald, T.

Lambton, Hon. E.

Fitzsimon, C.

Langdale, Hon. C.

Lalor, P.

Lennox, Lord W.

Lynch, H.

Lester, B. L.

O'Connell, D.

Lister, E.

O'Connell, M.

Lloyd, J.

O'Connell, M.

Lushington, Dr.

O'Connell, J.

Marryat, J.

O'Connor, F.

Marsland, T.

O'Dwyer, A. C.

Mills, J.

O'Reilly, W.

Morrison, J.

Roche, W.

Ord, W. H.

Ruthven, E. S.

Parrott, J.

Ruthven, E.

Pease, J.

Sheil, R. L.

Philips, M.

Vigors, N. A.

Plumptre, J. P.

Wallace, T.

Potter, R.

TELLERS.

Poulter, J.

Buckingham, J. S.

Pryme, G.

Hume, J.

TIMBER DUTIES.
Mr. Huttrose to submit a Motion with respect to the Timber Duties. He wished to see an equal-
1114
ization of the duties on Baltic and Canada timber. He represented the trade as in a state of great and injurious suspense. He wished to know from the noble Lord (Lord Althorp) whether any alteration was intended? It was then three years since the Government had proposed a wise, a just, a necessary measure, and he wished to learn if the noble Lord had deserted his principles, and also if the right hon. Gentleman, (Mr. Poulett Thomson) whose fame was connected with the budget in which an alteration of the duties was proposed, had forsaken the opinions he then enforced? Than the present moment a better opportunity for dealing with the subject could not be expected. The stock on hand was extremely short, and the whole of the trade required improvement. Would not the noble Lord pursue the course which consistency and common sense pointed out, or would he wait until Germany and the whole of Europe had, as a measure of retaliation, excluded British manufactures? The country was carrying on a commerce with Canada at the expense of 2,000,000 l. a-year. Canada before many years would be an independent state. He would not pursue the subject as the House seemed so impatient under it, but he hoped an equalization of duties would be recommended by Ministers, when the plan would receive his support. He would move that an account be laid before Parliament of the duties received on timber imported from the British provinces in North America, stating also the duties that would have been paid if it had been imported from other countries.
Lord Althorpsaid, in reply to the hon. member for Hull, that he had not changed his mind upon the subject of the timber duties. It was not, he had further to inform the hon. Member, the intention of Government to do any thing in the present Session which could have any effect upon the trade. It was not at present necessary to consume the time of the House with a premature discussion upon the timber duties; and he had only to say, in addition, that he had no objection to the production of the papers asked for by the hon. Member, except, indeed, that they had been already granted upon the Motion of the member for Bridport.
Alderman Thompsonhad no wish to involve the House in a premature discussion; but when the subject should be regularly brought before the House he

1115
would be prepared to show, that the change which appeared to be contemplated would not only be detrimental to a very considerable commercial interest in this country, but would be also greatly injurious to the Canadas.
Mr. Robinsonthought the question was one of very considerable difficulty, and it would be absolutely necessary to adopt some course that would prevent the Canadas from falling a sacrifice to any unwise concessions to Russia. He should not then go into the general question, but content himself, for the present, by supporting the Motion.
Mr. Warburtonsaid, the noble Lord was in error in supposing that it was he who moved for the papers. They had been moved for by another hon. Member. He would beg to inform the noble Lord that, amongst those engaged in the importation of timber, a very general expectation was indulged that, in the present year, some alteration would be made in the timber duties. In fact, amongst the entire trade an impression was entertained, year after year, that some alteration would be made, and he could assure the House that putting off a question of such moment was calculated to produce a very injurious effect upon the trade. In fact, nothing could tend more to paralyse trade than such a state of uncertainty. At present the enormous duty of 200 per cent existed, and surely the Government ought at once to interfere.
Mr. G. F. Youngregretted, that a subject of so much importance should have been thus incidentally introduced, and subjected to a crude and unsatisfactory discussion. It was, in his opinion, a fallacy to suppose that the reduction of the timber duties would be attended with benefit to the consumer in this country; and there was no doubt it would produce a considerable diminution in the revenue. It was a fact worth the notice of the House, that when the duty was only 10 s. 11 d., the price of the timber to the consumer was not less than when the duty was 2l. 15 s.
Motion withdrawn.

CASE OF THE BRIGHTON GUARDIAN—LAW OF LIBEL.
Mr. Wigney, in rising to bring forward the Motion of which he had given notice, relative to the case of Mr. Cohen, the publisher of the Brighton Guardian newspaper, begged to assure the
1116
House, that he felt considerable dissatisfaction at being obliged to do so at that late hour of the night (past 12); but he begged to assure the House, that he would not occupy much of their time. He first begged leave to present a Petition from the borough of Newport in the Isle of Wight, and also from the town and port of Hastings, and another Petition from the city of Chichester,—all most numerously and respectably signed, and likewise a Petition from the borough of Lewes, signed by 300 of the inhabitants of that town, all praying that the person who was the object of the present Motion, Mr. Cohen, now a prisoner in Chelmsford Gaol, might be released from his confinement. [The Petitions having been laid on the Table, Mr. Wigney proceeded.] He now begged to submit to the House the Motion of which he had had the honour of giving notice that day fortnight, namely, that an humble Address be presented to his Majesty, praying that he would be pleased to remit the remainder of the sentence on Mr. Cohen, who was now confined in his Majesty's Gaol at Chelmsford. This person to whom he (Mr. Wigney) alluded, was found guilty at the last assizes of a libel upon the Magistrates of Sussex, but it was declared by the learned Judge who tried the case that there was no ground for the charge preferred against Mr. Cohen in one of the counts. The charge was, that he had excited the agricultural labourers of Sussex to acts of incendiarism. This certainly was a very serious charge; and if it had been proved, in his opinion no punishment would have been too severe for the individual who had been guilty of a crime so monstrous; but this charge was over-ruled by the learned Judge, who thought there was no ground for it; and yet the Jury returned a verdict finding Mr. Cohen guilty. It was for this libel on the Magistrates, the prosecution of which was supported by many of them, though many were not in favour of it, for which, it appeared, this prisoner had suffered, and did still suffer, a most severe sentence in Chelmsford Gaol, at a great distance from his own county. He thought that six months' imprisonment, a fine of 50 l., and the necessity of finding sureties for three years, was in this case a sentence of unparalleled severity. He hoped, that this person having now suffered four months' imprisonment, not only the law was satisfied, but that the prosecutor was satisfied, and that the House would agree to this Motion which he had brought

