rose to bring forward the motion of which he had given notice for the minutes of evidence taken before the committee on the Kent Gaol Bill. He commenced by describing the plan on which it was intended to build the New Gaol, and proceeded to shew that the expence would be enormously great, and enormously more than was necessary. He then noticed the arts which had been resorted to, for the purpose of making this plan appear to be that of the magistrates of the county, though it by no means deserved that character, as the number of magistrates who had given it the sanction of their names, did not amount to thirty. Though the plan had been sent round by a special messsenger to the whole magistracy of the county, he (Mr. Calcraft), understood it had only gained the support of 22 of the magistrates. The present plan would, if carried into effect, cost the county 250,000l., while every thing that was requisite might be obtained at the ex-pence of 100,000l. He admitted that a new gaol was wanted, but not such a one as it had been proposed to erect. It was not to the erection of a gaol that he objected, but to that wild and useless expenditure which was contemplated. He wished a prison to be built large enough to contain all the prisoners it was thought it might be necessary to send to it, but he did not wish one to be raised which would cover 18 or 19 acres of ground; and which would be large enough to hold a greater number of prisoners than had ever been confined at one time in the county. Why it had been proposed to build a prison which would contain so large a number of persons, he could not tell. When the question was put to the architect, he had answered that the number was taken from a book; and when asked where the book was, and desired to point out that of which he had spoken, his answer was, that the books were so large, he could not im- mediately turn to that which those who interrogated him on the subject wished to see. This was not the way to do business. The contract stated to have been made was in no respect satisfactory. There might be a contract, but there was no security; nothing to assure them that its conditions would be properly fulfilled. Every thing connected with the subject was irregular and unsatisfactory. The greatest extravagance appeared in the building estimates. There were houses to be built for the turnkeys (three in number) and the expence was to be 9,675l. The turnkeys were thus to have a house worth 3,000l. each. The chaplain was also to have an expensive house built, and the house of the gaoler was to cost no less than 8,475l. This was an expence which, if it had appeared in the ordnance estimates, or in the army or navy estimates, that House would feel it to be its duty to institute some inquiry into the subject, and he thought it was that which in the present case ought not to be passed over. He did not object to building houses for the turnkeys, but he did object to building such as had been projected. The gaoler, if this plan was carried into effect, would be accommodated with a better house than a Lord of the Admiralty; for he believed his friend opposite, who was one of the lords of the Admiralty, was, not provided with a house worth 8,475l. He wished a house to be built for the gaoler, and he wished that house to be respectable, but he did not see that it was necessary for him to be better accommodated than the lords of the Admiralty. He then noticed the great increase of the county rates to meet this expence. These were raised from 10,889l.—to 36,476l Those who were called upon to pay this, had heavy taxes to pay, which were imposed by the minister of the country, for the service of the state. Surely then, they ought to be protected against such excessive taxation by others. Nothing could be more offensive to the county of Kent, than to be taxed in this manner; and he could take upon himself to state, that the taxes thus laid on, caused more dissatisfaction than even the pro-perty tax. It was proper that the prison to be built should be airy and spacious, but it was not necessary that it should occupy a domain of eighteen acres of land. This, he supposed, was to give sufficient space for all sorts of games to be carried on. within it. In this plan a circular wall was made to consume four acres of ground, and altogether he thought the plan one of the wildest that had ever been framed. In order to collect a sufficient number of persons to occupy this gaol, it was intended to pull down the old bridewell at Dartford, and remove it to Maidstone.—This would cause about 120 additional prisoners to be annually sent to Maidstone, and thus the county would be put to the expence of conveying most of these persons thirty miles, instead of about ten. The bridewell at Dartford it appeared on a survey recently made, might be repaired and made most useful. And at what expence could this be done? It could be accomplished for 3,500l.! Yet this plan was rejected. He (Mr. Calcraft) felt he had taken up too much of the time of the House on this subject, but it arose from his anxiety to make them thoroughly comprehend what a precious undertaking that was, which it was intended to carry into effect. If the plan of Mr. Alexander were realised, the county of Kent would be put to the expence of 350l. for each prisoner. He hoped the House would look to this, and supply an effectual remedy. He and those who acted with him were desirous that a prison should be built offering all the advantages of Mr. Howard's plan. What they wanted was, inspection, separation, ventilation, and security; and room for such a number of prisoners as the county was likely to have to take care of. They wished the prison to have court houses attached to it. These they thought necessary, but these they contended could be erected with the gaol for 100,000/. with every necessary convenience. It was proposed to do this in the Bill. They were willing to erect such court houses, &c. as would be useful and becoming, but they objected to an unnecessary enlargement of the expence, when for the sum which he had mentioned they could obtain all that was wanting, and build a prison which would give perfect security, and do credit to the county. Under these circumstances he hoped the motion, with which he was about to conclude, would be agreed to, that the House might see on what evidence the decision of the committee on the Bill was founded. He then moved, "That there be laid before the House, and printed, a copy of the minutes of evidence taken before the committee on the Bill for building a new jail in the county of Kent, with a bridewell and court houses, and for imposing a new rate on the county to defray the expences thereof." He wished in the present instance to have the minutes taken in the committee laid before the House, intending to found a motion on them, for revising the decision come to by that committee.

in seconding the motion, was anxious to offer a few observations on this subject, having had an opportunity, which but few members had, of witnessing the effect produced by the rates imposed on the county. In the parish in which he resided, the gentlemen, very honourably to themselves, served in rotation the principal parish offices. It had come to his turn about three years ago to fill one of these, in which it was his business to collect the rates imposed. The distress and consternation which every where appeared when he applied for it, was excessive, and the difficulty of collecting it immense. He had paused in the collection of it, to communicate this to one of the magistrates of the county, and to request instructions how to act. The answer of the magistrate was, that the money must be paid. The rate was. according collected, but the distress which it had occasioned had made a great impression on his mind; for in addition to the property tax, and other heavy taxes imposed by the necessities of the state, a county rate of five per cent. was imposed on the landholder; which the poor farmer, whose interest in the land expired with his lease, was obliged to pay, while the owner of the land paid nothing. One of the objects of the Bill brought in had been, to do away this, and to divide the county rate, equally between the occupier and the proprietor of the land. This had been thrown out, but if the evidence called for were laid before the House, he looked for a very different result. He would not take up the time of the House long, as more urgent business called for their attention, but he wished to make one observation on the plan of the magistrates, for pulling down the bridewell at Dartford. The population of that part of the county near Dartford, amounted to 90,000 persons. Was it then right that there should be no place of confinement nearer than Maidstone? Ought every disorderly person, every loose woman, every petty offender from Deptford, Greenwich, or Woolwich, to be sent all the way to Maidstone. The pulling down the bridewell at Dartford, furnished of itself a great objection to the plan, imposing as it did on the county the necessity of carrying many offenders 25 miles, whom otherwise it would only be necessary to move a very short distance. A question arose as to the law—whether so small a portion of the magistracy as that with which this plan had commenced, were warranted in doing what they had done? He was warranted in saying (and he said it on very high authority), that it was not believed they would act thus according to law. With this impression a large portion of the county of Kent would refuse to pay the rate—would go to law, and the consequence might be, that that great county would be thrown into the utmost confusion. He trusted the House, consulting justice, would avert this evil, and he therefore hoped the motion would be agreed to.

said, the question before the House was simply this, whether after referring the subject to a committee, which had given it the fullest investigation, they would take upon themselves to reverse that decision, which upon mature deliberation, the committee had come to. It was impossible to be silent after what had just been staled. The hon. gentleman had told the House of the great distress which he had witnessed, when collecting the county rate. He ought to have stated to the House that at the time that rate of one shilling in the pound was raised, it was to meet the first expences, which necessarily caused a larger rate to be imposed, than was afterwards wanted. No subsequent rate on account of the gaol, had been, or would be, more than threepence in the pound, so that consternation and alarm which the hon. gentleman (Mr. J. Smith) had described, could no longer be supposed to prevail in the county. He admitted that there was some excess on the estimates, but contended there was no want of responsibility.—With respect to what had been said on the subject of the bridewell, he approved of the plan as it related to that, and he thought the magistrates wise in wishing to have but one place of confinement in the whole county, and that one under the direction of one person. The benefits of such a system he instanced in the county of Gloucester, and he contended the discipline of those gaols was much better, where they had a considerable number of prisoners; than that of those where they had but a few. He would not trouble the House further, as very important business was before it.

