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to the merits of any officer, or of more signal and complete rewards being conferred for any services, than had been granted to the noble lord himself by the Admiralty, when lord Mulgrave presided there; and yet the noble lord was one of the most violent parliamentary opponents of that very Admiralty. Mr. Pole said he was one of those who set a high value upon the services of the noble lord. He had, at the time they were achieved, thought them most brilliant, and he thought so still. But brilliant and distinguished as they were, he would take upon him to say, that there was not a man in the House, in the navy, or out of doors, that did not think that the most ample and complete rewards had been conferred upon the noble lord for those services, and he believed if the navy had any colour of complaint against the Admiralty on that occasion, it was rather that they had done too much than too little. That the noble lord, therefore, should be the person to assert in this House, that no officer could have justice done him, or could hope for a fair reward for his services, excepting he was a parliamentary follower of ministers, was certainly ost singular and incomprehensible. The noble lord in is ob servations upon sinecure pensions con ferred upon put ic men or their families, for various services, had endeavoured to hold up the House to the public as a set of men actuated solely by views of private interest, and incapable of any sentiment of public virtue, applying his observations to both sides of the House, and his animadversions on the mode of rewarding the wants or alleviating the sufferings of the navy equally to all administrations. The noble lord, after the very extraordinary comments which he had made upon the Pension List, had thought proper to make an attack upon the Wellesley family, of which he (Mr. Pole) was a member. And the noble lord had as serted that the Wellesleys received from the public no less than 34,000l. a year, in sinecure places, and had proceeded to make a most extraordinary calculation of the number of arms and legs which that sum would compensate for, according to the system of the Pension List. In answer to the noble lord's assertion, he begged to state to the Committee, that there was no member of the Wellesley family, except 'he noble lord at the head of it, who possessed any sinecure office. That noble lord certainly did, many years

ago, receive the reversion of a sinecure office (which had since fallen in) when he was about to go to a distant part of the world, in a most arduous and important public situation. He was at that time in a delicate state of health, and had a large family. Whether that noble lord, in the distant service on which he then went, had discharged his duty with advantage to the state, he must leave to the decision of the House and of the country. Whether the other branches of the Wellesley family who were now employed in the public service, had discharged their duty with advantage to the country, it did not become him to decide, but he would willingly submit every part of their conduct to the judgment of the House and of the country. With respect to himself, he never had held, nor ever would hold a sinecure office, but he never would suffer any aspersion to be thrown from any quarter upon any of his family, without boldly and fairly meeting it. He despised pecuniary considerations as much as the noble lord or any of his connections, or any other person whatever. In the latter part of the noble lord's speech, he had made some observations upon subjects connected with the practic i part of his profession, and had displayed that degree of information and ingenuity which every body allowed him to possess. During the period that he had the honour of holding a situation at the Admiralty, be had frequently the advantage of hearing the noble lord's sentiments upon practical professional points, and the noble lord, he trusted, would do the Admiralty and him the justice to admit, that his opinions had been listened to with that degree of attention and respect, to which, upon such subjects, they would be always entitled. He could not sit down without again expressing his regret that the noble lord did not consult his own natural good understanding instead of suffering himself to be guided by others, who were perpetually leading him astray. There was, to be sure, a considerable degree of eccentricity in the noble lord's manner, but at the same time he had so much good British stuff about him, and so much knowledge of his profession, that he would always be listened to with great respect; it was therefore the more to be lamented that he did not follow the dictates of his own good understanding, instead of being guided by the erroneous advice, or adopting the wild theories, of others. He ad

vised the noble lord to give up such prac-| tices. He assured him, that he would find that an adherence to the pursuits of his profession, of which he was so great an ornament, would be more likely to tend to his own honour, and the advantage of his country, than a perseverance in the conduct he had of late adopted, which was calculated to lead him into errors, and to make him the dupe of those, who would use the authority of his name to advance their own base and mischievous projects.

gentleman moved, that it be referred to the Committee appointed to consider of the affairs of the East India company.

Mr. Creevey rose, to offer some observations upon the statements alledged in this petition. It stated, that the government was in debt to the East India company on account of the expences incurred in the late war: but their account was referred to a Committee in the year 1805, who reported that the amount of the balance then due to the company was 2,300,000l. Out of this they were paid Mr. Whitbread adverted to the proposed two millions, and there still remained establishment of a naval arsenal at North-balance in their favour of 300,000. fleet, which he strongly recommended as a matter now of imperious necessity, and regretted that sums were wasted in useless repairs of the old arsenals, and in other unprofitable objects, which might have gone a great way to effect this great object.

