rose to move that Mr. Crutchley's Petition, presented some time ago, complaining of certain abuses in this court, be referred to the consideration of a select committee. The petitioner's complaint was twofold: 1. That the fees of the Marshalsea court had been illegally raised by the judge, which as its jurisdiction in various causes extended over about a million of people, might prove a very serious abuse: and 2dly, that when the petitioner, as prothonotary of the court, remonstrated against the abuse, he was suspended from his office. The hon. member professed himself ignorant of the truth of the allegations in the Petition, but thought them deserving of investigation. With that view he moved for the appointment of a committee.

observed, that he thought the charges in the Petition were not at present a fit matter for the consideration of the House. If any of the litigants in the Marshalsea court thought themselves aggrieved by the exaction of illegal fees, they had their remedy in the courts below. But he particularly objected to the present motion, because serious charges were pending at present against the petitioner himself. The hon. member entered into a detail of their na- ture, the substance of which was that the Treasury had made an agreement with the petitioner, as clerk of the Marshalsea court, that if the fees did not amount to 500l. per annum, the difference should be made good to him by the Treasury. The petitioner had for some time represented that the fees did not amount to that sum, and had accordingly received the difference from the Treasury. On his suspension from office, however, it was discovered that this was a misrepresentation, and the solicitor to the Treasury had been ordered to institute proceedings against him for the recovery of the money so fraudulently obtained. The proceedings were not yet commenced, but they would be, and in the mean time it would be wrong to bring this, with other matters, before a committee of the House. The hon. member said, it was at one time in contemplation to prosecute this individual for perjury in his conduct in this business, but the law officers of the crown, on being consulted, gave it as their opinion, that from some informality, it could not be maintained.

consented to withdraw his motion for the present.

said, that very serious alarm had been excited in the vicinity of Windsor, by the report that it was intended to cut down all the fine trees in the forest and park. This report was strengthened by the fact that all the timber has been marked as if for felling, and it was understood that the money so obtained was to be applied to the building of a new and magnificent palace in Windsor park. He wished to be informed, whether there was any foundation for these unpleasant rumours?

answered, that such reports had also reached his ears, but that he believed the trees had only been marked with a view to ascertain their value, and to prevent depredations for fire-wood, which had been carried on to a shocking extent. It was under contemplation to take the wood land into the park, but there was not the most distant intention of cutting down any of the ornamental wood.

begged a reply to what he had said regarding a new palace.

added, that he had heard nothing about building a new palace, but that one of the lodges was to be repaired.

observed, that a motion to be made by him on the subject of Peace and the foreign relations of Great Britain, stood for Tuesday se'nnight. Since he gave that notice, the most important intelligence had been received of the conclusion of an Armistice, to continue in force until the 20th of July. Presuming that it was impossible that such a step could have been taken by the allies, without the concurrence of sir C. Stewart and lord Cathcart, and not wishing to throw any impediment in the way of the great and good work which he hoped would soon be consummated, he should for the present waive the motion of which he had given notice.

after a few prefatory remarks upon the importance of the measure, moved the second reading of the Bill for more effectually preventing illicit distillation in Ireland.

in a most emphatic and strenuous manner, resisted the further progress of this Bill, the principle of which was to compel all the inhabitants of the town-lands or parish to pay a proportion of any fines levied upon that district for an illegal still, for a part or appendage of an illegal still, or for any liquor the produce of an illegal still. He insisted that such a law was most unjust and unnecessary, and ought not to be tolerated by any people under the face of heaven. This Bill, which had previously existed for 20 years, was repealed by him when he came into office, for the judges told him that juries would not find verdicts under it, and that the very fountain of justice was polluted without the accomplishment of a single object. One of them had declared (and all seconded the opinion,) that such a measure might, if successful, be endured in Turkey, but if not successful it could not be endured even there. The law officers of the crown were unanimous for its repeal, although it greatly diminished their fees. The bad effects upon the morals of the people were incalculable; it led to all kinds of vice, perjury, fraud, collusion, theft, and to every species of wickedness, crime, enormity, iniquity, and abomination. The effects upon the country were equally fatal, since whole parishes had been frequently depopulated, because the natives were unable to pay the enormous fines levied upon them. When he came into office, however, he remedied all these miseries—for what did he do? He repealed the Bill. Could he do better. No. He sent for all the judges, and all the law officers—he ordered them to attend him, and he told them he would repeal it, at which information they were overjoyed. Had the present Chancellor of the Exchequer for Ireland consulted any of the law authorities? No. Was it not his duty to do so? Yes. Why had he not done so? Because their opinions would be against the revival of this Bill. He asserted and reasserted many times, and vouched for the truth of the fact, upon his responsibility, that all the judges, all the law officers, and all the people of Ireland would be against the Bill now attempted to be carried through the House. He knew what would be the consequences of such an attempt, and he warned the House of them. His experience was not to be deceived after the numerous enquiries that, at his suggestion, and under his controul and management, had been made into this subject. The right hon. gentleman then very energetically proceeded to shew how fallacious was the Report of the last committee, which he did not condescend to attend, but the echo, which the loudness of his vociferation occasioned sometimes, drowned the conclusion.

