observed, that an unfounded prejudice of so strong a nature had gone forth to the public on the subject of the Apothecaries Bill, that it was deemed advisable by the friends of the measure, although they were completely satisfied of the general utility with which it was fraught, to withdraw it until the next session of parliament, in the confident expectation that the unfavourable impression which some interested persons had so studiously endeavoured to give of the Bill, might, by that time, be removed. In order to facilitate this desirable event, it might be expedient for him to state, that one great object of the Bill was to ensure such an examination of persons practising the medical profession, as surgeons and apothecaries, as would secure to the public the certainty that henceforward none but intelligent and well educated individuals, would be found in that profession. It was also the object of the Bill to put these gentlemen on a footing on which they had never before been placed by the legislature, by enabling them to charge a fee for their attendance. This part of the Bill was more, applicable to gentlemen practising the medical profession in town than in the country. In the country, owing to the acknowledged distance at which his patient might reside, a surgeon or apothecary always charged a fee for his attendance. In London, although every one knew that the residence of a patient might be very distant indeed from that of his surgeon or apothecary, no such fee had hitherto been charged. With respect to the first object of the Bill, those by whom the Bill had been framed had been under great difficulty as to the constitution of the authority before which the future examination of individuals wishing to practise as surgeons and apothecaries was to take place. The College of Physicians and the Society of Surgeons had, unadvisedly, in, his opinion, declined to take on themselves this duty. The framers of the Bill were therefore obliged under those circumstances, to get the best authority in their power, and he had no doubt that the authority which the Bill described would have very satisfactorily discharged the trust reposed in it. One additional inducement, however, for the postponement of the Bill to the next session of parliament was, the hope that the chartered and constituted bodies to which he had already alluded, would be induced by that period to come forward and offer their assistance in carrying into effect the great public advantage which the Bill had in contemplation. He confessed his regret that chymists and druggists had been included in the purview of the measure. It had always been his opinion, that those gentlemen ought to be struck out of it; and if he presented the Bill again in the next session of parliament, it should contain no reference to them whatever, but each respective profession and occupation should Stand untrammelled, and on its own merits alone.

On the motion of the hon. gentleman the Bill was then ordered to be read a second time on that day six months.

reported to the House, that his royal highness the Prince Regent, having been attended with their Address of Wednesday last, was pleased to receive the same very graciously, and to give the following Answer:

"I thank you for this loyal Address. I receive the condolence of the House of Commons, on the recent loss I have sustained in the death of the Duchess of Brunswick, as a grateful and acceptable proof of their attachment to myself and to my family."

appeared at the bar, with the Report of the Committee on the State of the Finances of Great Britain. On the motion that it be brought up,

observed, that the subject had been already so amply discussed in the committee, that he would not trouble the House with many observations at the present moment, on the plan of finance which had been proposed by the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was his intention to acquiesce in the motion for bringing up the Report, with a view of subsequently moving a Resolution, that the House would, early in the next session of parliament, take it into consideration. This mode of proceeding he thought would be more consonant with the general feelings of the House, than if he was to meet the measure with a direct negative, or to call upon them to come to any direct or positive decision. For his own part, as he had already stated, he viewed the plan as pregnant with the most incalculable mischiefs, and sincerely hoped it would never be carried into effect. One great argument that had been urged by the supporters of the new measure was the very popular one, that for a time it would relieve the country from the burthen of additional taxation. The right hon. gentleman must, however, be aware, that a very small increase of taxation, indeed, would enable the existing system to be continued for another twelvemonth; and he (Mr. Baring) was persuaded that parliament would not object to such an arrangement being made, as would leave the new measure in an effective and operating state at the end of the year, if, at that period, it should be deemed advisable to adopt it. Much rather would he see the country exposed at the present crisis, however loaded it might be with burthens, to have those burthens partially increased, than to have a system tolerated, which would not alone tend to destroy the faith in public credit, but went to excite universal and lasting discontent. The right hon. gentleman (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had told the House, that whatever might be the event of his proposition, he must raise new taxes to the amount of 1,100,000l. Why not, he would ask, extend this sum to the existing wants of the nation, and abandon a system which could lead to no good end? The plan proposed by the right hon. gentleman, certainly involved some of the most important considerations that had, for many years, been submitted to the deliberative wisdom of parliament. It tended to destroy that system of sinking fund, which had for so many years been the theme of general admiration. It had been loudly condemned last night by an hon. gentleman (Mr. Huskisson), intimately conversant with financial subjects, in one of the most able and luminous speeches on the subject, that had ever been delivered within the walls of that House. Under all these circumstances, it was most desirable that the public should feel that parliament did not take any rash and hasty step. This Was more particularly incumbent upon them at the present time, because the measure now proposed was not founded on the report of any committee above stairs, as had invariably been the case (with the single exception of that of 1802) with former financial proposition to parliament, all of which (with the exception he had stated) had, previously to their adoption by the House, been referred to the examination of a select committee. This circumstance alone, was, he thought, a sufficient inducement to lead the House to put off the consideration of the subject for another year. As an additional reason for granting the delay, which he wished for, he begged leave to observe, that the present year was peculiarly critical. It evidently teemed with extraordinary events. On the nature of those events would depend the probability of a suspension, or a further prosecution of the war. If, fortunately, the success which our allies had recently enjoyed, should continue, or, on the other hand, unfortunately, France should regain her ascendency in Europe—in either case, the postponement of the adoption of the new plan for another year would give parliament a chance of entering into the consideration of the subject, with a much more extended view of what would be the probable future prospects of the country. As he had already stated, he should not press a negative against the Resolutions, but should simply move, when the Report was brought up, for their further consideration next session.

could resist urging, even in that stage of the proceeding, his anxious intreaty to his right hon. friend not to comply with the proposition of the hon. gentleman, or defer his plan beyond the present moment. He positively denied that the new measure involved in it the encroachment on the sinking fund which had been described. By the existing law the national debt was to be paid off in 45 years. The proposition of his right hon. friend in no way tended to infringe this law; on the contrary it provided for the paying off of every loan in a much shorter time. The House had heard his right hon. friend's plan, and they had last night heard the plan of his hon. friend (Mr. Huskisson), and he was persuaded that no gentleman could have any doubt on their comparative merits. The plan proposed by his right hon. friend, while most advantageous in other respects, relieved the public, for a stated period, from any additional burden of taxation. That of his hon. friend was visionary and uncertain, and could not be put in competition, even if successful, with a system which promised so great a permanent advantage to the country. He had no difficulty in saying that his right hon. friend had put his system in the most disadvantageous points of view in the tables which he had submitted to the House, and was convinced in case of any fortunate termination to present difficulties, that the benefits which would be derived by the country were much greater than had been anticipated. Contemplating also the large sum which would suddenly become applicable to the re- demption of the national debt in 1830, it provided in lieu of it a gradual reduction of the debt; and actually accelerated the payment of the debt with a rapidity which, the existing system did not possess. Under all these circumstances, he contended that the delay of a year would be highly injurious. If, at the end of the year, the circumstances of Europe should be such as to warrant a reduction of the expenditure of the country, the advantages attendant on the immediate adoption of his right hon. friend's proposition would be materially increased by that event.

wished to remove several misconceptions that existed with respect to, not his plan, for it would be too presumptuous to call it so, but the outline of a financial arrangement which he had last night taken the liberty to sketch. What he had stated was, that he would adopt so much of his right hon. friend's proposition as to allow the excess of the charges on the loan of this year and of subsequent years to be thrown on the sinking fund; proposing, at the same time, that what might be so deducted from the sinking fund should be replaced out of the war-taxes, during the continuance of the war, in order that no diminution might take place in the amount of the sinking fund, and thus no breach of faith occur towards the public creditor. During the continuance of war, it would, he was persuaded, be most unsafe and impolitic to weaken the effect of the operation of the sinking fund; but after the conclusion of a peace, such modifications and arrangements might be made with respect to the sinking fund as might bring in aid of the public service the great sum which at the period alluded to would fall in. In point of efficacy there was no difference between the plan he had suggested, and that which had been proposed by his right hon. friend, except that the former had the advantages of policy, expediency, and justice, while the latter was totally without one good quality to recommend it. In the present state of the country, nothing could, in his opinion, be more inconsistent with wisdom or propriety, than to lay hands on the sinking fund. This position he had already endeavoured, at considerable length, to maintain; and to the arguments he had urged nothing was opposed but broad and naked assertions.