But that this Bill should be re-committed, he thought they would agree with him was quite unnecessary. The committee had sat on it 17 days. It had been attended by those who were most competent to give information on the subject. After giving it the fullest consideration, the committee had divided near a hundred members, which he believed was considered a pretty full attendance. To institute further proceedings on the subject; to refer the Bill again to a committee for the purpose of endeavouring to reverse the decision which had been come to, appeared to him to be that which the House could not do.

was unwilling to intrude on the patience of the House by dwelling on a local subject at a time when a most important national question called for their fullest attention. But there was some thing so extraordinary in the present motion, and so extraordinary, as he conceived, in the assertions and arguments of the hon. mover, that he felt himself absolutely compelled to say something on the subject, however reluctantly; yet, it should be done with a brevity which ill calculated as it was to furnish the full answer to the speech of the hon. gentleman, which he trusted he was completely prepared to give in all its parts, might be deemed better to become him, and the respect due to the more imperious concerns of the House at such a moment. The silence he should say, it would be impossible for him to refrain from, after having attended the committee for 17 days, during which he had given the matter all the consideration that his industry and understanding could command. The result upon his mind of that painful investigation was this, that no one of the allegations in the preamble of this Bill had been proved; but not only bad they not been proved, they had been decisively and irresistibly disproved. What were those allegations? First, that the plan and estimates were unnecessarily extensive; far beyond the wants of the county, and unnecessarily costly, and ornamental. Secondly, that no contracts had been made, according to law, for the completion of the buildings. Thirdly, that they would throw a heavy and grievous burden on those who had only a temporary interest in the land, partial and unjust, and such as called for the interference of parliament, to place a portion of the expense on the landlords. Now, how had these allegations been made out?

Why, as to the extent, it was pretended, that the provision, which had been planned for 450 prisoners, ought only to have been for 331—because they stated this last to have been the maximum of the coexisting numbers of those which had hitherto been confined in the present gaol, bridewell, and house of correction. But, to say nothing of the inaccuracy of this total, it proves nothing; if true, it lays aside the leading improvement in Mr. Howard's principles of gaols, the principle of classification! That enlightened and benevolent principle, most important to the security, the morals, the reform, and the health of the prisoners, is the leading feature of that admirable plan now complained of; and on that principle it would be found that if there was a fault in the plan, it was not because it was too extensive, but because it was not extensive enough fully to embrace it. The maximum of classes was found to be 588; the plan adopted provided for only 450; so far is it from having carried the principle to an extreme. But how could the smaller or mixed total, as insisted on by this Bill, have in any degree, even the smallest, met this principle? Could the surplus of one class be turned over into the division provided for another? If so, the principle and practice of classification is annihilated. But if the plan be not too large, may not the charges of executing it be too extravagant? So far from it, that, though an attempt was made by shewing the ex-pences of other gaols to establish improvidence here, yet a minute investigation after the admitted allowances for the comparative increase of prices in all articles of building, proved the direct reverse, and from the testimony of the ablest professional men, it appeared that every thing had been contracted for as reasonably as was consistent with its being done well and substantially. As to ornament, there was not a single thing about the building as adopted, which had been done for ornament; nothing but for its usefulness. It was in evidence that this calumniated plan, so far from being wanton, whimsical, thoughtlessly costly, and uselessly large, was approved, praised, and beheld with unqualified admiration by several eminent architects, themselves engaged in great national concerns, who all came forward to give their unqualified approbation of the skill, the science, the genius, the severe simplicity, with which this model, so far exceeding any hitherto promulgated, had been contrived. The next allegation, that the magistrates had not attended strictly to the provisions of the Act from whence they derived their power, was equally unfounded. He would venture to assert, in defiance of contrary opinions, that after the ablest discussion of this point by the counsel on both sides, it was clear beyond rational dispute, that the construction given by the magistrates to this Act was true and just in reason, in law and in expedience. There is nothing in the statute to bear out the other constructions given. To insist on the necessity of one contract for the whole was to insist on what the counsel themselves gave up. To insist on simultaneous contracts was impracticable, nonsensical, and without a word in the Act to ground such an interpretation on. The third allegation about the grievous burden on the occupiers, which demanded parliamentary relief, was shewn to be ill-grounded in fact, and objectionable in principle. What was this mighty and ruinous burden? Why, the whole cost to an occupier of 100l. a year, was an annual payment for twelve years of 1l. 5s. making in those twelve years the vast and overwhelming charge of 15l. And what would the proposed limitation of the plan save him? Why 6s. 3d. a year during that time; and in the whole twelve years 3l. 15s. Such were the allegations on which this very extraordinary Bill had been formed; a Bill that went to throw on a bench of magistrates, as high in rank, in character, in property, in anxious attention to their public duties, in cultivated minds, and in industrious regard to the good of their county, as any in the kingdom, the grave and odious charge of having misused the public purse committed to their care, of having ignorantly misconstrued the law they had so carefully guided themselves by, of having lavished, in useless and childish ornaments, those funds committed to their trust for the severest purposes of the correction and reform of frail humanity when borne down by misfortune, or submitted to the rod of justice. A committee, after 17 days of painful and scrupulous attention in examining numerous witnesses, and investigating volumes of written evidence, have resolved that these grave allegations have not been made out. Will the House again entertain this question? Will they still keep magistrates, who have proved they deserve so well of their country, under the suspense of this calumnious charge?

Will they load thus their table and waste the public money in printing evidence so voluminous, from the idle hope that a committee may reverse its own decision, so maturely verified, and he would venture to repeat, so triumphantly borne out by that evidence? To what would such a precedent lead? To what endless litigation and expence in the future business of this House? What a door would it open to uncertainty, to intrigue, and to that loss of respect which always follows conflicting and opposite decisions? This was all he would trouble the House with on the present occasion. A minuter examination would more irrefragably have established the opinions he had formed on the case; but the example of the hon. mover of this question should not tempt him, at this time, so far to trifle with the patience of the House, however prepared he was, and however at a less busy period he might think the replies with which he was ready, deserving their attention, as affecting both principles and conduct, which, in their results, extended far beyond mere local interests.

in rising to offer a few observations on the question before the House, rose with the intention of giving the motion his full support. If opposition were intended to the Bill, it ought to have been gone into on the second reading. The question on which the committee had come to a decision involved a principle which he contended ought to have been met on the second reading of the Bill. The preamble of the Bill ought then, if at all, to have been debated. The Bill had his cordial support, and he trusted it would in the end meet with the approbation of the House. They had heard that they ought not to oppose that which came from the wisdom of their magistrates, but they did not know their magistrates to be infallible. The estimated expence of the new gaol, he was of opinion greatly exceeded what it ought to be. It was proposed that the erection of a prison should cost the county 250,000l. He saw nothing in the expences of other counties to justify this large expenditure. The whole expences of the county of Essex for the last ten years did not amount to the interest of the sum just named, and which appeared on the estimates. The whole of this charge, enormous as it was, it was proposed most unfairly to throw on the occupiers of the land. In a similar case which had occurred in the county, where an expence of 25,000l. was incurred, it had been thought proper to divide the burden between the owner and the occupier of the land. Why was this practice departed from in the present instance? If this charge of 250,000l. were thrown upon the occupier of the land, it could not be thought that it would ever be paid off. The Bill had had his support, and he conceived it to have been well entitled to the approbation of the House. He hoped the motion would be agreed to, and that the minutes taken before the committee would be laid on the table.