1117
forward. He would only refer to one or two circumstances of the case. He was exceedingly sorry the other morning that the hon. Baronet, the member for Shoreham (Sir C. Burrell) had adverted to two former occasions on which this individual had been convicted of libels. However guilty he might have been, he had then suffered the penalty of the law for those libels; as far as he could, he bad atoned for them; and, therefore, he thought that this case should be allowed to rest on its own merits, and, he would say, that the punishment Mr. Cohen had suffered in this case was far too much, and when they considered that an individual in another country had been punished not only under another law, but for an offence of the greatest possible magnitude—he alluded to the case of the editor of the Pilot,—when he (Mr. Wigney) considered that that individual, having published what was considered a gross libel on the Administration of the country, and having been supposed to have incited the people of the country to sedition—when that person was only condemned to six months' imprisonment, and this unfortunate gentleman, whose cause he advocated, had been condemned to an equal punishment, though the two cases were of so distinct a nature, and the penalty inflicted was so severe, that he could not consider under what circumstances anomalous verdicts could have been given,—he hoped that the case of Mr. Cohen would be attended to by the House, and that the Motion would meet with their approbation. From the circumstance of the Under Secretary of State not having given him any hint whatever that the Government would oppose this Motion, he would say he was sanguine in his expectation that they would grant his request. The prisoner had written a letter to the Secretary of State, praying to be released from confinement, and his Lordship had written an answer back, stating that he was not able to interfere with the case, and therefore he (Mr Wigney) would make a Motion to accomplish that object. He would content himself with moving that an humble Address be presented to his Majesty praying that he would be graciously pleased to remit the remainder of the sentence inflicted upon Mr. Cohen.
Mr. Kempbegged to second the Motion, and said that he did so with considerable satisfaction, because there had been just laid on the Table of the House, a Petition signed by 300 of the inhabitants of the
1118
town which he represented. With respect to this prosecution he rejoiced to say, that several of his hon. friends, Members of that House and Magistrates of the county of Sussex, certainly did represent to the other Magistrates that it was highly desirable for the public benefit and the best interests of society at large, that this editor of the paper in question should not be prosecuted under the Libel-law. He (Mr. Kemp) was of opinion that the sentence which Mr. Cohen had already undergone,—four months' imprisonment in Chelmsford gaol, eighty or ninety miles from the town where he conducted a provincial paper,—he thought, he repeated, that that circumstance was sufficient to show that he had already suffered enough to satisfy the law, particularly as he had been acquitted of the principal part of the offence with which he was charged,—that part relative to exciting the labourers to acts of incendiarism. And another circumstance which ought to weigh with the House was, that during the whole time which elapsed between the publication of the paragraph and the trial, no incendiary fires occurred in Sussex. He hoped the House would take into consideration the case of this person, and, as justice was satisfied, that they would agree to the Motion of the hon. member for Brighton, and address his Majesty to remit the remainder of Mr. Cohen's sentence.
The Motion having been put by the Speaker,
Lord Howick, in rising to oppose the Motion which had been moved by the hon. Member opposite, thought it right to apologise to the hon. Member for not having expressed his intention of giving a determined opposition to the Motion; but he certainly had conceived that the hon. Member had understood from him that he was only to receive another communication in the event of the decision of Lord Melbourne being revoked. He was not aware, therefore, of the hon. Member being in expectation of receiving from him (Lord Howick) any intimation that could lead to the belief that he was disposed to acquiesce in the hon. Gentleman's proposition. He thought it necessary to state that he had learnt that some disappointment had been evinced at his not having been in the House at the morning sitting a few days back, when a similar petition to those presented to night, had been presented from the individual himself. He could only say, as an excuse for his absence, that it was only two days ago that he had heard that such a thing

1119
was in existence. He saw it stated in the course of the debate that the hon. Member regretted the absence of the members of the Government, but he (Lord Howick) had no intimation that the petition was to be presented, and in consequence he was not present when the petition was presented. The hon. Member who had proposed this Motion, and the hon. Member by whom it was seconded, had both agreed that the libel of which Mr. Cohen had been convicted, was, in point of fact, a very trifling offence, and had argued that it was the duty of the responsible advisers of the Crown to interfere to release him from his punishment. He (Lord Howick) would not go into the details of the question of it; but he confessed that his own opinion was that it was hardly possible to conceive a more aggravated case of libel than that for which Mr. Cohen was now suffering punishment. This Gentleman had accused the Magistrates of Sussex, by their oppression and tyranny, of compelling the labouring classes in that county to have recourse to acts of incendiarism as the only means of making their situation and their wants known. It was stated in this article, that when the labourers had met to ask for a redress of grievances, the Magistrates had called them mob, and transported them. If that charge were true it would have been a charge of the heaviest description, and the editor of a well-conducted newspaper would have done well to have brought it before the public; but if it were not true, he would say, it then became a libel of the most aggravated description, and he could not be surprised that the Magistrates of Sussex should think it necessary to have recourse to the law to defend themselves from such an attack. He was not a person who generally advised prosecutions for political and seditious libels. He held an opinion that, except under very peculiar circumstances, it was much better to trust to the effect of a free discussion and the discretion and good sense of the people to neutralise the efforts of those trading in sedition, but with regard to libels on private character it was different. He saw nothing—no tyranny which would be more intolerable than that of the Press, if men, when their characters were attacked by the newspapers, were debarred from defending themselves and bringing the question of their imputed guilt before a Jury of their countrymen. With respect to the charge against the Magistrates of Sussex, in this case, he did not, as he said before, mean to
1120
go into it, but it was sufficient for him to say, that that case was fairly brought before a Jury, and that by their verdict Mr. Cohen was found guilty, nor was this all. Judgment was not given at that time, but having given bail he was subsequently brought before the Court of King's Bench, on which occasion were present the Lord Chief Justice and three other Judges of the Court. Mr. Cohen was fully heard in mitigation and after mature deliberation the Court pronounced its judgment. The learned Judge (Judge Park) in passing sentence did state that he did not think the Jury intended to find Mr. Cohen guilty of intending to incite the labourers to acts of incendiarism, but he said. "if the Court was really satisfied that it was your intention to excite the labouring classes to commit violence—the punishment which the Court would inflict on you would be much more severe than it will be;" and no hon. Gentleman would deny that if it was held such intention existed, it would be a case calling for the severest judgment, but for the minor offence of this unfounded charge against the Magistrates, the Court pronounced a solemn sentence of six months imprisonment and a fine of 50 l. [Mr. Wigney: And requiring sureties for three years.] If they looked back to former years and the sentences which used to be given by the same Court, they would find that this was a light one in comparison. He had the curiosity that day to desire to have a return given him of the sentences passed by the Court of King's Bench, and he found they ran from one to two years' imprisonment, and a fine of 100 l. He thought the Court had acted very wisely in this instance in not inflicting a more moderate punishment. But when he considered the nature of the case, the gravity of the charge against the Magistrates, and the want of even the colour of truth in it, he could not think the punishment excessive. But even were the case one of hardship, if on first appearances the punishment might seem to hon. Gentlemen to be beyond what the merits of the case required, yet it was not a case in which the mercy of the Crown ought to be interposed, and still less a case in which that House ought to interpose, to call on the advisers of the Crown to alter the decision of the Judges. It was an opinion which had always been acted upon in this country, that the prerogative of the Crown in interfering with the decision of a court, was one which ought to be most sparingly exercised. When a sentence had

