Sitting of 1 August 1853

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1° South Sea and other Annuities, Provision for Payment, &c. Crown Suits.
2° Sheriffs (Scotland); Smoke Nuisance Abatement (Metropolis); Ecclesiastical Leasing Act Amendment; Customs Acts Consolidation; Insurances on Lives.
3° Landlord and Tenant (Ireland); Tenants Compensation (Ireland); Merchant Shipping; Crime and Outrage (Ireland); Burials (beyond the Metropolis); Lunacy Regulation; Duties on Horses let for Hire.

CLITHEROE ELECTION.
MR. G. A. HAMILTONbrought up the Report from the Select. Committee

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appointed to try the merits of this election.
House informed, that the Committee had determined—
"That John Thomas Walshman Aspinall, esquire, is not duly elected a Burgess to serve in this present Parliament for the Borough of Clitheroe.
"That the last Election for the Borough of Clitheroe, is a void Election."
And the said Determinations were ordered to be entered in the Journals of this House.

JUVENILE OFFENDERS BILL.
Order for Second Reading read.
MR. ADDERLEY, in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, said, that it was not his intention to press the measure beyond that stage this Session, and he only moved the second reading now in the hope that if the House affirmed the principle of the measure, Government would be induced to take the subject up the very first week in the next Session. The Bill was simply a measure of a permissive character, and it proposed to empower counties and boroughs to establish reformatory schools, to which young criminals should be sent, thus introducing a new treatment to a certain extent for such young criminals, namely, that of industrial training, and applying the principle of parental care and home influence to criminal children, instead of subjecting them to the process of imprisonment in gaols. That was the simple object of the Bill, and it would be seen that the evil which it sought to remedy was a great one. It was no less, indeed, than the existence throughout this country, but more especially in large towns, of a class of children who, being entirely destitute of parental care, were rapidly falling into dissolute habits. This class was not composed of children who had decent homes, nor of children who had parents to keep them in better ways than habits of crime, but was composed of orphan children and the children of infamous parents, or, as was most frequently the case, of children living under the root of a cruel stepfather or mother; or the children of sailors or miners, who were much absent from their homes. In fact, speaking generally, they were children who had no home but the wide streets, and who were likely to lapse into criminals as they grew up. Nobody could dispute that such a class of children existed, but it was said to be doubtful whether it led
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to an increase of adult criminals, because these children falling into crime were early disposed of by transportation. That was an objection, however, which, if ever admissible, could not be raised against this Bill, for they were about to abolish transportation. He rejoiced that transportation in such cases was now about to cease; but though he rejoiced at that cessation, it must be remembered that, at all events, now, these children, if not otherwise taken care of and reformed within the precincts of this country, would in the end augment the amount of adult crime. Of 28,000 committals in this country in one year, 13,000, or nearly 50 per cent, were of persons under seventeen years of age. This showed the pressing necessity for a measure of this nature. No one could deny the importance of this question, since it had for years perplexed and obstructed the Government in their attempt to establish a well-defined system of secondary punishment. But in addition to all that, the existence of this class of juvenile criminals was a loss to the country, not only of virtue and honesty but of good citizens also, while it was a reproach to the nation that such a lamentable state of things should be allowed to continue. He, therefore, entertained a confident hope that another Session would not pass without the Government making a strenuous effort to deal with this vast and important question. The evil which he had endeavoured to explain was bad enough of itself, but it was greatly aggravated by the mischievous manner in which this class of offenders was dealt with by the judicial authorities of the country. It was only in this country that guilty children were treated as adult criminals, instead of being looked upon as generally objects of a reformatory system; for, on the Continent, juvenile offenders were treated after the manner of lunatics in this country. They were treated not as criminals, but as irresponsible beings, and instead of being subjected to a vitiating process of imprisonment, they were taken care of and reformed by the State. In this country, however, the magistrates had no power to deal with children in that way; and although it was a recognised principle of our law that the will must go with the deed, which could not be the case with the majority of juvenile offenders, whose circumstances almost amounted to a compulsory state of crime, the magistrates were bound to treat theta as responsible criminals. Many magis-

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trates and judges had from time to time attempted to modify the administration of the law in this respect; and the consequence was that from the want of any recognised principle in the matter, the administration of the law, with regard to children, was arbitrary, capricious, and uncertain. These considerations, coupled with the fact that they were about to abolish transportation, fully proved the expediency of dealing with criminal children in the manner now proposed. Not that he thought the plan of this Bill was complete in itself; because, to be complete, it should embrace some modified system of juvenile prisons for the reception of children who really ought to be treated as criminals; but the one simple object of the Bill was quite enough to be disposed of in the first instance. It would apply to at least nine-tenths of all the juvenile offenders of the country, and the other tenth could easily be provided for at a future period, if, indeed. Parkhurst prison did not itself prove sufficient for the purpose. The House should, at the same time, remember that the theory of this Bill had already been adopted in this country. It was adopted by the Philanthropic Institution, which was first established in 1806, nearly half a century ago, by a private Act of Parliament; but, passing to more recent times, he found that the Criminal Law Commissioners gave up a whole volume of their report to this subject, and in 1837 they recommended that children should be dealt with differently to adults, and that where sureties could be obtained for their future good conduct, they should be dismissed without punishment. In 1838, the Act was passed for establishing Parkhurst prison, which, in one of its clauses providing conditional pardons, recognised the principle of this Bill, and in 1840 an Act was passed providing for the guardianship of infant felons. In 1847, a guardianship of the other House on the subject of the Criminal Law specially reported in favour of reformatory asylums, the cost of maintaining the children being imposed on the parents, wherever it could be done. Part of that recommendation was embodied in an Act which was passed the same year. In 1850, a Committee of that House, which sat upon the subject of prison discipline, recommended that juvenile offenders should not be sent to the common gaols; while in the same year the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. M. Milnes), seconded by the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. Head-
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lam), introduced a Bill upon the same subject as this measure. Most of the leading organs of public opinion were favourable to the principle of this Bill; and from month to month and week to week, they bad been forcing it upon the attention of the Legislature, and he hoped they would continue to keep the subject well before the public during the recess, so that it should not be lost sight of at the very opening of the next Session. Nor was this advocacy confined to the newspaper press, since many able pamphlets had been written in its favour, while not more than a year and a half ago a conference of delegates assembled from all parts of the country was held in Birmingham, at which this subject was discussed for two days. He might, lastly, refer to the Report of the Select Committee presided over by the right hon. the President of the Poor Law Board (Mr. Baines), which this Bill is founded on, to show that the theory of the Bill was largely adopted in this House itself; but do not let the House suppose that the Bill rested upon theory alone, because the system had been successfully tried in France, and therefore in addition to its being supported by the numerous theoretical authorities to whom he had referred, it might be said that the Bill rested upon the solid basis of actual and practical experience; and the result of an investigation made into the subject by an eminent French Judge, who resigned his office rather than continue to sentence children to prisons, was the establishment of the institution of Mettray. In Belgium, in Germany, and other countries on the Continent, the same principles were in operation, and also in America. The principle was increasingly in operation in this country; but it was by means of private philanthropy, and not under the sanction of public law, and the petitions on the table showed that that was not sufficient. In Glasgow, there was a local Act to carry out the system, and in Aberdeen it was in successful application. Institutions were also in existence in Bristol and Birmingham, and from information he had received as to the working of the latter, he believed that similar institutions might be generally made self-supporting. In conclusion, he would most earnestly appeal to the Wing Members of the Government, who had more than any other class, perhaps, taken into their hands the question of primary education, of which this was a branch, whether they did not feel it incumbent on them to support their char-

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acter in the face of the country, by dealing with this subject before another Session was allowed to pass. Manchester had three years ago applied to tax themselves for the purposes of primary education, but they were met by the objection that the question was too large to be dealt with by a local Act, and that it should form the subject of a general measure. But up to this time no such measure had been brought forward, and Manchester was denied the privilege of providing out of her own funds the educational institutions which the Government neglected to provide from any other funds; and the feeling which had been strong in favour of such taxation three years ago had been allowed to cool down and almost expire by the Government. Was it their intention to act in the same way with regard to the nurseries of crime, and the reclamation of our outcast children? He trusted it was not, and that they would now pledge themselves early next Session to bring in a measure to carry out the principles which he was now advocating.
MR. MONCKTON MILNESseconded the Motion.
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
MR. BAINESsaid, as Chairman of the Committee which sat on this subject for two Sessions, he begged to express his perfect concurrence in the object which the hon. Mover of this Motion had in view. He felt strongly that there did exist such a want as the hon. Gentleman had referred to, to which it behoved Parliament to address itself with the least possible delay. At the same time, he did not think that the Government were open to any reproach for not having introduced a measure upon the subject, the Report of the Committee having been so recently presented on the 28th of June, that no Bill satisfactory in all its details could, by possibility, have been prepared upon it. He was glad to perceive that the principal recommendations of the Committee, before whom a large, number of witnesses were examined, had been embodied in the Bill of the hon. Gentleman. The first was, that there was no sufficient provision by law at present for that class of young offenders who were, as it were, just entering on crime, or who were found guilty of minor offences. This was a very important point, because he was convinced that imprisonment in gaol was perfectly inefficacious for the purpose of
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reforming juvenile criminals. He had heard suggested that the workhouse should be employed for the purpose of detaining and forming these children; but, with the experience which he had had of the working of the poor-law, he must say that he could never consent to the blending of pauperism and crime, or the converting of the workhouse into a prison. Another recommendation of the Committee, arising out of the evidence, was, that in any mode of treatment to be adopted with regard to these children it was of first-rate importance hat it should be of an industrial character. He was happy to say that the result of this industrial treatment, wherever it had been tried either in workhouses or in prisons, had been of the most beneficial description. Another suggestion of great importance, also, arising out of the evidence was, the necessity of insisting upon parental responsibility. He looked upon this as most essential point, and he was glad to find that this and the other points to which he had referred were included in the hon. Gentleman's Bill. He begged to suggest to the House that in the interval of the recess they should peruse the somewhat bulky evidence which had been taken before the committee. Much of it certainly was of in extremely painful character, and showed the necessity of some step being taken without delay; but, on the other hand, here would be found matter of great hope and encouragement, because it was quite dear that well-directed efforts in certain localities had been attended with perfect success. In Glasgow the result had been most satisfactory. The son of Chevalier Bunsen had borne testimony to what had been effected in his country; and the Committee were highly indebted to the American Minister for evidence of the most valuable description as to the system of reformatory treatment of the young adopted in the Philadelphia House of Refuge, as well as for the following extract from the Report if that Institution for 1851:—
"Of 4,397 boys and girls received into the New York House of Refuge previous to January 1,1849, it is believed that three-fourths have been saved from ruin, and reformed. Of the condition of the 2,250 inmates received into the Philadelphia House of Refuge previous to January 1849, quite as favourable a report would be fully warranted. The accounts received of many of them show, not only the uprightness and respectability of their character, but their enterprise as men of business, and their worth as contributors to the welfare and advancement of the communities in which they live. The evidence of this is drawn from a variety of sources—from the masters and mistresses of the

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children in various parts of the country, and from neighbours, whose knowledge is obtained from personal observation and general report; and though disappointment is sometimes experienced, and a reformation supposed to be radical turns out to be superficial, yet, on the whole, the known results of the system abundantly sustain its claims to public confidence."
He had no objection to the second reading of the Bill, provided it were understood that it was not to proceed further in the present Session.
MR. HENLEYsaid, that the question was far too important a one to be left in the hands of private Members, and he would urge the Government to take it up. He did not, however, expect any good result from any system which should provide for the children for a short time only. In order to eradicate bad, and inculcate permanently good, principles, it would be necessary that the reformatory treatment should be continued. He also entirely concurred in the proposition that, wherever it was possible, the parents should be made responsible. He thought the present a peculiarly favourable time for commencing the experiment, either on a large or small scale, and hoped the Government would give a promise that they would in the next Session introduce some measure for that purpose.
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: Sir, nobody can doubt the importance of the subject to which the Bill of the hon. Member for North Staffordshire relates; and I think the House will be unanimously of opinion that the Bill may be read a second time, if it be so read with the full understanding that the object is to have the Bill printed, that it may be read and discussed between this time and the next Session of Parliament. The object in dealing with crimes and offences may be said to be threefold—in some cases the object is example, in others the object is a combination of example and reformation, and in others it is altogether that of reformation. With regard to crimes of great violence and atrocity committed by full-grown persons, the interests of society require that the punishment should be exemplary and penal—that they should deter others from the commission of similar crimes. In such cases reformation is out of the question. The greater number of crimes committed by adults are of a mixed character, in the punishment of which example is required for the purpose of deterring others from imitation, but with respect to which hopes of reformation are not to be abandoned.
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With regard to them, therefore, the objects of punishment should be of a mixed and twofold character. But I am quite ready to admit, that, with regard to children, you must consider reformation to be your main object. The punishment of them, with the view of deterring other children from committing similar offences, is of secondary importance. I think that the general principle recommended by the hon. Gentleman, is one deserving the greatest consideration, and I trust that a measure upon the subject may be passed next Session. I agree with my right hon. Friend (Mr. Baines) that the details of the measure would require very mature consideration. I think that we might combine this with that measure—the Juvenile Mendicancy Bill—which came down from the House of Lords with respect to the treatment of destitute children. I hope that hon. Gentlemen will see that there is other business of practical importance before the House, and that it would not, therefore, be wise to prolong the present discussion. I think the best thing which hon. Members can do in this matter is to read, during the recess, the evidence taken before the Committee referred to by the hon. Gentleman. If they do that, we shall be able, when Parliament meets again, to enter into a discussion of the question, with a view to some immediate and practical measure.
Mr. HUMEsaid, he differed from the noble Lord as to the principle of this Bill. He regarded that principle as bad, and as adding another eleemosynary institution to those which already existed. He was one of those who considered the principle of the poor-law was bad, inasmuch as it tended to destroy the desire on the part of the poor to provide by industry and prudence for the maintenance of themselves and their families. He had opposed the extension of the poor-law to Scotland, and he believed the result of that extension had been a considerable increase of pauperism in that country, and almost the annihilation of that feeling which formerly prevailed generally there, that there was an obligation in every family to support their own poor relations, rather than allow them to be dependent on the charity of others. He believed that persons became paupers generally from their own imprudence—the want of self-command. What was wanted was that kind of education which inculacted self-dependence and self-command, by which persons were induced when they had it in their power to make provision for

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the future, instead of spending all their wages as they earned them, relying upon the poor-law for relief when they fell into difficulty. He objected to the clause which proposed a grant of the public money, as involving a principle he held to be wrong—namely, the maintenance of the poor out of the Consolidated Fund. Instead of providing reformatory schools in this country for children driven to crime by the neglect of their parents, they should consider whether the State, after they had been twice convicted, should not take them away altogether, and send them to the Colonies, under the care of Mrs. Chisholm, or in some other way to provide for their being taken care of and brought up to industrious pursuits in another country. He believed that a very large proportion of the crime committed by juvenile offenders arose from the dissoluteness and criminal habits of the parents, who profited by the crimes of their children, and whom the State ought to be careful of relieving of their duties. He hoped the House would not consent to the second reading of a Bill which involved the principle of a double poor-law establishment.
SIR JAMES GRAHAMsaid, he regreted to be compelled to take a different view of this measure from that which had just been expressed by his hon. Friend the Member for Montrose. Up to the present time he did not think that the time spent in discussion had been misspent, and he was extremely glad that the hon. Member for North Staffordshire (Mr. Adderley) had had an opportunity of expressing his views upon this important subject. So far from agreeing with his hon. Friend the Member for Montrose, he thought that it was highly expedient that the House should affirm the principle of the Bill, which was, as its title indicated, for the better care and reformation of juvenile offenders. He could not believe that the House was at all prepared to negative such a principle. His hon. Friend the Member for Montrose stated that he considered it part of the principle of this Bill, that if provision were to be made for the better care and reformation of juvenile offenders, it should be out of the Consolidated Fund. But neither he (Sir J. Graham) nor the Government were at all prepared to admit that particular provision, for he thought it entirely open to the House to consider from what source the expense of these establishments should be provided. In the case of Glasgow it was not paid by any public fund. He had
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had the honour, some time since, of proposing what he had not yet by any means abandoned—namely, a plan for having district schools in each Union, connected with the Union, and paid out of the rates. He did not see why reformatory schools might not be provided in each Union, and paid out of the rates; but these were details which it was not necessary to enlarge upon at the present time. What they had now to consider was, whether they would affirm the principle of this Bill—that the time had arrived, considering the number of destitute children who, from the misconduct of their parents, were thrown idle and led into crime, when, out of compassion for those unhappy children, they would do their best to prevent the growth of that evil. That was all they were asked to do, and he could not believe that the House would hesitate at once to affirm that principle. The Government were by no means pledged to all the details of this Bill in the whole of its machinery: but the general outline of the principle, as it was contained in the title, did appear to him to be well worthy of the adoption of the House. He by no means despaired that, next Session, they should be enabled to mature a measure in strict conformity with the principle of the Bill, which he hoped, without further delay, the House would now consent to read a second time.
MR. MONCKTON MILNESbegged to express his thanks to the Government for the attention which they appeared to have devoted to this subject, so different from the reception which a similar measure received some five or six years ago. The real way, he was convinced, to bring this question before the public, was not so much as a matter of beneficence as one of economy; for how much more economical must a reformatory principle prove than the lavish expenditure consequent upon the constant prosecutions and reprosecutions of these young children? He trusted that the Government would lose no time in remedying time crying injustice of the present system, which undoubtedly constituted the most defective portion of the legislation of our Statute-books.
MR. DUNLOPsaid, he would suggest that when the Government should introduce this measure next Session, it should be made a general measure, applicable to Scotland as well as to England. He hoped it would be kept in view also that the Bill should not supersede, but should tend to stimulate, private exertions.
Bill read 2a, and committed for this day three months.