remarked, much had been said in the way of complaint of the appeal now made to the House. He hoped he should never see the day when no appeal was left to those who felt themselves aggrieved. The reasonableness of the present appeal, he thought would soon appear. With respect to the estimates, it was admitted by the hon. baronet, that there was some excess on them. Of such excess he thought the country had much to complain, when they saw it was intended to give 7,000l. of their money for a portico, and that another great ex-pence was to be incurred by a covered way, where the ladies and gentlemen confined might amuse themselves, when the weather was so unfavourable as to prevent their entertaining themselves in the open yard. The mode in which, till of late, the county had been assessed to meet the expences of erecting or maintaining prisons, &c. had been to throw one half of the charge on the owners, and the other half on the occupiers of the land. In the present instance however, the whole was thrown on the occupiers, and the owners were entirely exempted. If they wanted to get a right, good, and truly magnificent dinner, the way to obtain it was, to make one set of people pay for it, and another order and partake of it. Acting on the same principle, the magistrates had ordered a fine prison to be built, and left others to pay for it. These magistrates, who were large land-owners, had ordered the rate to be paid by the occupiers of the land, and thus exempted themselves from bearing any part of the burden which they brought on the county. In the parish id which he lived, the increase of the rates had caused great dissatisfaction, and many petitions had been drawn up and presented on the subject. The immense increase which had taken place, could not but be severely felt by the inha- bitants. He would state what the rates had been in the parish of Lewisham, and what they now were. They amounted in 1806 to 82l. 10s. In 1807 they rose to 240l. and in the last year they came up to no less than 1,252l. odd shillings?—He put it to the House if it was not hard that the county should be thus oppressed; and he could take upon himself to say, that these rates caused more dissatisfaction than all the taxes imposed by government for the service of the state. They excited more discontent, because it was known that they were unnecessary. No answer had been given to the representations made by the inhabitants of the county, till the subject was brought forward in that House. He should have thought the magistrates whose duty it was to keep the peace, would have held it to be a part of their duty not to persevere in that which so much disturbed the county. When the estimates of Mr. Alexander were touched upon, it was said that sufficient contracts had been entered into. But what ought a contract to be? it ought to be an engagement in writing, which if required could at any time be produced by the clerk of the county, to enforce the completion of the works to be commenced. Now would the contracts entered into do this? They would not. When the contractor was asked if all the buildings would be completed, when the conditions of the contract were fulfilled, he had answered in one word "No." Why then from this it was clear, that all the proceedings which had taken place, were irregular and unsatisfactory. Under all the circumstances of the case, considering the great importance of the subject, remembering that it had been admitted that it was one which deserved further consideration, he trusted the House would accede to this motion, and that they would take into consideration all that had passed, when the minutes of evidence were produced.

contended that the proceedings which had taken place on this subject were not contrary to law. It had been said that the committee decided on the principle of this Bill, by the preamble, and that this ought to have been objected to on the second reading. Why was it not objected to on the second reading of the Bill? Because it was thought it would be but fair to let it go to a committee that they might hear evidence, on which they could with propriety found their decision. The plan had first been appealed against to the-magistrates. They decided in favour of it. An appeal had then been made to the House of Commons, by whom it was referred to a committee. That committee sat seventeen days, and after giving the subject the fullest investigation, they came to a decision unfavourable to the opponents of the plan; who now came to, call for the evidence on which that decision was founded. Could those who had supported the Bill, think that if this motion were agreed to, it would be possible for the Bill to pass this session? Would it not then be to perpetuate the existing differences in the county, to persist in making the attempt? If the motion were acceded to, when they saw how busy the printers were in preparing East India papers, &c. it could not be expected that the minutes would be printed in less than sixteen or seventeen days. After that there must be a motion for a committee on the subject, and then they would have the Bill to do all over again, so that it was impossible to think it could pass that House before the end of the month, and sent to the House of Lords, at so late a period, could it reasonably be expected to pass in the present session? It was said the whole expences of the county of Essex in ten years did not equal the amount of the interest of the charge thrown on the county of Kent. This was unfairly urged. The county of Essex had a gaol already built. Had a similar comparison been made with the expences of the county of Essex some years ago, when it was differently circumstanced, the result would have been of an opposite nature. On these grounds he objected to the motion; and saw no reason for laying the evidence given in the committee before the House.

rose to offer a few words on the motion, and few they should be, for he was not in a situation to trespass long on the patience of the House. This motion seemed to be regarded as an attack on the magistrates of Kent. Had he had such an idea of it, he would have been the first to oppose it. There was no reason whatever for entertaining such an idea. The number of magistrates in the county was 142, and this plan had been signed by 22 of them. In addition to this he could state a circumstance which came within his own knowledge, which was of some importance.

The paper signed by these twenty-two magistrates, had been sent round by a spe- cial messenger to all the rest, but no more names could be procured than the number he had mentioned. From this, it was clear, that the magistrates generally were not favourable to the plan. The great body of the magistracy had not coincided with those who signed the Petition, though afterwards they, acting in the manner which became them, did not think proper to set themselves in opposition to their brother magistrates. This was the view which his honourable friend who had brought forward the present motion, took of the case. He conceived there were two propositions which might have been submitted to the House on this subject. The one was a proposition to resume the committee; the other, that which was embodied in the motion before the House. He was not quite sure that it would not have been better to move that the committee should be resumed, than to move for the production of the minutes of evidence, taken before the committee. Saying this, however, he wished distinctly to be understood to support the motion of his honourable friend. He had one other circumstance of some moment to state. Before the committee closed its sittings, several papers on the subject were called for. These were not forthcoming. Whether or not they might have been forthcoming, he could not say, but this he could say, the committee had risen, and the papers were not produced. Whatever might be the cause of their not being given to the committee, he thought the fact itself, furnished an additional reason in favour of the motion. It would be a painful duty to examine the clerk of the county a second time; but under all the circumstances he trusted the papers would be granted.

did not look upon this to be a question, raised on the principle involved in the preamble of the Bill, which had been brought in, the question appeared to him to be this—whether the county should be guided by a division of the magistrates, or by the whole. This was the question on which the House had to decide, and their decision would not merely affect the county of Kent, but it went to affect all other counties. The line of conduct pursued by the magistrates when complaints were made of the amount of the rate, had been censured, but the main question submitted to the House was—whether the county of Kent should be governed by one part of the magistrates, or by the whole.

was of opinion, that agreeing to this motion would do more towards restoring the county to tranquillity, than could be hoped from the extinction of the Bill. To do this was most desirable, for he was sure that for the last year the county of Kent had been in such a state as loudly called for some legislative measure. He had endeavoured to put an end to this state of things, but without success. The hon. gentleman proceeded to state the steps which he had taken to settle the existing differences, and to narrate the circumstances which had caused them to fail. He concluded a speech in favour of the motion, by declaring himself to be quite satisfied that there would be no peace in the county, till some legislative measure had set that, by which it was at present agitated, to rest.

said, if the gentlemen who had spoken on this subject had attended the committee on the Bill, they would have seen what had influenced the decision come to, and have spared some of the observations which had just been thrown out. An attempt had been made to show the magistrates in an unfavourable light. Their conduct did not merit censure. The contracts made ought to be regarded as satisfactory. In the estimates for the buildings, there was not set down one shilling more than was necessary to do the thing in the best possible way. This would be seen if these estimates were compared with those of other works. The projected prison would not cost more than the mad-housenow erecting in St. George's fields, and the expence to be incurred fell short of that of the penitentiary-house, which was carrying on at this time. The gaol to be erected would be the best thing of the kind in the country. Directions had been given to erect it at the least possible expence (making it all that was wanted) and to build it without adorning it with useless decorations. Those gentlemen who had this day offered to the House the inflated statements which had been heard, had not properly given their attention to the subject. They ought to have attended the committee. As they had not done so, he was not surprised at the tone which they had taken on this occasion; nor was he surprised to find them so anxious to take the business out of the hands of the committee, to pass a new judgment on it. Great pains had been taken to make the House believe that no wish existed in any quarter to disgrace the magistracy of the county. But would any one say the magistrates would not feel themselves disgraced, if the present motion were carried? In his opinion the proposition before them was one which it would be very improper for that House to adopt. He had no particular objection to the production of the minutes taken before the committee, if nothing more were intended; but the object of the present motion was not merely to get these laid before the House; as the hon. gentleman had said he meant to follow it up by a motion for revision.

in explanation, adverted to what had fallen from the last speaker respecting the absence from the committee, of those gentlemen who this day supported the motion before the House. He for one had regularly attended the committee, and if the hon. gentleman had not seen him there, it must have been through his own (Mr. Pole Carew's) absence or inattention.

thought the proceedings of the magistrates in this business, might be arraigned as illegal. If they entered into a contract, they ought to have demanded security for the fulfilment of its conditions. Had the magistrates of the county of Kent done this? No; but surely they ought to have done it before they put the inhabitants to an expence of 2 or 300,000l. This, however, they had not thought proper to do, and it was enough to alarm the county to find it was about to be put to an expence of above 200,000l. by a plan which would give the architect 10,000l. to put in his own pocket. Such an expence as was at present contemplated, had never before been incurred in a similar way, and were these times unnecessarily to go to an expence so unprecedented and immense? He repeated, such an expence had never been incurred before by such an undertaking, and if any gentleman would rise and state an instance, in which the building of a county gaol had cost half the money now proposed to be expended, he would instantly withdraw his support from the motion of the hon. gentleman. He knew that within these few years the county of Surry had built an excellent prison, at one third of the expence, which was said to be necessary to erect one in the county of Kent, and knowing this, it was impossible to approve of the plan of the magistrates. It was said that to agree to the motion, would be to throw disgrace on the magistrates. It would do no such thing. All that was wanted was to send the plan back to them for revision, and it was an odd way of disgracing any set of men to send a plan to them for correction, that they might do that in a legal way which they had done in an illegal way; that they might do that with some limitations, which they had done without any limitation whatever. The county of Kent was at present in such a state of litigation, that the magistrates would soon find themselves unable to proceed a single step further, unless something were done to appease the inhabitants; unless something like that which was the object of the present motion were obtained.