1121
been passed with due consideration in a Court of Justice, unless special circumstances arose, that sentence should be fulfilled. The prerogative of pardon was not in general used; it was made use of in late years in two cases, to modify the sentences in those cases in which the discretion of the Judge was fettered by the law, and he was obliged to pronounce a sentence more severe than the merits of the case required. And it was also made use of when some circumstances arose after the sentence was pronounced, and came to be known, which showed that a lighter sentence would have been pronounced if the prisoner could have shown that his former character and conduct had been better than there had been reason at the time to suppose; or if extenuating circumstances, not before known, should come to light, it was fit the mercy of the Crown should interpose. But it was not the custom of the country that the prerogative of the Crown should be used to over-rule the sentences and decisions come to by the Judges with a full knowledge of the cases. In the case before the House, there was neither of the reasons to which he had referred. The Judges had the full power of passing as light a sentence as they might think fit, it was not a case in which capital punishment was inflicted by law, and in which the Judge did not think so heavy a penalty ought to be inflicted. But in this case the Court had full power of judging the amount of punishment which they thought the case required, and had anything occurred since the sentence was pronounced to warrant the Secretary of State to revoke, or which should induce the House to address the Crown for a remission of that sentence? So far from it, the only additional circumstance elicited by the discussion of the case was, that this was not the first offence of the kind of which this person had been convicted; that on the contrary, it was the fourth libel brought against him, and for which he had been convicted by a Court of Law; and in one case, having been convicted of an aggravated libel on an individual, he escaped by an act of bankruptcy from the payment of the damages which the Court had adjudged to the injured party. These were the only circumstances which had come out; and was there any ground on which the Secretary of State could form an opinion? Was this a case in which it would have been proper for the responsible advisers of his Majesty to exert the prerogative of pardon?
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But the question now before them, was not whether the privilege of pardon might have been properly exercised in this case, but whether that House ought to interfere to induce his Majesty to take a different course from what his responsible advisers had thought fit to pursue. He had listened to the speech of the hon. mover and seconder, in order to hear some grounds for taking a course so extraordinary—which, unless there were very particular reasons, it was strongly objectionable to adopt—but there was not one argument of the kind brought forward. Had the hon. Members who supported this Motion, had those who were prepared to vote for it, considered how very dangerous and mischievous a precedent would be established by it? It would be neither more nor less than a vote to revoke by a popular assembly the solemn decision of a legal tribunal of the land. Such a course was, by that House, almost unprecedented. Of late years he could only find two instances in which such a proposition had been submitted to Parliament. One Motion was made by his hon. friend the member for Devonshire (Lord Ebrington) who moved that an humble address be presented to his Majesty, praying that that part of the sentence passed upon Lord Cochrane by the Court of King's Bench, by which he was to be exposed in the pillory might be revoked; and on the next occasion, an address was moved by another noble friend of his, the Paymaster of the Forces, having for its object the remission of part of the sentence passed upon Sir Manasseh Lopes: and in both cases the Motions were withdrawn by the movers, which showed in the strongest manner how very great a reluctance that House had always entertained, and he thought always ought to entertain, in any interference on subjects of this nature; and he would now more particularly instance the last case—that of Sir Manasseh Lopes. His noble friend in introducing his Motion thought it necessary to guard himself and apologize for bringing forward such a Motion, by saying, that it was a case in which the Ministers of the Crown could hardly have acted without the encouragement of the House. Sir Manasseh Lopes had been convicted of bribery at an election, and sentenced to the enormous punishment of a fine of 10,000 l. and two years' imprisonment. After having paid the fine and been two months' in prison, his noble friend moved that the remainder of the sentence be remitted, the prosecution having been

1123
instituted under the directions of that House, and it being a case of a political nature it would have been difficult for Ministers to remit the sentence. On that ground his noble friend proposed his Motion, and every Member who supported it did so on similar grounds, and the reluctance of the House was so great that his noble friend withdrew his Motion, without any promise on the part of Ministers, but that the case should be taken into consideration. In fact, Sir Manasseh Lopes's punishment was not remitted till a month after the date of the Motion. If in those oases the House was unwilling to interfere, he would ask hon. Members whether in that case which was before them it would not be much more objectionable? Even those who had brought the question forward acknowledged there was some doubt whether it was or was not a fitting case for the mercy of the Crown, and he again asked, should they now establish so very dangerous a precedent as that of bringing under the view of that House the national tribunals of this land? It had hitherto been held, that however high party warfare and party question had been carried on the part of the people, the judgment seat had been free from the influence of them. Should they then bring a subject of this kind under the view of that House, and risk the loss of the advantages which the contrary practice had given? He would most earnestly request hon. Members to consider before they agreed to such and so very strong a measure as this.
Mr. Hawkins: Sir, I was prevented, by illness, from being present when this subject was last brought under the notice of the House; and from adding, as I should then have done, my voice to that of the independent members who recommended the case of the petitioner to the consideration of his Majesty's Ministers. I much regret the opposition which they have thought fit to offer to this Motion. I regret it, not only on account of the petitioner, who I think has had a very hard measure of justice dealt out to him; but also for the sake of his Majesty's Ministers, who, I think, are now throwing away an opportunity of recommending to the Crown an act of well-timed clemency. That the Crown would cheerfully comply with such a recommendation, both the personal and political character of its present possessor alike forbid us to doubt. The noble Lord thinks that no case has been made out for the interference of the Crown; I differ
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from him. With all respect for the noble Lord, I think this is eminently a case for the exercise of the highest prerogative of the Crown; I think this precisely one of those cases against which this prerogative was meant to provide. Why, the state of the law under which this person has been punished is alone sufficient reason, were there no other, to justify such interference. The present state of our Libel-law—the tyrannical use that, in more than one instance, has lately been made of it—the change which it is forthwith about to undergo—are all good reasons for a mitigation of the sentence. When a bad use has been made of even a good law—still more when a bad use has been made of a bad law—then it is a fitting time for the Crown to exercise its power of pardon; but when an oppressive use has been made of a law so bad that it is about to be changed, then public sympathy invariably points out as fit objects for consideration those who are suffering a punishment incurred thereby. Let us put an analogous case. Let us suppose that this House were now engaged in considering the propriety of abolishing the punishment of death in cases of forgery, and that a prisoner was lying in Newgate under sentence of death for that offence; what Ministry, under such circumstances, would venture to put that sentence in execution? Would not the mere fact of the law being under consideration be sufficient to ensure a remission of the punishment? Now, here is a precisely analogous case. Mr. Cohen is suffering a punishment incurred under a law in defence of which not a voice is lifted up. Men of all parties and opinions,—Tories, Whigs, and Radicals,—from John o'Groat's to the land's end—not a tongue that does not cry, "Out upon it!" We have petitions against it—we have pledges against it—we have a Bill on our Table for its reform—and we have a Ministry professing themselves anxious to reform it! If ever there was a case for the exercise of the brightest prerogative of the Crown, it is now before us. Here is a man suffering punishment under a law so bad, that it is about to be changed in the present Session of Parliament; which will, probably, be so changed before his punishment expires; a punishment, too, which, even under that law, is thought unusually severe. No one denies that the punishment is according to law; but will any one say, that it is according to justice? When did ever such a punishment, inflicted under such circumstances, produce a bene-

1125
ficial effect? Of course, no one supposes it to have been inflicted by the Judge, or called for by the prosecutor, for the sake of vengeance. But then, it is no example; it can never act as a warning. A punishment, the unexampled severity of which has surprised even his enemies, may make a man a martyr; but as long as human nature remains what it is,—as long as the English character remains unchanged—it never will make him an example, or a warning. It may ruin him; it may reduce his family to beggary; but it will not put down the paper, nor even change its tone. Sir, I incline to think, that in no case does punishment produce a good effect, unless public opinion go along with it; but in cases of punishment for offences of the Press, I am sure, that unless the sentence be a concise expression of public feeling, it never can produce a beneficial result. The only practical effect likely to ensue from enforcing this sentence is, that, at the end of the year, the Stamp-office returns will, probably, show an increased circulation of the Brighton Guardian. But, suppose, Sir, that a punishment of this undue severity ever did, or in England ever could act as a warning, what is there to be warned against? What is the crime from whence people are to be deterred? Is the House in possession of the real state of this case? Observe, in the first place, that the Judge who pronounced sentence, expressly acquitted Mr. Cohen of the graver part of the charge,—of that part of the charge for which alone I should have ever thought that such a sentence could be inflicted,—that is, the intention of inciting the peasantry to acts of violence and outrage,—the wish to encourage incendiary fires. Of course, then, there is no need of an example here. There can be no warning intended against a crime of which the prisoner is acquitted! Look, now, to the minor offence of which Mr. Cohen is convicted; I mean, the bringing certain Magistrates of the county of Sussex into contempt. With regard to this charge, he distinctly proved in Court, that the insertion of the paragraph was an act of inadvertence,—that it was received so late on the eve of publication, that he had not an opportunity of making himself acquainted with its contents. Now, even, if such a sentence could operate as a warning against evil intention, it never could act as a preventive of inadvertence or carelessness. Without occasional inadvertence of this kind, no newspaper can be carried on;
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and, I am quite sure, that ten times the punishment inflicted on Mr. Cohen will never suffice to put down newspapers. I say, that Mr. Cohen distinctly proved, that the insertion of the paragraph was an act of inadvertence—that it was sent to press, without examination, amidst a bundle of news from country correspondents. But, had he not been prevented, by the absurd technicalities of our Libel-law, he would have proved more; he would have proved, that which is well known to the reader of his paper—that, without which, I cannot conceive, how any Judge or Jury, could come to a right decision after such a case—the general tendency, the usual strain, of his political writings. Probably few Members of Parliament are acquainted with the Brighton Guardian; it does not flatter us sufficiently to have many readers among our honourable body. It is a paper of strong political principles, of Ultra-Radical opinions, and those opinions it inculcates by strong, uncompromising, if you please, by acrimonious, criticism on many of our existing institutions in Church and State. But for a paper of this kind, it is singularly free from personal libels and individual attack. It is no respecter of existing institutions; but it is no habitual libeller of those by whom they are administered. As for encouragement to outrage and violation of the law, this single paragraph is the only one that has come under my notice that could be tortured into such a tendency. So unfair a sample do I consider it of the habitual style of its political department, that I can safely say, that had it been laid before me by itself, and had I been asked to say, from whence it had been extracted, one of the last papers to which I should have referred it, would have been the Brighton Guardian. Sir, I am unable to understand the grounds on which the present Motion is resisted; it is one of those opportunities for the exercise of the Royal mercy which I should have thought a Ministry would have been as glad to recommend, as I am sure the Crown would be to adopt; I see, in the present case, no drawback on the royal satisfaction; none of those objections which sometimes apply to similar Motions. It sometimes happens that the reversal of a judicial sentence, even in this most graceful of ways, implies, or is thought to imply, a censure on the Judge; the remission of a punishment is sometimes taken as a reflection on the motive of the prosecutor. No such objection, no such cause for hesi-