NAVAL COAST VOLUNTEERS BILL.
Order for Committee read.
House in Committee.
SIR JAMES GRAHAMsaid, that he was about to make an acknowledgment to the Committee which he regretted that he had not had an opportunity of making in the presence of his noble Friend the Home Secretary, who had just left the House. He was about to say, that when the great question with respect to the militia had been brought forward six or seven months ago, he was one who had not been sanguine in the belief that voluntary enlistment for service on shore in the United Kingdom would take place to the extent which had been already witnessed. He did not then very firmly believe that the present generation, gallant as he knew them to be, were fired with that martial spirit for the defence of their native country which would immediately have induced them in such large numbers to come forward to volunteer for military service. He had heard upon a former occasion his hon. Friend near him (Mr. Mackinnon) refer to the system of naval service which existed on the opposite shores of the Channel. No doubt, there was a large population living on the shores of the Mediterranean, of the Atlantic, and the opposite shore of the British Channel, all of whom were brought under a system of compulsory service the most perfect which the ingenuity of man could devise. There was not a seafaring man on the shores of France who, within a certain age, was not compelled to serve in the public marine. It was a system as perfect as ingenuity could make it; but it was altogether compulsory. He (Sir J. Graham), however, was most anxious to adhere to the principle which had been laid down by his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bath (Captain Scobell), which was, that he should exert every endeavour to obtain the service necessary for the safety of this country by inducement rather than by compulsion; and, acting upon that principle, he had lately discussed the operation of it with respect to the regular service of the Queen's Fleet. He was now anxious to call the attention of the Committee to the extension of the same principle to enlistment for the defence of our shores by means of a system of naval volunteering, analogous to the system which had been established for the home defence
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by means of the militia. The present Bill was based exactly upon that principle. There was a very large number of men living upon our shores, such as fishermen, bargemen, lightermen, and men employed in the coasting service, who, he had every reason to believe, would not in a time of peace be unwilling, as the men who had joined the militia had not been unwilling, for a short period in each year to be trained to the use of great guns. These persons having more or less marine habits and experience, such training would be easy to them; it would accord with their habits of life, and would not be uncongenial to their past manners or present tastes. It was proposed in the Bill which was now about to be brought in to hold out to them exactly the same pecuniary inducement which was Altered to landsmen joining the militia service, and which had been found to work so successfully. The bounty would be 6l., paid in such sums, and distributed over such a period, as the Admiralty might recommend. The number of men that they proposed to raise in the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands, and time Isle of Man, was limited to 10,000, and their period of training was to be limited to twenty-eight days. That training ought to take place either ashore or afloat, subject to the condition, if they were afloat, that they should not be taken more than sixty leagues from time coast of Great Britain or Ireland. It was proposed that their pay should be equal to that of able seamen in Her Majesty's service. The period for which the enlistment was to take place was not to exceed five years. Power was given to Her Majesty, in the event of an invasion, or of imminent danger of invasion, to call by proclamation for the services of those men afloat for a period not exceeding one year, except in case of the extension of that danger for a longer period, where, under the special circumstances specified in the Bill, and subject to those circumstances being laid before Parliament, the power of extending that service to two years was given to Her Majesty in Council. In this ease, however, an additional pay of 2d. a day would be given to each man. In the event of service afloat under those circumstances, there was a power, by proclamation, to extend the distance from the shores of Great Britain and Ireland from 50 to 100 leagues. In no case would the volunteers be asked to extend their services to a greater distance from their native country. There was also power taken by

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the Bill, under proclamation, to compel the service afloat of pensioners of the coast guard and of seamen riggers. In the event, which he hoped and believed was far distant, of any such danger as the Bill contemplated being either imminent or apprehended, he believed that a force could be readily provided of somewhere between 18,000 and 20,000 men, which, considering that they would be men trained to arms, in the prime of life, and partaking of the national character of British seamen, would, when combined with the advantages of a steam fleet, be amply sufficient for the defence of our native shores. He did not think that it was necessary to detain the Committee further in stating the general outline of this measure. He believed the clauses to be unexceptionable in their character, and he trusted that in the course of the morning he should be enabled to pass the Bill through Committee.
MR. MACKINNONsaid, when he suggested the other day that the example of France should be followed with regard to a rescription of seamen, it was far from his intention to recommend a forced contribution; but it struck him that in the event of volunteers not coming forward in the numbers required, whether it would not be as well to have a list of available seamen, who might be applied to—not to be forced, but to volunteer into the service; by which means there would be a tolerable certainty of finding a number of men who might be induced to enter the service.
SIR JAMES GRAHAMsaid, that virtually the ballot, which had heretofore existed with regard to the land service, had been abandoned on account of the success which had attended the voluntary system. He was therefore anxious to try the same plan with respect to the coast defences, entertaining very little doubt that voluntary enlistment would answer every purpose.
CAPTAIN SCOBELLsaid, he had often objected to the political government of the Navy; but as long as that system continued, he thought he might congratulate the country on having the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Navy. He had already done great service to the Navy; and he would remind him that he possessed great power, and if he only carried out the principle of encouragement to serve in the Navy, he would be placed in a proud position, for he would be known as one who had given encouragement to the British seaman; he would receive a reward
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while he lived, and his name would always be remembered in the naval service. He (Capt. Scobell) had doubted that volunteers could be found for the militia, and he was glad that they had come forward. It was, however, he believed, the bounty which caused it, and he believed it would have the same effect under this Bill. Though he did not object to this Bill, he should have preferred the plan of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Portsmouth (Sir F. Baring), which had received the sanction of the House, but had been laid aside by the late Government. That Bill referred only to seamen. This Bill spoke of "men," not "suitable men," so that landsmen might be taken. If so, twenty-eight days' training would have little effect in making them efficient. The men chosen ought to be first-class men, in the first instance, so as to form the nucleus of crews. He thought it would be better to enrol 20,000 than 10,000 men. The Bill, however, deserved a fair trial. As to the French plan, that could not be attempted in this country. The question was not how the French got the men, but the fact was that there were 60,000 seamen ready to embark at a week's notice. He thought that everything should be done to have the means for manning our ships, so that in the event of war we should not be outnumbered; as one victory over us, or even a drawn battle, would be fatal to our naval supremacy.
SIR GEORGE PECHELLsaid, he had opposed the Militia Bill, and though he should support this Bill, he did not do so because its principle was the same as that of the Militia Bill. In the first place there was no ballot, and in the next place there was a less number of men and less expense, besides which it was the popular service, which the people of England would never say a word against. Although he always tried to keep down the estimates, this was an expense for which he would stand up.
Bill considered in Committee, and reported as amended.

DIVISIONS OF THE HOUSE.
MR. SPEAKER: Before the House proceeds to business, I have to announce that preparations have been made for carrying out the new mode of taking divisions in this House. I propose that the following rule shall be laid down, which I hope will prove satisfactory:—
"When the House is about to proceed to a division, the Speaker will direct 'strangers to with-

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draw;' upon which the Sergeant will see that the seats below the gallery, and in the front gallery, are clear; and the clerk will turn the sandglass. As soon as the sand is run out, the clerk will inform the Speaker, who will call 'Order,' preparatory to putting the question. The Sergeant will, upon the call of order, half close the door, and keep it half closed as long as there are Members in sight, approaching the door of the House. When Members are no longer in sight, the Sergeant will close the door, and will lock it upon the Speaker putting the question."

LANDLORD AND TENANT (IRELAND) BILL.
Order for Third Reading read.
Bill read 3°.
On the Motion "That the Bill do pass,"
VISCOUNT MONCKmoved the omission of the words "growing corn, grass, hops, and roots, fruits, and other produce," from the 71st clause. His object in proposing that Amendment was to prevent the reintroduction of the very objectionable right of distraining growing crops. That right had never existed in Ireland until the year 1816, and it had been abolished in the year 1846 in compliance with a recommendation of the Devon Commission. In moving that Amendment, he stood, therefore, on conservative ground, for he was for leaving things as they were. He admitted that there were many provisions in the Bill which would effect valuable improvements in the existing law; but he should rather see it lost altogether than carried with the words to which he was then objecting.
MR. G. A. HAMILTONsaid, it was true that the power which landlords had formerly possessed of distraining growing crops had been repealed in the year 1846, in conformity with a suggestion of the Devon Commission, of which he had been a member. But landlords had been placed by that measure in a worse position than other creditors, who might seize the crops as well as any other goods of a debtor. The result was that many frauds and scenes of violence had arisen in consequence of tenants having entered into collusive arrangements with persons who obtained executions against them, and then seized their growing crops, so that the landlords had no means of recovering the rents to which they were entitled. The Bill now before the House contained many clauses of a mitigatory character as regarded the recovery of rent. For instance, under the existing law a landlord had the power of distraining for any amount of rent that might be due to him; but by that
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measure the power of distraint to be possessed by a landlord was limited to the amount of a year's rent. Again, a landlord had the power under the existing law of issuing a warrant of distress signed by himself or his agent; while under that Bill he would be obliged to make an application to a magistrate, who alone could issue such a warrant. His right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Napier), who had prepared that Bill, did not think it proper to deny altogether to the landlord the right of distraining growing crops; but he (Mr. Hamilton) had to state that his right hon. and learned Friend was prepared still further to mitigate that power. He proposed the introduction of an Amendment which would make that clause applicable to those cases only in which a landlord was prepared to swear before a magistrate that be had reason to believe that a tenant intended to cut the crop with the view to evade the payment of his rent. His right hon. and learned Friend wished that the clause should be further amended by the insertion of a proviso to the effect that a landlord who should distrain a growing crop should not be entitled to any expenses for watching the property beyond those which he might have incurred during a period of fourteen days. He hoped that the House would accede to those proposals, and would not adopt the Amendment of his noble Friend.
Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill."
The House divided:—Ayes 70; Noes 94: Majority 24.
SIR WILLIAM VERNERsaid, he could not allow the Bill to pass without making an observation. He wished English Members to be aware of the true nature and character of this measure, as its objects were in accordance with the principles advocated by chartists and repealers, and they tended to put down the gentry of Ireland, and raise up the tenants in their places. In illustration of the objects of the advocates of the Bill, he would refer to the meetings which had been held by them out of doors, and particularly to an assembly at Kells, in the county of Meath, at which the hon. Member who represented that county (Mr. Lucas) attended, and declared that he and his coadjutors were pledged to oppose in Parliament any Government which did not make Cabinet questions of "religious equality" and of "tenant right," as embodied in Mr. Sharman Crawford's Bill, and also complained that certain Irish

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Members connected with the present Government, who had centered into similar pledges, had taken the first opportunity that presented itself of breaking their plighted word. The right hon. Baronet the Secretary for Ireland (Sir J. Young) had acted unfairly upon the subject, because he had placed upon the Select Committee which sat on this Bill the names of those hon. Members who were pledged in the manner he had just stated; end at the same time he had positively refused to allow two hon. Gentlemen to be put upon the Committee from that (the Opposition) side of the House. In conclusion, he denounced the policy of conciliation and expediency which had been pursued towards Ireland, for it was his opinion that as long as the Government continued that policy peace would never be restored to that country.
Bill passed.

MERCHANT SHIPPING BILL.
Order for Third Reading read.
Bill read 3°.
SIR JAMES GRAHAMsaid, he wished to propose a clause to the effect that where cases for salvage services are rendered by any ship belonging to Her Majesty, or by the commander or crew thereof, no claim shall be made or allowed for any loss or risk thereby caused to such ship, or to the stores or furniture thereof, or for the use of any stores or other articles belonging to Her Majesty, supplied in order to effect the salvage service.
MR. HUMEsaid, he regretted that the clause did not go further, and that Her Majesty's ships should not render assistance to vessels in distress without claim of any kind. He thought it was demeaning to the Navy of England that they would not do their duty without being bribed. The United States Navy made no charge, neither did the Navy of France, while the charge made by Sweden was greatly modified; but this country, which ought to set an example of liberality to all the world, proclaimed by this clause that her naval officers and men required to be bribed to do their duty. He would not divide against the clause, but he protested against its insertion.
ADMIRAL WALCOTTsaid, the British Navy had never been backward in the cause of humanity; but it ought to be remembered that the rescue of ships in distress was apart from the usual routine of naval duty; that it was accompanied fre-
1116
quently with loss of clothing, always with danger and personal suffering; and he was sure the merchant princes of England would not grudge them consideration. As to the United States Navy and that of France, he (Admiral Walcott) had reason to believe that a fund was provided for the relief of those who suffered in rescuing shipwrecked vessels, which was not the ease in England. He protested against it being said that British seamen required to be bribed to do their duty.
SIR GEORGE PECHELLsaid, he was glad that the Admiralty had resolved to give up their own claims for salvage on the pretence of loss of stores, &c., and said that some gross eases of overcharge on the part of the Admiralty had led to the outcry against any charge whatever being made by the Royal Navy.
SIR GEORGE TYLERsaid, he had oftened listened with regret to hon. Gentlemen when they condemned naval officers most unjustly and improperly, and without any feeling for a profession which had the real benefit of the country at heart. It had been too much the practice in that House to reprobate the officers of the Navy for acts which were not their own. They were bound by an Act of Parliament to claim salvage for the services they performed, and it was too bad to blame them for obeying the law of the land.
MR. MITCHELLsaid, the First Lord of the Admiralty had stated, upon a former occasion, that under the new regulations it would be impossible for the officers of the Navy to bring forward an extravagant claim for salvage. Now the case of the Rosaline, which had ocurrred since the new regulations had been issued, and that, too, under the control of the Board of Admiralty, and which was now in a Court of Law, was one of the worst cases which had ever been brought against a merchant vessel by a ship belonging to the Royal Navy.
SIR JAMES GRAHAMsaid, he would be sorry to renew a debate which he thought had been concluded; but the hon. Member for Bridport had referred to a particular case, which it might be as well to notice in a few words. It so happened that he had glanced at the official documents connected with the case of the Rosaline, and he believed that the right to claim was rightly granted in that case. Seeing, however, that the case was now, as the hon. Member had stated, in a Court of Law, he thought it would be highly inex-

1117
pedient to pursue the discussion further. The House would hereafter see what was the decision of the Court upon it; and—refusing to go at present into its merits—he was much mistaken if salvage would not be granted.
Clause added.
MR. HUTTsaid, this Bill proposed to renew the provisions of a former Act, by which sailors belonging to the merchant service were permitted to desert their ships in order to take service on board a man of war. Now he had himself presented several petitions against that law from some of the largest seaports in the kingdom, and he thought the House could not but view with great disfavour a provision which was in itself so hostile to the spirit of the time, so utterly subversive of the order and discipline of our merchant service, and so thoroughly opposed to the interests of morality. It had been said before, and would probably be repeated that evening, that the law in question had not been productive of any practical inconvenience. He could only say, in reply, that having himself been associated for many years with a maritime constituency, he hail received the strongest remonstrances against the present law, and had presented innumerable petitions against it. He could appeal to facts. Not many months ago a ship belonging to Mr. French, of Hull, happened to be in the port of Valparaiso at the same time with one of Her Majesty's frigates commanded by Captain Fanshawe. The frigate was in want of hands, and the merchant vessel, having completed her cargo, was about to leave the port when two of her men went off and joined the frigate. Next morning the master was required to appear before Captain Fanshawe, and pay the wages of the men who had left his vessel, and to hand them formally over to Her Majesty's service. He was then obliged, of course, to go in quest of additional hands, and the owner of the vessel had actually to pay 40 l. as extra wages, over and above the loss incurred by the detention of his ship at Valparaiso. Would the House sanction the contuance of a law so arbitrary and unjust, so hostile to the welfare of our mercantile marine, and so opposed to the interests of morality? Was it wise to tell seamen that they might break the most solemn engagements with impunity? The very able paper recently issued by the ship-owners of Sunderland, showed how the law operated to the prejudice and damage of the merchant service. He now asked the
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House to put an end to that state of things by adopting the clause which he proposed to insert in the Bill. He would move the omission of Clauses 33, 34, and 35, relative to seamen volunteering into the Navy, and the substitution in lieu thereof of his clause.
Clause—
"Whereas it is expedient that seamen should no longer be permitted to desert the vessels in which they are engaged for the purpose of entering into Her Majesty's service, Be it Enacted, that the fiftieth and fifty-first Sections of the Act of the eighth year of her present Majesty, chapter one hundred and twelve, shall be repealed; and it shall not be lawful for any officer in Her Majesty's service knowingly to permit or encourage any seaman to leave the vessel in which he is engaged: and every seaman leaving his ship and entering into Her Majesty's service shall be liable to all the penalties of desertion, any law or custom notwithstanding,"
Brought up, and read the First Time.
MR. CARDWELLsaid, he hoped the House would bear in mind that every provision which this Bill contained was intended to benefit the shipowners. The only question which remained between the hon. Member for Gateshead (Mr. Hutt) and himself, therefore, was, whether the power of receiving volunteers from the mercantile marine should be placed under strict regulations, or should be absolutely and entirely abolished. Let the House consider that the British Navy was spread over the most distant seas for the protection of the merchant service—that it often answered the convenience of the mercantile marine to receive assistance in the shape of additional hands from Her Majesty's vessels—and then let it say whether there should not be a power on the part of the Navy to receive from other quarters the men so given up for the benefit of the merchant service. The Bill did not propose that that power should be exercised arbitrarily and tyrannically; on the contrary, the regulations under which the Admiralty would permit it to be exercised were exceedingly strict. Again, the hon. Member complained that the merchant service had to pay the wages in advance, and that that operated as an inducement for the seamen to leave their vessels. This Bill remedied that evil, and therefore that objection no longer existed. Then the hon. Member complained that the shipowners had additional wages to pay in consequence of losing their hands through desertion into the Queen's ships. Now, as regarded that point, it would not be possible to give an indiscriminate power to the Law Courts to deal with the demands that

1119
might arise in such cases; but this the Government had done—they had furnished a machinery for the repayment of all the expenses that might be incurred by a merchant vessel in such circumstances. The House could not go further unless it deprived the Navy altogether of the power of receiving volunteers from the mercantile marine. The hon. Member had referred to a particular case, winch occurred on the west coast of South America a few years ago. Now, it so happened that the commander of the frigate in question, Captain Fanshawe, was a friend of his own, and he had no hesitation in saying that an officer more unwilling to interfere with the mercantile marine in any way did not exist. But he might be permitted to refer to a case on the other side. The House could not have forgotten the services rendered to the British mercantile navy at San Francisco by Captain Shepherd, commander of the Inconstant. A large number of the seamen had deserted their vessels in consequence of the gold mania; but Captain Shepherd immediately set to work, and in a short period the vessels were manned, and enabled to leave the port. The gallant officer parted with forty of his own crew, drafting them into the different merchant vessels; and was it not right and proper that, in such circumstances, power should be given to receive volunteers from other quarters, in order to make up for the assistance thus rendered to the mercantile marine? He did not consider this was a power to be habitually exercised, but to be limited strictly, and to be used with the utmost caution. For these reasons he trusted the House would reject the proposition of the hon. Member for Gateshead.
MR. HUMEsaid, he thought that the right hon. Gentleman had not sufficiently answered the objections against the clauses as they stood in the Bill. He had known instances in which men had been taken from merchant ships to join vessels of war, not because the men of war wanted them, but because they were allowed to volunteer. He would admit that in many cases the vessels of the Royal Navy had assisted merchant vessels; but in the majority of eases the men had left their legitimate employment, and had thus disabled the vessel in which they had engaged. He had himself known a case where a vessel had been deprived of twelve or fourteen of her hands by a man of war, and had afterwards been rescued from consequent shipwreck by another vessel of war, which claimed salvage for the
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Service. At the same time he was willing also to admit that the Queen's ships had in many instances proved of great service to merchant vessels. What was wanted was, that a man of war should not be allowed to take a man out of a merchant ship without the permission of the captain.
MR. HORSFALLsaid, he was also of opinion that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade had not met the case fairly by stating that the Navy had a set-off on the ground of having done service to the mercantile marine. There was, however, a great difference between allowing a vessel of war to accept the men, and enabling her to take them. He believed, however, that the evil was not quite so great as many of the shipowners imagined, for it appeared by the returns recently published that the number of seamen who had been so taken was exceedingly small. The principal evil consisted in the fact of the seaman knowing that as soon as a man of war hove in sight he was at liberty at once to go on board her; and he had it upon the authority of masters of vessels themselves, that this frequently produced a degree of insubordination amongst their crews that hon. Members could have no conception of. He was certain that whenever a merchantman fell in with a man of war in want of hands which she could supply, she would gladly do so at all times; and he believed that there was such a good understanding between the two services that there was no necessity for a law of this sort.
MR. DIGBY SEYMOURsaid, he would remind hon. Members of the evidence of Captain Sir James Stirling, given before the Committee in 1848, which was strongly in favour of the views entertained by the hon. Member for Gateshead. He would support the clause, on the ground that the power now given to the Navy to take volunteers who might desert from or abandon the merchant service, tended to legalise breaches of contract on the part of the seamen, and promoted quarrels between masters and servants.
SIR GEORGE PECHELLsaid, that in some cases the existing law was useful, as it enabled the master of a merchant vessel to put any troublesome hands on board a ship of war, He thought it would be better to substitute the words in the clause "to leave," instead of "to desert," without permission of the captain.
CAPTAIN SCOBELLsaid, that it had been admitted that the shipowners had received a great deal of benefit by the pro-

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posals of the present Government, which the late Government had also contemplated bestowing on them; but there was another question to be considered also, and that was the efficiency of the Navy. It was true that men of war were placed on different stations for the protection of trade, and it was impossible for them to perform that duty if they were not sufficiently manned, and if there were losses among the crew the deficiency must be supplied. If it were necessary to maintain men of war in an efficient state in time of peace, it was doubly so in time of war, when it became their duty to convoy ships, and, in fact, to protect the commerce of the country. The shipowners should remember that a great concession had been made to them, inasmuch as a clause, which he had himself opposed, had received the sanction of the House, empowering them to man their ships entirely with foreign crews. The evidence of Sir James Stirling had been referred to by the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Digby Seymour); but he wished to remind the House that that gallant officer differed altogether in his opinions from every other officer, and he (Captain Scobell) did not feel disposed to place that officer's opinion above that of other persons whom he considered equally competent to judge of the matter. To him the opinion that the Navy could be manned without having recourse to the merchant service, seemed to be complete nonsense, and he should certainly support the clause as it stood.
MR. HEADLAMsaid, he should support most cordially the proposal of the hon. Member for Gateshead. It seemed to him that the proposal was not only in accordance with the principles of strict justice, but that it would also be beneficial to the Navy itself. He would admit that no very great number of men bad been taken from the merchant service, but he still remained of the opinion which he had just expressed. He wished to call the attention of the House to the fact, that at present there existed no necessity for retaining a privilege based upon an unsound principle. He could conceive that in a time of necessity it might be found advisable, for the time, to violate the rights and privileges of British subjects, for, in point of fact, that was in reality what the operation of the clause really was; but it was not desirable in time of peace to confer a privilege of this kind on the Navy, and he was satisfied that it would be more for its advantage if it were to rely upon the volun-
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tary efforts of courage, rather than upon an obnoxious principle. A sufficient number of men could always be obtained for the service, and the ships amply manned by a course which would not excite the ill feeling which might otherwise be engendered. To support this privilege was in reality to support a system of pressing which ought never to be resorted to. When the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty brought forward a measure to regulate the enlistment of men in the Navy, he referred to the gallant response which the country had made to the Militia Bill, and stated that he anticipated the same feeling among the seamen of this country; and, if he exerted himself to make the condition of the sailors as good as it could be made, he had no doubt that ships of war would be amply and efficiently manned. By the course of conciliating the merchant service, the Navy would obtain more support than by the retention of an obsolete privilege, on which, he trusted, the House would place its veto.
SIR JAMES GRAHAMsaid, he should be extremely sorry if the House, in an unhappy hour, were induced to part with the privilege referred to. When his hon. Friend spoke of the privilege as being obsolete, if he meant that it was a right of ancient date, long recognised by that House and the country, he was right in using the expression; but if he meant that it was obsolete in the ordinary sense of the term, he could only say that the privilege had been recognised by statute from the time of George II., and had since that period been in constant use. The abuses attaching to that privilege had been progressively modified, and, he believed, would be finally rectified by the present Bill. Among other remedies for existing evils, this Bill provided that where a seaman should volunteer into a Queen's ship from a merchantman, he should not be able to demand his wages on the day of quitting the ship, as had hitherto been the case, but that he should not be entitled to demand his wages until the ship returned home. The hon. Member spoke of the present question being one of right as well as of policy, and he would first consider it as a matter of right; and he must contend that the system of allowing men to volunteer from a merchantman into a Queen's ship was recognised by law as a right, and for one hundred years seamen had had the right of at once breaking their contract with the shipowner, to enter in a ship of war, and