The Resolution was then agreed to, and the House resumed.

HOUSE OF LORDS.

Monday, May 14.

[CRUELTY TO ANIMALS BILL.] Lord Erskine rose and made various observations upon the present state of the bill he had introduced, which he was sorry he had not been able to persuade the House to pass unanimously: but, as he was disposed to do all the good he could, he hoped to be able soon to prepare some other measure on this subject, which would receive the unanimous vote of the House. He therefore moved, at present, that the order for re-committing the bill be discharged, which was agreed to.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

Monday, May 14.

But

in the next year the company produced a new statement, in which they swelled this balance to 1,500,000l. making their original claim, instead of 2,300,000l., 3,800,000. He denied that such a thing ought to have been done; it was done however, and now they came forward with a new claim for 1,900,000l. alleged to be due upon this stale account. They seemed totally to forget that, in fact, the public owed them nothing. He could easily understand that, wanting this sum, they preferred claiming it as a debt to asking for it in any other shape; because if it was granted to them in the shape of a debt, it would be got by a single motion; whereas, in any other way, the progress would be circuitous, and liable to be impeded by much discussion. It was now four years since any discussion of the company's affairs took place in that House; for they had been now four years without bringing forward any budget, although they had, in successive years, claimed and obtained large sums in advance, on pretence of answering the exigencies of the moment, All, in fact, that parliament knew of the East India company for the last four years was from its petitions on their journals. In the year 1807, a bill passed for enabling them to borrow 2,000,000l. In the following year another bill passed for enabling them to raise 1,900,000l., they stated again last year, that they wanted another 2,000,000l. to meet the exigencies of the occasion, and yet another session had passed without their submitting to the House any general state of their affairs, owing to the want of which it was impos

[AFFAIRS OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY.] Mr. Astell presented a Petition from the East India Company, which was received and read. It took a retrospective view of the connexion between the company and the British government since the year 1793; stating, that upon the expences incurred by several expeditions which had been undertaken, debts were incurred on both sides, which were never clearly ba-sible for the House to come to a full and lanced and liquidated; but that a considerable balance was due to the company, which they now prayed to have examined by the House, and any balance that might appear due to them be paid.-The hon.

fair discussion upon a subject so important. He considered the present claim as one of the most preposterous that ever was of fered to parliament, and he trusted the House would grant the company nothing

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counts and transactions were laid down and closed by the Committees in 1805 and 1808, and he was surprised, after having read their reports, that the right hon. gentlemen opposite, on the part of government, should be found to assent to any new claim.

'until a full account of the state of their affairs was produced and investigated. The law positively required, that before any dividend was made of their profits, they should clear their accounts with the -public; and yet, although no such clearance had been made, the company were now dividing on their last years profit 101 per cent. He hoped, therefore, the House would come to some decisive issue upon the subject.

Mr. Grant said there was one topic from which the hon. gent. generally abstained when speaking of the affairs of the company; namely, the justice due to them. He, (Mr. Grant,) however, would maintain, that they had a just claim to a very considerable balance in their favour, that the true balance due to them in 1808, was 1,500,000l. and that the company had never acceded to the statement as laid down by the honourable gentleman. They desired only to appeal to the justice of the House; they asked only a fair examination of their accounts, and if any balance should appear due to them, that they might receive it. It was said on a recent occasion that the doors of that House should be opened wide to petitions, and he hoped the India company were as fairly entitled, to the extension of such an indulgence as any other description of people. If any money was due to them it ought to be paid. The hon. gent. he was sure, would not contend that no balance was due; and he trusted the House of Commons would not close its ears against just claims offered in respectful language.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in answer to some allusion from Mr. Creevey with respect to his interference in the last claim of the company for a loan of two millions, said he had not encouraged the company in that application by any thing like a pledge of the sanction of the government; nor by any opinion that the country at large would favour it; but what the House of Commons would do upon a petition submitted to them he could not say. It did, however, appear to him, that the company had a right to an opportunity of having their claims fairly examined and equitably adjusted.