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tation, can apply here. Mr. Cohen petitions, not against the Judge, but against the law. He expressly acquits the learned Judge who pronounced the sentence of any partiality. He does not even attribute the extraordinary severity of the sentence to any improper motives. I am glad that such are his feelings; I am glad that he has taken this course; for it is one that every honourable man, in pleading his own cause, would wish to take. This course takes away all pretence for making this a personal debate. We are discussing the merits of a law, not the merits of those by whom it is administered; the law, the expediency of enforcing a particular punishment—not the motives of those who have inflicted it. Mr. Cohen attributes his sufferings to the state of the law; he admits, that the law was administered according to the usual practice; it is on that state of the law, and on that practice that I ground my arguments for a mitigation of the punishment. I do say, that the fact of a man being put on his trial for a seditious libel—that libel being an isolated paragraph of 32 lines, extracted from a periodical publication; the defendant not being allowed to plead in his justification the habitual tone and tendency of his political writings, though no imputation on the Judge who only did his duty in following the usual practice of the courts,—is yet a sufficient reason for the interference of the Crown in mitigation of the sentence. There is no doubt that this is a very undeserved sentence—not from any improper motives on the part of the prosecutor, or from any improper conduct on the part of the Judge, but from defects in the law under which he was tried, and which law this House is forthwith about to reform. Again, I regret the course that his Majesty's Ministers have taken to-night; I regret still more that they did not see fit to take the initiative in this matter. As it is, however, I do not see how the hon. Member can do better than to take the sense of the House on the question. If the House will recommend this act of mercy, and the Ministers will support the recommendation, no one doubts the good nature of William 4th.
Lord George Lennoxsaid, he was not going into the case of Mr. Cohen, as if it was one of so extraordinary a nature as to call upon that House to agree to an address requesting his Majesty to remit the remainder of Mr. Cohen's imprisonment, for he (Lord G. Lennox) was quite sure, that
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a more false or infamous paragraph than that which had given rise to the prosecution connected with the Motion before the House bad never been put into a paper. The learned Judge, in passing sentence, suited, that no one, on reading the paragraph, could doubt but that it was, "in every sense, a gross and scandalous libel on the Magistrates." Mr. Cohen insinuated that the Magistrates oppressed and ill-used the labouring classes, and asserted, chat when the latter "have been with any party to ask for a redress of grievances, they (the Magistrates) have called them 'Mob; and have transported them;" and the period at which this libel was published was a time that fires were raging and mobs collecting in different parts of the county of Sussex. Mr. Cohen went on to say,—"The consequence has been, that the oppressed labourers have had no way of making their situation and their wants known but by setting fire to the stacks of individuals who were obnoxious to them." But this was slipped in by accident. Now, let them see what Mr. Cohen said since he had been convicted. He held in his hand a copy of the Brighton Guardian. It was dated "Chelmsford Gaol, Wednesday, February 26th, 1834, and fifteenth week of our incarceration on the prosecution of W. C. Mabbott, Esq. of Uckfield." He had one word, however, to say, before be read the extract, and that was, that he believed that Mr. Mabbott, individually, had no more to do with the prosecution than he (Lord G. Lennox) had. Mr. Mabbott happened, at a time, when there were some meetings near Lewes, to go to preserve the peace; there was a meeting about Political Unions; on his return to Lewes he attended a meeting of thirteen visiting Magistrates, on county business; he then represented to them the state of his own vilage, when an individual from Brighton, one of the Magistrates, brought in the paper containing this libel, and the Magistrates were of opinion that a prosecution ought to be commenced; and if he (Lord G. Lennox) mentioned the names of the Magistrates then present, the hon. Gentleman himself, and the other supporters of Mr. Cohen would agree with him in saying, that a more honourable body of men could not exist. In the number he found the names of the Earl of Chichester, Sir George Shiffner, Mr. Campion, Mr. Courthope, and the Chairman of the Quarter Sessions at Lewes; therefore he considered that Mr. Mabbott only acted completely as one

1129
of that body, and he was no more responsible for that act than the other thirteen. But that was not the object of Mr. Cohen; he wished to have one man whom he might hold forth to the people as an object of odium and hatred. He was not now speaking from interested motives, for there was not one Magistrate on that list who had a vote for that part of the county which he represented. On the 26th of last month, Mr. Cohen, in a leading article, stated,—"Three years have now elapsed since the pauperised, degraded, and insulted peasantry, reduced to their abject condition by the Magistracy and the Government, moved through the country in numerous gangs, breaking and destroying and inflicting evil on those with whom they ought to live on the most friendly terms. Now, I charge this distinctly on the Magistracy and on the landowners." In his petition Mr. Cohen stated to that House, that he was unfairly accused of attempting to vilify the Magistrates of Sussex. Whether the accusation was unfair before, he (Lord G. Lennox) knew not; but he knew that now Mr. Cohen had attempted, and in this very article, to vilify the Magistrates of the county; and here he would only read one extract in proof of his statement. Mr. Cohen said, "Can you wonder, gentlemen, when you thus patiently submit to be plundered so far in the name of the law, that your patience should encourage other exactions? Why, the tax-gatherers and the tax-ordainers, taking a lesson from this patient submission, look upon you like the clods you tread on, which require to be bruised and broken by the plough and tortured by the harrow before they give you any increase, and your legal masters harrow you as you harrow the earth; but that has no feeling, till they extract from you everything you can possibly spare." This was the language Mr. Cohen used after his petition to that House to address his Majesty on his behalf. This was the language of the individual whom his friends wished them (the House) to believe was a good man. The hon. Gentleman said, he had read Mr. Cohen's papers, and had never heard or seen anything in them of the kind charged, or sentiments of such a nature. Now, there was a requisition (said the noble Lord, quoting from it) in which the undersigned inhabitants of Brighton called upon the High Constable to convene a public meeting to consider a most atrocious and wanton attack on his Majesty which appeared in the Brighton Guardian news-
1130
paper. The requisition was signed by many individuals, amongst whom he found the name of William Wigney, jun., who, was, he believed, a relation of that hon. Member who had brought forward the present Motion. This was the man that never vilified individuals. This was the man who was to be held up as a martyr, and for whom they were to go out of their way in carrying an address to his Majesty.
Mr. Charles Bullersaid, he would not take up much of the time of the House; he should have been glad if he could have addressed them before. The noble Lord who addressed the House last had entered into a discussion of the character of Mr. Cohen, when the question before the House was,—whether the libel of which Mr. Cohen was convicted was an offence for which, under a rational system of law, any man ought to be punished? He would not enter into the circumstances of the trial except to state, that he did not think that it was a fair trial. For, in the first place, he had been tried by a Special Jury, composed of landowners and private gentlemen; and they were almost all, as a matter of necessity, Anti-reformers. He did not say all of them were; he said most of them were Anti-reformers; and therefore it was exceedingly hard to take him from his natural Judges, and take him before Judges who held very strong political principles of a contrary tendency; and though they might say, if he had been brought before a common Jury, that they had sympathised more with him, surely it was better that the sympathy should be with the defendant than the prosecutor. Then, again, the atrocious part of the Libel-law left men dubious of what offence had been committed. He (Mr. Buller) was in court when Mr. Cohen was brought up for judgment; and the impression in that part of the Court where he (Mr. Buller) was, was that the sentence was exceedingly light; and why? Because it was said, he was the man who had been convicted of inciting the people to acts of incendiarism; and yet the Judge said, "considering what passed at the trial, I do not think that the Jury intended to find you guilty of that intention." Was this an offence that ought to be punished? He did not say, that Mr. Cohen had a right to libel the Magistrates. He did not say that Mr. Cohen's language was temperate, or decorous; but this was a free country, in which they ought to leave public functionaries open to free discussion. He said, that, on these matters,