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to demand at once their wages. So much for the question of right; he would now consider it as a question of policy. He quite agreed with the hon. and gallant Member fur Bath (Captain Scobell), that it was necessary that there should be a degree of reciprocity in considering this question. Even in time of peace great services were rendered to trade by ships of war; and his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade had illustrated that position by the example of Captain Shepherd, of the Inconstant, while at San Francisco; and there were numerous other similar cases which might be adduced. Now, to render that service to trade effectual, it was necessary that the ships of war should be maintained in the most efficient state possible. In the West India Islands there had been a case in which a shin had been weakened by one-third of its crew in about six weeks; and in the China seas crews rapidly and suddenly became very much weakened; and, unless an opportunity were afforded of recruiting their strength, the Queen's ships in such cases would be compelled to return from their stations, or would be unable to render the services required from them. As a question of policy, then, it was necessary to maintain the power of obtaining volunteers from our merchant service. He wished to ask the House to consider how carefully checks to prevent the abuse of that power had been conceived. By a regulation of the Board of Admiralty, which he held in his hand, it was directed—
"That in future, whenever the captains, commanders, and commanding officers of Her Majesty's ship enter men from merchant vessels, they shall report the same to the commander in chief or senior officer; which report is to contain the following information, so far as it can be obtained:—1. The name and tonnage of the ship, the name of her owners and master, and the voyage on which she is employed. 2. The regular number of her crew. 3. The number of the men, and their ages, who volunteered for Her Majesty's service, and whether they had previously served in the Navy. 4. The cause of their leaving the ship; whether the master made any objection to their leaving, and, if so, on what grounds; and whether men could be obtained at the place to fill up the crew, 5. Whether the men, on joining Her Majesty's service, received their arrears of pay and clothing; and the amount of their pay per month to be stated."
The hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Hors-fall) would perhaps excuse him for saying that he was mistaken in supposing that the captain of a Queen's ship had the power of taking men from a merchant vessel without
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control. He could not take men without stating in his return whether or not the captain of the merchant ship was a consenting party, and, if not, what were the reasons which had induced hint to consider that the service of the Queen required that the men should be taken without the consent of the captain. All those returns were made quarterly from every ship in Her Majesty's service. In cases of complaint made, the Admiralty looked to these returns, and so judged of the reasonableness of the complaint. He would inform the House to what extent the power of taking volunteers from merchant ships had been exercised. He had a return of the number of volunteers since the 1st of January, 1852, and the whole number throughout all the different stations of men who were received as volunteers from merchant ships was 170. Something had been said about the morality of the principle, and he wished to observe that the power of volunteering into Her Majesty's ships had a great effect in securing good treatment to the seamen on long voyages. He would inform the House of the reasons which had led to those 170 men volunteering into the Navy:—Wish to join the Navy, 61; bad usage, 12; bad provisions, 8; both bad usage and bad provisions, 7; quarrels with master or mates, 13; discontent, 61; ships foundered or wrecked, 6; no cause assigned, 2. With regard to the consent of masters of merchant ships, he found the state of the case to be:—Cases in which masters made no objection to the men leaving, 130; cases in which masters did object, 21; cases not ascertained, 13; ships wrecked, as before, 6. Considering, then, the importance of this privilege on the score of policy, the absence of any injustice in its effects, and the security which it gave to sailors for being treated on long voyages with kindness and consideration by their captains, he felt satisfied that the proposal to abolish the existing privilege ought not to be sanctioned by the House. He was obliged to the hon. Member for Gateshead for the facility which he had afforded for discussing this clause; but he was compelled to give his most strenuous opposition to any attempt to take away from ships of war the right of taking volunteers from merchant ships on foreign stations.
MR. G. THOMPSONsaid, he thought that the observation of the right hon. Baronet, that only 170 men had volunteered into the Navy during a period of

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eighteen months, was a very strong argument in favour of abolishing a principle which had produced so trifling a result towards maintaining the efficiency of the Navy, while, at the same time, it had operated to the injury of the merchant service. He felt bound to give his strenuous support to the Amendment.
MR. MANGLESsaid, he should also support the Amendment. He would mention a case which occurred in a foreign port, where a boat's crew, under the command of a lieutenant, took several men from out of a merchantman in a way that was extremely offensive. The ship was consequently greatly crippled for want of hands. As to the assistance said to be rendered by the Royal Navy to merchant vessels, it was not once in a thousand times that it was required. For the most part, the merchant service relied upon themselves, and their vessels were generally extremely well provided. It was only miserable undermanned ships that required assistance, except in extreme circumstances. At all events, if only 170 men had been obtained in eighteen months by this means, he submitted that it was not worth while to retain it.
MR. WILLCOXsaid, that the shipowner would derive but little advantage from the liberty now granted to him of manning his ship with foreigners, because the loss which the merchant ship sustained generally occurred at sea, where the master could obtain no recruits. The cases in which men usually volunteered from merchant vessels into the Royal Navy were when they had been twelve or fourteen months at sea, and when they had large arrears of pay to receive. They then hoisted the red shirt, their usual signal to a man of war, received their wages, and left the ship to shift for itself. He had good reason to remember an instance of this kind. A merchant vessel, called the Anna Robinson, bound from Calcutta to England, had been twelve months at sea, When off the Mauritius, her hands signalled to a man of war, which sent a boat on board, and took off twelve of her best men. A gale suddenly came on, and the vessel being crippled for want of hands, had her sails blown out of the bolt ropes. The next day there was a dead calm. A man of war steamer hove in sight, and a signal was hoisted. The captain came on board, and the master of the merchant vessel asked him if he would have the goodness to lend him ten or twelve hands to take him to the Cape? "Oh, we will do better than that
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for you; I'll tow you there," was the reg. He did so, and when they reached the Cape he immediately clapped the ship into the Admiralty. The amount of salvage awarded, with the costs, was between 2,000 l. and 3,000 l. Upwards of 5,000 l. worth of goods had to be sold to raise 2,300 l., and the vessel was moreover delayed six months. Surely if the Admiralty had only required 170 men in the time specified by the right hon. Gentleman (Sir J. Graham), they might safely afford to give up a privilege which led to such disastrous consequences to the mercantile marine.
ADMIRAL BERKELEYsaid, that hon. Gentlemen had entertained the House with instances of bad treatment which had been experienced by individual merchant ships; nit it would be perfectly easy to retort by adducing as numerous instances of cases in which seamen had been driven to volunteer by the harsh and cruel conduct of the masers of merchantmen. For example, he knew of an instance where the men of a Merchant vessel had hoisted the usual signal; but the captain of Her Majesty's ship finding that she was badly manned, instead if accepting the volunteers, endeavoured to make up the quarrel which he found existed between the master and his hands. What was the result? Why, another man of war round the ship soon afterwards, and the men, jumping overboard, swam to it and begged to be taken in. The House voted 14,000 l. a year for bringing home Englishmen who were in distress in foreign countries; but if they analysed that sum, they would find that it was made up for the most part of the expenses incurred by Her Majesty's Consuls in sending home British seamen who had deserted on account of the bad treatment they had received on board merchant ships. So lately as 1851, it had been ascertained that the masters of British hips were in the habit of applying to the Peruvian Government to punish their men; and that one of those punishments consisted in exposing them on a rock. If they assented to the proposition of the hon. Member, they would place a power in the lands of the masters of merchant vessels, with which he certainly considered it would not be safe to entrust them.
MR. ROUNDELL PALMERsaid, he thought that in a case of so much difficulty they ought to endeavour to steer a middle coarse; and he should, therefore, support the proposition of Her Majesty's Government. He was sure they would all be anxious to remedy what was really a seri-

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ous inconvenience to the mercantile navy; but if it came to the alternative of depriving Her Majesty's Navy of the exercise of its ancient privileges upon all occasions, however great and pressing the emergency might be, he thought that tin public service ought not to suffer. The Government proposed to introduce for the first time regulations which would interpose a safeguard against the improper use of the power which had always been possessed by the Royal Navy. Would it not, for in stance, be a great check upon the use of that power that a resort to it would involve the expenditure of the public money? He thought it would be far better to give the plan a fair trial, than to risk the efficiency of so important a branch of the public service.
MR. HUTTproposed to qualify his clause by introducing for "desert," the words "leave the ship," and after "leave the vessel in which he was engaged," to introduce "without the consent of his captain."
Motion made, and Question put, "That the said Clause be now read a Second Time."
The House divided:—Ayes 49; Noes 129: Majority 80.
CAPTAIN SCOBELLsaid, be had now a clause to propose, the object of which was to prevent ships from being inefficiently manned. He considered that some such enactment was necessary for the safety of the vessels and their crews, and for the security of the marine insurers. The Government had already adopted the principle of his clause with respect to transport and emigrant vessels, and he contender that the vessels for which he proposed to legislate were in still greater need of such a protection. In 1851, there were between 700 and 800 shipwrecks; in 1852, between 1,000 and 1,100; so that they were evidently on the increase. Owing to the change in the law as regarded apprentices, their numbers had diminished from 34,000 in 1849, to 14,000 at the present time. It was most essential to keep up the supply of young hands on board ships. Emigrant vessels were allowed to sail without apprentices; and the consequence was that many went without entirely, and there was only one apprentice, on an average, to between 500 and 600 tons of shipping. It might be said that they took boys without apprenticing them; but there were not more than 2,000 of that class. The clause he now proposed would tend to remedy the
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evil that had been caused by the Act of 1849. It was said that our commerce had spread immensely, and that our seamen had increased; but that was no reason why the existing law should not be improved. It had been stated in evidence before the Committee of that House that a due supply of apprentices was essential, not only for the mercantile marine, but for the Navy. His main object in proposing the clause was for the security of the country.
Clause brought up, and read a First Time.
ADMIRAL WALCOTTsaid, he fully concurred with the hon. and gallant Member with regard to the necessity of encouraging, in every possible way, the aprenticeship system. So much importance did he attach to this point, that he thought the Government would be amply justified in offering a bounty to shipowners for the purpose of securing it. He recollected the time when the British Navy was principally manned from that source. He was well persuaded, also, that much of the melancholy loss of life accruing from shipwrecks and disasters at sea, arose from the insufficient manning of merchant ships. He must say that he had viewed with considerable dismay the introduction of a Bill into that House which took from the Royal Navy the advantages which it formerly enjoyed of looking to the merchant service as the nursery of her seamen, and which had enabled our fleet for two centuries to maintain our national honour and independence.
MR. CARDWELLsaid, he did not think it necessary to trouble the House at any length in reply to the hon. and gallant Member (Captain Scobell), for he was sure the House would think it right that he should confine himself to the point immediately before them, instead of going over again the same ground as they went over in the recent discussion on the manning of the Navy. The House was not now discussing the manning clause; but another clause, which had been proposed by his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bath, who seemed to think that the British shipowners were not likely to care for the security of their own ships, and who, therefore, for the purpose of benefiting the shipowners and insurers, thought it desirable that the Legislature should step in with a clause describing the number of men and apprentices that should be carried by each. The hon. and gallant Member had said very emphatically on a former occasion that there could be no better argument for

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letting a law alone than that it had worked well. The hon. and gallant Member had made that remark when speaking against the repeal of the law regulating the proportion of British and foreign seamen on board ship. He (Mr. Cardwell) would take time liberty of applying the same remark to the present case, for he contended it was not a sound principle to prescribe the precise number of men and apprentices to be carried on board ship. The Legislature had repealed the law which told the British shipowner how many men he ought to have on board of each of his ships. Had the new law worked well? It had worked so well that since the repeal of the provision to which he had referred, they had added 9,000 seamen to the whole number of the British mercantile marine within three years. His hon. and gallant Friend had told them of the absence of apprentices on board the emigrant ships. To his (Mr. Cardwell's) mind this would seem to argue how great a burden the shipowners would consider this clause as imposing on them. The hon. and gallant Gentleman also spoke of the falling-off in the number of apprentices. He (Mr. Cardwell) admitted that the total number of apprentices was at the present moment smaller than at the time when the navigation laws were repealed; but hon. Members ought not to exclude this circumstance from their minds, that whereas there was at first a falling-off in the number of apprentices immediately after the repeal of the navigation laws, there had since that period been a continuous increase; and the number was now increasing more rapidly than at any former period. He believed that if the House were to adopt the clause now proposed, the result would be that the shipowners would evade the law—that instead of taking the best men at the best wages, they would take the cheapest landsman they could find. In short, they would merely comply with the letter of the law. He thought, therefore, that it would be better to leave the shipowners and insurers to those regulations with regard to the number of seamen and apprentices which it was their own interest to provide. The clause now proposed was not at all in conformity with the spirit which now guided the legislation of the House on this subject. He did not think it was at all likely either to promote the interest of trade or the safety of the shipping, and therefore he must respectfully ask the House to reject it.
MR. DUNCANsaid, he must most earnestly entreat the Government not to sanction the reimposition of those restrictions against which the shipowners had so long and so manfully fought, but rather to allow them every facility for the carrying on of the mercantile marine; and if they did so, he had no fear that they would be able to compete with any nation in the world.
MR. HUMEsaid, he entirely agreed with the hon. Member who had just spoken with regard to the importance of removing every possible restriction from the mercantile marine, and he considered the Government perfectly right in resisting the present clause.
Motion made, and Question put, "That the said Clause be now read a Second Time."
The House divided:—Ayes 7; Noes 154: Majority 147.
MR. HORSFALLsaid, he begged, in the absence of his hon. Friend (Mr. Collier), to move the following Clause:—
"That where any seaman or apprentice, who shall have committed any offence punishable under the Mercantile Marine Act, 1850, by summary proceeding before a justice of the peace, shall arrive or be found on shipboard within two miles of any borough in which there is a justice of the peace capable of exercising summary jurisdiction under the said Act, such offence shall, for the purpose of giving jurisdiction to such justice under the same Act, be deemed to have been committed within the limits of such borough."
He considered the clause was necessary, in consequence of the recent decision of one of the Liverpool magistrates.
MR. ROUNDELL PALMERwould suggest that the question should be postponed till they could consider the different circumstances of different ports. He knew that the state of Plymouth was very much the same as that of Liverpool, and he thought that at some future period the subject was well deserving of consideration.
Clause negatived.
MR. CAIRNSsaid, he wished to propose to amend Clause 4, so that from line 31, it should stand as follows:—
"And such aggregate fund shall be applicable to the purpose of the services in respect of which the said tolls, rates, fees, and payments are levied, and to the execution of works necessary or expedient for permanently reducing the expenses of such services; and save, as hereinafter specially mentioned, to no other purposes whatever."
The Ballast Board at Dublin had a balance of 100,000 l. in hand, which it was proposed should be withdrawn from its

1131
control and placed along with the aggregate fund, to which arrangement he did not object, because the objects to which these funds were applicable were not local but national. At the same time the Trinity House possessed a large sum in the shape of investments in the public funds, namely, between 120,000 l. and 130,000 l., which sum it was not proposed to bring into the amalgamated fund; and therefore he wished to know why there was to be this exception with regard to the funds in the hands of the Trinity House? He now came more particularly to the object of his Amendment. The clause as it now stood proposed to form an amalgamated fund to be applicable, under the superintendence of the Board of Trade, simply and exclusively to those services for which the separate funds were collected by the different existing bodies; and the effect of this would be that the hands of the Board of Trade and of the different other bodies would be tied up, to the application of the money strictly and solely to the building and repairing of lighthouses, and of what were called "marks of the sea." Now it had been the practice to build lighthouses on rocks in the middle of the sea, and yet it was sometimes the fact that one half of the expense of building and maintaining these lighthouses would suffice to pay for the blowing up altogether of the rocks upon which they were situated. He would illustrate this by reference to a case within his own knowledge. For example, there was a rock on the track from Ireland to England that was under water, and was indicated by a buoy which cost 100 l. a year; in tempestuous weather the buoy broke adrift, and when most wanting was not there at all; it was his belief that it would not cost 1,000 l. to remove that rock altogether.
MR. CARDWELLsaid, this was a question which peculiarly belonged to the representatives of the shipping interest to decide. It was proposed by a Gentleman representing one of the first ports in the kingdom, and who also conducted the business in which he took part in that House with such conspicuous ability as to render him an efficient representative of the shipping interest. To expend a stun of 100 l. a year on a rock which would be entirely destroyed for 1,000 l. was a very wasteful act, and the more especially because the buoy, according to the hon. Member's representations, on which it was expended, was a truant buoy. As the law then stood, it would be impossible for the Board of Trade
1132
so to apply the money, and he should leave the clause in the hands of the House. With regard to the question which the hon. and learned Gentleman had asked him, he begged to say that the sum which was invested on behalf of the Ballast Board was invested under statute, and could be dealt with, therefore, by statute, without any question. He (Mr. Cardwell) had already referred to the figures to show that the Irish would be by no means losers on this imperial transaction; but as the hon. Gentleman had not expressed any doubt as to the accuracy of his statement, he need not again go over that part of the case. With regard to the sum invested by the Trinity House, it consisted of double dues levied under an ancient Act of Parliament on foreign shipping. Those investments were made by them more than twenty-five years ago under their charter, and in strict conformity with it. When, on the requisition of the Government, they agreed to surrender all rights of taxation, except for the purposes of this Bill, they entered into no engagement, nor were they asked by Government to enter into it, nor would they think it reasonable to enter into a negotiation for the surrender of a sum not levied on British shipping, and which was invested by them more than twenty-five years ago.
MR. HUMEsaid, he wished to know if the right hon. Gentleman, by adopting the Amendment, meant to blow up the rocks of the north coast? That, he thought, should come under a different clause.
Amendment agreed to.
MR. KIRKthen moved—
"That in Clause 5, line 12, after the words 'and the produce thereof' the words 'shall in the first instance be applied for the purpose of finishing any works commenced by those bodies respectively, or for the purpose of forming any Harbour of Refuge on the eastern coast of Ireland, and the residue of such monies, after such application aforesaid,' should be inserted."
He considered that the amount in the hands of the Irish Ballast Board and of the Trinity House might be applied with great advantage to the construction of a harbour of refuge at Carlingford, on the eastern coast of Ireland, and nearly opposite the important commercial port of Liverpool. He had ascertained that during the last five years 447 vessels had been wrecked on the eastern coast of Ireland, being at the rate of about ninety annually. Besides the lives which had been lost in consequence of these disasters, very valuable cargoes had also been destroyed. Now, he believed that, accord-

1133
ing to the estimate of an experienced engineer, the expense of removing the bar at the entrance to Carlingford Lough would not exceed from 40,000 l. to 50,000 l., and as by that expenditure a very efficient harbour of refuge would be provided, he therefore thought that a portion of the monies in the hands of the bodies to which he had referred might very properly be applied to such a purpose. If this project should be carried out, vessels, which of bad weather were unable to make the port of Liverpool would at all times be enabled to run to a harbour where they could remain in perfect safety.
MR. R. M. FOXsaid, he hoped the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Newry would receive the favourable consideration of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, and of the House. He must protest against any charge being brought against the Irish fund of 91,000 l., on account of any debt incurred in the formation of Kingstown harbour.
MR. V. SCULLYsaid, he thought the arrangement proposed a very bad bargain for Ireland. He had heard nothing which could induce him to believe that that country would derive any benefit from it.
MR. CARDWELLsaid, he thought, whatever gain might arise from the transaction contemplated, he might venture to assure his hon. Friend that Ireland would come its for her fair share of it. It did so happen that there was in Ireland a balance in hand of 100,000 l., but against that must be set the fact that the balance was subject to a debt of 171,000 l. Again, the Commissioners had already contracted for new works to be executed in Ireland, which would require an expenditure of 20,000 l. In addition to that, Ireland had hitherto maintained her own harbour lights, the expense of which it was now proposed to throw upon the general fund.
MR. HUMEsaid, he wanted hon. Gentlemen to explain how the Irish Board could have get possession of such a sum. He thought the Government should proceed immediately to reduce the Irish light dues.
MR. VANCEwished to call attention to a particular grievance affecting the harbour of Kingstown. At present foreign vessels bound to Dublin, whether they entered the harbour or not, had to pay large dues for the maintenance of that harbour, whereas if they were bound to Liverpool, and took refuge there, they had nothing
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to pay, nor had coasters anything to pay. He thought it extremely hard that foreign vessels bound to Dublin should be liable to this exaction, and hoped the right hon. Gentleman would redress the grievance before the termination of the present Session.
COLONEL DUNNEwished to know how the debt of 171,000 l. was made out, as he did not think keeping up the lights could fairly be charged against them.
Amendment negatived.
MR. INGHAMmoved the following addition to Clause 29:—
"Excepting as to ships employed in a coasting voyage from one part of the United Kingdom to another, or in a voyage between the United Kingdom and the islands of Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, Sark, or Man, or from one of the said islands to another of them, or from one part of either of them to another of the same, or employed in fishing on the coasts of the United Kingdom, or of any of the said islands, in which cases, and every of them, the whole of the crew shall be British seamen."
The only arguments which he had heard against this Amendment were two. In the first place, that the clause would only extend to the shipowners the same freedom to employ whom they pleased that was already employed of labour on land; and in the next place, that his Amendment was one inconsistent with the principles of free trade. Now, with respect to the first point, he would ask whether any one would maintain that the temptation to foreigners to enter an employment on land was equal to that which might lead them to accept employment as sailors in British ships? With respect to the second point, he admitted that it would be best to abolish protection altogether as regarded the coasting trade, and to admit foreign as well as British ships. But while the restriction upon foreign ships was kept up for the benefit of the shipowners, he thought they should not abolish the restriction as to sailors. The effect of this clause would be to introduce foreign seamen into the coasting trade; and believing that this would be most repugnant to the feelings of British seamen, he hoped that the House would assent to his Amendment.
CAPTAIN SCOBELLseconded the Amendment. He said, that the admission of foreign seamen to the coasting trade was contrary to the recommendation of the Select Committee on the Manning of the Navy.
MR. CARDWELLsaid, there had been already so long a debate, and so decided a division on the question of the admission

1135
of foreign seamen to the coasting trade, that he should believe the opinion of the House upon this point was finally settled. He could conceive no good reason why, if foreigners were admitted to the foreign, they should be excluded from the coasting trade. He did not think that the British shipowners would object to the coasting trade being thrown open to foreign ships. He believed that the restriction which at present excluded them was based upon grounds very different from those to which the hon. Member seemed to ascribe it. The subject was now under the consideration of those who were responsible for the collection of the revenue; nor did he (Mr. Cardwell) pretend to vindicate protection in this any more than in any other instance.
Question put, "That those words be there added."
The House divided:—Ayes 35; Noes 104: Majority 69.
Bill passed.

