seeing the hon. and gallant Member for Hull in his place, he would take that opportunity of referring to a statement made by the hon. Gentleman on a former night, relative to certain proceedings which that hon. Member alleged took place at the attack on Buenos Ayres, in 1808, and which he (Sir C. B. Vere) took the liberty of contradicting the accuracy of at that time. Since that time he had written to several officers who were present at the attack on that place, who confirmed the view he had taken of the subject. The first was from a general Officer, who said, that no such order had been issued as was described by the gallant officer; the next was from an officer who was an aide-de-camp of the commander, and he stated he did not know of any such order being issued. The next was from an officer commanding one of the columns of attack, who stated, that no such order had been issued. He had also similar letters from several other officers who were present, who stated, that no such order had been issued; he, therefore, was justified in asserting that no general order, no brigade order, no regimental order, and, indeed, no order of any authority, had been issued similar to that described by the hon. and gallant Member, namely, that the soldiers should spare the old men and the women and bayonet all others. He had felt it to be particularly his duty to apply to officers belonging to the same regiment that the gallant Member belonged to, and all the officers, except one, said that they did not know of any such order; and that one officer to whom he had alluded was at the time of the same rank as the hon. Member opposite; and that Gentleman said that he recollected an officer passed along the column to which he was attached, urging the men to the free use of the bayonet, but he did not recollect whether the particular expression stated by the hon. and gallant Member was used or not.