1131
if they wished to have liberty of discussion, they ought to allow the people to express what opinions they liked on the conduct of the Government. They must not pretend to interfere with the people's language, and say the people did not make their observations in a proper tone. It was better that the people should do so in an improper tone than that Government should take on itself to interpret that tone in its own way. The noble Lord (Lord Howick) it seemed to him (Mr. Buller) had committed a great mistake; there seemed to be a confusion of ideas in his mind; at least, there was a misrepresentation; for he had treated this as a libel on a private individual. He rejected the idea of its being a prosecution of the Government; and said it was a libel on a private individual. But it was not; it was a libel on public functionaries of the Government, and they ought to be the object of the constant unremitting vigilance of the public; and the public Press ought to inquire, and he hoped would continue to scrutinize, with unceasing vigour and vigilance, the conduct of Magistrates. The question was, whether Mr. Cohen had done wrong in blaming the conduct of the Magistrates of Sussex. He did not say, that Mr. Cohen had formed a right opinion or a wrong one; but Mr. Cohen had as good a right to express his wrong opinion in intemperate language as any Member in that House. The Government ought to recollect that which had been advanced by Mr. Cohen on his trial, namely: that the Government itself had not been so very scrupulous in examining the conduct of the Magistrates. He would only ask them to look at the Report of the gentlemen deputed, and whose expenses were paid by Government, under the title of Poor-law Commissioners,—whose invaluable services to the country he did not mean to detract from,—who stated it to be a fact, and attributed the misery of the country and unpopularity of the laws to the misconduct of the Magistrates. He knew that that language was unpopular in that House, which was principally composed of Magistrates; and therefore he asked the House not to give way to prejudice. He did not mean to accuse the Magistrates of a general defalcation of duty; but it had been the careless benevolence and misconduct of the Magistrates which had brought about the present dreadful state of the country in reference to the poor-rates. Ought it to be tolerated, then, that when the Poor-law Commis-
1132
sioners were casting these insinuations,—was it just, that one individual, a poor country editor, should be punished for saying the same thing? Then, too, when they considered the atrocious nature of the Libel-law,—which was a disgrace to the country, and at this moment the House were considering how to alter it,—he must say, this was not a moment in which the Mouse ought to hesitate to interfere in this very severe case. He did not mean to attack the Judges. A Judge, according to the old saying, should be considered just, and a Chancellor juster. He said, they could inflict no greater disgrace upon the law of the country and the administration of justice, in the eyes of the people and of the country,—who looked to their proceedings and those of the Courts,—than by continuing a sentence which the people looked upon as vindictive, and which the House should prevent being inflicted on any individual in future.
Mr. Hodgsonbelieved that, in what the hon. Member (Mr. C. Buller) had said, it must be obvious to the House, as well as to himself, that not only the object, but the tendency of his learned friend's speech was rather to amuse than to instruct; but with regard to the latter part of what fell from him,—and the same argument had been used by another hon. Gentleman,—it deserved some more consideration. The hon. Gentleman stated, it was unjust to carry into execution a sentence passed under a law which the House were about to alter. A Bill, certainly, had been brought in to alter the law, but the prosecution of this case would have been precisely the same. The only advantage the editor would have had, if the Bill had been passed into a law, was, that he would have been able to justify the libel, if he could prove its truth. Whatever the opinion of the hon. Gentleman was, he thought that neither that House, nor any Jury of the country would have found a verdict if a justification of the libel were produced.
Mr. Goringsaid, I should not have risen on this occasion had I not the honour of knowing some of the individuals who tried Mr. Cohen for the libel of which he was convicted. The Jury was composed principally of Yeomen, and, I believe some tradesmen. There was not one Magistrate, and the foreman was as respectable a Yeoman as any in Sussex—a most independent and honourable man—and no anti-reformer. I made this statement on a former occasion, that I thought an importance was

1133
given to the paragraph by the prosecutor which it did not merit; and what I stated on that occasion, in regard to fires, was only meant as applicable to the Arundel district. I state this because I have been misrepresented in a provincial paper. I will now advert to the claim which the individual has to the merciful interposition of this House, and see whether this individual merits the intercession of the Parliament. Since I had the honour of addressing this House on this subject, this editor, while soliciting the gentry of the county of Sussex, who have scats in this House, to intercede for him to obtain a remission of his sentence, has been publishing a most unwarrantable attach upon the whole Magistracy of that county, and has been endeavouring to set the tenantry against their landlords to the utmost of his power, as will appear from the short extracts which I will take the liberty to read from an article which appeared in the Brighton Guardian of the 26th of February, in the form of a letter to the farmers of Sussex, headed, "On the Utility of the Squirearchy." He says, "Of what use, I ask, are the squires and land-owners to you, who secure such a large portion of your produce? We hear perpetually about the great virtues of the country Magistrates—about the great utility of this order of men—but do you find that confirmed by experience? Are the county rates, levied by an irresponsible magistracy, compensated by the manner in which the squires administer the law, and call it justice? Are the rents you pay remunerated by the protection the squires afford your property? Do you, in short, receive one advantage from your landlords which is a complete compensation for the rent you pay, and for the rents they, in the character of justices, levy on you?" One would suppose. Sir, from such language as this, that the property of the soil belonged to the farmers and that the landlords had no right to ask them to pay any rent at all. This is the spirit in which he endeavours to excite the farmers against the gentry of the county, at the very time that he is calling on this House to intercede with the Crown on his behalf. With permission of the House I will read one extract more. "To preserve order is the duty of the Magistrates; and your present knowledge of the state of the country, as well as your recollection of its condition during the last four or five years must convince you, that there never was a more useless set of men than these said country magistrate squires, on the preserv-
1134
ing of whom in opulence—if you believe them—the welfare of the country depends." He then goes on to attack the lay impropriators in language equally violent: and, to show the ground and spirit from whence these vituperative attacks spring up, I will read one extract from this publication. "It is so obvious," he says "that nothing whatever is given to you for this part of your property (meaning tithes), that further remark must be needless. All I shall do is, to express my extreme surprise that you have so long and so patiently submitted to this species of plunder, merely because it is ordained by the law." Merely because it is ordained by the law! I think these words are pregnant with meaning, and can be intended to produce but one result—that of instigating the tenantry against their landlords. He evidently holds out to them that they have a right to stand forward and upset the law. Well, I will leave it to the House to say whether a fair inference may not be drawn from it that it is the intent of Mr. Cohen in writing this paragraph to instigate the tenantry against their landlords. The design is a wicked one; but I do feel most confident that the farmers of Sussex have such a respect for their landlords, arising from a full conviction of the mutuality of their interests, that it is not to be weaned by any such writing as this; and that they will read it with that disgust and contempt which it justly merits.
Mr. Hughes Hugheswas sorry to have listened to the remarks of the hon. member for Newport. A more useful set of men did not exist than the unpaid magistrates. He was surprised to hear the hon. member for Newport defend that paragraph as if the paper were a paragon of perfection; he (Mr. Hughes) had not the pleasure of reading the Brighton Guardian regularly, but it was much read in that part of the country with which he was connected on account of its gross personalities, and consequently, his (Mr. Hughes's] attention was frequently called to it, and principally because it abounded in personal slander.
Mr. Feargus O'Connorsaid, the conduct of the noble Lord, the member for King's Lynn, was conduct most worthy of him; and if followed by other hon. Gentlemen would make this libel harmless. The noble Lord had stated that his family had been frequently abused by this paper, and he had thought it better to let them die away by taking no notice of them; and he was right, for nothing that was said in any paper could disparage his family. This was a