HACKNEY CARRIAGE DUTIES BILL.
This Bill was brought up to be considered as amended.
MR. LOWEbrought up a clause, which, he said, he believed to have been framed at the request of the cab proprietors themselves, and which would undoubtedly benefit the public. The object of the clause was, that where a cab was hired by time, after the first hour the cabman could demand for every quarter of an hour 6d., instead of 2s. for the whole hour.
Clause agreed to.
MR. F. SCULLYbrought up a clause which was intended to prevent the cab proprietors again suddenly withdrawing their cabs from the streets, by giving power to the Commissioners of Police to withdraw or suspend the licences for cabs in the event of their being withdrawn two consecutive days, without a notice of ten days having been given by the proprietors, or to the magistrates to inflict a fine not exceeding 20 s. for each carriage withdrawn each day.
MR. LOWEbegged to state that the clause met with the approval of his hon. Friend (Mr. Fitzroy).
LORD DUDLEY STUARTsaid, he objected to the clause, because it left everything to the decision of a magistrate. He should, on the third reading of the Bill, move a clause, giving the power of appeal from the decision of the magistrate or Police Commissioner in every case fall-
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ing under the Act. It had been his intention on a previous occasion to give notice of the clause which he proposed to move; but at that time the proprietors of cabs had withdrawn them from the streets, and under those circumstances he felt that it would not have been in accordance with his duty to give any notice on the subject.
MR. ROUNDELL PALMERsaid, he considered the clause to be a specimen of inconsiderate legislation, and he should feel it his duty to oppose it.
MR. I. BUTTthought that the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. F. Scully) was out of order in proposing a clause at the present stage of the Bill of which he had given notice for the third reading. He should wish to hear Mr. Speaker's opinion on that point.
MR. SPEAKERsaid, he was of opinion that, as the hon. Member had given notice of his intention to move the clause on the third reading, it was not competent for him to move it at the present stage of the measure.
Clause withdrawn.
MR. FREWENsaid, he objected to the radius of four miles from Charing-cross. The House ought to know that this was called a West-end clause and a House of Commons clause. If the clause stood as at present, it would include Wandsworth-common and the end of Streatham, where there was very little chance of a back fare, and would exclude the populous districts about Mile-end. He would propose as an Amendment, that the outside boundaries of the metropolitan boroughs should be adopted as the limit beyond which the increased charge should commence.
Amendment proposed, in page 6, line 4, to leave out the words "circumference of a circle, the radius of which shall be four miles from."
SIR WILLIAM CLAYsaid, he had received many representations from the inhabitants of the east end of the metropolis protesting against Charing-cross being selected as the centre of the four mile circle. The four miles would just go beyond Whitechapel, and would exclude the hundreds of thousands who lived at Mil-end, Limehouse, and parts adjacent, while it would include Chelsea, Lambeth, and the country districts beyond them. He would propose St. Paul's, which was adopted as the central point of the metropolis in some recent Acts of Parliament.
MR. LOWEsaid, he had been requested by his hon. Friend (Mr. Fitzroy) to propose

1137
Temple-bar as the best point from which to measure the four mile circle. The General Post Office had been thought of, but that would omit Chelsea, while the Amendment of the hon. Member (Mr. Frewen) would extend to some country districts. He understood, for example, that the borough of Marylebone went up nearly to Hampstead.
Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill."
The House divided:—Ayes 88; Noes 14: Majority 74.
MR. LOWEthen moved the substitution of the words "Temple-bar" for "Charing-cross" as the centre of the circle from which to calculate the four miles.
MR. FREWENsaid, that whatever point the circle were taken from, it would be unfair to certain districts. The further end of Eaton-square, and probably part of Hackney, would be beyond the circle now proposed.
Motion agreed to.
The House adjourned at a quarter after Three o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1a Government of India
2a Stamp Duties (No. 2); Turnpike Acts Continuance, &c.; Highway Rates.
Reported.—Resident Magistrates (Ireland); Turnpike Trusts Arrangements; Sheep, &c. Contagious Diseases Prevention; Burgh Harbours (Scotland); Elections.
3a Registrar of Meetings; Stamp Duties.

SOUTH SEA ANNUITIES—SUITORS IN CHANCERY.
LORD ST. LEONARDSmoved for a Return of all Orders made by the Lord Chancellor under the 16th Vict., c. 23, on behalf of the suitors of the Court of Chancery in relation to the South Sea Annuities and other Funds belonging to them. The noble Lord said that upon a recent occasion an objection had been raised to their Lordships discussing in that House any financial measures that might be in progress in the other House of Parliament; and their Lordships were very well aware that when the measures came up to that House, it was said to be too late to make amendments, because it would interfere with public business, and lead perhaps to a division between the two Houses. But it was still open to him to move for returns, and to claim the attention of the noble Earl at the head of the Government to some particulars connected with a financial subject of some importance. Their Lordships were aware that by the late Act for the commutation of certain public securities, by which it was provided that the holders of stocks, representing the great mass of the funded debt of this country, amounting to about 500,000,000 l., should
1046
be allowed to commute their claims, on certain conditions, 3½ per cents, 2½ per cents, or Exchequer bonds; and it gave the option to the proprietors of South Sea Stock, South Sea Annuities, and other small stocks, to commute their rights for either of those stocks. With respect to the suitors in the Court of Chancery, who were proprietors of those small stocks, the Act gave power to the Accountant General of the Court of Chancery and the Accountant General in Bankruptcy, under direction of the Great Seal, to elect for them whether they would commute their claims, or be paid off; but no such power was given to the suitors whose moneys were invested in the great mass of the public stock. His noble and learned Friend on the woolsack, in pursuance of the power given by that Act of Parliament, did direct that the 2½ per cent stock should be taken by the suitors in the Court of Chancery, in respect of the South Sea Annuities and the smaller stocks which they held; but as it turned out that the commutation would involve a loss of at least 7 per cent, his noble and learned Friend rescinded that order. As regarded the capital debt of 500,000,000 l., in which suitors of the Court of Chancery were interested, he made complaint at the time that no option was given to them, though their rights were the same as the rights of other holders of that stock. The Government, as he understood, felt the justice of that appeal, and therefore promised to introduce a Bill to give the suitors generally the same benefit as had been offered to other holders of stock. That promise, he concluded, had not been performed, because the state of the money market was such that no one would accept the options offered. In proposing a measure in the other House of Parliament, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was reported to have said, that nothing was so unjust as to exclude the suitors in Chancery from the same benefit which everybody else had offered them; that inasmuch as the suitors and joint trustees interested in the capital stock of the South Sea Company could not take part in the meetings of the Company, the resolution of the Company was come to without their assent; and that the measure proposed was intended to correct that anomaly, and was introduced in compliance with a pledge given by Her Majesty's Government in this House. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer referred to the pledge given to him (Lord St. Leonards), he could

1047
only say he was introducing a measure which he never required, and was not introducing a measure which he did require. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was giving to the suitors of the Court of Chancery, through the instrumentality of the Accountants General, power to convert their share of the capital stock of the South Sea Company. He (Lord St. Leonards) never required any such power, because he considered that, as members of the Company, the suitors would be bound by the resolution of the general body of proprietors, and that as the general body had thought it best to decline the offers of the Government, that was a very good rule for the suitors to go by. He never raised the objection, directly or indirectly, with regard to the capital stock of the South Sea Company, and he could not have raised the objection with regard to the smaller stocks, because the Act expressly gave the suitors, under the authority of the Court of Chancery, power to select any of the three options; and his noble and learned Friend had made that selection, and had since been compelled to rescind the order. But in order to get the suitors' money, the Chancellor of the Exchequer intended to do that which he never required, and intended not to do that which he ought to do, which he (Lord St. Leopards) did require, and which the Government promised—namely, if the options were worth anything, the suitors having moneys in the 500,000,000 l. of debt should have precisely the same rights as the other holders of similar stock. The options were of no value, and therefore he did not ask for that which justice required, and the Government had promised. But with respect to this measure of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it did not actually put the suitors on the same footing as ordinary trustees. Trustees could not consent if the persons beneficially interested were competent to consent, and withheld that consent; whereas the whole power with relation to the suitors was placed in the hands of the Accountants General, to make what election they thought proper. There was another thing in connexion with this subject, which he considered of the utmost importance, and to which he begged to draw the special attention of their Lordships, When the Succession Duty Bill was under discussion, he pointed out the difficulties which would ensue to trustees, and stated that his advice to anybody was, not to become trustees, to be made
1048
liable to the same penalties and the same expenses which would be found to attach under the Succession Bill to existing trustees. It was somewhat remarkable that the South Sea Company were now to be authorised, by the authority of the Government, to become general trustees of the kingdom, with a guarantee fund of 300,000 l. invested in Government stock. If it were possible to introduce in any single Bill a general mischief, this was that mischief; to make a great public company trustees for all parts of the empire. If one company had that power, other companies would come and ask for the same power; and, they might depend upon it, if a company once got hold of trust money they would never part with a shilling of it whilst there was a single question of law unsettled. The litigation and expense would be greater than had ever taken place with regard to all the trust property ever vested in trustees. The office of solicitors to a company transacting the business of trustees of thousands of people, would be worth thousands a year, and the extent of litigation would be incalculable. He hoped, considering what had passed, he should be excused for directing their Lordships' attention to this subject, and, looking to the importance of the questions involved, he thought some explanation was due from Her Majesty's Government.
The EARL of ABERDEENsaid, he was not quite certain as to the facts, but he would communicate with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the subject, and endeavour to satisfy the noble and learned Lord. He begged to observe, that, it might have been as well, if the noble and learned Lord believed it right to make such representations, if he had given some notice of his intention; and, also, if the noble and learned Lord thought it necessary to discuss the merits of a Bill now before the other House of Parliament, if he had signified Ins intention of doing so. The noble and learned Lord seemed to imagine some new practice had been adopted in reference to Bills of this sort; but he should wish the noble and learned Lord to point out when, since the Revolution, the House of Commons had entertained any alterations in Taxing Bills by this House. He must deny that any new practice or any new principle had been laid down in dealing with subjects of this nature. As he had already said, he would endeavour to obtain from his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer an explanation upon the

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points to which the noble and learned Lord had more particularly adverted.
LORD ST. LEONARDSexplained that he had referred to the opposition of Her Majesty's Government to the Motion of a noble Friend of his for a Select Committee on the Succession Duties, before which the whole subject might have been maturely considered, and suggestions conveyed to another quarter, without damaging the principle of the measure.
The LORD CHANCELLORsaid, with regard to the Motion of the noble and learned Lord, he had already stated more than once to their Lordships, anti he was sorry to trouble them again by repeating it, that when the Bill passed for the conversion of these smaller stocks, he was obliged to take measures to ascertain whether the suitors should take the 2½ per cents or the money. He felt he was placed in a very embarrassing position, because the expediency of taking the new stock must depend upon its probable value in January or April, when the notices of payment expired. He consulted the other Judges, and there being a difference of opinion, he proceeded upon the case, almost precisely analogous, when the 5 per cents were converted into 4½ per cents, and the 4½ per cents into 4 per cents, and made an order, unless the parties applied to take a contrary course, to take the 2½ per cent stock. Before, however, the time had expired at the end of which assent or dissent must be signified, political events, the prospect of a bad harvest, or other causes, had made such a sensible alteration in the price of the funds that the order would have been ruinous to the suitors. Of course, it would have been most improper in him if he had hesitated for a moment to revoke his former order; and, therefore, all the suitors would receive, when the proper time came, the full amount of their money. Those two orders were the only orders he had made, and there could be no objection to laying, them upon the table of the House. Be did not desire to keep up the discussion upon the two Bills to which the noble and learned Lord had referred; but he would merely observe that although one was a Money Bill, which, according to understood principles, could not be altered, the other had nothing to do with the subject of taxation—it could be discussed in that House like any other Bill, and no doubt would receive full consideration whenever it came before their Lordships.
LORD ST. LEONARDSsaid, he in-
1050
tended no attack upon the noble and learned Lord, nor did he in any way impeach his judgment when he signed the order to which reference had been made.
Return ordered to be laid on the table.

CASE OF THE BARON DE BODE.
LORD LYNDHURSTrose to call the attention of the House to the case of the Baron de Bode, and to submit the following Motion:—
"That this House, after considering the Petition of the Baron de Bode, and hearing a discussion thereon, having unanimously referred 'the allegations of the said Petition to a Select Committee,' and the Committee having reported it as their opinion that 'the following facts had been fully established—namely, that the claimant was a British subject within the meaning of the treaty and conventions; that he was the bonâ fide possessor of a valuable property in Alsace; that the property was unduly confiscated by the French revolutionary authorities; that the late Baron presented his claim for compensation within the time limited by the convention; that after the payment of all other claims presented within the time limited there remained a surplus more than sufficient to satisfy the Barrel's claim; that the rejection of this claim originated principally in a mistake of the Commissioners, which caused them prematurely to close the inquiry upon a ground altogether invalid, whereby they excluded the full proof of the claimant's case, the subsequent production of which proof at the inquisition and on the trial at bar led to the successive verdicts delivered in the claimant's favour; and, further, that the Committee considered the Petitioner's case to be one of great hardship and injustice;' earnestly recommends the Petitioner's claim to the favourable consideration of Her Majesty's Government."
The noble and learned Lord said that some communication had taken place between himself and his noble Friend opposite (the Earl of Aberdeen) on the part of Her Majesty's Government, which he had hoped might have relieved him from the necessity of addressing their Lordships again on this subject; but, unfortunately, the result had not confirmed his expectations, and therefore he was obliged to trouble the House with as brief a statement as the facts of the case would warrant. He would endeavour to confine what he had to state within the smallest possible compass, and would therefore proceed at once in medias res. It had been his lot to have some experience in courts of justice and of the profession of the law; but he might venture to say that he had never seen a plain case so involved, and—if he might so express himself—so mystified by the dexterity of gentlemen of the long robe as this of the Baron de Bode. It would be his

1051
task to attempt to 'unravel the Gordian knot and set the case before their Lordships in a plain form—that was to say, in a form corresponding with the convention or treaty out of which it had arisen. The case was nothing more than this: The French Government agreed to pay a large sum of money to the Government of this country, to be applied in compensation of losses sustained by the subjects of His Britannic Majesty, in consequence of the confiscation of their property during the French Revolution. The complainant's case, he ventured to say, came completely within the terms of the convention. It was not his intention to trouble their Lordships with the law of the case. His application was founded solely on facts, which were so clear that it was impossible to entertain a doubt on the question. When he stated the case to their Lordships last Session, he confined himself strictly to a narrative of the facts stated in the petition of the Baron de Bode. Nothing in that statement was exaggerated, and yet it made such an impression on their Lordships' minds that they consented to refer the Baron's petition to a Committee for the purpose of ascertaining whether the facts alleged were true. It was, he recollected, then stated by a noble Earl—a distinguished Member of that assembly, who had held the office of Colonial Secretary for many years, and who was not very likely to take anything for granted—that if the facts stated in the petition should be verified by the reference to the Committee, it was a case in which their Lordships were bound to see justice done to the complainant. How was the Committee composed? It was composed of Members of the House as intelligent as any to be found among a body distinguished for their ability. In addition to what he might call the lay Members, the Committee had the valuable assistance of his noble and learned Friend, distinguished for his constant attention to the judicial business of the House, as well as for his labours in the cause of law reform (Lord Brougham), and also of his noble and learned Friend on the cross-benches, who presided in the House when the case came officially before their Lordships, and was cognisant of all the particulars. Such being the composition of the Committee, he thought he might undertake to say that it was impossible to find a body of men better qualified to come to a correct decision on the subject. It was unnecessary to say that the Members of
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the Committee were assiduous and unremitting in prosecuting the inquiry referred to them. Every portion of the evidence was scanned and sifted, and the Committee at last came to a unanimous Report, which had been for a long period upon the table, and he sincerely hoped most of their Lordships had read it. It was not his intention to go through this Report in detail, but merely to direct attention to the concluding paragraph, which, indeed, formed part of the notice of Motion he had placed upon the paper. The Committee reported that—
"The folowing facts had been fully established, namely, that the claimant was a British subject within the meaning of the treaty and conventions; that he was the bonâ fide possessor of a valuable property in Alsace; that the property was unduly confiscated by the French revolutionary authorities; that the late Baron presented his claim for compensation within the time limited by the convention; that after the payment of all other claims presented within the time limited, there remained a surplus more than sufficient to satisfy the Baron's claim; that the rejection of this claim originated principally in a mistake of the Commissioners, which caused them prematurely to close the inquiry upon a ground altogether invalid, whereby they excluded the full proof of the claimant's case, the subsequent production of which proof at the inquisition and on the trial at the bar led to the successive verdicts delivered in the claimant's favour; and further, that the Committee considered the petitioner's case to be one of great hardship and injustice."
That was the opinion expressed by the Committee to whom their Lordships had referred the complainant's petition, for the sole purpose of ascertaining how far its allegations could be established by evidence. They found that it had been established, and he now called on their Lordships as an act of justice to pronounce in his favour. Was the inquiry to have no result? For what purpose, then, was it instituted? His noble Friend at the head of the Government was present when he made the Motion last Session, and did not object to it; and, therefore, it was only reasonable to assume that he was of opinion that, if the facts stated in the petition could be established, the petitioner would be entitled to redress. It was impossible to suppose that any noble Lord on that occasion could have communed with himself after this fashion:—"Let us take the chance of seeing whether the facts can be established; if they cannot there is an end of the case, and if they can we shall be just in the situation we stand in at present, and can oppose further proceedings." It was impossible to believe that