said, there was a proverbial difficulty in combating the evidence of one man who did see, with the evidence of any number of men who did not see. The question brought forward was, whether he had wrongly stated, that he heard an order for giving no quarter carried by a field-officer down the column in which he was, at the attack of Buenos Ayres. He was no party to the policy of bringing this subject a second time before the House and the public. He had introduced it once, as matter of just and, perhaps, inevitable recrimination. But as a man put now on his defence, he felt assured he should be heard with patience. The first fact with which he was furnished by the hon. Baronet opposite was, that an order to the effect described was in the General-in-chief's plan of attack two days before. The hon. Baronet would think it no discourtesy if he read again the extract from the evidence on the trial of General Whitelocke. Lieutenant-Colonel Bourke, Quartermaster-General, says, on the 3d of July, two days before the attack actually took place, "I called at General Gower's quarters and he showed me a plan of an attack on the town which he appeared to have just finished, and which was completely detailed in. all its parts; it was the same which was given out the next day in orders, with some very trifling alterations." Whether the order to give no quarter was among these trifling alterations he had not the means to ascertain. "I proceeded to inspect the advance posts at the centre, and left General Gower going, as I understood, to head-quarters with the plan. I reached head-quarters after dusk, and in the course of the evening General-Whitelocke asked my opinion of the plan of attack, which was to take place the next day at twelve o'clock. I stated my objection to one clause, which directed that no prisoners should be made, as I conceived in an action of that sort, in an open town, it would be impossible to prevent a great deal of butchery." An ugly word in an official proceeding. "I said I thought the plan would succeed, but it appeared to me to be completely a new case, as I did not remember to have heard before of a similar order of attack. The General said he would leave out the order for making no prisoners, and would summon the town the next morning before he attacked it." Whether he did either must be doubtful. Was it what mankind at large would vote unreasonable, monstrous, or incredible, that what was in the General-in-chief's plan two days before should be heard by an individual officer on the attack? The hon. Baronet had further stated, that an officer in the same regiment with Colonel Thompson said, he thought he remembered an order being passed along by a field-officer to "use the bayonet freely." Now this officer, who happened to be one of the most valued comrades he ever had, he had always understood was in a different column from himself at the time he heard that order given. There were either eleven or thirteen columns; and the time when he heard the order was not when the troops were collected previously to entering the town, but after they were broken up. But he had further evidence, from an accidental and perhaps a hostile source; he would read a description of what took place on the same day, at the same hour, in a different column still. It was from a work which was put upon all mess tables, and into the hands of the babes and sucklings of the army, in all places where the young idea was taught to "shoot." It was the description, by an eye witness, of what took place at the attack of another part of Buenos Ayres, the Retiro. After describing a good deal of bayoneting, which might all be fair enough, for when men were sent to fight with bayonets they were not to be expected to use them like a turkey's feather — but why was not the same said for the British Legion, in whom it had been brought forward as a crime? the narrator went on to say, that some of the enemy feigned dead; on the arrival of reinforcements "the pretenders to death now tasted it in reality" a battery was attacked, and the party there consisting of about sixty men, made a precipitate retreat; but in place of being able to reach the theatre, they took temporary refuge in a barrack, and were so closely followed up as not to give time to shut the gates. Here there was a regular row in a barrack-room, and not one of the sixty was spared. The only fellows that escaped were five prisoners in the black hole." But this was not all— there was a bonne bouche to come. "When this bustle was over I returned to the barrack, and met, coming out, Corporal Mackay, a regular-built Highlander, of my own company [sorry he was to read anything discreditable to a Scottish soldier, but the fault was not his], with a sword well stained in one band [perhaps some hon. Gentlemen might have sons in the army, and wish to know what a well-stained sword was]—with a well stained sword in one hand, and a pair of boots in the other. I asked him what he had been about? He said the Spaniards were some of them uneasy, and he was quieting them—in fact, he had been putting all the wounded out of pain." [A gesture of incredulity from a Member on the Opposition side] Nay, here it was (holding up the book, and turning it on the two sides), in page 504 of The United Service Journal for December last; "and having seen that I had lost my boots in a muddy lane, he had unbooted a dead Spanish officer for the sake of his captain." This was the way the Spaniards were treated. Within four hours afterwards he was a prisoner in. the hands of the Spaniards, and was asked whether the orders he had described were what they had entered the town with, and of course he told the truth. A Spanish officer pulled out his purse, and asked if he wanted money, offering to supply him. If any thing could add to the misery of entering a town with such orders, it was the pain of being so treated afterwards. But he had not done yet. The hon. Baronet had not found any person who heard the exact order, but he had. He had a letter from an individual whom he would not name till he had ascertained from him that he was under no fear of suffering from the disclosure, which ran as follows: "Sir—having read in a newspaper a communication from you to your constituents, wishing to know if there was any old soldier in their neighbourhood who was at Buenos Ayres, although not being in the neighbourhood you write to, I beg to acquaint you that the regiment I served in, [regiment's name mentioned,] and in a different part of the army from any mentioned before got orders not to spare any persons except old men, women, and children, and were forced to act accordingly. One or two revolting cases I beg to mention. As the company I belonged to advanced up the street, there appeared at the door of a House, as we passed, a clergyman; he wore white robes. He was killed where he stood, and fell out on his face in the street. The next was a man who thought to secure himself under a woman's petitcoats" [loud laughter from the Tory side.] Colonel Thompson said he had waited for that laugh. Perhaps when hon. Gentlemen opposite had known him longer they would be less incautious. "The man had two bayonets put though his body in that situation. To describe the agony of the distracted mother, which I believe she was, would take an abler hand than the humble individual's who addresses you. But the order of the day was, 'You know your orders; do your duty, or—.'" And so, said the gallant officer, ends my military report. He would leave the facts before the House, and he submitted that he had shown reason to believe that in four several parts of the army orders tantamount to what he had reported had been given.

did not doubt but that the hon. Member saw an officer riding along the line making the remark that he had stated, but he was satisfied that it was not a general order. He was anxious that the character of the army should be free from any thing approaching to the shadow of a stain, and therefore he had made the observations which he did.

was sorry to find that he was compelled to oppose the further progress of this Bill; but in doing so he would not occupy the time of the House at any length. This Bill proposed to do away with all qualification arising out of the payment of rates or taxes. He was anxious to make the conditions relative to the payment of the latter as little onerous as possible, provided, however, that it could be shown that the persons in the register were bona fide householders paying rates and taxes. The clauses in the Reform Bill which it was now proposed to get rid of, enacted that householders of a certain qualification, able to pay the rates and taxes required from them, should form the constituency. This was not a new provision, but in accordance with the ancient principle of scot and lot, by which householders had the right of voting in certain boroughs on paying rates. Therefore the enactments in the Reform Act were in accordance with the old law and practice. He would not then go into the general arguments on which those parts of the Reform Act were supported, and he certainly had heard no reason which should induce him to abandon them. As he had already said, where inconvenience was felt in the general provisions of that Act, he was ready to reconsider them with a view to apply a remedy; but he was not prepared to abandon the principle. He should, therefore, oppose the further progress of this Bill. He moved as an amendment that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.