Lord A. Hamilton expressed himself astonished at this petition. He had formerly objected to the grant of money to the East India company, unless the exposition of their affairs was laid before the House. He now wished for that exposition, before he granted any more. The whole ac

Mr. Whitbread said, although the accounts between the government and the India company had not been completely liquidated, balances ought to be struck from time to time. The hon. gentlemen opposite to him had said, that the company did not think themselves fairly dealt by in the last settlement of their account. The president of the board of controal was the same person then as now; so was the Chancellor of the Exchequer. They made no objection to the former settlement; and if that was their opinion at the time, he did not see what right the company had now to come forward, and claim a new investigation upon an account already settled two years ago. The right hon. gent. the Chancellor of the Exche quer said, that on the former occasion he withheld his own countenance from their claim. But had they no opportunity of conversation with him since? Had they not before received his formal refusal to support their claim; and yet two years after the account was closed, they were allowed to come forward with the countenance of the right hon. gent. and again set up their claim, which he considered as unfair and unadmissible by the public.

Mr. R. S. Dundas said, the hon. gent. was right; he (Mr. Dundas) did at that time state that the account was closed, and the reason was, that the Report of the Committee of 1805 was proceeded on by that of 1808, and the East India company denied the justice of the conclusions of that Committee, and complained of their injustice in refusing to admit their claim. They therefore now came to the House for relief, and that was the basis of their present petition. A claim was some time since made by a person of the post-office, who complained of the injustice done to him 20 years ago, and no objection was made by the House to entertain and investigate that claim therefore be could see no reason why this petition should not be received and attended to.—The motion was then agreed to.

[MAJOR CARTWRIGHT'S PETITION FOR REFORM IN PARLIAMENT, &c.] Mr. Whitbread said he held in his hand a Petition from a gentleman, who subscribed himself a Free

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holder of England; but before he pledged | himself to present the petition he had first read it over, in order to ascertain, whether there was in it such offensive matter as would preclude him from presenting it. He found however, according to his judgment, that it was altogether unexceptionable, and in its matter and terms every way decorous and respectful. He had therefore no hesitation in doing what was his duty in presenting that Petition to the House. The petitioner, major Cartwright, was a gentleman of such well known private worth and respectability, that it is would be the less necessary for him to advance any thing upon the score of that gentleman's individual claims to their at tention. It was notorious, that he had : spent a long and valued life in a steady and systematic pursuit of the great at national object of Parliamentary Reform; and that a better character with regard to integrity and patriotism did not exist. The right hon. gent. might not think as highly of the claims of this gentleman. If so however, it must be clear, that he differed from his colleagues in the Admiralty, who had promoted lieutenant Cartwright, after being 48 years a lieutenant in the British Navy, and at the age of 70, made him a master and commander. With respect to the allegations contained in the Petition, with many of them he cordially concurred; upon some of them he doubted; and from a few of them he dissented; as, however, they had been all stated in terms and in a manner unobjectionable, he could not allow his dissent from a few positions in it to interfere with what he considered his duty in presenting the petition.

The Petition was then brought up and read by the clerk at the table. It stated, "That certain doctrines which have of late been maintained, and certain decisions which have of late been come to, in the House, have at length placed the long agitated question of a Reform in the Representation of the people in Parliament in a point of view, in which it cannot be rightly contemplated without affording a demonstration that the sole alternative left our country is, Parliamentary Reform, or National Ruin: how can the petitioner speak the emotions of his heart; what language can express his sentiments; when he thinks of the astonishing decision by which the House, in the night between the 11th and 12th days of May 1809, absolutely refused, by a majority of 310

against 85, to inquire into the criminal ac cusation, brought by a member in his place, against viscount Castlereagh and another member, one, for having sold for a sum of money a seat in the House, and the other, for a connivance at such sale : the petitioner was the more shocked at the said decision, as the viscount Castlereagh had, not long before, when under the examination of a Committee, confessed an attempt to obtain for another placeman a seat in the House, by what to the petitioner appears a double corruption, in bartering for it an East India writership, which an act of parliament had forbidden to be so disposed of; when seats in the House are bought and sold, the people, their laws, and liberties, are bought and sold: although there be not in human speech words by which the thoughts of the petitioner on this the decision of the House can be expressed, he cannot dismiss the subject without saying, but disclaiming any idea of being indecorous, that such treatment of the people is beyond endurance: after such a decision, and after inquiry into the criminal charge in question has been resisted on the ground of the sale of seats being as notorious as the sight of the Sun at noon day, the petitioner cannot remain silent on those truths of the constitution by which the dangerous error of the decision of the House, the shocking profligacy of selling seats, and the audacity of vindicating it, must be made manifest: in order to this, the House is requested to contemplate the three several species of sovereignty with which we are familiar; namely, first, the original inherent and proper sovereignty which necessarily resides in the entire mass of the nation; secondly, the legislative sovereignty, which, by delegation, resides in a Parliament of King, Lords, and Commons (being the most conspicuous and important feature of that constitution by which our nation has consented to be governed ;) and, thirdly, that executive sovereignty, which, by a farther delegation, resides in the sole person of the King: if the petitioner has correctly distinguished the literal from the figurative significations of the word sovereignty, it will be discovered that a Commons House, after deducting only the royal family, the temporal nobles, and a few ecclesiastics, is intended exclusively to represent and to per sonify the national Majesty: it will also be discovered that such a House of Parliament is peculiarly the depository of the