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his noble Friend at the head of the Government, or his noble and learned Friend on the woolsack, would condescend to such a course as that. However that might be, it was evident that their Lordships would stultify themselves if they should adopt it. The case was strong enough in the first instance to make a great impression upon the minds of their Lordships; and when they consented to refer it to a Committee, they bound themselves to abide by the result. It was his intention now to refer to the correspondence which had passed between himself and his noble Friend at the head of the Government. In his first letter to his noble Friend, he merely referred to the Report of the Committee, and asked what course the Government intended to pursue. His noble Friend returned an answer, stating that the Government did not intend to adopt any measures in consequence of that Report. On receiving this answer he wrote again to his noble Friend, calling his attention more particularly to the case, and this letter he would read fur the purpose of introducing his noble Friend's answer to it; because that answer was obviously the whole case on which the Government intended to rely in opposing the present Motion. The letter he addressed to his noble Friend was as follows:—
"May 26, 1853.
"My Lord—I have delayed replying to your Lordship's letter respecting the case of the Baron de Lode in consequence of the absence of Lord Truro, who has been suffering for some time under severe indisposition. Yom Lordship is aware that he presided as Chancellor upon the appeal to the House of Lords. He is strongly impressed with the justice of the claim, and has taken a deep interest in the question. Your Lordship appears to doubt whether the facts stated by the Committee have been sufficiently established. It is true they were not followed by any judicial decision in favour of the claimant, not from any failure of evidence as to those facts, but in consequence of the Act of Parliament to which you allude, and which operated, however unjustly, as a bar to the claim. The facts were put in issue upon two different occasions, once under the commission, and afterwards upon the trial at bar. Upon the latter occasion they were established, after a trial of four days, in opposition to the strenuous exertions of the law officers of the Crown, by the verdict of a special jury, and in accordance with the previous finding under the commission. This verdict, if incorrect in any particular, might have been reviewed, but it was acquiesced in, and has never been questioned. The facts found were in substance as follows—namely, that the claimant was a British subject, within the meaning of the Convention; that he was the bonâ,fide possessor of a valuable property in Alsace; that this property was confiscated by the revolutionary Government of France; that
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the late Baron presented his claim within the limited time; and that, after payment of all the other claims presented within the proper time a surplus remained more than sufficient to satisfy the Baron's claim. It is upon these facts, so found, that the petitioner relies; they bring his case completely within the terms of the Convention, and give him a right, in common justice, to receive payment out of the fund advanced by the Government of France to satisfy such claims; and I submit to your Lordship that to apply any part of this fund to other purposes, whether by Act of Parliament or otherwise, while this claim remains unsatisfied, is at variance with every principle of justice and of national honour.—I remain, my Lord, very respectfully yours, "LYNDHURST.
"To the Right Hon. the Earl of Aberdeen."
To the reply of his noble Friend he must call their Lordships' attention in detail. It was obviously not the sole production of his noble Friend; but was probably drawn up in conjunction with the law officers of the Crown. It might be described as a triumvirate production, combining law, equity, and diplomacy. The odds, it must be confessed, were against him; but yet, so confident was he of the justice of his cause, that he did not despair of success. The first paragraph of his noble Friend's answer was couched in these terms:—
"Downing-street, June 14.
"My Lord—I have duly received your further letter, dated the 4th inst., respecting the case of the Baron de Bode, in which you state that certain facts have been found by two verdicts of a jury which have not been disputed, and establish a claim on the part of the Baron de Bode which, on every principle of justice and national honour, the country is bound to satisfy. The proceedings upon which the first of these verdicts was founded were entirely ex parte, no person attending the inquisition on the part of the Crown, and they cannot therefore be considered as any authoritative finding of the facts relied upon in support of the Baron's claim."
His noble Friend had not quite accurately described what he (Lord Lyndhurst) had stated. He had not for a moment meant to say that this proceeding was not ex parte. What he said was, that the finding of the trial at bar was in accordance with the previous finding of the inquisition. The inquisition was under a petition of right. The Lord Chancellor followed the usual course, and directed a Commission to issue to five experienced members of the bar, and twenty-four special jurymen were directed to inquire into the allegations of the petition. The jury found the facts stated in the inquisition, and these facts he had already stated. The law officers of the Crown did not attend this proceeding. Why? They had notice to attend, and they might have attended if they thought proper; but they sent a shorthand

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writer to take notes of all the argument; and the evidence, for the purpose of putting themselves completely in possession of the claimant's case, with a view to ulterior proceedings. The next step was a trial a bar, and he must inform their Lordship that in that proceeding the Crown possess ed considerable advantages, inasmuch as they had at command the shorthand writer's notes of the arguments and evidence adduced, and were therefore in possession of the whole of the claimant's case. Their Lordships would perceive how great an advantage that circumstance would be (in such a case. The trial, when the four Judges (the Lord Chief Justice and three (other Judges) presided, with a special jury, lasted four days. The case was fought inch by inch, and argued at considerable length, and the result was, the unanimous finding of a verdict which confirmed the previous finding of the Commission in every particular. The law officer: of the Crown, upon the termination of that trial, must not be assumed to have considered that verdict incontrovertible; but whether they did so or not, it was, of course, their duty not to be satisfied with it. But whatever might have been their opinion, no steps were taken to impugn that verdict, for it was considered that notwithstanding that decision, there were good grounds to rely upon for a judgment adverse to the Baron's claim. The law officers of the Crown did not choose to contest the facts and move for a new trial, but thought it safer to apply themselves to an Act of Parliament, to which he was about to refer, which declared the money to be held as a trust fund by the Government, and placed it in the Treasury, in order that the money should only be applied to discharge the claims of persons in whose favour an adjudication had been made by the Commissioners. The case was carried on those grounds into the Court of Exchequer Chamber, and Mr. Baron Parke delivered a most elaborate judgment, in the course of which he said—
"If no Act of Parliament had passed for the application of this money, it might have been question whether the British Sovereign could have applied it to any purpose that he chose. It might have been contended, that as it was received by him expressly as the price of a release of the French Government from its obligations to compensate his subjects for their losses, he took the money with a similar obligation to distribute it among his subjects by way of compensation, an that if he had been a private individual who had received money under the like circumstances, such a trust would have been implied, and might
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have been enforced in some way, according to the circumstances, either in a court of law or one of equity; and, if so, that such subject had a remedy by a petition of right. But it is unnecessary for us to give any opinion upon this supposed case; for Parliament, which was unquestionably competent to dispose of all the money as it thought fit, and might have applied it to the public services of the year, or given it for any other purpose, and so disappointed the just expectations of the claimants, has provided for the application of the fund by the statute 59th of Geo. III. c. 31; and the case turns entirely on the construction and effect of that statute."
But really these funds were taken contrary to the spirit of the treaty and placed at the disposal of the Treasury, instead of being applied in compensation to the individual whose case had been proved to be within the Convention. He need not say that when the case was brought before their Lordships' House, the judgment concurred exactly with that of the Court of Exchequer Chamber, and that it was founded not upon the facts of the case upon both sides, but upon the appropriation of the money by the Act of Parliament to which he had referred. Such was the answer given to the facts of the case. But, after all, it was not a question of law that he brought before their Lordships—it was a question of fact. As far as the law was concerned, he admitted that the claimant had no right to recover in a court of justice, because the Act of Parliament was a bar. It would be observed that the law officers of the Crown did not condescend to state what particular facts they disputed; but in a conversation which he had had casually with a noble Lord, a Member of Her Majesty's Government, it was incidentally dropped that the Baron de Bode might not have been a British subject. This was a point then upon which he must call attention. The claimant had been found to be a British subject both at the trial at bar and by the Committee of their Lordships' House. It was found that the father of Baron de Bode came to this country and resided for a long period in Staffordshire, where he married an English lady who resided on her own estate in that county. The present claimant was born in Staffordshire and christened in Gloucester, and was, therefore, most clearly a subject of this country, entitled to enjoy all the privileges of British citizenship, and unable to throw off its obligations and liabilities. He was competent, if elected, to take his seat in the Commons House, as a representative; to be a Member of their Lordships' House, and of the Privy Council; or indeed to occupy

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the seat so ably filled upon the woolsack by his noble and learned Friend, or the high position equally ably filled by the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Aberdeen). He was to all intents and purposes a British subject, and liable to all the obligations which that position would impose, as he was entitled to all the privileges which it might also confer. If he had entered into the army of a foreign Power, and served against this country, he would most certainly, if taken in arms, be liable to the punishment of high treason, although it was not probable that in such a case that extreme punishment would be inflicted. When first the claim was set up, the Due de Richelieu, who was then at the head of affairs in France, had stated that the claim was inadmissible, for it was impossible that he could be a British subject, inasmuch as his father was a German. Mr. Mackenzie, who was Chief Commissioner, on the representation of Sir Charles Stuart, who was at that time the English Ambassador, placed the name of the Baron de Bode on the list of claimants. Subsequently an accurate statement of his case was drawn up and sent to Sir Samuel Romilly for his opinion. That distinguished authority returned an answer, which had been laid on the table of their Lordships House. Sir Samuel Romilly stated that there was no doubt whatever that the petitioner was a British subject; that he had all the rights of a British subject, and was subject to all the liabilities incident to that character; and that, in fact, he could not put off his allegiance to the British Crown; and he stated that opinion in the most distinct and decisive terms. On this opinion of Sir Samuel Romilly, this ground of opposition was abandoned, and during the whole of the subsequent proceedings it had not been alluded to. A surmise had also been thrown out, that the claimant might have some relations with the French Government, and he would just call their Lordships' attention to what were the real facts of the case, and show that there was not the slightest foundation whatever for such a surmise. The father of the claimant was colonel in a German regiment, in the service of Louis XVI., and by the rules and regulations of that regiment no one but Germans could be admitted into it, and therefore it was manifest that his father could not have been a Frenchman. The property was confiscated a long time before the claimant came of age, and therefore it was impossible that he could have
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taken any steps to become a naturalised French subject. He thought that he had said enough to prove that there was no doubt that the Baron de Bode was a British subject, and he did not think that that fact could be by any possibility controverted, and he should therefore assume that he was a British subject. The father and son were entitled to a large and valuable property situated in Lower Alsace. Now, when Alsace was annexed to the Crown of France, there was a proviso that all the property held by German tenure in that district should remain inviolable. The property of the Baron de Bode was a German male fief, or he might call it an estate tail; the estate tail in the remainderman being incapable of being defeated or barred—thus, the present claimant had a vested estate in the remainder. From various causes, with the narration of which he would not occupy their Lordships' time, the father of the present Baron thought fit to make a surrender to his son, and the property was conveyed to him with livery of seisin, and all the form and ceremony required by the law of that country; so that in point of law he became absolute master of the whole interest and property. Even if no surrender had taken place, the claimant had undoubtedly a vested interest in the property. He had read through all the evidence on the subject, and he had not the slightest doubt that the surrender of the estate was a perfectly proper transaction. All the particulars of the title and the names of the witnesses had been before the inquisition, and the law officers of the Crown were conversant with every part of the case, and had not advanced any proof that the surrender was not genuine; and he should therefore take for granted that it was a bonâ fide transaction. When the claimant applied to the Commission, he received a statement of the kind of evidence which it would be necessary for him to adduce, and he accordingly employed himself in collecting it. He was shortly afterwards asked if he could adduce evidence to prove that the property which had been confiscated, being the property of a British subject, had been confiscated as such, and according to the decree which had been made against British subjects. It was replied on his behalf, that the property had been confiscated in consequence of emigration. Upon that the Commissioners decided that it would be useless to go on with the evidence, and that, unless the Baron were prepared to prove that his

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estate had been confiscated under the decrees against British subjects, he was not entitled to be included in the Convention. He considered that decision a most extraordinary one. It was opposed to the direct opinion of Sir William Grant and Lord Stowell, both very high authorities on such points. There were cases which might be cited as showing the extraordinary nature of that decision. There was the case of an Irishman, who had settled for many years in France, who had served in the French army, and who, after having so served, thought fit to emigrate. The estates of that person were immediately confiscated by the French Government: he brought his case before the Commissioners, and it ultimately came for decision to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and it was there decided that the individual in question was a British subject, and came within the operation of the law of the Convention. In another case, a person who had settled in France for a considerable number of years had taken the preliminary steps for becoming a naturalised French subject; but before the whole ceremony had been completed, he determined upon emigrating, and the result was the confiscation of his property. He applied to the Commissioners, and it was decided that his case came within the operation of the treaty. He would not weary their Lordships by adducing other instances of a similar character; but the two which he had brought forward would illustrate the extraordinary nature of the decision in the case of the Baron de Bode. By the Convention, all the evidence required was, that the party was an English subject, and that the property to which he was fairly entitled had been confiscated. It was necessary that claims should be sent in to the Commissioners within three months, and the Baron de Bode had sent his in within that period, and his claim had been rejected, and the grounds of rejection were stated on the face of the award. The first ground was that to which he had just referred, and the second, that there was not sufficient proof of the surrender of the property by the father. It was also subsequently urged against his claim that the money had, by Act of Parliament, been placed under the control of the Lords of the Treasury, to be disposed of as they should think fit. That was not, in his opinion, a just answer to the claim, or one to have been confirmed by any tribunal of justice. The noble Earl opposite went
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further, for he appeared to think that the claim could be rejected on various other grounds, for in another part of his letter the noble Earl stated—
"And with regard to the verdict of the jury on the trial at bar, it must not be assumed that the law advisers of the Crown considered that verdict incontrovertible. No steps, indeed, were taken to impugn it, because it was considered that, notwithstanding that verdict, there was abundant ground in law for a judgment against the Baron's claim; and such judgment was in fact given by the Queen's Bench, affirmed afterwards by the Court of Exchequer Chamber, and, finally, by the House of Lords. Nor must it be assumed that, had it been necessary for the Courts to determine the different points on which the Baron's claim depends, all, or any of them, would have been adjudicated in his favour. On the contrary, it is believed, and may be inferred from the language of the judgments, that many of these points would have been determined against him."
How that might be he would not express an opinion. The noble Earl continued—
"It is stated by Lord Denman, in giving the unanimous judgment of the Court of Queen's Bench, that there was no one of the propositions which might be called the ingredients of the claim that, was not encountered with formidable objections.' On the receipt of the sums of money paid under the conventions with France, certain tribunals were appointed by the Legislature to determine the rights of parties claiming under those conventions. The Baron's case was investigated and determined by those tribunals. Litigation must somewhere end; and there is no more reason for reopening the Baron de Bode's case than for reviewing by an appeal to the country any final judgment of the House of Lords between private parties."
But was it investigated? There was ample proof that the case had not been investigated. The Baron was on the Continent collecting evidence as to the value of his property that had been confiscated. While he was so engaged, a letter was written by the Commissioners of award to the Baron's agent in this country, inquiring whether the Baron's property was confiscated because it was British property, and as such? The agent said it was confiscated in consequence of emigration, and the Commissioners then decided against his claim. This closed the award, and would the noble Earl call this an investigation by a competent tribunal? The Baron's next proceeding was by a petition of right, and that was decided, not upon the merits of the case, but upon the Act of Parliament. When the case was brought before the other House, a noble Lord, whom he did not now see in his place, who was then a Member of the other House, ex-

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pressed a strong feeling of the justice of the Baron's claim; and his right hon. Friend Sir James Graham, who took part in the discussion, concluded by saying that it was a case of great hardship. He was not endeavouring to treat this as a case of law, because he was fully aware that any attempt to enforce the claim in a court of justice would be at once answered by the production of the Act of Parliament to which he had already alluded. Nothing more was necessary in a case of this kind than he state the facts, and to call upon their Lord ships to do justice. Upon a former occasion it had been asked by more than one noble Lord what had become of this money? and it was asserted that all the money been distributed according to the terms the Convention. Now, he had such confidence in the love of justice of his noble and learned Friend (the Lord Chancellor) that if he could satisfy him the money had not been appropriated according to the terms of the Convention, he was sure he should have the support of his noble and learned Friend. The jury found that a balance of 482,000 l. remained after satisfying the claims which had been decided by the Commissioners to come strictly within the terms of the Convention. That sum, with its accumulations, amounted to 566,000 l., and that sum had been paid by the Commissioners into the Treasury. In consequence of this large surplus, a large number of applications were made for compensation by parties who had not put forward their claims within the time first specified for so doing, and a sum of 196,000 l. was ultimately awarded to this class of claimants; but these claimants certainly ought not to have been compensated at the expense of those who were strictly within the terms of the Convention. A large balance was, therefore, still available; but out of this amount a sum of not less than 232,000 l. was applied by the Government in discharge of debts due by the public on various transactions connected with the cost of maintenance of the French prisoners in this country, and other matters. Including interest, a sum of 68,000 l. remained, even after this application of the funds, of which no account whatever could be obtained; and all that could be said of it was, that it was not applicable to the discharge of these claims. Under such circumstances, was it not strict duty, on the part of the country, to pay out of the public funds a sufficient sum to reimburse this gentleman, whose money had been applied for the purpose of re-
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lieving the Government from certain liabilities to which they were exposed? He was sorry to find that the claim had not been met in anything like a fair and liberal spirit by successive Governments. The law advisers of the Crown had actually condescended to use such pleas as the Statute of Limitations, and that the money had not been paid over to this country in the reign of Her present Majesty. To set up this statute as a bar to inquiry, was what no honest or honourable man would do. He knew it had been said that corporations possessed no soul nor conscience, and he believed this was true with respect to Governments, for he had seen, sometimes, instances of very conscientious persons who had paid their tribute to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but he did not remember any instance of reciprocity on the part of that functionary. The footsteps were all one way—Nulla vestigia retrorsum. He had had long experience of public life, but he thought he could venture to say that he never knew an instance of money having been paid into the Treasury which could ever be got out again. The Genius of the day, represented by the First Lord or the Chancellor of the Exchequer, stood at the entrance, stern, inflexible, and obdurate—Quàm si dura silex aut stet Marpesia cautes—and forbade the passage across the threshold of the Treasury. What, he would ask, would be the reply which he could make to the question of some foreign jurist, why they had not paid this claimant? It would be, "We are so poor, so wretched, and we have so little money, that we have appropriated this amount to our own use for the discharge of our debts." Such would be the answer which he would be obliged to make, though he confessed he should give it with shame, and a feeling of deep humiliation. He was aware that he was entirely at the mercy of the noble Earl at the head of the Government, and possessed no power to compel him to do justice. He could, however, remind the noble Earl, even if he displayed no symptom of justice, that—
"No sympathy that to great ones 'longs,
Not the King's crown, nor the deputed sword,
The Marshal's truncheon, nor the Judge's robe,
Becomes them with one half so good a grace
As mercy does."
He entreated the noble Earl and the Government, for the sake of the high reputation, the character, and position of their Lordships, to listen with favour to the ap-

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peal now made. The noble and learned Lord then concluded by his Motion.
The LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he should certainly feel surprised if, in spite of the able address of the noble and learned Lord, a very short statement of facts would not convince their Lordships that there was no injustice whatever in resisting this claim of the Baron de Bode; that it was founded in error, and that there was not only no legal claim, but no equitable claim, for the satisfaction of these demands. Unlike the noble and learned Lord who had just addressed the House, he should assume that their Lordships were not fully familiar with the facts of this case. The Baron de Bode was the son of a foreign nobleman who was of German origin, but who purchased property in Alsace, and there was established. The father married, it was true, in the year 1775, an English lady. It could not be argued, however, that the circumstance of his wife being an English woman made any difference in the status of his children from what it would have been had he married a French or a German woman. His children did not thereby become English subjects at all. He (the Lord Chancellor) did not mean to controvert the position that the Baron de Bode, who was the original claimant, was a British subject. Why was he a British subject? From the accident that he—not the rest of the family—happened to be born while his parents were on a visit to his mother's relatives in England, and every one born in England is by right a British-born subject. The Baron de Bode was certainly, therefore, in point of law, a British-born subject. But, though born in Staffordshire, he went abroad immediately afterwards with his family, resided abroad, and to all intents and purposes was practically a foreigner, as an evidence of which he could not speak a word of English. Though legally a British subject, then, he was for all practical purposes a foreigner. The claimant was born in the year 1777. Between the year 1775 and the period of the French Revolution, his father purchased a large property at Soultz, in Alsace. When the Revolution broke out, what was allege was this—that the father, thinking it might serve his purpose so to do, made a cesssion of his property to his son. Whether that was a valid transaction or not, was open to doubt. It had been found by a jury that it was; but it had previously been found by a competent tribunal that
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it was an invalid and a fraudulent transaction. The father contended that the property having been thus ceded in the year 1791, became the property of his son, at that time fourteen years of age. Previously to 793 the Revolution had broken out, and the ether, son, and the rest of the family took the Royalist side of the question, and emigrated, and the property was confiscated as the property of an emigrant—distinctly confiscated, because the French contended that it was the property of the father, and did not recognise its cession to the son as a valid transaction. The then Baron served, he believed, in the Russian army, and died in 1796, when his son, the original claimant, succeeded to the title. At the peace in 1815 the treaties were entered into between the Governments of England and France which gave rise to his discussion, in which treaties the French Government contracted to compensate all British subjects for the loss of their property induement confisqués during the Revolution. A treaty had been previously—that is, in the year 1786—made with reference to the property of British subjects resident in France, whereby it was provided that, in case of war, a year's notice should be given to those persons to quit and withdraw their property. The Revolution, however, took place, and the treaty of 1786 was entirely disregarded. There could not be the least doubt in the world that it was to such cases as these that the Convention really pointed, though he did not mean to dispute that when the Convention came to be looked at afterwards its terms were found to go further. The first course taken under that Convention was the appointment of a joint commission, which went on for two or three years, the French Government depositing money, and providing for claims until 1818, when that Government was exceedingly anxious to bring the subject to a termination as far as they were concerned. The amount of claims then put forward had been pretty clearly ascertained, and a convention was entered into to this effect: The French Government said, "We will hand over to you a rente producing 3,000,000f." (about 120,000 l. a year); "you shall settle the claims among yourselves, and we shall be relieved from all further liability on the subject." That was embodied in the form of a Convention, and made the subject of an Act of Parliament, that provided for the appointment of Commissioners to investigate the claims