expressed himself in favour of the right hon. gentleman's new financial proposition. If he could bring him- self to believe that the plan proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer would tend to weaken public faith, he should feel not at all inclined to give it the meed of his approbation; viewing it as he did, however, in a light totally different, he felt disposed to give it his concurrence. One strong reason for supporting it was, that the stockholders, who must be allowed to be good judges on the subject, did not seem to conceive that their interests were at all likely to be affected by the measure, for since the origin of the proposition there had been no depression of the funds; and any one who went on the stock exchange would hear nothing of the danger and bad faith of invading the sinking fund, so much stress on which had been laid in that House. He was, indeed, firmly persuaded that the new plan involved no breach of faith whatever. He would vote for it on two grounds—the first, because it would suspend, for a time at least, the necessity of additional taxation, and would have the good effect of diminishing those taxes which were already almost too burdensome for the middle ranks of society to bear: and, the second, because it appeared clearly from the tables of the right hon. gentleman, that, whereas, by the existing system the redemption of the debt could not be effected before the year 1845, by the proposed system it might take place by the year 1837. Upon the whole, he thought it a plan which, at the present awful crisis, was the most wise and politic that could be adopted.

agreed with the sentiments delivered by the hon. gentleman who had spoken last, although he could not in all particulars approve of the plan which had been proposed. He confessed that he had always thought the sinking fund held out a temptation which the ministers and the nation could not long resist. In the event of a peace it could not be expected that the existing system could long go on, or that the public would be without dissatisfaction the appropriation of so large a sum, as the sinking fund would then afford, to buy up the debt, while the country continued to groan under heavy and almost intolerable burdens. It appeared to him, that it would be much more expedient to make the alteration at the present moment than at the period which he had just anticipated. He also thought, that under the circumstances of the country and of Europe, he should not be justified in refusing his assent to a measure which would render the addition of taxes for the next four years unnecessary. It had been contended that the proposition included a breach of faith. To him it seemed that nothing could fairly be stated to be a breach of faith where no one was deceived; and who could have expected that the sinking fund would be permitted to go on to its ultimate object? Besides, the practical effect sufficiently evinced that the proposed measure involved no injurious breach of faith towards the public creditor. What had been the operation of the right hon. gentleman's development of his plan, and what had been the operation of the hon. gentleman's remarks upon it last night?—why, that the funds remained precisely in the state in which they were before either of those events. He thought the declaration of the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and of his right hon. friend near him (Mr. Rose), that the power of taxation was almost at an end, and that it would not be safe to push it much further, a manly declaration. He was not afraid to hear it said that this plan proceeded from necessity, and that taxation had arrived at a pitch beyond which it could not be pushed. Such language, while it was consistent with truth, evinced the candour and independence of those who uttered it. It was a fact too well known, that the middle classes of life were scarce able to move under those oppressive burdens by which they had been so long weighed down, but which they had supported with such patience and magnanimity; and this being the case, any plan which tended to lighten those burdens, he thought deserving of the highest commendations. By giving his vote in favour of the proposed change in the financial system of the country, he thought he would be best supporting the interests of those whom he had the honour to represent. We ought not to be afraid of looking our difficulties in the face, for that was the only way of meeting them with effect. Whoever had the opportunity of observing the condition of the middle and lower classes of society in this country must concur in the opinion that taxation could not be carried much further. In his opinion, additional taxation to any great amount would tend to diminish and not to increase the revenue; and this consideration afforded another view of the subject, as it affected the stockholder, whose greatest apprehension, he had no doubt, was not of a breach of faith by rendering the sinking fund in some degree available to the service of the state, but of the insecurity in the payment of the interest of his stock, which any material deterioration of the revenue by improvident taxation would cause. On the whole he felt that he should be guilty of a great dereliction of his public duty, if he refused to support the proposed plan.

observed, that he had perhaps still better opportunities of knowing the condition of the lower orders in this country, carrying on trade, than the hon. gentleman who had just sat down: the pressure on them was excessive. The measures which had been adopted by Buonaparté in hostility to our commerce had hitherto been but too effective in depressing it. At the present moment, however, better days appeared to be in prospect: the foreign markets were beginning to open—the spirit of commercial men was reviving, although the enterprising exertions of our manufacturers must necessarily be crippled for some time by the Joss of their capital. At such a critical instant, to increase taxation would, indeed, be highly imprudent. The substitution of the system proposed by the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer, could give no national alarm; on the contrary, it was calculated to give additional strength and energy to the nation. With respect to the public debt, it was a subject which he had deeply considered—as deeply perhaps as most men; and he really did not think that the country owed more at that moment than it had owed ten or twelve years ago; for all that we owed among ourselves was national property. In his opinion, our situation at present was very promising. Our resources were abundant provided we husbanded them. The industry of the country was animating, and although a large stockholder himself, he should be sorry to witness any alteration in the new proposition, convinced as he was, that the taxation that must then ensue would again lay that industry lifeless.

contended, that all who had any knowledge of the origin and disposition of the sinking fund, did entertain a belief that it was to have been kept inviolate, as a security for the redemption of the public debt. That security was infringed by the plan proposed by the right hon. gentleman. It was true, that the right hon. gentleman said, that at present he would touch only the interest of that fund, but his speech contained a pretty clear admission, that the time might come when he would think it expedient to encroach upon the principal. For his part, he warmly recommended raising the supplies, if possible, within the year. The best writers on political economy had observed, that when the expences of a war should be defrayed by supplies raised within the year, war would be less wantonly undertaken and less pertinaciously persevered in. Our resources were by no means exhausted: and, in his opinion, it would be much better to raise additional taxes for the exigency of the state, than to break in upon that which ought to be held sacred—the sinking fund. The right hon. gentleman only anticipated inconvenience; he did not actually experience any. A year might produce very favourable changes in the aspect of public affairs. If we should be blessed with peace within that period, we might remedy all our evils without destroying that valuable institution from which we had already derived so many advantages, and for the preservation of which, among other securities, we bad the sanction of the Speaker's high name and authority.

admitted, that if the new proposition was a breach of public faith, it ought to be instantly abandoned. He was sure, that as on the one hand his right hon. friend would have been the last man to introduce the measure into parliament, if he conceived it to be a, breach of faith, so he would be the first man to relinquish it, if it could be proved to be so. In order to set that question at rest, the hon. gentleman entered into an examination of the Act of 1792, and eventually drew the unequivocal conclusion, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer's proposition was wholly exempt from the violation of public faith imputed to it.

objected to the plan. He allowed, that it might be expedient for the public service, at some time or other to touch the sinking fund. The question was, what would be the most fitting time? He thought it would be hazardous to touch it during the war, when it was necessary to raise large loans, the terms of which must of necessity be advantageous or disadvantageous to the public, according to the price of stocks at. the time they were contracted. He contended also, that the plan involved a breach of faith; and, in support of this opinion, referred to Mr. Pitt's opinion, which was decidedly against any deviation from the sinking fund system. Mr. Pitt would have rather laid on great additional taxes than touched that fund. He thought it ought to be referred to a committee, to consider whether the present plan was the best that could be adopted under existing circumstances, or whether something better might not be devised. It would appear to be much better, if the loan of the year necessarily exceeded what was convenient, to provide for the interest by fresh taxes, and to throw the interest of this excess for the present year upon the sinking fund, without adopting this as a general system to be permanently acted upon.

The motion was then agreed to, and Mr. Lushington brought up the Report. On the motion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the report be now read,

said, that notwithstanding all the facetious allusions which had been made to the sinking fund of Buonaparté, there would be (if the propositions before them were acceded to) good reason to assert that there would not be greater security for a sinking fund under the direction of a British parliament, than under the government of Napoleon. As he retained all his objections to the propositions before them, he should move as an amendment that the Report be taken into consideration in the next session of parliament.

repelled the charge of the hon. gentleman, against which he thought it his duty to enter his entire and indignant protest. Such an observation he would rather have expected from another quarter, than from the hon. gentleman. His right hon. friend was not afraid to rest his plan on the justice of parliament and the sound understanding of the people of England, who, he was sure, would not be diverted by the doctrine of the hon. gentleman, in derogation of the proposition of his right hon. friend, founded as it was on the soundest principles of good faith to the public creditor. The people would exercise their own judgments on what good faith required, and they would not conclude that all faith was abandoned, because the hon. gentleman, and those who thought with him, made distorted statements, and founded a system of erroneous reasoning upon them.