asked the noble Lord why he would make a distinction between the borough and county voters; a vast number of people were disfranchised, by no fault of theirs, and who were fully qualified to vote. Two years ago he lost his vote because his taxes were not paid in time. He was anxious to pay them, but though the collectors called at houses right and left, they did not call at his. Ministers had not been true to the professions they made when they passed the Reform Bill. The principle of Lord Grey was, that no borough should have a constituency of less than 300. How had the registration clauses worked? There were thirty or forty boroughs in which the constituency was not more than two-thirds that number.

observed, that when the hon. Gentlemen opposite happened to agree with the noble Lord, they seemed to imagine that all who dissented from them were, as a matter of course, to be silenced. To that doctrine he would most decidedly oppose himself, and more particularly on an occasion like the present, because he knew the strong feeling which prevailed among his constituents, and among all town constituents, with respect to this measure. The other night the noble Lord objected to the introduction of abstract questions; they had now a practical question, and the noble Lord moved that the discussion of it be postponed till that day six months. If he had no better arguments to adduce in support of his views, the noble Lord might be assured he would fail to get rid of the dissatisfaction which existed on the subject in every town more or less in the kingdom. The constituencies would not be satisfied with a disqualification of this kind, which did not attach to the county voters. Believing that the effect of this clause had been contrary to what was intended by the framers of the Reform Act, and that it operated unjustly, he should give his hearty concurrence in the motion of the hon. Gentleman.

observed, that the hon. Gentlemen opposite had gathered with their usual zeal when to restrict and oppress the constituencies was the object, or when he, and the hon. Gentlemen who acted with him, brought forward any proposition to extend the franchise, and, if possible, give the electors additional protection. He did not complain of the hon. Gentlemen opposite —they were pursuing only their ordinary avocation, but he did complain of the conduct of the noble Lord. The noble Lord's promises, when he introduced the Reform Bill, bad not been fulfilled. He then told them that he proposed to increase the constituency half a million; the returns showed that it had not been increased above 300,000. He imputed the deficiency to the restrictive clauses in the Reform Bill. The noble Lord also told them that it was one of his propositions that no constituency should be less than 300. He held in his hand a return of the different boroughs, and from that it appeared that in twelve boroughs the registered voters did not exceed 200; in thirty, 300; in thirty-one, 400; in thirteen, 500; in twenty-five, 600; in twenty-one, 700; in fifty-eight, 1,500; in twenty-seven, 3,000, giving a total of 217 boroughs, in every one of which the Reformers, he felt confident, would in a short time be beaten by bribery and intimidation. The hon. Gentlemen opposite knew well that they would be able in a few years to get a majority in every one of those boroughs unless something were done to extend the suffrage. It was his honest conviction that if they persisted in their present course they would soon have this House as much a borough mongering House of Commons as was that which existed prior to the passing of the Reform Bill. The noble Lord had referred to the city of Westminster as evidence of the good working of the clauses in question. What was the state of Westminster before the Reform Bill passed? No one was then required to pay the King's taxes as a qualification. It was only necessary for the voter to have paid his parochial rates. Now, they not only must have paid the King's taxes, but the parochial taxes, including the police rate and the county rate. Why ought not the county voters to be equally called on to pay the county rate and King's taxes? Well, what had been the operation of the Reform Act in Westminster? In 1807, when Sir Francis Burdett was first elected by the people, there voted 10,542; in 1818, at the next contested election, there voted 10,277; in 1819, there voted only 8,366. This diminution was owing to the poll books having been published, which led to numbers of the tradesmen who had voted for the Reform candidate losing the custom of the aristocracy. In 1820, the last contest before the Reform Act, 9,280 voted. In 1834, the year after the Reform Act had passed, there appeared on the register only 9,807. Now, the number of the rate-payers in 1807 was 18,100. Thus the number registered in the first year of the Reform Bill was only one-half of the number of the rate-payers. In the contest in 1833, there voted only 4,218. He begged to remind the noble Lord of some of the effects which he himself had intended should result from the passing of the Reform Bill. Lord Durham, for the first Reform Bill, the work of his own hands, did not claim that character of perfection which his colleagues insisted on in bar to any alteration of the second. In his speech of 1834, he stated:—

