opposed the third reading of the bill; he had opposed it, he said, on its original introduction two years ago, and was then in a small minority of ten, who were rather laughed at than otherwise, for their insignificancy; but, they felt it to be a bill of infinite importance to their fellow-subjects in Ireland, and had determined to mark their sense of it by a division. When the bill was originally introduced, there was no parliamentary ground laid for it either of necessity or expediency; and having watched its operation, he (Mr. Moore) said, he was happy to find that the bill had not been called for, and had been wholly nugatory, considering. thereby, that there was no ground for it either then or now. He was certain, if such a bill were introduced into this country, it would vibrate alarm from one extremity of the empire to the other, and he considered as an intended insult; and he could not see, why bills of this description should be applied to Ireland any more than England. The present abbreviated bill, Mr. Moore said, he observed, was only a vestige of the former bill, and he confidently felt and believed, that the repeal of the other obnoxious clauses and provisions of that bill was a concession absolutely extorted by the loyalty and attachment of the people of Ireland, and he had no hesitation in saying, that it would infinitely more become the dignity of government to displace this bill altogether by an implicit confidence in the affections and true interests of the people of Ireland, to which experience had most amply testified they were entitled. Mr. Moore said the several members who had before opposed this bill, acting on the same principles, were of the same opinion with himself, and were resolved to persevere in throwing it out if possible.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer postponed the third till Wednesday.

, in rising to move that the third reading of the bill for the better preventing of robbery in navigable rivers, should stand for Wednesday, had no intention of pressing the third reading on that day, should there then be a great deal of other business before the House. He begged to avail himself of the present opportunity however, to say a few words on the nature of the present bill. It stood on totally different grounds from the other two bills which had been introduced by him, one of which had passed that House. The act which he now sought to have repealed, was an act of the other day. It had not antiquity to support it, but was passed at the end of the last reign, previous to which the offence was not esteemed as of a capital nature, and even since the passing of the statute in question, it had never been acted on so far as he (sir S. Romilly) had been able to discover. He could not forbear noticing what he understood had been stated in another place, on the subject of the bill which had passed that House for preventing privately stealing in shops. It had been urged as an argument against that bill, that the effect of a similar bill, introduced by him two sessions ago, to prevent privately stealing from the person, had been to occasion an enormous increase of that offence. In this statement he could by no means agree. It would, indeed, be extraordinary, that so sudden an effect should be produced by the repeal of an act, which, for many years, might have been considered as almost a dead letter. But it had also been stated, from the same high authority, that privately stealing in the shop had also greatly increased of late. Might not the same cause then, have operated to occasion the increase in both? Or was it fair to attribute the increase in the offence of stealing from the person, to the repeal of the act punishing that crime capitally, while it was seen, that the offence of stealing in the shop had increased in an equal proportion, while the act ren- dering it also a capital felony remained in force? The real fact seemed to be, not that the offence itself had increased, but that prosecutions had increased, and this might naturally be accounted for, from considering, that persons who might be unwilling to prosecute when they knew the offence would subject the person guilty to the sentence of death, would feel infinitely less reluctance in contributing to the attainment of the ends of justice, when satisfied that the punishment was of a limited nature, and more adequate to the nature of the offence committed. In Prussia, when by a deduction of the fees of lawyers, &c. the obtaining of justice was rendered more easy to the subjects of that country, it was alledged, that this had only led to an increase of law suits, without producing any good effect. But was this the fact? Surely not. Wrong had previously existed, but it had existed un-complained of, because of the difficulty of procuring redress. A stronger proof of the good effect likely to result from the alteration in the law which he proposed, he presumed to think, could not be figured, than that it tended to check offences by adding to the certainty of prosecution and consequently of punishment. It had been stated that the judges were averse to the alteration he proposed. No person could more highly respect the judges of the land than he did. But on a question, what the law ought to be, not what it was, he could not conceive this as a conclusive argument against any measure which might be proposed. It had even been insinuated as if he (sir Samuel Romilly) felt a disregard for the ancient and established laws of the country. He really confessed himself astonished at such an insinuation. It must seem wonderful, indeed, if he who had passed his whole life in the study and practice of those laws, and, who, if he possessed any stake or reputation in the country, owed it all to the skill and knowledge he had acquired in the practice of them, could be capable of disregarding those laws, or of not holding them in merited veneration. That he did see in those laws some defects, however, which he wished to redress, he presumed to think, instead of being imputable to him as a crime, would be a proof how highly he regarded them as a whole, and how anxious he was to see them as perfect as possible. He should now move, that the bill for preventing robberies in navigable rivers, be. read a third time on Wednesday, but it that should be found inconvenient he should then postpone it till Thursday; and if it should appear that there was no prospect of the bill passing through both Houses during the present session, he should not press the third reading even on Thursday.