said, that he did not know whether the understanding of his hon. friend was so distorted as the noble lord had assumed, but he thought the noble lord might have saved himself some portion of that indignation and warmth with which he had risen in defence of the plan of the right hon. Chancellor of the Exchequer. Had the noble lord substituted argument for censure it would have been something better. There was, no doubt, much authority annexed to the opinion of his hon. friend (Mr. Baring) of which the noble lord seemed duly sensible; and he was happy to see his own opinions enforced by the weight of his authority, and still more by the weight of his arguments. When the question affected the security of the public funds, he, who had so great an interest in those funds, might be allowed freely to express his feelings, and those of that great body whom he might be considered as in some manner representing; and he was very glad that a man, of his weight and authority, was found to face that measure which might produce such serious injury to the public creditor. But what did his hon. friend say? that if the plan of the right hon. gentleman was defended by. no better arguments than those that he had heard, that there was nothing in which Buonaparté's sinking fund might not be compared with that which would exist in this country. He had no hesitation in saying so himself—he was forced to it: what ground did this plan stand upon? The three right hon. gentlemen opposite, who had last night spoken in its favour, had each taken a ground of defence not only different, but contradictory. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the first place, desired it to be understood that the principle upon which it rested, was, that you might do whatever you pleased with the sinking fund, provided the loans were redeemed within 45 years from the period they were contracted. Then came the other right hon. gentleman (Mr. Rose), the Nestor of the Treasury-bench, the depository of Mr. Pitt's secrets, the keeper of his last dying words, and what did he say? That it was the opinion of that great statesman, that the sinking fund should not be touched until the debt was redeemed. Another right hon. gentleman (Mr. Long) said, that necessity alone was the ground of the present plan. All those gentlemen seemed to support their measure upon different arguments, and yet all of them appeared to rest on the authority of Mr. Pitt, It was, however somewhat extraordinary, that whenever those gentlemen, who professed to be the depositaries of Mr. Pitt's opinions, came to explain them, they were almost always found contradicting one another. If the argument rested merely on the future good which might result from breaking in upon the sinking fund now, it was exactly upon such an argument that two-thirds of the national debt of France was taken away at once. The difference, however, appeared to be, that we were now going to take a whole, and not a part—(Hear, hear! from the ministerial benches.)—The gentlemen on the other side seemed surprised at the assertion, but had they never urged the same arguments against innovation, that the breaking in upon an old system, was little different from its destruction? When they heard arguments of this kind, he would ask whether it was too much for his hon. friend to say what he did? His hon. friend did not mean to institute a comparison between the resources of Great Britain and France, or to depreciate the former; but what he meant was, to warn the House against the example of France. On the same pretext as that now held forth by the right hon. gentleman, he repeated, two-thirds of the national debt of France had been swept off. Did the right hon. gentleman mean to say that the uninterrupted usage of the last 28 years could afford a sufficient ground for his present innovations? He (Mr. Tierney) had charged the plan of 1802 with the same defects which the present possessed; but the right hon. gentleman now said, that provided the loans were redeemed in 45 years, that was all they were to expect. The accumulated compound interest was what he (Mr. Tierney) looked to; and in order to satisfy the public creditor on this head, the right hon. gentleman says—"I stop all accumulation now, it is true—I take off the one per cent. now, but I will give you 2 or 3 per cent. hereafter." As for saying that you might take from the sinking fund for the next ten years, and add to it afterwards, what was that to the present holders of stock? This might be a very satisfactory mode of reasoning to the right hon. gentleman; but he would furnish him with a familiar illustration, to show its fallacy: suppose he heard that a person undertook to convey another to York in 48 hours, and in the fulfilment of his engagement took him as far as Grantham in a waggon, and sent him to York on a racehorse—the person so treated might well exclaim, "Why, I wanted to go no farther than Grantham!" Thus it was with the plan of the right hon. gentleman, for the public creditor might happen to have no longer an interest in the funds when his improvement should take place; if the proposition was to take away part of the security and the value of their stock for the next ten years, and to add to it afterwards, the holder might reply, that he had never intended to be a stockholder for more than ten years. He had embarked in the loans, on the security that the sinking fund would never be broken in upon. On the compound interest the public creditor had a right to rely; and all he could say was, that he saw no difference between the arguments of the right hon. gentleman and those of Buonaparté.—. The latter took away two-thirds of the national debt, the other was in a fair way for taking away the whole! Could not the hon. gentlemen comprehend, that an infraction in the first instance was what generally produced the most fatal effects? Had they never heard, from the right hon. gentleman himself, any cautions against giving way in small things? As many gentlemen were in the habits of stating what Mr. Pity's sentiments were upon matters of finance, he would state, that he believed Mr. Pitt would not have agreed to the present measure if he was now alive. He believed that be did not approve of the Bill of 1802. In making this assertion, he knew very well that he should have memoranda and minutes arrayed against him by those who enjoyed the confidence of that distinguished person; but his only comfort was, that those who possessed the private ear of Mr. Pitt, were in the habit of constantly contradicing each other—He acknowledged that Mr. Pitt did certainly support the plan of 1802 at first, yet when he (Mr. T.) in opposing it signified, his intention of making a stand against it, as a violation of public faith, Mr. Pitt sent to him message after message to request that be would postpone it, as he was desirous of attending, and could not conveniently do so on the day appointed. The business then lingered on for a considerable time without any discussion taking place, and at last Mr. Addington called on him, and said that as the weather had become so extremely fine Mr. Pitt would probably ride out, and could not attend to finance any longer.—The impression produced on his mind by this intimation was, that Mr. Pitt thought a ride much better than the plan of 1802 Mr. Pitt, then, did not attend at the discussion of the Bill; and he, to avoid desultory debates, had then, as he wished now to do, reserved his observations until the stage fixed for discussion. By Mr. Pitt's not attending the discussion, he did believe, that on the farther consideration of the Bill he found it to be of a nature that he did not wish to defend. As he had left the administration with the income tax mortgaged to the amount of 56 millions, it was certainly incumbent upon him to countenance Mr. Addington in any strong measure of finance which he could give his approbation to. But it seemed that having set Mr. Addington off on his journey, he left him there, as he clearly saw the mischief that would ensue, and withdrew from it. Then came this second plan with no other authority than the three contradictory arguments of the three hon. gentlemen on the Treasury-bench. His hon. friend had thought it his duty to warn the House, and he agreed with him in his views, and hoped the House would not entertain the proposition. As to the funds not having fallen in consequence of the proposal of the scheme, a circumstance that might appear to stand in the way of his argument, he believed that might be owing, in a great measure, to the stockholders not believing it probable that such a violation of faith could be sanctioned by parliament. They trusted to the good sense of parliament that they would not allow such abominable nonsense and fraud to obtain their sanction. Here was a system which went to alter the whole constitution of the sinking fund; but there was no effect produced on it for the present year, which sufficiently accounted for the state of the funds. Besides, the extraordinary good news which had arrived was another reason, and, in this point of view, it struck him, that as the stocks had not risen, they might be considered as having fallen. He begged pardon for having trespassed so long on the time of the House, but his only object was to defend his hon. friend (Mr. Baring) against the outrageous indignation which was manifested by the noble lord, and which certainly was an excellent substitute for argument, which he had altogether declined.

said, that he should not be tempted to enter into a desultory debate by what had fallen from the right hon. gentleman; who seemed to have taken an extraordinary method of shewing that he did not like this mode of discussion. From the course of argument into which he had entered, comparing the funds of England with those of France, he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) was induced to believe that the right hon. gentleman had occupied the morning in reading over one of his old speeches for the present occasion. He denied that the principle of his plan was such as described by the right hon. gentleman; on the contrary, it proceeded entirely on the principle of successive redemption, and though he had thought himself obliged to show that sufficient provision was made for the redemption in 45 years, that formed no part of the ground upon which the plan proceeded. His principle, he had again to state, was to substitute successive to simultaneous redemption, and that he had only shown, as a collateral circumstance, that the provisions of the Act of 1792, which secured the reduction of the national debt in 45 years, would be complied with. This was not the first alteration in the sinking fund system, witness the Acts of 179S and 1800, which established new regulations on the subject. Mr. Pitt had first proposed to Mr. Addington that system which ripened into the plan of 1802, and he had also proposed that on the peace establishment, the sinking fund should be reduced in a manner similar to the present, which he could not have done if he thought it inconsistent with public faith. The right hon. gentleman supposed that the stockholders did not believe the Bill would pass; he believed, however, that the first division which should take place on the subject would convince them that it was likely to pass, and yet would not occasion the alarm apprehended. If the favourable state of the stocks arose from the causes stated by the right hon. gentleman, they should soon see whether a depreciation would take place when the sense of the House was taken upon the measure. The faith of the stockholders must be shaken, too, he should think, by the circumstance that the right hon. gentleman did not think proper to divide the House last night. The proposed postponement, he must oppose, as it united with singular felicity all the objections both to the adoption and rejection of the measure. The alarm to the public creditor would be the same, and the good effects on the public mind, from the remission of taxes for four years, would not have place.