"I was assisted by the advice of three of my colleagues—Lord John Russell, Sir James Graham, and Lord Duncannon; and, with their co-operation, the first Reform Bill was submitted to the cabinet and to the Sovereign. Of that measure I shall say no more than that if it was not entirely perfect, it was at the same time free from many of those imperfections which attended the passing of the second Reform Bill, and which, from accidental circumstances, it was impossible to guard against. I allude in particular to the 50l. tenant's clause, which was forced upon the supporters of the bill by the then Tory House of Commons, and afterwards inserted in the second measure, although contrary to the principles on which the first was framed, or at feast upon which I framed it; namely, that independence should be the security for a vote, and that, no matter how small the property was, provided the voter could exercise an independent suffrage he should be entitled to vote for his representative. I know that much remains to be done, many imperfections to be remedied, especially with regard to rating. If we find that the non-payment of rates should tend to disqualify those who have the right of voting, that part of the measure should be altered and amended."

He contended that the constituency of England had been considerably reduced by the rate-paying clause; and that clause was further objectionable, because it gave occasion for gross bribery and favouritism on the part of the collectors of the rates and taxes. He knew that these people sometimes tore leaves out of their receipt books that the electors might be placed on the register, notwithstanding that they had not paid their rates. This led to gross bribery on the part of those who were trying to get possession of their boroughs. He was sorry to see the noble Lord throw himself into the arms of the hon. Gentlemen opposite. They were not only bad, but very dangerous company for any Reformer to fall into.

moved the second reading of the East India Maritime Officers' Bill. When it was determined that the East India Company should cease to trade, it was resolved that compensation should be given to the maritime officers whose interests would be thereby affected. In 1834 the East India Company adopted a certain rule, by which those who had been in service during the five years preceding that time should receive compensation, but all others should be refused it. Under these circumstances he felt it his duty to apply to the House for a Committee to inquire into the cases of certain officers whose interests had been injured by the adoption of that rule. The Committee had reported that certain officers had been improperly deprived of compensation by the operation of the rule. Lord Glenelg said, that he never would have consented to the rule if he had thought that those who might be excluded would not have their cases specially entered on. This Bill merely gave the officers the right of having their cases adjudicated on the special merits of each. These gentlemen had now been applying for two years; and he was glad to have an opportunity of making an appeal on their behalf to the justice and liberality of Parliament.

thought that those officers could not complain of not being heard, as the hon. Gentleman had made an eloquent speech on the occasion when the subject was last before the House; he had made a speech that evening, and he would probably make a third by availing himself of his right to reply. He hoped that the House, considering that this was not a question relating to the taxation of the people of England, but to the revenues of India, whose native inhabitants had not many advocates in that House, would bear with him while he, as guardian of the revenues of India, endeavoured to make out a case on their behalf. The question was decided when the Charter Act of the East India Company was passed in 1833, by which it was declared that compensation should be granted to a certain number of the civil, military, and maritime officers of the company. The clause on which these claims were founded was the 7th clause of the charter, which required that no compensations, superannuations, or allowances, shall be granted until the expiration of two calendar months after particulars of the compensation, superannuation, or allowance proposed to be so granted shall have been laid before both Houses of Parliament." Now, what was the reason for requiring that these particulars should be laid before Parliament? Simply, that if any improvident grants were proposed, Parliament might interfere. The House of Commons gave the East India Company the power of considering the claims of all parties, and if the claims were allowed, they should then have the power of charging the revenues of India with the amount necessary for compensation. The line drawn by the company was this—that none of their maritime officers except those who had been in commission of the company's ships within five years of the date of the charter, should be entitled to compensation. This rule was assented to by the Court of Directors, by the Board of Control, and by the Court of Proprietors, and also by the maritime officers themselves, and he regretted to say, that when this scheme was fully worked out, very nearly 700,000l. would be paid out of the revenues of India for compensation. With regard to the present claims, the hon. Member for Yarmouth had stated that out of the fifty-five officers who had signed the petition on which this Bill was founded, no fewer than twenty-seven had not been employed by the company for the last twenty years, and yet these gentlemen had put down their names as suffering by the discontinuance of the company's trade. The Court of Directors, however, had made exceptions to their rule in extreme cases, and be thought the House ought not to interfere with the exercise of their discretion. He should therefore move, that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.

