rial prefented by his excellency lord Auckland, and the count de Stahremberg, to their high mightineffes the States General, at the Hague, the 5th of April laft, are of opinion, that the meaning and intention of the faid declaration was to induce the States General to bring the French prifoners, then in their hands, to trial, in order to put them to death. Lord Grenville, after a very argumentative speech, in exculpation of the memorial, moved the following amendment to lord Stanhope's motion: "that all the words, after the words, prefented on the 5th of April, be left out: and that there hould be introduced in their stead, "that the memorial delivered by lord Auckland is conformable to the fentiments of his majefty, and thefe carried to the throne by both Houfes of Parliament; and that it was confonant to thofe fentiments of juftice and policy, which it became the honour and dignity of the nation to exprefs." This amendment produced a debate, in which the duke of Clarence, the lord Chancellor, and feveral other peers, took a part; and in the courfe of it, lord Auckland rofe to juftify his memorial and himfelf. After what had paffed, he faid, he fhould not have occafion to intrude a long fpeech on their lordships' patience. Though he did not deny that he was ready to defend the memorial line by line; and thould have done it, as due to the dignity of the house as well as himself, if his arguments had not been fuperfeded by thofe of the fecretary of state. He thought it neceffary, however, to fay a few words on the fubftance and style of the memorial, which confitted of three diftinct claufes. His lordthip read and adverted to them sepa rately, and when he came to speak of the ftyle, he faid, it naturally became applicable to the fubítance, and was the fort of ityle in which he had ever spoken of thofe deteftable regicides, for fo he fhould continue to call them. He ftated the horror with which the murder of the most chriftian king had filled the mind of every humane and thinking perfon, and asked what names, or what epithet was too fevere to apply to those wretches, who had fhewn themfelves capable of fuch an atrocious crime? He thould, therefore, perfift in holding the language which he had ever done refpecting fuch wretches as Briffot, Danton; and above all, that monfter of iniquity the duke of Orleans. In the motion made by the noble earl, reference was had only to one folitary paffage of the memorial, and a meaning given to it, that could not by any forced conftruetion be made to apply. The noble carl fhould have looked to the prayer of the memorial; for what was the prayer of it, but to fubmit to the enlightened judgment and wifdom of their high mightinelles to employ all the means in their power to prevent the deteftable regicides from entering the dominions of the united fiates of Holland, and what other means could be reforted to for effecting this purpose, than by telling them, that if they came there, they thould be feized and delivered up to juftice? This was the whole object of the memo‐ rial; it was not meant that they fhould be put to death on the fpot, but that they fhould be referved in cuftody till fuch time as the course of juftice thould be restored, and then put upon their trials in courts competent competent to that purpofe. His lordship afked, whether every man would not agree that murder was a crime that merited punishment? and whether it was not proper that murderers fhould be delivered to juftice. Lord Grenville's motion for approving the conduct of lord Auckland was finally carried without a divifion. Other interesting objects, but of a more domestic character, fhared alfo the attention of parliament. On Thursday, the 21ft February, the House of Lords having refolved itself into a committee of privileges on the Scotch peers' elections, feveral regulations were fuggefted, in order to expedite a decifion on this important fubje&t. Several queftions were propounded to the judges, who were ordered to attend on Monday next to deliver their opinions and on that day, in a committee of privileges, the House adopted the opinion delivered by the judges, that the certificates of the qualification of certain lords were good, notwithstanding their bearing date two days prior to the day on which their lordfhips qualified, by taking the neceffary oaths. Rejected the vote of lord Belhaven as bad. Found the vote of lord Napier progrefs of his trial, on the various circumftances of difadvantage hé fuffered from its frequent delays, and entreated their lordfhips, that the prefent feffion might not be permitted to clofe, till his final fentence was pronounced by them. On the 18th of April, lord Walfingham prefented a petition front Mr. Haftings to the Lords, to the fame effect; and, at the clofe of his defence, on the 28th of May, Mr. Haftings re-ftated his hardfhips and his hopes. But this extraordinary trial was not brought to a conclufion during the prefent feffions. Lord Rawdon, who, to the honour of his heart and his underftanding, had, at different times, endeavoured to effect certain amendments in the laws relating to imprifonment for debt, and to reform the abufes connected with them, renewed his benevolent