entered into an explanation of what he said last night, and denied that he had asserted it to be Mr. Pitt's opinion that the principle of the Act of 1792 was the paying off of the debt in 45 years; on the contrary, he had stated it to be his own opinion; nor did he contradict what his right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer bad said, but mentioned his being in possession of a paper containing some plan for making the income equal to the expenditure, with a loose statement of taxes for, six or seven years, as a memorandum to refer to. He had never made use of Mr. Pitt's name as an authority, nor at any time, except to set right any mistake that had a reference to his name.

denied that the stockholders considered the present plan as a breach of public faith, or an invasion of property.

professed as much attachment and veneration for the good faith of the public, as any honourable gentleman could have, but no violation was attempted by the measure now under consideration. Good policy, as well as strict justice, required that every pledge given to the public creditor, should be scrupulously maintained, but all the attempts to prove this to be a breach of faith, were fertile in the extreme; and all the ingenuity and industry that had been employed, had failed to impress upon the mind of one rational man either in the city of London, or in any part of the kingdom, any alarm for the public credit of the nation. He did not understand the view which some persons took of the subject, in supposing the public creditor alone was interested in the Sinking Fund Act; he thought the public quite as much interested in them upon the fair and enlarged view of the subject. Would the public creditor have been satisfied to have stood upon these acts alone? Certainly not; the public had often interposed in his favour, and given him boons to which he had no positive right; he alluded to the land tax redemption, and the war taxes. By the first measure twenty four millions of debt had been paid off, and by the last three hundred millions had been raised, which could otherwise have encreased our debt, and in so doing materially affected the interest of the public creditor. He was surprised at the proposition of his right hon. friend (Mr. Tierney). It was absurd to talk of a committee to construe those acts of parliament, which every body was capable of understanding; he considered the motion therefore as meaning delay, and nothing else. If he had any better plan to propose, he wished he would bring it forward; he had long considered the subject, and if he proposed nothing it would only prove that he had found 'it much easier to object than to suggest. In 1807 many plans of finance were before the House; now, none but that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; for that of his hon. friend (Mr. Huskisson) he trusted was abandoned. That hon. gentleman wished he could entrap his right hon. friend into a plan, but he was too wary to commit himself. If, however, these able financiers satisfied themselves with condemning what was proposed, the House would be convinced with him that they had nothing more advantageous to offer, and with that conviction he should support the proposition of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and rote against the motion for delay.

read an extract from one of the clauses of the Act of 1802, in which it was provided, that the one per cent. should continue to accumulate till the debt was redeemed. He believed that no lawyer could contend that the proposed measure was not a violation of that law; and he asked the' right hon. gentleman, what was the meaning of this? They undertook, at all events, that the debt should be paid off in 45 years, and that the stockholder should have the benefit in the interim of the increasing value of the stock.

observed in reply, that he was sorry that any expressions he had made use of in giving his opinion upon the present plan, should have given offence. It certainly was very far from his intention. His object in putting off the consideration of the plan for the present was, that the state of things might be soon so much altered, as to make it unnecessary eventually to adopt a system which, in, the opinion of many rational and well-informed persons, was a violation of public credit.

The Amendment was then negatived without a division, after which the Report was read and agreed to, and a Bill ordered in pursuance thereof. The Resolutions were as follow:

Resolved, "That the total capital of the funded debt of Great Britain, in perpetual redeemable annuities, on the 5th day of January 1786, was 238, 231, 248l. 5s. 2¾d. that provision was made for the gradual reduction thereof, by an Act passed in the same year; and that further provision has been made, by several Acts since passed, for the more effectual reduction of the said debt, and of the public debt since contracted.

2. "That, by virtue of the said Acts, the sum of 238, 350, 143l. 18s. 1d. exceeding the said sum of 238,231,248l. 5s. 2¾d. by 118,895l. 12s. 10¼d. had, on or before the 1st day of March 1813, been actually purchased by the commissioners for the reduction of the national debt, or transferred to the said commissioners for the redemption of land tax, or for the purchase of life annuities.

3. "That it is expedient now to declare, that a sum of capital stock equal to the total capital of the public debt, in perpetual redeemable annuities, existing on the said 5th day of January 1786, hath been purchased or transferred as aforesaid; and so soon as further sums of the public debt shall have been so purchased or transferred, making in the whole an amount of annual charge of the public debt so purchased or transferred, equal to the whole annual charge of the public debt, in perpetual redeemable annuities, existing on the said 5th day of January 1786, to declare further that an amount of public debt equal to the whole of such capital and charge of the public debt, existing on the said 5th day of January 1786, hath been satisfied and discharged: and that, in like manner, an amount of public debt equal to the capital and charge of every loan contracted since the said 5th day of January 1786, shall successively, and in its proper order, be deemed and declared to be wholly satisfied and discharged when and as soon as a further amount of capital stock, not less than the capital of such loan, in perpetual redeemable annuities, and producing an interest equal to the dividends thereupon, shall be so redeemed or transferred.

4. "That, after such declaration as aforesaid, the capital stock purchased by the said commissioners, and standing in their names, in the books of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England and of the South Sea Company, shall from time to time be cancelled, as if the same had been transferred for the redemption of land tax, at such times and in such proportions, not exceeding the amount of debt so declared to be satisfied and discharged, after reserving thereout any sum or sums necessary to make provision for the payment of all life annuities chargeable upon the sinking fund of Great Britain, as shall be directed by any act or acts of parliament to be passed for such purpose; in order to make provision for the charge of any loan or loans thereafter to be contracted upon the same funds or securities, as are chargeable with the said stock so declared to be satisfied and redeemed.

5. "That, in order more effectually to secure the redemption of the public debt, conformably to the provisions of the Acts of the 32d and 42d years of his present Majesty, it is expedient to enact that all sums granted for the reduction thereof, by the several Acts aforesaid, should be further continued, and made applicable to the reduction of all public debt now existing, or which may be hereafter contracted during the present war.

6. "That, in order to carry into effect the provisions of the said Acts of the 32d and 42d of the King, for redeeming every part of the national debt within the period of 45 years from the time of its creation, it is also expedient, that in future, whenever the amount of the sum to be raised by loan, or by any other addition to the public funded debt, shall, in any year, exceed the sum estimated to be applicable, in the same year, to the reduction of the public debt, an annual sum, equal to one half of the interest of the excess of the said loan, or other addition beyond the sum so estimated to be applicable, shall be set apart out of the monies composing the consolidated fund of Great Britain, and shall be issued at the receipt of the Exchequer to the governor and company of the Bank of England, to be by them placed to the account of the Commissioners for the reduction of the national debt, and upon the remainder of such loan, or other addition, the annual sum of one per cent. on the capital of all perpetual redeemable annuities created in respect thereof, according to the provisions of the said Act of the 32d year of his present Majesty.

7. "That, in order to prevent the increase of the public debt, by means of exchequer bills annually renewed, or other government securities, bearing interest, it is expedient that, on the 5th day of January in every year, an account be taken of all such exchequer bills, and other government securities, outstanding and charged upon funds not deemed capable of making good the same, within one year from such 5th day of January, and that a sum equal to one per cent. thereupon be granted out of the supplies of such year to the said commissioners for the reduction of the national debt.

8. "That, for the purpose of giving effect to the above Resolutions, it is expedient that the said Act, passed in the 42d year of his present Majesty, be amended.

9. "That it is expedient to make provision, that an annual sum of 867,963l being equal to one per cent. on the capital stock created in respect of several loans raised by virtue of divers Acts passed in the 38th, 39th, and 40th and 42d years of his present Majesty, and for the interest and charges of which provision was made in the said 42d year of his Majesty, shall be set apart out of the monies composing the consolidated fund of Great Britain, and shall be issued at the receipt of the Exchequer to the governor and company of the bank of England, to be by them issued to the commissioners for the reduction of the national debt.