supported the Bill.

spoke warmly in favour of the Bill. He said that 14 out of 32 counties derived their consumption of spirits from illicit distillation. The right hon. gentleman had declared with that warmth which distinguished his speeches on this subject, and indeed on almost every other, that the law making the districts liable, was without a parallel. But the law which made the vicinage answerable for offences committed in it, was as old as Alfred. Much had been said of the opinion of the judges: but without wishing to derogate from their authority, he must say that his respect for them was confined to their proper province, that of executing the law of the land; nor could he allow them an additional voice in the legislature, much less could he think it decent or warrantable in them to declare any law sanctioned by the legislature to be monstrous and intolerable. Their opinion, however, of this law, did not appear till 1810, when they were questioned for this purpose by the right hon. gentleman, though it had existed ever since 1793. Reprobated as it was by him, it had the sanction of the repre- sentatives of those very counties where the illicit distillation was carried on. He owned, he thought it monstrous and intolerable, that one part of the community should pay threefold to make up for the delinquencies of the other. Into one of these districts an excise officer had been forced to go in disguise, and the magistrates had refused to carry the act into execution. This was a state of things which could not and ought not to continue. The right hon. member then described the relaxation of the law as equally destructive to the morals and the revenue of the country, and maintained, that the present measure was the only adequate remedy for the evil complained of.

concurred entirely in what had fallen from the right hon. baronet. It was to him almost a sufficient argument for its necessity, to find that it was supported by almost the whole of the representatives of Ireland. It had been stated that all the judges disapproved of it. Now, although he did not allow that there was any necessity to consult the judges upon the policy of the laws, yet he would state, that he had received a letter from the chief justice of Ireland, dated on the 4th of June last, which declared an opinion decidedly favourable to the Bill. He had also received a letter from Mr. Gregory, one of the commissioners of the revenue, who stated that if the Bill had been in force but six months longer, illicit distillation would have been put down in Ireland. He would much rather it should be put down by the assistance of the judges of the land, than by the generals commanding districts. He then stated the number of soldiers which were now conceived necessary in Ireland to act against those illicit distillers. He conceived that it was injurious to the discipline and feelings becoming the army. It was also committing the soldiers in a hostile manner against the people, which was a thing that ought as much as possible to be avoided. The people should learn to consider the soldiers as the protectors of the country, and ought not to be taught to view them in the light of enemies.

was convinced, that the measure now proposed to be revived, was the more beneficial of the two. Under the present system only 1,000 stills had been discovered within the year, in the county which he represented, and, in one year, under the system proposed to be revived, 2,700 private stills had been discovered.

Sir Henry Montgomery and lord Desart supported the measure. Major O'Hara was against the Bill.

was happy to say, in answer to the challenge held out to him by the right hon. gentleman (W. Pole), not only from oral information, while on the spot, but also from information by letters, which he had since received, that it was the unanimous opinion of all those connected with the revenue of Ireland, that nothing but the measure now proposed could put an end to the evils thereby sought to be guarded against.

The Bill was then read a second time.

rose, pursuant to notice, to move that the printing of the Money Bills be in future made a standing order of the House. Neither the members of the House, nor the country, as those Bills now passed, had, or could have, any information concerning them. If an inclosure or a road Bill were required to be printed, it was surely fully as important that the country should be informed as to the duties to be imposed on articles of consumption. His lordship had received information as to an extraordinary clause which had been introduced, and allowed to pass, in a Bill carried into a law in the present session, by which it was provided, that it should be in the power of his Majesty, with the advice of his council, while parliament should not be sitting, to suspend the payment of any of the duties specified in that Act, for a time to be specified. Was there any man, he asked, who knew of such a clause being in this Bill? He contended it went to the very subversion of the constitution, it being impossible that the existence of such a clause in the Bill conld be known, it not being printed. This clause alone, his lordship contended, afforded a ground for the present motion. He could not help also adverting to the late period of the session when such Bills were brought in. If it was fit that the public should know in what articles they were to be taxed, then ought the present motion to be granted; if it was not fit that they should be so informed, then ought the motion to be negatived. He concluded by moving, That all Bills granting supplies to the crown shall be printed; and that copies of the same should be ready for delivery to the members of the House, previous to the second reading of the Bills.