was understood to ask the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Control, whether there was a readiness on the part of the board to investigate special cases, without calling upon the applicants to give a certificate of sickness, or of being in distressed circumstances? That admission that there was not, overset the whole of the right hon. Gentleman's case. When Lord Ellen-borough came to the Board of Control, he found the question in this state. There was an Act of Parliament enabling the court to give compensation to persons whose interests were affected by the discontinuance of the company's trade, and this compensation was to come out of the revenues of India. The right hon. Gentleman had pressed this latter point on the attention of the House; but when the charter was granted to the company, their commercial revenues were made over in aid of the territorial revenues of India, and therefore any charge on the commercial revenue was fairly transferred to the territorial income. The clause empowered the company to grant compensation, and was therefore directory, and every individual case ought consequently to be decided upon its own merits. The Select Committee appointed by the House to inquire into this subject was unanimous in its report, and they stated that grievances existed in particular cases, and recommended that the rule laid down by the Court of Directors should be relaxed, and that those officers who could make out a ease of prospective loss by the discontinuance of the company's trade, although they might not be in a state of abject poverty, should receive compensation. He thought, however, that the Court of Directors were the sole judges of the merits of each particular case, and of the amount of compensation, but he certainly understood that both the company and the board were bound to consider whether any individual bad suffered loss by the cessation of the trade, and then, even if that individual were worth ten millions of money, he would be defrauded if, a loss having been proved, he did not receive compensation. It would be mere satisfactory to him, as there were difficulties in dealing with the Bill itself, if he could receive an assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that the board would intimate to the Court of Directors their wish that this condition of a declaration of poverty, before the claims were considered, should be dispensed with. However, if he did not receive that assurance, he should do what he could with the Bill in Committee.

said, that the condition required was nothing new in the history of the East India Company. He maintained that these officers had received no injury, because the company had for some time before the charter been contracting their service, and for the last two or three years had chartered ships from voyage to voyage, and therefore ample notice to quit had been given to the officers. He should certainly vote against the second reading of the Bill, for he saw no chance or prospect of effecting such alterations in the measure, when passing through Committee, as could render it acceptable to the country, or fair towards the parties principally concerned. He hoped the House, then, would save the company and the people of England from these additional claims. It was most especially to be recollected, that the persons on whose behalf these claims were made, would not be left destitute, for the East India Company were authorised to relieve any case of extreme distress.

observed, that every speaker who addressed the House admitted the justice of the claims, but for some reason or other, which he could not understand, refused to consider them in the proper quarter; for his part, he should support the Bill.

observed, that the right hon. Baronet (Sir J. Hobhouse) had assented to the appointment of a Committee, taking the chance of their report being favourable to his views; but now, finding that report opposed to his wishes, he declared his intention to do as he had done before.

objected to the measure, and moved that it be read a second time that day six months.

urged the House to agree to the second reading, for he believed that no objection could be urged against the measure which it would not be in their power to obviate in Committee. The question which the House had to decide was simply this—whether it was or was not desirable that the population of counties should govern themselves as regarded the public roads, or give the tremendous power which the opponents of the Bill proposed should be given, to a board appointed by whoever might be the Ministers for the time being.

contended that the best guarantee for the proper management of the public roads would be to vest that management in the hands of persons appointed by and under the control of the executive Government.

suggested to his hon. Friend who had brought forward the Bill that he should withdraw it, and present it at a future period in a form likely to be wore acceptable to the House.

intimated a doubt whether this Motion was regular. He doubted whether it was not carrying the principle of instruction too far.

said, it was because the Committee had not the power to insert this provision without an instruction that it was necessary.

said, that this was a course of proceeding which got rid of the Second Reading; it was difficult to draw a line; the act of settlement might in this way be got rid of by an instruction to a Committee on a turnpike Bill.