10. "That it is expedient to make further provision for the more effectual and speedy redemption of the land tax."

moved the third reading of the Bill for more effectually preventing the crime of stealing privately in shops, warehouses, coach-houses and stables.

said, that as the opposition of the Bill was reserved to the present stage, he now rose to express his disapprobation to it, and hoped his not having previously opposed it would not be construed into any admission that he had ever been inclined to give it his eventual support. He was confidently assured, that this species of crime had increased, and that there were daily depredations committed in the shops of the metropolis. He therefore agreed with the preamble of the present Bill, in stating the prevalence of the crime. The only question was, what was the proper remedy to be applied? He did not agree in the present proposition, which went on the supposition of justice being defeated by the severity of the present law. Without entering fully into the ground of the Bill, he had the authority of those most versed in the criminal law, that it would be found inadequate: all the judges were of that opinion, and so were the Recorder and Common Serjeant, who were so much versed in the state of crimes in London. Their opinions, he confessed, weighed very strongly with him in considering the subject. If the severity of the law did not operate in practice, it did in terrorem. It was not unnatural to suppose that the law operat- ed upon offenders or those disposed to commit offences to at least as great a degree, as upon prosecutors or juries. The abstinence from prosecution ought to be attributed to the expence and trouble that must be incurred, and not solely to a disinclination to enforce the penalty of the statute.—Instead of stimulating prosecution, which was one of the professed objects of this measure, it appeared to him to be rather calculated to discourage it, since it repealed that part of the old statute which gave to prosecutors, in case of conviction, a certificate, exempting them from parochial duties—a consideration of no mean importance to many classes of society. He had already alluded to great and eminent authority, opposed to the arguments by which his hon. and learned friend supported his Bill, and he would now appeal to experience, as furnishing additional objections to it. One Bill had passed into a law, the Act taking away the capital part of the punishment from the offence of stealing from persons privately. What then was the result of this alteration in the law? He had the strongest assurances from those immediately concerned in the administration of the criminal law, that the number of offences of that description had greatly increased since the passing of that Act. He understood that it was now openly committed in the face of day, that the streets were infested by gangs of thieves, and that children were now regularly trained to the commission of such offences.—To what could this increase of criminality be imputed but to the comparative mildness of the punishment of transportation, which, however severely it might be felt in a few cases, had but small terrors for the desperate offender. He recollected a recent instance which might show that he was not incorrect in this opinion. A man had been convicted, and was recognised as a person who had been long engaged in the commission of offences, and whose wife had been previously transported to Botany Bay. This man naturally solicited to be sent out there likewise, desiring nothing better than to be removed to a distance from his own country, at the expence of government. Upon these principles, and under the circumstances which he had stated, knowing that the opinions of the judges were in opposition to the measure, he must, however high his respect for the authority of his hon. and learned friend, give his vote against the third reading.

said a few words against the Bill.

observed, that if the present were not a new parliament he should content himself with appealing to the consistency of the House, and reminding them that this measure had twice received the sanction of a former House of Commons. He begged leave however now to offer a very short statement of what he conceived the question under discussion really to involve, and his reasons for supporting the measure. The first point that claimed attention was the discrepancy between the law and the practice, the consequence of which discrepancy was the production of various inconveniences. Among these, the principal undoubtedly was, the necessity under which judges and juries so frequently laboured of committing what had been called pious perjuries, because they could not in conscience and humanity enforce the execution of the law in particular cases. The law laid down one course of proceeding, but the practice presented a result of a very different nature.—Surely no person would contend that such a system as this was proper to exist. If it were suffered, it ought to be clearly proved, that by an alteration of it, some great practical evil would be occasioned. The fundamental principle of his hon. and learned friend's Bill was, that a punishment certainly and rapidly overtaking the offence, would attain the end of all criminal justice—the prevention of crimes, much more effectually than when it Was left entirely dependent on the court in which the offence was tried. This he contended was a far wiser mode of administering criminal law, than to suffer that law to prescribe one thing and the practice to deviate into another.—The learned gentleman (the Attorney General) asserted, that the Bill proceeded entirely on theory; and, in opposition to it, he appealed to practice and experience. So also would he—he would appeal to the experience afforded in another part of the kingdom. Although found in another part of the kingdom, it by no means weakened the force of his argument, because it rested on the immutable laws of nature. The measure before the House was supported by arguments, which, to his judgment, appeared unanswerable, and it was at the same time in unison with the best feelings of our nature. In his mind no doubt could be entertained but that specific punishment would have the effect of deterring offenders, more than the uncertainty which now existed, when not one in a hundred was executed under the law. With this experience of the effect which the repeal of the capital punishment, in the case of depredations committed in bleaching-grounds, had produced, supported by the known reluctance of persons to come forward to prosecute, when the law inflicted a punishment which those persons did not consider commensurate with the offence perpetrated, he thought an alteration in the law was obviously necessary. There was a report then lying on the table, from the judges in India, containing much curious information on the subject of the criminal law; and from this it appeared, that while persons in this country were combating in support of this uncertainty of punishment, their fellow-subjects, in another part of the world, were contending for another principle—that principle which the House were now called upon to adopt, and which, if they acted wisely, they would support. The judges of India were favourable to this alteration of the law, in a country which, till a recent period, was very much disturbed. This circumstance he mentioned, to shew that the principle of his hon. and learned friend, was neither so dangerous, so alarming, or so novel, as its opponents seemed to imagine. He hoped that the arguments which had been adduced against the measure, on former occasions, would not now be resorted to. He apprehended it would no longer be attributed to those who supported it, that they wished to exclude the judges from all discretion whatever—that, he believed, was abandoned. Nor, did he think it would now be said, that it was founded on any charge of the law not being humanely administered at present. It was, in fact, introduced for the purpose of preventing the commission of crimes, the increase of which the learned gentleman (the Attorney-General) had himself admitted.

adverting to the latter observations of the hon. and learned gentleman, stated, that if the Act which abolished the capital part of the offence of stealing from the person privately had operated to diminish the number of offenders, the argument drawn from analogy might be fairly applied to the present Bill, the object of which was, to extend the abolition of the punishment of death to the offence of stealing privately from shops. But it would be an inversion of every legitimate rule of reasoning to infer that because, an experiment had failed with respect to one statute, it must necessarily succeed when tried upon another. The question was, did the former experiment proceed? Upon a subject of this kind the opinion of the chief justice of England appeared to him to claim the most respectful deference and attention, and he could state to the House that lord Ellenborough had declared, that the Act to which he had referred, with respect to the punishment of stealing from the person, had increased that offence to an enormous and alarming degree. There were but two grounds on which their reasoning upon this question could be founded—experience, which was against the principles of his hon. and learned friend the proposer of this measure, and theory, which could alone be produced in its support. He had lately met with a work purporting to be a digest of all the speeches and treatises that had ever been published on the subject of the punishment of death, and when he stated that he had read through four octavo volumes with a view of forming a correct opinion of this Bill, he hoped that it would be allowed he bad exerted some industry. It contained much curious information, and a good deal of instruction. But, having perused it attentively, he still remained unconvinced by the arguments which were adduced in favour of the theory. For his own part, he valued the living practical opinion of lord Ellenborough and the other judges more than all the theories of all the speculative writers, the Voltaires and the Rousseaus included, which this country or France or the whole of Europe had ever produced. In the work to which he alluded, the doctrine of not punishing crimes with death was carried to a very great extent. An instance was given as an illustration of this doctrine where a strong man robbed another, by no means so powerful, of 2,000l. The person robbed endeavoured to defend himself, and struck the depredator—the latter, however, being of a cooler temper, refrained from using any personal violence; and, therefore, it was contended, because, having received this provocation, he had not added murder to robbery, that he ought not to be punished capitally. It was carrying the theory rather too far, to say, "As you have not proceeded to the extreme of violence, which your strength permitted, you shall not be visited by the severity of the law." This might be con- sidered as a fair sample of the chimerical views and the extravagant notions with which the book abounded. The two great fundamental principles of all criminal legislation had been laid down by an illustrious writer to consist in, either establishing and measuring the penal inflictions of the law, by a certain invariable standard, or in fixing them at a high point of severity, and leaving to the discretion of the judges the power of enforcing or mitigating, pro re nata, the application of the law. Dr. Paley laid down these two distinct systems of law—the one where a given standard of punishment was attached to every offence; the other, where a greater punishment was affixed to crimes than it would be always necessary to inflict, leaving it in the discretion of the judges to diminish it. On the latter principle the law of England was built, and he saw no necessity for altering it, while the judges were actuated by feelings of tenderness and humanity.

