all that so little consideration has been had for the public business and the interests of the suitors of this court. You must all know the avocations of those who have been named as Commissioners. The master of the rolls has already as much business as he can conveniently discharge; the lord-chief-justice and the lord-chief baron have their several avocations, which must prevent their attendance in the court of chancery. I am extremely sorry that a great deal of business will in consequence be left undone, which ought to have been disposed of before the rising of the court; but so it has been thought fit. And now I have only to say, that in returning to the country from whence I came, I shall be most happy if it should ever be in my power to be of service to Ireland. Ireland will always have a claim upon me. Had I continued in the commons' house of parliament, I might have been able to do much service: in the other house that power is much lessened; but such as it is, this country may ever command it. To this country I have the highest sense of obligation: I do not know that in a single instance I have experienced any thing but kindness. I have experienced it from all ranks of people without exception. Under these circumstances I retire with a firm conviction, that you will do me the justice to say, that I have discharged my duty with honest and conscientious zeal, to the extent of my abilities; and that on this head I have nothing with which to reproach myself."

His lordship continued a supporter of ministry, but was never again called to his majesty's councils. He opposed the Parochial schools bill, as not being formed with sufficient reference to the established church; but in 1813 he defended the Stipendiary Curate's bill against the reverend bench, and maintained that "the church possessed sufficient riches, though there was a defect in the unequal distribution of them." He opposed a free trade in corn; and vindicated the policy of the Bank Restriction act of 1797. He was the principal promoter of the Insolvent Debtor's law, and vigorously supported the appointment of a vice-chancellor.

He died on the 16th of January, 1830.

William Huskisson.

BORN A. D. 1770.-DIED A. D. 1830.

THIS distinguished statesman was the eldest son of William Huskisson, Esq. of Oxley, near Wolverhampton. At the age of thirteen he accompanied his grand-uncle, Dr Gem, to Paris, where he spent several years, and for a short time studied medicine; but having been offered the situation of private secretary to Lord Gower, the British ambassador, he eagerly accepted an employment much more congenial to his habits of mind. Upon the ambassador's return in 1792, young Huskisson accompanied him; and, in 1795, was appointed chief-clerk in the war-office under Secretary Dundas. The next year he became undersecretary. On the breaking up of Pitt's administration in 1801, Huskisson resigned the under-secretaryship, and retired upon a pension of £1200, which Pitt had secured for him, in consideration of his valuable

Services.

When Pitt returned to power, Huskisson was appointed joint secretary of the treasury with Mr Sturges Bourne. When Canning and his friends first began to form a third political party in the house, in the year 1809, Huskisson was identified with him; but the department to which he chiefly attached himself was that of finance, in which he always commanded the attention and respect of the house. His services as a financier were so justly appreciated by Lord Castlereagh, that he placed his name on the committee of finance appointed in 1819, and employed his services in drawing up their report. In 1812 Mr Huskisson obtained the appointment of agent for Ceylon, an office worth £4000 a year, which, however, he resigned in 1823, when it seemed incompatible with his other situations, namely, that of treasurer of the navy, and president of the Board of Trade.

In 1822, on Canning's appointment to be secretary of state, Mr Huskisson was elected one of the members for Liverpool. In 1823 he opposed Mr Whitmore's motion for a revision of the corn-laws; and in the same session urged the repeal of the navigation laws. In 1824 he supported Serjeant Onslow's attempt to repeal the usury laws, and opposed the silk-manufacturer's petition against the admission of foreign silks. In 1825 he warmly supported Peel's restriction bill; and soon after attempted a revision of the corn-laws, the spirit of which was defeated by the duke of Wellington's amendment.

On the death of Canning, Mr Huskisson became a member of the Goderich administration, as colonial and war secretary; and on the accession of the Wellington administration he retained his seat in the cabinet. In a debate, however, on the proposed disfranchisement of East Retford, Huskisson divided against his colleagues, and offered to place his office, if required, in the premier's hands. The duke was weak enough to use this opportunity of dispensing with the services of his able and efficient colleague, and in so doing greatly injured his own political position. After leaving office, Mr Huskisson delivered his sentiments in the house on various important points, chiefly of commercial policy; he also supported Lord Palmerston's motion on the affairs of Portugal.