in explanation said, the original plea for opposition to the plan in question, seemed at last to be abandoned by the counsel who had first set it up. With respect to the contracts he again contended, that sufficient responsibility had been secured, and was proceeding to notice what had been said on this subject by the last speaker, when he was interrupted by a loud cry of 'Spoke,' accompanied by marks of disapprobation and impatience on the part of the House.

interfered, and observed the hon. gentleman was free to explain what he himself had said, but it was not common for one member to take upon himself to explain what had fallen from another.

said, he had wished to say the contracts had been made according to law, and his object in rising was to explain what in his conception was the law; to show that he was correct in saying they were legally made. Contracts had in the present instance been made with the surveyors, and with people who could best furnish what was wanted, from their having the necessary articles at first hand. The contracts concluded with such persons, gave the county ample security, and therefore he contended they were not other than according to law.

waved his right to reply. Strangers were ordered to withdraw, and a division took place, when the numbers were:—

rose. He had passed many years of his life in India, and had never ceased since to feel an interest in its welfare. The first point he should look to, was the condition and safety of the natives. He should touch on this subject, as far as it was connected with the resolution. It was obvious no great benefit could accrue from trading with a nation of beggars, yet such was the greater part of the Indian population, which was vast, but absolutely compelled to till, for the mere purposes of existence. In and just round the great towns it was different, but from comparative wealth to misery, the transition was sudden—from the enterprise of merchants, to the field of unprofitable agriculture. No remedy appeared for this, but reform of the revenue and the aids of an enlarged commerce. The governments were considered sovereigns of the soil. Where the Mahometan arms had not prevailed, we still found the better institutions of the Hindoos existing. But in the countries first alluded to, the ryots had one half their produce for every purpose of living: they were thus reduced to poverty, and to a state little removed from savage life. They were often even worse off than their labourers at 3d per day, though they were the original proprietors of the land. They often borrowed money on a kind of mortgage, but they were little better for it. The great evils of their state led to lord Cornwallis's appointment. His moderation and justice were never doubted, and he introduced a measure in Bengal, a new mode, by which a class were brought in, from whom great advantages were expected. Lands were divided into free zemindar estates, subject to a perpetual tax: but the wants of the government requiring more revenue, half was taken for government purposes: and, in fact, in many cases, the holder received no more than one-eleventh for his own objects. This system was extended to some of the Madras provinces; of the injurious effects of which the Fifth Report contained vouchers. The hon. member then read a letter from a respectable native, eloquently describing, in the oriental style, the distressed state of the ancient inhabitants of that province, who were grievously oppressed by the introduction of a new class from the least respectable occupations of life in India, and shewing, that though the Company's officers were just and en- lightened, yet, that the expence of obtaining justice defeated its object; and pointing out the oppressive evils of the moota-dary system (as the zemindary system is called in the Madras countries), on the respectable and on the poor. It stated that they were much happier under Hyder Ali, and under Tippoo Sultaun, whom it praised. It considered the Company (the lords of glory!) as having no real advantage from their distress, and observed, that such was their state, that it might be supposed, a new race of polygars (depredators) had been let in upon them to destroy them, who were driving them to despair. Yet such, he exclaimed, was the state of society extolled in a late debate as the height of human happiness and freedom! The lower orders of people in India, so far from being attached to the Company's government, were ready to join any standard which might be raised against it. One great source of discontent in India was what had often been extolled in that House, the zemindary settlement. This was one of the greatest bars to the improvement of India. It had been said that India might be improved by the cultivation of the waste lands; but the fact was, that the waste lands of Bengal were peculiarly cultivated. The great population of that country were obliged to support themselves by tillage, and whenever land could be cultivated without much expence it was occupied. But this, under the present system, did not increase the prosperity of the country, for the produce of the soil was of little or no value in the hands of the possessor. The price of rice had been considerably lowered within the last ten years. They had been often told the people of India were poor, because the rate of wages was low: but this was taking the effect for the cause. Wages were low because the people were poor; and to the same cause must be ascribed the great increase of crimes and immorality of late years. The evil was rooted in the state and condition of the people. When they found the means of honest employment they would not resort to the commission of crimes to which they were driven by hard necessity. He could not speak in worse terms of the zemindary settlement than was done by some of the Company's collectors. One of them, in his letters, said that all the zemindars he had ever known were of one sentiment on the subject, that it was a hard system, and severely felt in the country, and that it had produced greater changes in the landed property of Bengal than had ever before taken place. The whole plan was too sudden, and the benevolent intentions of the noble founder of it had been completely frustrated. On this subject the political letters of the directors displayed an ability which shewed what might be expected of them were they to confine their views to politics; and it was only when their commercial speculations interposed that the sentiments of monopolists began to appear, and their commercial speculations but too often interfered with their political conduct. The internal commerce of Bengal afforded another proof of the effects of the zemindary settlement. Since that settlement the internal commerce of Bengal had not increased, and this was an incontrovertible proof that the prosperity of the country had not increased, for if there had been an increase of prosperity the commerce would have increased. The condition of this interesting people would sooner or later attract the consideration of that House. They ought not to be considered merely with a view to commerce. The House ought to be alive to the calls of humanity, not less than to the prospect of a beneficial commerce. Every party in that House had the ablest advocates; but in behalf of the poor neglected Indians how few were disposed to lift up their voice! He was confident that an appeal to the humanity of the British House of Commons would not be made in vain. One great consolatory hope was open to them, had it not been in a great measure done away by the number of restrictions proposed to be imposed on the private trade. The wealth which would have been thrown into India by British merchants in return for the raw produce imported from that country would have given a value to the waste lands of the zemindary estates. But he saw no prospect of any such benefits, till the trade should be perfectly free, and till the East India Company should retire from a course which it was their interest as well as their duty not to pursue. Every merchant was a monopolist at heart; but when one merchant was opposed to another, the most beneficial effects resulted from the competition. It was very different, however, with the Company. From the market being altogether in their own hands, the prices had been depressed, to the prejudice of production. It was only by a free and unrestricted trade that any benefit to the country could be realized;

that a value could be given to estates—and that cultivation could be carried on as an object of gain, rather than to procure a wretched subsistence. It would afford the people the only relief from their present overwhelming land-tax, which it would in reality diminish, by increasing the value of their produce. A free trade would have opened this prospect; but the continuance of the Company's trade for 20 years longer, presented an insurmountable obstacle to the prosperity of the country. He hoped that this period of 20 years might still have some modification. All that they heard of the Indian trade being incapable of increase, was completely disproved, because the Indian trade had been increased since the introduction of the American and private traders into India. There could be no doubt, that it might be carried still farther. The other proposition, that the wants of the Indians were fixed and incapable of change, was of the same stamp. This antiquated prejudice concerning the fixed habits of the Indians, was more absurd than the most absurd prejudices of the Hindoos. Their wants were fixed from their own poverty on the one hand, and the despotism of the government; and the same causes would be productive of the same effects in all countries whatever. It would appear that there was something mysterious about the Hindoos from what was said of them, as if they were not flesh and blood like other men. For his part he had always found them to be actuated by the same motives and feelings as other men, and as disposed to enjoyment. This disposition to enjoyment could only be adequately gratified by the employment of British capital and British skill: and the means would be afforded by the management which would be given to the produce of the country. He had but one more remark to make. The misrepresentation of motives was in all cases but too common; but such misrepresentation of his motives could give him personally no uneasiness. The opinions he had delivered that night were neither new, nor delivered for the first time that night, nor proceeded from any hostility to the India Company. They were the result of the impressions produced on his mind by inquiry, and which, ever since that inquiry, he had uniformly maintained, and to this the records of the India Company would bear testimony. Nothing but a desire for the public good could have induced him to persevere in a course which had already involved him in disappointment and loss. He said thus much with respect to his motives, only lest some should be ascribed to him, which might injure the cause which he had so much at heart.

senior, requested the indulgence of the House, while he made a few observations on the studied composition which had just been delivered.

He was sensible that he laboured under great disadvantages in attempting to reply to a speech prepared with so much care, and embracing such a variety of important matter: but he would advert to some of the most prominent particulars, hoping that he might another day have an opportunity of observing upon it more in detail.