endeavours during the prefent feffion of parliament; and on the 5th of March prefented a bill, for that purpofe, to the House of Lords. On the fecond reading of it, he ftated his views and defigns at large on a fubject fo interefting to thousands of unhappy and oppreffed people. The bill, he said, was grounded on the great principles of juftice and humanity. It made no outrageous innovation on the established laws of the land. It refpected established cuftoms, and did not infringe them, but for the attaining the facred ends of juftice. He could with firmness affert, that while the bill, by its operation, relieved the indigent and unfortunate, it guarded with vigilant anxiety, the rights of the creditor, and was intent upon rendering juftice to those to whom juftice juftice was due. It was a fhield of protection to the wretched, and a rod of chaftifement to the fraudulent. The very principle of the law of imprisonment he deemed a principle of rigour and abfurdity. Rigorous, because it exacted from the dungeons of diftrefs, and the cells of inactivity, to which it doomed the victims of its operation, a fomething from those very perfons, which, when free and undisturbed, and in the exercise of all their faculties, they could not perform; and who were rendered in capable of performing it from the very obftacles thrown in their way by those who exacted that performance. It was abfurd, because it was ineffectual to its avowed purpose; for it was calculated to defeat, not to attain, its object. If the debtor is guilty of a fraud, punith him as a fraudulent agent; if not guilty of a fraud, do not punith infolvency as a crime, which fhould rather be commiferated as a misfortune. To punish infolvency as criminal, and to doom fraud to the fame punishment as mere infolvency, is to confound all moral diftinctions. From the prefent fyftem alfo, the creditor was frequently induced to pursue a plan of rigour in order to procure, from the feelings of humanity and the effufions of friendship, what he could neither obtain from the ftern dictates of juftice, nor the peremptory mandates of law. If the infolvency, and even the honefty of the debtor were acknowledged, yet his friends were looked to as a fource of payment; and, to quote the words of a late refpectable judge (earl Mansfield) "The feelings of the friend were often tortured to administer to the refentVOL. XXXV. ment or intereft of the creditor."" His lordship then went into an examination of the law as it now exifts between debtor and creditor. In the firft ftage of the bufiness, the fundamental principle of juftice was violated; and the very means which the focial institution had adopted to carry that principle into effect were abandoned. What was the great object of the inftitution of government, but to prevent individuals from being even the judges, far more the avengers of their own wrongs? Yet, by the exifting laws of the land, the creditor was enabled to deprive the debtor of his liberty, upon a fimple fwearing to the debt. He well knew, that in fome cafes this ex parte evidence was not a fufficient ground of imprifonment; for, by the practice of the court of common pleas, the counter affidavit of the debtor was fufficient to enlarge him without bail. It was not fo, however, in the court of king's bench. Whence this difference in the practice of the two courts? The measures of justice fhould, like juftice itself, be unvarying and immutable; nor could he fee any reason why a prisoner, by a procefs from the one court, thould be compelled to give bail, while, when arrested by a procefs from another, he should be enlarged without giving it. procefs, either in one cafe or the other, did an act of injuftice either to the debtor or to the creditor. By the law, as it now ftood, a debtor, when arrefted, was frequently dragged to gaol for want of fufficient bail, because the bail exacted was always double the debt fworn to. Here was a farther impediment to a debtor's procuring. L The bail. bail. He had then no option but to expose himself to the mortification of a refufal, or to lie in gaol, or to pay the debt, which he felt to be unjuft. The latter measure, however hard, the debtor frequently adopted, rather than expofe his feelings to mortification, or his perfon to imprisonment. The fociety of the Thatched Houfe Tavern, for the relief of infolvent debtors, his lordship confidered as an inftitution which did honour both to the age, and to the members who compofed it. Their reports were founded on ftrict inquiries, and on the most authentic documents. They had acted upon the grand combined principles of juftice and benevolence; and what was the refult of their enquiries? Why, that the far greater part of perfons arrested in this country during the courfe of the year, were arrested for debts under twenty pounds; and that of two thousand now languishing in prifon, in the different gaols of the country, thirteen hundred had wives, and four thousand children; being helplefs and unprotected; expofed to calamity, which neither their guilt had incurred, nor could their feebleness avert. One hundred and fifty of them, upon an average, were every year doomed to linger in the dungeous of