said, that tax Bills were generally a repetition of former Acts, and if the noble lord's motion were to be acceded to, it would be necessary every year to print the Land and Malt Tax Bills, and several others, full of long muster rolls of names, which had never been printed since the Revolution. According to the noble lord's motion, the Bills ought to be printed before going into a committee, and consequently before the blanks were filled up. The clause in question had been the subject of discussion in a committee of the House; and there was a similar clause in the Act 48 Geo. 3, cap. 24.

said such a clause could only be justified in case of emergency.

said, that such clauses could only give rise to injurious speculations.

opposed the motion.

said he would take a future opportunity of drawing up his motion in a way better calculated to attain the object of it, and would, therefore, withdraw it for the present.

brought up the report of the Bill for the better regulation of Ecclesiastical courts. On his motion that it be taken into consideration,

said, it appeared to him, that the Bill did not accomplish the object which it was understood the right hon. and learned gentleman had in view. The measure, it was well known, originated in the motion made by a noble lord (Folkestone) last year, who then brought forward a number of grievances, to which the subjects of this country were liable from the proceedings of ecclesiastical courts. The right hon. and learned gentleman then undertook to bring in a Bill for relieving the subjects of those grievances stated so forcibly by the noble lord. His attention was drawn to this subject from a case, the circumstances of which were peculiarly fitted to shew the House the arbitrary nature of the proceedings of these courts, and how inconsistent they were with the principles of the common law of England. There was no man in this country who could be exempt from the arbitrary authority of these arbitrary courts. The case was defamatory; the circumstances of it were brief. The assignee of a bankrupt, who was one of his principal creditors, found it necessary to examine into the affairs of the bankrupt, and, in the course of the examination, he found large sums of money posted up, to be paid to a person whose initials only were entered in the ledger. The sums were so large as to amount to about 2–3ds of the bankrupt's whole effects. It was found that the initials represented a lady with whom the bankrupt had been connected; and at a meeting when the bankrupt and a friend of his were present, a resolution was come to, that this lady was not a proper creditor, and a denomination was applied to her by one of the assignees, which subjected individuals to a prosecution in ecclesiastical courts. An action was brought before the commissary court of Surrey, which ended in the defendant being acquitted, and the prosecutor being subjected to costs. But on the same evidence the defendant was again prosecuted before the court of Arches, and on the same evidence the bankrupt and his friend found guilty. He was condemned to do penance; that is, to go into church—into the sanctuary of his God, and there declare himself guilty of an offence of which he knew he was not guilty, and of which he had been declared innocent by another court. Such a power ought not to be vested in any court. The matter did not rest here. Next came a dispensation from performance by purchase, for which he had to pay 95l. He was confident that in almost all cases these actions of defamation were brought from malicious motives alone. The Bill provided no remedy against a recurrence of similar cases of oppression to what had been stated. It did not take away the consequences of a sentence of excommunication. No court ought to have a power to enforce such a penance as that he had been describing. The ecclesiastical court ought to have the power which other courts possessed of enforcing their sentences, but these sentences should be more accordant with the spirit of the constitution.

said, it was hard on the ecclesiastical courts to be condemned on ex parte evidence. If parties did not appear and suffered judgment to go against them, the courts of justice were not answerable. With respect to defamation, all the penance consisted in going into the vestry, and in presence of the minister and a few friends, express sorrow for the offence. Would the hon. gentleman wish, then, his wife, his mother, or his sister, should be insulted with impunity by every blackguard who chose to load them with opprobrious epithets. With respect to the case before the dean of Arches, was it necessary, even supposing the thing to be true, that opprobrious terms should be applied to any individual, and that in the course of civil transactions, persons should be aspersed, as happened in the case in question? No man could wish such offences to pass with impunity.

said, in the case alluded to, a lady had been called a common whore and a strumpet at more than one meeting, and she was proved by witnesses to be of good character.