If the hon. gentleman was right in his view of the system which the Company had adopted for the internal administration of India, the most eminent persons who had ever given their attention to that subject had been grossly mistaken. Lord Cornwallis, who had established the system in question, and had been reckoned a great benefactor to India, lord Wellesley, lord Minto, and many other distinguished persons, differed widely from the hon. gentle-man on this subject.

He trusted, however, the Committee would not adopt any such conclusion, without at least a more thorough and impartial investigation.

He would venture to say, that not only with respect to these leading men, but to the great mass of British residents in India, the hon. gentleman was singular in his opinions. What were these opinions founded upon? They rested on this, that unless the people of Hindostan were made a great commercial nation, they never could be happy. But they had never been a great commercial people in the most flourishing periods of their history, nor since their earliest time. And that their happiness depended on their becoming such, was a chimerical idea. With respect to the effects of the Company's system of government, he sincerely believed the hon. gentleman was grossly mistaken. In all systems there would be found some imperfection, but he had not the least doubt, that if any person were candidly to examine what had been done in the last twenty-four years, the wonder would be, not that some things might still be short of perfection, but that so much had been accomplished. He had seen a good deal of India himself—the part chiefly in question, much more than the hon. gentleman; and be conscientiously believed that the hon. gentleman was extremely mistaken. He had, according to his views, described the system of the Company, but he had not at all adverted to that which they had found established. This ought to be taken into consideration, because it was only in comparing the past and present state of the country, that the merit of the Company's administration could be properly appreciated. The hon. gentleman had besides in the course of his speech frequently advanced contradictory propositions which destroyed each other.

With regard to the system of land tenures established by lord Cornwallis, it was certainly a very great boon and blessing to the country. Before its introduction the lands were in general leased out yearly—every year a new agreement was to be made—and in the time of the native government it was common for the officers of government to exact more than the ryots or cultivators had agreed to pay, and on a thousand arbitrary pretences. If the crop was abundant, this was held a sufficient reason for further exaction—if from unfavourable seasons or oppression, many of the ryots fled from a district, the remaining cultivators were required to make up the rents of that district. All was uncertainty, exaction, and oppression. Industry was in consequence wholly discouraged, for it was taxed in proportion to its exertions. A scanty subsistence was all that in any case a ryot had to expect. Different plans had been successively adopted by the Company's servants to reform the ancient practice; but the very instability of their measures produced insecurity and distrust; and lord Cornwallis was convinced that nothing short of fixing the land rent, unalterably and in perpetuity, would be a radical cure for all existing evils in the administration of the revenues. He had, after immense labour and research, accomplished this great and difficult work. The soil was decreed to be the property of the zemindars or landholders, subject to the payment of a certain fixed invariable rent. The ancient theory of the Mogul government, probably also of the anterior Hindoo government, was, that the sovereign was the proprietor of the soil, the zemindars only the officers of government for the collection of the rents from the cultivators, therefore removable at pleasure; though it had become usual to continue the office in the same family. This was his own conception of the matter. It had however been a subject of controversy among the servants of the Company. Lord Cornwallis thought it a question of no great importance to the zemindars as long as the government should tax the land according to its pleasure. But he both declared the property of the soil to be thenceforward vested in the zemindars, and that as before mentioned, the rent should be fixed and invariable. This rent was settled at the average of what had been actually paid in the three preceding years. On the same wise, humane, and liberal principles, numerous precautions were taken to secure the just and equitable treatment of the under tenants or ryots.

Such were the fundamental principles of the permanent settlement, and undoubtedly it has been productive of highly beneficial effects to the country in general. The hon. gentleman had ventured to give a different view of this great measure, but he had not spoken from local knowledge—he had only referred to records, and particularly the Fifth Report of the Committee of that House, a work in which there was a great deal of information; and of that Committee he, (Mr. Grant) had been an humble member, but the hon. gentleman had given only mutilated extracts from their Report, thereby drawing an inference entirely different from that, which the whole of the Report taken together, clearly and professedly presented. In the administration of justice too, signal reforms had been introduced in the time of lord Cornwallis. During the government of the Mahomedans nothing could be more corrupt and intolerable than the practice of the native courts. Much had been done by the British government to purify the streams of justice. In the civil courts the Company's servants had presided, and considerable reforms had been made, but the administration of criminal justice was a prerogation of sovereignty, which it was thought not easy to detach from the nabob, until after lord Cornwallis entered upon the government, and the persons delegated by the nabob had in general been scandalously venal. The reforms introduced in this branch by his lordship were great and generally acknowledged, and extremely beneficial to the people, who experienced a new protection, whilst the pure administration of justice raised the character of the government, and the standard of principle. It is true the system of police in- troduced in the time of lord Cornwallis has not yet perfectly succeeded, the country continuing to be infested by deccits, or gang robbers. This, says the hon. gentleman, is an effect of the poverty of the people, which obliges them to take to such courses. It is an effect of the depraved principles and hereditary manners of the people. The sons follow the profession of the father, and become robbers too. They think they are in their allotted place; the execution of the father will not induce them to change, they seek to propitiate their Deity for success, when they go upon a marauding expedition. This has been a very long established practice; the zemindars were supposed to encourage it by themselves keeping gangs of robbers, who made inroads on the neighbouring zemindaries. The nature of the country is favourable to such expeditions. The people have no public virtue to resist such combinations, and the English administrators of justice are thereby spread over a great extent of country; but still there is hope of gradual improvement in this branch. The hon. gentleman had said, that the effect of the system of land tenures was to break down and ruin all the ancient and great families of the zemindars. This was no necessary consequence of the system, and the case was over-stated. The fact was, that as the lands had been given away in perpetuity, subject to a certain fixed rent, which could not be increased, it became necessary for government to secure the practical payment of that rent—because, if it was suffered to run in arrear, it would, from the habits of these people, be paid out of the produce of the succeeding year, and entail an irrecoverable balance. It was, therefore, made a condition in the grant of the lands, that if the rent was not punctually paid, a portion of the-land adequate to the balance should be sold to discharge it. The zemindars, an ill-educated, indolent class of men, often vicious and incapable, trusted their affairs to other servants, who, inattentive to the punctuality which the change of system demanded, perhaps careless of its effects, suffered balances to be incurred as before, and the consequence, in various instances, was a sale of portions of the lands. This was, as far as the zemindars were concerned, to be regretted, but how could it be avoided, except by their punctuality? In time, however, the practice of sales had much diminished. The hon. gentleman had said, the Calcutta Gazette was full of advertisements of such sales, but it was to be observed, that every article was advertised in several languages, and the same article several times. As to the antiquity which the hon. gentleman ascribed to the zemindars, in fact few or none of their families were ancient. They were often the descendants of those who had supplanted their principals in their places, as those principals had supplanted others, such a practice having been ancient and common in Hindostan, with respect to kingdoms as well as zemindarries.

The hon. gentleman had said, that the principle of an equal division of the crop between the sovereign and the cultivator, was not in the original system of Hindoo government. In this notion the hon. gentleman was completely mistaken. The Hindoos were remarkably deficient in authentic records, both historical and financial, but there was the most satisfactory evidence in the drama of Sacontala, a celebrated work translated by sir W. Jones, and at least as old as the Christian era; of course composed long before the irruption of the Mahomedans into Hindostan, that in the times of purely Hindoo governments, the practice of dividing the crop between the sovereign and the subject existed, although the instance occurring in that work, referring to the favoured tribe of bramins, shewed the portion of government to be small. But at a period long posterior to the commencement of the Ma-homedan dynasties, the division of the produce subsisted in various parts, and indeed until after the discovery of the American silver mines, there was hardly currency enough in Hindostan to pay the rents of government in specie; even so late as the reign of Akber, about two centuries and a half ago, much of the circulating medium is supposed to have been copper. In process of time, no doubt, the sovereign's proportion of the produce had been gradually converted into a money rent, the amount of which was of course calculated upon that proportion, whenee the principle of division had an original influence in the rate of money rent.

The hon. gentleman has said that the zemindar's share of the produce was, after paying the rent to government, only one-eleventh part, (that is of the government share). The zemindar's proportion, which was assumed long before the permanent settlement, was usually and more correctly reckoned a tenth—and this was upon the idea that the zemindar being the officer of government, received about ten per cent. of the government rents for making the collections; this ten per cent. was commonly called his subsistence money; but he derived other advantages from his office, and it was to be observed, that the lands in Hindostan yielded two, sometimes three crops in a year; this made the division proportionably greater than it would be where there was one crop annually; therefore ten per cent. upon two crops was equal to twenty per cent. or one-fifth part of the produce, in places yielding only one crop, and might well suffice for subsistence.