confinement, not because they had not paid their creditors the debts which were due to them, and for which they had been originally arrested, but because they had not money fufficient to pay. the fees of office, which were neceffary for their enlargement.Thefe men were, for the most part, either tradefmen, artificers, or feamen; men engaged in the humble and laborious, but honeft and use -- ful callings of life; who fought the battles of their country in time of war, and who administered to its comforts in peace. The perfons confined, of this defcription, had only, it is true, between two and three pounds to pay; but that fum, though inconfiderable in their lordfhips opinion, was ftill great to thofe, who neither had the fum itfelf, nor the means of obtaining it. His lordship then proceeded to explain the different claufes of the bill.-They were to prevent all arrefts for less than twenty pounds, which was merely a claufe of the old law, as it fubfifted before the reign of George the Firft; to remedy abufes to which lock-up houfes were fubject; to prevent exceffive bail from being required; and to enact that the prifoner should not be hurried to jail, as he now may be, in a state of fickness and infanity; and to publish in the Gazette, every month, the names of perfons convicted of fraudulent tranfactions. His lordship having concluded his expofition of the principles contained in each claufe of the bill, begged the Houfe to recollect that he had not attempted to influence their paffions, but to convince their reafon. He had not produced to their view any of thofe pathetic inftances of distress that were to be found in the report of the committee of the House of Commons of last year. He had. difcuffed the fubject calmly and temperately, convinced that calm and temperate inquiry were alone neceffary to produce in the minds. of every one of their lordships a full conviction of the propriety of adopting the measure he had the honour to propose. This bill was feriously discuffed at at feveral fucceffive periods; but was oppofed by the law lords, as ftriking at the whole fyftem of the law of England. Lord Rawdon continued moft zealously to defend it, even after its great objects were rendered impracticable by the many alterations it had undergone. His lordship lamented that, from the prefent practice with refpect to actions, execution and imprifonment for debt, fuch bills, as he had proposed, muft ever meet with determined oppofition from profeffional men, who were fo interefted in the advantages of the prefent fyftem of law proceedings, as to render fuccefs very doubtful in any measure fimilar to that which he had propofed.-On the 31ft of May, after a fhort debate, this bill was finally loft. On Monday the 22d of April, the lord advocate of Scotland ftated, that his majefty's catholic fubjects in Scotland are at prefent incapacitated by law either from holding or tranfmitting landed property, and are liable to other very fevere reftrictions, which could not now be justified by any neceffity or expediency, and therefore moved, "That leave be given to bring in a bill to relieve perfons profeffing the Roman Catholic religion from certain penalties and difabilities impofed on them by acts of parliament in Scotland, and particularly by an act of the 8th of king William;" and on the following day the lord advocate proceeded to obferve, that the Roman Catholics of Scotland laboured under many hardships and difabilities on account of their adherence to their religion. By one law an oath, called a formula, or folemn declaration, was impofed upon them, which they could not take without renouncing the religion which they profeffed; and if they refufed to take it, their nearest proteftant relation might deprive them of their eftates. His lordship tated, that it was repugnant to juftice and humanity, that a fubject thould be deprived of his eftate for no other reafon, than that he profes fed the religion moft agreeable to his judgment and his conscience, or that he should be placed in the wretched fituation of holding his eftates at the mercy of any proteftant relation, who might be profligate enough to ftrip him of it, by enforcing this penal law. The li berality which had induced the Houfe laft year, and, on a former occafion, to grant relief to the Roman Catholics of England, would, he was perfuaded, induce them to extend relief also to the Roman Catholics of Scotland, whofe loyalty and conduct gave them an equal claim to the indulgence of the legislature. He admitted that the particular law to which he referred was too odious to be often carried into execution; but if it was not fit that it fhould be executed at all, it ought not to be fuffered to remain, merely as a temptation to the profligate to ftrip honeft and meritorious people of their property. He faid he was extremely forry to inform the committee, that there was at this moment a fuit actually depending in the courts of law in Scotland, founded on this particular ftatute. A Roman Catholic gentleman, as refpectable and amiable in charac ter as any man in this or any other kingdom, was poffeffed of an ef tate of 1000l. a year, which had been in his family for at least a L 2 century |