thought it inexpedient to introduce an instruction to the Committee to insert a clause in this Bill foreign to the object of it. His intention was, in conformity with what he had stated when the Bill was before the House on a former occasion, to make a provision for a relaxation of the time for the payment of taxes; and for that purpose he had prepared a Bill to regulate the payment of taxes, and to abolish the stamp duty on the admission of freemen. He proposed to leave the Act as it stood in respect to the payment of taxes for the first year up to the 5th of April, and in the subsequent years to the 1st of October supposing the name remained on the register, and he thought there would be sufficient time between the 1st. of October and the 29th of June to pay the rates and taxes. He hoped, therefore, that the hon. Member for Coventry would not press his Bill till the measure he had just alluded to were brought in.

said, he saw no necessity for delaying his Bill. There was a Bill before the House, the Registration of Voters Bill, into which the provisions of the noble Lord might be introduced. What he proposed by his Bill to get rid of was a source of corruption in all our towns. He should move that the House resolve itself into a Committee on the Bill.

seconded this Motion, and hoped the hon. Member would not consent to postpone the Bill, especially as it was proposed to connect it with another Bill with which it had no connexion. A freeman's franchise had nothing to do with property; it represented the reward of industry, and not a money qualification.

said, that as the hon. Member had declined to defer his Motion, he should move for leave to bring in his Bill. Whether the charges brought against the freemen were just or not, his object in the present instance was to improve, as far as possible, the condition in which they were placed in regard to the elective franchise. He would, therefore, move as an amendment for leave to bring in a Bill for altering and amending the rate-paying clauses of the Reform Act.

objected to the course pursued by the noble Lord (Lord John Russell), as in his opinion it was quite contrary to the usual practice of the House to move for leave to introduce a Bill of which no previous notice had been given as an amendment to an Order of the Day.

said, it did occur to him, that according to the usual practice of the House such an Amendment could not be moved as a matter of abstract right. It was, however, for the House to consider whether, for the sake of convenience, the course which had been proposed should not be allowed in the present case.

would not, after what had fallen from the Chair, persist in his Motion. He would, therefore, beg leave to withdraw it, and to move in its stead, that the House go into Committee on the Freemen's Admission Bill on the 21st of June.

wished it to be understood that in the remarks he had made he did not mean to speak so much to the right as to the expediency of the course which had been proposed.

hoped the hon. Member for Coventry would take the sense of the House upon his Motion he had made. He considered the course which had been pursued by the noble Lord as an attempt to get rid of a Bill for improving the condition of the freemen by a side wind. Such a course was quite in keeping with the general policy of Gentlemen on his (Lord J. Russell's) side of the. House in regard to that important body; for he (Colonel Sibthorp) could perfectly recollect having heard his Majesty's Attorney-General denominate the freemen the curse of the country. He would cordially join in supporting any measure which would tend to improve the condition of the freemen.

hoped that the hon. Member for Coventry would persist in his motion. He was astonished that hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side of the House, who were always talking of corruption, should refuse to support a measure which tended to make the electors more independent, and he hoped the country would accept the conduct of the noble Lord as a proof of the sincerity of his intentions to improve the condition of the people.

saw no good reason why the noble Lord should refuse to the freemen a boon of such importance as an admission to the rights which they possessed free of all expense. It was, however, in perfect keeping with the course which had always been pursued in regard to the freemen by the noble Lord and hon. Gentlemen on his side of the House. The freemen had been treated by the Government and its supporters as if they had been the scum of society, and he had heard them called by an hon. Member on the Ministerial Benches the plague-spots of the Constitution. If the noble Lord really wished to confer a benefit on the freemen it would have been more consonant with such a desire to allow the hon. Member for Coventry to proceed with his Bill in the usual course, and to have introduced his own Bill as a separate measure.

thought, the hon. Member for Coventry had exercised a sound discretion in refusing to consent to postponement. It was not a party measure, but one which only did justice to the freemen, and as such he would give it all the support in his power.

regretted the hon. Member for Coventry had not consented to postponement; and for the sake of his own measure it would have been better to consent to the course proposed by the noble Lord, as it would have had a much greater chance of passing when adopted by the Government. For his own part, however, he would say, that he could not consider the freemen as persons who could safely be trusted with the exercise of the franchise, and he would oppose the measure unless it was coupled with one for the extension of the suffrage.

was placed in a situation of some difficulty, as his constituents were anxious that the bill should pass; and if it were to pass that House, he believed it would become law, which he doubted the noble Lord's measure would do.