On the 13th of September, 1830, Mr Huskisson visited his constituents at Liverpool, previous to the ceremony of opening the Liverpool and Manchester railway. On this occasion he addressed an immense assembly in the exchange room, in the following terms:-" As I perceive, among those who have honoured me with this very flattering reception, many who are my immediate constituents, and as I trust that you will allow me to consider myself as the representative of all the collective interests of this great community, without distinction between those who honour me with their support and those who are opposed to me, or between those who have votes and those who have not in the election of the members who are returned by this town to parliament, my first anxiety in meeting you to-day was to express my regret that I was not able to be present, when it was so much my wish to have been here, at the late election. Gentlemen, I was about to offer you some apology for my involuntary absence; but if I had any thing suitable and appropriate to offer on the occasion, I fairly own that your kindness has driven it out of my head. But the very reception, which has superseded any explanation which I might have wished to offer, has more

strongly impressed upon my heart those feelings of gratitude which are so pre-eminently due for your indulgence on the late occasion; almost the first, I believe, in modern times, in which a member for Liverpool has been restored to the confidence of his constituents without making his appearance among them at the hustings. Gentlemen, this loyal town is about to receive the visit of a distinguished individual of the highest station and influence in the affairs of this great country. I rejoice that he is coming among you. I am sure that what he has already seen in this county, and what he will see here, will not fail to make a great impression on his mind. After this visit he will be better enabled to estimate the value and importance of Liverpool in the general scale of the great interests of this country. He will see what can be effected by patient and persevering industry, by enterprise and good sense, unaided by monopoly or exclusive privileges, and in spite of their existence elsewhere. Gentlemen, he will, I hope, find that if you are not friendly to monopoly in other places, it is not because you require or want it for yourselves. He will see that you know how to thrive and prosper without it; that all you expect from government is encouragement, protection, facility, and freedom in your several pursuits and avocations, either of manufacturing industry or commerce. Gentlemen, I have heard with just satisfaction, and from many concurrent quarters, that every thing connected with these interests is in a more healthy and promising state than it was last year. I rejoice at the change for the better; I hope and believe it will be permanent. But do not let us be supine, and think that the energies under which difficulties are diminishing may relieve us from the necessity of unremitting exertion. In foreign countries you have powerful rivals to encounter; and you can only hope to continue your superiority over them by incessantly labouring to lighten the pressure upon the industry of our own people, and by promoting every measure which is calculated to give increased vigour, fresh life, and greater facility, to the powers which create, and to the hands which distribute, the almost boundless productions of this country. I trust, gentlemen, that by a steady adherence to these views and principles, I shall most faithfully represent your wishes and feelings in parliament. So long as we are in unison upon these points, I shall be most happy and proud to continue to be your representative under the sanction of your confidence, and so long as health and strength shall be vouchsafed to me to fulfil the duties of the station which I now hold as one of your members in the house of comI am persuaded, gentlemen, that by this course I shall best consult your prosperity; and I am still more immovably convinced, that whatever advances the general interest of this great mart of commerce, will but advance all the other great interests of the country: and first and foremost, that interest which is the oldest and the greatest of all,— the landed interest; upon which as the example of the country so well demonstrates, industry and commerce have already conferred so many benefits."

mons.

On the 15th of September the ceremony of opening the railway took place, and that accident occurred, which terminated the life of this lamented statesman, a few hours afterwards.

Mr Huskisson's body was interred, at the request of his late constituents, within the new cemetery in Liverpool, where a handsome monu