Upon the principle maintained by the supporters of the present Bill, all the Acts implicating the punishment of transportation ought to be repealed, for he might venture to say that neither that nor the punishment of any statutable offence whatever had been originally enacted with a view of being rigorously enforced and entirely withdrawn from the superintending and controuling discretion of those engaged in the administration of the law. Acting on the new principle, they might go on to destroy every criminal statute; for it was well known, that, in 80 cases out of 100, in which transportation was the maximum of punishment attached to an offence, the judge commuted it for a less severe penalty. He did not prefer the old law to the new which was suggested, merely on the ground that it was old; but before he consented to surrender an established system, he required that the advantages for which it was to be exchanged should be great, paramount, and unequivocal. Nothing could, he apprehended, be more mischievous should these discussions unfortunately produce that effect, than to propagate among the people an opinion that the laws by which they were governed were cruel or nugatory, and that in those high quarters from which their administration proceeded there was any deficiency of humanity or attention. He had himself an entire confidence in the integrity and wisdom of those exalted personages who filled the judicial situa- tions in this country. Until he should see them abusing their functions and perverting that sacred deposit, that constant living principle which, as Dr. Paley had said, the law entrusted to them, to purposes of unreasonable severity and sanguinary justice, he should feel it his duty to resist the further introduction of an innovating spirit into the criminal legislation of the empire, especially as he was aware that many persons considered that change was improvement, and contained the principles of amelioration in itself.

expressed his concurrence with several of the principles and sentiments avowed by his hon. and learned friend. But he could not help lamenting that instead of confining his arguments to the very concise Bill then on the table, he had thought it necessary to enter into a refutation of the principles contained in that voluminous work, which he was sorry that his valuable time had been misapplied in reading, so far as it bore reference to the measure before them. Now he was unacquainted with the work: but he was sure if his learned friend had heard the arguments with which the hon. and learned mover of the present Bill had introduced similar measures, he would have perceived, that he had borrowed no one weapon from that armoury. So far from discarding practice for theory, he wished to bring home the theory of the law to its practice. It was his object to restore the law of the land to its original state—to bring it back to the situation in which it stood a century ago, when the experiment was tried on it, which was found ineffectual for the prevention of crime. Instead of endeavouring to establish his own theory upon the ruins of the criminal jurisprudence of this country, his hon. and learned friend (Sir S. Romilly) had in this Bill proposed to bring back the practice to the true and ancient theory of the law. This object he pursued, because the deviation which had subsisted for a century from the principles of that theory, showed practically that the extension of the severest punishment that man could inflict on man, that this last resort of legislation had not answered the views entertained at the period when it was adopted. The strongest argument, he was ready to confess, that he had heard urged against this measure, was, the opinion entertained by the judges, an opinion, entitled to the most profound respect, whether viewed in connexion with their experience, or the unexampled integrity and wisdom with which they discharged the arduous functions of their exalted situation. He regretted that one of the most prevalent faults of the present day was a want of reverence for those high magistrates who were not more useful to the community than they were venerable for their private virtues. But although it was extremely plausible to say that the practitioners of a science were the best judges of the policy of any deviation from an established system, yet was this a principle that could be maintained by a reference to examples? A strong feeling against any alteration in established systems, always pervaded those bodies of men who were connected with them. If they referred to the history of improvements in medicine, it would be found that Dr. James's discovery of antimony being a specific in fevers, had to contend with the general opposition of the faculty; as was the case likewise with the first introduction of the practice of inoculation, and more lately still, of vaccinnation. There was a natural propensity in all men, and neither learning nor wisdom could always remove it, to resist every species of change or deviation from established or ancient usages. With respect to the opinion of lord Ellenborough, which had been cited by his hon. and learned friend, he was at a loss to know how the constat could be satisfactorily made out as to that fact. What more than every other consideration weighed with him in supporting the present measure was, the advantage of introducing certainty into the feelings with which the awful period when the sentence of the law was pronounced would be contemplated both by the unhappy prisoner himself and those on whom his fate was destined to operate as an example. It was not the actual sufferance of death that infused terror and spread a contagious influence, it was the first communication of the sentence uttered with the usual solemnity that most powerfully impressed the human heart with those sensations which produced repentance and deterred from crime. What was there so well calculated to dissipate these terrors, and to annihilate that wholesome influence, as the knowledge that in not more than one case in twenty was the sentence carried into execution? It should be considered by those who insisted that the law operated as forcibly on offenders as on prosecutors and juries, that their means of information were very un equal, that the former only knew the law from the practice, and that A, B, and C, the companions of the depredation of the latter, and who had been tried for the same offence, had only been transported, a punishment not very terrific to old and practised offenders. It was thus that when a case occurred where the law was put in execution, the criminal had in some measure the appearance, as had been truly said by his hon. and learned friend (sir S. Romilly) of being entrapped and ensnared into his fate. It had, then, the effect only of exciting sympathy and commiseration in his behalf, and feelings of hatred and horror at the cruelty of that sentence which had operated in the particular instance with such partial severity. He next adverted to the necessity which juries were under of trifling with the solemn obligation of an oath, for the purpose of evading the severity of the law. He recollected a case at which he had been present when a young man, and attending the trials at the Old Bailey, of a young woman who was indicted for robbing her master of a sideboard of plate. It appeared, however, in the course of the prosecution, that she had been seduced by her master, that her character had been before unimpeached, and her whole demeanour during the time of her imprisonment and trial so expressive of anguish and contrition, that although one of the articles stolen was a silver tankard, the judge told the jury that he had purposely abstained from asking any question relative to the value of the property, and that if they were satisfied, they would find the prisoner not guilty of the capital part of the charge, of which she was accordingly acquitted. There was no man at all conversant with the proceedings in criminal courts, who did not know that cases of the same description were perpetually occurring. And was not this habit of trifling with a juror's oath a serious inconvenience, and might it not, when once contracted, by a comparatively easy transition be extended to other cases, in which the same conscientious feeling could not be urged in extenuation? He entirely agreed that the innovation in an abstract was an evil, and that it ought always to be regarded with an eye of jealousy; but the measure before the House was, in fact, no innovation, but a restoration of the old common law, after the suspension of upwards of a century.

contended that the onus probandi of the argument lay on those who recommended the alteration of an existing law. The statute of king William, which altered the common law, was framed in the best times of the country, and by a parliament abounding with enlightened men. The preamble stated that the crime having greatly increased, it was expedient to provide a new remedy, and now the very same plea was urged to induce the House to undo what was then done, and to revert to the old principles of the common law. The Bill he considered as highly injurious to the interests of society. Instead of ameliorating the situation of the subject, it would, by encouraging crime, be found in the end a measure of severity, and not of mercy. He was obliged to his hon. and learned friend (Mr. Wetherall) for having read the extract with which he had favoured the House; since it had put them in possession of lord Ellenborough's opinion on the subject, which was entitled to the utmost attention. The Acts which the present Bill went to repeal, were passed at the time of the Revolution, in the best period of our history; and had the sanction of men, whose abilities were equal to any which the present age could boast; and he could see no reason for hazarding, by an experiment, that which their wisdom had produced.—If the present measure was carried, a similar application would be made to alter another part of the criminal law; until, step by step, the whole was removed. But when it was found so beneficial in its application, he hoped it would not be set aside to make room for theories. When an innovation on the law was proposed in former times the answer of our forefathers was—"Nolumus Leges Angliœ mutari;" and he hoped such an answer would always be returned. He hoped that the principle laid down would ever be acknowledged by that House, and that before any innovation was resorted to, a very clear case should be made out of the necessity for it. But this was not the case; it was scarcely possible that the law as it stood could ever have the effect against which guards were sought to be provided. If it could be shewn, that a single individual had suffered under the existing law, who ought not to have suffered, he would vote for the alteration, for he thought it was better that property, to any extent, should be sacrificed, rather than the life of one individual. But the humanity of judges was proverbial, and that was not the only security which a prisoner had.—After the jury had convicted him, he still had his petition to the crown; and, by the crown it was submitted to the consideration of those ministers, who conducted the government of the country.—Unless, therefore, those hon. persons could be suspected of a design to sacrifice him, he was sure to have justice administered under the existing law. The learned serjeant, in conclusion, observed, that the objection against the uncertainty of punishment applied no less to the measure now under consideration, than to that which it would repeal, for a discretion was placed in the hands of the judge, by which he could commute transportation for fine or imprisonment.

in order to show the impropriety of leaving a latitude of severity to the discretion of a judge, and to refute the assumption of those who contended that they would always lean to the side of mercy, stated, that to his knowledge persons committed for offences in the west of England, and whose guilt was at all dubious, were frequently most anxious to ascertain whether or not the late judge Buller would come the circuit, conceiving that if that learned person were not to try them, they had very good grounds to hope for an acquittal. In supporting the Bill he observed, that as a learned gentleman (Mr. Wetherall) had read an extract from a work, he also should take the liberty of quoting a passage from Mr. Ruffhead's erudite and excellent preface to his Statutes, where he observed—"Our statute laws seem to breathe too much the spirit of severity—under them, persons are hurried out of the world, for slight trespasses, who, by a little care, might be made useful members of society." He would also remind the learned gentleman of the words of an ancient poet of great celebrity, who was no less capable of laughing at and ridiculing the follies and vices of the age in which he lived, than he was calculated to form rules worthy the respect and obedience of posterity. He thus expressed himself in favour of a certain equality of punishment, commensurate with the crime:—

"Adsit

Regula, peccatis quœ pœ has irroget œquas;

Ne scuticiâ dignum, horribili sectêre flagello."