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sent in, which claims, if the funds, handed over by the French Government were sufficient, were to be discharged in full; if the money was insufficient, it was to be divided pro ratâ; and in case of a surplus, that was to be at the disposal of His Majesty. According to the terms of the original Convention and of the Act of Parliament, the claims were to be sent in before a certain day, and if they were not so sent in they were excluded. Claims to a very large amount were sent in accordingly; they were investigated; the matter was protracted for two or three years, and eventually a final award was made by the Commissioners. Among the claims on which they adjudicated—he did not say whether rightly or wrongly—was that of the Baron de Bode. Perhaps the Commissioners took an erroneous view of the law of that case; perhaps they took a wrong view of the fact. They were, however, the parties who constituted the lawful tribunal for the investigation of the merits of these claims, and they came to this conclusion:—
"The Board find, that there is no sufficient proof that such public manifestation, according to the laws then in use in Soultz, was to be considered as a cession to the said claimant (he then being only fourteen years of age), or that the same did in any valid or sufficient manner transfer from the said Baron de Bode, the father, a foreign-born subject, all right which he then possessed in the said property to the said Baron de Bode, the son, now claiming, to be a British subject. The Board further find, that there is no proof that such cession was admitted and recognised by the French authorities as valid and legal; but, on the contrary thereof, the Board find, from the different statements of the said claimant, and more particularly from his declaration and covenant, that it was the said Baron, the father, and not the son, who was seized, possessed, and otherwise entitled to the said estates; and that shortly after such cession, or intended cession, the said estates were seized under the pretence that the Baron de Bode, the father, was a subject of France, and had emigrated from that country, although (as is elsewhere stated) he was a German."
That was the decision of the competent tribunal upon the Baron's case in the year 1822. The Act of Parliament, seeing that the awards of this tribunal would or might give rise to very nice and difficult questions, did not leave the claimants dependent on the decisions of these Commissioners, but gave them a right of appeal to time Privy Council. Lord Stowell and Sir William Grant were the persons who then took a leading part in the deliberations of the Privy Council, and in 1823 the Baron de Bode appealed to that body, who came to this conclusion:—
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"That this was an appeal brought by an unfortunate nobleman from an award made by the Commissioners for Liquidating British Claims, and that, after the best attention the Lords had been able to give the case, it appeared that the claimant had completely failed in regard to the ownership of the property; that it had been a contrivance originating in the mind of the father, and by no means an improper one, to delude the French Government, and which proved ineffectual and, therefore, under all circumstances, though hard it might be for the unfortunate nobleman, yet the Lords were bound to affirm the award."
Now, he did not know where these cases where to stop if after the lapse of thirty years after the question had been decided in the first instance by these Commissioners, and then upon appeal to the Privy Council by such eminent men as those whom he had mentioned, the subject of this claim was now to be revived, and an 'attempt was to be made to show that a wrong decision had been come to. Did their Lordships suppose that the Baron de Bode was the only person whose case could be revived? An infinite number of claims had been rejected, and if the Baron de Bode had now claim for justice, all the others must be treated in a similar manner. It turned out that the sum which had been provided by the French Government for the liquidation of these claims was considerably more than sufficient to pay those reported upon by the Commissioners, and there was a surplus of 400,000 l. or 500,000 l. The Government then took into consideration what would be the fairest and most equitable mode of disposing of this surplus. A Treasury Minute, dated the 2nd of May, 1826, was issued to this effect:—
"From this paper it appears that, after all the claims which have been received and admitted by the Commissioners, as well as after the disposal of all the claims now in course of adjudication before the Lords of the Privy Council shall have been liquidated and fully discharged, even in case the whole of the sums claimed should be allowed, a considerable surplus will remain undisposed of, and which is placed at the disposal of his Board by the Act of the 59th of Geo. III., c. 31, for enabling the Commissioners to carry into effect the several conventions for liquidating the claims of British subjects and others against the Government of France. My Lords advert to the statements in these papers that the time limited by the conventions signed in Paris in November, 1815, for receiving claims was in many cases too short to allow persons, and particularly those residing in distant parts, to receive the notice and to transmit their claims within the period limited by the convention for their reception, in consequence of which, when the subject of these conventions and claims was subsequently under discussion in the House of Commons, an expectation as held out by a statement of Lord Castlereagh

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that the cases of those individuals who had not referred their claims within due time would be taken into consideration in the event of there being any surplus of this fund after liquidating the claims of those persons who had preferred them within the time limited by the conventions. It now appears that such surplus will arise, although the precise amount cannot at present be ascertained; my Lords are therefore pleased to direct a letter to be written to the said Commissioners, desiring them immediately to receive all the claims which have heretofore been tendered to them, and which were not then received, or, if received, not investigated, in consequence of their having been preferred after the time limited by the convention for their reception, and that they will forthwith proceed to investigate those claims upon the same principle in all respects as they have investigated the claims preferred within due time; and further desire that, after they have ascertained the correct amount of the principal of such claims, they will compute the simple interest due thereon at the rate of 3 per cent from the time of the sequestration to the 24th of June next; and my Lords desire to observe that they cannot direct payment to be made to any of the parties preferring these claims until the total amount of all such claims shall be ascertained. Acquaint them further, that it is not their Lordships' intention that any claims which have been already received awl decided upon should be reconsidered; nor is it their intention to waive any other irregularity than that of the claims not having been preferred within the time limited by the Convention."
Under this Minute the Commissioners did proceed to investigate the claims of all persons who had tendered claims to them, or whose claims had not been before investigated, because they had not been made in due time. Those who established their claims were paid, and by this means the surplus of 460,000 l. was reduced to something like 200,000 l.—at any rate the sum was very much reduced, but there was still a large surplus. He found by a Treasury Minute of June 8, 1830, that the Commissioners received applications for the unappropriated surplus at the disposal of the Government from the Bordeaux and the general claimants. The Bordeaux claims had gone beyond the full amount specially appropriated to their settlement, and, therefore, when there was a surplus from the fund he had alluded to, these claimants said, naturally enough, that they had an equitable claim upon that surplus. This was noted in the Treasury Minute, which ran thus, and to which he begged their Lordships attention:—
"My Lords have before them letters addressed to the Duke of Wellington and to this Board, by several agents for certain claimants on the Government of France, under the Convention with that country of the 20th November, 1815 (No. 13), urging the claims which they have to receive out of the unappropriated surplus of the funds provi-
1068
ded by Convention No. 7, of the 20th November, 1815, and a supplemental Convention of the 25th of April, 1818, the unsatisfied balance of their admitted claims under Convention No. 13. My Lords also read various applications from other parties, who consider themselves to have claims upon that surplus upon different grounds; and among others a letter addrsesed to their Assistant Secretary by the Secretary to the East India Company, advancing a claim to a sum of 1,009,312 l. on account of expenses incurred by them during the war in the maintenance of French prisoners of war. From the time which has elapsed since the surplus of the funds was transferred to my Lords, my Lords consider that they have now before them every case in which any claim can, even in the opinion of the parties interested, be urged to favourable consideration. On considering the documents before them, with the exception of the claim of the East India Company, the decision of which rests in some degree on separate grounds, it appears to my Lords that the claimants may be divided into four distinct classes, comprising—

"1. Those whose claims have been regularly presented in the time limited by the 12th article of the Convention No. 7, and have been disallowed by the Commissioners. To these may be added those whose demands, either for principal or an increased rate of interest, have been only partially allowed, and who seek a further payment.

"2. Those whose claims not having been presented within the time limited by such Convention, have been subsequently admitted to adjudication under a Minute of this Board, and have been, on adjudication, either only partially allowed or disallowed altogether.

"3. Those whose claims not having been advanced within the period fixed by the Convention No. 7, nor tendered previously to the date of my Lords' Minute of the 21st of May, 1826, have been excluded from consideration. To these may be added those whose claims under Convention No. 13, were not advanced within the period limited by that Convention.

"4. Those (the Bordeaux claimants) whose claims have been admitted under Convention No. 13, or under the additional article to Convention No. 7, but who, in consequence of a deficiency of the funds allotted under that convention and additional article, have received only a percentage of their admitted claims.

"With respect to the first class of these claimants, my Lords are of opinion that, as their claims have been regularly adjudicated in the manner prescribed by the Convention and the subsequent Act of Parliament, 59 Geo. III., c. 31, there is no ground whatever for the reconsideration that has been prayed. With respect to the second class, as their admission to participate in the advantages of the Convention was an Act of pure bounty on the part of His Majesty, they cannot, strictly speaking, have any right to au appeal from the decision of the tribunal to which His Majesty thought fit to assign the task of distributing his bounty. But as, in admitting those parties to share in the benefits of the Convention, it was my Lords' intention to admit the satisfaction of those claims as far as they were found to be just, without any objection as to the time of their presentation, my Lords do not see any inconvenience likely to result from giving to such of them as may wish to prefer an appeal to the Privy Council against the decision of the Commissioners in their

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respective cases a power to prefer that appeal, provided that such appeal be lodged within a definite period. My Lords will therefore take measures for submitting, to Parliament in this Session a Bill for giving to such of them as may appeal within a definite period the same power of appeal which was granted by the 10th section of the Act 59 George III., c. 31, to the first class of claimants referred to in this Minute. With respect to the third class of claimants—namely, those whose claims have not been brought forward either within the time limited by the conventions or tendered previous to the date of my Lords' Minutes of the 2nd of May, 1826, it does not appear to my Lords that they can now be admitted to consideration."
The Minute next referred to the last of these claims, as follows:—
"The fourth class of claimants stand in a different situation from those already enumerated; their claims have been regularly preferred within the period prescribed; they have been adjudged to have been well founded, but a deficiency of the funds allotted to their satisfaction has prevented their receiving more than a certain percentage on the sums pronounced to be respectively due to them. My Lords, therefore, consider that these parties have a claim to favourable consideration, and, should a surplus ultimately remain, my Lords do not think that it can be more properly appropriated than in some further compensation of this class of claimants, to the extent of half of the sum now remaining due to them under the adjudication of the Commissioners. Adverting, however, to the necessity of retaining an adequate fund to satisfy certain appeals now pending, or which may hereafter he brought before the Privy Council, and which, if decided in favour of the appellants, may greatly reduce, if not altogether absorb, the amount of surplus at His Majesty's disposal, my Lords do not feel that they can take measures for compensating these claimants until the period which Parliament may fix for the admission of appeals shall arrive, when the number of appellants and the whole amount of their several claims will be definitively ascertained."
So matters went on, and, there being still a surplus left, another Treasury Minute was made on the 6th of December, 1832, in which it was stated:—
"It appears to my Lords that the first step will be to nominate Commissioners for the purpose of receiving and adjudicating upon the several claims, under whose directions the fund in question shall be distributed; that the claims shall be presented to those Commissioners within a period to be hereafter fixed, and advertised in the London Gazette for the purpose, and shall be supported by such evidence as the Commissioners may think necessary to substantiate the claim; that the decision of the Commissioners shall be final and conclusive, the admission of the claims being altogether a matter of grace and favour; and that no claim shall he entertained until the party claiming, or his authorised agent, shall have signed such document as may be considered necessary to mark his acquiescence."
Another Minute followed soon after, appointing the Commissioners, and on the
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15th of March, 1833, a Minute was issued giving certain directions for the guidance of the Commissioners, which the Treasury laid down as follows:—
"My Lords proceed to consider what description of claims are inadmissible, and what description it will be proper to submit to the adjudication of the Commissioners. In the first place, my Lords cannot admit that any claim shall be now entertained, which, having been heard before the late Commissioners of French Claims and rejected, had a right of appeal under the Statute to the Privy Council, of which they did not avail themselves, and still less that any claim should be entertained, the disallowance of which by that Commission, was affirmed upon appeal to the Privy Council."
Substantially, those whose claims had not yet been adjudicated upon on account of some mere technicality, as well as those who could show that lapse of time and delay in preferring their claims had not arisen from circumstances over which they had any control, were let in. They then stated:—
"If it shall be found, after deciding upon the claims under Class 1, and after paying the balances ordered by the Minute of the 8th of June, 1830, to the claimants under Class 2, that a surplus remains, that surplus will be applicable to the liquidation of such of the remaining claims now to be admitted, and of the balances still due to claimants under Class 2 in full, if the surplus be sufficient for the purpose, or pro rabâ, according to the amount of their several claims, my Lords considering that to be the fairest and most equitable manner of proceeding in this liquidation, under all the circumstances of the case."
As far as these directions went, the claims were adjudicated upon and paid. It was not quite correct to say the surplus had been all paid away, for there were a few thousands remaining which hail not beers paid, because questions of identity of parties had arisen; but in effect the whole fund had been disposed of in the mode sanctioned by the Act of Parliament, and the surplus, going to the Crown, had been disposed of by the Crown in the mode which appeared to it most equitable. There might be differences of opinion with respect to the best course to be taken on the occasion; but it seemed a most extraordinary proceeding, when every attempt had been made to terminate the matter fairly and justly, and when the principle had been acted on of letting in all whose claims had not been adjudicated upon, to call in question the propriety of that plan which had been actually adopted. The Baron de Bode, however, feeling convinced injustice had been done to him as a British subject, de-

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manded restitution of his property induement confisqué, and petitioned the House of Commons to interfere in his behalf, alleging he had a claim on the surplus not disposed of under the original Act. The House of Commons refused to entertain that view, but they intimated to him, that if he had a legal claim on the surplus fund he might take any legal proceeding he thought fit to assert it. In 1837 or 1838 the Baron de Bode was advised to institute a petition of right, which was a very unusual proceeding in modern times, the nature of which he might sufficiently explain to thir Lordships by stating it was a lawsuit against the King, brought with the consent of the Crown. What the Baron de Bode had to establish was partly matter of fact, partly matter of law—first, he had to show that the property was his; next, that the cession had been valid in 1791; that it was within the meaning of the statute, and that he had a legal right to participate in the surplus of this fund. The proceedings went on, till at last there was a trial at bar before the Queen's Bench; and the noble and learned Lord certainly had the benefit of this fact, that a Westminster jury in 1844 found, in opposition to the finding of Lord Stowell and Sir William Grant twenty-two years previously, that the cession was valid and good. The Baron de Bode, however, had not proved that he had any claim of right in the fund, assuming the whole of his facts to be made out. It was quite unimportant that this point was decided in his favour, for he had no right to have any claim in the fund except through the bounty of the Crown, which had a right to appropriate it as it pleased. But the proposition of his noble and learned Friend was, that, whatever might be the law, this finding of the jury in 1844 ought to have led the. Government to act on what the jury thought the just claim of the Baron de Bode, independent of the legal right. Now when his noble and learned Friend said that this finding was enough to show his abstract right, without any reference to his legal right, he must remind his noble and learned Friend that he was Lord Chancellor while all this took place. How came it, then, that he slept over this case while he was Lord Chancellor? How was it he had not moved—
LORD LYNDHURSTsaid, the case had never been before him as Chancellor, nor was he then aware of it.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: Well,
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that so far might account for it. The surplus had been appropriated, though not as the Baron de Bode thought it should have been; and the question was, whether his case was one which called for their Lordships' intervention, and in which the country would go along with them in doing something which had never been done before—in interfering for a person in the situation of this gentleman. It was said he was a British subject, and so he certainly was; but he was a British subject by the merest accident. If he bad been born of a Frenchwoman while over on a visit to a friend in this country, he would have been just as much a British subject as he was now. Would he be such a person as their Lordships would think it right to interfere with the bounty of the Crown for? He could not but think the Baron de Bode stood in a position on this ground which disentitled him to all consideration in such a proceeding as this. He quite admitted the argument founded on the fact that the jury found the cession was valid; but he must say that, speaking beyond the case, he doubted very much the competency of any jury, in 1844, to decide whether a transaction which had a great appearance of fraud in 1791 was fraudulent or not; though he admitted, as Lord Stowell said, that the Baron de Bode might not have considered the cession was an act of fraud at all. He must say, when he looked to this Motion, that he believed it was one for which there was no precedent, and that it was one which he trusted their Lordships would never set up. It indicated, on the very face of it, the most entire distrust in the decisions of the tribunals of this country, and—his noble and learned Friend must permit him to say—the most entire ignorance on his own part with respect to the course he (Lord Lyndhurst) wished their Lordships to take. He wished their Lordships "to recommend the case of the Baron de Bode to the favourable consideration of the Government." That was the sort of language which their Lordships were in the habit of seeing appended to thing which their Lordships ought to do. If the Baron de Bode had justice on his side—if the Crown had no right to appropriate the fund to other claimants—if the Baron de Bode had in justice a claim on the fund—he (the Lord Chancellor) would not listen to any demand for "a favourable consideration" of his claims—there was but one thing they should do—they should immediately by Act of Parliament raise 1,500,000 l.