The hon. gentleman had represented the Indian population as a nation of beggars; and as obliged to till the lands for want of other employment. The blessings of wealth he said were confined to the great towns, and in leaving them there was a transition from commercial wealth to agricultural poverty. But what were the people of a vast continent, most of them remote from the sea, to do? what was chiefly to be looked for in the interior of such a country but agricultural life? Was it not the lot of a large portion of the inhabitants of other countries to cultivate the soil—was it not desirable they should? It was not to be inferred that agriculture was an employment which the Hindoos exercised by compulsion; it was well known they were universally attached to it, even manufacturers being also often cultivators of the soil.—It was not to be inferred from the simple diet and slight clothing of the Indian peasantry that they were comparatively worse off than the peasantry of other countries: their food and their clothing were according to the manners of the country; manners to which various causes had long since given the character they still exhibited. But whilst the hon. gentleman wonders how this nation of beggars subsists, he at the same time admits that the waste lands have been extensively cultivated. Does not this account for it? If more land is taken into cultivation there must be more subsistence, and an increase of subsistence will contribute to increase of population. But he seems to think this increase of cultivation an evil: for the price of produce falls! And is not this the effect to be desired and expected? would he have the price rise or continue stationary when the quantity is augmented? On the whole, Mr. Grant said, it was not to be doubted that the changes introduced by the British govern- ment had been beneficial to the great body of the people. They had given a purity of judicial administration, a security to person and property, an encouragement to industry unknown in the native governments of Hindostan, and the effects of them began already to appear among the people in an increased spirit of independence. Formerly, when a governor general made what was called a progress through the country, the zemindars within 20 miles of his route used to come and pay their respects to him; but after the permanent settlement (which fixed their property and their rent) had been sometime established, a governor general passed up the country without seeing one of them.

The hon. gentleman had said that the internal commerce of the country had not improved. What is the test of this? Lord Cornwallis had removed a great number of internal imposts which before had clogged the trade, and it was evident from the reports kept by the Company's governments of the external commerce of India, that what was called the country trade, or the trade between the British settlements and other parts of Asia, had very largely increased under the auspices of the Company's government. On the other hand the hon. gentleman had affirmed, that the increase which had taken place in the trade between India and the western world was owing to the intercourse of the Americans, and the greater latitude given to the British private traders, whence he argued that trade would still further increase if it were open to all British subjects. But the hon. gentleman was mistaken in assuming that the trade to the western world had been in any considerable degree increased. It had rather shifted hands from the foreign companies which were annihilated, and from foreign Europe, where the impoverishment of the people with the tyrannical restrictions of the French power, had extinguished Indian adventure, to the Americans whose neutral character and increased population made them now next to ourselves the great dealers in that trade. In corroboration of this statement he (Mr. Grant) felt himself warranted on the authority of good documents to assert, that the exports from India to Europe about forty years ago were as large as within these few years they have been to Europe and America.

With regard to the hon. gentleman's scheme of rendering the Indians generally a commercial people, he believed it to be impracticable. The hon. gentleman had, indeed, some years ago, brought forward a project of another change, which went to overturn the existing system of Indian revenue, but it was a change which could neither be effected nor approved. He (Mr. Grant) should be glad to encourage any commercial attempts which had a prospect of success, provided they did not endanger more important interests, the tranquillity of the people and the safety of the country. He was not one of those who contended for the absolute immutability of the Hindoos in all their usages and customs, but that they were strongly ri-vetted to them was well known. It was difficult to change the general tastes of any people, much more of that people, and without this how were our fashions, our articles of necessity or luxury, to be introduced among them? At present they had not the least fancy or relish for them. In the last 20 years, with all the enlargements given to private trade, not one new article of British manufacture had been exported for the use of the natives. And even if we could succeed in giving them a relish for our fabrics of various kinds, the consequence would be, not that we should supply them from Britain, but that (excepting a few articles unfit for their climate) artisans of their own would prepare them, instructed by Europeans who were already established in various branches of manufacture in our settlements. The island of Bombay, where the hon. gentleman and others who took a part in this debate had chiefly resided, afforded no fair criterion of the genuine character of the Hindoo people. The population of that island was composed of Arabs, Parsees, Armenians, and native Portugueze as well as Hindoos, and this mixture might affect the manners of a confined district. The Hindoos, to be sure, were human beings, partaking, as the hon. gentleman had said, of the common feelings of human nature, but it did not thence follow that they would adopt our luxuries or our tastes. He should be very glad that a committee of the House of Commons were appointed to examine the whole of this subject from the beginning to the end. It would then he was confident be found, that the hon. gentleman's conceptions were radically wrong.

then, adverting to the letter of a native which the hon. gentleman had read to the House, wished to know whether it was entered in the records of the Company, to whom it was addressed, what the character and situation of the writer was, and what was its date?

answered, that he did not know whether it was among the government records; that he had got it at Bombay from a person high in station there (or as otherwise reported, a member of the government there) who had received it at Madras, with liberty to use it; that it was addressed to lord W. Bentinck, and dated in March, 1807

in continuance said, that a private letter of that description, not on record, unauthenticated in any way, did not deserve a moment's consideration, and ought not to have the least influence upon the deliberations of that assembly on so grave and important a case. Nothing, he said, was more common in India, than such letters accusing the conduct of public men, and full of complaints utterly unfounded. The character of such writings was well known in India, and no man there would attach any credit to them. But if the hon. gentleman would follow up the representation he had thus introduced to the House, and shew whose conduct it was that had been impugned, he (Mr. Grant) would undertake that an answer should soon be given to the accusation. He was unwilling to mix any observations of a personal nature in this discussion, but since the hon. gentleman had referred to his own situation, he (Mr. Grant) thought it right to state, that the court of directors having disapproved of the conduct of the hon. gentleman, had removed him from the station of a member of council at Bombay. He had the less hesitation in mentioning this fact, because he observed that the papers connected with it were ordered to be laid before the House, and he was content to refer to them for the propriety of the measure, which the court of directors had adopted with regard to the hon. gentleman.

said, he was very sensible that there were many points in the hon. gentleman's speech which he had not been able at present to touch upon—he had by no means done justice to the subject, but he hoped gentlemen would suspend their opinions till the whole of the case was before them. Lord Grenville and marquis Wellesley highly approved of the permanent settlement of the lands, and were anxious to have it gradually extended to all the Company's possessions. Had these noble lords been under a delusion all this time?

On the subject of the Company's accounts, the hon. gentleman had gone into a long detail, which thus given it was impossible to follow, but he (Mr. Grant) had perceived enough to be confident that the hon. gentleman proceeded upon extravagant assumptions, upon data fundamentally wrong, and whenever his statements were put into an examinable shape, as he presumed they would soon he, the hon. gentleman might be assured they would receive a full answer, and till they could be discussed in this way, it would he useless as well as impracticable to engage the attention of the House any farther upon the subject.

The hon. gentleman had thought fit to indulge in the antiquated phraseology of sovereign-merchant, and to charge the Company with making their political power as sovereign subservient to their commercial objects. But this Mr. Grant denied. He supposed the hon. gentleman alluded to the trade in cotton with which he was most acquainted, and concerning which Mr. Grant had given an explanation on a former night. The Company did not permit their character as sovereign to interfere in their commercial transactions. Their agents acted for them in their commercial capacity, as the agent of an individual would act for him.

said he was conscious he had not done justice to the subject before the House, and he again requested that gentlemen would suspend their opinions until a thorough investigation had taken place.

in explanation, said that he was not singular in the opinions which he had stated. For a confirmation of the opinions which he had expressed on the subject of the zemindary settlement, he would appeal to no less authorities than, lord Teignmouth, lord W. Bentinck, Mr. Colebrook, col. Wilks, col. Macaulay, and col. Monroe. As to the number of crops produced in a year, he conceived that was of little consequence if the half of the whole was taken. He had always conceived some change in the revenue system necessary; and he had proposed to the Court of Directors, to make the experiment of a gradual change in the system in the island of Salsette. Although he had. owing to this, incurred the displeasure of the Company, yet he had never intended that the change in the revenue system should be sudden.

explained. He did not know what opinion several of the gentlemen mentioned by Mr. Rickards held, respecting the permanent settlement, nor on what authority the hon. gentleman spoke, but lord Teignmouth had not opposed the principle of it, he was only for proceeding to it more gradually. Mr. Grant maintained that it was evident the tenth of two crops must give double the quantum of subsistence which the tenth of one crop would give.