1135
wise and sensible course of proceeding. With respect to the speech of the noble Lord, the Under Secretary of State, he must say the noble Lord had jumped at a conclusion, for he defied any one to make head or tail of it. The noble Lord said, the royal prerogative should not be used; he contended that it should never he used unless to punish and not to spare. The noble Lord hoped the mover and seconder would not press a division, because the Ministers would not interfere. Then the noble Lord said this was a private libel, and he was not for punishing editors for attacking public individuals; but he (Mr. O'Connor) maintained that this was a public libel. The libel of which Mr. Cohen was accused was not a libel on any individual, but a libel on the Magistrates; and he (Mr. O'Connor could very fairly enter into the feelings of the noble Lord; but he should recollect that this very attack on the Magistrates had been allowed by the Judge not to have incited to incendiarism; and many Members in that House had thought it had considerably checked incendiarism, and stated, that there had been no fires in Sussex after it appeared. That was a very good proof of it he thought. Then the noble Lord, the Under Secretary of State, went further, and said this man had already been convicted of four libels. Now, if this proved any thing, it proved that Mr. Cohen did not know when he was writing a libel. For what man could say what was a libel? It really was too bad, just at the time that very House,—a Reformed House of Commons,—was going to abolish at least to remodel, the law of libel, that Mr. Cohen should be suffering an unmerited degree of punishment. The last speaker had said, that even under the Bill of the hon. member for Dublin, this would have been a libel. He denied it. It would not be a libel; and he thought, that if this Bill should pass into a law, while Mr. Cohen was suffering imprisonment, it would be a very hard case. But perhaps the right hon. Secretary for Ireland (Mr. Littleton) would not let that Bill be carried. No; but that was no reason, if the Bill was a good one, why it should not be passed. He was not going to prop up Mr. Cohen and say he was not wrong in attacking the Magistrates; he was not going to say the Magistrates were not doing right in carrying on this prosecution; but he would say, were they (the House) to sit as judges and jurors and judge of every libel, he asked were they
1136
to judge of every libel written in every paper? There had been several paragraphs read out of the Brighton Guardian, which were not in the libel at all. They were refusing to interfere in the matter; and he objected to their reading any paragraph not connected with the libel, on the ground of its not being connected with what was before the House. He asked if it was not just, that this libel should stand on its own merits? Suppose even that this was an unfair attack on the Magistrates, the Poor-law Commissioners had attacked them much more severely, then was it either fair or just to inflict a punishment upon Mr. Cohen for entertaining their opinions? The Law of Libel could not, must not continue, because it was unfair, and unjust. If there was any reason why the Crown should not interfere in this case, he hoped the noble Lord would tell them what it was. Mr. Cohen had, in his petition to that House, pursued the only proper course left him.
Lord Althorpsaid, that a continuance of the same course for which he had been prosecuted, was some and a sufficient reason for not showing him favour.
Sir Charles Bluntsaid, that what he said should be brief and to the point. He had been applied to by a large body of his constituents to support this Motion, and he could cheerfully do so as he was no party to the prosecution. The reasons why he was no party to this prosecution, perhaps the House would be so indulgent as to allow him to state. He was no party to that prosecution, because he thought that it was impolitic, and only calculated to revive the discussion of matters which had occurred two years ago, and of a subject which had almost been forgotten; and that the country in 1833, was recovering from that excitement which it had for two years laboured under. And he also refused to be a party to that prosecution, for another reason; and that was, that he considered that the Magistracy were not exactly that source whence a prosecution for libel, either affecting the liberty of the Press, or the subject, should arise. These reasons might not have much weight with the House, but he had a third reason, which he was satisfied would have weight with the House in favour of the Motion; and that was, that he was enabled to state to the House as a positive fact, that Mr. Cohen, the petitioner, previous to his trial, was ready to come forward and acknowledge himself not the author of the libel

1137
that he published; that he was ready to give up the name of the author, and to make every atonement in his power for having inadvertently admitted into the columns of his paper the paragraph prosecuted; and that offer ought to have been accepted. Having the character of a Magistrate to maintain, he (Sir C. Blunt) felt it his duty to himself to avow that he was no party to this prosecution; and he thought it a disgrace to the country, that such a prosecution should be commenced. Now, let him say a word about the Gentleman who had stood forward as the champion of the Magistracy. He could not help offering that Gentleman his tribute of praise. He knew him to be a zealous and efficient Magistrate, but his (Sir C. Blunt's) calm opinion was, that, on this occasion, he was wrong; that he had instituted this prosecution under a mistaken impression of duty; and that if the Gentleman looked back upon what he had done, he would regret being placed in the situation in which he now was. Knowing him well and his character as a respectable and honourable man, he could not do otherwise than speak justly of him. They were the three reasons which he had to submit to the House; and if the hon. Member who proposed the Motion, divided the House, he should certainly feel it his duty to support it.
Lord William Lennoxwas happy that the hon. Baronet who addressed the House last had touched upon the same point, which he (Lord W. Lennox) was going to state—namely, that Mr. Cohen had offered to give up the name of the person who sent him the paragraph. That was one reason why his case should be considered by that House. Then there was another circumstance which ought to be taken in Mr. Cohen's favour, which was, that though fires had taken place up to the time of the paragraph alluded to appearing in the Brighton Guardian, yet not one fire had happened in the county of Sussex between that time and the trial. Then there was another point which ought to operate in Mr. Cohen's favour. He had been accused by the Magistracy of Sussex,—than whom a more respectable body did not exist,—he was accused by them of exciting the peasantry of Sussex to acts of incendiarism. He had suffered through that accusation, and his newspaper had suffered, because there was not any man of respectability who would take it in, or read it, if he thought the editor
1138
advocated such principles. Then he was brought up for judgment and honourably, acquitted of that charge; the Judge entirely exonerated him of such intention. As regarded the libel on the Magistrates, it was undoubtedly a libel; but the question now was, whether these points he had mentioned ought not to operate in Mr. Cohen's favour. He would now refer to the paragraph which had appeared since Mr. Cohen had been in prison, and which had been quoted by his noble relative (Lord G. Lennox). When his noble relative read the paragraph about the people being trampled upon like clods of earth, it reminded him (Lord W. Lennox) of what had been stated by another noble relation of his (the Duke of Richmond), a member of the other House, who, in moving under the Wellington Administration for an inquiry into the Poor-laws, and the state of the labouring poor, stated, as his reason for so doing, that there were more than 100 labourers of Sussex working on the roads for sixpence a day, and obliged to find their own tools. After that, would not any newspaper man be justified in saying that the people were crushed like clods? Now, there was another point he would draw attention to, and then he should have done, as he did not want to occupy too much of their time. An allusion had been made, and it ought to have no effect upon the House, to an advertisement calling upon the High Constable of Brighton to convene a public meeting, or private meeting of the inhabitants, in consequence of, as it was alleged, Mr. Cohen having attacked his Majesty; he could only say, no one would deprecate any words disrespectful to his Majesty more than himself; but he was in hopes they should have heard what this meeting did,—and though the name of Mr. Wigney had been introduced, and he believed that Mr. W. Wigney, jun., was a very respectable person, he might certainly have been persuaded to sign a requisition calling a meeting; but the mere act of signing a requisition for calling a meeting would go for nothing, and, besides, nothing had come of that meeting, which could not have been the case if the alleged "atrocious attack" had deserved any serious notice. Perhaps the House did not know that the Brighton people were very sensitive on any matter relating to his Majesty; the least thing said against the King would frighten them out of their wits,—not because they were more loyal than others; on the contrary