thought very considerable improvement necessary, or rather loudly called for, in the present state of the ecclesiastical law. The law was, in fact, such that the judge, however correct his intentions, must pronounce an exceptionable decision; for if any man should venture to describe a woman as she deserved, and as it might become necessary too (for instance in a case of bankruptcy, where the prodigality of an improper woman might be the cause of that bankruptcy) the person so describing her would be liable to the visitation of the ecclesiastical law for defamation, and it would avail nothing to the accused to prove, or be able to prove, the justice of the accusation. In fact, the justification of the judge in these cases consisted in the condemnation of the law; but the inquiry in such cases ought, in his opinion, to be sent to a jury, as was the practice in certain cases in the court of Chancery; or rather he should think it a great improvement to take away altogether the jurisdiction of spiritual courts in cases of defamation. Indeed, the expence attending the progress of such cases in these courts was such as to justify this proposition. The hon. and learned gentleman concluded with declaring his intention to move, upon bringing up the Report, that certain qualifications should be granted to judges in the Consistory court, with regard to the power of referring facts to the investigation of a jury, and also that the time for bringing actions in the ecclesiastical courts should be limited.

dwelt upon the case of a woman who had been confined eleven years at Nottingham, because she refused to admit that she was not a married woman, which case he had, on a former occasion, mentioned in that House. But the radical fault of the ecclesiastical law was, that the accused must submit to indefinite punishment, or confess guilt, whether the statement to which the accusation applied were true or false. Thus a court, professedly religious, was professedly indifferent to truth, and often demanded the declaration of a falsehood, as the only means of escaping from punishment.

vindicated the conduct of the ecclesiastical courts, but confessed that, in his judgment, in all charges of defamation it should be allowed to produce evidence as to the truth of such charges, although he was not prepared to grant impunity to the use of certain terms of abuse against women, whether deserved or not.

The House then resolved itself into a committee, when

proposed two new clauses, one enacting that no person should be apppointed a judge of any consistorial court, who had not practised as an advocate in the court of Arches, or who, if a barrister, had not practised three years in the courts of Westminster-hall; and the other, that after passing the said Bill no action for tythes should be brought, nor any suit instituted in any civil court unless brought within six years after such tythes should have become due.—Both clauses were agreed to, the Report brought up, and the Bill ordered to be read a third time to-morrow.

presented the following

Report

The COMMITTEE appointed to examine several Acts passed in the 8th year of Queen Anne, and in the 15th and 41st years of his present Majesty, for the encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of printed Books in the Authors or Purchasers of such Copies, and for other purposes therein mentioned; and to report, whether any and what Alterations are requisite to be made therein, together with their Observations thereon, to the House;—

"Have, pursuant to the order of the House, proceeded to consider the said Acts; and have received various statements, and examined several persons connected with the printing, the publishing, or with the sale of books; and after much attention bestowed on the subject, they beg leave to observe,—

"That although great changes have taken place in the literary systems of this country, since the first of the laws referred to them was enacted, on which the others depend; yet they conceive that the substance of those laws is proper to be retained; and in particular that, continuing the delivery of all new works, and in certain cases of subsequent editions, to the libraries now entitled to receive them, will tend to the advancement of learning, and to the diffusion of knowledge, without imposing any considerable burden on the authors, printers, or publishers of such works. But that it will be expedient to modify some of the existing provisions,—As to the quality of the paper, which may fairly be reduced from the finest sort and largest size, to that used in the greater part of an edition;—by substituting a delivery on demand, after due and proper notice has been given of the publication, to a distribution in the first instance:—and by affording an alternative with respect to subsequent editions in certain cases.

"Your Committee would however suggest one exception to these rules, in favor of the British Museum; this national establishment, augmenting every day in utility and importance, ought, in the opinion of your Committee, to be furnished with every publication that issues from the press, in its most splendid form.

"Having presumed to advise certain regulations with the view of lightening as much as possible the pressure, whatever may be its amount, on all those connected with the publication of books, your Committee would be wanting in the discharge of their duty, were they not to recommend a strict enforcement of such obligations, as for useful purposes remains to be discharged: by annexing suitable penalties to the neglect of performing them; and perhaps in some cases by adding the forfeiture of copyright.

"The attention of your Committee has naturally been directed to the late decision in the court of King's-bench, ascertaining the true interpretation of the statute of queen Anne; and they find, that, previously to that decision, an universal misapprehension existed as to the real state of the law; and that works were undertaken, and contracts made on the faith of long established usage. Your Committee are fully aware, that in expounding the law, no attention can be paid by courts of justice to the hardships that may incidentally be produced; but it will deserve the serious deliberation of parliament, whether all retrospective effect should not be taken away from a construction, which might be thought to bear hardly on those who have acted on a different understanding of the law.

"Lastly; your Committee have taken into their consideration, the subject of Copy Right; which extends at present to fourteen years certain, and then to a second period of equal duration, provided the author happens to survive the first. They are inclined to think, that no adequate reason can be given for this contingent reversion, and that a fixed term, should be assigned beyond the existing period of fourteen years."

Ordered to lie on the table.