ment has been erected to his memory. The following able summary of Mr Huskisson's character appeared a few days after his death in the columns of The Spectator.' In his early career Mr Huskisson was a warm and zealous reformer; and to the end of his life he retained the most enlarged and liberal views of social government. Of eloquence, in the ordinary sense of the term, Mr Huskisson had but little. He could neither gripe and hold fast the heart, like the honourable and learned member for Yorkshire, by the irresistible energy of his appeals; nor could he please the ear and the fancy with the nicely modulated language and effervescing wit of his lamented friend and predecessor, the right honourable member for Liverpool. Yet not even the former, in his most solemn adjuration, nor the latter, in his happiest flight, ever commanded the attention of his hearers more completely than Mr Huskisson. He was never unprepared, whatever might be the subject of discussion; and it was not in set harangues only that he excelled,—he was a clever and able debater. When he first entered on his subject, his manner was cold, almost heavy; his intonation equable, almost monotonous; he had no peculiar grace of action. The secret of his oratory lay in the facility with which he could bring a number of facts to bear upon his argument, and in the soundness and comprehensiveness of his views. He was not an opponent with whom it was difficult to grapple, for he disdained all slippery arts of avoiding an antagonist; but he was one whom the stoutest champion found it impossible to throw. To the matter-of-fact arguer, Mr Huskisson could present an accumulation of details sufficient to stagger the most practical; while to him who looked to rules rather than cases, he could offer general principles, conceived in so enlarged a spirit, that even in his dry and unadorned enunciation of them they rose to sublimity. Nothing could be finer than the splendid perorations of his more elaborate speeches. It was by the combination of an attention so accurate that the most minute objection did not escape its vigilance, and a judgment so comprehensive that the greatest could not elude its grasp, coupled with habits of unremitting industry and perfect integrity of purpose, that Mr Huskisson, on every question of complication and importance, reigned almost undisputed in the house of commons. Irresistible as it generally proved, no one, however, dreaded his power. He convinced or he silenced, but he never irritated. His peculiar calmness of temper kept him from indulging in sarcasm. He seldom uttered an illnatured word, because he was seldom influenced by an ill-natured feeling. From the uniform report of friends, nothing could be more amiable than the current of his domestic life. He belonged not to that class of pseudo-patriots who would persuade mankind that the public are unallied to the private virtues. The same simplicity, and kindness, and integrity, which formed the charm of the member of the legislature, shed their hallowed influences around the fireside circle of the private citizen. Such was William Huskisson on Wednesday morning; and on Wednesday night all that remained of the ornament of the senate, the delight of his acquaintance, the idol of his family, was a mass of mouldering clay, to which the worm was a sister, and the slow-worn a brother and a kinsman !'

Sir William Grant.

BORN A. D. 1760.-DIED A. D. 1832.

"SIR WILLIAM GRANT was one of those men," observes the author of Public Characters,' "who, coming from almost the lowest grade of private life, and losing not only his youth, but a large portion of his manhood, in obscurity and a very humble station, emerged, at length, by the vigour of his own mind; and, in a very short period, passed all those in the race of honour and emolument who had previously (if they had known) despised his presumptuous expectations." He was descended from the Grants of Beldornie in Scotland. His father was collector of the customs in the Isle of Man; but he was himself born at Elchies, in the county of Moray, the estate of his uncle.

Having entered at one of the Inns of court, he was early called to the bar, and, at the age of twenty-five, was appointed attorney-general of Canada. In this situation he acquitted himself with great ability, but not finding sufficient scope for his talents, or his ambition, he returned to England in 1787, and took his stand in the common law courts. Here he fortunately attracted the attention of Lord Thurlow, and, at his suggestion, left the common law bar for the court of chan

cery.

In 1790 he was returned for Shaftesbury, and soon distinguished himself in the house as an able coadjutor of Pitt. In 1793 he was appointed a Welsh judge, and, in 1794, solicitor-general to the queen. In 1799 he succeeded Lord Redesdale as solicitor-general, and was knighted. In 1801 he was nominated master of the rolls, the functions of which office he continued to discharge for a period of sixteen years with great credit to himself and advantage to the public.

In February, 1805, he supported the address to the crown on the Spanish war; and in April, when Mr Whitbread made his celebrated motion against Lord Melville, he argued "that an inquiry should be gone into with a view of ascertaining whether the act of parliament had been violated with a corrupt intention." Soon after, the master of the rolls divided with the minority, and was one of the committee chosen to investigate the tenth report of the naval commissioners; on which occasion he vindicated his own political conduct, and stated his intervention in respect to the petition of the sheriffs of London, as a proof of his independence. On the 11th of June, when Mr Whitbread moved an impeachment, he objected to that measure, on the ground "that no new case of aggravation had been made out against Lord Melville." In 1806, he opposed the American intercourse bill; for which he received the thanks of a committee of merchants of the city of London; and, in 1807, he animadverted, at considerable length, on the bill brought in by Sir Samuel Romilly, relative to the liability of landed estates as to debts.

Sir William retired from public life in 1817, and died on the 25th of May, 1882. Mr Charles Butler, in his Reminiscences,' speaks of Sir William in the following terms: "The most perfect model of judicial eloquence which has come under the observation of the reminiscent,