1139
they were great radicals; but because they were afraid the Court would spend less money amongst them. He took it for granted, then, that no stress should be laid on the advertisement for calling the meeting, as it would have been followed up if the matter was considered to call for it; and in his opinion, if the attack upon his Majesty had been a libel, the people who signed that requisition would have been as guilty as Mr. Cohen for not having carried it through. If there was a division, he should certainly vote for the Motion, for they had never heard what had become of the libel on his Majesty.
Sir Charles Burrellsaid, that an hon. Gentleman had stated, that the Poor-law Commissioners had found fault with the Magistracy; but the hon. Gentleman should recollect that they had found fault, with the Magistrates of the midland counties as well as those of Sussex; and, therefore, observed the hon. Baronet, "We are all in the scrape." The Poor-law Commissioners, however, did not find fault with the Magistracy for too much severity, but for being wasteful and profuse in making orders for the poor. Their's was not a ground of objection on the score of severity, but rather for their over indulgence. The hon. Member did not seem to have read the Poor-law Commissioners' Report sufficiently to understand it. With regard to the observations made with respect to a friend of his, the prosecutor in this case, he could state, from the authority of a letter which he had got, that every word which the noble Lord (Lord George Lennox) had stated with regard to that hon. Gentleman was perfectly true, He was brought in to this affair by accident; it was by the request of his brother Magistrates that he took it up; he did not put himself forward; but when they proposed it to him he said, "I shall never flinch from what I consider, and my brother Magistrates consider, it is my duty to do." To this day he (Mr. Mabbott) did not repent it; he believed it was his duty; and he had stated that was it to be done again he would do it He would do what his brother Magistrate considered was his duty to his country. He was an honourable man, and possessed as much humanity of disposition as any man and it was too much for the man that was prosecuted to state what he had of that Gentleman. It was a very singular thing as it had been already observed that, in the very paper in which Mr. Cohen had given an account of the Debate which took place on
1140
the presentation of his petition, the following week after he had petitioned that House to release him from prison, there was an article almost as libellous as that which he now suffered for. Here was one paragraph which he would just read to the House. Mr. Cohen said:—"To preserve order is the duty of the Magistrates; and your present knowledge of the state of the country, as well as your recollection of its condition during the last four or five years, must convince you that there never was a more useless set of men than these said country Magistrate Squires, on the preserving of whom in opulence, if you believe them, the welfare of the country depends. If one of your labourers were to undertake to make a ditch, and was unable to perform his task, you would turn him away as a worthless impostor; but our parson and squire Magistrates have undertaken to preserve order; and the proof of their inutility is your present condition." Now, he begged to observe, that there was not one clergyman in the county of Sussex on the commission of the peace; there never had been, within his memory, or in the recollection of any man living; for there had always been found sufficient gentlemen to serve without them, and they did not wish to call upon clergymen to do that which at best was looked upon as an invidious office. Mr. Cohen continued:—"Not that I give them credit for being able to preserve order; they cannot. They are quacks and impostors who receive money and respect from you under pretence of doing that which neither they nor any other person can perform." Now was it to be tolerated that Magistrates were to be called quacks and impostors, as Mr. Cohen had stated them to be. This was the language of the individual who came forward to pray for a remission of his punishment, and at the time he was pleading for a remission of his sentence he attacked the magistracy in this way! He left it to the House to judge, whether, under circumstances which showed so little contrition, Mr. Cohen was entitled to the clemency of that House? He thought the House would use its powers extremely ill in interfering with courts of justice, so long as those courts did nothing improper, so long as they did their duty. It was also the duty of the courts and that House to uphold the Magistrates. As to the office of a Magistrate several observations had been made; he had for many years been a Magistrate, and he could for one say, that he had found

1141
its duties very irksome, and he should be very glad to decline the office if he were sure they would be able to find efficient justices without him; but he would not shrink from the performance of those duties, while he considered he could be of any service to the country.
Mr. Herbert Curteissaid, he coincided in all that the hon. Baronet (Sir C. Burrell) had stated with regard to the prosecutor; but, at the same time, he must state, that this was not a prosecution undertaken by the Magistrates of Sussex, but that that gentleman (Mr. Mabbott) was put forward as the tool of certain other gentlemen who did not like to show themselves, and to that very moment no other person had appeared who prosecuted. He, with others, who, in the first instance, tried to stay this prosecution, because they considered it more likely to do harm than good; for if the publication had done harm, the prosecution had done more, because it caused the paragraph to be circulated a hundred times more; whereas he was convinced, that if it had been left alone, after a short time it would have been forgotten, and have sunk into complete and utter oblivion. After having tried to stop the prosecution, which they failed in, he and his friends afterwards felt bound, when called upon, to put in an affidavit to mitigate the punishment of Mr. Cohen. He did not regret having done so, if he thought that that affidavit went at all to lessen the punishment. In that affidavit he said, that he had been for along time a reader of the "Brighton Guardian," and that he did not think the editor could be justly charged with having excited the peasantry to acts of violence; and he went on to state in the same affidavit (well and cautiously worded), that, on the contrary, he believed that at the time of the fires there were many articles published in that paper which went highly to condemn and point out to the rustic population the wickedness of the fires. In giving this opinion, though he might have offended some brother Magistrates, yet he did not hesitate to put in that affidavit; and he would not hesitate to say that this was a case of great severity. As for the charge of bringing the Sussex Magistrates into contempt, he, as a Magistrate, would scorn such newspaper paragraphs. If the papers chose to abuse him he cared not for it; he was known to his friends and his neighbours; and he trusted they would not be influenced by them, but do him justice if he deserved it; and therefore he hesitated
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not to say, that this prosecution—brought forward, he had no doubt, by persons actuated by upright intentions—but he repeated, it had done more, infinitely more, mischief than good. He could bear out what the hon. member for Lewes (Sir C. Blunt) had said, namely, that the editor of the "Brighton Guardian" was quite ready to make any reasonable apology for having inserted this attack on the Magistrates, and to state his regret for bringing the Magistrates into disrepute; and, in justice to his own character, he expressly stated, that he would not submit to the charge of having excited the peasantry to acts of violence. In conclusion, he would only say that, if the hon. member for Brighton pressed the question to a division, he (Mr. Curteis) should vote in favour of the Motion.
Major Beauclerkregretted that he had to address the House on this subject. He wished there had been no occasion for his so doing, but he wished to see equal justice dealt out to every individual. He must look on this as a case of exceeding hardship. Mr. Cohen had been sentenced to six months' imprisonment, and taken from his own home into a foreign country. Gentlemen might laugh, but he called it a foreign country. Mr. Cohen was taken from his home to a foreign country; and now his Majesty's Ministers had sat out the whole House, at half-past two o'clock, to have the satisfaction of saying that the Whig Administration had shut up this individual. The whole Administration and their friends would get the credit for this act. He spoke the sentiments of the country, when he said that it was to-morrow morning to go forth to the country, that the liberal Whig Administration had made another victim to the Libel-law. It was evident to every man, that the Whigs had abused it more than any administration which had been in existence for some years, for so short a time. Yet he did expect, that this unfortunate individual, who was allowed by all parties—even by his hon. friend, who thought him guilty of a libel on the Magistrates—to have been harshly treated, and that six months' imprisonment was an exceedingly hard punishment. Mr. Cohen had all the prejudices of the country to stand against, and he was now punished for a crime which Lord Brougham was the first to commit in that very House. Did not Lord Brougham hold up the Magistrates to reproach and contempt more than any paper ever had done? And now this individual, who, because he