1073
sterling—charging it on the Consolidated Fund—to liquidate his claim. There was no fund in existence out of which the demand could be paid, and therefore they must, if the Baron de Bode was right, pass an Act for it. He did not know the meaning of the words "favourable consideration of Government." The matter had often before been recommended to the consideration of the Government for the time being; most Governments had had it under their consideration; and every Government had felt it was a claim not founded in justice, and that it would only be listened to on the condition of listening not only to every disappointed suitor standing in the same predicament, but to the claims of every disappointed suitor for the last fifty years. Their Lordships had now pending in their Lordships' House a question involving the right to property worth 60,000 l, or 70,000 l. a year. They would be bound to decide that; and if the principle of his noble and learned Friend was to be tolerated, what was to prevent the disappointed parties in that case coming forward some thirty years afterwards and saying that the law had been misunderstood by their Lordships on that occasion—that he had been deprived of a very large property in consequence, and calling on their Lordships to take his case into their favourable consideration. Six or seven years ago their Lordships decided a case against Lord Dungannon, which deprived him of 13,000 l. a year. There had been very great doubts ever since resting on the minds of many learned lawyers that that decision was wrong—though he (the Lord Chancellor) believed it was right; but suppose thirty years afterwards their Lordships were to be asked to reopen that case, there was no reason why an appeal should not be made to reconsider their decision if their Lordships reopened the case of Baron de Bode. The truth was, that all tribunals were liable to err, both as to matters of law and of fact; and the principle never could be admitted, that after everything had been done, and the adjudication concluded, upon the suggestion of a dissenting party that justice had not been done, the State was to make good to that party what he had lost in consequence of the error to which all human tribunals were subject. Those were the observations he had to make upon this case, and he would sit down with repeating the sound maxim of law which he thought exceedingly apposite to the subject now under the consideration of their Lordships—Interest reipublicœ ut sit finis litium.
LORD TRURO:* However confident I may feel in the justice of the case which I am about to press upon your Lordships' attention, the appearance of the House must preclude any sanguine expectation of the success of the Motion of my noble and learned Friend; and I regret to perceive that the injustice and persecution which this unfortunate gentleman has suffered, has excited so little sympathy and attention, that the decision upon this, in all probability, his last appeal for redress, is left in the hands of the Government. Although there is not a single noble Lord now occupying the Treasury bench to whom individually I should not be content to leave the case, with a confident hope that the just claims of the Baron de Bode would receive his award, yet from those noble Lords united as a Government, I cannot entertain the same expectation.
But however much I may regret the failure of the Motion, I rejoice that it has been made; as at least one desirable result will be attained, that of satisfying the public, after the extraordinary misrepresentations and suppressions which have ever attended the discussion of the Baron's claims, the public will at last be satisfied of the reality of the wrong which he has suffered, and of the justice of his claim; and notwithstanding what has been said by my noble and learned Friend on the woolsack, I will venture to affirm that if this appeal be rejected, it will be a disgrace to the country. This case has been brought nine times under the consideration of the House of Commons, and upon every one of those occasions the application failed of success from the most extraordinary statements and contradictions from some member or other of the Government of the time being. Upon one of these occasions a Committee had been granted to investigate the case, when the Government allowed certain individuals, who had no claim whatever within the terms of the Convention—but who hoped to obtain payment of some demands against the French Government out of the surplus which would remain of the funds received by the British Government under the Convention No. 7, if the late Baron's claims should be successfully resisted—to oppose the Baron before the Committee; and after evidence had been brought from various quarters at a great expense, the objections raised by those persons rendered it necessary to send to Germany and other places for documents. This occupied so much time that the House was prorogued

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before a final report could be made. The Committee, however, reported in August, 1834, that they had made great progress in the inquiry, that very little remained to be done, and that they expected that their report would be completed early in the next Session, if, as they fully anticipated, the House would see fit to reappoint the Committee.
Shortly after the prorogation a change of Ministry took place. Parliament was dissolved, and the Member by whose efforts the Committee had been obtained, lost his seat. Considerable difficulty arose in inducing any other Gentleman to take up the case, which appeared to be surrounded with so many difficulties, and upon the justice of which so much doubt had been thrown. When, however, an hon. Member had been induced to move that the Committee should be revived, it was opposed by four Memhers—two of them Gentlemen who advocated the claims of those other persons to whom I referred (and who could by no possibility have any pretence of right) their sole ground of opposition being the hardship upon those persons of the delay which would arise from prosecuting the investigation of the Baron's case.
Upon the merits the Motion was opposed as usual by two of the Members of the Government—the then Solicitor General (Lord Cranworth), my noble and learned Friend who is now on the woolsack, and my noble Friend upon the bench (Lord Monteagle) upon my left hand, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer; and as I should not occupy your Lordships' time usefully in recapitulating the several different, and not always consistent statements, made by the Government from time to time, when the case was under discussion, I shall content myself with presenting a fair sample of those statements, by calling your Lordships' attention to what was said by my two noble Friends upon this last occasion; I shall do so with pain, because I am sure that I shall excite considerable regret and uneasiness in my noble and learned Friend on the woolsack, than whom I do not believe there lives a more honourable and just man. But, acting upon representations and instructions which he then received, he was induced to make allegations more unfounded and less consistent with the real facts, than ever counsel at the Bar had ever the misfortune to make against the adverse party. The case now comes before your Lordships, however, under happier circumstances than
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any which have hitherto attended the appeals for justice.
The facts are now upon record. They can no longer be denied or evaded; and when I bring forward those statements made by the two noble Lords to whom I lave referred, the one now Lord Chancellor (Lord Cranworth), but then Solicitor General, and the other the then Chancellor if the Exchequer (Lord Monteagle), I now pledge myself in their hearing, that they will not attempt to repeat or defend any one of those statements, by which they induced the House of Commons to refuse to revive the Committee which the former House had felt it its duty to grant.
I cannot repress the expression of my surprise at the intimation of the intention of the Government to resist altogether the present application—a course which I think s not consistent with the respect due to the honour and character of the House.
My noble and learned Friend (Lord Lyndhurst) brought forward the case, which was not new, but had floated upon the minds of the Members of both Houses for some years; and, in a House consisting of a more than ordinary number of Members, he made his most able and powerful; statement; and, although one or two noble Lords, influenced by the repeated unsuccessful appeals which had been made to the House of Commons, expressed a doubt whether statements showing the case to be one of such glaring injustice could be correct and expressed an intention of saying, 'Not Content,' yet after further discussion the Committee was granted nem. con. My noble Friend brought forward the Motion with the avowed object of asking the House to interfere to obtain redress, if, in the result, the facts should be substantiated; and many of the noble Lords were then present, and forbore to express any dissent to the Motion; and I now ask what did the House authorise to be understood by granting a Committee? Surely the House did not mean to occupy the attention of the noble Lords who formed that Committee in a laborious investigation for their amusement only—that however satisfactorily the facts might be established, no result was to follow from a Report to that effect. Is it consistent with the character of the House—now that the Committee have unanimously reported the case to be established n every point—that such Report is to be treated as amounting to nothing, and as giving no claim whatever to any further consideration of the subject. Surely, my

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Lords, this is most unseemly, this mockery of granting a Committee to ascertain facts which when established are to be of no avail, to induce this individual to incur considerable expense in attending that Committee, and bringing his witnesses and documents to prove the allegations of his petition, and then to tell him that the granting of the Committee was an idle, fruitless ceremony, successful only in occasioning expense and trouble, and in exciting hopes which it was never intended should be gratified. I trust the noble Lords on the Treasury bench, with regard to the consistency and credit of the House, will abandon their intended opposition to the Motion; especially after I shall have adverted to the facts of the case now so incontrovertibly established. I say incontrovertibly established, because, whilst never was a case brought forward under circumstances of so great difficulty in regard to the production of evidence, never was case so thoroughly investigated, or so undeniably proved. Notice was given of the claim under the Chancery Commission. It was afterwards proved by vivá voce evidence, to the satisfaction of a special jury, before four learned Commissioners nominated by the Lord Chancellor, who returned a verdict affirmative of every allegation. Notice had been given to the Crown by the statements contained in the Petition of Right of the facts intended to be relied upon.
The execution of the inquisition furnished the detail of the proof in support of those allegations, names and residence of the witnesses, dates and places of every occurrence. The Government possessed a shorthand writer's note of all that detail. The law officers afterwards thought right to put in issue every allegation which had been so proved; and again, before a special jury this unfortunate gentleman had to incur the enormous expense of producing his evidence upon the trial at Bar before the four Judges of the Queen's Bench and a special jury.
The law officers appeared upon that trial; they cross-examined the witnesses, and urged every possible technical objection; and after an elaborate address upon the evidence by the Attorney General, and a summing up by the Lord Chief Justice, the verdict of the special jury was again in favour of the Baron, reaffirming every fact proved before the former jury. Surprise, therefore, as to the evidence, there could not be. Witnesses who had been brought from abroad on the part of the Crown were
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in court and heard the evidence, and the counsel of the Crown were challenged to call them, but the verdict passed without this being done.
No application was afterwards made for new trial, nor was any objection whatever made to the verdict.
Now, a Committee of this House sat—a tribunal open to receive explanations of every sort. If any circumstance had been supposed to exist, tending to impeach the justice of the claim, or which furnished any reason why this House should not interfere, such explanation might have been laid before the Committee, either by noble Lords if this House, or by any other person; and an opportunity would have been afforded to the Baron to meet any statement that might be made. But this gentleman has been treated in this extraordinary manner, that no one ever appears before any tribunal to impeach any of the grounds upon which his claim rests when he can be heard in answer; but, upon every occasion when the subject is brought under consideration, and he cannot be heard in answer, opportunity is then taken to insinuate causes of doubt and suspicion as to the truth and reality of his case, accompanied by contradictions, which there are no means at the time of repelling; but the same contradictions are rarely repeated twice. The case is now here, when I defy contradiction or denial. I regret that the leaven deposited in my noble and learned Friend's mind in his official character of Solicitor General, should still continue to operate, though in a very different manner. In the speech he has delivered to-night, he has repeated no one statement by which he induced the House of Commons to refuse to revise the Committee, no one denial which he then uttered. I beg your Lordships' attention to what he then said; and I ask him, which of those statements he will now assert to be correct? He made statements, as to facts, the direct contrary to reality, and insinuated charges of fraud founded upon those statements, without a shadow of ground. He not only impeached the reality of the claim, but imputed a want of integrity and good faith in the conduct of it before the Commissioners. I am sorry that the course he has taken to-night, of inviting your Lordships to refuse the Motion upon the ground that it has been so often heard and adversely decided, renders it necessary that I should show what has caused some of those decisions—namely, misrepresentations the most glaring. He has now admitted, what had

1079
been before denied, that the Baron was a British subject in a certain sense, having been accidentally born in England. What my noble and learned Friend meant by the Baron's being a British subject in a certain sense, I do not know. He was a British subject in the same sense of every one of your Lordships who was accidentally born in England. His father and mother were married in England, and, for aught that appears by the evidence, remained in England from that time to the birth of the Baron. He was a British subject entitled to every right, bound to every duty which could attach to the most perfect. British subject in the kingdom.
By the French treaty and convention, indemnity was to be given for the spoliations committed by the revolutionary Government upon British subjects, unaccompanied by any words of qualification or exclusion; and, as according to every write upon the subject, the duty of a Government to protect necessarily follows, and attaches to the duty of allegiance and obedience by the subject, I ask, under the general reference in the treaty and convention to British subjects, upon what pretence of reason or justice can the Crown and Government of England refuse protection to an individual upon whom allegiance, duty, and obedience to that Government have attached in every sense? In regard to national character, he is qualified to sit in either House of Parliament, to be a Privy Councillor, and to fill every office in the State. The "certain sense," therefore, in which he is a British subject, as stated by my noble and learned Friend, is in every sense in which a man can be a British subject. But, my Lords, mark by whom, and under what circumstances, and for what purpose, my noble and learned Friend stated this gentleman was a British subject "in a certain sense," meaning, I suppose, that that "certain sense" was one which did not entitle him to compensation under the treaty.
Upon the presentation of his claim, in the first instance, to the Duke de Richelieu, doubts were expressed as to his national character. The subject was investigated—the opinion of Sir S. Romilly was obtained to the effect that the Baron was a British subject to every intent and purpose, and the objection was withdrawn, and the claim now under consideration was handed over by the French Government to the joint Commissioners appointed to investigate the British claims. Claims for com-
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pensation had been presented by persons claiming to be British subjects in respect of confiscation of property in France, and also in respect of property confiscated out of France. The Baron was a claimant in both respects. After the abandonment of the objection to his national character, his claim in respect of confiscation of property in France was handed over by the French Government to the joint Commissioners appointed to investigate British claims. There was also handed over the list of claimants in respect of property confiscated out of France, which included the Baron. It was signed by the British and countersigned by the French Commissioners. It recognised his British nationality, and that he had presented his claim within the time limited by the treaty. A list with the claim of the Baron now under your Lordships' consideration, together with a list of the claimants for the confiscation of property out of France contained in that list, whose national character was disputed, and in which disputed list the Baron's name was not included, were both signed by the French as well as the British Commissioners before the British Government accepted a certain sum to satisfy the claimants under the Convention No. 7, and discharged the French Government from its liability under the treaty and convention. Under these circumstances, upon what just pretence, I ask, when the Baron required payment, could the British Government raise objections in regard to national character? Surely this attempt at evasion was most unfounded and dishonourable in relation to the French Government as well as most unjust towards the Baron.
My noble and learned Friend further stated an objection to the claim, that the Baron had in the first instance presented his claim as arising out of the peculiar character of the property confiscated as a German fief inalienable, and in which, therefore, the Baron, as heir-at-law of his father, had an interest which entitled him to compensation;—but that the claim was unfounded, inasmuch as the French Government had abolished all feudal rights in regard to that property, and therefore when it was confiscated it was the sole property of the late Baron's father, to dispose of as he might think fit. And my noble and learned Friend then stated that the Baron "feeling the irresistible force of this objection, then shifted his ground, and said that his father had made a secret cession of the estate to him," and then "that in

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this country we should be inclined to apply a harsher name to such a proceeding." Reviving this statement in my noble and learned Friend's memory, I would ask him upon what authority he was induced to make these statements, and, upon the faith of them, successfully urge the House of Commons to refuse to reappoint this Committee? I would ask him, had he read the claim? had he inspected a single document? had he read the award? or the confirmation of it by the Privy Council?
It is plain he had not: because the original claim, dated 18th February, 1816, gave no colour whatever for this unfounded imputation of a fraudulent shifting of a ground of the claim. But first, in regard to the feudal rights. When Alsace was ceded to France, in 1648, the Treaty of Munster, by which the cession was made, contained an express stipulation that the province ceded should be held by France subject to the feudal rights of the German nobility in Alsace, and particularly to the continuance of the feudal connexion with the German empire, and France expressly renounced all right to disturb these arrangements. Things so remained until the French revolution.
The abolition of those rights, after ineffectual remonstrance, was one of those aggressive breaches of treaty which gave rise to the war between the German empire and France, and was actually stated as one of the grounds of that war, and constituted, therefore, one of the grounds for compensation.
As to the alleged "shifting" of the ground of claim, from a claim as heir-at-law in relation to a German fief to a claim under a secret cession by his father, I will state the facts as they occurred, and I call upon my noble and learned Friend on the woolsack to correct my statement, if he is prepared to state that it is in any respect inaccurate. Should he venture to do so, I will refer to the indisputable proof of everything I shall urge.
The Baron's original claim was a claim as owner of the property confiscated, not containing a syllable about his father, nor anything from which there occurred the slightest variation during the prosecution of the claim. As soon as the Commissioners called for further details as to the nature of his claim and the proof of his title, the claim was stated to be founded upon a cession made to him by his father. This, I again state, was the ground of claim from the first step until the award of
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rejection. The ground was never shifted, either because an objection was made upon the abrogation of the feudal rights in Alsace, or for any other reason. Surely my noble and learned Friend cannot help feeling that he owes some compensation to the Baron, for having induced the House of Commons to act upon a statement so unfounded, and so calculated to prejudice the minds of English Gentlemen; but, not content with imputing this 'shifting' in the ground of claim, merely as a fact, although he did not charge that this shifting was fraudulently done, he yet, in a delicate manner, took great care that it should be so understood, and followed his statement by the remark that, "in this country we should be inclined to apply a harsher name to such a proceeding."
But the mis-statements do not end here. My noble and learned Friend said, that the claim, when shifted, was put upon the ground of a secret cession by his father.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: What is my noble and learned Friend reading from?
LORD LYNDHURST: From Hansard, which, with your friends, you know, is a great authority.
LORD TRURO: Yes, I am reading from Hansard, but I heard the speech myself. It was made in answer to me, and it caused me no slight pain, that I had not the opportunity of replying to it, by stating, not only that there was no foundation whatever, for imputing to the Baron that he ever alleged the cession to be secret, by virtue of which he claims, but that the very contrary is the direct truth. The force of his claim consisted in its being an open and notorious cession—upon an occasion, public for the very purpose of witnessing it.
The municipal authorities and inhabitants, to the number of four hundred, were assembled, and the father read a document, stating the cession to the son.
Such is the evidence actually proved before the jury. The object of the cession was to avoid, if possible, the spoliation of the property as belonging to the father. Notoriety was evidently essential to the accomplishment of the purpose. Therefore, there was no ground for this unfounded statement, that the Baron had claimed under a cession alleged to be secret. There could be no object in making such a statement, except to create a prejudice against the claim, by the imputation of a fraud.
Further, my noble and learned Friend

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stated, that the property was seized as belonging to the father, the evidence being that the description of the owner of the property, as inserted in the list of emigrant whose property was to be seized as confiscated, was "De Bode of Soultz" only with no particular application to either father or son. This also, I presume, was suggested to confirm the idea of the cession being secret, or never having had existence at all; and my noble and learned Friend remarked, that the Baron's father made no objection to the proceeding, on the ground of the alleged cession to the son. The father, because of his being an aristocrat, had been denounced, and would no doubt have been guillotined, if he had not escaped to the Austrian army; and it is urged, as evidence that the allegation of a cession having been made was not true or that the cession was not bonâ fide, because the father did not put his head under the guillotine, by appearing before the revolutionary authorities, and protesting against the seizure, as consequent upon his own emigration, upon the ground that the property belonged to his son—that son having also emigrated. Of what value, as a protection to the property, would have been such a protest, while it would have been death to the individual protesting? Such were the grounds upon which my noble and learned Friend, in his character of Solicitor General, induced the House of Commons in effect to revolve the former vote upon the appointment of the Committee which had been granted after successive debates, although unsuccessfully opposed by the Solicitor General of that day (Sir Charles Pepys), but who was not prepared with those fatal mis-statement which my noble and learned Friend on the woolsack was most unwarily, though innocently, made the instrument of propagating.
He further stated that, upon the hearing of the petition to the Privy Council for a rehearing, the Council, upon consideration, determined that there was no ground for acceding to its prayer. He caused it to be understood that Lord Stowell and Sir William Grant were of that Council; the fact being that neither of those distinguished persons had any thing to do with that petition for rehearing; and the only decision was not, as stated, that there was no ground for acceding to the prayer, but that the Privy Council had no jurisdiction to rehear the appeal. Is it not, I ask, more extraor-
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dinary that such a series of mis-statements should have been fabricated, than that they should have had the effect of misleading the House of Commons into an impression that the claim was not only unfounded but fraudulent. Coming from the Solicitor General, all doubt of the correctness of the statements was excluded. I have said that all the previous applications to the House of Commons, with the exception of that when the Committee was granted, had been resisted, not by the identically same mis-statements, for they could not be urged upon more than one occasion without being met by a contradiction, but by unfounded allegations of a similar description, having the same effect and producing the same result.
The Attorney General of one day (Sir Charles Wetherell), was instructed to state that there was no ground for the Baron's assuming to be a British subject. At another time, that the claim had not been registered in due time, although no registration was necessary, and the case was known to have been heard, and an award made in relation to it as a registered claim.
Thus time after time, were the applications to the House of Commons repelled, and then it is said that these repeated unsuccessful appeals to the justice of the House of Commons ought to be deemed decisive evidence against any just foundation for the claim.
The ground relied upon by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, my noble and learned Friend on the bench on my left (Lord Monteagle), was, the great voluntary delay on the part of the Baron in presenting his claim to the House; it being perfectly well known that the Baron de Bode had, from first to last, most indefatigably importuned the Members of the House of Commons to bring forward his claim, and has struggled against the delay to the utmost of his power.
I shall now call your Lordships' attention to the futile grounds upon which the present Motion has been opposed by my noble and learned Friend (the Lord Chancellor). The case now stands before your Lordships too well established to admit of any statements in contradiction of the recorded facts. The House, after hearing the details of the case, and every stage of the proceedings, from my noble and learned Friend who made the Motion, granted the Committee. The award, the confirmation of it by the Privy Council, the petition for

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rehearing, the Motion for mandamus, the trial at bar, the Motion to arrest the judgment, the writ of error to the Exchequer Chamber, and, finally, the writ of error to this House, were all distinctly stated; most of the noble Lords now present being in attendance when the Motion was made, including my noble Friend upon my left, and my noble and learned Friend upon the woolsack. Not a syllable was then said that those circumstances furnished a reason for refusing further investigation, or that the granting of the Committee would be useless; as, although all the facts stated should be proved to the satisfaction of the Committee, they would furnish no ground for the interference of the House in favour of the Baron. Yet, after the labours of the Committee, some of whom were among the most intelligent Members of the House, and after an unanimous Report as to the facts, and a recommendation of the case to your Lordships' consideration, my noble and learned Friend has no better reason for opposing the application that your Lordships should act upon the recommendation of the Committee, than that the case has been so repeatedly heard and decided. For although the noble and learned Lord addressed the House at some length, the first part of his speech consisted only of an admission that the Baron must be considered in some sense a British subject; but the greater part of his speech consisted of a laborious detail of the manner in which the Lords of the Treasury had disposed of the surplus of 500,000 l. that remained, after satisfying all the claims awarded to be within the treaty; the question being not how or upon what worthy motives the Lords of the Treasury had disposed of the surplus, but the right and propriety of their disposing of it in any manner, while the Baron was seeking a further investigation of his case. True, my noble and learned Friend did mention the award and the various decisions, and the noble Lords cheered those decisions. ["Hear, hear!" from the Treasury bench.]
The noble Lords renew their cheers. What is it they cheer? Is it the patient hearing and full opportunity of proving his case allowed to him by the Commissioners of Liquidation, or the justice of refusing him the opportunity of producing his evidence in proof of the cession, upon the admitted illegal ground that it would be useless to allow an opportunity to prove the cession, unless he would also undertake to prove a fact which they knew
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did not, and the Baron never pretended did, exist, that is, that the revolutionary Government seized the property as belonging to a British subject, by virtue of the decrees against British subjects, and afterwards in making their award against the Baron upon the ground that he had not satisfactorily proved that cession which they had denied him the opportunity of proving? or the other well-advised ground, that he had not proved the property to be seized as they required? or the great intelligence and fitness for their duties manifested by the Commissioners of Liquidation by construing biens caducs to mean property abandoned by the Baron, which in truth meant property which had escheated to him and his predecessors, the Lords of the fief? or perhaps the noble Lords will say, they cheered the sense of justice manifested by their having thought it right to warn the Baron that the certain rejection upon appeal of his claim would be occasioned by any attempt to produce that evidence before the Privy Council upon the appeal in support of the cession, which they had denied him the opportunity of offering to them? or perhaps it was the ingenuity and dexterity which were manifested throughout the proceedings in defeating the claim upon technical objections, always beside the merits of the case? or the no less ingenuity exerted in the various unfounded statements by which the House of Commons had been so often misled and induced to refuse redress? But whatever may have elicited those cheers, it certainly was not any statements which had the slightest tendency to show that justice had been done.
The main point of my noble and learned Friend's opposition is, that the case ought to be considered after what has passed, as res judicata; that the Commissioners of Liquidation were the authority appointed by law to decide the claim; and that any step by the House which would operate as a reversal of their decision would form a most dangerous precedent, and furnish grounds for appeals without end from all the tribunals of justice in the country.
I pray your Lordships to attend to a few words upon the merits of the position urged by my noble and learned Friend. What is the tribunal to which he refers? Was it one of the ordinary tribunals of the country, consisting of Judges, whose competency to the duties they were appointed to discharge, had been manifested in any pre-