nation's liberty, the guardian of its property, the organ of its will; and that, in fact, it is the vital part of the state; wherefore it ought, on every principle of reason and political wisdom, in an especial manner to be securely fenced around, fortified, and at all points defended by the solemn sanctions, and the awful terrors of appropriate laws against high treason; for treason is a betraying of the state; and the first and the highest treason is that which is committed against the constitution: But, instead of the majesty of the nation being thus enthroned, instead of this palladium of its liberties being thus guarded, the nation sees the House, which ought to be an object of universal confi- | dence, respect, and veneration, exposed to every abuse that can undermine, to every violation that can degrade, to every vice that can pollute, and destroy it: The people see it abandoned, as a common prey, to the factious borough patron and the trading adventurer, to the unprincipled sharper and the unfaithful minister, to the Asiatic nabob, and even to the hostile European despot, who all know its seats to be vendible wares, in which, through the agency of certain panders of corruption, they can place their agents; that the agent of a French king's mistress had once a seat in the House is within the remembrance, as at the time it was within the knowledge, of the petitioner, and it is well known that at one time the nabob of Arcot purchased for his agents seven or eight of those seats: the learned Blackstone hath said, that with regard to the elections of knights citizens and burgesses, we may observe, that herein consists the exercise of the democratic part of our constitution, for in a democracy there can be no exercise of sovereignty but by suffrage, which is the declaration of the people's will; in all democracies therefore it is of the utmost importance to regulate, by whom and in what manner the suffrages are to be given, and the Athenians were so justly jealous of this prerogative, that a stranger who interfered in the assemblies of the people was punished by their laws with death, because such a man was esteemed guilty of High Treason, by usurping those rights of sovereignty to which he had no title; in England, where the people do not debate in a collective body, but by representation, the exercise of this sovereignty consists in the choice of representatives; so the petitioner contends, that where a minister of the crown, or a peer

or other disloyal person, either by purchase or barter, by nomination or undue influence, seats a member in the House, be by usurping a right of sovereignty to which he has no title is guilty of High Treason, and that every species of buying and selling of seats, and the interference of any person whatever, for corrupting or for violating the freedom of election, is consequently High Treason, and ought as such to be guarded against by express law: Such treasons are far more deadly than that which even strikes at the life of the executive sovereign, as in law the king cannot die, so were one king to be slain another must instantly succeed, nor would the throne be for a moment vacant, but a murdered constitution has no successor, when that perishes there is national ruin, and the betrayed people drag on in chains, in misery, in vice, and slavery, a degraded existence : having then lived to see a distinct charge of selling a seat in the House met by a vote; and inquiry into that treason borne down by a majority, we have seen enough, had we seen nought else, to prove that the sole alternative left our injured and not respected country, is a radical reform in our representation or a final extinction of our liberties: between taxation and representation there is in the English constitution and in the English mind an inseparable union, and Parliament, as it is easy to demonstrate, cannot, constitutionally, have duration beyond one year: Wherefore the petitioner solemnly protests and appeals against all treasons in the sale or barter, or disposal of parliamentary seats, and against violating in any way the freedom of election, as well as against the present unconstitutional inequality of representation and long Parliaments, as the chief causes of all the calamities our country has at any time experienced since the incomplete reformation of our government, effected by the revolution in the year 1688, and as the causes more especially of unnecessary war, a state of things most prolific of patronage, abuse, and taxation, to which such a derangement of our system holds out to corrupt ministers a perpetual, and, as it should seem, a resistless temptation: When it is said by any member of the House that a Reform in Parliamentary Representation cannot lighten the burthens of the nation, the people must have indeed a new feeling, they must feel their understandings insulted, they know that their burthens may be lightened, they know that the in

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