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did not happen to publish a Whig paper, was to he singled out for severe chastisement.
Mr. Wigney, in reply, said, that, as the House were so anxious to come to a conclusion on this matter, he should not obtrude long upon their time. He should observe upon one of the points mentioned by the noble Lord, the member for West Sussex, that he had rather unfairly brought before the House what this individual, Mr. Cohen, had said subsequently to the present affair. Now, that ought not to have been mentioned; and he was sorry to observe that the hon. members for Shoreham had taken the same course. It was rather unfair to take up a paper and pick out certain paragraphs without the context. Why, in that way, they might extract libels from any paper. There was one other point which he must allude to, and which had been skilfully handled by his noble friend, the hon. member for King's Lynn; that was, that a requisition had been got up against this unfortunate individual, and signed by a relation of his (Mr. Wigney's) because this editor, in the course of a discussion upon a political subject, did in his paper state that which it was thought tended to libel his Majesty; so the requisitionists, without taking the subject into consideration, determined to call a meeting; they did, and it evaporated. Without saying another word upon the subject, he must beg leave to take the sense of the House upon his Motion.
The House divided—Ayes 27; Noes 58: Majority 81.

List of the AYES.

Aglionby, H. A.

O'Dwyer, A. C.

Blake, M. J.

O'Connor, F.

Beauclerk, Major

Ord, W. H.

Blunt, Sir C. R.

Pease, J.

Buller, C.

Ruthven, E. S.

Curteis, H. B.

Ruthven, E.

Curteis, Capt. E. B.

Roebuck, J. A.

Gully, J.

Vigors, N. A.

Faithfull, G.

Walter, J.

Fitzsimon, C.

Wason, R.

Hawkins, J. H.

Wallace, T.

Hume, J.

TELLERS.

Lalor, P.

Kemp, T. R.

Lennox, Lord W.

Wigney, J. N.

MINUTES.
Bills. Read a third time:—Exchequer Bills' Transfer of Aids.
Petitions presented. By the Earls of ELDON, and CARLISLE, from three Places, for Protection to the Established Church.—By the Duke of HAMILTON, from two Places, for an Alteration in the System of Church Patronage in Scotland.—By the Duke of RICHMOND, from Farnham, and from Send and Ripley, for the Continuance and Extension of the Labour Rate Act.—By the Earl of DURHAM, from a Number of Places, for Relief to the Dissenters; and from the Hand Loom Weavers of Sanquhar, for a Board of Trade and for Relief.

LONDON UNIVERSITY.
The Earl of Durhampresented a petition from certain Protestant Dissenters, meeting at Frome, in Somersetshire, praying that the grievances under which they now laboured might be removed with all convenient speed. There was one point in this petition to which he wished to call the particular attention of his noble and learned friend, because it related to an institution with the formation of which his noble and learned friend was intimately connected, and in the prosperity of which he must take a deep interest. The petitioners complained that they were excluded, under the present system, from the public schools, and from the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford; and at the London University, the only one to which they had free access, they could not obtain degrees, because that body was without a charter. If there was one part of the life of his noble and learned friend which more than any other was the admiration of his fellow countrymen, it was that which had been devoted to the cause of public education. He was sure, therefore, that there must be some cause which the noble and learned Lord's influence could not prevent, which disabled the Government from granting this Charter. He called the noble and learned Lord's attention to the circumstance, as he believed it was the first time that it had been referred to in a petition.
The Lord Chancellorsaid, that his noble friend did not do him more than
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justice in supposing that there was no person more anxious than he for the prosperity of an institution in which he had taken a humble, but certainly an early and a zealous interest. That difficulties had arisen in granting the Charter there could be no doubt. It was perfectly well known that the other Universities—the ancient Universities—had entered a protest against granting a Charter to this new body. The consequence of this protest, in the nature of a caveat, was, that before the Charter could be granted, it was necessary that the parties should be heard before the Privy Council. If no objection should there be made, if those already made should be recalled, or if no means were taken to press them, the Charter might be granted; but if the objections were persevered in, the matter would take the accustomed course, and be heard in the place to which he had alluded. He was glad that his noble friend had given him the opportunity of stating this, which he thought he was at liberty to do without impropriety. He was the more glad of it, because he had been told that the most unaccountable reports had got abroad, that he had relaxed in his desire to obtain a charter for the London University. There never was a report more entirely groundless, although, groundless as it was, it was not falser than others.
The Earl of Durhamexpressed his hope, that the objections alluded to by the noble and learned Lord would be removed, or that, in spite of them, that favour would be granted which the spirit of the times and the wishes of the noble and learned Lord seemed equally to favour.
Petition to lie on the Table.

CORPORATION REFORM.
The Earl of Durhamsaid, that there was another subject to which he wished to call the attention of his noble and learned friend. He held in his hand a Petition from the Council of the Birmingham Political Union, which related to the measure of Corporation Reform. The petitioners took several objections to that measure. They objected to the right of electing Common Councilmen being limited to 10 l. householders; which, they said, would have the effect of limiting the franchise to one-fifth of the inhabitants of Birmingham. They made several other

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objections, in all of which he did not concur with them, and especially in that in which they spoke of the administration of justice in the borough being committed to the hands of the Aldermen. The administration of municipal affairs might be committed to them, but not the administration of justice; for, at least, so far as his experience in his own part of the country went, the persons likely to be in that situation were not likely, either by inclination or habit, to fit themselves for the performance of such a duty.
The Lord Chancellorobserved, that undoubtedly the subjects to which his noble friend had referred, were of the utmost importance, but they were not unattended with considerable difficulties. The measure which was brought forward last year had been framed after receiving the greatest possible attention, and was submitted to the House after having undergone a severe scrutiny. There were one or two matters which he (the Lord Chancellor) had then stated might receive a re-consideration, particularly as to the choice of Aldermen being for life or for years, and as to the appointment of a Recorder. There was one great difficulty in the way of choosing the Aldermen for years instead of for life; and that would be got rid of, if the Aldermen were not to be intrusted with judicial functions. It was thought that it was inexpedient that persons intrusted with judicial functions should be appointed to their places by popular election. At the same time, it was considered difficult to say, that these Aldermen should be appointed as Aldermen in other corporations, and yet deprived of the right to exercise those functions that were intrusted to other Aldermen. Another difficulty was in the choice of the Recorder, who would have to perform judicial functions—a circumstance which would form a strong objection to his being the subject of a popular election. The noble and learned Lord, the late Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, had suggested that the Recorder should be elected by those who had themselves been elected by the people—namely, by the Court of Aldermen. This was a matter that might be further considered. He had had a great deal of correspondence during the recess with various quarters, and with different classes of persons who belonged to the new boroughs, and the effect of that had been to make
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him pause in introducing the measure without one or two modifications. With respect to the main object of this petition—namely, the extension of the elective franchise in the new boroughs—that also was a subject that deserved considerable attention. There was a great inducement to keep to the limit already laid down, because the whole machinery of determining the right of election was now in existence under the Reform Bill, and the extent of the elective franchise for corporate officers had been, in the case of Scotland, advantageously placed on the same footing as that for Representatives in Parliament. However, this, with other parts of the measure, might be the subject of consideration.
Petition to lie on the Table.