said, that any person who had read the history of the rise and progress of the Indian empire, must feel the highest admiration at the valour, intrepidity, and industry, by which it was formed. How cautious, then, should they be, in adopting any speculative principles, which might put to hazard all that had been gained by that valour and that industry? He had considered the subject with the greatest attention, and he found it full of perplexities and difficulties. But this he knew, that, under the government of the Company, India had flourished beyond all former precedent; and he would never agree to any proposition which appeared to him likely to destroy that empire, and render of no avail the battles of Seringapatam, of Assaye, and all the other glorious victories, by which it was established.

said, he never recollected offering himself to the attention of the House with more painful feelings than on the present occasion. His total difference of opinion with his political friends nearly bore him down; and the sentiments he entertained were, he feared, not in unison with those held by the majority of that House—he meant the majority of those who attended; for there was much more activity displayed on this great question by those who had made their minds up on the subject, than by those who said they were most anxious to obtain information on the question, but who never attended for the purpose. He had considered the subject with attention, and although he differed from his political friends on the question, he was happy to say, he agreed with lord Grenville as to the necessity of a permanent system. He would leave the hon. gentleman and lord Grenville to settle their differences of opinion on that subject. He was not, at present, able to enter into all the details, but be would say, that the establishment of a permanent system had been approved by all the great men who had considered it; and lord Grenville not only approved of it, but appeared to have made it a charge against the Company, that they had not carried it far enough. Lord Grenville was not a man to form a hasty opinion, or to form one without having carefully examined all the written documents to be had on the subject: and, doubtless, before he gave so decided an opinion in favour of a permanent system, he had most carefully perused the Fifth Report, on which the hon. gentleman (Mr. Rickards) had so much relied. He begged of the House not to give way to first impressions; nobody who had heard the hon. gentleman, but must have perceived the impression he made, when he staled, in forcible language, what he called the wrongs sustained by the Indians, and supported his arguments by the production of an Indian document, the effect of the stile of which he need not state to those who were acquainted with the electric effect produced by such documents in the time of Mr. Burke. He thought such a document ought to have been produced where it might have been canvassed, and this shewed the necessity of that select committee he wished to have been appointed, in order that all the evidence, and all opinions bearing on the question, might have been enquired into, before the happiness of sixty millions should have been trifled with. The Company's witnesses were exposed to the strictest cross-examination; but their opponents, the plaintiffs in the cause, and who should have been the first to have produced evidence, turned round, and said, that what they had to say they would say in debate. But the impropriety of this method was apparent: it was not possible to inquire into statements in debate; and what he might have asked the hon. gentleman, had he appeared as a witness, courtesy prevented his asking in that House. Great sympathy appeared amongst the opposers of the Company in that House, and what one wanted in the cross-examination, another supplied. Yet their's was the quarter from which evidence ought to have proceeded; they ought to prove that the Company ought not to exist. The statement of the hon. gentleman was a mere assertion,—a mere matter of debate; but the evidence of the Company had been sifted to the bottom, and was given by persons of the highest character and greatest respectability; but all this was to be set at nought, and an assertion in debate was to be considered as superior to all. If the subject was to be discussed and not merely to be voted, every enquiry ought to be made. The opponents of the Company had not the courage to call a witness; no witness had the courage to offer himself. He contended, that the mass of evidence produced on the side of the Company was not to be repelled, but by evidence produced on the opposite side. The Company's servants had displayed talent, wisdom, and good conduct, such as was never excelled. He felt great difficulty in this question, but he must do his duty: no party allegiance should prevent him from advocating and supporting those opinions, the success of which he thought necessary to the security of the British empire at large. If the question should be carried contrary to the opinions which he supported, he thought that more mischief would be caused by listening to the clamorous cry of interested men than had been caused by any debate in that House for a century. He required the patient attention of the House, and he was confident that every gentleman who had attended to the evidence would agree, that the mass of information was very difficult to be digested, and that it was very hard to state the prominent points. Some thought that the system of 1784 and 1793, was the system to advance the British interests in India; others thought that that system ought to be entirely given up, and recurrence be had to broad and general principles; that all sovereignty ought to reside in the crown; and that all trade should be free, open, and unrestrained. Some thought that the Company might exist politically, but should not be allowed to interfere in commercial matters. It was difficult to conceive that twenty-four execrable merchants would make excellent political governors; but the system, if system it might be called, proposed by his Majesty's ministers, was the most extraordinary. It departed from general principles: it had neither the support of practice or theory. He did not know any grounds of charge that existed against the Company. Prima facie the Company had done nothing that required any alteration; he knew of no crimes they had committed. Gentlemen had said, that the system of 1793 was but an experiment; he had never so considered it, and lord Grenville had then expressed his determination to maintain a regulated monopoly, and thought great danger would result from a contrary conduct. But if it was an experiment, it was entitled to be examined as to its success. If the happiness of 60 millions was the object, was not that obtained? If extension of dominion was the object, which he thought it was not, had not the British dominions been extended beyond the ideas of the most san-guine? It had been stated, that the Company did not carry on trade advantageously; that had not been proved, but it was no matter whether they carried it on to profit or not, if they beneficially carried on the government for the preservation of the lives, property, and happiness of 60 millions of persons. They had no right, therefore, to say the experiment had failed. The principal author of that measure had failed in the expectation he had held out of a supply of half a million yearly to the country; but was not 20 years of war, without interruption, a sufficient excuse? If the expedient had not succeeded as to trade in general, still the private trade had greatly increased. Could the Company, then, be accused of being possessed by a narrow spirit of monopoly? If the export trade had not increased in proportion, neither the Company nor the private merchant was to blame: it arose from the inability of the natives to purchase British manufactures. Large revenues had been acquired by the Company, not much less than 7 millions: they had an army of 150,000 men, officered by men of the highest estimation: they had servants such as no other body had ever possessed. The government of India was well and admirably administered, and all this was to be pushed down, not to constitute the happiness of the people of India, but to acquire a little more trade: it was no scheme to increase their happiness, but to make them, or rather to make us, more rich. It was stated, that a free trade was better than a monopoly; but not a word was said as to the persons who were to carry on the trade, as to the capital, or as to the articles. It was argued, that all British subjects had a right to a free and open trade to all places under the British dominion; but he denied it on broad principles; it was for that House to regulate the trade of the country, otherwise they had no right to legislate on the question at all, no right to regulate the coasting trade, no right to enact the Navigation Act. The attempt to satisfy the gentlemen of the out-ports would, if persisted in, he feared, prove fatal to the British empire in India. He should not pretend to say, that, abstractedly speaking, Liverpool and Bristol had not as strong claims as London; but he should bottom himself on the old system which now existed, and by which the trade of India was confined to the port of London. It seemed to be the disposition of ministers now to concede every thing to the gentlemen of the out-ports. He could not see, however, that they had a right to take from London, that which they had so long enjoyed, and which they had used so well. He believed, that if perfect liberty was given to the out-ports, not a ship would go from Bristol to India. The gentlemen of Liverpool were, however, somewhat more enterprising, and probably some ships would go from Liverpool. The question, however, should not be what was best for Liverpool or Bristol, but what mode of managing the trade was best for the whole country and the empire at large. If the gentlemen of the out-ports really expected nothing more than what was contained in these Resolutions, it would not be worth the anxiety that they manifested: their real object and hope, however, must be, that by breaking in upon the system now, they should get by degrees all that they could wish for. As to the happiness of India, (which had been so much spoken about) it was evident that the question of open trade was quite unconnected with the other question, of the propagation of Christianity. In other respects, he had not heard that any of the advocates of the happiness of India had ever proposed to allow any one manufacture of India to be freely imported into this country. The general principle was, that Great Britain should force all her manufactures upon India, and not take a single manufacture of India in return. It was true that they would allow cotton twist, but, then, having found out that they could weave, by means of machinery, cheaper than the Indians, they would say to them, "Leave off weaving, supply us with the raw material, and we will weave for you." Now, although this was a natural principle enough for merchants and manufacturers to go on, it was rather too much to talk of the philosophy of it, or to rank the supporters of it as in a peculiar degree the friends of India. If, instead of calling themselves the friends of that country, they should profess themselves the enemies of it, what more could they do than advise the endeavour to crush all Indian manufacture? They might argue very well as merchants, but very badly as philosophers; and, indeed, he could see no over-abundance of the milk of human kindness in this new Birmingham philosophy. In England, where the woollen manufacture was our staple, we prohibited the exportation of wool in the raw state; but in India (for which we professed such friendship) we were to take care that the cotton wool should only be imported in the state of raw material. Although we pretended such anxiety for the good of India, we wished that it should only be a nursery for the raw material, but that all advantages of the manufacture should remain with us. They were to supply us with the material, that we might rival their manufactures in every market of the world. What would be said of the East India Company, if they were to show as decided a preference to the manufactures of the natives of India under their protection, as we did to the manufactures of England. The fact, however, was, that as to raw material, whether cotton or hemp, India could furnish whatever supply we wished for. But then if the Company were to undertake to afford a permanent supply of those articles, who would undertake that they should find a permanent demand? Who would undertake that, at the restoration of peace, cotton should not again be taken from America, and hemp from the Baltic, on such terms as would ruin those who should undertake to furnish the supply from India. The noble lord (Castlereagh) had, however, seen the necessity of strengthening the police in India in consequence of the new system, and had provided for that in the Resolutions: but what would the people of India think of the alteration in the police? They would ask one another what great danger was now to be apprehended? Who was it that was coming to disturb the peace of India? They would be answered that it was only the gentlemen from the out ports. (A laugh) He conceived that some of the Resolutions would have the effect of bringing the Company completely into contempt among the natives of India. For example, if a merchant applied for a licence for a ship to India, and was refused, he might then appeal to the commissioners for managing the affairs of India, who had power to grant it. If an individual chose to go, and was refused leave to go from the Company, he might obtain leave from the Board of Controul, and go there in spite of them. Who could then prevent him from mentioning in India, that he came there in defiance of the will of the Company? and how could a corporate body, resting upon the breath of public opinion, exist for any time, when it was well known in India, that they had superiors and master? It was true that, by another clause, the Company had the power of sending back from India any man that they thought proper, and so this fortunate man, who had procured the authority of government to go there against the will of the Company, might, in consequence of the conflicting authorities, spend his time between going there and coming back. He thought that men must make up their minds, either to get rid of the Company altogether, or to continue them on the footing that they had hitherto been. Although he differed from a noble lord (Grenville), on this subject, yet he thought that his lordship had done himself infinite credit by the fair and manly declaration which he had made of his opinion on this subject. It appeared to him, however, that these alterations had been proposed for no other purpose than merely to conciliate the clamour of the merchants, and he would defy any man to point out any thing like the good of India being the object of any of the Resolutions. It appeared to him, that either the present system must be maintained, or that otherwise, we must proceed on the broad principle of overturning the East India Company. He thought that the Court of Directors could not accept of this Bill, unless they conscientiously conceived, that under its regulations they could conduct the system for their own benefit, and for the good of the empire. He thought that no friend to liberty and our free constitution could look without the most serious alarm to the destruction of the Company, and the placing directly in the hands of the crown, the increased patronage which another army and an Indian revenue of 17 millions a year would give them. If such additional patronage were thrown into their hands, it was impossible that the last shadow of freedom could remain in this country. The right hon. gentleman concluded a masterly speech with earnestly intreating the House to give the due weight to the several points which he had ventured to throw out for their consideration.