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vious situation? Had the tribunals any settled law or rules by which their decision were to be governed? Was there any form of proceeding which secured the parties a public and fair hearing? Was it a tribunal that can be compared in any respect with any of those to which my learned Friend has sought to assimilate them? The tribunal consisted of gentlemen appointed by the Government, unknown but in their respective limited circles—bound by no rules or restrictions—sitting in private—and who, unfortunately, have manifested very little skill in regulating proceedings of a judicial nature, and as little in their competency to decide upon the principles applicable to the matters intrusted to them. That they committed manifest errors is quite clear. Their personal respectability and integrity is sufficiently vouched, in my judgment, by the Government having appointed them, notwithstanding their failure in the execution of their duties. It has been demonstrated that the ground upon which they refused to allow the Baron time to produce his evidence was illegal, and that, since their award, the Baron has established by irrefragable evidence, affirmed by the verdict of two special juries, the fact of the cession, the evidence of which they refused him the opportunity to produce. Regard being had to these facts, and to the nature and character of the tribunal, I submit that there is no ground whatever for the argument, that should your Lordships endeavour to redress the injustice inflicted by the award, that your doing so will furnish any precedent for irregular appeals against the decisions of the ordinary courts of the country.
If in a litigation between A. and B. a sum of 1,000 l. is awarded by the regularly constituted tribunals to B., which, in truth and justice belongs to A., A. has no claim upon the Government or the country for redress. They have performed their duty by erecting competent tribunals, and they have no interest in the result. Here the Government does not stand indifferent. It is one of the parties, and is seeking to avail itself of the blunders of its own agents to retain money which is clearly proved to belong to the claimant. There is, therefore, not the slightest analogy between this and the ordinary decision of Courts of Law.
My noble and learned Friend adds, that the numerous other dissatisfied claimants may equally appeal. To which I answer, that if there be claimants whose cases are
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analogous to the Baron's, in having been refused a proper hearing, I am prepared to say that your Lordship's treatment of the Baron's case ought to be such as to form a just precedent for appeals to your Lordships by those parties. In redressing the injustice inflicted upon this individual, you will only confirm the confidence of the country in your justice, by showing that, wherever else parties may fail in obtaining a fair hearing of their wrongs, in this House they will be sure to obtain it, and be assisted by your Lordships in endeavouring to obtain their rights. But this case does not only affect justice to an individual, but also, in a great degree, the honour of the country. I trust, therefore, that the argument will not be esteemed of any weight by your Lordships.
What, then, my Lords, are the simple facts presented as the ground for acceding to the Motion of my noble and learned Friend?
The Government of this country received a sum of money by virtue of a treaty with France, upon trust to apply it in compensating the British subjects who had suffered spoliation by the revolutionary Government, and who should duly present their claims according to the terms of the treaty. Baron de Bode has established by proof, which has been affirmed by two special juries, that he suffered spoliation under circumstances for which the treaty provided compensation. That after satisfying every other claim established to be within the treaty, there remained a surplus sufficient to satisfy this claim. That as it was represented to Parliament that a surplus might be anticipated, such surplus was placed at the disposition of Government, but it was only the surplus, after satisfying all the claims of the treaty, that was so placed. That when the Commissioners of Liquidation entered upon the investigation of the claim, they gave a notice to the Baron of the facts which would be necessary for him to establish to entitle him to an award. But that notice required evidence of a state of facts which the terms of the treaty did not authorise them to require.
The fact of the alleged cession by his father was properly required to be established. It is evident, not only from the circumstance that the spoliation of property recurred during a most violent revolution, but also from the nature of the tribunal constituted to investigate the claims, that no one expected that the claimants would be enabled to produce either legal or pre-

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cise evidence in support of their claims. The treaty distinctly indicates that such was not to be expected. And with respect to the particular case of the Baron de Bode, distinct evidence was given that the revolutionary army conducted themselves in the most violent manner in Soultz, the town where the Baron's mansion was; that the municipal archives, papers, and documents were thrown into the streets, burnt, trodden upon by men and horses, and destroyed in every way which outrage could dictate.
The Baron had, therefore, to procure certificates, copies, and authentications of various kinds, all of which will be found detailed in the Report. The Baron, under these circumstances, prayed the Commissioners of Liquidation for time to produce his evidence in support of the cession; and he laid such grounds before them as induced them to grant the time, provided, however, he would undertake also to prove that the property had been confiscated, as a British property—a fact which did not exist, and which of course could not be proved.
The Baron's agents, therefore, avowed their inability. Whereupon the Commissioners made their award, rejecting the claim, and stating two grounds, and two only, for that rejection. One was, that the Baron had not satisfactorily established the alleged cession. The other, that he had not proved that the property had been seized as British property, by virtue of the decrees against British subjects. He appealed; when the Commissioners of Liquidation gave him notice, as I have stated, that his appeal would certainly be dismissed if he attempted to produce any other evidence than that which had been laid before them. And upon the appeal, the Privy Council being limited to the same evidence which had been before the Commissioners of Liquidation, affirmed the award.
The Baron petitioned for a rehearing. He was told, without any examination into the merits, that the decision of the Privy Council upon the appeal, having received the Royal approval, there was no jurisdiction to grant a rehearing.
The Act of Parliament having put the surplus in the disposition of the Lords of the Treasury, application was made for a mandamus to compel the payment of the claim. That application was refused; not upon the merits, but simply upon the ground that the Lords of the Treasury
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held the funds only as servants of the Crown; and that the Crown could not issue a mandamus against itself.
In consequence of this decision, the Baron was advised, that the only remedy open to him was by Petition of Right, which was accordingly presented. Every opposition was offered to the prosecution of that remedy. Upon the taking of the inquisition under a commission issued under that petition, all the facts necessary to show the claim to be within the treaty, were distinctly proved and affirmed by the verdict.
The Crown afterwards, as I have detailed, traversed every fact; and all the facts were again established and affirmed by the verdict, on the trial at Bar. When application was made for judgment upon that verdict, it was not impeached; but it was said that the Act of Parliament had placed the surplus in the absolute disposition, not of the Crown, but of the Lords of the Treasury; and, therefore, no one could claim an interest in the fund, in opposition to the statute. Upon that ground the Crown succeeded in arresting the judgment.
That decision was affirmed upon writs of error by the Exchequer Chamber and this House.
The result therefore is, that having at last in the most strict and legal manner, proved the case, and shown the existence of a surplus fund adequate to satisfy the claim, yet Parliament having been induced to place whatever surplus might remain of the money received from the French Government, after satisfying all claims on which favourable awards had been made, at the disposition of the Lords of the Treasury, the Baron was told that the 500,000 l. which proved to be the admitted amount of the surplus, having been so disposed of by Parliament, he could have no claim upon it.
My Lords, this was a sacred trust fund, received for an express particular purpose; and the trust was for the exclusive benefit of a certain class of British subjects who had suffered by the French revolution. The Baron has distinctly proved himself to be one of that class. Why is a second spoliation to be committed upon him, and that by his trustees, those trustees being the Government of England, so constituted by treaty with France? Is not a double fraud committed, the one upon Parliament, the other upon the Baron? The fraud

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upon Parliament being by the Government taking advantage of the terms of an Act prepared and procured by itself, purporting to give a power over an anticipated surplus, after satisfying all claims within the treaty; and the Government perverting that Act of Parliament to justify an appropriation of the surplus to purposes not at all within the treaty, to the exclusion of an unsatisfied claimant who has proved a claim most distinctly within the treaty. Is not such perversion a fraud upon the Baron? Surely every right-minded man must perceive that the nation was pledged to the French Government to apply the fund in-trusted to it, to the specific purpose of the treaty, and especially not to divert any portion of that fund to other purposes than those of the treaty, while a claimant within the treaty remained unsatisfied.
My noble and learned Friend's statement of the meritorious purposes to which the diverted fund has been applied, I submit, is idle and irrelevant as an answer to a complaint on the ground that the Government had no right to divert and apply the money to any purposes whatever while the Baron's claim was unsatisfied. But as to certain parts of that fund, it is clear it has been applied to the payment of a demand or debt due from the English Government, and which debt ought to have been paid out of the public purse, and ought not, by an abuse of trust, to have been paid out of the fund 'ear-marked' for the claimants under the treaty.
The English Government had caused the property of persons represented by M. Ladébat to be unjustly or improperly seized, and they were bound to restore the property or make compensation; and they did accordingly pay a part of the compensation out of the public purse. The amount of 23,700 l. was actually taken out of this trust fund and paid to M. Ladébat. How can the nation, with any decency, retain that sum?
The disposition of the remainder of the fund was in no respect within the terms of the treaty, and many of them hind no relation whatever to the subject of the treaty.
Here is, therefore, a case which, of all others, requires attention to good faith and honour. The British nation, complaining of wrongs committed upon its subjects, receiving a fund, under treaty, in trust, to pay the class of British sufferers who should make their claims within the terms
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of the treaty, and, by force of an Act of Parliament, perverting those funds to other purposes, and denying justice to one clearly of the class fur whom the treaty provided compensation.
Parliament is not intentionally a party to this transaction. The Act only dealt with the surplus, upon the understanding that 'surplus' would mean so much of the fund as should remain after satisfying every claim within the treaty. The Government have thought fit to treat this large sum as a surplus, although a just claim remains unsatisfied.
If the country, to redeem its honour and do justice to the Baron, should satisfy his claim, or any part of it, out of the public purse, the evil will have arisen from the mistake of the Government to whom the Parliament had intrusted the administration of the fund.
I do therefore call upon your Lordships to take a just view of this case, and not prefer saving the money of the country, either to the preservation of its honour or of its justice. You have granted a Committee to investigate the case. They were open to hear every objection, legal, moral, or of any other nature which could exist against the claim. No well-founded objection of either character could be stated against it. They have unanimously reported in its favour. Did you mean anything by granting the Committee? or was it a mockery? If anything was meant, it must have meant that, if the case proved to be what the noble Lord who moved the Committee had asserted it to be, it should receive your further consideration. All that was professed has been established, and I therefore earnestly claim of you to redeem your pledge, and, with it, the credit of the nation. The case can furnish no precedent which can be injurious, as it will only establish that a claim upon the nation, clearly founded in justice, will always in the result find redress. I know the difficulties in which the Government are placed in consequence of the largeness of the sum demanded; but I earnestly trust that you will not allow Parliament to be disgraced—that you will not suffer the country to be subjected to this injustice—by rejecting the claim; and I believe, if you take a just course on this question, you will be supported by the general feeling of the country.
LORD MONTEAGLEsaid, that he doubted whether an assembly like the

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House of Lords, however strengthened and guided as it might be by the presence of great lawyers who were amongst its greatest ornaments—Members, yet when not acting judicially and bound by the rules which regulated the proceedings of courts of justice, was competent to deal with a question like this. Indeed, he thought himself entitled, in opposing this claim, to take his stand on this point—that this case had already been heard and decided by competent courts expressly established to dispose of such cases; and that it was, therefore, inexpedient for their Lordships to interfere. His noble and learned Friend who supported the case of the present claimant had argued that the course which the English Government had pursued on this subject, especially with reference to the appropriation of funds received, as it was said, under one convention, but paid to claimants under another, was a breach of faith of which the French Government had a right to complain. He would ask his learned Friend whether the French Government had ever so complained? This was the first time he had heard such a suggestion. He might, however, be permitted to tell their Lordships that the Act authorising the payment of the claimants under one convention out of the surplus, or supposed surplus, remaining over after the payment of the claims under another convention in virtue of which the petition was presented, and Baron de Bode claimed, was passed at the suggestion of the Duke of Wellington, who had himself negotiated these conventions, and who never ceased to pay particular attention to the measures necessary for carrying them out.
LORD LYNDHURSTremembered that that Act was passed on the supposition that there was a surplus under the Convention applicable to the case of the Baron de Bode's claim, which was, however, then pending, as it had been during the whole of these proceedings.
LORD MONTEAGLEsaid, that no doubt, in one sense, the Baron de Bode's case was then, as it still might be said to be, pending; but it had been debated and rejected, and he knew not by what mode of reasoning that which had been rejected could be maintained as a standing claim. His noble and learned Friend said that the misapplication of these funds was a disgrace to the English Parliament, and to those who had administered them. But this was a somewhat unreasonable charge to bring against every House of Commons, from
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the days of Lord Liverpool to the present Session. Who had been guilty of this alleged injustice? Why, from the days of the negotiation with France to the present, every successive Government—Parliament itself, the Commissioners of French Claims, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council—had successively determined this question in the same way; yet, nevertheless, this question had been now treated as if a legal right had been refused by a band of conspirators from the days of Lord Liverpool's Administration downwards. The complaint of his noble and learned Friend reminded him of the juryman who denounced the eleven obstinate men who opposed his single view, as being the most stupid and obstinate of men. Was it possible, that, if this claim had been well founded, not one of those Administrations should have been favourable to it? His noble and learned Friend, indeed, suggested that the Government of Lord Derby as having agreed to appoint a Committee, had been favourable to the consideration of this claim; and he, therefore, called upon the House to carry out what appeared to him the logical consequences of the appointment of that Committee to investigate this subject. The appointment of that Committee could not, however, bind those who, like himself, had been opposed to its nomination; nor could it bind the Members of the present Government, who were not then in office; if it involved such a result, which, however, he did not admit, it could only bind the Members of the late Government, who granted it, and their interest in the subject was abundantly shown by the fact of none of them being then present to support the Motion of their noble and learned Friend.
LORD LYNDHURSTsaid, it was not the late Government, but the House, which granted the Committee.
LORD MONTEAGLEreplied that, true it was that the House itself technically named the Committee. But when a Government support and carry such a Motion, it was a usual and well-understood term, and one which was perfectly consistent with the fact, to say that "the Government granted a Committee."
LORD LYNDHURST: I had not the slightest communication with any Member of the late Government when I made that Motion for a Committee. I made it as an independent Member of the House, and the Committee was granted by the House without any opposition whatever.
LORD MONTEAGLE, in continuation, said, then the noble Lord's argument in favour of the petitioner was so much the weaker, as he was thus left without the single authority on which he had seemed to rely. But it would be indeed a dangerous result if Governments, or if Parliament, should be held bound to adopt the recommendations of every Committee whose appointment it had sanctioned. It had been said that this fund had been applied to purposes other than those which were contemplated by the French Government when they agreed to pay it; for instance, that it had been applied to the building of Buckingham Palace—
LORD LYNDHURST: I never said so.
LORD MONTEAGLE: Nor had he (Lord Monteagle) said that his noble and learned Friend did say so in direct terms; because he was too good a tactician to advert distinctly to any topics except such as would serve his argument. But it had, nevertheless, been suggested and relied on, that a large part of the funds which were provided by the French Government for the indemnification of British subjects was applied to the building of Buckingham Palace, and that this misapplication was the reason why the claims of the Baron de Bode were not satisfied. Now, it was no doubt true that such a misapplication of those funds did take place under the former Government, that of Lord Liverpool; but it was equally true that Earl Grey and Lord Spencer compelled the repayment of every sixpence (with interest) of the money forming part of the sums granted by the, French Government under the treaty for the indemnification of British subjects. The latter fact was suppressed, whereas it was sought to make an impression in favour of this claim. The whole indemnity fund had been applied to its appropriation laid long since before Parliament. It seemed a great inconsistency for the noble and learned Lord to argue alternately that everything should be condemned not strictly according to law, and yet when the case of his clients required it, he objected to the Commissioners for not giving a loose and equitable construction in deciding the cases entrusted to their decision. As officially connected for a time with the administration of these affairs, he took upon himself to say, that, without referring to his own share as Chancellor of the Exchequer in these transactions, never were more pains taken than by all parties concerned in the administra-
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tion of these funds. He alluded specially to the Duke of Wellington, to successive Boards of Treasury, to the Commissioners for French Claims, and to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. And now, what more could be effected? The funds were exhausted; the business was closed. To render the Motion of his noble and learned Friend effectual, a new grant of nearly half a million would be required; and he doubted whether discussion in their Lordships' House was the best way of obtaining a money vote from the Commons for any such purpose as the present.
The EARL of HARROWBYfelt bound, as a Member of the Committee, to say a few words with respect to this case. The noble Lord who had just spoken had not touched the main point. What they complained of was, that an Act of Parliament had stepped in to keep parties from a right which but for that Act would not have been refused. It had been clearly established that the property of the Baron de Bode was confiscated, and that his property was one of those in the view of the French Government when they completed the negotiation with this country; and the real question was, would this case, as it was now known and proved, receive attention from the Commissioners, if they were now sitting, and no Act of Parliament barred the claim? He contended that it would; that originally it was only opposed, because there was no proof that the property confiscated was confiscated as the property of a British subject; that it had never been before the Privy Council on its merits; and that in refusing redress, they were taking advantage of an admitted wrong. There was no complaint as to the employment of the surplus by the Treasury. If a surplus existed, it seemed reasonable to apply it to those claims which were next akin to the claims originally contemplated. But the question was, whether there was any surplus at all, until this claim, which had been set aside by technical and legal obstacles at every stage, had been satisfied? He submitted that the facts were fully established; that this gentleman was a British subject; that his property was confiscated; and that the French Commissioners had this large claim in view when they allotted a certain sum of money as compensation. It would be a public scandal to this country if it refused to do justice; and he honestly believed it was the amount of the claim alone which made each successive Government shrink from acknowledging that they

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were satisfied as to the facts, and that honestly the country was bound to make payment of the debt.
The EARL of ABERDEENwould say but a few words in answer to what had fallen from the noble and learned Lord (Lord Lyndhurst). His Motion was to recommend the case to the favourable consideration of the Government. What did he expect him to do?
LORD LYNDHURST: To assent to the Motion.
The EARL of ABERDEEN: With what result?
LORD LYNDHURSTleft it to the noble Earl himself to say.
The EARL of ABERDEENwould not assent to the Motion, because he thought it was one with which it was quite incompetent for the Government to deal, and because, notwithstanding the ability of the noble and learned Lord's speech, it was a claim the justice of which had not been established. If this claim were recognised, there would not be a single rejected claimant under the Convention who would not ask for a rehearing; and, as a proof of that, he had already received letters from persons having claims of a precisely similar nature. The Commissioners were a competent tribunal to decide, and the Privy Council were a competent tribunal to review their decisions. If ever there was a res judicata, this was it; and it was impossible the Government could lend itself to reopen a case which every preceding Government had considered finally and conclusively determined. The Committee which the noble and learned Lord obtained was, perhaps, acceded to incautiously, but they made their report in the month of last June; and he begged to ask the noble and learned Lord why, instead of writing him a letter on the case of the Baron de Bode, he did not write a letter to his noble Friend who was then at the head of the Government? why he did not take the opportunity of appealing to his noble Friend, whose opinions were known to be favourable to the claimant? He could only say it appeared to him there was not the slightest ground for reversing the decision to which all preceding Governments had come upon this case—to abide by the decision of competent tribunals—and he really thought, when the noble and learned Lord appealed, not to his justice, but to his mercy, it was rather giving up the strong features which he professed distinguished this case. He should be very happy to deal with any case in
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which he had any discretion, and where mercy would have weight, but he was afraid this was not a case of that kind. Justice must precede mercy, and he saw no ground whatever, after all that had taken place upon this subject, for taking a different course from that which had been adopted by every Government which preceded the present.
LORD LYNDHURST, in reply, said, the Report of the Committee was not made until late in the Session, when political affairs were in such a state of uncertainty that it was almost impossible he could have obtained the attention of their Lordships. The noble Earl seemed to think mercy and justice were not consistent. He could not advise the petitioner to appeal to courts of justice; he was at the mercy of the Government; and therefore he appealed both to the justice and to the mercy of the noble Earl for consideration of a gentleman who had had to struggle against a combination of almost every party against him, and had at last succeeded in satisfactorily establishing his case. He could not force the noble Earl to give his consideration to the case, but it was in his power to do it. The case was unanswerable, and had certainly not been answered either by the noble and learned Lord on the woolsack, or by the noble Lord opposite (Lord Monteagle).
The LORD CHANCELLOR: Do you divide?
LORD LYNDHURST: I shall divide, even if I divide alone.
On Question, their Lordships divided:—Content 6; Not Content 16: Majority 10.
Resolved in the Negative.
House adjourned till To-morrow.