The passage he had quoted sufficiently proved that the supporters of the Bill were not advocating a theory of mere modern growth: and its opponents, when they pressed upon the fact of the statute having been inoperative for a length of time, and thence inferred that there was no necessity for its being expunged, should be reminded, that during that time almost every writer who had had occasion to advert to it bad reprobated its continuance on the statute book. If the system which would be altered by the Bill was one of yesterday, then he would agree that it ought to be tried for a longer period—but, when, after the experience of a century, it was found ineffectual, it ought to be removed. The Attorney General seemed to think that the existing Acts had the effect of operating, in terrorem, to prevent crimes. They certainly were sufficient to deter those who were well educated from the commission of offences; but this was not the case with the lower classes of society, who were destitute of education, and who possessed, in a high degree, the spirit of adventure. To the general severity of punishments he was altogether adverse, he was of opinion that they had by no means the effects they were supposed to have, and if any fact was sufficient to decide a question, this in his mind was most completely decided by that of the depredations of pickpockets being more frequently exercised amidst the crowds which usually assembled before Newgate on days when there happened to be an execution at the front of that prison than in any other situation whatsoever. Poverty, a hatred to labour, and a dislike to confinement, were the principal incentives to crime. The surest punishment, therefore, was, to inflict poverty, labour, and confinement, on those who transgressed the law. As he could see no evil whatever which was likely to result from the Bill, and as, on the contrary, he expected much good to arise from it, he conceived it went to provide a moderate and temperate alteration of the law, it should accordingly have his support.

argued warmly in favour of the Bill, contending, that the law it went to alter was not one of those by which any of the great interests of society were protected. It left the enactments against burglary, and other during crimes, subject as ever to be repressed by severity, warding it off only from those whose guilt was by no means of very great atrocity. Nothing could, in his opinion, be a greater outrage on all the feelings of humanity than the inequality of our criminal laws. The person who had purloined an old horse from a stable, or a cast-off cover from a warehouse, was liable to a punishment than which nothing more severe could be awarded against the most cruel and daring violator of human rights.

opposed the Bill. He conceived that very erroneous views were sometimes formed of the principles upon which criminal laws were enacted. With respect to the law which the present Bill was meant to alter, we were not to contemplate the crime, the repression of which constituted its object, with a reference merely to the proportion of moral delinquency which it involved, we were also to take into the account the temptation to commit it inevitably held out by reference to the existing state of society, and likewise the amount of inconvenience which might be sustained by the persons whose property the law was intended to protect. An ample illustration of the principle he was endeavouring to establish, might be drawn from the state of the laws with respect to forgery; no one thought of altering the laws with respect to that crime, no one conceived they were of excessive severity; but yet no one could dispute that such severity was not dealt out in the ratio of the amount of guilt which the action involved. Forgery was simply a form of the crimen falsi, of the violation of property upon false and fraudulent pretences, which not being in any other case equally injurious to the interests of society, was in none punished with the same measure of severity. The crime, indeed, to the perpetrator of which the present Bill went to render impunity more certain, was but little inferior in atrocity as well as in its injurious effects to those who suffered from it. He would desire the House to consider the situation of the shopkeeper, obliged in the course of his business to display his goods in such a manner as to attract, together with his customers, those unworthy persons from whose rapacity he had no defence, but what the salutary terror of the law supplied. Reposing, as he did, a great degree of confidence in those who came into his premises; he would ask, could a greater degree of baseness be well imagined, than was fairly imputable to those who could take advantage of that confidence to despoil him of his property. It was well known, by all those who could possibly be supposed interested in the cause of humanity, that the punishment which it was the object of the Bill to erase from the Statute Book, was never put in execution; and if its remaining unrepealed, under these circumstances, could deter individuals, who were not sufficiently informed to be aware of it, from the commission of crimes, he conceived there were very strong reasons for allowing it to remain. To repeal the law was not to obtain a certain degree of impunity for those who were called petty delinquents, for that they had already: it was merely to call aloud to them, to inform them that they might rest assured they should invariably and permanently enjoy it, and as it were to invite them to pilfer. It was to place arguments in favour of villainy in the hands of such experienced rogues as might feel disposed to entice the youth, of either sex, into the paths in which they themselves thought proper to walk. He could suppose a person of this description meeting in the street with a friendless and unprotected lad; and, after having ascertained his condition, inviting him to an association in his iniquitous pursuits, by an assurance, that to be sent to Botany Bay was the worst that could happen to him in the event of detection, He could not let slip the present opportunity of animadverting on the manner in which the name of Draco, the legislator of antiquity, so remarkable for severity, was used upon, all occasions. This man's name was a kind of talismanic word, which it was always deemed sufficient to use, with sufficient copiousness of repetition, whenever a question of mitigating the severity of penal laws happened to be agitated: and when it would be held forth as a beacon, warning from the shelves of cruelty, in a preface to the statutes, in a fair and ample volume, with the King's arms blazoned in the title page, it was difficult to say into what species of document it might find its way at last. Of this he was satisfied, that it was frequently used by those, who did not understand themselves in what manner any illustration of their arguments could be derived from it.