said, that he felt it his duty to obviate the misconceptions which the right hon. gentleman's speech was likely to produce. The grounds of the measure were misrepresented. The right hon. gentleman seemed to think that it was necessary to prove the delinquency of the Company; but surely there was no occasion for this. If the notion of a limited charter conveyed any meaning, it conveyed an acknowledgment of the power of parliament to deliberate upon it. It was not necessary to make out any case against the directors. The thing resolved itself into three questions; whether the former system should be observed, or an entirely new one adopted, or a middle course pursued? He did not think the proper course lay in either extreme, and it was strange, after the anathema the right hon. gentleman had pronounced upon the middle course, that he should fall upon it afterwards himself. This was a proof of the poverty of his argument. The truth was, he never heard a more unsubstantial speech from that right hon. gentleman. He was prepared to argue, that the change would contribute to the general prosperity of both countries, and that no profit, however great to the private merchant, should induce the House to adopt the plan if it was not consistent with the happiness of the natives of India. He should have made out a case, which he did not do, to prove that this change was so ruinous to the power of the Company as to prevent them from executing the good purposes which they had hitherto fulfilled. Even at present, the natives of India did not enjoy an adequate protection. Even though it were admitted that it would introduce a greater number of Europeans into the interior, this was not sufficient cause for alarm. The question now was as to the system that was best for the real happiness of India, and the trade of this country. The argument drawn from the habits of the people, as far as it concerned trade, was pushed to an extreme. Even in the article of cotton alone, exported in a manufactured state from this country, had increased within the last 20 years from 2,000l. to 108,000l. The trade, it was clear therefore, was a growing one. The monopoly was indeed a regulated monopoly, but nevertheless it was regulated upon unwise principles. How, he would ask, could it possibly affect the peace of the interior of India, whether the ships and the officers employed in the trade were appointed by the Company or not? No argument was brought to prove the danger of the likelihood of Europeans settling in the interior. It was a country in which the nature of the police was applicable to this case, in which no European could stir without being subject to the inspection of the Company. But even if any danger were found to arise, what was there to prevent parliament from applying a remedy? All he argued against was, tying up the hands of parliament. If the danger were found to arise, the out-ports would have no charter to prevent parliament from interfering. This was an attempt on the part of those who were against the plan to tie up the hands of parliament merely upon the ground of a chimerical danger. With respect to smuggling, there was no case made out which would not as well have applied to lord Auckland's treaty with France. This danger was a mere pretence. There was no country with which they traded that was not attended with the same danger, and it arose more from neutral ships than from their own. Even if the danger were admitted, he would answer such as argued in this way with the paramount argument that no charter was given to the out-ports. The moment the danger arose there would be no difficulty in withdrawing the indulgence. He hoped therefore such imaginary dangers would not impose fetters upon the commerce of the country, and that parliament, upon such grounds, would not be called upon to surrender their discretion to the East India Company. He had no doubt the Company used their power with honour, but he would not give up to them the exercise of that discretion which should reside in parliament. Their concerns were now much too complicated for the understandings of any body of men, and he must say that the Company were labouring under a weight which oppressed them. During the continuance of their late charter they carried on their affairs with inadequate funds, and exposed themselves to commercial losses, which no body of men should be exposed to. They never had funds to enable them to carry on the trade; and until they were released from it they could not know where they stood, either in commerce or politics. Upon these grounds he should feel it necessary to persevere in the arrangements he had proposed.

spoke in favour of the pro- position for extending the trade to the outports, and Mr. Forbes followed on the same side.

from the lateness of the hour, and the number who appeared still disposed to deliver their opinion upon this subject, suggested the propriety of adjourning the debate until to-morrow.

concurred in this suggestion, adding that he thought it impossible to do justice to the discussion of this important question within the present session, and he should not think it fitting to have it hurried. He would, therefore, rather recommend that a Bill should be passed, continuing the charter of the India Company on its present footing for one year, and that the farther consideration of the subject should be postponed until next session.

had no objection to the adjournment, but he was not prepared to accede to the recommendation of the right hon. gentleman.

pressed the recommendation of Mr. Ponsonby, observing, that if it was resolved to get through the whole question within the present session, the Bills founded upon the Resolutions under consideration, would hardly be brought in, until comparatively few members remained in town to discuss them.

said he saw no reason to induce him to believe that it was impossible to settle the question this session; at all events, if it was understood, that the question would not be decided, it would be impossible to secure an attendance to the preliminary discussions.

The Chairman reported progress, and obtained leave to sit again to-morrow.

presented a Petition from certain persons in Manchester, complaining of ill usage, false imprisonment, and malicious prosecution, while peaceably assembled to petition parliament for Reform, and praying for redress. On the motion that it do lie on the table,

opposed it, on the ground that the petitioners could seek redress in a court of law, but that the House could not afford them relief.

supported the motion, contending, that to men in the circumstances of the petitioners (some of them being now prisoners for debt), it was a mere mockery and taunt to tell them that the courts of law were open to them, where they might bring actions for malicious prosecutions. It reminded him of a saying of the late Mr. Home Tooke, who on being told that the courts were open to all classes, replied, "Yes, and so is the London Tavern, if you have money enough." As the petition was couched in respectful terms, he thought it would be setting a bad precedent to reject it: it was useful, even though parliament could not interfere, to see that magistrates did not exceed the bounds of their jurisdiction.

observed, that the House had been, at all times, peculiarly jealous, that no obstructions should be given to the exercise of the right of petitioning; and as the present complaint related to an alleged obstruction of that nature, it ought to be received.

The petition was ordered to lie on the table.