, on rising to reply to some of the arguments which had been urged against the Bill, said he should not trespass long on the patience of the House, nor did he intend to have troubled them at all, were it not that he found it necessary in justification of himself. To those members who had not before heard him on this subject, it would afford satisfaction to hear that his was not theory; and though those gentlemen who opposed the present Bill obliged him by bestowing on him the appellation of a theorist, they themselves were in reality the theorists. It would be some relief to those gentlemen who objected to him that he was accustomed to indulge in fanciful theories, when he assured them that he would now cautiously abstain from obtruding on their attention any thing of that kind; at the same time he could not help observing, that this charge, so frequently preferred against him, was by no means well-founded; on the contrary, he had the satisfaction of thinking that those who were most forward in accusing him, were themselves addicted to the practice they condemned. He really was not conscious that he had attempted to support any measures such as that which was the object of the present Bill by theoretical arguments; he had always, in endeavouring to recommend them to the House, relied principally on facts, and he had very diligently laboured to put the House in possession of those facts. These practical men, as they would have themselves supposed, however, who opposed the Bill, had brought forward no facts in support of their opinions. They disclaimed even to have recourse to those facts bearing on the subject which they had before them. He was sorry not to have heard the sentiments of his hon. and learned friend (the Solicitor General) on this measure, considering how gratifying it must have been to the House to learn the opinion of a learned gentleman of his great experience on the subject. The simple question now at issue was, whether a law, enacted in the reign of William 3, which made robbery to the amount of more than 5s. without any aggravated circumstances, a capital offence, should remain on the statute book. Without at all alluding to the changes produced by the lapse of time, and even to the change in the opinion of the judges since the time of king William, an hon. and learned friend of his (Mr. Wetherall) called on the House to adhere to the ancient system of our criminal law, and for information on that head referred them to a work of Dr, Paley. This, however, was a work not founded on an enquiry into the ancient system of our criminal law, but into the nature of that law as it had been practised in modern times. Now, he would remind the House, that for a considerable time the judges had, without being charged with indulging in theories, seen occasion to swerve in their practice from the spirit of legisla- tive enactment; a spirit, which by the way, had not been by any means always dormant, as the punishment in question had been inflicted till within the reign of his present Majesty; and the frequency with which it had been inflicted could be ascertained from Howard's book on prisons. From this it appeared that from the year 1749 to 1771 the number tried was 250, of whom 109, or nearly one half, were convicted. Within the last five years, on the other hand, in London alone, there had been tried for similar offences 188, of whom were convicted only 18, being only one in 10 of those indicted, and of the 18 convicted not one had been executed. Now, he asked how the disparity between the number tried and the number convicted was to be accounted for, on any other principle but the unwillingness of the jury to find the property stolen to be of the value required by the Act?—He asked, could any stronger argument against an existing law be conceived, than that crimes not only increased but multiplied under it?—Or could any thing be more absurd than that the punishment of death should continue to be held out as applicable to offences of a more trivial nature, where it was perfectly well known that such punishment would never be inflicted?—It was said that the Bill repealing the capital part of the punishment for privately stealing from the person had had the effect of increasing that crime. He denied that that crime had increased since the passing of the Act repealing the capital part of the punishment; but if the fact was so, it remained to be shewn that the alteration in the law had been the cause of it. For if crime in general had increased, it would be rather too much to hold that the increase of it in this particular instance, had been caused by the alteration in the law. The increase of crime in general would be apparent from the returns before the House; and could with fairness be attributed in a very principal degree, only to the uncertainty of the punishment, or rather to the certainty that no such punishment as that provided for the offence would be inflicted. The whole committals in the year 1805, throughout the kingdom, for offences of this kind, amounted to 980—in 1806 to 890—in 1807 to 1017—in 1808 to 1110—in 1811 to 1242—and in 1812 to 1484. So that in those six years the committals had increased upwards of 500. Now, in order to see what alteration had been ef- fected, it was necessary to enquire what number of persons had been executed for those crimes since the latest of the periods mentioned. There had not been one.—He had been accused of ringing the changes on impracticable theories, but he had never dealt in theories; he had supplied the House with facts—he proceeded on facts, plain demonstrative facts; but something very much like theory had been arrayed against him. But the Act of 1809 had produced happy results. A noble and learned lard (Ellenborough) was reported to have said, that the alteration in the law as to privately stealing from the person had caused an increase of that offence; but he denied that the mere increase in the number of committals for that offence proved the assertion, as the increase might be attributable to the increase of crime in general, and also to the fact that since the alteration in the law, parties were less disinclined to prosecute. The authority of the Lord Chief Justice had been often referred to—it was assumto be his opinion, that the crime of stealing privately from the person had increased since the capital part of the punishment had been taken away. But he had declared the same opinion that the crime had increased in 1808, before the passing of the Act. He did not know why the authority of the Lord Chief Justice should be singled out as superior to every other: he did not try so many criminal causes as the other judges; nor was it possible for any judge officially to ascertain whether the crime had really increased or not.—The number of prosecutions at any period it was easy to ascertain, not the number of offences; and that the number of prosecutions would be greater in proportion to the number of offences was what had been foreseen and foretold as the consequence of passing this Act. In 1805 there were 23 persons indicted for this offence, and only one convicted; in 1806,31 persons tried, and one convicted; in the next year, 37 indicted, and three convicted; and in 1808, from January till June, when the capital part of the punishment was abolished, there were 31 persons indicted for stealing privately from the person. Such was the progressive increase of this crime before his Bill had passed, which had been considered as the subsequent effect of the passing of that Bill. So little attention did those gentlemen who talked against theory, pay to facts. They were SO taken up with their zeal about practical men, and faculty men, and the great superiority of experience over speculation, that they never once condescended to look at the returns laid upon the table. As to the terror held out by these unexecuted punishments, on which so much stress had been laid, it was purely chimerical, they had no such effect. Let the House for a moment remember how vast a difference there was between the great number of indictments and the small number of convictions which formerly took place, and the nearer proportion between the convictions and indictments which were now observed. The fact was, that juries were not to be found who would find guilty on such sanguinary laws. It was demonstrated by the statement. Before the passing of that Bill, within a specific period thirty were indicted, but one only was found guilty; and after the Bill became a law, within the same period 99 were indicted, and 45 out of that number were convicted.

The reason of this evidently was, that the law being less sanguinary, the juries did not hesitate to convict men when evidence had proved them to be guilty. To keep these sanguinary Acts standing on the statute books, as threats, was much, worse than useless; for that fact often prevented men from being convicted when they really were guilty. Many instances could be adduced to show, that in consequence of the laws regarding some particular offences being so very sanguinary, men who had been guilty of those offences, even in an aggravated degree, were not even proceeded against. This applied particularly to bankrupts. How many bankrupts were guilty of those offences which the law made punishable, with death, such as secreting their property, and not appearing to their commission, yet who were never proceeded against: such was the terrible severity of the law. (Hear!) Its terrible severity was such that no one could be found to prosecute, for there were but very few creditors who could ever think of proceeding against a bankrupt, however deeply that bankrupt might have injured them, when such proceeding was to endanger the man's life.—Though those offences were extremely common, as must be well known to those who had any thing to do with bankruptcies, yet had there been only four prosecuted within half a century! But was it surprising that such a law remained a mere dead letter on the statutes? If those offences were punishable by transportation, or by imprisonment for a term of years, would not many bankrupts be justly prosecuted for secreting their property from their creditors, or for not appearing to the commission? Where then was the boasted benefit resulting from holding out a terror which was not carried into execution? and to contend for it on the ground of its being a terror, was a very bad argument. Men who referred to facts, who did not indulge in theories, were well convinced of this. Gentlemen were fond of facts, and he would appeal, by way of illustration, to an instance given by a respectable traveller, Barrow, in his account of the Cape of Good Hope. When he arrived there, the law still ordered breaking on the wheel and torture for certain offences; and when it was proposed to repeal these Jaws, all the lawyers exclaimed loudly against the repeal; they said, that though never put in force, these punishments were necessary in terrorem, and that simple strangling with a cord would not have any effect. The judges were of the same opinion. The laws were, however, repealed, and the consequence was, than an application was soon after made by the hangman to have a pension assigned him, as owing to the diminution of the number of criminals, his place was become a sort of sinecure. Strangling, putting on the rack and beheading, were punishments which were still enforced there by the letter of the law. The statesmen saw that they were never enforced, in fact, and that the continuance of the law was detrimental rather than otherwise. They applied for the repeal of them—but the continuance of the laws was defended on the ground of their being valuable as a terror. They continued but were never enforced, and the consequence was, that the poor executioner petitioned the government for a pension, offering at the same time to give up his fees of office! With respect to the authority of the judges in favour of the present law, it should be remembered that till 1771 they had executed that law, and their present practice was an innovation on the law, which was no longer any thing more than a mere theory. The learned serjeant (Best) had said, that if any possible case could be found in which the sentence ought to be executed, this would be a sufficient justification of the law. But he would suppose a case of assault so aggravated as to deserve capital punishment; as for instance, if a son should cruelly and wantonly assault a kind and most indulgent father, was the hon. and learned gentleman, therefore, prepared to say, that he would make an assault capital in all cases whatever? If so, he must bring in an entirely new code of laws, and if it would not offend his hon. friend near him to repeat the name, he would advise the learned serjeant to inscribe them with the name of Draco. The learned member had quoted the maxim, "Nolumus leges Angliœ mutari." But he must beg to remind him when and how those words were applied. They were used by the barons when they resisted the attempt to overturn the whole system of our laws, and to introduce the old Roman for the common law of the land. If they were to be quoted against all alterations in the existing laws, why then the learned serjeant would have appealed to them when it was first proposed in the time of queen Anne to have witnesses examined in favour of the prisoner, or when it was proposed to extend the benefit of clergy to women as well as men, or when it was determined to abolish the being able to read, as the criterion which was to preclude capital punishment in certain cases. Such must have been the effect of applying the learned Serjeant's measures during all times—such would have been the character of the failures of statesmen, had it always been thought that things ought to be left as they were. But the Attorney General differed from the learned serjeant. He had said that the crime had increased, and that of course the law ought to be altered with the view of meeting such increase; but such alteration the learned serjeant would not allow; no, he would let evils multiply, but he would touch the law, not for the purpose of preventing such increase. With respect to the sentence of death, it had been said that there were "different" ways of pronouncing it—one way when the criminal was really to be hanged, and another when it was intended that he should be respited. But he knew nothing of these "different ways" of pronouncing a sentence of death, for if there were any such practices, the pronunciation of the sentence must lose much of its efficacy. He knew of but one way, and as the prisoner remained ignorant of any intention to lessen his punishment, the pronunciation of the sentence must have all the effect it would have if the sentence was really to be enforced. The only form he knew of was that where the judge concluded with solemnly pronouncing "And the Lord have mercy on your soul!" He had witnessed the awful and heartrending effects which the delivery of this sentence had on the criminals; and in some instances where it was the intention not to execute, he had seen the judge, after the sentence had been pronounced, send to the prisoners, such was their dangerous state, to assure them that the sentence was not to be executed! What benefit could result from such a proceeding, and, besides, what advantages resulted from placing a judge in such situations? He was for reducing law to the practice of the law, and for enacting such punishments for offences as would not be of that sanguinary character which would induce juries to acquit where some punishment was due. He would conclude in the words of the Master of the Rolls, whose absence he deeply regretted, that when the law was such as to be no longer executed from its repugnance to the manners and sentiments of the community, the time was come to repeal that law, and to substitute others for it more mild and more effectual.

The House then divided, when the numbers were,

The Bill was then read a third time and passed.